Here's the sequel to Red Mirror! So if you haven't read that, back up and read it first!
Thanks to everyone for being so patient with me! This chapter is mostly me setting up my little world. Hopefully it all works out! This chapter picks up just a few months after the epilogue to Red Mirror, so Lian is still 19.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Raven chanted.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Lian echoed, sitting cross legged beside her mentor and best friend.
They traded off effortlessly, eyes closed, both in deep concentration. That was until someone started banging on the door. "Please tell me that's not your husband." Raven growled, irritated.
Lian opened one eye, "Bart's smarter than to interrupt us when we're meditating."
Raven sighed, "Garfield."
"Probably!" Lian confirmed with a tiny giggle.
As the knocking resumed, Raven pulled the door open with her powers, "WHAT?"
Garfield stood on the other side of the door, apparently just realizing that he'd angered them both. "Uh, sorry. I can come back later..."
Raven sighed again, storing her patience, "What is it, Gar?"
He grinned, "Breakfast is ready!"
Raven slammed the door closed in his face. Lian chuckled at the older woman, "You're so hard on him."
"Just wait, Lian. It won't take long for Bart to start annoying you too. Marriage does that. I can make my own breakfast." Raven growled.
Lian rolled her eyes, "Relax, Rae. Bart could never annoy me! And I think it's sweet that Gar's been making you breakfast. He's really trying you know. He even asked my dad for help."
"It is sweet, just...too much for me." Raven said, totally giving up on going back to meditating, flopping back on the media room sofa.
Lian stared at her from the coffee table with a look of disapproval, "Too much? Rae, you guys are dating, living together, and it's breakfast time. Go eat with the poor man before he literally starts following you around like a puppy. That's gotten really old, and it's really obvious to everyone else that you to are having trouble in the bedroom again."
Raven glared. "Says the girl who comes to meditate every morning reeking of sex."
Lian shrugged cockily, "What can I say, Bart and I, we get each other. That and we've got our own wing of the mansion, so that makes things nice. Only one who bothers us is Ace."
"Hn." Raven grunted, "You two are odd."
"Yes, we are." Lian agreed, standing up, "This is crash and all, but I'm gonna go see what kind of trouble my man got into last night. He was out on a mission with my father."
"Still bitter about them keeping you here?" Raven asked.
Lian sighed, stretching like a cat, "A little. That's what happens when you're related to half the League though. They all still see me as the little girl that ran around making them smile."
"Well, at least they let you on a team." Raven said, trying to be helpful. Since they were both empaths, she and Lian fed off one another constantly, and the last thing the Tower needed was to have them both be depressed.
It had happened before, and it usually meant that the other Titans were in deep shit. Raven had been with the Titans for six years before Lian and Bart had moved in. Nothing had been the same since. Lian and Bart really were a breath of fresh air. Sexually charged fresh air. They were young to be married, but Raven and Garfield had been dating for years, and she couldn't get over her issues. Part of her wondered just how long Garfield would wait on her.
"True." Lian said, cracking her neck, sensing Raven's quickly souring mood. She changed the subject quickly, "Things have been so slow these last few weeks."
Raven almost smiled. Only Lian would itch for life or death situations, "Well, most of the H.I.V.E. are locked up at the moment, and Slade's gone under the radar. Think of it as a vacation."
"GREETINGS FRIENDS!" Starfire yelled as she entered the tower, making both empaths flinch.
"There went our quite morning." Raven grumbled.
Lian shook her head, a smile on her face, "Let's just hope she didn't bring home any new pets."
The Devil flashed across Raven's face, "I'll kill her."
"Aww, don't do that, then we couldn't have the satisfaction of watching my Uncle Dick freak out about his attraction to the incredibly immature alien who's actually older than ninety-eight percent of the League." Lian said gleefully.
Raven shrugged, "True. That's always amusing."
"Always." Lian confirmed, tossing a t-shirt on over the tank top she'd been meditating in. "Don't leave Garfield waiting for too long, please!" She called as she left the room.
Raven slammed the door shut behind her, dislodging a tiny green bat from above the door.
Lian scooped the creature up gently, "Come on, Gar, she'll come around, I'm sure."
He turned into a puppy and licked her face.
"Should I be jealous?" Bart asked, suddenly standing at the end of the hall.
Lian put Garfield on the ground, telling him to go down to the kitchen and to leave Raven alone for a bit. "Not in the least, babe." Lian told Bart as he grabbed her up in a fierce kiss.
"I missed you." He said, nuzzling her cheek.
Lian smiled, "I'm glad, because I missed you too." Bart pushed her up against the wall, forcing her legs around his waist as he kissed a trail down her neck, "Man, you really did miss me."
Bart laughed against her skin, "Yeah, and let me tell you, it's really awkward when you keep getting hard-ons thinking about your wife while you're out with her father trying to catch bad guys."
Lian gave him an overly sympathetic look, "Poor baby. We'll just have to make that all better now, won't we?"
Raven floated by just in time for the door to their bedroom to slam shut, "Eww."
"You ready for some of B-Boy's tofu eggs?" Cyborg asked loudly from right behind her.
Raven shivered through her rapid increase in heart rate from fear, "I don't eat fake meat."
Cyborg made a face, "Awe, Rae, it's not that bad! And if you wash 'em down with waffles, they're great!"
"And now you're quoting a cereal box." Raven said dryly, "Maybe I should just go back to bed."
He blew a raspberry at her in response. Very mature.
She was still pushing the tofu eggs around on her plate when Bart and Lian made their way to the kitchen an hour later, "What's up, mis amigos!" Bart yelled.
Starfire lit up, "Hello my red-headed Glorfbags!"
Raven resisted the urge to stab her knife through her eye.
"Hey, Star! What's for breakfast?" Bart asked, sliding onto one of the barstools.
Lian leaned over the back of the sofa, stomach in the air, looking up at Terry, who was deeply invested in the video game he and Cyborg were playing. "Any missions?"
The current Robin shook his head, tapping a fist on her forehead fondly, "Nothing so far."
Lian wrinkled her nose, "I'm bored, and if Bart and I stay in our room anymore we're going to kill each other."
"Hey, that's insulting." Bart yelled from his spot at the bar.
Lian laughed, "I love you, but seriously, not all of us have super speed. I'm only human after all."
He laughed flirtatiously, "That's not what you said last week."
"Okay, Bart, let me find a mission to stick you two on before you both make me hurl." Terry growled, handing his game controller to Beast Boy.
Lian pulled herself back into a standing position, an effortless display of her core strength, "Thank God!"
"Don't you usually go bother other people when you're not needed here?" Terry asked his older niece.
"Yeah, but after my last stunt in the Batcave Gramps banned me unless there's someone else there. Bummer." Lian said, leaning over his shoulder as he checked the computer.
"What did you do anyway?" Terry asked.
"I may have rerouted some airplanes...on accident of course. Not what I was intending to do, but Gramps didn't care about that." She told him.
"That's my baby." Bart yelled from the other side of the room.
Lian scoffed, "It was your idea, Gearhead."
"Hey, like you said, I'm the speedy Gearhead, you're the programmer genius." Bart said, shoveling some of the reheated tofu eggs into his mouth. "Nice, BBoy, these are great!"
"Yeah!" Garfield yelled, glad at least one of his young friends liked his tofu. Even Starfire was starting to eat the rest of the fridge and leave the tofu.
Lian, Terry, and Raven wouldn't touch the stuff if the fridge was empty.
It hurt him, it really did, but at least the speedster had his back.
"What's that?" Lian asked, pointing at the screen.
"I don't know." Terry muttered, zooming in on the camera, "You've got yourself a robbery. Police haven't been notified. Looks like the thief is taking his time."
"Goody!" Lian squealed, causing her uncle to flinch.
"Please don't be so happy." Terry asked.
Lian kissed his cheek, trying to cheer him up, "You woke up on the wrong side of the bed, grumpy."
"Yeah, well, Dana cancelled date night again, so I'm either about to get dumped, or she's just really busy." He grumbled.
Lian kissed him again, "Well, maybe Niece Lian needs to have some girl chat with her, because you are way too cute to dump, trust me."
He looked at her doubtfully, "If you say so."
"I say so, and if it gets down to it, I'll totally kick her ass." Lian told him, patting his shoulder as she walked towards the room she and Bart used when they were in the Tower.
"OOH! May I participate in the kicking of the ass?" Starfire yelled.
As the doors whistled shut behind her, Lian heard Raven explaining to Starfire that it was a joke.
Lian wasn't feeling the joke, not really.
She touched the frame of the photo she took with her between the Tower, the Mansion, and the Watchtower. "Happy Birthday, Mom."
That was the real reason she was in the Tower. She couldn't stand to face her family. Bart knew it, and so did Raven and Terry, but they knew better than to say anything. It was easier for her to pretend to be happy when they pretended she was happy. And she was, happy most days, but some days she couldn't keep the ache at bay. Christmas, her birthday, Mother's day, and, always, her mother's birthday.
She and Bart hadn't even had sex, he'd held her while she'd cried hysterically in their room. But they kept up the act. It was easier. She could only cry for so long though, and had pulled Bart from their room so she could find something to beat up on. She was just a little like her grandfather.
"Shit, I'm impersonating Raven." Lian said to herself as she sulked to the weapons room, her suit tight against her skin.
"That's not a bad thing." Raven said, drifting from the shadows behind her.
Lian forced a little laugh, "No offense."
"None taken. You want to talk about it?" Raven asked.
Lian smiled, "Not really. You know me, Raven on the inside, Starfire on the outside. My special kind of screwed up."
Raven snorted, a tiny smile passing quickly over her face, "You don't have near the range to cover me and Star. Anyway, Bart wanted to let you know that you're dad might appreciate a call today."
"Bart would send you." Lian said, pulling her weapons on. "I'll call him tonight."
Raven nodded, "I'm talking to someone, by the way...about...you know."
Lian smiled, "Good, you deserve a chance at being happy."
"Happy." Raven said with a scoff, "You should go if you don't want the party to be over before you get there."
"Yeah, that would suck." Lian said under her breath, sliding her mask on.
"Want me to come?" Raven offered.
Lian shook her had, "Nah, this is my party. Besides, I hardly ever get to do any heavy lifting here with all of you guys. See ya!" She yelled to them all, leaving quickly.
"Really, what idiot breaks into STAR labs?" Lian said to herself, entering the building, checking the downed security guards as she went. All dead. She tapped her comm, activating it, "Hey, guys, this isn't just a smash and grab. I need back up. Standby."
She tapped the comm off, not wanting it to alert anyone to her presence.
The thief was a woman.
"Don't move." She said, pointing an arrow at the woman.
The woman straightened from the drawer she was rifling through. "Let me go, and we won't have to fight." The woman said silkily.
"I can't do that, you're stealing." Lian said, her head aching from the oddness she was sensing from the woman.
"You must have skills to be involved with the Justice League." The woman said, "If you wanted, you could steal too. I almost didn't know you were coming up on me. You breath too loudly though. You're anxious, not collected."
"I don't need someone like you telling me what I am." Lian hissed, squinting her eyes against the pain.
"So you're not going to let me just leave with what I want?"
"No." Lian said honestly, raising the arrow again.
"You're young, so I'm gonna try not to kill you." The woman said.
Lian scoffed, "Who are you?"
There was a split second of stillness, and then the woman was behind her. Lian's head was splitting now that she was closer. Not normal. Not right. Her vision swam, and the woman wrapped her arms around her, "Sorry, little girl. It's just not your day. I like your spunk though, hopefully you live. I'd like to see you all grown up and worth my time."
Lian felt a sharp prick in her ribs and with her next breath, her mouth was filled with foamy blood.
The woman laid her down, almost gently, "I'm going to get what I came for."
Lian watched her rifle through the box again, each breath getting harder and harder to take, the foamy blood trailing out of her mouth and onto the ground.
The woman left, her eyes drifted closed, and then Lian felt hands on her. She knew it was Bart, without even opening her eyes. "Hang in there, Li. I can't lose you, not again. I can't survive this world without you." Lian forced her eyes open, and tried to tell him that she wasn't going to be so easy to get rid of. She couldn't speak though, not with the blood from her punctured lung trying to come back up her throat.
"What would I do without your smart mouth?
Drawing me in, and you kicking me out
You've got my head spinning, no kidding, I can't pin you down
What's going on in that beautiful mind
I'm on your magical mystery ride
And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me, but I'll be alright
My head's under water,
But I'm breathing fine.
You're crazy and I'm out of my mind.
'Cause all of me
Loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections
Give your all to me
I'll give my all to you
You're my end and my beginning
Even when I lose I'm winning
'Cause I give you all of me
And you give me all of you"
All Of Me
By: John Legend
Did you think I was going to start off so fluffy? ;)
Let the theories come on in!
Reviews are welcome, especially so I can tell how many of you guys followed me over!
-Jenn
