Work Text:
Something was wrong with Richard. Weeks had passed since he and Kori ended things, and that was precisely what made it so difficult for Raven to accept the version of him sitting beside her now, with one hand loose on the steering wheel, the other tapping idly against it in time with music she had long since tuned out. He was steady, but not in a way that felt practiced. It was…natural. He was jocular and focused, more on point than usual. He carried himself with the same easy confidence as always. It made no sense. She had watched him for far too long to believe that someone like Richard John "Dick" Grayson, ward of Bruce Wayne, protegee of Batman, leader of Titans Inc. could simply move on from a relationship without consequence.
At first, Raven approached it the way she approached all things—with quiet observation, small, almost unnoticeable questions threaded into otherwise ordinary conversation, each one designed to test the edges of his composure without drawing attention to what she was doing. He gave precise answers. When she pressed harder, when she asked directly, he answered effortlessly. One day, she flat out asked him if he knew that he and Starfire had broken up. He gave her the most peculiarly adorable look and asked if she was okay.
She tried to share her concerns with Cyborg and even Beast Boy. They were, of course, no help. It was driving her mad. They had no idea what she was talking about; at times, she felt as though she were the one trapped in some alternate dimension. She considered confronting Starfire herself, but then the alien had already left for Tamaran, slipping away in the middle of the night without warning.
It was, admittedly, comforting to see someone behaving normally after a breakup.
Still… why did she leave like that? And why hasn't she contacted me?
Shaking her head, Raven returned her attention to Robin, only to realize he was watching her just as closely as she had been watching him—and he wasn't even bothering to hide it. There were other things ever since the breakup that had confused Raven, too: the way his voice seemed to shift when he said her name, the way certain silences between them lingered just a moment too long to be accidental, the way he seemed to always stand and sit a tad bit closer to her than usual.
When he approached her about the Gotham mission, she had jumped at the chance for something resembling normalcy. Only, there had been no real Gotham mission. Some wannabe succubus had been entrapping rich bachelors, but Raven was certain Batman could have handled it himself. She had found the culprit in less than a day. What she had not expected was for her leader to suggest a long, unnecessary cross-country drive back to Jump City.
And now she was sitting in the passenger seat, blatantly staring at him as he navigated the increasingly slick roads, the unease from earlier settling into something sharper. By the time the storm rolled in, swallowing the highway in sheets of relentless rain and forcing him to pull off with a quiet curse under his breath, her patience with Robin's inexplicable calm had already worn thin. When he suggested they stay the night at a motel, she very nearly lost control of her powers.
The town they found themselves in was little more than a scattering of lights and empty buildings. Thankfully, they were able to find an inn at the edge of it.
The inn offered a single room with no alternatives and no real choice but to take it. The situation itself was familiar—the kind of inconvenience they had both navigated countless times before—but something about it felt different now, not because of the storm or the isolation, but because of the tension that had been building long before they ever left the road. Raven didn't have any proof, but judging from the mischievous glint in his eye, she knew this was part of Richard's plan. She didn't know what that plan was, but…this inn was part of it.
Raven set her things down with controlled precision, removing her outer layer and folding it over the back of a chair, all of her movements deliberate in a way that suggested restraint rather than ease, while Dick lingered near the door for a moment before moving further inside, as though he were giving her the space she had not asked for but clearly needed. She was shivering, wet, and confused.
For a while, neither of them said anything, and the quiet might have held if not for the fact that it was already too full of everything they had not been saying for weeks. When Raven finally turned to him, there was nothing subtle left in her expression, no careful distance to soften the edge of what she had been holding back. "I can't take this anymore," she said, her voice steady but carrying something sharper beneath it, something that had been building long before this moment. "I'm losing my mind. You are literally driving me crazy."
Richard, rather than look surprised, looked amused, which only made the irritation tighten further in her chest. "You've been overly tense for the last several weeks, keeping everyone on edge—but I'm driving you crazy?"
"I—yes," Raven looked at him incredulously.
He raised a brow and quirked his lips. "Please, explain."
"You and Starfire broke up three months ago."
"Yes," he nodded, entirely too calm.
"You and Starfire broke up three months ago after nearly a five-year relationship."
"Well… we've known each other for five years. We were together for two and a half," he corrected blithely.
"See?" Raven snapped. "That's exactly what I mean."
His blue eyes flashed with humor. "I still don't know what you mean."
"You broke up with Starfire," she said, more pointed now, "and you're fine."
"Yes," he said again, as if that should settle it. Then, after a beat, he added lightly, "You know there's a bedroom, right? I can take the couch."
"Richard, why are you fine?"
"I feel like you and I have had this conversation at least once a day over the last several months."
"You're not acting normal."
"Define normal," he replied, his tone light.
"This," she continued, gesturing faintly between them, between the room, between everything that had led them here. "You and Starfire ended things weeks ago, and you're acting like it didn't matter at all."
Something in his expression shifted then, not dramatically, but enough that she caught it. Still, the emotion he portrayed was not one she would associate with someone who'd just ended a relationship.
"That's not what's happening," he said, more quietly now, though there was no defensiveness in it, only a kind of grounded certainty that did not match the dismissal she had expected.
"Then what is happening?" she pressed, the words coming faster now, sharper, the frustration no longer contained. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you just… moved on. Like it was easy. Like she was easy to walk away from."
The accusation settled between them, heavier than anything she had said before. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the steady hum of the air conditioner and the distant, unrelenting rain against the windows.
Richard held her gaze without flinching, without retreating, and when he spoke again, there was nothing evasive left in his voice. "I cared about her," he said, each word deliberate, measured, grounded in something real. "I still do. What we had mattered. It wasn't nothing."
Raven's expression did not soften. "You don't seem affected at all. You don't seem…"
"I don't seem…?"
"Brokenhearted."
"Oh. Why would I be brokenhearted?" he asked genuinely.
"Because you broke up with someone you were in love with," Raven answered.
"Was I in love with her?" he asked.
"I…" Raven stopped. The words landed harder than she expected, not because of what they meant on their own, but because of what they implied. She did not respond; she only held his stare as her mind raced to come up with anything.
"I'm going to change and dry off," Richard said, breaking the silence. "And when I get back, we can further discuss how brokenhearted I should be."
The hints he had been dropping, the way he had been looking at her, the deliberate nature of this trip—how he had brought her here under a pretense she had seen through almost immediately—all of it began to align into something she could no longer dismiss as coincidence or misinterpretation.
She tracked his movement toward the door, her focus narrowing. "What is going on?" she asked.
Richard stopped. He turned back to her, studying her for a moment before giving her that same disarming, endearing smile. "Get some rest, Raven," he said. "We have an early day tomorrow."
Morning came without ceremony, the storm reduced to a gray, lingering drizzle, but Raven felt no less unsettled. If she were honest with herself, she'd been uneasy for quite some time.
The sky had not quite cleared, and neither had the ache in her chest. The highway ahead stretched endlessly, quiet and empty, in a way that seemed to distort both distance and thought.
Raven had been staring out the window for the better part of an hour, her reflection faint against the glass, her expression composed in a way that might have passed for calm if not for the tension beneath it. The hum of the engine and the soft rhythm of tires against wet pavement filled the space between them, steady and predictable, and entirely insufficient to quiet the agitation she had carried with her since the night before. Still, her focus remained on him.
Richard, for his part, drove like nothing was wrong.
One hand rested loosely on the steering wheel, the other occasionally adjusting the radio when the signal faded in and out, his posture relaxed, his attention split between the road and whatever half-formed melody he kept tapping out against the wheel. If he felt her watching him, he gave no indication of it, which only made the silence feel more deliberate.
Raven exhaled slowly, her patience thinning in quiet, controlled increments. "You shouldn't have brought me," she said at last, her voice even but edged with something that had been building for far too long to remain contained. "I wasn't needed."
Richard didn't look at her. His eyes stayed on the road, his expression unchanged, though there was the slightest pause in the rhythm of his fingers against the wheel before it resumed again, as though nothing had interrupted it. "That's a strong way to start the day," he replied lightly.
"It's an accurate way to start the day."
He hummed, noncommittal, as if considering the statement without any real urgency to respond to it. "B needed the backup."
"No," Raven countered immediately, turning her head just enough to look at him, her gaze sharp now, unwavering. "He didn't, and neither did you."
The faintest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, subtle enough that it might have gone unnoticed if she hadn't been watching for it.
"See!" she pointed at his mouth. "You're smiling; you agree."
"It's always good to have options."
"Richard." There was a shift in the way she said his name, a quiet warning threaded through it, and this time he did glance at her, just briefly, just long enough to acknowledge it before his attention returned to the road.
"You handled the situation in under a day," he said, as though that settled something.
"My point exactly." The irritation in her voice sharpened, no longer restrained, no longer disguised as casual conversation. "Batman could have handled it. Anyone could have handled it. You didn't need me, and you knew that."
"I think you're underselling yourself." He exhaled softly through his nose, something like amusement flickered across his expression.
"And now we're driving across the country when I could have easily teleported us back home, or we could have taken a jet."
"And yet you came," he said.
The words landed differently than the others had, not dismissive, not deflecting, but quietly observant, as though he were pointing out a fact she had not fully accounted for.
Raven's jaw tightened. "I—that's not my point."
"Then what was?" He asked it easily, but there was something more deliberate beneath the question now, something that suggested he already knew where this was going and was simply waiting for her to follow it through.
The road stretched ahead of them, long and empty, the gray sky pressing down in a way that felt almost oppressive, as though there was nowhere for the tension to go but inward.
"Why?" she asked, the words coming quieter now, but no less intense. "Why all the…extra work? Why waste time?"
"You think hanging out with you is a waste of time?" he asked her, this time looking at her pointedly.
Raven met his gaze, but there was something in his eyes that had her blushing, causing her to look away. She cleared her throat. "Is that what this was—a reason to hang out with me?"
Richard turned back to the road, not answering immediately. For a moment, the only sound was the low hum of the engine and the distant rush of tires passing through shallow pools of water on the road, and Raven could feel the hesitation in the space between them, not uncertain, but measured.
When he finally spoke, his voice was different from before, stripped of the easy playfulness he had relied on for weeks. "If I had said I wanted to talk, if I had said I wanted time alone with you, you would have shut it down before I finished the sentence."
She didn't answer. They both knew the answer to that.
"So I gave you a reason you wouldn't argue with," he continued, his tone still calm, still controlled, but carrying a weight that had been absent before. "A mission. Something practical. Something you could justify."
The realization settled slowly, uneasily, threading through the irritation she had been holding onto and shifting it into something sharper, more personal. "You manipulated the situation," she spoke each word deliberately.
"I made sure you said yes."
"Same thing."
"Not really." The calmness of his response only made the heat in her chest flare brighter.
"You forced my hand," she snapped, her composure slipping just enough to let the anger show through. "You knew I would about your Gotham trip given your breakup with Starfire; you knew I wouldn't let you go alone; so you played up the danger, making the whole thing worse than it actually was. You were trying to control me."
"I wasn't trying to control you," he said, and for the first time, there was something firmer in his voice, something that pushed back against the accusation without rising to meet it. "I was trying to make sure you didn't disappear before I had the chance to say anything."
Raven's breath caught, just slightly, the shift in his words pulling her up short in a way her anger hadn't anticipated. "Disappear? What are you talking about? Where would I go?"
He didn't hesitate this time. "I needed you away from the team," he said. "Away from everything that makes it easy for you to shut down, to deflect, to pretend you're not part of what's happening around you."
Her gaze hardened. "I do not pretend."
"You avoid," he corrected gently, though there was nothing soft about the truth in it. "You withdraw. You let everyone else fill the space so you don't have to."
"I don't—"
"Raven, you are simultaneously the most observant and most oblivious person I know. I don't get how someone like you, who can sense everything around you, can also miss things happening right in front of you."
The words settled heavily between them, not loud, not forceful, but impossible to ignore.
Raven turned away from him, her eyes returning to the window, though she was no longer seeing the road, her thoughts turning inward. She didn't want to admit she was confused, because she was. She also didn't want to admit Richard was right, because he was. Still…
"I'm sorry I misrepresented the situation," Richard apologized with a sigh. "I should have been honest."
Raven didn't say anything.
"Actually," he shifted, "I'm not sorry. I would have done the same thing again."
Raven's head shot back to him. "Excuse me?"
He met her harsh glare. "Yeah, I'm serious. I am not sorry. While I don't like relying on manipulation tactics, you…are terrifying to confront. So…I stand by what I did." He looked back at the road.
"You…are spoiled," Raven accused.
"Spoiled?" Richard repeated incredulously.
"And a brat," Raven added.
"A spoiled brat," he said.
"And a coward."
He smiled. "When it comes to you, I am very much a coward."
"And there is something wrong with you."
"No argument here."
Raven's hands curled slightly in her lap, her fingers tightening against the fabric of her sleeves as the anger she had been holding onto faded. She just couldn't find it in herself to remain even slightly frustrated with him. "I don't like that you did that."
"I know," Richard admitted solemnly.
"But…I can understand why." Raven felt confidence and smugness roll off of him. "You are still a spoiled cowardly brat," she huffed.
"No argument here, Rae."
(Two months earlier)
The Tower had been quiet in that rare, suspended way it sometimes managed when patrol rotations lined up just right and no one felt like filling the common room with noise. The television murmured at a low volume, cycling through channels without much commitment, casting shifting light across the walls and the couch where Raven had been sitting, legs tucked beneath her, attention split between the screen and the steady rhythm of her own thoughts.
She felt him before she heard him.
Robin didn't announce himself when he entered, which wasn't unusual, but there was something different in the way his presence settled into the room—lighter, almost, as though something had been set down rather than picked up. He crossed the space without hesitation and dropped onto the couch beside her, close enough that she could feel the residual warmth from the outside clinging to him, his shoulder brushing hers in a way that might have been incidental if it hadn't lingered just a fraction longer than necessary.
"We broke up," he announced blithely, like he was announcing the weather.
Raven turned her head and looked at him in shock. "What?" she asked.
"We broke up," Robin repeated, grabbing the remote.
"I—I'm sorry," Raven said, and she genuinely was. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Hmm?" Robin asked. "Oh, yeah. It was time."
"What?" she said, not understanding. She studied him, letting the statement settle as she searched for the expected weight behind it—for grief, for regret, for anything that resembled loss. There was nothing. Not emptiness, not numbness, but a calm so complete it almost felt intentional, like a surface smoothed over with care. "You and Starfire," she clarified, more out of habit than confusion, "broke up?"
"Yeah," he said, as if he were confirming something trivial rather than the end of a relationship that had defined him for years. He leaned back into the couch, stretching one arm along the back behind her, his posture loose and unguarded as he picked up the remote and resumed flipping through channels like nothing had shifted at all.
"Like…not on a break…a breakup?"
"Yeah." He glanced at her through the mask, brows faintly drawn, as though he didn't understand why she was reacting this way.
Raven frowned slightly.
The two stared at each other. Raven slowly lifted her hand and placed it on Robin's forehead.
"What are you doing?" Robin asked with a quirk to his lips.
"Checking you for a fever."
"Do I have one?"
"You do not," she answered, but she didn't remove her hand. She watched him for a moment longer, waiting for the delayed reaction, for the crack that would reveal what he was choosing not to show.
It never came.
Eventually, she withdrew, and turned her attention back to the screen; but her focus lingered on him instead, on the quiet steadiness of his presence, on the unsettling certainty that something about this didn't align with anything she understood about him.
(Present)
Rain slammed against the windshield in heavy, relentless sheets, the wipers barely keeping pace as the highway stretched ahead in blurred lines of reflected light and shadow. Night had settled in fully, thick and oppressive, swallowing the edges of the world beyond the narrow tunnel carved by the headlights.
"There's a motel up ahead," Richard said. "We can stay there."
Raven's patience, already worn thin over the course of the day, finally snapped. "This is unnecessary," she said, her voice cutting cleanly through the storm, controlled but edged with something sharp enough to demand attention. "I'm teleporting us back."
Dick's grip on the steering wheel tightened almost imperceptibly. He glanced at her, then back to the road. "No," he said. It wasn't a suggestion.
Raven's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me? Is that an order?"
"You heard me," he replied, his tone steady but carrying an urgency that hadn't been there before. "Not in this weather. Not like this. The motel's less than a mile away."
"I've handled worse," she said, already gathering the faint edge of power at her fingertips, the familiar pull of the void curling just beneath the surface of her control. "We don't need to be out here, and I am not spending another hour in this car—"
"Raven," he said, firm enough to interrupt, but not loud.
She stilled, just slightly. Then the frustration surged back, sharper than before. "Then stop," she snapped, turning fully toward him now, her composure slipping under the weight of everything she had been holding back for weeks. "Either stop doing whatever this is, or say it outright."
Richard blinked, thrown just enough to register it. "Say what?"
Her laugh was quiet and humorless. "Don't."
The storm roared around them, the car rattling faintly under the force of the rain, the tension inside tightening into something far more volatile. "You've been doing this for weeks," she continued, her voice low but cutting. "The looks, the comments, the way you keep almost saying something and then pulling back like it's a game. I'm not going to keep guessing, Richard. Either stop it, or say it."
He exhaled slowly, his jaw tightening as his gaze remained fixed on the road ahead. "This isn't the best time—"
"It never is the best time with you, is it?" she cut in sharply. "You say I avoid things. Please."
"I'm not avoiding anything."
"You are," she said, the certainty in her voice leaving no room for argument. "You circle around it, you deflect, you turn everything into a joke, and I am—" She stopped herself, breath catching. Then forced it out. "I'm done with it."
Richard's hands tightened on the wheel, the tension in his shoulders finally matching the weight of the moment. "It's complicated," he said after a beat, quieter now.
"No," Raven shot back immediately. "It isn't. You're just making it that way."
He didn't respond.
The silence that followed stretched too long, filled with everything he wasn't saying, everything she was no longer willing to let him keep to himself.
"Fine," she said, her voice flattening as her patience finally gave way. "Then I'll make it simple for you." Her eyes flashed black as she brought the vehicle to a halt.
Dick's head snapped toward her. "Raven—"
Raven shoved the door open and stepped out into the rain.
The cold hit immediately, sharp and unrelenting, soaking through her clothes in seconds, her hair clinging to her face as the storm swallowed her whole. She barely noticed, the heat of her frustration burning hotter than the chill as she moved a few steps away from the car.
The driver's door slammed behind her a second later.
"Raven."
He was right behind her, close enough that she didn't have the space to pull away, to open a portal and disappear the way she usually would.
"Say it," she demanded, turning on him, rain streaming down her face as her eyes locked onto his. "Or stop."
For a moment, he just looked at her, really looked, like he was weighing something he had been holding onto for far too long. His blue eyes glowed in the darkness. Then something in his expression shifted. "I've been trying to get your attention for weeks," he admitted, the words coming out sharper than before, stripped of deflection, stripped of hesitation. "Months, even."
Raven's breath caught, just slightly.
He didn't stop. "Kori called me out on it," he continued, rain soaking through his shirt, his hair plastered to his forehead as the storm raged around them. "That's part of why we ended things when we did. Not when I told you—we ended things…several months before that. By the way, you are the only one in the Tower I had to tell. Cy and Gar knew when Star and I broke up before Star and I knew we broke up."
The world seemed to narrow, the storm fading into the background as his words settled, heavy and unavoidable. Raven's pulse quickened as her mind raced through every interaction over the last six months, searching for something—anything—she could have missed.
"And you didn't notice," he added, not accusing, not harsh, but undeniably frustrated. "Which, honestly, shouldn't surprise me at this point. Like I said before—you're the most observant person I know, and somehow, also, the most oblivious."
Raven didn't move. Didn't speak. She couldn't. She was dumbfounded.
"I'm in love with you, Raven," he said, finally, the words clear, direct, leaving no room for interpretation. "I have been for a long time."
Silence crashed in around them, louder than the storm itself.
Richard let out a breath, running a hand through his soaked hair, the tension that had been building finally breaking through in something almost exasperated. "And you just…I have been dropping so many hints. Finding excuses to touch you. To be near you. And you just..." He shook his head, disbelief and something else—something fierce—lighting his eyes. "You are infuriating and maddening. "I want to grab you and shake you," he said, stepping closer. "I want to—" He stopped himself, jaw tightening. Then, quieter, more certain: "I want to throw my arms around you and kiss you."
Raven only blinked, staring at him wide-eyed. She couldn't breathe. The rain was freezing, but her skin felt scorched.
"Now can we please get back in the fucking car before we both catch pneumonia?" Richard asked. "Then, we can go to a motel and talk."
The words hung there, absurd and entirely fitting all at once.
Raven stared at him for a heartbeat longer, her mind racing, her control slipping in ways she hadn't anticipated, everything she had been holding in shifting, collapsing, reforming into something she didn't fully understand yet. She was shaking—from cold, from shock, from five years of wanting suddenly crystallizing into this singular, impossible moment. She saw the exact second he realized she wasn't leaving. The hope that flickered, then flared. The way his grip on her wrist loosened, became something else entirely.
Then she moved.
The first touch of her mouth against his was sudden, blinding, and unexpected as Dick had fully expected her to hit him, leave him stranded, or send him to another dimension.
Raven felt him freeze, just for a heartbeat, and thought maybe she had miscalculated. But then she felt his lips part in surprise against hers, his breath hitching warm where their mouths met. And then his hands came up to cradle her face, his palms searing against her rain-cold skin, his thumbs brushing the hollows beneath her ears with a tenderness that made her ache.
He kissed her back desperately, gasping, grateful. His mouth moved over hers, learning the shape of her, the taste of rain and something sweeter underneath. He felt the moment she stopped thinking, stopped worrying, stopped being careful. Her fingers slid into his wet hair as he angled her head, and deepened the kiss.
For Raven, it was like breathing after being underwater for years. Like finally filling lungs that had been burning, starving, without her knowing. She inhaled him—coffee and the cedar soap he kept in his gym bag and something underneath that was just Richard, the smell of every safe place she'd ever known. Her hands found the front of his soaked shirt and fisted there, pulling him closer, needing the solidity of him, the proof that this was real.
"Raven—" he breathed against her lips, reverent, wrecked.
She answered by kissing him again, slower this time, exploring. The rain ran down their faces, salt mingling with fresh water, and she realized distantly that she was crying, had been crying, tears she hadn't let herself shed in years finally spilling over. Richard felt it too. He pulled back just enough to press his forehead to hers, his thumbs brushing gently beneath her eyes, catching the rain and the tears together. "Hey," he whispered. "Hey, I'm here. I'm right here."
"I'm sorry I'm so oblivious," she whispered back.
"It's okay," he replied. "I find it adorable," he added and surged down to meet her again.
This kiss was different—unhurried and devastatingly thorough.
Richard's mouth moved over hers with deliberate slowness, as if memorizing every texture, every response. When his tongue traced the seam of her lips, she opened for him with a sound that was almost a sob, and he made a noise deep in his chest—possessive, relieved, hungry—and slid his arms around her waist, hauling her flush against him.
The heat of him burned through their soaked clothes. She could feel his heart hammering against her chest, matching the frantic rhythm of her own. His hands roamed her back, her sides, finally settling at her hips to pull her impossibly closer. She arched into him, her fingers finding the hair at the nape of his neck, and he shuddered against her mouth.
They broke apart only to breathe, and even then their lips kept meeting—small, chasing kisses, unable to stop. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, misting around them like something out of a dream, but Raven felt more awake than she had in years. Every nerve ending was alive, singing, attuned to the press of his body against hers, the way his thumb traced restless patterns against her lower back.
"I don't know how long I've wanted to touch you like this," he murmured against her jaw, his voice rough.
"Then don't stop," she whispered.
He made a sound like she'd broken something open in him, and then his mouth was on her throat, hot and open, his teeth grazing the tendon there with exquisite care. Her head fell back, and she gasped his name into the wet air. His hands slid up her sides, thumbs brushing the sensitive skin beneath her ribs, and she felt him smile against her collarbone when she shivered.
"You're freezing," he breathed, but he didn't stop kissing her—her shoulder, the hollow of her throat, the line of her jaw leading back to her mouth.
"I feel hot all over," she managed, and captured his lips again.
This kiss turned sharp, edged with all the years of restraint finally snapping. He walked her backward fully against the car, his body pressed hard against hers, one hand braced beside her head, the other tangled in her hair. She could feel the tremor in his arms—whether from the cold or the kiss, she did not know.
He kissed her like he'd been holding his breath since the day they met and was only now allowed to exhale. His tongue slid against hers with a rhythm that made her knees weak, made her clutch at his shoulders to stay upright.
Eventually they broke apart, both shaking, as the rain became a light drizzle. Richard's forehead rested against hers, his eyes closed, his chest heaving. She watched a raindrop slide from his hairline down the bridge of his nose, followed it with her eyes, her fingers tracing the same path on his cheek.
He opened his eyes. They were dark, blown wide, fixed on her with an expression she'd never seen before—vulnerable, fierce, his. "Hi," he whispered.
She laughed, the sound catching in her throat, tears threatening again. "Hi."
"You're crying," he said.
"How can you tell with all of this rain?" she chuckled.
"I just can."
"We should get in the car before you catch pneumonia."
"Oh, now you care about my health?" his eyes flashed in humor.
Neither of them moved.
He kissed her again, softer this time, lingering. When he finally pulled back, he laced his fingers through hers and didn't let go, not once, as he walked her around to the passenger side and opened the door for her.
She slid into the seat and watched him circle the car through the misted window. When he climbed in beside her, his hair dark and dripping, his clothes clinging to him, he didn't start the engine. He just looked at her, really looked, like he was seeing her for the first time.
He's been looking at you like that for months, a part of her whispered. The realization slammed into Raven with all the force of tank.
"Raven," he asked, calling her name, "are you okay?"
"I was just thinking," she began slowly, "the rain is beginning to let up...do we have to go to a motel? Why not an actual hotel?"
Richard laughed. "Fine. I will search for a hotel," he pulled out his phone. "And you say I'm spoiled."
Finding a nice hotel 30 minutes away, Richard pulled back onto the highway—one hand on the steering wheel, the other linked with Raven's, only letting go to shift gears.
The room was warm in a way that felt almost unreal after everything that had come before it, the steady hum of the heater wrapping around them as the storm picked up again outside, rain striking the windows in heavy, rhythmic bursts that blurred the city lights into soft, shifting streaks. The contrast was sharp—violent weather just beyond the glass, and inside, quiet, stillness, and the kind of warmth that had nothing to do with temperature.
They had changed into dry clothes sometime after arriving, though neither of them had paid much attention to the process itself. Now they were sprawled across the top of the comforter, shoes abandoned somewhere near the door, the space between them gone in a way that felt both new and strangely inevitable.
Raven lay on her back, one arm folded loosely beneath her head as she stared up at the ceiling, her thoughts still trying to catch up to everything that had shifted in the last few hours. "I still don't understand how I missed it," she said after a while, her voice quieter now, no longer edged with frustration, but threaded with disbelief. "Four months. You and Starfire have technically been broken up for almost four months, it was mutual, and I was the only one who didn't notice."
Dick let out a quiet breath of laughter. "Yeah," he said. "You were."
She turned her head just enough to glare at him. "That's not funny."
"It's a little funny," he admitted, glancing over at her, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Not in a mean way. Just… you of all people missing something like that?"
Raven's eyes narrowed slightly, but the reaction lacked any real bite. "Am I really so oblivious?"
Dick shifted onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow so he could look at her properly, his expression softening just slightly. "You are," he said, not unkindly. "Just not in the way you think."
She frowned, her gaze flickering back to the ceiling. "Explain."
He studied her for a moment, as if considering how to phrase it, then exhaled lightly. "You pay attention to everything around you," he said. "Every shift, every emotion, every little change in people. You notice things most of us don't even register." His gaze lingered on her, steady and certain. "But when it comes to yourself… you don't see any of it."
Raven stilled slightly. "That's not true."
"It is," he replied gently. "You still see yourself the same way you always have. Trigon's daughter. The demon. The one who has to stay separate, stay controlled. The one who doesn't deserve kindness…or love." His voice softened further. "So the idea that someone might look at you and see something else—something more—doesn't even register as a possibility."
She didn't respond immediately. The rain pressed harder against the windows, the sound filling the silence in a way that felt almost deliberate. "I knew about Beast Boy's earlier crush on me," she said after a moment, her tone quieter now, more thoughtful than defensive.
Dick blinked, then let out a surprised laugh. "I said you were oblivious," he said, shaking his head slightly. "Not blind."
That earned the faintest shift at the corner of her mouth. Raven rolled onto her side to face him, her expression still serious, but softer now, more open than it had been before. "If it was mutual," she said, "why is Starfire on Tamaran? Why did she sneak away?"
Dick's expression didn't change, but there was a quiet ease in the way he answered. "She's not fleeing," he said. "She's visiting her sister. She decided to sneak away because she was afraid you would stop her."
"I would have," Raven frowned. "She and her sister come to blows every time she visits."
"She's also marrying someone," Dick added.
"What?" Raven shot up. "I definitely would have stopped that."
"Which is why she didn't tell you."
She held his gaze, something unreadable flickering through her eyes. "Is this another… blob prince situation?"
Dick snorted, the sound immediate and unrestrained. "No," he said, grinning now. "Trust me, this guy is… unfortunately very real. And also disgustingly handsome."
Raven huffed softly, her gaze drifting for a moment before returning to him. "More handsome than you?" Raven asked, feeling her face heat.
Dick gave her a heated look. "No one's more handsome than I."
Raven rolled her eyes.
"Honestly, though, he's fucking gorgeous. If we were together, and she cheated on me with him, I'd probably high-five her."
Raven peered at him. "You're joking."
"I'm not sure I am. Anyway, that's why she snuck out and didn't tell you."
Raven nodded, not taking her eyes off of Dick.
"What?" he asked, playfully poking her arm.
"I'm realizing, I caused you a lot of stress on this trip," she said, the words quieter now, more deliberate.
Dick's expression shifted immediately. "No," he said, firm enough to cut off the thought before it could settle. "You did not."
"I did," she insisted, though there was less force behind it than before. "I was harsh and rude. You've been trying to talk to me for months, and I—"
"You didn't know," he interrupted, softer this time. "That's not your fault."
Raven studied him for a moment, then exhaled slowly, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. "Why me?" she asked.
The question hung between them, quieter than everything that had come before it, but heavier in a way that mattered more.
Dick didn't hesitate. "Because you're you," he said simply, though there was nothing simple about the way he looked at her. "You see things no one else does. You care more than you let anyone believe. You're stronger than anyone I know—and you still choose not to let it consume you." His voice softened. "You don't give up."
"But all those things describe so many other women," Raven said.
He shook his head slightly. "Not like you."
Raven furrowed her brow, not understanding.
"You're you, Raven. I wish I had a better answer for you, something to allay your doubts, but…all I know is that the way I love you is completely different than the way I love Starfire."
"And the road trip?" she asked, though the edge in her voice had softened into something almost curious.
He smiled faintly, a little sheepish now. "As I've said multiple times, I've been trying to get your attention for a while," he admitted. "Actually talk to you. And every time I got close, something came up. Or you disappeared." He let out a quiet breath. "So I figured if I couldn't find the right moment… I'd make one."
Raven's brows drew together slightly. "Everyone has been acting strange."
Dick huffed out a quiet laugh. "Yeah, that's because they've been giving us space."
She blinked. "Space for you," she corrected, "because of your breakup."
"No," he said, shaking his head, the amusement in his voice unmistakable now. "Space for us."
Raven stared at him. "That doesn't make sense."
"It does if you're not the only one who noticed something was going on," he said.
The realization settled slowly, her expression shifting as she processed it. "You've been trying to get me alone to tell me how you feel, but I was so oblivious—I thought everyone was trying to give you space to deal with the breakup or something."
His smiled deepened.
"Now what?" she asked after a moment.
Dick leaned back slightly, his gaze still fixed on her. "Now we can teleport back," he said. "Skip the rest of the drive."
Raven tilted her head, considering that for all of half a second. "Why would we do that?"
Dick blinked. "What?"
She shifted closer—not much, just enough that her knee pressed against his thigh, that she could smell the rain still clinging to his skin. "You had a plan," she said. "A very elaborate one, apparently."
He narrowed his eyes. "Raven—"
"I think you should see it through." Her voice had gone soft, almost wondering, like she was discovering something as she spoke. "I know how attached you are to your plans."
The air between them changed. She watched him realize it—the moment he understood she wasn't talking about the drive anymore, about any drive, about anything outside this room. His chest stilled mid-breath.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, then dragged back up to her eyes, searching. "You're sure?" The question came out rough, stripped bare.
Raven answered by closing the distance herself.
The first kiss in the car had been lightning—sudden, blinding, inevitable. This was different. This was choice, deliberate and devastating, their mouths meeting with the weight of every hour that had led here. Dick made a sound against her lips—not surprise, but relief, vast and aching—and then his hand was cupping her jaw, angling her head, and the kiss deepened with agonizing slowness.
He tasted like rain. His thumb stroked her cheekbone as he kissed her, reverent, learning the shape of her mouth with devastating patience. When she sighed into him, he answered by drawing her lower lip between his, grazing it with his teeth, and she felt the tremor in his fingers where they touched her face.
"Dick—" she breathed, and he pulled back just enough to look at her, his eyes dark, his breathing unsteady.
"We don't have to—" he started, voice rough with the effort of restraint.
"I know." She kissed the corner of his mouth, the stubble of his jaw, felt his pulse hammering beneath her lips. "I know we don't."
She kissed him again because she wanted to, because she could, because the freedom of it made her dizzy. His control frayed visibly—she felt it in the way his grip tightened at her hip, in the hitch of his breath when her tongue met his. He walked her back against the mattress with careful urgency, one hand bracing beside her head, the other sliding beneath her shirt to find the small of her back.
His palm was searing against her skin. She arched into it, into him, and he groaned her name into the hollow of her throat.
The storm outside had softened to a murmur, rain tapping against the window in a rhythm that matched their breathing. Dick pulled back to look at her, really look, his hair falling across his forehead, his expression open and terrified and hopeful in a way she'd never seen. She reached up to push his hair back, letting her fingers linger against his temple, his jaw, the pulse point in his throat.
"Hi," he whispered, same as in the car, like he still couldn't believe it.
"Hi," she answered, smiling despite the ache in her chest, the fullness of it.
He kissed her again, slower, deeper, like he was memorizing her. Like he had time now—hours, days, years—and intended to use every second. His hand moved at her back, tentative then sure, mapping the curve of her spine, and she felt every touch echo somewhere deeper, someplace that had been waiting exactly for this.
When they finally broke apart, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other's air, the room had gone quiet except for the rain.
"Extended road trip?" she asked.
Dick closed his eyes, his hand finding hers, fingers threading together against the pillow. "Extended road trip."