Dangerous
Chapter Nine

-o-

Raven managed to get out of the bowling alley with her dignity intact, and without anyone (outside of Starfire) realizing she had been flirting so close to danger. Honestly, that felt like a major accomplishment, and she wasn't sure which god was watching out for her, but she sent up a silent prayer. If Dick found out about Jason… well, she wasn't sure what would happen, but she doubted it would be controllable.

The evening air had turned a little cold and quiet, and as the team walked down the sidewalk, heading back home, Dick fell back into step with her. They walked together for a while, listening to the bright chatter of their friends and they arguing over who was the better bowler. It felt comfortable and known, and Raven could feel a little spark of warmth fill her chest. For right now, this was good. This made her happy, and that was something she needed in light of everything going on around her.

There was a long pause as Dick's steps slowed down, and Raven finally lifted an eyebrow, looking at him. She waited for him to say something, but she was met with nothing but silence. Of course. Sighing, she stared ahead and watched their friends step further away from them. "You're stewing over there about something, I can feel it."

His lips tugged at the edges, but his smile looked wan, as if there was something heavy weighing on him to the point he couldn't get comfortable. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, and Raven thought back to what Starfire had told her, that Nightwing had nightmares, that there was something inside him that was breaking and he didn't know how to tell the rest of the team. What was going on with him?

He shifted, shoving his hair out of his eyes before glancing away. "Just… thinking. About how nice it was that you suggested going out as a team." He cocked his head to the side, a genuine smile finally starting to pull at his lips. "I mean…"

"Yeah, yeah…" She waved him off, pursing her lips. "I know you're going to hold this over my head for the next year. Hey, remember that time that Raven was actually social." Raven tried to look annoyed, but her face betrayed her and a small smile tugged at the edges of her. "I know better than to trust you with something like this."

Dick laughed, the sound surprisingly warm against the shadows under his eyes. His pace slowed even more, and Raven fell back into step with him, watching their friends walk ahead of them, chatting. That little zone of comfort was disappearing up ahead, but she knew better than to chase it. If Dick was separating her from the group, there was a real reason behind it. He wanted to talk to her about something, and it was clearly important.

She shifted, feeling the air between her and Dick grow weighted again. It wasn't uncommon for them to talk between themselves, but it was rare that it felt like this. Like the weight of the universe was on Dick's shoulders, and his only outlet was Raven. She paused for a moment, waiting for their friends to move even further up the sidewalk. Whatever this was, it was important to Dick that they spoke in pseudo-privacy.

"You want to talk about something." Her words fell flat, and Raven could feel her emotions pull into her body in a years-old defensive mechanism. Whatever this was, she knew better than to let her emotions and her powers get the best of her. She watched Dick for a long moment, his eyes flicking to hers and then away, uncertain. Raven's heart seemed to fall into her stomach, and she stood there, waiting for anything to happen.

Finally, Dick turned and started down the sidewalk again, his voice quiet and thin in the thickness of the night. "It's about what I asked you to do… the dreamwalking, I mean."

"I know what you mean." She fidgeted with a badly sewn seam on her sweater and watched him out of the corner of her eye, trying to decipher his unspoken question. Was he trying to press her again for Red X's identity? She could only hold onto that secret for so long before she let something slip, but she wasn't ready to break Jason's trust. Raven kept her face as calm as she could and stared at Dick, waiting. "What about the dreamwalking, Dick? I can't tell you about who Red X is, if that's what you're asking."

"What?" He picked up his head and seemed genuinely surprised by her comments. A second passed and he shook his head, as if trying to remove her words from his own thoughts. "No, no. That's not… that's not what I want to talk to you about."

"Then what?"

"It's… Slade." He ran his hand through his hair and looked away again, guilt pooling off him as he shifted. "I should have talked to you first. I should have… I don't know, asked for your help, or meditation, or for you to dreamwalk on me, but…" He grunted, the sound hollow and aching, as if he was tired of fighting and didn't know what else to do. "I've been dreaming about Slade."

"Is… is that what this is about?"

Raven swallowed, everything outside her suddenly turning to a hum of colors and sounds, forgotten under the shock of Dick's words. Nothing made sense. Slade had been gone for years, there hadn't even been rumors or rumors about him. Dick had finally healed. It shouldn't have affected him this way, but standing in front of Raven, looking almost sallow and drawn into himself, she could finally see that there was something else going on. The small outbursts in their conversation, the darkness under his eyes, the constant ache and exhaustion… it all made sense now.

Raven took a slow breath, weighing her own words. "You mentioned knowing he was up to something, but you never told me how you got that information."

"I know." He looked a bit sheepish and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension there. "It was a dream… a nightmare, actually. I mean, I don't know how to describe it. It was all broken images and pieces that weren't quite meshed together." He rubbed the heel of his hand into his forehead as if trying to keep his thoughts all pulled together in a way that made sense. "I just knew… I just knew that when I woke up that it wasn't just a dream, right? It wasn't just a nightmare from memories from years ago. It was something real. And fresh." Pause. "And painful."

Raven swallowed, her throat dry. Her heart was skipping beats, forgetting how to work, and she didn't know if she had enough air to breathe. "And what kind of real was it? What did you see?"

Dick sighed, his hand falling to the side, limp. "Scath."

Raven just stared at him, feeling as though someone had punched her in the gut and she couldn't quite find the edge of her senses. It felt like she was tumbling through air, end-over-end, waiting to hit a ground that never came. She didn't know what to say, or even how to think, and so she just stood there, unsure of what else she could do to make things feel right again. A mixture of emotions swirled inside her - fear, worry, anger. How could he keep something like this from her? How could he think that this was in her best interest? She wanted to growl or snap or say something that defended herself, but nothing rose on her tongue.

She just stood there, in shock.

"I'm sorry. Really, Rae." He shook his head, genuine guilt in his own expression. He ached for her in a way almost no one ever had. "I'm so sorry. I know shouldn't have kept it from you. I know that I… I know what this means, and I should have said something sooner."

"Yes." Her voice was barely above a whisper, and she shoved her hands into her sweater to keep them from shaking. She didn't want him to see her so weak, afraid of ghosts that hid in the shadows of her mind. "You should have told me, Dick. You know… you know what this means. You know what this is. This is… it's dangerous. You should have said something. I should have been aware-"

"I know." He cringed and took a step back, not wanting to cut her off but not knowing what else to do. "I… I know, Raven. I'm sorry. Really. I just… I didn't want to see you break apart like last time. It nearly destroyed everyone on the team, and it damn near killed you. I didn't want to see you become a shell of something you weren't, just to accept your fate - like you had no other options when faced with this." He shook his head, his breath coming out in one grunt. "And I didn't want to see you give up. I couldn't bear to see that again."

"That's not an excuse." She glared at him, her eyes narrowing. There was fire burning in her, boiling in the pit of her stomach and she wanted to lash out. She wanted to scream and curse, or at least throw some kind of fit, but she somehow kept herself pulled together. "You should have told me, Dick. This is about me. About what happened to me."

"I know that too. Trust me, I know." He ran his hand through his hair, his head tilting back on his shoulders. "I was just trying to figure it out soon. Or at least, figure it out before it became a problem. I wanted to come at it with a level head and a plan. If I came to you and we couldn't handle it together, I… I don't know what I would do. You're half the glue that holds me together, Raven." He paused again, his shoulders falling in defeat. "But, you're right, I should have said something. I shouldn't have kept it from you."

Raven snorted, the sound flat between them. "It's too late for saying something. Cat's out of the bag now."

"Please at least understand what I'm trying to say." He finally looked at her again, expression darkening. "I know it was stupid of me to think I could protect you, or that I should try to do so without you knowing, but… you're my best friend. If something happened to you, something I couldn't bring you back from, I… I don't know what I'd do. I'd probably lose it all over again." He forced out a bark of humorless laughter, his eyes almost hollow. "And honestly, sometimes I feel like you're the only one I can talk to about things like this. I think sometimes you're the only one who really understands."

She shook her head, the fear spreading through her like a poison from a bite. Her limbs were starting to feel heavy, and whatever angry fight she wanted to start with Dick seemed to die in the pit of her stomach. It wouldn't do her any good to fight with him over this. Yes, she was mad - furious, actually. She wanted the fires of hell to burn around them. But… she also understood what he was doing. She didn't agree with it, but she understood it. Gods, he was such an ass sometimes.

Letting go of a sigh, her weight shifted back on her heels, and she pushed her shock and emotions as deep as they would go. She would sort them out later, but right now there needed to be real action and communication, and she needed to have them with a level head.

Her mouth pressed into a hard line and she continued to watch him. "I'm going to be mad at you for a while-"

He cringed, but nodded. "You have every right."

"-but… you're right, we need to come up with a plan before we do anything. What do you know?"

"As much as you do, honestly. Something having to do with Slade and the mark of Scath. That's all I know, all I could try to piece together from my nightmare." He offered her a weak shrug, and she saw the circles under his eyes again, as if he was stretching thin right before her. "That's why I was hoping Red X could help out, dig a little deeper. He's not exactly good, but he's not bad either. I figured if there was anyone we could trust to fish out some information we couldn't get our hands on, it would be him."

Raven nodded in agreement. "He's gray."

Dick's smile tugged at the edge of his mouth again. "You mean your informant?"

"I was just offering an observation of Red X, nothing more." Her expression turned blank, and she lifted an eyebrow. The last thing Dick needed to know was anything about her convoluted feelings towards Jason. "We have new information, we have that Slade is recruiting low level criminals and nobodies to work with him, but where does that lead us?"

"In another circle, honestly." Dicks shoulders sunk again and he sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. "It could be anything. It could be that he's raising an army. It could be that he's decided to recruit a sales force for Scath. There's nothing that points to a definitive answer, and we're running around trying to figure out something we're not even sure of. We're not any closer to figuring this out than we were weeks ago, it's just now we have more information to sift through."

Raven ran her finger over the bridge of her nose, trying to ward off a sudden headache. Fear and anger were trying to swarm inside her, burning her with white-hot cold. She wanted to crawl under the covers of her bed and sleep for years, if only so she could feel like she was ready to deal with this. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly and met Dick's stare. "I'll reach out to my informant in a few days, and see if he's got anything new. He mentioned he would keep looking over the next few days."

"Okay…" He paused, the silence heavy, and shifted his weight, staring at her.

Raven glanced over at him before starting down the street again. She could feel his eyes settle on her shoulders, watching every movement like she was about to morph into something else entirely. Seconds slid by and she felt him catch up with her, slowing his strides to match her own. Clenching her jaw, she glanced out of the corner of her eye at him. "Look, I'm fine. I haven't had dreams, nothing out of the ordinary has happened to me. And, I don't know why the dreams are affecting you and not me. As soon as I know something, I will tell you."

Dick scratched at the line of his jaw, sheepish. "Am I that obvious?"

The tension in her shoulders eased and she sighed. "I'm just used to the questions by now."

Before Dick said anything else, his communicator beeped loudly in an alert. Seconds later, Raven's followed. They snapped them open and stared down into the image of Starfire and Garfield looking panicked.

"Dudes! We have a serious problem!"

Behind him, Raven could see that strange man from the bowling alley, the one that Jason had been tailing, glowing. And not just glowing, but lit up with the marks of Scath. The marks of Trigon - of a heritage she had worked so hard to bury. Every bone in her body turned to lead, and her blood ran cold. Raven stared at the image, feeling like time was sliding to a standstill, that there was nothing she could do but watch in horror as that man took steps closer to her friends. Starfire's hands were alight with her power, and there was the very specific sound of Cyborg powering up his cannon.

Raven swore under her breath, fighting against the panic that was threatening to swallow her.

"We've got to go." Dick looked over at Raven for just a fraction of a second before looking back into his communicator. "We're coming, Gar. Just… just stay safe, keep him occupied, and don't do anything stupid. Remember there's a human person under that. Okay?"

Garfield snarled. "But, Raven… and Trigon. Dick! You can't-"

"A person, Gar. We'll be there in just a few minutes." Dick snapped the communicator shut and turned towards Raven. "Are you okay?"

"No." She knew better than to try and lie to Dick, he would always manage to pull it out of her anyway. She took a slow breath, shaking again. "No. I'm not. We locked him up. He's in another dimension, or at least he's supposed to be in another dimension. Trapped for all eternity, and yet…" She waved vaguely at his communicator. "How? He's not supposed to be here, Dick. He's not supposed to be on the plane of existence."

"I don't know." Dick looked as frightened and panicked as she was, and that was not a good sign. He ran a hand over his face and cursed. "I don't know, Rae. I know what we did years ago, but that… that's not a lie. That's his magic-"

"I know it's his magic, I can feel it." Raven ran her fingers through her hair, wanting out tear out the strands as she rocked back and forth on her heels. "Dick…"

"It's alright, Rae. I know this sucks-"

She whipped her head at him and glared. "That doesn't even begin to cover my emotions."

"-but I also know you're too strong to let him get his fingers in you again." Dick took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He took a step closer to her, being as supportive as he could without invading her space. "I know you can handle this more than anyone of us, because you know how to and you're strong enough to. You've handled this before, and you're stronger now than you were then."

Her shoulders fell, and she was suddenly weary and worn. Raven tried to reach out and grab all the little bits and pieces of her good senses and pull them back inside her. It wasn't going to do her any good to panic or be afraid, and Dick was right. She knew how to handle this. She was strong enough to bring him down once before, she could do it again if she had to. And, besides, this one person didn't represent that her father was coming back, he could be nothing more than a fanatic. Raven breathed in through her nose and closed her eyes, taking a few seconds to count backwards from ten, if only to find herself on solid ground again.

Her eyes opened and she looked ahead, past Dick's shoulder. "I can do this. Let's go."

"Okay. Come on, we have friends to save."

Dick nodded, and they took off down the sidewalk. It felt like miles between them, but their trip was less than a few blocks, and they were both sprinting at top speed. Coming to the part that bordered the bay surrounding Titan Tower, Raven could see the teenage boy standing in front of her friends, haphazardly perched on the railing around the seawall. He was all lanky arms and legs, looking more like he'd been assembled with a bunch of mismatched sticks than born that way.

The mark of Scath on his forehead had burned through his flat-billed baseball cap, shining like a beacon to Raven. She stared at him, and he turned to her, his movements awkward and sluggish, as if he didn't know how to use his own body. There was a weighted silence as he stared at her, head rolling from one side to another, his eyes wild as he watched her.

"The gem."

Raven cringed. Gods she hated that term.

"It's Raven."

"I am here to deliver a message!" His arms lifted like limp sandbags, heavy and boneless. He reached towards her before throwing his arms to the sky again. "A message from my master. A message for you."

Raven's lips twitched, trying to stave off her irrational fear for just a few moments longer. "Which is?"

"The gem will rise again in blood and flame."

Raven's stomach twisted into a painful knot and she took a slow breath through her nose. She needed to keep her head. She needed to keep her head. She needed to keep her head. Her jaw locked with an audible click, and she stared at him, trying to keep herself from being sick. Behind her, she could feel the shocked press of her friends, none of them knowing how close they should be, or what their next steps were. They had handled this before, but none of it had gone according to plan.

"In blood and flame she will rise."

Raven's hands clenched into fists and she took another step closer to him. She watched as his head lolled back on his shoulders, rolling back and forth as his eyes widened and drool spilled down the corners of his mouth.

"In darkness he will be born."

"Who?"

Dick's voice shocked her out of her daze and she watched as the kid's posture faltered, as his balance rocked too far backwards. The marks of Scath were now starting to burn through his oversized jacket, ripping through the nylon as flames licked up and down his body. They were warnings to her, words and curses that threatened every part of her entire being, and this was meant to show her that he was always in control. She would never, ever be rid of his stain, as long as she lived.

"Who will be born?"

The kids head twisted to the side, eyes opening just a fraction to stare at Dick. "Our savior. Our bringer of flames. Our king to shake the light from the world." Ribbons of burned jacket were drifting down off him, leaving his skin burning in marked flame. There was a pause as he took a breath, lifted his body up as high as he could, and turned his vacant stare towards Raven. "Humanity will fall."

"No!"

Raven reached out just as he toppled backward, the weight of his practically boneless form careening from his perch on the seawall. She jumped forward her hand nearly wrapping around his wrist before his fingers slid from her grasp. Raven slammed her eyes shut, waiting for the sickening splash and crunch of bones, but there was nothing but the soft brush of wind against her cheek, followed by a menacing whisper.

"I think you owe me an explanation."

Her eyes jolted open and she looked to her left to see Red X, standing next to her, heaving the limp of the teenage kid onto the pavement. He was masked, so Raven couldn't quite see his face, but there was enough anger radiating off of him that she got the full message of his emotions. He was definitely not happy. The team surrounded them both slowly, as if they were approaching a dangerous animal, although Dick looked as though someone had slapped him across the face.

Dick shifted, unsure of what to say. "Red X?"

"Don't get your panties in a bunch, Princess. I'm just here to pick up favors from my two favorite birds." He motioned to the limp, nearly naked form on the sidewalk. "I can't imagine what you'd need that guy for, but he seemed important. So, consider him signed, sealed delivered."

Raven felt his eyes turn toward her, and she desperately tried to think of something to say, but there was nothing. At least nothing that wouldn't give away their relationship… or whatever it was between them. Heat curled up her neck and she looked up into his mask, uncertainty suddenly weighing her down.

"Dude. You. I mean… you're… you're not like a bad guy, right?"

Raven's head tipped forward and she buried her face in her hands. Eloquent as always, Garfield.

"No." Red X crossed his arms over his chest and regarded the whole team carefully. Raven could feel him weigh his options, unsure if he should stay and chat or run. A quip and a dash was his usual M. O. but this was a whole different scenario. And now, he was personally invested in it. He rocked back on his heels and turned towards Dick, his stare trained on him. "Not since I last checked. Plus, I still have my honorary Titan communicator. I keep it on the shelf next to my other rewards."

Dick groaned, embarrassed. "I should have never given that to you."

"Awe come on, Bird Boy. The gesture was sweet."

Garfield's shoulders finally relaxed and he let go of a relieved sigh. "Whew! Thank god. I don't know what we would do if we had to fight another bad guy. I mean… we didn't really fight this one, and then there was the whole thing with…" He trailed off and looked over at Raven, suddenly sheepish. "Sorry. I… I shouldn't have said anything, Rae."

"No. No… it's fine." She shifted looking at the boy's body. He was breathing, but it was ragged, and she could see his eyes dart wildly behind his eyelids. He was coming down from some kind of high, either a drug or a spell… she couldn't tell what, but she could see him crashing. She knelt down next to him, watching the marks on his skin still burn. If she touched him…

"You should get him to a hospital."

She looked up to see Red X's mask looking down at her, the drop in his voice chilling and serious. He was glaring at her behind his mask, and she didn't blame him.

"And don't touch him, Raven. If those marks are enough to worry you, I'd probably not touch them." Red X cocked his head to the side. "For safety, duh."

"We'll take him. I'd rather… not be here for whatever conversation is about to happen between you two anyway." Garfield transformed into a horse, and Cy picked up the boy's body draping him over Gar's back.

"Don't… don't kill each other, okay?" Cy looked between Dick and Red X and Raven, before shaking his head and starting down the sidewalk, mumbling more to himself than anyone else.

Starfire stayed quiet, off to the side, unsure of what she should do next. Dick took a few, cautious steps forward, obviously trying to think of something - anything - to say to him, but silence was their only companion. Moments ticked by between them, and everyone waited for someone else to make the first comment. Raven's shoulders dropped in exhaustion, and she buried her head in her hands waiting for-

"So… anyone wanna tell me exactly what's going on?"