I don't own these characters, but that's okay, because I can still write fanfiction and pretend they're gay.

...

She was sitting knee deep in a pile of particularly dryly written tomes composed of scrawling lines of Latin dialects and etchingly drawn on glyphs in the corner of the common room, which, while by no means was an unusual occurrence itself, was still rare enough in her choice of location to prompt a prolonged glance from the masked leader when he caught her in his peripheral vision.

He paused to take a better reading of the situation before curiosity compelled him to ask.

"Catching up on that summer reading list, then?" he offered, knowing that dull humor was the best way to bait the girl into a response.

Raven sighed almost silently, and her shoulders sagged as she set her book in her lap. She sat up, rolled her shoulders with what Robin assumed to be a satisfying pop and glanced in his direction.

"Personal project rather," she replied, earning a nod for her to elaborate, "Or, better put, perhaps a community service of sorts."

"Is it time to repaint the glyphs in wing of ancient mystical artifacts down at the museum of history again? Cause I haven't heard any of the night watchmen complain since you worked that out the last time."

"Thankfully that wing remains as still as the lips of monk twenty days into his vow of silence; no, I am actually referring to a different matter entirely. You remember that call I received yesterday? And then that I left to look into something?"

"I was hoping you'd get back to me on that actually. You kinda left in a hurry; I mean you didn't call in so we assumed you were fine, but we were a bit on edge last night when we missed you at dinner."

"I apologize that I worried you, I promise it wasn't my intention. I just got rather caught up in all of, this, as it were," she replied in a simulatious sweep of her hand across the various books ringed around her in abundance.

"Yes well, like I said, we figured you were fine anyhow."

"As it is, I promise to check in next time, or send you a text at the very least."

Robin nodded once; "Much appreciated," he replied before changing topic, "So what's got you all wrapped up? Something we should know about?"

"The call was from Jinx, she wanted my help with power management and I'm helping her as a personal favor."

"Jinx Castor, pink hair, striped stockings, that Jinx?"

"That's the one, yes," Raven replied, her brow slightly raised, "Despite our vast array of acquaintances I assure you there aren't that many Jinxs running around unless something very strange happened last evening while I was in research hell."

"I'm just surprised that she sought you out I guess. But if you're all for it I don't see why it should be an issue. Helping her I mean. What is she having problems with exactly? I haven't had anything come up on the radar so it can't be that bad."

"Mostly stress induced aggression I believe, mind you I've only spoken once with her about this so far but unless I uncover anything to the contrary, that is how I am going to approach the situation; thus I have been drowning myself in my old meditation journals and anything I can find relating powers of fortune and chaos themed magic."

"Well if you need anything from us just ask," he declared after clearing his throat, "and tell Jinx the same. She's a Titan so our resources are her resources. And anything we don't have the League might."

The empath's glance was unwavering for several moments, making the masked wonder painfully aware of his own beating heart before she blinked slowly in reply and ending her prolonged stare.

"Right, forgot," he replied quickly, offering his hands in sacrifice; "No offense."

"None taken, still, I should very much like to get back to my research as I've yet to find anything of real merit yet."

Taking the dismissal with grace, the masked wonder decided to leave the empath to her own devices for the time being to instead wander over to the couch to catch up on the daily new reports filtering around their fair city.

Several minutes went by as he flipped through the reports, pausing whenever one caught his interest only to return to surfing between them again when they ended. The sounds of worn pages being turned in the corner and the occasional inaudible murmur split up the sounds of channel static.

After half an hour of the aforementioned repetition, Raven's studies were interrupted by yet another melodious jingle ringing from her pocket.

Startled, it took the psion a few extra seconds to extract her communicator and replied to her leader's questioning glance with a shrug before putting the device to her ear.

With a click, her ears were met with sounds of sirens, harsh wails, panicked crowds, and what sounded like someone struggling to speak through gasps of breath on the other side.

"Hello, can you hear me?"

"Y-yeah, Raven, it's me... um, are you there?"

Immediately Raven was in Titan mode, and her leader's expression grew grim in silent concern as he watched her brief exchange and the on-goings of the situation on the television screen.

"Yes, I'm here, is there anything I can do? What's going on? Do you require backup?"

She waited with baited breath for the hexcastor to reply and Robin muted the news reels.

After a few tense seconds of waiting for Jinx to respond the empath was about ask again before the hexcastor spoke up.

"Yeah, no, everything's fine, with the mission I mean, that is, everything's been taken care of but I'm kinda really freaking out right now and I'm really fucking upset an you said I could call you and f-fuck I'm s-sorry I just-"

"Where are you?"

"A-ah..."

"Jinx, where are you?" the psion asked again, rising from her seat on the floor.

"T-the bank down the street from the Enterprise building, not the Perez, but like, that one where Gizzy tanked you with a mini freeze ray that one time I think?"

"I know the one. I'm on my way, don't move."

"'Kay, I mean, I'll wait here -you can't exactly miss me."

Raven hung up and shoved the communicator back inside her pocket and looked up to see Robin watching the news with intensive interest.

Noticing that her call was over, he unmuted the reel and Raven watched in real time what it was that the hexcastor had been dealing with for the past four months.

The raging fire engulfing the building was easily being put down by the team of dedicated service people fighting on scene.

The surrounding civilians however, were not so easily subdued and the news crews were hound like in their ever escalating chase of choice gossip.

They wanted scandal.

The public wanted retribution.

And a pink haired girl with a checkered past was the perfect target for them to truss up as the town's favorite whipping boy.

And she looked like she was two steps from tears.

They were going to eat her alive.