A/N: This is technically a sequel to in this divine glass and not hid by matter, but you're probably okay to read this as a standalone. All you really need to know is that Beast Boy and Raven are currently around 29/30 years old and are the legal guardians of Melvin, Timmy, and Teether. Side pairings are RobStar and CyBee.
Content warning for a fairly vague discussion of abortion. It's only mentioned indirectly; it does not occur.
8/5/18 edit: added numerical breaks, for easier reading. This is vaguely a 10+1 fic but it doesn't stick too rigidly to that structure.
I.
The morning sky outside is dull and grey, and the air nearly wet with fog. It's exactly the kind of weather Raven usually prefers, but today it's as if the fog has seeped into her brain, making her groggy with sleep. She struggles to lift her head from the pillow, and eventually has to make her way to the kitchen with her eyes half-closed, feeling around with her telepathy to avoid tripping over any shoes.
Muted light filters in through the kitchen window as she boils water for her tea. One of the cats winds through her legs, purring softly. Raven sets out food for the cats and the dog and the bird while she heats up milk for a latte. No one else in the house is up yet, but since it's Saturday, Raven won't have to go drag the kids out of their beds. Probably a good thing, as she's seriously considering crawling back into bed herself.
The kettle whistles sharply, and Raven sighs and rubs her temples. She adds the tea bag to the small pot, breathing the scent in deeply. Tea is one of the few human things Arella had kept—had been allowed to keep—on Azarath, and it always soothes Raven.
The milk's steam turns into foam with a sound like old television static. Raven doesn't bother tasting it, just brews the coffee, adds it to the milk, and dumps in enough sugar to give an ordinary person a heart attack.
The hall's been carpeted for years, after one too many sock slides resulted in injuries, so Raven's bare feet make very little sound as she heads back to her room. Just behind her head bobs the coffee mug; it's a trick she's mastered, using it as her center point. Sometimes it helps to have a focus that's outside of her own body.
Inside their bedroom, the shades do a very good job of keeping out any light—as well they should, Raven picked them out herself—and the room's only other inhabitant certainly hasn't made any effort to draw them. In fact, the lump under the covers hasn't stirred at all, not even when Raven places his coffee on the nightstand and crawls to her side of the bed.
"Might want to drink that before it gets cold." Raven sits against the headboard and sips her tea. The blankets tangle even more as Garfield wriggles closer to wrap an arm around her waist. His thumb brushes the skin at her hip where her shirt rides up, and Raven's headache eases slightly.
Nearly ten minutes tick by before Garfield pokes his head out from the blankets and gives Raven a sleepy grin. He fumbles for his drink, a task made difficult by his refusal to open his eyes. His hair is soft, and she runs her fingers through it absentmindedly.
"We should get up soon," Raven says. "We've got the rest of the kids this evening, remember."
"Five more minutes," Garfield mumbles, leaning into her touch. The warmth of him next to her is familiar and soothing, and she lets herself stay in bed a few moments more.
II.
It's not like Raven makes it a habit to go carnivals or city fairs, but she has been attending an increasing number of them in the ten years or so since her life had began to include children. They've never had a pleasant aroma, but this time the combination of greasy food and unwashed rides is making her stomach turn.
Mar'i tugs on her hand, and Raven pushes the feeling away. "I wanna do that," the little girl says, pointing at a booth.
It's a game where the player throws darts at a likely rigged wall of balloons. Raven can guess at the reason for this choice; Mar'i still talks about her grandfather any chance she gets.
"Hey, yeah, that one looks cool," Garfield says. Baby Ritchie flaps his arms happily in agreement from where he's strapped to Garfield's chest. "Whaddya say," Gar asks, elbowing Raven. "Want me to win you something?"
"A nice thought, but you might have your hands full." Raven gestures at Mar'i, who is bouncing up and down on her toes.
Garfield chuckles. "Alright, kiddo, let's go." He has to hurry after her, and Raven hears him call, "Whoa, Mar'i—you need to use the darts, not your starbolts—"
Deciding that they're fine on their own, Raven turns to the little boy holding onto her hand. "See anything you wanna do?" she asks.
Eli Stone considers her question with all the seriousness of a five-year-old. "Can we go there?" He points up at a painted sign. FREAK SHOW, it reads, and below it are illustrations of a bearded woman and a two-headed man.
"Uh." Raven glances at Gar, but he's focused on helping Mar'i aim at the balloons, and thankfully doesn't seem to have noticed. "Maybe later," she hedges. "How about the Ferris wheel?"
"Okay," Eli agrees easily.
His little brother squirms in Raven's arms. "It's okay, Duncan, we're gonna go see the lights." She points up at the brightly lit Ferris wheel, and Duncan Stone forgets about pulling on her hair for a moment.
On their way through the fair, they pass Mel, home from college for the weekend and busy flirting with the concession stand employee, and Timmy and T, who are trying to pour soda into their mouths through a corn dog funnel. Raven waves at them as she goes.
The wheel actually helps her nausea a bit, once they're up at its zenith and above the carnival smells. The boys climb all over her at first in their eagerness to see everything, but the rocking of the carriage settles them down, and they agree to go again. On their second trip around, a bird lands on Raven's shoulder and pecks lightly at her ear.
"If you lost Mar'i and Ritchie in the funhouse, Kory will murder you," Raven says.
Garfield shifts to human, pulling Eli onto his lap and kissing the top of his head. "Nah, they're a carriage below us with Mel. She already got the popcorn girl's number, so she agreed to take them.
"And are you saying you wouldn't protect me from Kory?" Gar adopts a mock hurt voice. "After all the effort it took me to win you this?" He places a tiny plush toy on Raven's shoulder, right where he had just perched.
Eli reaches for it. "A turtle," he exclaims, cupping it in his small hands. "Look, Aunt Raven!"
"I suppose I better keep you around," Raven says to Garfield. "For the kids."
"Always knew you were a softie."
Overhead, the lights of the Ferris wheel glitter and blur, and Raven's heartbeat seems to thrum louder in her ears, and suddenly everything tips—
III.
"Right this way—"
"I know where we're going, I live here, too."
"Careful—"
"I told you, I can walk—"
"Just to be safe—"
"Garfield."
Garfield stops in the doorway to their bedroom, letting his hands fall to his side. He looks mildly chastened. "Sorry, I know you don't like hovering."
"It's unnecessary," Raven maintains. "I just got a little dizzy, that's all."
He frowns. "You almost passed out getting off the Ferris wheel."
"But I didn't. It's nothing, I just haven't meditated in a while because we've been so busy."
He doesn't look wholly convinced, but he accepts this. "So you're gonna meditate then? I can make you some of your tea if you want."
Warmth spreads through her. "That would be really great."
Garfield flashes her a grin and heads to the kitchen, leaving her alone in their room.
It had been the first explanation that had popped into her mind at the time, but now that Raven thinks about it, it's probably true that missing meditation is why she's been feeling under the weather all day. Raven assumes a cross-legged, hovering position in the middle of the room, glad to have that figured out.
The goal of meditation is to block out the entire world until it's just her, but Raven has found in recent years that it can be helpful to start with a wider net and slowly pull back. She stretches her consciousness to the rest of the house, to Mel in her room on her laptop, to Timmy and T playing video games, to Gar making her tea. They glow like stars, their presences bright and comforting.
One by one, she tunes them out until silence swirls around her, the infinite expanse of her own mind. The familiar tranquility is soothing, and she lets the tension bleed out of her.
It feels like hours pass, but it must be only minutes when Garfield reenters with a hot cup of tea. He sets it on the dresser to her right, and then heads quietly to the bathroom.
Fighting a smile, Raven takes a sip of the tea, sighs as it warms her, and refocuses back on her meditation. This time, she directs her attention inward, not just in her mind but inside her body as well.
It's odd, the way her body responds to it. Perhaps it's just because she doesn't do this kind of introspection often, but it's almost like she's sensing her own soul self. It's definitely inside of her, and it's very similar to her soul, a near exact copy, but it's not her. It glows like—
Oh.
Oh.
VI.
The cats had been Garfield's idea, along with the dog, and the bird. They'd all been at the shelter where he works, and they'd all had trouble finding homes. They weren't in danger, it was a no-kill shelter, but Garfield had fallen in love with all of them.
"They've got spunk," he'd said when he brought them home, and Raven had grudgingly agreed to keep them. It isn't as if she's in any position to judge someone for adopting strays.
The cats, brother and sister who'd been found in a box on the side of the road, have grey and white fur and black markings. Gar had named them Flynn and Rhee, after that ridiculous space movie he'd made Raven watch (which she had enjoyed more than she would ever let on). He'd painstakingly given them all their heart medication and fed them with an eyedropper until they were well enough to handle solid food. Two years later, they're surprisingly affectionate for street cats.
The boy, Flynn, winds himself through Raven's legs as she stands at the kitchen counter, gripping the limestone with pale fingers.
The knock at the door startles her, but she swallows her anxiety and yells, "Come in." She'd unlocked it earlier; Raven isn't sure she trusts herself to unlock the door from here with her powers.
Kory and Karen enter and join her in the kitchen, and Raven tries to school her features into something normal as they offer her one-armed hugs.
"Alright, what's for lunch? I'm starving," Karen says as they sit at the counter.
"Lunch?" Raven blinks. "Oh. Uh, what do you want?"
Karen peers at her. "Well, you asked us to come over for lunch, so it's up to you."
"Right. Of course." Raven heads to the fridge and stares at the contents without really seeing any of it.
"Raven," Karen says, "Are you alright?"
"Yes, you seem distracted," adds Kory. "Did you really call us over just for lunch?"
Raven closes the fridge and turns to face them again. "No." She takes a deep breath. "I… wanted your advice on something."
The girl cat, Rhee, saunters past, and Raven picks her up to have something to do with her hands. Karen and Kory wait patiently. "I—" she starts. "We—Garfield…" Rhee purrs in her arms, "…wants us to get a new pet."
"Really," Karen says, resting her chin in her hand.
"And you do not want this?" asks Kory.
"I…" Raven puts the cat down, her hands shaking. "I don't know. What if we aren't ready?"
"Why wouldn't you be ready?"
But Raven can't answer Kory, can't answer because it would give her away, can't answer because she can't find the words to express just how wholly and completely unprepared she is for this—
Karen watches her closely. "You sure this is about a pet?" she says finally.
"What?" Kory glances back and forth between them. "What is it really about, then?"
Karen waits for Raven to answer; the knot of anxiety inside Raven twists, and she clenches her hands in front of her. "I'm pregnant," she says softly. She hates how similar this feels to the last time she confessed a secret.
Her self-pity is interrupted by Kory's hands on her arms. She looks up to meet Kory's eyes, which are filled with concern and confusion. Kory's pregnancies had been happy affairs.
"Raven," Kory says, "please do not be upset. If you are afraid of what kind of parent you will be, rest assured that such fears are normal, and in your case, are probably unfounded. Look at how well you and Garfield did raising your other children—"
"That's different, Kory. They weren't babies, and they weren't—" Raven can't finish it.
"So you don't want to be pregnant?" Karen asks.
Raven sinks into the chair Kory pulls up for her. "I don't know," she groans. "I never really… let myself want it when I was younger."
"Well, that's understandable." Kory sits next to her. "But surely you've thought about it in recent years?"
Raven sighs. "A little," she says. "Gar brought it up a few years ago. I'm pretty sure he'd like a baby."
"Yeah, but Raven, you shouldn't do it just for him," Karen tells her. "You should do it for yourself, too."
That's the thought she keeps coming back to; isn't it worse if she does it for herself? Wouldn't it be incredibly selfish for her to have a baby just to make herself happy? The ever-present feeling of nausea surfaces, but she pushes it aside. "What if…" She swallows. "What if I have it, and it turns out like…"
"Like your father," Kory guesses, and Raven lets her. It's close enough. "Raven, there's no guarantee that a child of yours will inherit your father's nature. After all, you did not."
Her stomach twists again. "But that's the thing: I did get his qualities. It just took me years to suppress them, and I still have to work at it every day to keep them in check. How can I sentence someone else to that?"
At some point, her gaze has fallen to the countertop in front of her. Karen says her name, and it takes Raven a colossal effort to raise her head back up.
"Raven," Karen says again. "Life is not a sentence, or a punishment. But," she adds, "neither is pregnancy."
The dog, Drago, pads into the kitchen and bumps his nose against Raven's leg. She reaches down and pets him absentmindedly. Drago is a mix of Australian sheepdog, golden retriever, and something else; Gar had amused himself silly one afternoon trying to morph into the exact combination.
"I think," says Raven after a moment, "that I need to talk to Garfield."
V.
On the outside, the animal shelter is a quaint, squat little building of brick and mortar. The inside is a fairly clean and organized space; the bright reception room leads into the long row of kennels, and the hallway breaks off into the veterinary check up room and the staff offices.
Raven walks past the receptionist with nothing but a nod, passes by each of the brightly painted and well-maintained kennels until she reaches the last office door. Garfield is messy by nature, but he maintains the health and cleanliness of the shelter studiously. His own office is another story, the only place in the building where he allows his habits to spill over. Raven knocks and enters, but can only push the door open so far before it runs into a stack of boxes.
Gar's face lights up when he sees her. "Oh, hey, Raven!" He's sitting on his desk, holding a bundle in his arms that he coos at. "It's okay, little guy, it's just Raven." The bundle—a kitten wrapped in a blanket, Raven realizes—makes a tiny squeaking noise around the bottle Gar is holding in its mouth.
"Shh," he soothes. "There, you're almost done." Garfield sets the empty bottle on one of the few spaces on his desk not covered in paperwork or empty take out boxes. He grins at Raven. "We just got him in a few hours ago. He didn't enjoy his bath, but I bet he feels much better now, huh?" he says, stroking the top of the kitten's head.
It's not that Raven hasn't seen Garfield caring for animals before, but this time it makes her hands shake for reasons she doesn't want to unpack. Maybe Gar notices this, because he calls for his assistant to take the kitten away for its medicine before turning back to her.
"So what's up?" he asks, kissing her cheek. "Did you want to go out to lunch? You didn't say anything at breakfast."
"No, that's not it. I—I wanted to tell you something."
"Okay," he says easily. "Here, we can sit down." He moves a stack of paperwork off the only couch and plops it on the floor to make room.
Raven sits, partly to have something to do to delay it a little bit longer. It seems to hit her all at once, how absolutely terrified she is to tell him. If it had been difficult telling Kory and Karen, then telling Gar will be a thousand times harder because Raven knows exactly how he'll react.
"Raven?" Garfield watches her with concern in his eyes. "What is it? Are the kids okay?"
"The—" Her breath catches. "The kids are fine."
"Then what is it? Cause you're kinda freaking me out here."
Fear is not unfamiliar to her. Raven's lived with some form of it for most of her life. All she's ever wanted was to be brave, and honest, and face her fears head on. Of course, sometimes choosing to be those things is scarier than the very thing she's facing. "I'm pregnant."
She makes herself look up from her hands and look Garfield in the face when she says it. So of course she sees it: the expression of joy and amazement, the way his eyes light up, the smile that parts his lips. And she sees when he stops, remembers who she is, and turns to caution.
Garfield had asked her, at the beginning, about the possibility of them having a baby. Raven had told him that the odds were vey low. She hadn't said why, but Gar had seemed to guess the reasons, and he'd dropped the subject. But Raven still sees the way he looks at their friends' babies, how much he enjoys holding them when they're small. He had never asked her again, and he would never ask her to do this just to make him happy, Raven knows this. She knows it because she can see it on his face, how he's pushed his own feelings aside and prepared himself for whatever she might say next.
She's thought a lot about all the reasons against this, both now and back when Garfield had first broached the subject years ago, and the list is decent-sized and substantial. But now, looking at Garfield willing to give up his own happiness to respect her choices, Raven discovers one very good reason for. If there's a chance of another person existing in this world who's even a fraction like Garfield, shouldn't she take it? Wouldn't that outweigh all the bad?
Finally allowing herself to smile with the weight of that decision gone, she says, "We're having a baby."
VI.
The fridge and pantry are always well stocked, ever since Garfield and the kids moved in. It's a necessity; Garfield burns a lot of calories in his animal forms, yet even he had been outmatched by three teenagers all hitting puberty one by one. T has the biggest appetite by far, since their power allows them to consume near anything, even non-food items. Raven and Garfield had struck a deal with them a few years ago, agreeing to keep a decent number of snacks in the house if T would stop eating the silverware.
That T is in the kitchen when Raven enters is not a surprise. "Hey," they say, in the middle of making a sandwich. "Want me to make you one? I looked up a bunch of healthy recipes for when you're pregnant."
Raven smiles and sits at the kitchen table. "Sure, that'd be nice."
T takes more food out of the fridge. "How're you feeling, anyway?" They grin sheepishly. "Sorry, I guess everyone's gonna be asking you that for the next nine months."
"It's fine. You're actually the first one." Then again, it's only been a day, and she has twenty-six unanswered texts from Kory. "And I feel okay."
If Timmy were here, he'd feel the impulse to fill the room with conversation, but T has always been the quieter of the two in many ways, so Raven sits in comfortable silence as they fix her sandwich.
It's a little after four in the afternoon; Mel is back at college an hour away, Timmy is at soccer practice, and Gar had texted earlier and said he'd be home late, so T and Raven eat their snack with only each other's company. T's attention is split between their food and a game on their phone, and Raven uses this opportunity to observe them.
Sometimes Raven looks at this kid—her kid—and all she can see is that baby she'd first met when she was a scared teenager. And while she hadn't adopted the three of them until several years later, she's never been able to shake the image of T as a small, impressionable toddler from her recollection.
"T," she says, putting her sandwich down. "Can I ask you something?"
T looks up from their phone with polite interest. "Sure."
"Do you," Raven hesitates. "Do you wish you remembered your biological parents? The way Mel and Timmy do?"
T pauses to chew and think. "I don't think so. I mean, I guess I wouldn't say no to learning more about them, but I don't really feel like I'm missing out. I already have a pretty great mom," they say, smiling and nudging Raven's hand.
It's not that Raven thinks she's a bad parent, necessarily. But her kids already had a much better head start than she'd ever gotten, and she can't ever be sure just how much of an influence she really had.
That question has always hovered at the back of her mind, but now it nags at her. She stays in her chair long after T finishes eating and goes to their room, until the afternoon turns to dusk and sunset's orange glow fills the kitchen.
The sound of the front door unlocking finally jolts her. Garfield bustles in, a flurry of movement as usual, and stops when he sees her. His windswept hair and wide eyes give him a deer-in-headlights look. Raven should know, she's seen him morph into a deer enough by now.
"Raven, good, you're here." His voice is an octave or two higher than normal.
"In my house? What a fortunate turn of events."
"Uh huh, right." Gar sits down at the kitchen table next to her and immediately begins tapping his fingers non-stop on the wood.
Raven raises an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"
"Huh? What? Nothing. What?" Under the table, his knee bounces up and down. "Nothing's wrong with me. What's wrong with you? I mean, how was your day."
Garfield can never hold a secret for long. If Raven pushes, he'll spill it all fairly quickly. But somewhere along the line—perhaps around the same time she'd fallen in love with him—Raven has come to dislike pushing. So she simply says, "Fine. How are you? It must've been busy today."
He blinks. "I guess."
"Isn't that why you came home so late?" she prompts.
"Oh!" His cheeks darken. "Uh, right. Yeah. That's why I was late."
Raven waits.
Gar's shoulders twitch. His eyes flick to her face, the ceiling, the floor, his own hands, her face again, then away. "Okay, fine." The breath whooshes out of him. "I wasn't late because of work."
"You never cease to surprise me."
"I was late because—well, I was getting something for you, actually." Gar's nervousness turns almost bashful now.
Surely it's too early to start buying baby things. "What is it?"
Gar swallows, takes a deep breath. "We talked about this before, a long time ago, and you said you weren't ready back then. And I get that. But I was wondering—and it's not just because of the baby, cause I've been thinking about it for weeks. Anyway, I was thinking," Here, he fishes around in his pocket and produces a small box. He continues, "I was thinking that I love you, a lot. And I know you don't always let yourself have good things, but maybe this could be a good thing? So, would you want to marry me?"
The concept of marriage is not as entrenched in Azarath's culture as it is here. By the time Raven had learned of Earth practices, she'd been thirteen, and she'd been horrified. Not at the idea in a general sense, but at the notion of letting someone bind themselves to her so completely. That another person could look at all the deepest, ugliest parts of her and want her anyway had seemed almost inconceivable.
Raven hadn't known what it was like to want things until she'd come to Earth. For the first fifteen years of her life, she'd never let herself want anything. Emotion could turn to greed, to lust, to jealousy so quickly, and her emotions are so dangerous already. Then she had come here, and she had found herself wanting so many things: friends, a home, the courage to stand up to her father.
But most of all, Raven wants Garfield. He likely doesn't realize just how much, but Raven wants him so badly it that had shocked her when she'd first come to terms with it. During the day, she wants the comfort of his arms and the brightness of his smile, and at night, she wants his hands, his lips, his breath on her neck. And none of that is as momentous as the apparent fact that he wants her back.
He's opened the box, and the small diamond glints in the light. Gar is giving her such a cautiously hopeful smile, it's nearly impossible not to return it.
"Yes, I want to marry you."
VII.
Her something borrowed is a jeweled hair clip, a Tamaranean royal heirloom from Kory. Raven had been hesitant to borrow them—she isn't sure the general populace of Tamaran would approve of her wearing them, especially given her heritage. But Kory had merely laughed and declared that Raven had more than earned them.
The morning of the wedding, Kory slips out to retrieve the piece, and when she comes back, she says, "You have your old and your blue as well, so all you need now is the new."
Raven only half hears this, her focus elsewhere. "No, I have the new one, too," she murmurs, absentmindedly pressing a hand to her abdomen.
"Oh, that's adorable," Kory coos as she fixes the clip to Raven's hair. "There, all done. What do you think?"
The person in the mirror looks like some other version of Raven, one with glowing cheeks and clear eyes. One who looks happy.
Karen and Melvin join them then and announce that it's time, and they and Kory take Raven downstairs. The hotel they're in is also where the Doom Patrol members are staying. Once she'd found out about the baby, Rita had insisted that she and Steve pay for most of the wedding, and Raven and Garfield hadn't argued. (Rita had initially suggested a synagogue, but buildings dedicated to organized religion always make Raven uncomfortable.)
They reach the door leading out to the garden and the man waiting to be her husband, and Raven pauses for a moment to take out the copper penny on a chain that she'd tucked under the neckline of her dress. Her bridesmaids file out the door in a line, and then it's Raven's turn.
Looking back, there isn't much she remembers from the ceremony itself. She remembers looking down an aisle and feeling Garfield's eyes draw her in, she remembers his hands holding hers as the officiator reads off their vows. She remembers saying, "I do," and she remembers Garfield's kiss like sunlight as their families cheer.
When they break apart, Raven searches the crowd of guests, cataloguing every flash of blond hair—Melvin, T, Jericho. It wouldn't occur to anyone else to notice the one absence. "Good luck with those ghosts," she murmurs. Garfield looks at her in confusion, but Raven just shakes her head.
The next few hours pass in a dizzying blur; she and Garfield sign their names on the marriage license, Gar gently feeds her a piece of cake before swiping frosting across her forehead with a cheeky grin, and Vic and Kory give ridiculous, bombastic toasts. The sun has sunk low on the horizon by the time the first strains of music drift over the crowd, and Garfield laces his fingers through Raven's and leads her out onto the dance floor.
Being wrapped in his arms is more calming than Raven would've thought, and she rests her head on his shoulder as they drift slowly in a circle.
"Hey, Raven?" Garfield's breath tickles her neck.
"Hmm."
"This wasn't too bad, right?" He sounds so nervous, and she pulls back to look at him. "I mean, I know this kind of thing isn't really your style, but it turned out okay, didn't it?"
She tightens her arms around him. "It wasn't bad at all. It was… really nice, most of it. A little stressful, but—you're right that it's not my style, but that doesn't mean I won't like it."
Gar grins and touches his forehead to hers. "You saying you liked getting married to me?"
"Don't let it go to your head."
"I was a pretty awesome groom, wasn't I?"
"You were alright."
"I guess now all I have to do is be a good father." He keeps his voice mostly nonchalant, but Raven can hear the slight tremble in it.
"You're already a great father," she reminds him.
"Yeah, but they were older. Less to screw up," he jokes. "This is a baby."
As relieved as Raven is to hear that Gar doubts himself, too, it feels strange to be the one comforting him. "Well, you were great with Mar'i and the boys when they were infants. It's not like this'll be a lot different, and it'll be months until she's old enough to—"
Garfield pulls back and stares at Raven, eyes wide. "She?"
"Wha—oh. Yeah. Um." Raven swallows. "I was meditating last night, and I just sort of sensed it. I was going to tell you sooner, but Kory wouldn't let me see you the night before the wedding, and then with all of this today—"
She breaks off as Garfield reaches out and strokes his thumbs over her cheeks, cradling her face as if she were something precious. "We're having a girl?" he whispers.
"Yeah," she croaks, eyes welling up. "Well, she could always change her mind one day, but for now, I guess we are."
Anything else she might say is cut off as Garfield lifts her in his arms and spins her around in a half-circle. Raven clings to him, breathless; it's the kind of thing heroes in fairytales do with the beautiful maidens they love.
"I love you," he says when he puts her down. "And I love her."
"Yes, well." Raven's cheeks burn, but she finds she doesn't mind. Hesitantly, she ventures, "You're not nervous anymore?"
"Nah, I still am." Gar pulls her closer again. "But I guess that's just how it is. Babies are always a little scary."
It's the way he says it, not necessarily casual but with such acceptance; like, of course an expectant parent would be afraid. As if it were natural, and expected, and not an indication of weakness and failure.
And it's not that Raven is unaccustomed to being afraid. It's haunted her since childhood: the fear of the future, of what was coming, and the horrors she would wreak. Yet somehow, what came after Trigon had been an entirely new kind of fear. At least she had known, intellectually, that the apocalypse would happen no matter what she did. But now Raven faces new choices every day, small and large, with no clues as to which is the right one. The path to evil, Raven has observed, is not so much a horizontal line as a slope. Any mistakes she makes are now entirely her own.
"Garfield?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you still love me if I lost my mind and turned evil?"
"Course," Gar says. "Would you still love me if I went bald?"
"Absolutely not."
He grins as she leans in to kiss him, and his sharp canines scrape against her lips.
VIII.
Maybe it's just that Raven has a headache, but the sixth crib she looks at doesn't appear all that different from the fifth crib, or the fourth, or the third. They're all a varying shade of pastel, they all have some kind of tiny flowers or animals painted on them, and they're all thoroughly uninteresting to her.
"Raven, look at this!" Garfield appears at her side, holding a tiny, white lace gown. "Isn't it cute?"
Raven glances at it and makes a noncommittal noise.
They've been in this store for forty minutes already, and they've only seen about a third of it. The saleswoman had given up about fifteen minutes after they'd arrived, and is now keeping an eye on Timmy and T, who've set up some kind of battalion with the stuffed animal display.
The baby gives a little flutter inside of her, and at the same time the glowing presence flares a bit brighter at the edges of Raven's consciousness. She's become accustomed to the feeling of her daughter's developing mind; it's similar to how she's attuned to Garfield or their kids, but having the child so physically close to her at all times has caused their bond to develop quickly. Raven tries not to think about how this will change once the girl is born and has her own body not dependent on Raven's.
What she should be thinking about is what stroller to get, and what color wallpaper the nursery should have, and whether to pick the zoo animals mobile or the moon and stars one. And she should want to be thinking about all of that; it's for her baby, it's an opportunity her own mother never had, it's things she herself never had.
So why can't she bring herself to care about any of the stuff in this shop?
"Hey, Raven?" Garfield touches her arm, and she realizes she's been staring into space for a while now.
"I'm fine." She points at one of the cribs. "Let's get that one."
Garfield looks at her, then down to the crib she suggested. "Okay. Why?"
"What?"
"Why that one?"
"I don't—" Raven glares at him. "Why does it matter?"
"Well, what do you like about that one?" The past few years have rendered him remarkably unfazed in the face of her anger.
"It's—" She shuts her mouth; her teeth click. "Never mind." She turns away from Garfield, away from the way he's looking at her, and starts walking, until she's out of the store completely. Once she's out on the sidewalk, though, she stops; she can't remember where they're parked, and the baby is fluttering like a hummingbird, and she just really hopes that Gar follows her out—
"Raven." Garfield's hand touches her arm, and she breathes out. He gives an oomf when she turns around and hugs him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"Okay, but—what was that? What's wrong, Raven?" He runs his hands soothingly up her back.
She lifts her head up to rest her forehead against his. "I can't be that kind of mom," she says.
"What kind?"
"The kind that—that gets excited over cute furniture, and dresses her daughter up in pretty dresses, or, or—any of that! I'm just not that person, and I'm just. Sorry." Raven slumps in his arms.
Garfield stares at her. "Wait, that's why you're upset? Raven, you don't have to do any of that stuff, you know that, right?"
"But," she protests, "isn't it wrong that I can't even decorate my own kid's room?"
"Raven, just because you don't like shopping for baby stuff, doesn't mean you're gonna be a bad mom." His brow furrows and he looks determined. "Look, is anyone in the whole universe gonna love this baby more than you?"
Her hands clench at the fabric of his shirt. "No."
"Wrong, I am, but you're a close second," Gar says, and ignores when she smacks him on the arm. "Point is, you don't have to pick any of that stuff in there. We can decorate her room with stuff that you actually, you know, like."
"But—" Raven feels the familiar dread returning. "But if I pick stuff that I like, isn't that… unfair? Shouldn't we try not to influence her? What if she grows up and hates everything we chose?"
Garfield shrugs. "I dunno, maybe. But I think that's kinda how it is with all kids. Remember when Kory spent, like, all of last year trying to get Mar'i to like shopping? That kid still throws a fit if you get her within fifteen feet of a Gymboree.
"Plus," he adds, when she doesn't respond, "I'll bet those monks didn't decorate your nursery with paintings from that one weird artist you like—"
"Théodore Géricault isn't weird." Raven heaves a long-practiced sigh.
"He is, though, yeah. But that's my point. You still grew up and liked him anyway." His expression is soft. "Our daughter's gonna grow up and be whoever she wants to be; you're not gonna mess that up."
It's still—it's not quite right, it's not that Raven thinks she can really do anything that isn't already there, it's–well. It's the already there part she's worried about. But Garfield's still making a very good point, so she lets herself relax back into his arms, lets him kiss the top of her head, and imagines the blue nursery she's been dreaming of, never mind humans and their weird gender norms.
"You know," Gar says in a musing tone, "that dress I showed you? It came in black, too."
Raven's head pops back up. "It does?"
IX.
When they'd bought the house about eight years ago, the realtor had suggested the possibility of adding an extension, another bedroom if one of their kids decided they didn't like sharing. Raven and Garfield had decided against it at the time, since all the kids had been more enthusiastic at the prospect of a larger backyard instead, and Timmy and T had already been used to sharing, and so had never raised any objections to it.
With the baby on the way, however, building an extension for the baby's room is the best option; nobody wants to move, and raising three kids into their teenage years tends to cause enough minor damages to a house that selling it would probably not net them a high price.
They had an architect draw up the plans, but Garfield had refused to hire a contractor, insisting that they could build it themselves.
"Raven, we built a tower," he'd said in response to her disbelieving expression.
"We?" Victor, who'd been over for dinner at the time, had muttered into his mashed potatoes.
It's not objectively a hot day, despite it being the middle of summer. Really, it's only the idea of hot that insists on sticking around, as if the weather knows what it should be without New Jersey climate holding it back. Garfield had declared it the perfect day to continue working on the extension, which is why he currently stands in the bare bones of a half-constructed room along with most of their adult friends while all of their young children mill about on the lawn.
Since Raven's midsection has nearly overtaken her ability to see her own toes, she gets to sit on the porch under an umbrella and watch Victor and Garfield bicker about how best to lay the drywall while she reviews the files on her recent social work cases. At least she's not alone.
"An' Way!" Ritchie Grayson babbles happily from his high chair next to her. He'd been confined to the porch with her after the third time he'd floated up to the roof to watch his mother weld the steel beams of what will be the ceiling.
Raven levitates a cracker over to him, and he opens his mouth and accepts it. She refocuses on her files as Garfield morphs into an elephant in an attempt to prove their helpfulness in construction work. The baby thumps inside of her, a kick that feels almost bored.
"Mama!" Ritchie's attention is back on the other adults, and this time he picks up his stuffed—something, some kind of animal from Tamaran with an odd amount of legs—and chucks it from his high chair. The strange toy animal lands about a foot away from them on the porch. "Darf go, An' Way!"
He stretches in his chair, reaching futilely for the plush. Raven sighs.
A thin black tendril of her power curls around the toy and brings it back to the little boy's waiting arms. He squeals, hugs the thing, clutching at its soft fur. And then he throws it again.
Raven brings it back again.
The third time he throws it, she turns to stare at him. Ritchie blinks expectantly at her, clapping his pudgy hands in anticipation.
It is a very good thing that Tamaraneans are so adorable, Raven decides as she summons his toy back and wipes the drool from his mouth, since they have a remarkable ability to test her patience.
"Are you playing fetch with my son?"
Raven gazes dispassionately over her sunglasses at Dick. "It became a necessity," she says. "I don't know why you're concerned for his dignity; technically, I'm the one doing the fetching."
Dick takes a seat at the round patio table, his back to the lawn. "I guess I can't be too upset, I caught Mar'i doing the exact same thing the other day. Of course she was trying to make him fly up the stairs to fetch the ball."
"That kind of ingenuity had to come from you."
Dick only smiles in response, gazing fondly over at where Mar'i, Eli, and Duncan are playing Titans vs. Plasmus. They seem to have forced Duncan, the youngest, to be Plasmus, as evidenced by the mud they've smeared in his hair.
Ritchie's plushie goes sailing by Dick's head. "Dada, az baw!" the boy announces.
"You make a compelling case," Dick tells his son, getting up out of his chair to retrieve the toy. Ritchie shows his appreciation by starting to gnaw on one of its ears. "Although that instinct is from your mother, for sure."
Raven snorts and scribbles a note in the margin of her file. "At least all of your defiant streak seems to have gone to his sister."
"Yeah. Remember when we'd tell her not to put rocks in her mouth, so she'd hold them next to her mouth instead?"
"So you finally understand how we all felt?" she asks, raising one eyebrow.
He raises his hands in surrender. "Hey, yeah, I get it, I was a stubborn teenager. I've gotten better, though."
"Because you saw what an adult with poor intra-communication skills and single-minded obsessions bordering on self-harm looks like?"
Dick sighs, both in response to her statement and at the arc his son's stuffed animal makes past his head. He stands up to get the doll, sitting down before answering, "I suppose that's a big part of it, yeah." He casts a sidelong look at her. "But you know, a lot of it was just growing up. We all have our vices, but the people who are truly good deep down are the ones who learn to manage them."
The patio umbrella has been doing a decent job of providing shade thus far, but Raven suddenly finds herself uncomfortable. In the distance, Victor and Kory's laughter ring out across the lawn. "That seems like a roundabout way of complimenting yourself," she mutters, and doesn't look at him.
Whatever response Dick might give is cut off when Ritchie lobs the toy again, and this time manages to make it to the grass. If he were older, Raven would be inclined to attribute his strength to his mother; as it is, she isn't sure how coherent a grasp a toddler can have on "boundless confidence."
Dick stares at it for a minute. Ritchie wiggles, his hands outstretched. "Dada," he whimpers.
"Raven."
"Dick."
"Raven."
"Yes?"
"Raven, I've been working all day."
"You have."
"Building a room for your kid."
"We appreciate it."
"My legs hurt."
"My feet have hurt for the past month straight." Raven finally looks up at him, eyebrow raised.
"Raven, please?"
She heaves a theatrical sigh, and beckons Ritchie's animal to him again. "I suppose in the interest of personal growth."
Garfield chooses that moment to change back to human; all the physical labor has caused his sweat-soaked shirt to cling to his chest, and suddenly Raven's uncomfortable for a different reason.
She pushes her chair out, ignoring Dick's smirk. "Shut up, I have to pee. For the fifth time today."
Raven doesn't get the chance to start hoisting herself out of her seat, however, because Garfield rushes over and puts his hands under her arms, helping her stand up.
"I can fly, you know," she grumbles without any heat.
"Yeah, I know." Garfield gives her a wicked grin. "But this has upsides, too," he says, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
She takes a second to catalogue everything: his hair flopping into his eyes, his hands steady on her elbows, the way he has to lean in farther to kiss her with her belly between them. In the background, Ritchie giggles as Dick lifts him onto his shoulders; Mar'i lets out a bellow and waves her imaginary sword; and Kory downs an entire pitcher of lemonade.
"I suppose it does," she agrees.
X.
After nearly 10 years, Raven has gotten used to the glow of Garfield's handheld video game next to her at night. It's one of the little things she doesn't really notice anymore, like his sneakers in the hallway that she's always stepping over, or his weird tofu in the fridge.
Tonight, she actually finds the muted light comforting. It's a soft reminder of her husband's presence next to her, the twin to the little glowing life inside her. The girl kicks, her aim high near Raven's ribcage. With the due date so close, the baby has recently turned, her head now down at Raven's pelvis.
Raven usually falls asleep much earlier than Garfield, but the baby's kicks have been keeping her up these past few weeks. Gar likes to joke that the baby is a night owl, too, and that she'll like video games just as he does. Raven tends to roll her eyes at this, but privately she hopes it's true. She hopes this baby is so much like Garfield that there isn't any room for anything else.
She puts her hand on Garfield's arm. "Gar?"
He doesn't look up from his game. "Huh?"
"Gar."
Now he pauses it. "Yeah? Wait, you're not asleep? Aren't you tired?"
She rubs her wedding band with her finger; the metal is cool, its weight grounding. "Gar," she tries again. "What if—"
He reaches out and takes her hand. She swallows.
"What if the baby is like me?" Her voice cracks on the last word.
"Huh," he says again, in a considering tone. Raven doesn't look at him. "Well, yeah, I guess that's a possibility.
"But," he continues, squeezing her hand, "What if the baby is like you?"
Raven chokes back a slightly hysterical noise. "I'm being serious."
"So am I," he says. "What if she reads for fun, or teaches herself a million different languages, or learns how to braid hair just to make her best friend happy? What if she's the best referee Stankball's ever seen?
"Or," His voice goes softer, "What if she fights bad guys, and helps foster kids and stray animals—or saves the world?"
By this time, Raven has curled into his side, and he's looped his arm around her. In this position, she can hear his heartbeat, just a fraction out of synch with his daughter's.
"It took me years to become that person," she whispers. "I don't want her to go through what I did."
"She won't," Gar promises. "Cause she'll have you to help her."
Raven rubs her eyes on his shirt. "I've spent my whole life afraid," she confesses. "I don't want to be afraid of this."
He rubs his thumb up and down her arm. "Well," he says, "I don't know if I can really make it better, but when I feel scared, I just think about you, and how you always help me when I have a problem, and how brave you are no matter what happens.
"It's okay if you think you can't do this," he continues, "cause sometimes I think I can't do it either. But you're not alone. Everyone has stuff in their past that hurts them. Struggling with being a good person isn't a demon thing," Gar says, "it's a human thing."
And that's really the fundamental difference between Garfield and Dick, Raven thinks. Or at least, the difference in her relationships with them. Because Dick gets it, really gets it without her having to say it. But sometimes Raven doesn't need someone who understands. Sometimes she needs Garfield, who can stand outside of her and see the end of it.
The baby gives another strong kick, and she drops a hand to her belly. Gar follows the movement, and places his own hand on top of hers.
"See, she agrees with me." He leans forward and addresses the bump. "You should learn now, baby. I'm always right."
"Oh, don't teach her that." Raven groans.
"Uh, excuse me, Raven, this is a private conversation, okay?" He shakes his head at her, then turns back to the baby. "Your mommy is so silly. But she loves you a lot, and she's tired, so how about you go to sleep so she can get some sleep, alright?"
The movement inside of her starts up again for a brief second, before settling down. Garfield grins up at her. "See?"
"Great," she mutters. "That's what I need, a kid who thinks you're right all the time and does whatever you say."
"Yeah, that does sound awesome, I'm glad you agree." He puts his arm back around her, and sets his game on the nightstand. "C'mon, let's go to sleep."
Raven takes a deep breath. "Alright." She relaxes into his arms, and for the first time in a while, she doesn't feel scared.
I.
Raven's powers have always required absolute control. Her pregnancy has pushed that control to its limit, and for the last nine months she's had to meditate at least twice a day to keep from accidentally melting a street sign. It's partly the hormones, but it's also due to being in such close contact with a developing, unpredictable mind.
It's because of this that she had decided to give birth at home; by all accounts, childbirth is one of the most stressful experiences out there, and with Raven's luck her powers will accidentally shut off all the power in the hospital or break a lot of expensive machinery.
Childbirth hurts. It hurts so much, but in a different way than Raven had expected. She's only had one other extremely physically painful event in her life, and she ha been so worried that it would feel like that, that she would be reminded of that when her baby was being born. But fortunately, they had been different in a way Raven can't quite explain. Trigon's arrival had been all consuming; she'd felt it coming, felt him pushing at the edges of her, and she'd known that it would tear her apart until there was nothing left. Giving birth is plenty painful, but it's mostly physical, without a soul-deep fear or the overwhelming sense of being crushed by a star.
The worst part is at the end, when the baby slips out of her completely. Raven lets out a sob at the feeling, of having something taken from her, of having that little presence she's been mentally attuned to for so long suddenly pulled away. But only lasts a second, and then the midwife is holding up the baby so that she can see, and Garfield is gripping her hand and whispering in her ear, "Angie."
The whole thing lasts about sixteen hours, and at the end of it Raven's exhausted, covered in a myriad of fluids she doesn't want to think about—she does end up breaking one lamp and putting a crack in their wall that Victor promises to fix—but then they put the baby on her chest, and Angela lets out a tiny cry of shock as she makes contact with Raven's skin before settling down.
Gar strokes Raven's hair, staring at her in awe—something he won't stop doing for nearly a day. Angela is pale, not quite as pale as Raven, with a dark, nearly black curl of hair on her head. She dozes on Raven's chest, and Raven decides that this is the best opportunity she's going to get to rest.
For a moment, she can't help but think about her daughter's namesake, her own mother who had gone through this very experience some thirty years ago, but who had been utterly alone.
But while those things are worth dwelling on, Raven has learned over the years that sometimes it's best just to let herself be happy in the moments that grant it. So as she drifts off, she thinks about the nursery, its walls a light blue with birds painted on them, a mobile made by Kory from tiny bells, the giant stuffed chicken that Gar had insisted belonged in the corner. She falls asleep smiling.
A/N: So I have literally no excuse for this taking so long. I'm sorry.
To the lovely person who left a guest review on not hid by matter: First of all, thank you so much for your comments, they were really sweet. As for your question, AO3 stands for Archive of Our Own, and is another website for posting fanfiction similar to this one. (I can't privately answer guest reviews, so I'm leaving this message here.)
Anyway, this has been cross-posted on archiveofourown: works/14958203
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