by IronRaven
Discalimer: Teen Titans, Batman, The Justice League, and related entities, characters and concepts are the property of DC Comics.
This is set before Terra. This is my first Teen Titans fic, so tell me if I'm off on the characterizations. And thanks to everyone for the topological data.
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The sun slowly sank into the waters of Jump City bay, the soft breeze like a sigh of relaxation. Seeming to rise from the waters of the bay, a glittering structure stood watch over the city. But the space within it's metal and glass skin was anything but calm.
In the common room, the usual mix of chaos was in full swing. As always, Beast Boy and Cyborg were playing a video game at the loudest possible volume, chasing each other about the simulated streets of a simulated Prague with simulated sports cars. Each of them swerved and jerked his body as if it might effect the electronics in their controllers, while the only thing it really effected was the couch's placement on the rug.
Robin was sitting on one end of the couch, oblivious to its shifts and jumps. His eyes made a circuit from the window overlooking the bay, to the clock on the wall, to his watch, a shake of the head, and then a look towards the hallway that led to the sleeping quarters. Every five cycles, he looked down at the floor. And every five repetition of that was graced with a soft mumble to himself on the theme of "What is taking so long?"
At the table, Raven had immersed herself in a thick, hardbound book, while a mug of tea kept her company. The large mug was accompanied by a stack of crackers, from which she absently munched between page turns. Every so often, she would scowl at her noisy team and housemates, before dipping back into her book and her own world. Anyone paying attention would have noticed she had read the same page four times before turning to the next.
Rising from the couch, Robin started towards the passage, shaking his head. "What is she...." Looking up, he stopped, grinning. It never fails, our timing is the same. "Hey, Starfire, you ready?"
"Robin, I'm sorry I took so long." A freshly showered Starfire floated into the room, her feet touching down next to Robin's. "I am ready. What is this competition we are to partake of tonight?"
"A football game, the Knights are in town. That's my hometown team. But we are watching, not playing." Steering Star towards the elevator, he waved to the other. "How about diner first, the Flying Fish?"
"But Robin, you can not fly, how will you get your dinner?" Smiling at her shorter friend to show it was a joke, Star tapped the button to summon the elevator's carriage.
Twisting around, Beastboy glared at his friends in betrayal. "Wait, guys, what about the shepard's pie I have in the oven? You should have told me we were going out."
"Not 'we', Beastboy, them. Like a date." Rising from her seat, Raven plopped her book down on the table, tent wise, and flipped her hood up, covering her face. Without a word, she walked towards the personal quarters, her cloak hugging her tightly.
"HAH! I win!" Cyborg turned to his comrades, having used his momentary advantage to sideswipe Beastboy's car into a simulated fire hydrant just short of the finish line. "Have fun, you two. We can take care of any bad guys tonight." Oblivious to the spazzing green youth at his side, he waved and smirked at Robin's blush as the elevator door closed.
"No fair, dude, you cheated!"
During their rematch, the two youth's were uninterrupted. And the rematch after that. Just before Beastboy could suggest best five out of nine, a buzzer sounded from the kitchen. Dashing for the oven, Beastboy stumbled over a chair someone had left out from the table. "Hey!"
Pushing himself up from the floor, Beastboy stopped long enough to grab a pair of hot mitts from the counter, and removed a steaming white casserole from the oven. Setting it on the counter to cool, he took the last three clean plates from the cabinet and set them by the mix of tofu-based cheese substitute, tofu-based generic meat substitute, corn and mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes reconstituted with soy milk, to be precise. Walking back into the living room, he looked over his shoulder. "It needs a minute to set before it's ready, I'm going to grab Raven."
As Beastboy headed down the hall, the half-robot looked out over the bay with a snort, at the bridge that some cynics claim the city could have been named for. "It needs more than a minute; shepards pie needs meat and my mom's gravy."
Pausing outside Raven's door, Beastboy knocked gently. "Raven? Diner's ready." He waited a minute, the knocked a little louder on the mysterious girl's chamber door, "Raven, you OK? It's diner time." His hand dropped towards the latch, then flinched away as if it was red hot. I'm not going in her room again. Dropping to all fours, he morphed into a bloodhound, sniffing the edge of the door. She isn't in there.
Settling back on his haunches, Beastboy scratched as images sprang to his mind. Raven's book, a volume of nearly forgotten lore from Azarath, tented on the table, punishing it's spine, while her bookmark lay under it. The mug of tea, cooling, and the crackers, both just left sitting out, rather than taken care of. A chair left out to be tripped over. Disorder. Something isn't right.
Sniffing about, he found a fresh, Raven-scented track. Following it, Beastboy made his way to the stairs that led to the roof access. Taking his human form as he climbed the stairs, he unlocked and opened the door, stepping out onto the roof. The moon and Venus shown faintly in the west, the other stars drowned in the lights of the city, but even without light, the lack of Raven was obvious. His eyes settled on a part of the railing, part that looked it had melted and had sagged. Cautiously walking towards it, he could look down over most of the island, and the bay towards the bridge.
Down at the waterside, a constellation of black-sheathed water, rocks and plants spun. Beastboy twisted himself into a large, green crow, and glided down to the source of the disruption, careful not to get sucked in as he landed. Every so often a piece was whirled from the tempest, to be replaced by another, while others crashed together.
"Raven? What's wrong?" The only reply was the flotsam's speed picking up, the captured wind howling like a wounded beast. Gritting his teeth, Beastboy crawled under the chaos, hugging the pitted and freshly scared soil to avoid low flying debris. Reaching Raven's side, he tentatively reached out and touched her shoulder. As if it broke the spell, the column of bits and pieces disintegrated, each component traveling in a straight line until it struck ground, the water, or the tower. The crash of a breaking window made both teen's cringe.
"What do you want?" From under her hood, Raven glared at Beastboy, her eyes filled with loss, pain and confusion. "I want to be alone."
"But you shouldn't be." Plucking a discarded six-pack ring from his hair, Beastboy crumpled the litter up and tucked it in his pocket after holding it up as evidence. "It is about Star and Robin, isn't it." A rock the size of two heads rose up from the waterline, and shattered into sand, before being flung towards the bridge. "I'll take that as a yes."
Slowly he sat on the wind smoothed ground, his arms and legs crossed as he studied his friend's shrouded face from the corner of his eye. The changling carefully watched her eyes as they stared out, part the bridge, past the hoizon, for a long time. As Venus faded from sight, he finally spoke. "You know, you don't have to be alone all the time."
Raven looked at him bleakly, holding the hem of her cloak in her hand, clutching it. "Are you saying there is more than one fish in the sea?"
"Or more than one bird in the skies." To make his point, Beastboy shifted into his crow form, perching next to Raven, one green wing resting on her forearm.
"I'll think about it." Sliding her fingers under his wing, she gently lifted his feathers away with the slightest shake of her head. "I just need to think for a while."
Shifting back to his normal, mostly human form, Beastboy squatted there, watching her face. "Are you sure you'll be ok? I mean, I've been inside your head and-"
Reaching out, Raven patted his hand. "I'll be fine."
"You promise, no more flying stuff?"
"No more flying stuff. I'll be up in a few minutes." Turning back to look out over the water, she listened to Beastboy's footsteps heading up the path to the tower's entrance. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, trying to bring her mind under control. "Azarath. Metrion. Zinthose. Azarath...."
His hand on the door's palm reader, Beastboy turned, looking down towards the bay. Raven was floating there, on a cushion of air. Admittedly, it was a lumpy cushion from how she bobbed up and down, but she was floating, not everything around her. With a sad sigh, he pressed his palm to the plate, listening the machinery confirm he was who he thought he was, and decide that he should be let in. "Raven...."
Down at the water's edge, a small sculpture of water rose from the bay, in the shape of a rose, summoned by Raven's chant. As it hovered there, it burst into watery flames, before shooting towards the stars. Raven raised her head to follow it's flight towards the space in the sky that pointed to Tamaran, until she lost track of it in the stars.
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Author's Note:
While the official word is that TT is separate from the other series currently and recently in production, we have seen at least on reference to Gotham's football team being the Knights in Justice League, and I recall others in the previous Batman and Superman series.