Wowzers, this is up faster than you thought it would be, isn't it? xD. I got bitten by the inspiration bug, and here we go! Anyone looking forward to seeing Raven and Robin interact in school will love this chapter. I hope... :D
Robin's POV
Walking down the hallway, I notice all the pops. Starfire's with them, and I restrain from waving or talking to her. In these hallways, I don't know her or any of my other friends. I don't know how many times I've caught myself about to sit down at a lunch table with Beastboy, or about to ask Cyborg about the crime in Jump, or like now, about to wave to Starfire in the hallway. The only one of my friends I can talk to without any worry is Raven, only because we're in so many classes together anyway. With her I'm safe though. She hasn't noticed that I'm me, and if she has or does, she isn't going to say anything about it. She knows how to keep secrets, probably because she has many of her own. But who doesn't?
I keep walking, avoiding the probing stares and glares of the cheerleaders. After all, contacts can only do so much to change your looks. I recognize many of them from when they were the freshman who would constantly kiss up to the then pops that I was subjected to sit with. If any of them recognize me as Dick Grayson, well, I'll have a lot of explaining to do, and so will Bruce, who would kill me, if not for his no kill policy.
As I walk by, I take notice that Starfire has her communicator out. But why? Is there a crime going on in Jump? Moments like these drive me crazy. Usually when I see Raven's communicator come out in class, she just sort of communicates with the teacher through looks that she has to leave, and the teacher lets her go, no questions asked. My own communicator? It's been reprogrammed so that I don't get the constant alerts of crime except on weekends when I'm 'near' Jump City, or when there's an extreme emergency. But why does Starfire have her communicator out?
It's the simple things like this that tend to drive me mad, and make me wish that I could just, you know, tell the titans who I am so this isn't a problem. Still trying to be conspicuous, I go to the water fountain, keeping an eye on the situation. Starfire definitely doesn't seem like there's any emergency she has to take care of…
I know something's off when Mary Jay, (head kiss up back in the day) grabs the communicator from her. It seems like they're just teasing each other with it or something, Mary Jay holding it just out of Stars reach, even though there's that little fact of Star being about a foot and a half taller and 90 times stronger, when they all start giggling uncontrollably, Star blushing. What could they be-? Oh. Oh, crap. Looks like Mary Jay's pushed the button to call… my… communicator-oh no.
I hear it begin ringing in my bag, and know that I need to get as far away as possible and turn off my communicator before somebody hears it and- too late. I turn back, and meet the shocked expression on the shorter girl, Mickey's, face. I can tell by the look that she heard. And she knows. And I'm screwed beyond belief. And I need to RUN.
Starfire's POV
Annoyed, I grab my communicator back from Mary Jay, and quickly shut off the device. "Mary Jay, we cannot just call Robin! Only in emergency situations are we supposed to contact him!"
"What? Is he on some covert mission or something?" Mary Jay asks, popping her bubble of chewing gum.
"Er… I suppose you could call it such…" I respond. I do not like lying to my new friends, but I feel as if I have told them too much already. I do not believe it to be publicly known, Robin's schooling situation. I do not want to be the one to share this information through so called 'gossip.'
"Well, NBD." she says with a laugh. "I mean, three seconds isn't going to hurt anything, right?"
"I suppose…" I mumble, still not happy with the situation. "Though, I would wish for you not to try anything like that again."
"Oh, I won't! I won't! Scouts honor! You know, if I was actually like, a scout or something." I laugh along with the others, though I do not know what a 'scout' is. I turn to Mickey, hoping that she will provide some insight, but she is gone. I am not the only one who seems to have noticed.
"Hey, where's Mick?" Meg asks aloud.
"I was about to ask the same thing."
"I saw her chasing after that new kid, smarty pants, what's his face, John or something. I bet she's bothering him to tutor her or something. I mean, her report card last marking period? Not so hot," Sara explains. "Anyway, so you all wanna hang at the mall this weekend? I saw these really cute shoes at-" whatever else she was planning on saying was not heard, thanks to the bell. I wave to my friends, and speed off to homeroom.
Raven's POV
Well, after my super awkward conversation with Cyborg, I walked to school, and have just shown up. As I walk through the main door, I hear the bell ring. I'm right on time, for once. I drag myself to homeroom, and sit in my seat just as the announcements start playing. Like every day, I ignore what the overly eager prep squad has to say about our school, and take out a book. Another ten minutes of this nonsense, as well as attendance, and all goes on as usual. Well, besides the fact that Jake's absent. That's a first. I shrug the thought off, and go back to my book.
When the bell rings again, I stay in the same room, but switch seats. Talk about convenience- my homeroom is the same classroom as my first period. Another convenience? Mrs. Farley, my AP English Lit teacher has taken a liking to me, meaning that she doesn't bother me or tell me to put my book away, regardless of the fact that I should be paying attention. And I do start paying attention- well, when I hear her announce a group project, that is.
"Okay, so to wrap up our unit on Shakespeare, you will be working in groups to…" by now I've tuned her out again. It's just a project, after all. I'll just figure something out with Jake, and- "No, Jill, you will not be picking your own groups." What? "Your groups have already been assigned, by me. While I can trust most of you to get your work done to the best of your abilities, a few of you seem not to live up to the AP standards you all have chosen to set for yourselves. Now, the groups will be as follows…" As Mrs. Farley rambles on, I sit here, worried. I haven't exactly talked to many of the people in my class, let alone bothered to learn their names. Now I have to work with them? This'll end well…
"And the last group will be Timothy, Raven, and John. Now, get to work!" All around me I hear the scraping of metal chairs against the ground, as everyone scrambles out of their seats and gets into their groups. I get up as well, and look for John. I guess I'm sort of friends with him. He's in most of my classes, and seems nice. I'm not as close with him as I am say Jake or one of the Titans, but whatever. At least I'm not with two total strangers. I just wish I knew who Timothy was…
"Hey, Raven!" John waves me over, and I'm surprised to find that 'Timothy' is the same Tim that John introduced to me last Thursday. "You remember Tim, right?"
"Uh, yea…" I mumble, still confused. I could've sworn that Tim was at least two or three years younger than us… As if reading the expression on my face, John explained.
"Yea, Tiny Tim here? Boy genius. Technically still in 6th grade."
"Hey!" Tim protested, "That's 9th grade! And I'm not that short."
"Whatever you say, squirt!"
"Like you're much taller!"
I smirk to myself, seeing how they act. "You two fight like brothers," I think aloud.
"We are," Tim blurts, before seeming to regret his words. "Well, uh, almost, anyway."
"Stepbrothers?" I ask, curious as much as I am confused.
"Yea," John continues smoothly, "My dad and his mom… who would've thought?"
Robin's POV
I internally sigh with relief, overjoyed that Raven seems to have bought our makeshift story. We continue working on the assignment, and make plans to meet at the library to work on everything together in a few days.
When the bell rings, I race Tim to the door, (hopefully in a convincing 'teasing older brother' sort of way) and when I'm directly next to him I hiss, "What were you thinking?"
"Well isn't someone especially paranoid today?" Tim shot back. "It's no big deal. I mean, it's not like she's going to go look me up and do a background check or something. If that were the case, you would've been found out already, seeing as 'John Ulman' doesn't exist!"
"You know what? I've got every good reason to be paranoid, Tim! Raven's smart! And when the press gets a hold of your name, what with being adopted by Bruce and all, she'll piece together that we were lying, and that I'm me! And once she knows we both have been keeping all these secrets-"
"She pieces together that we're both Robins, and the big bad bat kills us all, I get it. But the adoption isn't going to be official for a few more months. By the time the press figures things out, it'll be the end of the school year, and you two will be back in Jump City, and she will have no reason to be keeping up with any news in Gotham! Besides that, she doesn't seem the type to read the tabloids."
"True… just be careful what you say, alright?" I say with a sigh. He looks up at me curiously, as if sensing that something's wrong besides that whole Raven-almost-fiasco.
"So… what happened previously to up your paranoia radar?" Frustrated, I scowl and promise, "I'll tell you all about it later."
Mickey's POV
The morning passed like a total blur. Yea, I got yelled at for not paying attention, but it's not like I make a habit of it. Of course, I don't make a habit of finding under cover superheroes in my school either.
Yea, I hang out with a bunch of blondies, and yes, I'm a cheerleader. Yes, I realize how bitchy my so called friends can be, but someone's gotta stick around to keep them in line, shrink their heads down to size, you know? So back to this morning:
I was ignoring Mary Jay, who was being dumb, trying to call Robin on Star-excuse me, Kori's communicator. Bad idea written all over it- pissing off the boy wonder isn't exactly how I wanna start my day. 'Specially when there's no caffeine in the house. So yea. Not paying attention to MJ being dumb, I start watching that new kid, John. He's kind of quiet, but he seems alright. He keeps lookin' over at us, watching what we're up to. As if he knows were up to no good.
Now, Mary Jay's making the call in the background, and I'm watching John get kinda worried looking when she presses the dial button. He starts pawing for his backpack when I hear it: the same catchy little ringtone that plays on Kori's communicator whenever she gets a call. Except it's not commin' from over where she's at—I hear the sound commin' from John's direction. Shy lil', mild mannered John.
So yea, I was way confused. But then he looked up. The black hair? Way pale skin? And now that I was looking, I saw a faint tan line around his eyes, where a mask would be. My eyes flashed in recognition. He caught me staring, and started hightailing it down the hall when he realized that I recognized him – not as John, but as Robin.
Now, like I said, I'm not stupid. I know that now that I know who he is, John and I are both screwed.
I try to follow him down the hall, try to explain that I'm not gonna tell anyone, and that I'll forget all about it. But nope. He goes and disappears. So I probably just failed three tests, because I've been thinking more about this whole mess than my work. You don't know how relieved I was to remember we had the same lunch period. I need to talk to him, straiten things out before they get more tangled.
I'm waiting by the doors of the cafeteria, and finally spot him walkin' in by himself. Perfect. As he sits down at a table in the corner, I slide into the seat across from him. "Hey." He looks up, recognizing me immediately. "We need to talk."
Sooo love? Hate? Think is silly and over dramatic? Let me know!