The power of misdirection

"Yeah, kid! I guess you're just never going to figure out where I hid all that money! I could have an accomplice getting away with it right now, headed somewhere to squirrel it away where you'll never find it! A magic assistant, yeah!" The old man rattled on and on, trying to plant the seeds of doubt in Robin's mind.

It didn't seem to be working. Robin raised another birdarang, causing Mumbo to wince and cover his face reflexively. "I'm getting real tired of your tricks! There was no assistant; we caught you red-handed! Don't you dare pick up that hat either..."

"Mumbo... You're a bigger creep than I thought." Raven glared at the defeated magician spitefully, her eyes shooting daggers from behind the darkness of her cloak's veil. She didn't say the specific reason for her accusations, in order to preserve her own modesty as far as she could manage.

Mumbo gulped, then ran one thumb along the bridge of his nose thoughtfully; he would have to spell out his plan for Bird Boy if he wanted it to work! "Hmmmm, no assistant? You don't think anybody here besides me is acting a little suspiciously? Like, say... the other blue person here?!" He pointed one finger accusingly at Raven, ignoring the facts that, for one thing, she only dressed in blue and, for two, he himself was no longer blue.

Robin squinted his eyes irritably, then rubbed his temples. "You ran out of magic, so now you're trying to make me doubt my own teammates."

"Yeah, we aren't dumb enough to fall for tricks like that, Mumbo." Raven was secretly pleased that Robin seemed he was going to drop the investigation right away.

"However!" Robin turned in place, cupping one fist to his chin. "The villain raises a valid concern. You've been hiding something under your cloak for a while now, Raven, and you've been distracted. Just take off your cloak and prove real quickly that you aren't hiding anything."

Raven lowered her eyebrows, doing her best to look angry at being suspected instead of mortified at the proposition of baring herself. "Robin... You're not doing that thing again where you get paranoid and doubt your own teammates, are you? Masquerading as the lackey of some bad guy is your thing, not mine..." Even as she turned the accusation back on him, she hugged her cloak more tightly to her body. With the unusual stance, the garment clung to the curves of her breasts and hips in a way it usually didn't.

Robin chuckled, then shrugged his shoulders; there was no reason for him to rise to that provocation. "Look, I know you're not hiding a bag of money in there. But we have to prove it to everyone watching; then we can get this guy in cuffs and go on! Just open it up-"

"No."

Robin recoiled, now clenching his teeth with growing impatience. "Uuuh, Raven? If you don't, the people here are all going to think you made off with Mumbo's bank robbery money, several untold thousands of dollars-"

"Don't care. Not happening."

Now clenching his fists tightly and grinding his jaw, the leader of the Titans left Mumbo to approach his own teammate. Once he was close enough to talk quietly, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Raven... if you're suddenly self-conscious about wearing a legless leotard everywhere, now is a really, reeeeally bad time for that revelation."

"What? No." Raven adopted a confrontational frown, sliding her own forehead towards her ally's and hovering slightly off the cement to look down on him. "Look, just let it go, okay? Once I'm back at the tower, I'll prove I didn't take the money..."

"The people of Jump City need to know that now, not later."

As the argument intensified, Mumbo picked up his top hat from the street, then eeeever so gently began to nudge towards the back alley where his magic wand had flown. He'd really lived up to his Beast-Boy granted moniker as the Great Bluedini this time!

"You're forcing my hand, Raven!" Robin placed one hand onto his utility belt as he followed his ally, who was backing towards the crowd slowly despite her intimidating stance.

"You're the one being a suspicious jerk..." Raven countered, glancing nervously at the people behind her so as to make sure she wasn't about to bump her bottom, clad only in her wrapped cape, into anyone.

It was no use talking anymore; Robin had to act!