"Do Not Sit Upon the Baby"
Main Characters: Raven and Starfire
Genre: Humor
Notes: Not Slash
Style: Chapters
Start Date: April 24, 2010
Raven
It was supposed to be a rainy day like any other. Crime was slow, Beast Boy and Cyborg were about to tear each other apart, and I was, for once, relaxing. Robin, of course, was working obsessively on his maps with Starfire by his side and his arm around her. He was the only one of us that did not feel the air of peace that had settled over the city.
I was grateful for his presence, because he would keep Starfire at bay. It's not that Starfire and I don't get along, because we do. It's just that every time she's bored and no one wants to talk to her or Robin is gone, she suggests girl time. The 'mall of shopping' and the 'painting of the nails' are her personal favorite suggestions.
In my mind, it's a bunch of bull crap. Needless to say, it always leads to a disaster or four, or a fight that gets Robin breathing down my neck. Not fun.
Since he was present, though, I was able to sit with my heavy book open in my lap and just enjoy myself. I was laying on my back relaxing when suddenly I saw something coming at me; directly for my face.
My hand shot up and I 'caught' the controller to one of their stupid video games with my mind, only to snap out of the trance my story had put me in and listen to the eternal bickering
"Dude, you killed me again!" Beast Boy was whining. "That is so unfair!"
"Not my fault I'm better than you," Cyborg replied smugly, the controller in his hands raised above him in a type of victory pose.
"You threw my controller across the room and you call that being better?" Beast Boy replied, raising his hand and smacking the tin man on the chest. "Ouch!" He cried as the metal sound echoed across the room.
To add insult to injury, I naturally threw my controller back at him. "Leave me out of your stupid argument," I snarled, not wanting to do anything but read my book.
"Why don't you play, Raven?" Beast Boy suggested, still rubbing his head where I'd smacked him with the controller. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt, mixed with a moment of fear that I'd actually managed to hurt him.
"I'd rather die," I told him seriously.
"You're no fun!" He whined, and finally all of the noise drew Robin's attention. He and Starfire stood up, practically as one unit, and came over to us. Starfire freed herself from his arm and came over to sit down next to me, and I sensed disaster coming.
"Raven," Robin said, with that leader-in-your-face style that I always hated because it never meant anything good for me, "I am going to take these two out for the day so we can all have our space. Why don't you and Starfire do something together?"
"Friend Raven, we shall have tremendous fun!" Said Starfire, all of her usual bubbling already starting to annoy me. "We shall…" I stopped listening. I knew the list included everything from changing my hair to going shopping to finding some strange alien-sounding food and eating it. Who knew? Maybe she'd added flying to the moon in there since the last time I'd listened to her.
"Have fun, girls," said Robin, leaning down to kiss the still-babbling Starfire on the cheek before he, Beast Boy, and Cyborg exited the room with little to no ceremony and much laughter. I knew they were in for a much better day than I could ever be.
I suddenly realized that Starfire's babbling had abated. Her eyes were huge and expectant, like a child at Christmas, and I knew if I did not find a way to make her happy I would never hear the end of it from Robin.
I also knew that if I did not find a way to avoid spending the entire day with her I was likely to snap and go on a killing spree to rival Jack the Ripper's. She was the water and I was the rock; she wore at me until I started to disappear.
"What do you really want to do?" I asked her finally, in a defeated voice. Apparently my internal struggle, or obvious loathing of the idea of standing up, had escaped her, because she launched into the same list again, leaving me with time to finish and mark my page, not listening to her any more than I had the first time.
"Pick just one thing," I told her. "One thing for us to do, and then we can do something that I'd really like to do as well, okay?"
"That is wonderful!" She was alight with happiness. "I suggest a journey to the mall of shopping as my most favorite pick!"
Outside, thunder clapped, and she shuddered nervously. "But first I must find a coat of rain!" On this, I could agree with her, and so I rose to find a cloak that would be more suitable to the elements, walking up the stairs and taking my time in my closet.
"Hurry, friend Raven!" Starfire's voice floated up the stairs to me, and I sighed and picked out the heaviest of my cloaks, a black number that I only wore on especially stormy days. I had no clue how Starfire intended to travel; one time she'd tried to convince me we should ride horses the whole way into town. So I tried to mentally prepare as best as I could.
Starfire looked ridiculous and I did must best to avoid laughing at her. Her rain coat was an oversized rubber one, complete with matching boots. Both were a hideous shade of pink and covered in an assortment of the ugliest cartoon rabbits I had ever seen. They clashed with her hair and eyes, making her look for all the world like an oversized child.
"I have picked out these myself!" She said happily.
"You look… great… Star…" I told her, realizing how thickly I was laying on the cynicism.
Outside, thunder clapped again. "I am proposing that we take the bus today, friend Raven."
I breathed an internal sigh of relief. That was one thing gone right with this shopping trip. "Great idea," I told her, which caused her to beam again with happiness.
"Let us go!" Grabbing my hand with all of her usual gusto, Starfire opened the door and flung it open. That was the first time when, among the strangely strong storm, I swore I heard a noise like a cry.
I pulled back on Starfire's arm. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" She asked me in obvious confusion.
That was when it rose above the wind and we both stopped to listen. The sound was a cry, perhaps the cry of a child or a toddler. Neither of us could locate it at first, and stood looking around.
"Why is a child out in the storm?" Starfire asked me, and I shrugged, not wanting to shout above the wind as she was doing. I peered out into the rain, looking for the source of the noise. The mall had all but been pushed from our minds.
"Friend Raven…" Starfire said. She pointed off to one side of the stairs leading from the ground floor of our home. There was a basket, well-wrapped and secure, but still being soaked in the storm.
Both of us walked over to the basket together. Neither of us wanted to touch it; stranger presents from our demented adversaries had cropped up before. With the next gust of wind, however, it became apparent that the basket was crying.
"Stand back," I told Starfire, and carefully raised the basket with my hand, using my mind to pull the blanket back.
Staring back at me were two eyes. Startled, I almost dropped the basket, but then brought it to my body and hunched over it without looking at it further. Pity washed from within me; I had to get it inside.
"Starfire, there's a child in the basket," I told her, my voice coming out shaky with disbelief.
"An earth baby is in that basket? Whatever is a baby doing in a basket?" Starfire asked, the tips of her hair soaking wet, looking at me as I wrapped it in my cloak.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "Come on, let's get inside."
The door almost came off its hinges as Starfire struggled behind me to close it. I made a bee-line for the kitchen, where I pulled the basket out from under my cloak. The blanket was so tight in places that I had to reach for scissors to pry it away completely.
In the basket was the most beautiful child I'd ever seen. I am not a child person by any stretch of the imagination, but something about the curly black hair on the child caught my attention. He also had the most startling black eyes I'd ever seen. He was older than I had expected; he was more toddler than baby, and I quickly estimated him at somewhere around two years of age.
"Mama?" He asked. The child had stopped crying and was looking intently around the kitchen, sitting up before we could stop him and beginning to climb out of the basket. It appeared part of the tight binding had been to keep the child in and the rain out.
"Friend Raven, why does this child call you Mama?" Starfire asked.
"He's confused," I said, feeling around in the bottom of the basket for any kind of indication as to where he had come from. My back to him, I did not see him climbing off the counter until Starfire screamed and caught him against her.
The child laughed, unaware that it had been in any danger. At that moment, I pulled out a note. It was splotched in places, but the message was clear:
Please protect this child from harm. His name is Tyler.
"Tyler?" I asked aloud.
"Mama!" He said, reaching for me. I backed away, leaving him in Starfire's arms.
"I hate babysitting," I said loudly. "Starfire, I'm going to go ask Robin what he thinks I should do. Stay put and keep a hold on Tyler."
"Friend Raven, it would not be wise to sit upon the baby!" Starfire urged me, holding Tyler as he tried to kick away from her. Clearly he wanted down, but I wasn't going to say anything.
In my hand, the phone rang. I sighed.
"What are we going to do?" I asked Starfire.
"We are going to care for the child as if it were our own!"
Mentally I smacked myself in the face. At that exact moment, Tyler reached out and knocked a jar from the counter to the floor, shattering it.
"No, baby! Do not do that or friend Raven will sit upon you!"
I groaned as I heard this. The thunder clapped in time with my mood, and I knew we were in for a long day without the boys. I shoved the phone in my pocket and prayed that it would ring as I began to sweep up the glass pieces while Starfire continued to talk to the baby, who only laughed harder.
My peaceful day was over, but the chaos was just beginning.