Shadow Of The Nightshade

Kitchen fever.

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I woke up to the sound of someone calling me and a gloved hand resting on my cheek and tucking hair behind my ear.

It was useless, my hair was too long of a disaster to get under control without a comb.

I slowly peeled my eyelids apart and found Robin in front of me. He took back his hand.

'You're here.' I tried to sit up and mostly failed.

He got up and sat right beside me. 'You have a slight fever.'

'Oh?' I didn't really know how to reply that, so I tried to change the topic. 'What time is it?'

'Around four in the afternoon,' he answered, putting his arm over my shoulders and pulled me against his chest. 'They just left you here.'

I discovered that his chest was more comfortable than the armrest.

'Why didn't you sleep in my room? It's cold here.' he started speaking again and I felt the words rumble in his chest.

'I didn't want to sleep alone.'

Maybe that was the right answer because he put his arms around me.

'So where is the rest of the team?' I sat up a little straighter and looked into the whites of his mask.

'We have no missions today so they're off doing their own things.'

'Oh, so no one expects me to escape?' I raised an eyebrow, slipped out of his hug and hopped to my feet.

'Are you planning on escaping?' He watched me warily.

I took a step back and smirked. 'Can you catch me?'

'Hey Shadow,' without warning he lunged at me.

I almost sidestepped to evade the surprise attack but found myself staying surprisingly still.

Mostly, I was shocked into inaction by the realization that I wanted him to catch me.

We both fell to ground, but Robin had broken my fall and had me lie on top of him.

'You shouldn't run when you have a fever,' he scolded me, a little out of breath. 'But. . . I expected to chase you halfway around the mountain, why did you give up so soon?'

'I wanted to steal something,' I told him, a new thought popping into mind.

'What?' he looked at me curiously, as though he would try his best to help me get it if I just told him.

'Something more important than my freedom,' I gave him a hint.

'Oh?'

I could almost see gears turning around in his head, so I took advantage of his distraction to steal a deep kiss.

Robin didn't push me away even though I half-expected him too. He just stayed there, still as a statue and kissed me back.

It almost made me think that maybe. . . Maybe he wanted me to catch him too.

I broke the kiss and rolled off him, feeling euphoric.

We both stared at the ceiling of the cave, slightly out of breath.

'So my lips are that expensive, uh?' He reached blindly for my hand and I let him take it when he found my fingers.

'I'd make a fortune if I sold you in the black market.' I replied casually and he turned to look at me.

'I should sue you for sexual harassment.'

'How much do you want to make the scandal go away?'

He seemed to think hard about it before laced our fingers together and sat up. 'Lunch,' he grinned.

'Lunch,' I repeated, letting the word roll slowly off my tongue. 'It's really cheap to buy your silence.'

'Well, it wouldn't benefit me if news of this spread around and reached a certain Bat's ears. He'd skin you alive.'

'And you don't want that?'

'Nope.'

'So that means that I can harass you as long as food is made available?' I stroked my chin and thought about it. It was good deal, and it would keep me busy while I was staying here.

'Well,' he stood and pulled me to my feet. 'I just want to see you cook.'

'You have such strange fetishes.' I drawled as he tugged me along with him in the direction of the kitchen.

'Just pretend that you don't like them,' he threw me in front of the electric stove. 'So, what are we making?'

'I want to cook for the whole team.' I said, with what I knew was a devilish smile.

'Planning on poisoning them as revenge?'

'I can give you the antidote beforehand.'

'Okay,' Robin stretched out his open palm and agreed.

I took his hand and kissed each of his fingers.

'I already feel safe,' he joked.

'Good,' I let go of his hand and rummaged through the cupboards. 'Because your job is to chop the vegetables because and after we're done I doubt you'd have any fingers left.'

'You look down on me this much?'

I looked over my shoulder to catch him taking off his gloves and rolling up his sleeves. 'What do you think?'

His only reply was a huff as he reached for the largest knife in the kitchen and stabbed it into the chopping board.

The sight made me smile because I really could poison the team, but Robin trusted me that much.

He didn't look back once as I gathered the ingredients and started preparing. I was going to cook anything that came to mind and think of other ways to win over the team while I was at it, because after this meal I was sure that I'd get Wally in the bag.

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