Raven was surprised by the cold sea breeze nipping at her face when she emerged from the portal with the trio of former HIVE agents at her heels. From where she stood on the edge of an isolated islet across the Bay from the downtown, she could barely make out Titan's Tower through a thick veil of morning fog that seemed to swallow the entire city. Even the glinting arches of Golden Gate narrowly escaped the smooth ashen sheath, but Raven found it lovely, in an eerie and ominous kind of way.
Behind her, Mack grumbled about not needing to hold hands, and when Raven peeked over her shoulder at him, she smirked at how he struggled to escape Emmett's teasing death grip. But when the smug soldier caught her watching with amusement, Raven cooled her features down to indifferent before regarding Kai's obvious disappointment. When the girl's honey-brown eyes met Raven's, the cambion could only shrug. Surely they couldn't expect Raven to bring strange HIVE agents, rogue or not, into her home without caution, based on a few words exchanged with desperation.
"Couldn't have brought us to a coffee shop, huh?" Emmett murmured, drawing the collar of his tactical jacket higher on his neck when a particularly sharp breeze danced around them.
Raven ignored him and pulled her phone out from her coat pocket. She opened her messages and rested her thumb on the screen until she heard a distinct chime, indicating her current location was successfully delivered to Vic's system. Next, she opened her call log, tapping quickly on Garfield's name. Strange flurries swirled in her belly as the phone rang and rang and rang, the anticipation filling her with nervous excitement. Subtly, Raven nibbled her bottom lip when she heard the start of his voicemail.
"We want to see Dylan," Mack told her, crossing his arms. One might think he did so to appear threatening, but it was more likely to retain body heat. Raven measured the cold as she pulled her peacoat tighter around her waist, her eyes searching the edges of the heavy fog in the direction of the Tower. "If you won't take us to her, have her brought to us."
As longer seconds passed, she worried that her friends were out searching for her, in which case she could leave the brooding HIVE soldiers on this islet and project herself home to check the comms. Also, get into warmer clothes and out of this fucking mini-dress.
"Did you hear what I said, Titan?"
Raven snapped her neck at Mack's impatient tone, unable to stifle her own. She didn't mean for her eyes to redden with glowing wrath, but it seemed to help make her point as Mack dropped his eyes in reluctant submission at her demonic scowl.
"Take it easy, devil bird," Emmett said. "We just want to make sure she's alright. She's not...use to this. Hans'll murder us if we let his kid sister get sent to Belle Reve."
Before Raven could counter with the fact that they were the ones who helped capture her friend first, Kai scoffed loudly.
"She wasn't even supposed to be at the club last night," she muttered, throwing a sharp but fleeting scowl in Mack's direction. "Be caught up in this shit at all, actually."
"Kai," Mack warned. "It was her choice."
"One we shouldn't have let her make."
"Kiddos, stop bickering. There's no point," Emmett looked over at Raven to offer an explanation she didn't ask for. "Warner's are a stubborn breed. Their best and worst quality."
"She's not stubborn like Hans," Kai argued, "the restless fucker. We should have seen this all coming when he caught wind of Blood's game. He can't resist playing detective."
Raven's lips twitched as she listened, noting how familiar these strangers felt to her, somehow. Unlike any HIVE agents that she's met before. Although, it's not like she's ever grabbed coffee with any perp after the Titans apprehended them. Still, experience has taught her that their unapologetic candidness isn't reason enough to trust them. It could still be a well-rehearsed they're just like me ploy.
Checking her phone for any missed notifications, Raven thought to try Kori's phone until her eyes caught distant flickers of green and blue lights. The muscles in her jaw relaxed as they drew nearer from the fog, but her relief slightly waned when she couldn't find any signs of emerald wings.
Raven sensed the nerves from the three agents behind her as Cyborg and Starfire descended from grey skies. Bumblebee also emerged as her suit expanded to her natural size. Raven offered a modest nod as her three teammates landed on the islet's tall, dewy grasses. While Cyborg and Bumblebee both smiled softly at Raven, Starfire fixed a scathing glare toward Emmett, Mack, and Kai, her emerald eyes billowing with anger.
"Where is he?" the alien demanded.
If there was any fear in Mack's body, he did well to conceal it. "Where is she ?"
"How, how did you know," Raven started, looking between Star and Cyborg, "about Robin?"
"We tracked his bike to it's last active location-"
"My bike, you mean," Cyborg grunted, and Bumblebee rolled her eyes at his unnecessary interruption.
"Not far from Rafael's Landing. Definitely not far enough from the abandoned STAR labs bunker to simply be a coincidence," Bumblebee slid wary eyes towards Emmett as she spoke, pointedly scanning his tactical suit before returning her attention to Raven.
"They claim not to know where he's being kept," Raven said, and she could feel Kai's eyes on her back. But that wasn't why a strange pressure knocked at her sternum. As comforted as she was to reunite with her team, she couldn't help but wonder why Garfield didn't join them. Had he gone out looking for her near Rafael's Landing on his own?
Cyborg cocked his brow. "The brother?"
"You do have Dylan, then?" Kai asked, and Raven quickly understood that meant their leader Hans was the brother. "We want to make sure she's okay."
"She's fine," Cyborg assured her with an edge to his tone, "you'll notice we're not the ones in HIVE suits." He tilted his head slightly to regard Emmett more directly. "Dr. Meyers, you never returned our call?"
Surprisingly without a quip, Emmett only shrugged with a menacing twinkle in hardened features.
A heavy silence dangled between the Titans and the HIVE soldiers, suffocating Raven's aura with tension from all sides. Her attention drew back to Starfire, who hadn't eased her rage towards Emmett even slightly, and suddenly, Raven thought of another possible reason Garfield wouldn't have come with them to meet her.
"Gar?" Her voice sounded meeker than she would have preferred, but when Starfire pulled her eyes away from Emmett for the first time to stagger towards her own, Raven felt a wave of guilt ripple from the alien's aura.
"Resting," Bumblebee said quietly, a knowing look in her eyes.
"Look, we get it." Emmett said, raising his arms defensively, "You're the mighty and righteous Justice League Jr. while we're just scummy HIVE rats, but as we already explained in much detail to her," Emmett gestured to Raven, "we're on the same side when it comes to Morrigan. So can we just skip to the part where we all figure out how to get our people back?"
"Why Robin is being held by her in the first place?" Starfire asked, ignoring Raven's prying gaze.
"By her own doing," Mack told her, not flinching from her shifted attention. "Not even Blood wanted her to do that. The plan as we knew it was to send him halfway across the country and out of the way."
"And what else was part of the 'plan as you know it '?"
"Take us to see Dylan first," Mack said, "or bring her to us so we know she's safe."
"Of course she's safe," Bumblebee said, "we're not in the business of putting people in danger."
Mack cocked a brow at Starfire. "You sure about this one?"
At this, the alien's scowl amplified, her eyes glowing brighter at his audacity. While in total agreement about Mack's aggravating presence, Raven didn't like how intense Kori's energy was at present, her sternum again tightening at Gar's absence. Roy wasn't here either, and it was still early morning, which could mean they were just sleeping still. But then, why say resting, especially like it was a warning?
"I will find her," Raven announced, taking firm steps forward towards the edge of the islet. Before drawing her portal, she looked back to Emmett, whose cheeks were beginning to redden from cold. "If your stories match, maybe we can trust you long enough to find Robin and your friend," her attention shifted to Mack, "and to take down the Crow...when that time comes."
Mack gave her a distinct nod, accepting a silent contract. A weary promise made between strangers on enemy lines.
Raven returned the gesture before drawing a portal to the Tower.
As they opened to a dismal sky of swirling haze, Garfield's eyes watered with the sting of thick brimstone in his snout. He blinked several times, letting the warm liquid soak bits of his fur as it trickled down his face before lowering his head, focusing on the faint flicker of distant candlelight.
Separated from his primitive self for a quick moment, Garfield's overriding conscious noted the strange sense of deja vu in his gut when gaze zeroed ahead on a faint light in the distance. It was almost like he was restarting a level of one of his games, his avatar having just been dropped at the starting base. Gar was still for a moment, just registering the strange familiarity. But then, that far-off flame kindled with unexpected life at the distinct sound of her cries, and his body drove suddenly forward through the mist with a low grunt.
Even though he could not see nor feel the ground below his claws as he ran, Gar could still hear them scrape across stone, like rhythmic strikes of flint against steel for a spark, harder and faster the clearer her pain echoed in his ears. Soon, the bleak silhouette of a tall rotunda drew itself before him, his path evolving with a vast set of steps to the temple's entrance. Almost at the top, he halted at the abrupt emergence of moonbeams cutting through the dense fog. Beneath them, the temple's chamber became illuminated with a gentle, silvery glow, and he could make out the shape of her small, limp body rising above a tall stone slab.
Around Raven stood crowds of faceless cloaks of dark indigo just like hers. They all chanted in low, ominous tones that made his fur stand erect along his entire body. He watched silently as her skin glimmered against the moonlight while she made slow, graceful rotations in the confines of its reach. Though he still heard her small, muffled sobs, only more broken and sporadic, Garfield recognized the calm on young Raven's face as if she was merely sleeping, completely unaware of the strange scene around her.
Heartache tore at him as some deep, unknown voice warned him he was too late. Whatever they wanted, they already stole, and there was nothing he could do. Though unable to name what it was they took from her, Gar's ears fell back with grief. She was the most delicate, pure thing he had ever seen, and he failed to protect her.
A low grumble vibrated deep in his throat. He'd make them all pay.
With a strange and abrupt hush, the crowd of cloaks vanished, and with it, the sinister humming, and Garfield watched as Raven's tiny shape descended to him. Gently her body fell against the stone before rolling to its side, her bareback now facing him.
Garfield gently approached, wanting to call her name, but his current form barred the ability. So he instead ran a careful claw along her shoulder until she rolled towards him.
A harsh caw clacked in his ear, causing Garfield's whole body to jerk around. Atop a crumbling stone column, a massive crow twitched its neck about to get a good look with both its beady, onyx eyes.
"Monster."
Garfield spun back to face young Raven, who now sat up straight, and his stomach dropped at the sight of her father's form. But it wasn't Trigon's likeness that made him squirm. It was the blackened, bleeding cavities in place of her natural eyes. Those beautiful, dewy lilac gemstones that glimmer in the sunlight were now deep pockets of hatred.
"She doesn't have a chance."
Behind him, the crow cawed maddeningly. At its menace, Gar peered back over his shoulder in time to mark two lifeless orbs dangling from its long beak.
"Guard the strange girl, Gar Logan."
Garfield woke to the frantic beeping of the vital sign monitor beside his bed.
Though grey, the bleak daylight was intrusive, straining his eyes as they quickly adjusted, making out the familiar surroundings of the medical bay. He marked the rhythmic beeping as his pulse returned to his usual pace, but he still pulled the IV from his arm with one quick tug, silencing the machine entirely. With tender movements on his way off his back, Gar found that as his present mind returned to him, the dream swiftly faded behind his eyes, distorting to blurry images and sounds.
strange girl
Though the severity of his burns had healed as he slept, the skin across his chest still felt raw as Garfield lifted himself from the bed. The Tower was enveloped in clouds, concealing the city and even most of the water from his vantage point, but Gar still felt as if Raven was directly in his line of sight. The hair stood along his spine as he stared hard through the windows, hoping that the deep clouds would part for her, just like they did in his dream.
she doesn't have a chance
At the sudden droning of the HVAC unit kicking on a couple of hallways down from the infirmary, Gar marked how quiet the Tower was. The complete lack of human noise unsettled him, making it seem more isolated than did the thick fog that suffocated the Bay. It felt deserted, and Gar didn't like it. Too much the early days of Dayton Manor, so soon after his parents passed. He hated being alone in that vast and desolate mansion. Titans Tower wasn't ever meant to feel like this. So full of ghosts.
monster
When the grey outside didn't part for him, rather seemed to darken in protest, Gar turned away from the windows and left the medical bay. Even as anxiety coated his dry tongue and his stomach rumbled from neglect, he knew there was but one thing that'd comfort him. And she was still missing.
Gar's skin prickled at the sudden feeling of other, like a foreign breeze flowing against the current. The floor vibrated gently below his bare feet, and while he should be relieved for the sense of company, his body warned of a fight.
guard the girl