"There's no rodeo here." - Raven
CHAPTER ONE
COUNTRIFIED RELATIONS
It was a fairly normal morning in Titans Tower. Beast Boy and Cyborg, while definitely not the first two members of the Teen Titans to wake up, were, in fact, the first two to reach the huge common room where the team usually hung out.
Cyborg immediately hooked up the Playcube-X2 video game console to the wide-screen television that was almost as big as a movie theater screen and began playing the newest installment of the racing game Midnight Club Racing. Beast Boy, instead of joining him as usual, stepped into the kitchen and began rummaging through their refrigerator, since it was his turn to cook breakfast. For once, the tower was stocked with fresh food and the little green changeling deposited the pans, bread, tofu and other assorted items he would need on the counter. Then, in an almost business-like fashion, he placed a white chef's hat on his head and then wrapped an apron of the same color around his waist. It would have been a comical sight for a stranger, but it didn't really matter too much in the tower, since Beast Boy always looked comical, anyway.
The most mysterious member of the group, Raven, entered the room a few minutes later. The hood of her dark blue cloak was down between her shoulder blades and she carried a thick, ancient book in one hand. She quietly sat on the futon couch on one side of the room, not even affording Cyborg or Beast Boy a single glance. Once seated, she daintily crossed her legs, placed her book on her lap and buried her face into it.
Meanwhile, Cyborg was inching his way closer and closer to the edge of the main couch he was sitting on in the center of the room. His red Ferrari continued to pass other sports cars as it sped at insane speeds down the virtual streets of Gotham City.
"Come on, come on, come on," He chanted to himself with increasing fervor as the race drew inexorably to a close. "Just a little bit more...Yes! Ha! Oh, yeah!"
"From the sound of it, Cy, you're either about to beat my best time or you're doing something indecent with an invisible girlfriend no one knows about." Beast Boy grinned at his friend from the kitchen.
"Shut up, BB!" Cyborg yelled back at him irritably. "You're gonna make me mess--Ah!"
At that exact moment an opposing car rammed into Cyborg's Ferrari's side, sending the red roadster careening out of control into a nearby skyscraper, where it burst into flames and exploded. Cyborg immediately threw down his controller and turned angrily towards the kitchen.
"Beast Boy!" He thundered at the top of his lungs. "You just made me crash!"
"I know!" Beast Boy replied gleefully from his place on the floor where he was clutching his sides in high-pitched laugher. "I am so good!"
Cyborg growled in frustration and pointed an accusing finger at his pointy-eared friend.
"I'm gonna stick my foot so far up your-"
DING! DONG!
Suddenly, both Cyborg and Beast Boy stopped their argument at the alien noise.
"Uh, what was that?" Cyborg asked.
"Maybe it's a Hostess snack out for revenge?" Beast Boy joked weakly.
Raven sighed irritable at the two adolescent boys.
"It's the doorbell." She told them dryly.
"Oh,"
"Right."
Both of them retreated. Beast Boy padded back to the kitchen and Cyborg sat back down on the couch.
DING! DONG!
"Someone really ought to answer that." Beast Boy commented nonchalantly, making a great showing of stirring something in a plastic bowl.
"Yep." Cyborg answered as calmly as if he were talking about the weather, his fingers dancing over the buttons of the controller he had picked up off the floor.
DING! DONG!
"We shouldn't let whoever that is stand out there that long."
"Yep."
DING! DONG!
"I hope that's not someone important, like the mayor or a supermodel or something."
"Yep."
All through out this exchange, a small vein of frustration was slowly growing on Raven's forehead.
"If it bothers you so much, why don't you go answer it?" She asked Beast Boy pointedly.
"I can't." He replied innocently. "I'm right in the middle of making breakfast."
Raven turned her head towards Cyborg, who caught her gaze out of the corner of his eye as he continued to furiously mash the controller's buttons.
"Sorry, Raye." He said, though he didn't sound sorry in the slightest. "I'm right in the middle of a race."
"Isn't there a 'pause' button?"
"Not on this game!" Cyborg lied glibly.
Raven sighed in defeat.
"Fine," she clipped, slamming her book shut and standing up. "I'll go answer it. At the very least, it will give me an excuse to get away from the two of you."
"That cut deep, Raven." Beast Boy said, feigning a hurt expression just before Raven entered the elevator that would take her to the bottom floor. To top it off, he held his hand theatrically to his chest.
"I wish it did." The half-demon girl muttered just before the parallel, metal doors closed shut with a whoosh. On the way down, she pulled her hood up over her face.
Raven could see who the visitor was as soon as the elevator doors opened on the bottom floor, since the mains doors of the tower were glass. When she first laid eyes on him, she was hit with a shock that was felt almost, but not quite, like recognition.
It was a teenage boy, about six feet tall with a frame slightly larger than Robin's. He had long, dark brown hair that fell out from under his black cowboy hat and he had a tanned face. A pair of small, silver eyeglasses rested lightly upon his nose. He wore tight blue jeans, a black, sleeveless shirt and a pair of black cowboy boots. In his left hand he carried a large black sack filled to capacity. And Raven thought she liked the color black... Strapped diagonally across the young man's back was a wooden, acoustic guitar. Raven opened the door a crack and peered up at the stranger.
"There's no rodeo here." She deadpanned.
The teen blinked at that, obviously not sure if the girl had been joking or not.
"I'm aware of that, miss." He said after a moment. "I just want to talk to Robin."
"Yes, and so do half of the teenage girls in the city."
The stranger coughed uncomfortably.
"For different reasons, I'm sure." He assured Raven quickly, his voice tinged slightly with a southern accent.
Raven's unblinking gaze didn't falter, and the boy began to grow uncomfortable. Under any other circumstance, Raven would have turned him away, but she felt something in him. Something familiar...a magic of some kind. Wordlessly, she opened the door a bit more and began to walk back to the elevator. The boy, taking this as a silent invitation, quickly scurried into the tower and fell in behind her. The teen seemed a bit confused as they entered the elevator.
"Aren't you going to ask me why I want to talk with Robin?" He asked.
"Nope." Raven said flatly.
His expression grew even more puzzled.
"Aren't you even going to ask me my name?" He pressed. "You know, I could be some diabolical spy or somethin'."
If Raven did not have to keep her emotions strictly under control, she might have laughed at that.
"You don't look very 'diabolical'."
The teen nodded thoughtfully.
"Maybe I should grow a long, black mustache." He mused. "That might help."
Raven knew he was joking, but his voice was gravely serious. She perceived immediately that this young man had a very dry sense of humor, just like someone else she knew...
Beast Boy was the first to see them when they stepped out through the double doors as the elevator arrived back in the living room.
"Uh, Raven?" He asked. "Why is John Wayne standing behind you?"
"You know that ain't John Wayne." Cyborg admonished his friend mockingly. "It must be Raven's new boyfriend."
The teen blushed at that, but Raven seemed unperturbed.
"He needs to speak with Robin." She explained coldly, before opening up her communicator. Robin's face seemed strangely pained when it appeared on the tiny screen.
"Please tell me there's an emergency." He pleaded desperately.
Raven blinked.
"Why?"
"I cut my hand fine tuning one of my birdarangs and Star persists on reciting the Tamarran song of condolence to me. All sixteen hundred and thirty two lines of it!"
"There's a man here to see you. That should give you an excuse. I think he wants to be a Titan."
"How did you-" The long-haired teen began, but Robin was already talking.
"Good, I'll be right there." With that, the image on the communicator faded to black.
Robin arrived a few minutes later, with Starfire following close behind. There was a small white bandage on his left palm and the stranger immediately shook his good hand.
"Howdy. Nice to meet ya, Robin." The boy told him politely. "My name's-"
"Wait a minute," Robin stopped him quickly, even as Beast Boy looked up at Cyborg and mouthed the word 'howdy' to him with an unbelievable expression on his face. "If you ARE going to be a part of the Teen Titans, you shouldn't tell us your real name."
One of the teen's eyebrows raised slightly in puzzlement.
"Why not?"
Cyborg grinned
"'Cause Robin's a suspicious, ultra-paranoid compulsive-"
"We can't reveal what we don't know." Robin told the teen, shooting a venomous glare at Cyborg. He turned back to the newcomer. "Now, what makes you think you have what it takes to be a Titan?"
The boy adjusted the cowboy hat on his head nervously.
"Well," he said. "I know a little bit of magic."
"Magic?"
The teen nodded and pointed over his shoulder at his guitar.
"This instrument is magical." He explained, pivoting the guitar to his front to show them. "Whenever I play certain notes and chords together, I get a magical effect."
"Where did it come from?"
"It was my grandfather's, he played in a local band." The teen said. "I don't know where it came from before that, but I do know there's not another like it."
"Magic?" Starfire asked, a bit puzzled. "You do not mean that you can pull rabbits out of this...contraption of yours, do you not?"
The boy laughed good-naturedly.
"Not exactly, ma'am." He told her. "It's more like...Well, let me show you."
He took a step back from them and began to sing softly as he plucked the strings of his guitar.
Like a feather flying high up in the sky on a windy day, I get carried away...
Just as the melody ended, a strong wind whipped up underneath the boy. He quickly positioned his guitar back behind him again and put one hand on his cowboy hat to keep it in place. Then, slowly, the wind began to lift him until he was hovering perhaps five feet off the ground.
"Neat trick," Robin whistled.
The other Titans also seemed suitably impressed, except for Raven, of course, who simply stared at the feat dispassionately. Again she felt that strange, passing feeling of familiarity.
The guitar playing cowboy, seeing that they had all witnessed the display, muttered a word under his breath and resettled back to the floor.
"That explains how he got here." Raven stated calmly.
The cowboy nodded. "I brought along my steel horse, too. I hope that's all right."
The Titans blinked in confusion at him together.
"My motorcycle," he explained.
"Well," Robin said to him. "You have talent, if nothing else. How would you like to be a Titan Apprentice?"
Robin chuckled politely when he saw the young cowboy frown.
"You didn't think you could just waltz in here and become a Titan just like that, did you?"
The boy took off his hat and scratched the back of his head.
"Well," he admitted. "I didn't really think that far ahead..."
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
"Trouble!" Robin announced, quickly moving over to the computer that was grafted into one of the walls. "Looks like Cinderblock is trying to...uh, to break into jail?"
"Er, I thought the point was to break out of jail." Beast Boy said, his voice slightly perplexed.
"At least he's being original." Raven said dryly.
"He was probably hired to break someone out." Robin guessed. "Titans, go!"
They were almost to the door when Robin dug in his heels abruptly and skidded to halt, causing Cyborg to nearly run into his back.
"What gives, man?" The half-robot asked.
"Someone needs to stay here with, um, Cowboy." Robin told them.
"I'll stay." Raven volunteered quietly.
"Thanks, Raven." Robin said. "By the way, go ahead and give him the Initiation Contract while we're gone."
With that, he and the other Titans left hurriedly and room quickly became noticeably quiet. Strangely, the silence was not uncomfortable between the two teens.
"Uh, what's the Initiation Contract?" The teen Robin had referred to as 'Cowboy' asked curiously eventually.
"Robin believes it's customary to bore Titan prospects into insensibility, for some reason." She said dryly as she walked over to the computer and printed out several documents. She gathered up the papers and turned to sit at the kitchen table, only to stop dead in her tracks when she found that Cowboy was holding out a chair for her to sit in.
"What are you doing?" She demanded.
"Um, I'm holding out the chair out for you..."
"Why?"
"Because it's the polite thing to do?" He said weakly under her scrutiny.
"Thank you," she finally forced out through her teeth, the words seeming alien upon her lips.
Slowly, very slowly, she sat down in the chair. Had it been anyone else, she would have told them she was quite capable of sitting down without any assistance. But it felt as if she knew this man; it felt as if she had known him all his life. Clearing those thoughts from his mind, she waited until Cowboy had sat himself down opposite of her and got down to business.
"What's your name?" She asked, picking up a pen from the center of the table.
Cowboy blinked.
"I thought Robin said I wasn't supposed to tell anyone my name."
"I meant your superhero name." Raven explained.
"Oh, I haven't really thought about it." Cowboy said, then leaned back in his chair, thinking. "How 'bout, um, 'Melody'?"
Raven raised an eyebrow, noticing just as she did it that Cowboy had made the exact same facial expression several times since coming into the tower. She quickly shrugged it off to coincidence.
"Doesn't that name sound a bit...feminine?" She asked.
Cowboy scratched the back of his neck ruefully.
"It does, doesn't it?" He thought for a moment more. "How about 'Gunslinger'?"
Raven stared at him blankly.
"You don't have any guns." She told him bluntly.
"Oh, right."
This time Cowboy closed his eyes as he thought.
"All right," he said at last. "I have it! I'll be the Bard!"
Raven lowered her hood to look thoughtfully at him.
"Why did you pick that name?" Her voice, for once, was not completely indifferent. Cowboy received the notion that she was genuinely curious.
"In the older days, normal people called storytellers bards." He explained. "Most bards simply told stories on the street for charity, but some of them used to have an instrument to play while they told their stories."
"So you see yourself as a storyteller?" Raven pressed, her sudden curiosity surprising her.
"Well, not exactly." Bard said. "I sing songs on the guitar, though, and I write stories in my spare time. That's close enough, don't you think?"
"I suppose so." Raven answered, forcing the indifference into her voice again as she gracefully filled the information in on the document. For some reason, Bard seemed extremely familiar to her, as well as intriguing.
"Age?" She asked, reading off the inquires on the sheet before her.
"Eighteen,"
"Sex?"
When she didn't get an answer, Raven looked up to find that Bard was simply staring at her with amusement in his dark, blue eyes. Strangely, Raven didn't fell the slightest bit embarrassed under his obvious gaze. Again, that familiarity was kicking in.
"Oh, right." She said calmly, marking it off on the document.
"Superpowers?"
"Uh, magic?" He said, not sure if that was the word he was looking for. "Well, they're kind of like yours, actually."
"How so?" Raven sighed inwardly as soon as the question sprang from her lips. Good thing she wasn't a cat...
"I've studied the few tapes the local news channels have gotten of you and the rest of the Titans fighting." Bard told her. "I know that you usually use those magic words, um, 'Azreth Metron Zinthos'?"
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos," Raven corrected him.
"Right," Bard acknowledged her. "Anyway, you usually say those words when you use your powers, the same way I sing when I use mine. But I don't necessarily have to sing when I use them and you don't necessarily have to chant those words when you use yours, right?"
Raven nodded as she let that sink in. Another coincidence.
"Hobbies?"
Bard chuckled slightly.
"Are we filling out an initiation form for the Teen Titans or a dating service?"
"Just answer the question."
"All right, all right." Bard said, holding his hands up slightly in surrender. "Let's see, playing guitar, of course, basketball, writing stories, reading...I guess that's about it."
"Reading?" Raven asked him, her eyes slightly unbelieving. "You don't strike me as the reading type."
"You don't strike me as the curious type, either." Bard shot back good-naturedly.
"Touché," Raven muttered as she filled out the information.
"Family?" Raven asked then, though she felt slightly strange asking that particular question to Bard.
"I never knew my father." Bard told her as casually as he could, thought Raven could still hear the underlying hurt in his voice. "My mother died a few years after I was born."
Another coincidence. They were starting to get a bit annoying. Just then, a sudden thought hit her; a very surprising thought.
"Um, Bard?" She asked hesitantly.
"Yes?"
"Do you...ever have nightmares?"
"Of course," he shrugged. "Everyone has nightmares." He paused for a moment. "Is this part of the Initiation thing?"
"No, this is coming from me." Raven told him. "What I meant was, do you have any recurring nightmares?"
Bard looked a bit suspicious.
"As a matter of fact I do, but-"
"Describe them to me."
It seemed to Raven that Bard might protest to that, but then he sighed.
"I'm in a strange place." He said finally. "It's dark and rocky and it just seems to go on forever. There are these weird, evil-looking creatures everywhere. Then, this giant, blood red...demon starts walking towards me. He's got four, glowing slanting eyes, one pair on top of the other, and he looks at me. He looks at me with disappointment, as if I'm some kind of...mistake, or something. Then he just disappears or simply lumbers off."
Raven looked up at the ceiling after he was finished, her eyes far away.
"I know who your father is," she said calmly.
Bard's eyes widened.
"You do?!"
"Do you have a religion, Bard?"
"Yeah," Bard nodded though his confusion. "I'm a Christian, why?"
"You would know your father as 'Satan', then."
Bard's eyes almost bulged out of his head.
"Are you trying to tell me I'm the Antichrist?" He asked her incredulously.
"Not exactly," she told him blandly. Almost as an afterthought, she added: "I guess we'll have to change the family part of your Initiation Contract."
"I don't think I want the Titans to know that my dad happens to be Lucifer."
"I'm not adding you father to the list, Bard." She told him as she began to write. "I'm adding your sister."
Bard blinked, several times. He was really confused now.
"I have a sister?" He asked.
Raven looked up to lock eyes with him.
"I'm your sister, Bard."
Bard took the information in calmly enough, though his eyes suddenly seemed to be a bit wild. It was obvious that he had a shocking news overload. He slowly rose to his feet, walked over to the couch, unstrapped his guitar from his back and safely leaned it against the armrest of the piece of furniture.
Then, he looked at Raven one last time before he promptly collapsed onto the floor.