Teen Titans / Star Wars crossover: A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Chapter 13: A Brief Interlude: Night Moves
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I don't own either franchise. Seriously, you don't think I did, did you?
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Chapter 13: Night Moves
For a moment Robin, still maintaining his grip on Raven, held his breath. But he could only hold it so long. Then he took in deep shuddering gasps, fully expecting each one to be his last.
But surprisingly, he was able to draw in a breath, not one, but two, then three…
Then he noticed Raven was conscious. "Don't," she said, "ever do that again.
"Don't make me," he replied. "I gather you're responsible for...this?" He gestured to the ebony sphere enclosing them.
"Right," she said. "Now. Let's get to the ship. I want to check on...the others." He noticed a slight hesitation in her voice. ?
Hand in hand, they flew into the still-open port of the Falcon. "Well, Finally. Good of you to join us," said Han. "I guess you're responsible for our present circumstances?" He indicated Raven.
"Yes. Where's Garfield?"
"Who?"
"The green one," she grated. The look she gave him made him decidedly uncomfortable.
"Rae!" Beast Boy came around a corner. "You're okay? I mean, you were right in the line of fi—* But he got no further.
For Raven had thrown herself on him, clinging to him like he was drowning—or she was. "Uh, Rae?
"I'm so glad to see you alive and unharmed." She hadn't released him from her death grip. He was finding he liked it.
"Uh, s-sure, Rae. We're all okay. Uh, maybe except for Starfire. Something seems to have happened to her.
The small room used an infirmary: Raven passed a hand over the still-unconscious Starfire. "That's odd; I can't sense anything wrong with her, but, if what you're telling me is true, something obviously is."
The control room: "Chewie! Plot us a course outta here! Move it!" Raven had, for some reason, or perhaps for none, let her englobement field fade, and he was expecting to come under both TIE fighter and battle station firepower any second. Chewbacca plotted a course with zigs and zags, in order to outwit and avoid the Imperials' fighters and artillery fire…
Except there didn't seem to be any of either one.
"Now I'm really worried," said Han, as the hyperdrive took over and smashed them out of baryonic reality.
The Death Star: Darth Vader overlooked the damage to the hanger bay. That would take time to repair. Asmodeus came up behind him. "The tracking devices are in place?" rumbled Vader, without looking around.
"Yes, my Master, they are. And...something better than that." He pulled a small data disk from within his robe's pocket. "These are the plans the rebels have. But...they are not the correct plans. I took the liberty of altering them ever so slightly, before the rebel princess acquired them. The rebels do not have the accurate plans. Plus, I added a little something, something that will make the rebels' operational base detectable to us."
"Did you now."
"Yes. When they load the plans into their systems, a small, unnoticeable program will alert us to their location." He paused, giving Vader a bow of respect. "Combined with the false plans, their endeavors have no hope of succeeding."
For a moment Vader looked at his apprentice, both in admiration and suspicion. "You have done well, my apprentice. The Emperor will be proud."
But whom will he be proud of the most?
…..
The Millennium Falcon: Everyone was adjusting, in his or her own way, to the cramped confines. Raven and Galen Marek, accompanied by Corl Vanderk, had moved Starfire into the tiny room that served as an infirmary. "Anything?" asked Vanderk. It was unclear who he was directing his question to.
"Dunno, kid." Galen Marek was passing his hand over the quiescent form of the Princess of Tamaran. "You know her better than I do," he said, looking up at Raven. "Has she ever done anything like this before?"
"Not that I'm aware of," began Raven, only to be interrupted by a freshly-showered Robin. "Anything?" he asked.
Raven shook her head. "As far as I can tell, she's perfectly normal. Or, at least, I could say whatever's wrong with her is something I can't detect."
"A question," said Marek, addressing Raven. "You aren't a Force-sensitive, right?"
"Right," she said, guardedly.
"So...if whatever's wrong with her involves the Force, you wouldn't be able to detect it, right?"
"Right," she said, again. "But that wouldn't explain how it is you can't detect it."
He shook his head. "It may be something so...unusual, so exotic, that nothing in my training covers it. The way the human eye can only see in certain spectrums."
Suddenly, Robin was aware of someone behind him, primarily by smell. "Beast Boy! Haven't you cleaned up yet?"
"How's Starfire?" asked the shapechanger, ignoring Robin's query.
"We don't know anything yet. Now, please, for all our sakes, hit the showers. Lord God Almighty, hit the showers!"
After he left, Robin noticed Marek looking pensive. He raised an eyebrow. "You've thought of something."
Marek was impressed. The kid wasn't a Force-sensitive, yet he could read him like a book. "Only one thing, and it may not help." He gestured to Vanderk. "From what the private here tells me, she was down on 4DC for a while. And that affects people. She—maybe her whole species—may have been particularly sensitive to whatever power was down there."
"But...she was fine when I first found her!"
"Only sayin,' kid. Maybe it was a delayed effect or something."
"How would we know? And what could we do about it?" As usual, Robin was one to get straight to the point.
A shrug. "Not sure. But it would take a stronger Force user than me to detect it—if that's what it is—and to do anything about."
"Great. So we're back to square one."
"Not quite," said Marek soberly. "I have heard of one such Force user.
"On Dagobah. Name of Yoda."
…
In the shower, Beast Boy, aka Garfield, was doing his best to wash the stench off of him, all the time acutely aware of the ship's limited reserve of water, let alone hot water.
"Here," said a very familiar voice behind him, "give me the sponge. I'll scrub your back."
He nearly jumped out of his skin. "Ra-VEN! What the hell are you doing here?"
"At the moment, waiting for you to hand me the sponge. Or do I have to come around there and get it?"
He hurriedly handed her the sponge. While this was the stuff of his dreams, he was finding the cold reality was nothing short of terrifying. He could feel her scrubbing his back. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that she was naked, there behind him. "Raven. What are you doing here? Besides the back thing, I mean."
The back-scrubbing paused. For a long moment, he was thinking she wasn't going to answer him. Then she resumed, the sponge going in circular patterns. Wax on, wax off, he thought, all the while doing his damndest to keep the hysterical amusement in those thoughts from reaching her. He'd long ago learned how to cloak his mind, to keep from "broadcasting" his thoughts and emotions. "Garfield. You...probably know me as well as anyone, and better than most. I...have a question to ask you, and, on a crowded ship like this, I couldn't think of a more private place than this.
"And I definitely want privacy for this."
"O-kay," he replied.
"Have I...have you noticed any...changes in me since we came to this universe?"
He blew out a breath. "Yes. Yes, Rae, I have."
"In what way?"
"You've become a lot more emotional than before. Either that, or your, your emotional controls have, have lessened, or something. That itself wouldn't be so...alarming, but it seems like it's your darker emotions that have become…well, more active, is all I can say. Stronger, for sure."
"Darker emotions?"
"Back there. At that station. I could see you slamming that dark guy, the one they're calling Darth Vader, into the ground. But the old you would have been satisfied with that. But you were gonna take him apart. Piece by piece. Slowly."
"He killed my friend."
"I know, Rae. I know." He longed to turn around and hold her, just to comfort her, but didn't dare. "I'm just saying you seemed to get out of control more easily, quicker, than before."
Her arms went around him from behind, and he felt two firm yet soft orbs of flesh press up against his back. Oh, God, help me here. "I've...noticed the same thing, Gar. And I don't mind telling you...it scares me."
Enough, he thought, was enough. She was an empath; it wasn't like she didn't know what he was feeling, anyway. Even if she'd been a normal girl… He turned around in the shower and put his arms around her, trying desperately to keep his eyes and hands away from the places they most wanted to be. "Rae...it's true I don't know how it is for you, with your demonic heritage. You've told me your emotions are overpowering sometimes, and you just have to get away from people. That's why you're always meditating; it's a way of getting away from the world, the things, that trigger you. So I can't really know how it is for you.
"I can only tell you how it is for me."
She looked up, startled. "For you?"
"I turn into animals, Rae. It's not just changing my shape. Something inside me changes, too. Something...vital. Something deep.
"There's a reason why people say someone who acts in a savage manner is 'acting like an animal.' Animals don't hold back, Rae. I have to do that part...and sometimes, sometimes, I get afraid there won't be enough of me in there to do it."
She nodded, burying her face against his chest. "I know. I saw what happened when you became that beast, that chimera."
"That was an extreme example, Rae. But it's that way with everything I turn into. I take on some of the characteristics of that creature...and if it's a big, savage predator, say, a tiger or lion...I have a hard time just keeping from...doing something the human me would regret, later."
"I...never thought about it like that."
"I have to, every time I change, Rae. Just as I imagine you have to, whenever you go into a fight...you have to keep a tight rein on your humanity. Don't you?" She was silent. The water had long since turned cold, but neither of them noticed. This was too important, and their focus was on each other. "It's probably worse for you. But...yeah, it's kinda there for me, too. All the time."
She hugged him closer. He was glad of that for two reasons: one, it kept him from seeing something he'd enjoy seeing too much…
...and because the sensuous feel of her flesh, pressed against his, was...there was no other word for it: intoxicating. I shouldn't be feeling this way, he thought to himself, this is my friend. I won't do anything to hurt her, ever.
And of course, their physical closeness helped him to (he hoped) hide a certain body part that obstinately refused to behave.
"Have...have you noticed anything different about yourself, Garfield? Any, any...you know?"
He held her head against his chest. He used to be the shorter of the two, but after hitting his growth spurt, he was now taller. "Yeah. Some. Back on Tatooine, when we fought that bounty hunter, he taunted us with 'needing reinforcements.' Then he targeted Cy with that flamer of his…
"...I won't say I lost it, 'cause I didn't. But I hit him as hard as I could. And part of me wanted so bad to rip that stupid armor off of him, see how tough he was without it...and…" here his voice dropped to a whisper, "...and, Rae...God help me, but I found myself wondering what he would taste like. And that wasn't any 'animal' part of me, that I could just change back from, Rae; that came from me. Something...deep down inside me that I can never get away from." She was looking up at him again, mouth agape in shock. She had perfect teeth, he noticed; so white they almost glowed in the dark. "I guess now you see why I'm such a committed vegan. For me, meat—any meat—could easily become...an addiction."
"Great Azar. Gar, I...I had no idea. I, I'm sorry...here I am, the empath, and...I never knew that about you." Again her head went against his chest. "I've been wallowing in my own self-pity...I never knew, never even guessed…never bothered to guess...what you were going through."
"You're not wallowing. I kept it under wraps as best as I could."
He could hear her smile in her voice. "Guess we're just two messed-up people, then." And he could almost hear her thinking: maybe made for each other?
But no, she couldn't be thinking that.
It was such an effort to keep his hands from doing a little southern recon, towards what he knew was a perfect tush. Was that the animal part of him, too? Or was blaming it on any "animal part" just an excuse?
But now she shifted in his arms, pulling her head away from his shoulder. "Thank you, Garfield, for sharing that with me. I know you've never told anyone about this...but you chose to tell me. That...tells me a lot about how you feel." She looked up at him, a mischievous glint to her eyes. "But speaking of feelings…" Now she glanced downward, between their pressed-together bodies. "I don't need to be an empath to tell how you're feeling in at least one other, altogether different category, right now. A life-affirming category, shall we say?"
He blushed crimson. "Uh, yeah, Rae, sorry about that, but, but you know, I, it, in this kinda circumstances, I can't really help it. Sorry." He wondered what it would feel like, to get blasted into another dimension.
Again that mischievous look. For some reason, it made him both nervous and even more aroused than he had been. He hadn't thought that was possible. She reached up and pulled their heads closer together, whispering in his ear. "Well, since I just so happened to be in the neighborhood...we could...take care of that little matter." And she rubbed up against him in an incredibly enticing way.
His breathing nearly stopped. Oh, dear God in heaven. An ancient fantasy, ever since he'd first laid eyes on her, come to life. But… "Rae, there's nothing in this or any other universe I'd like better...but what with everything...you know...going on...with you, an' all...until we, you, know more about...what's happening to us all here, I...I'd feel like I was taking advantage of you. And you know I'd rather die than do that."
She pulled back a bit from him, looking at him soberly, her expression completely unreadable. "Thank you, Garfield. You protected me from Adonis, that time. You protected me from Cinderblock, and Mirissa, back in our old universe. And you're still protecting me.
"I know what I'm feeling, deep down, is real. But you don't, and so you're unsure. It's...kinda sweet, that you'd deny yourself, your own desires, to protect me. I used to think it'd be sort of condescending for someone to do that...but...coming from you, right at this point, it's...there's no other word for it…it's just very...wonderful...of you, to, to not want to take advantage of me, as you see it. To control yourself, and protect me, even from you, as if you were my own, personal knight. That's special to me. Very special. As are you." Her hand moved up his arm.
He relaxed a bit. "Thanks, Rae. I, I wasn't sure how you'd take that—*"
"So how about this?" She shifted her leg up over his hips, drawing them both closer—and bringing certain parts of their bodies closer together, touching, conjoining. Her hands grasped his hips, pulling their bodies together...in all the right places. "I'll be on top. Just leave everything to me." She laid her head on his chest, snuggling in just so, intuitively fitting them together in such a wonderful way...pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that so desperately wanted to be whole...he could feel his own resolve weakening fast..."That way, there's sure to be no misunderstanding.
"Just relax and let me have you, my knight."
Ho! Lee! Crap!
But at that very moment, there was a pounding in the door. "Hey, grass stain! You forget the way out or somethin'?"
The look Raven gave the door should have caused it to glow red from the heat. Then she turned back to Garfield, her expression softening. She drew his head down for a kiss. "Some other time, my knight." And with that, she was gone, disappearing into ebony shadow.
Whoooo boy. What th' hell had just happened?