Purple irises stared hard at the blank, dark drywall that marked the ceiling of the newly occupied room. It was dark, yes, for night had descended on the Los Angeles coastline. For some time now, all the lights in the acclaimed Titan's Tower had been dimmed, if not shut off entirely. With a slight turn of her head, the city scape was alive with beaming lights across the dark night backdrop. Those lights reflected into the watery gape between the building and land, dancing in a waltz of liveliness.
Raven felt far from being lively.
Her head turned back to the cold, harsh ceiling and the empathic titan continued to stare what possibly could've been a rival to Starfire's bolts. The silence was deafening, and the air had been heavy and thick despite her lack of company. Raven just could not force this new body of hers to sleep. Instead, she intensely gazed through her surroundings. Stared and thought.
Gar had shown her, no, offered her the room hours earlier. Through the entire ordeal he had shown a great deal of support and compassion. The green titan had gone out of his way to make sure she was comfortable. To make sure she felt accepted, felt wanted. There were so many new, young faces. Faces Raven was unfamiliar with, with perhaps the exception of Conner. The similarities to half the donor of his genetic makeup, Superman, were clearly visible. Everyone else was new and different to her.
Raven had yet to talk with Victor, Kori, and even Gar. Talking had seemed the last thing she was comfortable with. Like always, that day she'd spent to herself, quietly observing from the sidelines. It unnerved Conner to some degree, she knew because she felt it. Conner was probably the worst at concealing his emotions of the new teens. Timothy was rather stoic the entire day, unlike his friend. Raven had not meant to focus so much upon the new teenagers emotions, she had tried to tune them out, but found it difficult and ultimately impossible.
It had almost been like the occupants in the tower were shouting at her. From the roof she could taste Kori's concern for Bart, and Bart's somber mood wafted down to her. Victor was calmly impressed and proud of their recent accomplishment against Brother Blood, while simultaneously was cautious. Raven did not have to wager why. Garfield…as always Gar was a knotted line of mixed emotions. He was anxious, jumpy, a nervous ball of energy, but primarily he bled of joy. Content joy.
Raven exhaled slowly, softly, as if the doing so any faster or louder would trigger some unwanted reaction. She wasn't numb anymore. No longer numb to the heavy, negative emotions that weighed the world down, not since she was bound to this…this body. Even now her soul self wanted to rip free from the newly formed flesh and go back to wandering in peaceful, joyful bliss. Her father was dead, yes, but it would just have been her luck that his deranged followers had to bring her back to life. Back to suffer, back to possibly be capable of unleashing something sinisterly demonic onto the world.
Restlessly, her young body stood, and she walked up towards the glass separating her and the world outside. Opacitly through the window her reflection met her, and Raven stared at that, too. She was much younger than she had been at her previous death. She's suspected this was due to the young Brother Blood's preference…though now because of it her body was roughly the same age as the other teens. Even Gar appeared older than she.
With exception to her bald head, she was very much as she would have remembered, regardless of the missing age in her new body. Her fingers rose and rubbed the window's cold surface over her charka stone, then rose to her own face and rubbed the spot gingerly. The touch conjured a small ache, and it was no surprise as the stone was bitten and ripped from her forehead. A shudder wound down her spine as she recalled the sensation of Brother Blood's lips on her forehead….but then forced to replace them with the way Gar had held and touched his own lips to that spot earlier. Like a parent to a child, she'd recalled how he'd given his token of comfort. The warm, light feelings helped push her ordeal back to memory.
It was hard, though, to push the ordeal behind her. Raven felt extremely dirty. The metallic smell of blood almost always seemed present, and there was a certain twinge, a dark twisting stomach knotting sensation to this body. One she was certain only she could detect. The body was made of the blood of other Blood Clan members, and it felt dead, or at least heavy with terrible, demonic magic. As if she needed that extra reminder of what she was.
At least the smell of blood was easily remedied with a vigorous cleaning.
Sleep would not come to Raven, which she promptly accepted and stopped trying to fight. Meditation earlier that day had proven physically and mentally painful. She blamed it on her new body. Being incorpeal and existing only on a spiritual plane had left her out need of controlling her powers, without having to hold back on demonic urges. It was a nice wake up call to be hit with.
Abandoning her reflection, Raven became satisfied with wandering. Being dressed in a borrowed set of pajamas from Cassie, she ventured from her room, cloak in hand. She doubted that she would encounter anyone in her sleepless venture, but even just holding the fabric brought her some comfort. It was convenient to have a personal security blanket. On a second thought, she wrapped it around her shoulder and held it like a blanket, deciding to not pin the cloth to the night shirt. All ready she was beginning to feel less insecure at the emptiness around her.
The building was also a new thing to Raven. She was familiar with the paths to take when approaching the bedrooms, kitchen, and the recreational rooms. No doubt she'd receive a tour of the tower within the next day. Her lips pressed firmly together in a frown. She still was unable to discern how Gar managed to convince her to stay, but he did. Raven didn't even know where she'd be if he hadn't. Probably dead somewhere in a gutter, who knew? The world would benefit from her lack in it. Kori should have let Slade Wilson have her off. No, she chided herself, never in a million years would Kori ever let someone so much as lay a finger on her loved and cherished friends. Well…she was alive, unfortunately…but if they had need of her then Raven would stay. At least for a time.
Her journey brought her to the media entertainment room, and Raven paused detecting the hints of muffled sounds inside. Hesitantly she paused, before slowly waving her hand under the door sensor. The metal sheet clicked and began to slide into the wall. The room's conscious occupants, one Garfield Logan, jumped with a startled look of surprise. Raven flinched at the sudden nervous emotion plummeted her, followed with a flicker of minor fear, then ultimately relief, joy, then a steady stream of content.
The green titan offered a dopey lopsided grin, interrupted by a large yawn. "You're up…uhhhhhn….late." He absently scratched his leg
"As are you.," she replied in her voice that wasn't fully spoken and half seemed to be of telepathic origin. Her movements were slow and calculated. The empath moved far enough into the room that the door behind her closed, but far enough away from the couch containing the green changeling. On the adjacent couch, one quick glance said that Bart was strewn on the cushions, deep in sleep. Raven detected an empty, calm emotional state from him, which she noted was a nice change from his earlier sadness.
A sudden flicker of the tv's current content took Raven's attention, and an explanation for the voices she'd heard were given. Garfield patted the seat next to him, and he readjusted his position to open up space for her. Again, Raven's body was slow in response. She wasn't sure she'd wanted company, and suddenly felt self conscious with the sleeping presence of Bart. Finally, she gave in, but she took the position on the opposite end of the couch, leaving a space between him and the taller green titan.
There was a tiny pinprick of disappointment emitting from Gar, and Raven forced herself to ignore it as best she could.
His curious green eyes traced the top of her head, and the corner of his lip tugged up with satisfaction. "You all ready got some fuzz growing." A catty grin.
Off mindedly she swept a hand over her scalp and felt the soft little nibs of developing hair. Soon, they would be stiffer and prickly. It would take years to bring it back to the length she usually had it. "It feels…strange, to feel the air. I am not sure I like it, Garfield."
Gar merely waved his hand in a sign that her lack of hair wasn't such a big deal. It kind of bugged him in the sense that she looked like she'd been a kemo patient, but really Raven looked fine. Although as animalistic as it sounded, she still looked feminine, and had her feminine features, and that's all that mattered. There was more to this, of course. Beast Boy was glad she was alive and safe here. As long as that was a truth, he didn't care that she was bald.
"Nah, that's just the lucky ju-ju attracted to her head," he wiggled his fingers in a dramatic display of magical emphasis. "That means…" Raven cocked her head, tilting it just enough to see him reaching towards her.
"If I do this..." His warm hand made contact with the top of her head. Gently he rubbed it with a friendly affection. "I'll be up to my ears in good luck."
She continued to look at him with a blank expression, while he merely smiled brightly. After a moment, he removed his hand from her head. Raven regretted the disappearance of his warmth, and subconsciously she pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders.
"How are your arms" It was said out of conversational habit, or lack there of.
He shrugged, "Eh, still a little sore from being in that raven form too long, but it's nothing I can't handle." There was a pause. "And you? How are you taking it?"
She exhaled slowly. How had she been taking it? She'd just been forced into a new body, forced to marry some child who worshiped her father, and had been the portal for dozens of demons to exit out into the world. The worst of it was she'd been controlled so easily, had been so easily forced into bringing her friends inside and through herself and into a dimensional pocket. Who knew where exactly she could have sent them? There were far worse places then the one described by Bart earlier that day they could've gone. Far worse.
"I've been through worse, Garfield." She honestly didn't know how she felt currently. Raven was still trying to determine that.
There was a silent, heavy cloud that wafted through the room after Raven's response. Both kept the attention primarily off the other, their minds wandering. The voices from the tv seemed the only break from their stillness, the voices and the soft, steady intakes of Bart's relaxed breathing. Raven, although body facing the tv, watched him sleep out of the corner of her eyes. She inwardly envied his ability to sleep, but replaced such a negative emotion with contemplation. It was strange, just as much so as she felt about her baldness, to see a Kid Flash different than the one she was used to. Raven mused whether Bart knew Wallace…then she wondered how the former Kid Flash was fairing.
"I take it you can't sleep," an attempt to break the monotony.
"It's been evading me.," she mused absently aloud, not really intending to answer him.
"Give me a few minutes, I may have a solution for you." Gar stood, the remote in his lap slipping down and landed with a soft thud near the area he formerly sat. "Oh, you can turn that to whatever," he motioned to the tv as he was half cross the distance to the door. He'd left, and Raven succumbed to silence again. Her purple eyes stared at the tv with the same severity she offered her ceiling. The show that was on escaped her, some sort of educational program on some form of mammal. Raven paid it no attention. Her eyes trailed to the windows over looking the coast once again.
Only a few days within a body and all ready Raven was feeling the grueling affects of life and all its negativities. A prisoner in her own body. She never was comfortable with herself.
"You know, Uncle thinks about you." Raven's body tensed, her breath withheld at the sudden sound within the room. "He's mentioned you a few times. At least, a little when we actually talk. When he actually tries to help me and being open about stuff."
"I see." She murmured softly in reply. She reached a hand back to the hood of her cloak and carefully tugged it up and over her head. An extra boost of warmth covered her scalp, and again she noted the strangeness of feeling something to skin there. "How long have you been awake, Bartholomew"
"Long enough." The young speedster wriggled and stumbled in his actions to sit up. He moved young somber eyes to take in the other. Wally West, the current Flash, had described Raven to him at an off handed time, in a moment of nostalgia. Bart was aware of the relationship the two had, both the manipulative one Raven had originally contrived, and the strained one they both failed at. Though Wally never went into how it failed, Bart always had his speculations that it was Wally that somehow botched it up, or that Raven never pushed it away, or pulled it in. Now seeing the ginger actions, the stillness of her being, and her clear attempts to look miniscule, Bart was beginning to wonder if the first of his speculations had been right.
"Raven…can I ask you something?"
Her head turned in his direction, and he watched curiously. Instantly Bart tried to look through the shadow cast from the hood in an attempt to gain a better view of her face. It was an impossible feat, it seamed, as the shadow masking her visage was blacker than the current night sky, if it were possible. The only explanation he could forge was that her cloak was very much apart of her as her fingerprints. If Raven wished the shadow to hide her features, it would.
"Yes."
"You can change other's emotions…right? Terminator…he had to have done something to Rose. He had to have messed her up some how. Couldn't you maybe just make her love us again? Hate her dad again?" He appeared hopefully.
Raven looked away, lacking an answer at first. When one formed to words in her mind, she looked back to the youth eagerly watching. "Bartholomew, I've learned that doing so is never the best option. It would be unfair to Rose, as it was to Wallace and myself. And in my current state, I doubt I would have the ability to do it effectively without harming her."
"Oh.," he murmured, his eyes casting away and striking a sudden interest in the ground.
"For what it is worth, I am sorry.," Raven offered. In all honesty, it was the truth. "You're heart is heavy and you're apprehensive. It has been a weight you've carried since we arrived."
Bart frowned. He knew empathy or no that he was not easily hiding his forlorn feelings. Both Starfire and Gar were very understanding. It was why he'd been spending half his night in front of the tube to begin with. While Starfire was emotionally supportive with words and confidence, Beast Boy realized comfortable companionship in mindless zoning out silence was almost as healing. Now…surprisingly in Raven's presence, just then, he felt calmer and at peace. No doubt Raven empathically settled him.
"I believe a bed is much more comfortable then the couch" It was an invitation to take her silent gift and to head towards his room. The young speedster did as was suggested to him, standing crudely and stretching as he emerged from off his former seat. "Night Raven."
The door opened and Garfield emerged, a steaming mug in his hand. "Heading to bed, Bart?"
"Meh," he gave out a shrugging, indifferent sound before shuffling past him and out the door. In which case, he walked several steps down the darkened hall before he stopped in pondering. He mused a silent thought through his head, before turning, and softly walking back towards the room. With a quick observant eye, he avoided the motion sensory and flatly pressed his body to the door. Naturally he was curious about Raven as an individual, but as a growing teenager, he was also curious as to what she and Gar were doing.
Garfield had smiled at Bart's retreating form, before coming back around the couch and taking a seat. This time the gap between the two titans was closed. With what seemed in fluid movements, he handed her the mug with one hand, while the other stretched behind her neck and gently began to pull back her hood. Raven's hand snaked up to the edge of the fabric, gasping hold of it as a last defense. Gar, however, would not lose this battle, and gently prodded it with small relentless tugs until finally Raven surrendered. He placed his green arm comfortably around the empath's shoulder. This he used as leverage to pull himself that much closer to her. Content at the closeness, he snuggled, very cattily.
She filled the empty spot in her hand with the mug Gar returned with after sharply exhaling from his gesture. Initially the half hug was new to her, different, as was most physical contact. When that initial feeling wore out, Raven found the warmth of his figure next to her a welcoming, comforting relief, much as his embrace hours earlier in her room were like. Bart's absence only seemed to magnify the comforting level of the area.
"The last I checked we only had coffee." Raven peered down into the cup, where her reflection met her on a creamy, light brown surface. The aroma was enough of a give away that it was an herbal tea of some sort.
"Ah well, you know. We weren't really expecting you so soon. Thought I'd get the groceries for the week a little early for Rust Bucket, and I picked up a few boxes of tea while I was there. Thought you'd need it.," he explained himself, "One of them was one of those 'sleepy time' teas. I guess it's supposed to make you sleepy."
She returned his explanation with a soft tiny smile. "Thank you, Garfield" The cup was raised to her lips and she delicately sipped at it. It wasn't nearly as good as she'd have liked, though a snaking suspicion that if Gar hadn't changed from the last she'd been alive, he hadn't learned how to cook, or boil water for that mater. Still, tea from tea packets didn't nearly have the flavors as the grounds found in specialty tea stores. Nonetheless, the mug from Gar would have to do.
Gar snagged the opportunity to rub her head again with no other explanation, before turning his attention back towards the tv. Several more minutes passed in the odd silence yet again. Raven religiously took small, cautious sips of her tea. Her hands gripped the mug with some force, clutching it near her body in nervous defense. Gar's arm hung gently off her shoulders, while his green eyes were intent on the show before him. The image of a marmot flashed by, followed by some gibberish about its matting habits. Gar crinkled his nose and appeared bored with this part of his obvious studying material. He needed to know its abilities; he couldn't hump something to death in battle.
Trying to pass more time, and to clear up the heavy air between them until something of use to him came up on the tv, Gar began to focus again on Raven. This only raised the reaction of her sipping the last of her tea, feeling cornered and just as wide awake as ever.
"You smell nice.," he almost stuttered out. Lame, he knew, but starting a conversation with Raven was never an art form anyone had mastered.
"Don't lie to me. I can still smell the blood."
Gar's face twisted into one that seemed conflicted in a response. "Okay, so maybe just a little, but I'm sure that I can smell it only because I've got good senses."
"Only in you're animal forms. Anyone close enough can smell it. No matter how much I scrubbed I'll never be clean" Purple eyes downcast as she turned her head away from Gar's eyes. It wasn't something she wished hadn't come up. Talking about it wouldn't help. It wouldn't make it go away.
"It'll fade out in a couple days." He seemed so certain of his words.
"No, you don't understand. A part of me likes the smell. It makes me sick inside. It makes me…" Raven stopped. She was letting her emotions get ahead of herself. She couldn't be weak. Weakness was not a luxury she could afford. "I will never be clean"
Gar's muscles grew taught as he complied with the sudden urge to pull Raven closer to his body. She stiffened tightly in his grasp, but in moments her frigid structure melted in her own compliance to his urge. Certainly he knew she must have felt his concern for her. The concern he'd had for her the past few ours. Raven was obviously not handling the transition back into life as smoothly as they'd liked. It wasn't much of a surprise. To Gar, Raven seemed almost like a bad luck magnet, despite her recent 'good luck' hair do.
The empath felt the warmth of his cheek smudge up against her the top of her head as Gar made every intention to smoother her with physical affection. Her breath released weakly as she began to feel the effects of the tea work some drossiness into her system. His thumb began to rub small circles into the back of her scalp as he just sat there with her in his arms. Slowly, he lowered his lips down to her forehead, and kissed her for the second time over the charka stone, before replacing his head atop hers.
"Don't worry about it. We're here for you, anytime, anywhere. And you know what? I'm constantly dirty, so you know I have to know how to be clean in order to look this handsome all the time. I'll gladly help you take any baths, if you want."
"Garfield, are you flirting with me?"
"Well, you know me. I'll offer my assistance to any drop dead gorgeous woman that'd need help bathing. Especially the bald, silent types."
"I'm flattered," it was said softly, broken in the form of a yawn. A small, barely noticeable smile curled up on her lips, before she turned her head deeper into his chest. She easily heard Gar's heart thump madly at her words, at her presence. His feelings were the easiest of all to read. Now, it was telling her his spirits were rising. They were warm and comforting. Exactly the type of emotions to fall asleep feeling. "But I'm just content with your service as a pillow"
Her eyelids drooped shut then, and her breathing became more relaxed. Gar knew she'd finally caught the sleep that had been running from her all night. This was one battle the changeling had won. Surprisingly, he found more pride out of this battle then he did with some of their current fights lately. Yeah. This one was a big win. His eyes lazily snooped back towards the tv, a smug smile on his face as he mindlessly watched until he too fell asleep.
And with a mischievous smirk on his features, Bart relished in all the blackmail photos he'd took of the two, which he would most certainly use against Beast Boy in the near future.
AN: The title for this was inspired by a chapter in Guardian Kysra's fic 30kisses, an excellent collection of one shots centered on the animated Raven Robin pairing. Though I'm not a fan of the pairing, the fic is a worthy read, as well as her other Teen Titan works.