There was once a time when Raven loathed a good crowd.

After a childhood with the disciplined monks of Azarath, Raven always felt like the most emotional one in the room, so it was strange for her to come to Earth and be suddenly overwhelmed by the emotions of others. Because of this, she'd generally steer clear from gatherings of strangers, let alone go willingly into a nightclub. But that was years ago when fear ran hot in her veins and her father's influence scratching just beneath the surface. Now, a Friday night in the heart of the city was no match for Raven's auric buffer, barring the sloppy energies of those around her, even as she sipped happily at her second whiskey-ginger.

Sure, the music wasn't her favorite, nor were the clumsy compliments of those who kept slithering by them to get a better look at Koriand'r's ass. Still, Raven couldn't help but take solace in how all that attention Garfield worried about paid little mind to her when a six-foot, magenta-haired alien in a vinyl mini skirt danced next to her. The best part was, in thinking to blend in more, Kori wore Garfield's bright shutter shades to hide her phosphorescent eyes.

Next to her, Karen talked with Ted, the friend from Steel who got them on the guest-list even though his band wouldn't play tonight. He had also arranged a booth for them that overlooked the bar, which Raven easily welcomed, but it also seemed to put them on a weird pedestal. She kept having to wave off this sense that she was under careful observation. It was easy enough to ignore, as her mind raced with other thoughts, less concerned with her environment than if Garfield had graced her with a response yet.

The boys were gone by the time they had been ready to leave the Tower, and without so much as an acknowledgment from Garfield, Raven was left anxious and quietly put off. She knew her text was vague and a bit wimpy. Still, Raven had hoped for some kind of relief. She just wanted Garfield to be happy. To laugh and be himself with her, make up for all his pain while easing any worry he's ever had.

Don't let anyone make you think you couldn't be wanted.

Raven knew too well how Gar felt about the Beast, how it messed with him and his sense of self–she didn't need Vic to tell her that. Her last real memory of the Beast was nothing but bouts of motion sickness, throbbing pain from her injuries, and green tufts of hair tickling her skin as he held her close. Still, Raven knew Vic wasn't wrong about each time the Beast overcame the antidote, but just knowing that...accepting that, made her sick with something like grateful horror, and Raven just wanted him to be here now.

That's why each time Raven checked her phone for his text or call, her heart sunk lower in her chest, and her cocktail beneath a layer of ice, when no notifications lit up her screen. So with a sigh, she pocketed her phone and stripped her pea coat from her shoulders. If she were going to enjoy herself at all tonight, she'd require more substantial reinforcements.

"Oh good!" Karen shouted with a cheeky smile as she watched Raven add her coat to the pile on the bench. "Gonna stay awhile?"

"For now. Drink?" Karen pointed to the short table at the booth's center, where a bottle of vodka was wedged in a large bucket of ice. Raven then held up her empty glass. "Whiskey!" Karen gagged dramatically.

Though the club was packed, Raven was content to disappear in the river of people, most of which barely gave her a second look as she passed. Their energies were mere whispers against her calloused shield, and Raven wondered whether this next drink would weaken or strengthen it. It was a gamble of sorts, which made Raven feel adventurous. Perhaps courage is what she'd need most tonight.

Once she spotted an opening at the bar, Raven made haste to stake her claim but nearly stumbled over a spilled pint in the process. Her recovery against gravity was subtle and effortless. However, lifting her feet from the ground to hover over to her spot at the bar naturally caught the notice of happenstance onlookers.

"That's a nice trick."

When she inspected the voice, Raven first saw the strobe lights glaring off thick-rimmed lenses. She then responded simply with a sarcastic raise of her brows before turning away, hoping to hail the bartender before this guy got too chummy.

"You're one of them, aren't you?" he asked, turning to her before nodding quickly to the booth above the bar.

Raven's eyes perused his slim build, padded with layers. There was something off, she realized, but she couldn't decide if it was the high collar jacket or his sharply fashioned beard or his dark beady eyes, wild behind the blocky frames. He looked like a top-heavy cartoon hipster, but yet, someone also she's seen before. "What?"

He flashed lazy jazz hands. "Titans."

Amused, Raven shook her head. "Don't know what you mean."

"No? Alright," he shrugged and leaned against the counter. "Too bad for me, I thought a Titan would be able to get a drink faster. I've been waiting for five minutes at least."

Raven eyed him again, noting how tightly his collar was fastened around his neck, deciding he could pass for an army surgeon in an old war movie. "But you look so approachable."

"You're one to talk," he scoffed, taking a step back to send his gaze once over her backside. "I can't decide if you're more likely to drink my blood or ignore my safeword."

"Excuse me?" Raven asked, more puzzled than offended. She hastily peeked at her platform booties and fishnets, realizing it was the white pea coat that softened her look, per Karen's suggestion.

"How about this," he smirked, "use your fancy tricks to get me one drink, and I'll give you my safeword." Raven grimaced. "Fine. Get his attention, and I'll buy your drink and give your non-Titan friends a round? Hm?"

Raven arched a petty brow before aiming her gaze to the reflective wall of bottles that lined the back of the bar. Fixed on one handle of Gin atop the highest shelf, her eyes glowed as glass gently trembled against glass, quickly catching the bartender's attention. He rushed from the other side to save the rogue bottle from a violent fate.

"That pesky San Andreas," the guy murmured knowingly.

"Nice catch!" Raven called, her teeth luminous behind plum-shaded lips. After a quick study, the bartender nodded for her order.

"Whiskey Ginger!"

"Well okay?" the bartender yelled, and Raven paused, prepared to repeat herself.

"Johnnie Walker," the guy beside her pointed to the top shelf, "make mine neat. Please." The bartender wrinkled his forehead before giving Raven a suspicious glance. Quickly, she nodded. "And your friends?"

"They're set," she shrugged facetiously, "bottle service at the booth."

"Oh," he held up his hands in jest, "so you just wanted to take a walk amongst the peasants? Well, I'd still like to uphold my end of the deal."

Raven permitted a chuckle before the bartender set the drinks on the counter. She held her drink up to his and thanked him, quickly making an escape into the crowd before he had a chance to object.

From above, her eyes caught the lights shimmering off of Koriand'r's ridiculous shades, hailing Raven like the North Star. She smiled and took a hearty drink of her cocktail, noticing the smoother burn of whisky pitch further into her chest, but then, she felt a gentle tug on her arm, yanking her mouth away from the tiny straws. Her head twisted to meet the chummy but cautious grin of the man she apparently failed to escape.

"You can't really expect me to let you slip away into the night like that. You're too useful. What if I need another drink?" Raven tilted her head to the side, almost condescendingly, sipping at her cocktail. "Can I at least know your name?"

After a moment of unmistakable hesitation, Raven spoke with false confidence. "Rachel."

"Oh, okay," he briefly furrowed his eyebrows before gesturing to himself. "Johnnie."

Raven made a face and glanced at the glass in her hand. "Like...the drink?"

"Ha, yeah, sorry. I thought we were playing a game where we don't use our real names. I'm Emmett, if you wanted to try again."

With delayed suspicion, Raven took a step back to scan him over carefully, but before she could get a read, an arm slid around her shoulders.

"Hey guy," Roy said pointedly, and Raven's heart lifted. "This one's trouble, alright, trust me."

Raven didn't fight his pull, but she mouthed one more thanks to Emmett for the drink before leaving him to the tides of the dancefloor. "Makin' friends, Raven?" Roy teased, shaking her gently in his grip.

"Only just all...and everywhere I go."

"You drunk already?" He bowed his head at the minor slurring of her words, only to comically lean away. "Lord, help us all."

"Did you come alone?" Raven asked with as much nonchalance as she could manage.

"The boys are parking off 5th," he told her, and Raven ignored the quick turn of her stomach. "Why we drove when we had a perfectly good human taxi back at the Tower, I'll never know."

He winked, and Raven poked his side hard enough to free herself from his heavy grip. "You couldn't afford my meter."

"Oh my," Roy laughed, "clean it up, Raven, you know much how I like dirty cab talk."

"Shut up," Raven pushed him away from her and into the sudden and fervent embrace of Koriand'r, who led Karen and Ted from the booth.

"Friends!" The alien beamed, pulling Raven to her side with rigor. "We must go to the dancing floor! It will begin soon."

Not seconds later, before Raven could take the breath needed to ask Kori what she meant, the music stopped. Then the lights dimmed, inciting loud cries from the hall. Ted guided them through the thick of people to a slightly elevated area off to the side of the dance floor. The platform was still roped off for employees and other guests, but Raven found it was less conspicuous than the booth.

As they settled near the edge of the platform, Raven assessed her new vantage point, her eyes once again peeping the club's entrance. Then a focused beam of light fell on the edge of the dancefloor, following a woman as she crossed the stage, and Raven watched the crowd as it slowly pursued her like moths to a flame. While the woman appeared to set herself up at a series of complex monitors and soundboards, Raven took deliberate breaths to check the room's raging energies that mounted her pulse.

Finally, the music returned with boisterous and intense emotion. It was loud, almost too loud at first, but when Koriand'r took her hand to dance, Raven was instantly grounded. Without that fear of losing control, she indulged in the collective commotion, feeding off of the sounds and colors and exhilarated spirits of those around her. It wasn't until she ran into Vic that she snapped from the trance. The cyborg caught her, and Raven noted his immediate suspicion.

"You good?"

Raven yelled defensively through a fixed smile, "Are you good?"

"She's fine, Cy," Karen took hold of Vic's arm, pulling him away from Raven to dance with her. "Don't talk her out of having fun."

Discouraged when she realized Vic was alone, Raven investigated the masses, pausing at the glare of strobe lights flashing obnoxiously from a small reflective surface. With sharper focus, Raven recognized the pair of blocky thick-rimmed, hipster glasses. Though she couldn't see Emmett's eyes through the lenses, Raven knew they were fixed on her even before he lifted his glass. She raised her own in recognition, offered a smile, but Emmett's face was stone beneath the stage lights. She held his gaze as a chill brushed her neck, but then Roy pulled her into an inelegant spin, once again animating her with crackling emotion. She couldn't help but be swept up by the rapture of dancing with her friends even as she poorly guarded her drink against her own gravity. Then Raven decided the best way to keep her whiskey from spilling was to simply finish it. She squeezed her eyes shut and hung the last of the fancy bourbon dry against her lips, taking into her mouth a couple cubes of ice.

"Take it easy, tiger," Gar's voice was silken in Raven's ear when he took the empty glass, and her senses were quickly saturated with him, his musk laced with fresh oaky spice, his heat radiating around her, making her realize she had somehow been cold before. Raven looked at him, and that look of exhaustion and grief that plagued her the last time she saw him was gone, and in its place, hope. It set her heart racing because she felt it too.

"Who you callin' tiger?," Raven grinned, crushing the ice between her teeth. "I thought you might be too fed up with me."

Gar smirked. "And who says I'm not?"

"Are you?"

Raven hung on his hesitation, holding her breath as he closed the space between them, bringing his lips to her ear, "You figure out what you want, yet?"

Garfield took a half step back so he could see her, studying the way her eyes staggered around his face.

Raven knew he couldn't realize the current that rushed beneath her skin at his closeness. He couldn't tell that her breath had dwindled to almost nothing as her thoughts raged at her sudden paralysis. Words barred just behind her lips, and she knew that with each second she let pass while staying so violently still, Raven threatened that hope in his eyes.

Before that could happen, a jarring shift in sound tore his attention to the stage, and Vic's impassioned howling sent the air around Raven spinning. She recognized the poppy synth chords from his training announcements, the same one she's learned to dread, but the version that surged from the speakers was distorted and slower. The crowd was hyped.

When Raven looked back, Garfield had been yanked away in Cy's excitement, and she couldn't help but grin at the way they bounced around each other shamelessly in clearly choreographed bliss. Roy joined with a couple random girls at his side, followed soon by Karen, who caught Raven embracing their contagious euphoria. She quickly changed course, scuffing toward Raven like a goon: arm's waving in an aquatic motion as she approached, her features stern and severe, but her eyes glimmered wildly. From behind, Raven felt Koriand'r's back pressed against her own, and the alien shimmied her shoulders just hard enough to make Raven's do the same. Soon, she found herself sandwiched between the two, and Raven yielded to their tomfoolery without much fight.

But her attention didn't stray far from Garfield. It couldn't. There was something about him right now that Raven couldn't leave alone.

You figure out what you want yet?

Maybe it was because she hadn't seen him this dressed up in ages, with his sport coat and his hair combed back as much as his dark, unruly locks would allow. Maybe it was because she had been waiting for him all night, compulsively checking her phone that was now drained of its battery or the club's entrance, just waiting for him to walk through.

You figure out what you want?

And yet, now that Gar was here, she wasn't sure what to do. Because even as she saw him now just as she wanted, Raven kept thinking of what Vic said about the Beast. Her Beast.

The very thought brought his feral form to mind, blood dripping from his jaws, four red eyes fixed and glowing, and immediately, Raven shook the idea from her mind with shame.

Be free, child.

When she again looked over, his eyes were now locked onto her, and somewhere in the dark, Raven felt a warm and wicked purring.

Hers.