Disclaimer: No, I don't own Teen Titans.

Chapter 54

Starfire walked into the main ops room, and scanned it for signs of life.

"Friends?"

She ventured further in, peeking behind the kitchen counter and over the couch, but found only a lone mutant silkworm nibbling on the coffee table.

"Hello, Silkie," she forced herself to smile as she picked the drooling creature up, "I see you have already done the enjoying of breakfast."

The worm whined in protest as she carried it to the kitchen.

"Perhaps I can prepare something with more of the nourishment - I do not believe that tables possess much of the healthiness."

Silkie ignored her, and promptly crawled into a cabinet to munch on the shelves Cyborg had so recently installed.

Starfire noted the dishes in the sink, the drops of day-old syrup already dry on the counters. All that remained out was a cold cup of tea, which Raven had probably made long before Stafire or Robin had awoken.

THUMP

Starfire winced at the unmistakable sound of yet another shelf collapsing due to Silkie. Perhaps, with everything else, Cyborg would not notice.

She pulled the fridge open at the same time as the common room doors, and stiffened as Robin approached and asked, "are there any eggs left?"

Starfire shut the fridge and shook her head. There were no zorka berries, either. It seemed both Robin and Silkie would go hungry.

BUURP

Silkie stumbled from the cabinet, smiling contentedly. Perhaps it was only Robin that would starve.

Starfire avoided Robin's gaze as he brewed his coffee, and hugged Silkie to her chest. It did not feel the way it used to. Where was the joy she felt whenever her first bumgorf was near?

Starfire looked into Silkie's beady black eyes, and he smiled, before shifting in her arms to better access her delicious hair.

She realized, with much guilt, that it was another tiny creature that now possessed her heart. A green one. With Ryand'r's face and Beast Boy's ears. And, sadly for Silkie, it was not him.

"Star..." Starfire turned to Robin out of respect, rather than the desire to engage with him, "he's...chewing through your shirt..."

"Eek!" Starfire ripped the worm from off her chest, saving what remained of her shoulder strap. Apparently her hair was less appetizing than Silkie had initially thought.

Robin moved to pour his coffee, then stopped, and started, "Star, we-"

"I must change," she excused herself, rushing past him.

She knew what he wanted to talk about, and it was of no use. She would not tell him. There were some things best left buried. And even so, if anyone were to understand, it would not be Robin.

The only time Starfire had ever come close to telling anyone was years ago, when the memories were still fresh. The titans had just been formed, and she had been so desperate to fit in, so desperate to be liked - and she had been. Sort of.

The boys had liked her, though of course her customs had seemed odd to them - but no more so than Beast Boy's love of the tofu, which Cyborg claimed was evil - and that was worse, was it not? Indeed, they had all accepted her - all but one.

Starfire had not known why Raven continued to reject her. She had tried to suggest all manner of different activities that the magazines and the boys had said that girls here liked, but Raven refused all of them. At the time, Starfire was unaware that not all Earthlings enjoyed the same things. She had been fooled by the boys and their shared love of the pizza and the video games. Tamaraneans also enjoyed the same activities - combat and vicious games and feats of strength and glorious Tamaranean dishes - so Starfire had thought that Raven hated her, and not just her suggestions.

Then came the night on which the friendship between Raven and Starfire truly began - they had done the switching of bodies, and powers - and suddenly they had to do the girl-talk, and the hanging of out, because, if they were to save their friends, the friends that actually liked Starfire, then they had to understand one another. Starfire was the one to bring this fact to Raven's attention, and Raven had agreed.

"I was born in a place called Azarath," Raven began, and told Starfire of the monks and how she had been taught to control her powers and how she finally had had enough and ran away. But she had forgotten to mention that her father was the demon Trigon and that there was a prophecy in which she helped to bring the end of the world and possibly more things that she still had not told Starfire or their other friends. But Starfire had not known this. She had simply thought that Raven was sharing, for even the little bit that Raven said seemed like so very much to Starfire. And Starfire had wanted to return the honesty.

She had started much the same. "My place of birth was Tamaran," she had said. "My first flight was as a newborn - all Tamaraneans begin their life with the joy of flight." Starfire had smiled as she said it. "Of course, I do not recall the thought that first gave me the joy," she had tapped one of Raven's pale fingers against Raven's chin, "perhaps it was the sight of sky, or a stuffed plorthak, or my knorfk-"

"What about your starbolts?" Raven had interrupted. Starfire had not expected it, and asked, "what?"

"Is 'righteous fury'," Raven had quoted, "something you experience at birth? Like the 'joy of flight'?"

Starfire had hesitated.

A friend was someone who cared. Someone who shared in the joys of one's life - but also in in the pain. And this was something Starfire could not endure. Telling another person, whose eyes would tear, and voice would rise, and heart would ache, and tongue would question. Had Starfire not shed a thousand times the tears, and howled at the Psions until her throat was raw, and demanded answers from even the almighty X'Hal? Starfire would not - she could not - watch another person do the same on her behalf. It would remind her, and she might go back to the way she was before she managed to escape. She'd believed that death could not possibly be worse, and in her desperation for it all to stop, she'd risked her life and fought her hardest, and, somehow, some way, she had managed to escape. But recounting it would remind her, and bring those buried feeling back to life. She had no guarantee that she could come back from them a second time.

Starfire had thought that Raven did not like her, that Raven did not care, and so she was the best person to tell, for she would do none of the things Starfire feared.

But then, Raven had sat before her, and told Starfire things she had not told the others. She had confided in her. That was something friends did. And they were friends, Starfire had realized. And so she could not share her whole story.

"No," she had said, "I was unable to use the starbolts until I reached maturity."

And Raven had said, "because you're so mature."

Starfire had not understood the meaning of 'sarcasm' at the time, and so she had continued on, with only the relevant details and stories about life on Tamaran that did not feature her as Princess Koriand'r, the vulnerable and the sweet, both of which were weaknesses that her older sister had preyed upon before they were both ripped from their home world.

There was once a time Starfire could have told Raven of her past. But there was never a time when she could have told Robin. He had loved her from the beginning - almost as much as she loved him.

/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\

"I can't see!"

"So? It's not like you would understand what you were looking at, anyway."

"Uh, it's a computer," Beast Boy pushed the top of Raven's raised hood down, trying his best to look over it, "DUH."

"Actually," Raven shoved him off, but pulled down her hood nonetheless, "it's code."

"So? I-"

"Can y'all be quiet?" Cyborg snapped, his bulky frame blocking the computer screen, "I'm trying to work here!"

"I do too know code!" Beast Boy hissed, "who was the one that hacked out computer system in the middle of the night and accessed all those super secret encrypted folders to find out when your birthday was?"

Raven turned her head from the screen.

"ME," he jabbed a thumb at his sternum, "that's who."

Raven raised a pointed brow at him, "you're actually bragging about that?"

"Yeah," he puffed out his chest proudly, "'cause I was the only one hacky enough to do it."

"More like the only one stupid enough."

"Hey! If you actually WANT to keep your stuff private, maybe you should just hide it better."

"If you actually WANT to live long enough to find the kids, maybe YOU should stop going through my things. "

"If both y'all WANT to live long enough to have the kids we're tryin' to find," Raven's cheeks turned pink, "then KEEP IT DOWN!"

"What?" Beast Boy looked from Cyborg to Raven, not understanding the joke, "what'd he-oh..."

Beast Boy's cheeks turned red in kind, "no WAY we'd ever-"

"You said it yourself," Cyborg antagonized, continuing his database search, "you're always trying to get yourself into her business."

"DUDE!" Beast Boy leaned in front of Cyborg, blocking his view of the screen, "I do NOT!"

Cyborg hit enter then leaned back in his chair and started counting on his fingers, "you got into her encrypted personal files on the tower's database, you snuck into her room to spy on her little boyfriend, you went into her mind-"

"SO? You were there with me!"

"I wasn't the one who picked up that mirror," Cyborg folded his arms, "all I'm saying is, you're always in her space!"

"That's different then...UGH," Beast Boy hmphed, "you know!"

"Oh, really?" Cyborg smirked, "you hang out in her room, you sleep in her bod-"

A nearby piece of medical equipment cracked.

"It's just not that different!" Cyborg said quickly, "you guys being married, I mean - my parents spent all their time together. At home, in the lab - they were always near each other," Beast Boy and Raven each took a large sidestep apart, "and sometimes married people have kids - I just don't think it's crazy, that's all!"

"Maybe it's not crazy for Beast Boy," Raven tried to regain some shred of her dignity, "but I'm not the one that keeps bothering him."

"Oh, really? Who's the one who's been sleeping in my room?"

"That wasn't exactly my choice," Raven folded her arms.

"And whose idea was it for us to have a sleepover in your room?"

"That's not wha-"

DING

The three titans' heads turned to the screen, currently glowing green and declaring, in bold typeface "MATCH DETECTED".

"Match detected?" Beast Boy read aloud, "what does that mean?"

"It means," Raven interpreted, as Cyborg started typing, "that we know who Ravager is."

"Not exactly."

Raven and Beast Boy turned back to Cyborg.

"But we do know who she's related to."

"Huh?"

"Who?"

The two titans leaned over Cyborg's shoulders to get a better look.

In the middle of the screen before them was a bunch of data detailing matching portions of genome for two subjects, a line dividing the two split vertically down the middle.

On the top left it said "Unknown DNA".

On the top right, it said "Slade".

/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\

"She's his daughter?!" Robin cried, as if the evidence weren't up on the monitor, visible to everyone.

"It's a 50% match," Cyborg said, as if he hadn't stated this already, "that's how much DNA you usually share if someone's your parent."

"Are we sure it's HIS DNA?" Robin demanded.

"We took it from his mask, Robin," Raven referenced their keepsake from Slade, the one that caused Robin to start hallucinating the very man they were discussing. It was rare that they had anything of Slade's in their possession that wasn't irreparably damaged, so they'd swabbed it. Naturally, it was a dead end. Though the DNA was human, there was no record of anyone with his genetic markers. Which either meant that Slade had somehow erased any criminal records that might have contained such information, was never tried or incarcerated for doing anything illegal, or, more likely, both. So no, they couldn't be completely sure that the trace DNA they'd retrieved was his, but Slade worked alone, and the chances of them randomly finding DNA on Slade's mask that wasn't Slade's but somehow matched Ravager's, a villain that admitted she had worked with him and bore the trademarks of his uniform, were highly improbable.

"I wasn't before," Cyborg responded, "but I am now."

"She looks like she's our age," Beast Boy stated, "Where was she?" A series of confused stares made him add, "like, when Slade was fighting us and everything - was she helping him, or...something?"

Robin shook his head, "I would've seen her."

"Why would Slade go after Robin of friend Terra," Beast Boy winced at the former titan's name, "if he had his own daughter to succeed him?"

"Maybe she wasn't good enough," Raven suggested.

"Yeah," Beast Boy scoffed, "it's not like she broke into the tower and kicked our butts super easily."

"It doesn't make any sense," Robin leaned into the screen, searching for meaning in its pixels, "was he hiding her? It's not like she appeared out of thin air."

"Maybe her mom was looking after her," Cyborg suggested.

"You don't end up with skills like hers if you have a normal childhood," Robin countered.

"I didn't say she had a good mom," Cyborg defended himself.

"It's obvious Slade trained her," Robin dismissed Cyborg's comments, "but if she'd been around when I was, or when Terra was," Beast Boy winced again, "then he wouldn't have needed us," Robin turned away from the computer, to face the team, "which means he must've started working with her after we fought Trigon. That was the last time we saw him alive."

"That makes sense," Cyborg nodded, "but it doesn't explain why he's been hiding her. If he's even alive, which," Cyborg added, "we don't even have proof of."

"If Terra's alive," Raven ignored Beast Boy's frown, "then Slade could be too. Just because we didn't find him doesn't mean he's dead. I'm not sure what happened...when I reversed everything. Everything went back to normal when I defeated Trigon, but I'm not sure if it was a time reversal, or something else..." Raven admitted, "there could have been unintended consequences."

"Like Slade being de-skulled?" Beast Boy asked.

"If by de-skulled you mean being brought back to life, then yes."

"Whoa," Beast Boy said in awe, "your powers can literally de-zombify people. I don't get why you're so scared of horror movies, Raven - you could actually turn zombies into people. It would take, like, all the scaryness out of it."

Raven sighed heavily, and shook her head.

"Why does is matter if Slade is the Ravager's father? Are we not more concerned with the defeating of Ravager?"

"We would be," Robin replied, "if we could have beaten her before. But we lost," Robin reminded, "so we can't just treat her like any other criminal. We have to treat her like Slade. We need to find her weakness," Robin hit his right fist into his left palm, "and the only way we can do that is if we understand her."

"Then," Starfire stepped closer to the screen, looking from it to Robin, "would it not be better to do the surveillance and find her when she commits her next crime?"

"We will," Robin agreed, "but there's no guarantee that she'll do anything else."

"Not with those two," Cyborg mumbled, unable to stop himself from a slight shot of bitterness at their various acts of destruction throughout the tower, "if they're acting the way I think they are, she'll be too busy chasing them to do anything."

Everyone else glared at him for the comment.

"What?" He cried in defense, "y'all know it's true!"

"Since we might not be getting any new evidence," Robin turned back to Starfire, "we have to search in the other direction. We have to figure out how she became Ravager. When she started working with Slade, when she met him, who raised her - the things that make her who she is," he concluded, "that's the only way we're going to understand her, and know what we're really up against."

"The only way to understand her?" Starfire asked.

"Well, it's worth a shot," Cyborg agreed, not noticing the faraway look in her eyes, "it's not like we have any other leads."

/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\

One thing had become abundantly clear to Rose; she never wanted children. If she ever had the misfortune of having a newborn thrust upon her, and by some sordid circumstance, was not able to throw it off a bridge, she would certainly have taught it to have the decency to respect their elders. Or at the very least some basic manners.

General insolence aside, the titan's children were absolute heathens. They rarely expressed appreciation, they refused to eat their meals, they never excused themselves, and the language the little girl used was not appropriate for a child of her tender age.

It wasn't often that Rose allowed herself to think of her mother. Lilian. Sweet-Lili. Lili. Like the flower. Like a rose was. She had delighted in the fact, as a child. She hadn't had the rebellious streak most children had, when they attempted to see the world on their own, abandoning their parents and disregarding their wishes as they ventured into the unknown, beyond the confines of the womb and crib. Rose had stayed close.

Lili had taught her daughter respect. The virtues of patience, and politeness, and how a formal bow and a few words of flattery and a smile could do far more for you than harsh jabs and a cutting tongue. Rose never felt the need to use vulgarities. It was unnecessary, not to mention indecent. Expletives make one appear to be of a low class, her mother had told her, and no one would look down on her child. So Rose had learned, and bloomed, and charmed her way throughout the world, until the brutal waters of fate crashed in and drowned her beautiful flower-mother, forcing the thorns from out her fragile stem.

But she was still a flower, on the outside. Still quick with a smile and a well-timed compliment. Still careful with her words, remembering her manners. She knew her mother would approve. It was the other unsavory aspects of her life she wondered if her mother would have supported. Rose's instinct would be no, but then again, Lili had run her own bordello and fallen in love with a mercenary, so her morals weren't completely pure.

Rose had appreciated that fact, once she had met her father. It made her training easier to stomach, knowing it wouldn't go completely against her mother's teachings. Defending yourself was definitely within her mother's credo. But these children were different.

Marie ran at Rose and jumped with her leg outstretched in an attempted kick to the stomach. Rose blocked it easily, using her forearm to impact Marie's chest and push her back onto the ground. Marie landed with a thud and gasped for breath.

"Try it again," Rose commanded.

"No," Marie scowled.

"I said," Rose stepped towards her, "try it again."

"And I said NO," Marie haughtily replied.

"I told you," Rose repeated herself for quite literally the fiftieth time, "if you don't make any progress, neither of you are getting dinner."

"We're not hungry."

"And neither of you will get to sleep."

"We're not tired."

"Not yet," Rose affirmed, "but you will be once you've been awake for 48 hours," Rose walked towards the little girl and started circling her, slowly, "you'll start by getting tired, lethargic, less motivated, but as time goes on, you'll get progressively more irritated, and angry-"

"I'm already angry!" Marie yelled, causing the floor to glow back.

A bot appeared from the shadows and launched itself onto her back. Rose continued as if nothing had happened.

"Your judgment will start slipping, and you'll probably start getting aggressive. But you won't be able to control yourself, will you? Your powers might attack me," Rose leaned down, looking into Marie's eyes, "but they might also hurt Ryan."

"I'm not gonna hurt Ryan!"

"Not intentionally, I suppose," Rose agreed, standing up, "where is he, by the way? I feel as though he hasn't spoken in hours - oh, wait." Rose pointed to one of the monitors on her adjacent control room, showing Ryan whimpering in his sleep on his cell's floor, "he's still recovering from that nasty bump from earlier. How did he get that?" Rose asked aloud, looking casually around the room as if in search for an answer.

"It wasn't my fault!" Marie cried.

"What wasn't - ah, yes. I remember now," Rose turned her gaze back to Marie, "it was you, wasn't it? You put up a shield as he was running towards you."

"It was a asident!" Marie shouted, tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes.

"Does it matter?" Rose asked, "either way, you're the reason he's suffering."

"NO!" Marie shook her head furiously, tears streaming down her face.

"You can deny all you want," Rose turned, facing the screens again as they all turned from surveillance to a recap of Marie and Ryan's collision, "but that doesn't mean it didn't happen."

"Ryan!" Marie wailed, running towards the screens, as if she could somehow jump into the images and save him.

Rose caught her mid-run, and knelt down to her level.

"YOU did that," Rose told her, "and you're going to do it again if you don't listen to me." Marie's lip trembled, but she stayed silent. "So I think, you should start paying me a little more respect. Because if you don't," Rose tilted her head towards the looped video, "Ryan's going to pay the price."

Marie's eyes locked onto the screens, watching as Ryan slammed, again and again and again, into her forcefield. She did that. And Rose said she would make her do it again.

"So," Rose asked, drawing her attention back, "would you like to try again?"

Marie ripped her eyes from the monitors and focused back on Rose.

She nodded.