The usual disclaimers apply. Feedback of all sorts is appreciated!
Notes: This was written a couple of years ago, but never really published anywhere. It draws very slightly on the premise of Geoff Johns' run on the Teen Titans comic.
----------------------
Counterbalance
----------------------
"Hey."
She turns towards the sound of his voice, a hint of a smile on her lips. She thought she'd sensed him nearby.
"Hey yourself."
A shadow detaches itself from the stone walls and slips up to sit beside her. She can see his grin in the semi-darkness, and braces herself for what she knows is coming.
"What's a nice girl like you doing in a bad place like this?"
She eyes him disdainfully and snorts.
"Still spouting corny one-liners, I see. Some things never change." A pause and another faint smile. "Flatterer."
"Cynic." His continued grin takes any bite from the words.
Silence falls between them, warm and rich and comforting.
He's first to break it.
"So, come here often?"
"Oh, another line. You're in fine form tonight."
"What can I say? You must bring out the best in me."
The silence falls between them again, still what it was before but now with an expectant quality. She succumbs, glancing down at her feet, dangling over the ledge like those of a small child, then looks up again and away into the distance. She can't refuse or lie, not to him.
"I... need the reminder, sometimes," she says quietly.
"Reminder? Of what?"
"You," she sighs, finally turning to face him. His eyes are unreadable behind his mask. "Us. The old days."
His eyebrows go up in mild surprise.
"Not him?"
She looks away again. Her father. This place reeks of his influence.
"I never need reminding of that."
Out of the corner of her eye she sees him move, a fraction of a second before his hand comes to rest lightly on her shoulder. It's a comforting touch, more so than she'd really like to admit.
They'd been lovers once.
She almost misses it.
"I didn't mean -"
"I know."
They'd been lovers once, or tried to be, anyway. It had seemed a natural progression; for years they'd been extensions of each other, linked by shared horrors and triumphs and trust absolute on top of an odd psychic bond. Friends had become confidants, and confidants, lovers, but in doing so they'd lost the distance that made them so compatible in the first place. Together they spiralled ever inwards towards assured mutual destruction, and would have welcomed it had it come. They were simply too alike.
The parting, when it came, had been mutual, amicable. They remained the best of friends.
"Star says you've been more distant than usual." His tone is nonjudgmental. She silently thanks him for it and offers a slight smile of reassurance.
"It's merely to preserve my sanity. The new children are... boisterous."
His eyebrows rise.
"'Boisterous' might be too light a word from what I've seen." A pause. "Are you sure you should be doing this? Mentoring doesn't really strike me as, well, you." Another beat. "You know there's always a place for you on my team if you want it. We can give you space when you need it."
"I just need some time to adjust, that's all. It's been a long time since the Tower was full." She places her hand atop his larger one, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I'm the control, the temperance for their exuberance. They need me."
"And you need them."
"And I need them," she echoes with another sigh. She tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear with her free hand. "We all need a reason to keep going. They're mine. The Titans are the only family I'll ever really have. I'd like to make sure the new generation turns out all right."
"They seem like a good bunch of kids. I'm almost envious."
"We'll see how envious you are after you've lived with them for a week." Both voice and expression are wry.
"Whoa there!" Contact is lost as he raises both arms as if to ward of an attack. "I said I'd come down for a day or two to help you put the kids through their paces. Not a week."
"You'd better go tell that to Cyborg." The half-smile she gifts him is one degree short of utterly wicked. "Oh, such plans for you has he!"
He groans at the thought and rises to his feet, offering his hand to pull her up after him.
"I'd better go and see if I can't convince him to re-evaluate things."
"You'd better. You'll be here for months if you don't talk fast."
She doesn't let go of his hand once upright. She almost misses it, them. So, she senses, does he. Almost.
The years, the air, are heavy between them. Entwined fingers are a tactile reminder.
"Why do you come here?" The question is gentle but unexpected. "Every year you say you're never coming back, that you're going to hire a demolition team to tear this place apart. And yet, every year, you go missing for a day or so and I find you down here, brooding. Why do you keep coming back? Isn't it time to let the past lie?"
"I said I need the reminder sometimes." He voice is soft, and again she refuses to meet his gaze. She lingers instead on the play of hellish shadows on the wall, the shattered statues, the ruined carvings. The old temple beneath the city, home to so many bad memories; pain and destruction and despair.
"Raven?"
"Hope comes from dark places, Richard." When she finally meets his gaze again, her eyes are sad but her voice level. "What better place to remember that than this?"