Roy Harper had plenty of experience feeling like an asshole. Not so much in a regretful sense, more so in the way that he knew that someone had to be the one to cut the bullshit sometimes. And Roy was never one to back down from a bit of confrontation in the name of ego-checking. So as he watched as Kori berated Gar for not sticking his nose in someone else's business, mere hours after sneaking out of Roy's bed in the dead of morning, Roy struggled to not gag on the hypocrisy of it all.
Of course, he had known Koriand'r was using him. Even as she crawled on his lap and slid her strong, balmy arms around his shoulders, licking his lips with permission, Roy knew what this was. And considering he's been offering her a rebound for weeks, he was perfectly content with it. It was just sex, a chance to indulge in each other without the messy head and heart stuff. Everyone was on edge after Raven disappeared, and if nothing else, they helped each other work off a bit of stress. Two birds or whatever.
But, there was something about the way she twisted Gar's words, shaming him for minding his own, that rubbed Roy the wrong way. Beneath the goofy swagger, Logan might be one of the purest god damn souls he's ever met, and Kori dared to project her guilt on him as if it was all Gar's idea. After everything, Dick was still somehow blameless in her eyes.
And there was a possible hint of resentment in realizing that the time she spent riding him beneath the soft and distant glow of the city lights twinkling from his window, Kori was still thinking of Grayson. So much so that she couldn't even wait for the sun to come up before calling Wayne Manor.
So yeah, Roy didn't mind being the asshole this morning. However, he didn't expect the Tamaranean to react so strongly. And he sure as hell didn't mean for Gar to get dragged down even further. The guy had enough twisting his gut this morning and could have easily done without getting wrecked by her starbolts.
Now, after taking the literal heat of their quick tempers, Gar is near comatose due to the damage Kori's flames wrought on the shape-shifter's accelerated healing, and Raven finally sends us a signal. Without an inclination toward flight, the archer volunteered to stay behind to watch Gar and the HIVE soldier while they went to retrieve Raven.
Though the burns were fading, as were the discoloration of the holes left by the melting glass marbles from the firepit, Gar still looked pitiful. Perhaps it was the guilt sitting in Roy's stomach that drove him from the infirmary and down to the OPs room to check in with Raven's return.
Roy wagered that one way to make up for his part in Garfield's current predicament would be to get that dark, grumpy space witch to the changeling's bedside in time for him to wake up. But when he reached the OP's room, Roy only noticed the live footage from the 4th-floor holding cell, where the HIVE agent seemed to writhe in pain on the floor.
The girl continued to roll around the floor by the time Roy reached her cell, her screams audible from the closed elevator cab down the extended hallway. He hesitated at the door, watching the girl contort her body into exaggerated positions as if she was set aflame with invisible heat. Life experience gave him pause, warning him to approach the girl with caution, but the way her sharp and trembling echoes cut through the walls made all the tiny hairs along his skin stand with tension. He had to make it stop.
There was a sharp scent in the room, one that made his eyes water, but Roy couldn't pinpoint what it reminded him of, nor thought to as he dropped to his knees and took the girl's shoulders into his hands. As he gently shook her, Roy realized that he'd forgotten her name, so he yelled "Hey!" over and over until her rolling amber eyes finally settled on him. The convulsions slowly eased along with her screaming, calm finding her in his gentle breaths. But when awareness seemed to fill the girl's features once more, her face quickly withered into a violent sob.
Roy didn't know what to do, keeping one hand on her shaking shoulders as she cried, ignoring his questions but following his instructions to breathe. Eventually, the cell that mere minutes ago reverberated with her horrid cries was eerily silent.
"Can you tell me what the fuck - what's wrong with you, huh?" Roy repeated, easing his tone slightly when her bottom lip trembled.
"A nightmare," she whispered, "I'm so scared for him."
"Do you always scream like a madwoman when you sleep?" He asked, marking how cold her skin was as he steadied her shoulders. The girl just shrugged, threatening to cry again. Quickly, Roy cooed, urged her to relax. And as he thought to leave the girl to check in with Cyborg, if only to see what the hell was taking them so long, the silence was again interrupted, this time by her rumbling stomach.
At the sound, Roy peeked over his shoulder, studying the most pitiful look of embarrassment and desperation upon the girl's face. Unarmed and so far cooperative with accurate information, she met his gaze with something close to pleading sincerity, and Roy suddenly wondered if they were cruel.
Unsure of the guilt he harbored for Gar's injuries or genuine concern for this stranger's physical well-being, Roy made the call to escort the cuffed HIVE soldier from the holding cell and up to the kitchen.
But they barely turned the corner before the girl began screaming again. Not at the blister of invisible flames or at nightmares too bone-chilling to speak of, but at two giant yellow eyes that burned bright with inhuman raged, fixed squarely on them.
The moment Raven stepped from her portal, her skin flushed with the realization that she did not teleport to the OP's room as intended but directly into Garfield's bedroom instead. She spun toward where she knew his obnoxiously large bed was, relieved to find it empty. But only briefly, for his sheets were slightly ruffled but not unmade, which wasn't enough for her to determine whether it had been slept in or not. So then, where the hell was he resting?
Her eyes scanned around the floor for the clothes Gar wore last night, but his room seemed uncharacteristically tidy. She spotted a few shirts bundled on the ground next to a hamper, but no white button-up or black pants, and no sign of that ridiculous pineapple print sport coat. Still, that didn't mean nearly enough to bother her. After all, it wouldn't be unlike Garfield to strip and leave his clothes strewn about the Tower, particularly if he didn't have his nanotech layers and needed to shift.
And just like that, at this casual and otherwise innocent thought of him caught without his shifting layers, Raven's cheeks again burned. And not because she'd never seen him naked before. In fact, over the years, Raven had inadvertently become used to the sight of Gar covering himself with his hands, a sheepish smile on his lips.
No, it wasn't the idea of his naked body that sent her insides twisting with a strange and powerful hunger. It was how her mind immediately returned to the memory of his body pinned against her own, his excitement digging into her with mutual need. And it was getting easier, Raven realized, to soothe that pesky worry of just how badly she wanted to feel him again, as she did last night, just...deeper.
Suddenly, Raven found she was too warm for the peacoat around her body, the silky lining lightly sticking to her skin as she moved. When peeling it from her shoulders, she caught the flicker of her white jacket reflecting off the glass of a framed photo on his wall. Unassuming at first, until Raven noticed what lay just behind the glass, and her attention sharpened; it was a picture of her. Well, a picture of her, Vic, and Kori, but it was her scrunched-up, smiling face at its center, the other Titans just slightly out of the lens' focus.
Raven wandered closer to his wall lined with various other mounted frames: several NatGeo animal infographics, a faded map of West Africa, a Red Hot Chili Peppers poster, and an old Bay Chronicle feature with the headline "Titans of the West: New Band of Super-Powered Teens Turn off Dr. Light" and several other photos of Gar or taken by him. But the photograph that Raven now scrutinized was one she'd never seen before.
She noted small details like the chipping wood of the boardwalk railing behind them, her dark summery clothes, the American Flag spinning wheel in Vic's hand. The cyborg beamed with vibrant amusement, his metal arm draped over Raven's bare, alabaster shoulders. Her own arm angled above his, securing her black boater hat to the top of her head as if the Bay breeze threatened to steal it away. Beneath it her dark hair, which at that time was freshly cut and asymmetrical, burned violet in the California sun; one of her eyes squinted against its glaring light. In a tight navy blue dress beside her, Kori grinned broadly, making V signs with her fingers while bending her hip into Raven's side.
Though she put together that Gar had taken this picture, recalling the disposable Kodak he brought to that midsummer festival along the Pier, Raven continued to stare at herself, mesmerized by the easy laughter on her face. It wasn't long after Trigon, she remembered, and she was still riding that high of relief of being free of his influence. Quietly smiling at the photo, Raven brushed her fingers across the glass, gently enough that her prints wouldn't leave behind a streak.
How long? Raven wondered. Of all the pictures he took that day, why is this one framed and hanging up in his bedroom?
Both so subtle and obvious, Raven's best-educated guess weighed heavily in her chest. It felt warm and shy though twisted with something like guilt as well, and it drove her feet toward his bedroom door with restless courage.
As she marched, Raven dispatched invisible tendrils of consciousness throughout the Tower, searching for him. She was at the elevator when one of her feelers struggled around his turbulent energy, and through the ether, Raven heard it, a deep and thunderous growl that shook her nerves with dread.