Raven was pissed. She was Not amused, furiously angry, Extremely and Absolutely Not Happy. 25 years ago, anybody with a half measure of common sense would have stayed as far away as possible from an angry Raven. Not anymore, though. Her days of blowing up her own birthday party out of anger were long behind her. She had control now. Hard won, bitterly fought for, but control. Mostly. When she was in moods like these however, she still wished she had out-of-control powers, so she would have a legitimate excuse to make irritating people go away. Being a mature half-demon was sorely overrated. Not that she looked her human age. She had quickly found that once she reached the age of 18 or so, her development slowed considerably, and she had barely aged physically in 20 years. Demon years were longer than human years, it seemed. Psychologically, it was a bit more complicated. She had all the human experience of her 38 years, but Raven was not human. Her half-demon side was still on the level of a young adult, and the dichotomy could get confusing. Sometimes she felt 40, sometimes 19. She looked 18, and that was how the world treated her, by her physical appearance. Hence the source of her Supreme Irritation. She was being hit on by a teenage boy. Again. Was she not allowed to take a quiet afternoon in an obscure corner of a library without being bothered? She needed these Sunday afternoons, or her stressful life would drown her. She would have to deal with the pest before her irritation got the best of her. Talking was required. Just because Raven had control over her powers didn't mean that she wasn't still a terrifying bitch when she wanted to be. She raised her eyes from her book to examine her would-be flirtation. He wasn't unattractive, as humans went. Blue eyes, strong chin and wavy blond hair. Cocky smile, confident eyes. He seemed the type who would never even be able to imagine a rejection from any girl. He'd probably never received one, Raven thought with an unamused mental snort. How best to deal with him? He was too confident to simply back down from coldness and sneering, and sharp sarcasm would probably not dissuade him either. She bit back a sigh. This would take longer than she wanted. The boy's smile had turned blinding and bordered on a smirk when he saw that she had looked up. His emotions screamed premature triumph mixed with sick, slimy lust.
"Hey, I'm Chad. What's your name, gorgeous? I'm digging the dye job, by the way. Purple hair isn't really my thing, but I'll make an exception for you. You're hot enough to pull it off, and you'd look even hotter on my arm. Wanna hang with me?"
Raven's eyebrow shot up. So, beyond cocky. Arrogant, misogynistic and rude. Her least favorite type, and the hardest to shake. This was going to be a pain in the ass. "No thank you. I make it a point not to hang out with rude little boys." Damage to his pride might be the route to getting rid of him. Poking holes in overblown egos was her specialty, after all. "I don't have the time or patience for this. Why don't you save us both the headache and leave me alone? "
His smile turned ugly. "What do you mean, Gorgeous? You don't need to worry, I'm not out of your league. Don't deny it, I know you want me." She heard the unspoken 'Every girl does.'
" Let's examine the falsity of all of your statements. First of all, the purple hair has nothing to do with you or your preferences. I have no need to have my confidence in my looks boosted with your leering, and have places infinitely more important to be than on your arm like a fucking ornament. I do not want you. You are a stupid, arrogant and disgusting little boy. If anything, I am out of YOUR league."
The boy was slack jawed during the speech, but Raven saw the snarl overtake his face as realization dawned. She opened her Empathy just enough to read his emotions, and got a front row seat to the progression of disbelief - HE was being rejected! To offense, to blinding fury - the bitch will pay. They filled Raven with satisfaction.
"Listen here, you ugly bitch. I was doing you a favor. NOBODY talks to me like that, nobody, do you hear me? You are going to apologize to me, then come with me. I don't want to hear another word from you, bitch. You will speak when spoken to! And he grabbed Raven's arm. A rapist in the making. Snap. There wen't the handle on her anger. So much for control. Her hand came up and latched onto his wrist. He smirked, thinking she was scared and trying to throw him off. He couldn't have been more wrong. She was holding him in place so she could throw him through a wall. Her other hand started glowing with her dark energy, and her fist clenched...
A hand descended on the soon-to-be-dead boy's shoulder. An extremely large coffee colored hand. The hand was accompanied by an equally large and coffee-colored teenage boy, who was scowling menacingly.
"Did she mention that she was taken?" His voice was low and rumbly. Raven couldn't tell if he was doing it for the blond sicko's benefit, or if he was truly angry. If the blond hadn't gotten the message of unspoken menace from the black boy's facial expression, he sure got it from his furious voice. She read the blond's emotions shift from annoyance at the interruption, to fear when he got a look at the other boy's admittedly huge muscles, to pain when the hand on his shoulder tightened like a vice.
" Like I said, she's taken, dude. Why don't you get the hell out of here?" All said in a faux-polite tone, with the menace not so subtly underneath. Chad didn't stand a chance.
"Whatever, man. I didn't know that she was your girl." With one more venomous glare at Raven, he let go of her shoulder and slunk off. Her fist of dark energy loosened, and the other boy relaxed infinitesimally.
"Damn, Rae. What the hell did you get yourself into?" I leave for five minutes, and you have strange sickos hitting on you?"
Raven breathed a small laugh, relieved, though the feeling was quickly replaced by annoyance. "Seriously, Stone? She's taken? That was the best you could come up with? And I could have taken care of the situation myself, you of all people should know that."
Stone rubbed his head, a sheepish grin on his face. " I wasn't worried about you, Rae. I was worried about him. I know that look on your face when he grabbed your arm. You were about to either toss him through a wall or he was going to find himself in a different dimension. I'm sort of leaning toward the wall option. More pain. And -" He held up a hand to stop her when her mouth opened for the required denials - " I didn't step in until he grabbed your arm. He needs to learn to keep his hands off of women before he turns into either a rapist or an abuser." His voice was unusually sober.
Raven chose to ignore Stone's uncanny voicing of her own thoughts, it wasn't a rare occurrence. "You didn't answer the first part of my question. She's taken? Really?"
Eli Stone's grin turned shit-eating. "What was I supposed to say, Rae? Get your hands off of my favorite Aunt? Yeah, that would have gone down well." And besides, you can't get mad at me for acting out of self-preservation. Do you know how dead I would be if I let a strange guy touch you? Mom would eviscerate me with her stingers, not to mention Dad." He shuddered. "He would take me apart for not protecting his little sister."
Raven's annoyance softened. He was right, Cyborg and Bee would be furious with him. She rolled her eyes. His insanely overprotective parents had given her nephew an almost pathological need to protect her. Unnecessary and irritating, but sweet. Protective instincts on overdrive weren't the only things he had inherited from his parents. Eli Stone was a living Cyborg. His body looked and felt human. He had a synthesis of skin, though it was far more durable than the real thing. His muscles and bones were metallic in nature, and his eyes looked human, but worked more like Cy's mechanical eye. And his brain. It was as fast as a computer, since it essentially was one. His brain operated purely on electrical power, replacing neurotransmitters with 1's and 0's. The only fully biological part of him was his heart, which was made of human tissue. At first, Cy and Bee had been terrified. What was their son? Was he human at all? Could he feel? Empathize? Raven still remembered those dark months, Bee lashing out at anything in her way, Cy torturing himself with guilt. They had a hard time being with their son. Raven had taken care of him then, and grown rather attached. It wasn't till Eli was a year old that they realized that he was ok. He grew like a human, experienced emotions like a human, though he was far more quick and intelligent. Maybe that was why they named her godmother, and Cy never felt like her was out of her debt. Eli, under her tuteledge, had quickly seen the benefits of his mechanical form. He could morph his hands into an approximation of his father's Sonic cannons, though he shot the same energy his mother used. He could manage his pain, to the point it was possible for him to re-grow his limbs. He had all the sensors his father had, though he didn't have to look at his arm to see them. He just had to go to the computer part of his brain to access the information he wanted. He had a photographic memory and the ability to alter his voice any way he liked. His favorite part was the flying. He still referred to the propulsion systems in his feet as 'Rocket Boots.' Raven's favorite part was the armor he could extend to cover the entirety of his body. He had developed it so that it looked like his father's mechanical body, and she was thankful of it for its protection of him. Some of the things he got into as a child... It almost gave her gray hair. She hadn't heard of another toddler who enjoyed taking joy rides in a jet. She had an undeniable soft spot for her godson. She had fallen in love with his grey eyes the moment she first held him, 17 years ago on the day he was born. He had grown so much since then, and she still missed the small child that used to curl up in her lap and fall asleep. That would never happen again. He towered over her 5 ft 2 inch height by a foot and a half. He had grown from the innocent little boy with the secret smile into a 6'8" mass of muscle, though the smile didn't change. He had only just passed his awkward phase, and Raven was seeing glimpses of the man he could one day become. She was inordinately proud of her godson, and was thankful to have watched him grow up.
"Yeah, I know. Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it, though." She snapped.
Eli, though he preferred to go by his last name, threw back his head and laughed at her peevish tone. "Come on, Rae. Lets get back to the Tower. You've had your afternoon in the library, and who knows what the rest of the Titans have destroyed without your grumpy leadership. Raven sighed again. Back to the stress of being the leader of the Titans.