It was the bond.

I had never really been close to Robin. We were friends, best friends at that, be we were never really close. And contrary to popular belief, we were different. He trained physically, I trained mentally. Sure we both wore masks, or had dark pasts, but that necessarily didn't mean that we should together. Sure the fan girls said our bond was the symbol of our love or that we had some interest in each other. So, just for you news reporters out there that I know are reading this, I have no interest in Robin.

It started out small, barely recognizable. I have a bond with every member of the team, yes even Beastboy, never had I been able to feel their emotions. Ah, so many emotions! Never had I seen someone that had so much pent up anger and frustration. How did me do it? Even I had not mastered that technique.

It wasn't long before I began to see his dreams. Now Robin didn't sleep much, when he couldn't, I would stay up and we would have telepathic conversations that lasted well into the morning. Which meant nothing. We were best friends, that's what best friends do.

When he did manage to sleep, I saw able to see flashes of his dreams. The insomnia I could handle, but his dreams were the ones that were killing me. They weren't gross or anything, not at all what I would expect from a normal teenage boy. They were…sweet. Yeah, I knew he liked me. I knew as soon as I set foot in this tower two years ago.

But although his dreams were nice, it did not stop the fact that they made my emotions destroy practically everything in my room. Nor did it stop me from using my soul-self to enter his dreams and give him a hug or small kiss on the cheek. But only to humor him.

Only to humor him…nothing more.

But enough of that, the thing that really made be make up my mind was the pain. Over the months our bond become so strong that physical pain came into the picture. His pain was my pain. No mark would be made but I could still feel it. But did Robin feel mine? Oh no. I was the one with the demonic powers, not him.

So it was on that fateful day, which also happened to be that time of month, when Robin conveniently decided to practice kicking sets in the gym, that I decided that our bond was too strong. It was then, barely able to stand in the doorway, did I choose to slice our bond. I could take pain, but this…this was torture.

I managed to drag myself to the gym using the walls for support as I tried not to faint from the pain in my legs. "Robin," I croaked.

He threw a hard kick to the punching bag and I winced, trying hard to keep my eyes from watering.

"Ow," I breathed, "Robin, please stop."

He turned to the doorway and saw my nearly collapsed form. "Raven, are you okay?"

"Never mind that, I need to talk to you."

"What is it?"

"Our bond. I'm cutting it."

I swear I heard his heart crack half. "W-why?"

"I'm sorry Robin, but it's too strong. I can feel everything you feel. Anything that gives you pain hurts me as well. I can't do this Robin. It hurts too much."

This was going to be hard for him, not to mention painful. Having a piece of your mind cut in half was agonizing. It wouldn't hurt me as much due to Azar's good teachings about mind control, but for Robin it would probably be the most painful thing in his life.

"It's going to hurt isn't it?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's going to hurt a lot. Look Robin, if you don't want to do it then-"

"No…it's ok. If it'll make you happy then cut it."

Ouch. Guilt was starting to rise up in my chest. Did he really care for me that much?

"Are you sure?" I was almost positive he would put up more of a fight.

"For you, anything."

Anything? Anything? Guilt was almost on its breaking point I was almost thinking of calling it off.

"Okay, come here."

I placed two fingers on my chakra and placed my other hand on his forehead where his chakra should've been.

"Now close your eyes and relax."

I shouldn't of been surprised that he used me to calm down but I was just glad he had his eyes closed so he couldn't see the blush forming on my cheeks.

The link wasn't hard to find so I grabbed my mental knife and prepared to start cutting.

'Wait,' he had contacted telepathically, 'Does this mean we can't have our mind conversations anymore?'

Was I really that heartless? Maybe I didn't have to cut all of it…

'Sorry Robin.' I put my blade to the bond and began slicing,

He yelled out in pain and reflexively grabbed my arm forcing a tingle down my spine. Wasn't expecting that.

I winced and kept cutting, the only problem was that Robin's grip kept getting tighter and tighter so that in a matter of seconds, I had lost all feeling in my hand.

'Relax Robin. It'll be over soon.' Truth was, I wasn't even close to be done. The bond was complex, twisted and intertwined so I couldn't just do a clean cut; I had to slice by segments, which would take longer.

His grip became tighter and I considered stopping for his sake. But I had barely scratched the surface and if I wanted to stop feeling his pain, I would have to cut at least half of it.

'It's ok Robin. Nearly there.'

His only response was a weak nod.

So much pain over me. I want to do something to take it away. Though I worked as fast as I could, Robin would expire soon and I couldn't do it if he was unconscious.

He let out another painful yell as I cut another segment. I had to do something. Either stop cutting or…

His eyes widened in shock as I forced my lips to his. I could feel his mind relax. Unfortunately, mine didn't. I was still trying to cut the bond but was unsuccessful. My mind was distracted, not even daring to think of what would happen if the others came in. How would I explain myself? What would they say? Why…why did Robin have to kiss so well?

His hands moved my arm to my waist and I instinctively tensed. I could feel a pulse in my head and I swear I was going to have a heart attack seeing my heart was beating a mile a minute. I wasn't used to having someone this close…

Push away! Push away and do you job! I screamed at myself. But it was no use; I could feel Robin pulling me closer to him. My hands moved from his forehead and found their resting place around his neck.

What was I doing? In an instant everything pulled into focus as I roughly pushed away from him.

He let go and I stumbled against the wall behind me.

"Wha-what was that?"

"I needed to distract you with something," I could tell my face was flushed and I was breathing heavily, "That was the only thing I could think of under those circumstances."

"Well…Did you cut it?"

No, I hadn't. I hadn't even cut a forth of it and it would only be a matter of weeks before it healed.

"Yeah, Robin. It's gone."

"That wasn't so bad." He grinned.

"Oh stop it," I playfully punched him in the shoulder, "I told you it would hurt."

I could tell I hadn't even done a thing. Robin's happiness was affecting me.

"No, I was talking about the kiss."

I punched him again, this time harder. "What are you talking about? It wasn't even a real kiss."

He laughed. "Of course it wasn't."

Yeah, it wasn't. I'm just his best friend. So what if Robin had a crush on me? So what if we kissed. I only kissed him to help him.

Only to help him…nothing more.

Hehe. Well there's another one. Drop a line and tell me what you think. Oh yeah. I don't own. Love ya lots, write lots, review lots.

KN