Title: One Day Raven Woke Up Gay
Rating: PG-13
Summary: No, Raven didn't actually wake up a lesbian. Instead, she woke up somewhere completely Else. A place in which she receives a taste of her own medicine… from a person she'd never expect.
Notes: R.L. Stine fans may remember that choose-your-own-adventure book where you went to sleep in the guest room, and woke up in alternate universes? Well, the idea of AU-hopping sort of stuck with me.
If you were hoping for a plot like that, you're out of luck. This fic takes place in two universes, and the hopping occurs only at the beginning (and maybe, if Raven is lucky, at the end). And no. It is not choose your own adventure.
Anyway. On with the fic.
One Day Raven Woke Up Gay
Prelude
…and after the Museum of Vigilantism, which catalogues the 'super-heroes' of decades past and present, one simply must visit the Main Street Pizzeria. The name on the sign reads 'Mr. Pizza,' but to the locals, this lively little pizzeria is simply The Pizza Place. But while the Museum of Vigilantism closes at ten PM, The Pizza Place remains open almost all night long. A lucky thing, considering that you won't want to leave the Museum until closing time (even if the little ones are clamoring to go to bed).
Those aren't the only fun things around. They're just the most family-friendly ones. But if you're twenty-one or older, the city won't come alive until night. Jump City's nightlife is amazing— not quite Metropolis', but certainly much better than Gotham's. There must be a dozen nightclubs on Main Street alone…
— CLARK KENT, article for Metropolis Daily (not yet published)
"I admit, Raven," Starfire sneered. "I made a bad choice. You made a worse one, and you must pay the price of it."
"I know I made a mistake!" Raven begged. "But please don't do this!"
"Shut up, Raven." Beast Boy said. "We're tired of your excuses."
"Cyborg. Take her away."
"You don't have any right, any right at all!" The half-demon sobbed as Cyborg grasped her arms. "NO RIGHT! NO RIGHT!" The metal man began to shove.
The pink door slammed closed.
The stars looked down at the earth. They weren't actually looking— stars have lots of other things that interest them, and the comings and goings of earth-folk have little importance to them. But if the stars had cared, they would have looked at earth.
Actually, they would have looked at the strange lights in the sky over the American West Coast, in southern California. Lights that danced over an area called 'Jump City'.
The stars would have cared, if they had looked. They would have said something like, 'oh look at that, how odd.' Of course, space is a vacuum, so they couldn't have heard it, but stars don't have ears or mouths, either.
There are other means of communication.
The eldritch lights continued to twinkle.
Gratefully, Raven unfastened her cloak and shimmied out of her leotard and slipped between her black silken sheets. Her eyes seemed glued closed already and she saw no point in bothering to try to clear her mind— she'd just fall asleep trying, and that could be dangerous.
Robin hadn't let them leave the Tower except for emergencies. And there had been three break-ins (all Slade's work), a gang war (Slade set it up), and Superman had challenged them to a duel (Robin stubbornly insisted that Slade a set that up, b had something to do with that, or c would somehow find a way to profit from that).
Beneath the twinkling eldritch glow, she did the worst thing possible: she fell asleep.
1
Raven woke to the unpleasant sound of somebody banging on her bedroom door. Anger welled but she soon crushed it and rose to open the door.
Outside her door stood the strangest thing she had ever seen: Starfire in a harlequin suit. However, instead of the usual colorful costume, Starfire wore a costume that had been split completely evenly in half, one side black, one side white. Half her face had been painted black, and she wore a porcelain drama half-mask over the other half of her face.
Raven wondered for a ridiculous moment just how Starfire made the mask stick to her face, but figured that the Tamaranian girl had used the same chemical Robin did.
If Raven hadn't known better, she would have thought that Starfire looked disappointed. But the look vanished almost instantly.
"Friend Raven, I am glad to see that you are awake." Starfire said. But she sounded wrong. "We thought you would sleep all day, and we cannot have that."
Raven merely raised an eyebrow.
The redhead stared her in the eyes. "Have you forgotten your duty as Entertainer of Children?"
Entertainer of Children? Raven wondered. I don't even like kids!
"Maybe I don't want to do my duty."
"Even if you dislike your job, you chose it and so must do it. You cannot change it now." A sneer. "Nor should you. It is not our fault you made a bad choice and now pay its price."
Now I know what's wrong with her! Raven realized. She sounds like me!
"So I made a bad choice. It's not like you've ever made bad choices or anything." She grumbled.
Surprisingly, Starfire got the sarcasm. "I admit that accepting Robin's proposal of a 'date' was a poor choice. However, that is not on the same scale of the choice you now pay for and it is unusually cruel of you to rub my nose on it, as the saying goes."
Raven's brain nearly broke. Starfire didn't catch sarcasm. It was simply a rule of the universe. Beast Boy made dumb puns, Cyborg was good at racing games, and Starfire didn't understand sarcasm.
What the hell is going on here?
Starfire looked closely at her. "Why are you wearing that stone on your head?"
"It's a chakra stone. It helps me control my powers."
"As the case may be," the other girl drawled. "Please, Friend, follow me. You must shower and dress, and then put on your face."
"Put on my face?"
"Yes, of course! Put on your face. You are not wearing it. Therefore, you must put it on!"
"How do I 'put on' my face? It's a part of me."
Starfire stared, then smiled devilishly. "Do you not know?" She sounded outraged, smug, and excited.
She raised her already quirked eyebrow a little higher. "What do you think?"
The devilish grin widened. "It worked!" Something about the way she grinned made it seem as though this was her equivalent of jumping up and down and clapping her hands. "Come with me! We must go see Beast Boy and inform him that the plan has worked!"
"What? Beast Boy? Why?"
"He is our leader. Why should he not be informed?"
"But… Robin is our leader."
The grin vanished. "It really did work…" And then Starfire became businesslike. "Well. Robin may be the leader in your version of this world— he is certainly wise and gifted enough, but here, he declined the post."
"Declined the position of leader?" What? Why would he do that? Robin is a natural leader!
"In fact," Starfire continued, "he only joined because Batman demanded it of him. I think Robin cares for the Dark Knight in more ways than one." The girl winked jauntily, and Raven realized what she meant. "In any event, we really must hurry. Come along, please."
But the girl stopped short, then turned to face Raven. The stiffness of her pose and the look on her face told Raven that a cruel thought had occurred to her.
"Upon further rumination…" Her voice became brisk once more. "We shall not see Beast Boy. You have slept too long for such a visit. In order to make our usual schedule, you shall simply have to shower and put on your face."
"Right," Raven replied, wondering just what in the hell Starfire was talking about.
"Follow me!" The Tamaranian smiled and motioned for Raven to follow, walking away.
Raven found herself standing in a trailer full of sinks, showers, a large tub and far too many faucets.
"What the…"
"I was not used to it at first, either." Starfire shrugged. "But the Cray are a proud people, who do not like to be alone. Centuries of being outcasts have made them fear not only to judge, but also to be away from each other."
"Are we… are we the Teen Titans?" Raven asked. "Do we fight evil, or is there something else we do?"
Starfire looked at her, a strange melancholy now in her countenance. "Yes, we fight evil."
"But… as clowns? What do we do, make people laugh themselves to death?"
"Your humor is very biting." The younger girl inclined her head, a queenly gesture to acknowledge a worthy foe.
"Thanks." Raven didn't use her driest tone, but she did use one of her drier ones.
The redhead shrugged again. "In any case, the Cray's unwillingness to judge makes them evil."
"Oh?"
She nodded earnestly. "They are harboring an evil woman, a horrible clown— the Harlequin, also known as Harley Quinn, perhaps the most evil villain known to Geard. She plays her sidekick, the Joker, for a fool. He thinks she loves him!" A bitter laugh. "The Cray would shelter her, so we are going for damage control. Eventually, to garner Batman's attention, she will do something drastic that even the Cray cannot forgive." A truly disturbing smile lit Starfire's face. "And then we shall have her!"
"Wait, Harley Quinn loves Batman?" The half-demon's head reeled. She had been to Gotham, had gone with Robin once, on a stakeout. Robin had made it clear that Harley Quinn loved the Joker, and the Joker didn't love her back.
"Yes," her friend and not-friend affirmed. "As does Catwoman. Catwoman and Harley Quinn are vying for his attentions. The Titans have placed bets on who will get the closest to the Dark Knight's heart."
"Who did I place my bet on?" Raven asked.
"Robin."
"I placed my bet on who—"
"No, Robin is standing behind you."
"So it worked," the Boy Wonder said. "You haven't told Beast Boy."
"This is the women's shower!" Starfire cried. "Raven will soon divest herself!"
Robin smiled grimly. "Doesn't matter. Why haven't you told Beast Boy?"
"We have not the time for this!" Starfire cried. "Raven must bathe and put on her face! Beast Boy will not exempt her from her duties!"
Robin sighed. "Bathe quickly, Raven. And meet me behind o baro." With that, Robin left.
"O baro?"
"It means literally, 'the big' in Cray. It is the big tent." Starfire seemed to think of something. "Oh, that is right! The Cray almost never perform ablutions alone. They do almost nothing alone."
"I see." And with that, under Starfire's watchful eye, Raven disrobed.
Starfire showed her how to run the taps, and taught her how to read the labels on all the various bottles. After Raven showered (which Starfire had found strange. According to Starfire, the Raven of this world usually preferred baths), Starfire fetched her costume and showed her how to 'put on her face.'
Raven's costume consisted of a pink dress— a ball gown, really; it had a very, very tight bodice and then flowed outwards in an A-line, not stopping until it touched her ankles— and a pair of classical drama masks, one laughing, one crying, one white, one black. Raven's face consisted of white cake paint, with her eyes lined in black and blue and her lips painted burgundy.
"This is what you wear on carnival days, when you must entertain children. Harley Quinn owns a prostitution ring with a carnival theme. She operates it from here." Starfire's evil smile returned. "For that, your attire is somewhat different. We are working to bring it to its knees from the inside."
Raven nodded. She could deal with closing down a prostitution ring. "How do my powers operate here?"
"From what I understand, you being the child of an angel, they require you to be spiritually pure. Only if you become spiritually impure will they desert you. However, if you feel too much righteous anger, you may accidentally summon the Seraphim— I have heard you boast that you could summon Michael himself."
She was the child of an angel? But… her mother had been raped by a demon!
She could hardly credit it. Yet, in this topsy-turvy world where Robin loved Batman, Beast Boy was their leader, and Starfire understood sarcasm, it made perfect sense that her power stemmed from the fact that she was the child of an angel.
To a point.
"Wait a minute, if Robin loves Batman, why did he go out on a date with you?"
Starfire shrugged. "Robin is a Cray, you know. I think much of his personality stems from a reaction to growing up with Batman. Batman would not tolerate his Cray unwillingness to judge, and so Robin became what he is: a juxtaposition of opposites. He openly admits that he loves Batman to everybody but Batman. However, Robin understands that Batman would never return his feelings, so he attempts to make do."
2
The big top turned out to be a mass of confusion. Everywhere she turned, people were talking in a language she didn't speak, laughing and shouting. The tent was a riot of color and noise and activity. People bustled about business she knew nothing about.
"These are the Cray, then," she said.
They all wore bright colors— yellow was popular, as were red and green — and had dark hair. The few who met her eyes had electric blue irises, so vivid she could tell the color from yards away.
"Raven, I know you are not from here." Starfire told her just as Robin moved towards them. It was then that Raven noticed that he wore the bright colors of the Cray, and no mask. "So Robin and I shall explain."
It was the first time she had ever seen his eyes, and they were the same electric blue as the rest of the Cray's eyes.
Raven nodded.
Robin sighed. "One warning before we start: we're going to have to keep this brief. I'm sorry we can't give you more time, but if Beast Boy finds out that I've been keeping information from him..."
"I understand."
Starfire looked over to Robin, then said. "Raven, you must not allow Beast Boy to know that Robin and I knew about you before he did."
And then they started fielding a miniature question and answer session with her.
"Geard" was the world's name for itself. It was an interesting choice— 'Geard' came from a Germanic root, meaning 'earth'. She would have figured this place called itself Gaia or Tierra or something.
She learned from Robin and Starfire that Geard wasn't exactly the opposite of earth— more like it had been shunted sideways and rotated 90 degrees.
She was the daughter of an angel. Beast Boy was serious enough to be a leader, and a good one at that. Cyborg was...
...Well, not the same.
It felt wrong to her that Cyborg wasn't the leader.
Starfire stared. Apparently, she had been silent for a long time.
"We shall leave you with your thoughts, since they are so heavy."
And to get Beast Boy, no doubt, Raven thought. She stopped herself. Since when did I get so cynical about my friends? Robin and Starfire are my friends, still.
At length, somebody new walked into the Big Top. Green, short, slender, curly dark hair. Wiry muscle.
But the serious expression on his face didn't look like Beast Boy.
Beast Boy walked over to her. "You aren't Raven."
"Yes I am."
"No, you aren't our Raven. You're a Raven, though."
"How..."
"Robin told me. He's good about that."
She resisted the urge to smile at the irony.
There was nothing to say, really. He had the right of it, if not the right of Robin.
"So... Where do we go from here?"
Beast Boy flashed her a quick grin. It was the same grin he had flashed her so many times back on Earth. "No idea."
They stood in silence for a little while, until Beast Boy said, "So, I guess you'll want to go home, huh?"
"Yes, I do."
"I'm sorry, but I don't know how to send you back. The Cray might know, though; they know a lot about magic."
The Cray. She had seen them, walking through the streets in the camp. She had seen them in the big top.
They didn't look particularly foreign to her— so far as she might have known, they could have been average Americans.
"I know, I know; none of them look exotic, but the entire circus is Cray. We Titans are the only ones here who aren't Cray."
"So... Who do I talk to about this?"
Beast Boy gave her a regretful look. "Raven, I'm sorry, but right now, it would probably be better if you didn't talk to anyone. We're finally making headway with Cray and we don't want to scare them."
"And my talking to them would scare them?" Somehow, she doubted that.
"Raven, we already had a version of you. If you're here, then where is she? They're going to put two and two together, and start thinking that if you don't know how you got here, then we must."
"Do you?"
"No."
"Good."
He smiled at her again. It was such a blinding smile.
"So what do we do?"
He sighed. "I'm putting you in Robin's team, alright? He'll take care of you."
"Wait— Robin's team? But..." It just didn't fit. "Does that mean you're going to make me work?"
Beast Boy laughed. "Well, yeah!"
"But..."
"It would look odd if I didn't."
"I see. All right, I'll transfer over to Robin's team. And..."
"And he'll put you to work. Don't worry; he's a good leader. He won't put you in over your head."
The thought that Beast Boy was reassuring her about Robin's leadership abilities was laughable.
So why wasn't she cracking up?
This world was ABSURD. This entire situation was absurd! She wanted to go home already, and she hadn't been here two hours!