A mystic floated in front of a glass window, a cup of tea in her hand, it's steam floating into the air as it cool, her mind filled with heavy thoughts as her eyes scanned over a news paper in her hand, and she knew it was him, it was always him, he was animal in nature, he worked by his instincts and thus in a pattern.
Every few months the news would cover stories around the world of poachers coming up dead, all with animal like wounds, to the rest of the world it was easy to assume it was just their karma but she knew better, it was far too obvious.
Gently placing her feet to the floor she cast the paper away and finally took a sip of her tea letting it's warmth calm her inner turmoil, as she walked towards the console in the middle of the towers living room, her fingers moving around as she dialed the one man she knew would know where her fugitive would be.
A red eye and a brown eye greeted her, an intensity behind them, as he waited to hear what the mystic wanted, after all it was because of her that his best friend had left, leading him to leave the Titans in favor of the justice league as the tower no longer felt like home. "where is he" she said monotonously, taking a sip of her tea, the only sign of emotion was a raised eyebrow as she waited for a response.
"why, so you can go ruin him again?" The Cyborg said venom in his tone. "he isn't your issue anymore Raven, he's under Justice League Jurisdiction" he added, and went to end the call, there was no use in this, the mystic never showed more interest in the Challenging than asking where he was whenever another story popped up in the news.
"he will always be my problem and you know that cyborg or need I remind you of what I promised the bat" she hissed out, an intensity not commonly on display anymore.
"Then ask him, I'm sure he knows" came the spiteful response before she heard the commonplace noise of the call disconnecting, her fingers gripped her forehead angrily, "fucking dickhead" she muttered before standing up and trying Batman, receiving the information within minutes, of course he knew, he always knew.
It didn't take long for the mystic to locate the destination in her mind and was soon enough stepping through a pitch black portal, leaving the tile covered flooring of the tower to meet a hot sand floor, the only reprieve was a cool running stream that she could hear nearby. What she wasn't prepared for was to be so suddenly confronted by the man she had set out to find.
There not but ten feet in front of her was one of her old teammates kneeled over the very stream she had heard, scars littering his back, she could see evidence of untreated bullet wounds healing over, jagged knife wounds, and burnt tissue. The figure straighten out ears twitching, "go away" he spoke, his voice course like he hadn't used it in ages.
"Garfield" the mystic started a small waver in her voice before taking a step forward, "you know the deal" she swallowed whatever words she had truly wanted to say, a monotonous tone filling her speech.
The man nodded, turning to finally face her, it had been years since the two had been face to face, and yet she still couldn't admit her wrong doing. "you still think what you did was okay" he commented, brushing passed her and as his hand moved her to the side by her torso he added, "it wasn't".
"Would you stop it dammit" she said, kicking her foot on the ground like a toddler that wasn't getting what she wanted. Realizing that the man had stopped she marched towards him, angrily poking a finger into his chest, "I thought it was the right thing to do okay? I fucked up okay, does that make you fucking happy Garfield? Knowing that I was at fault for us missing out on the future that we both had planned, because it hurt me too dammit, do you know how much it sucks to have someone you love walk out of your life and then have the person you call a brother hate your guts, huh?" She ranted, her face flushing with anger, her voice getting louder and louder as she finally looked into his eyes, they were once so full of hope and now they held nothing but pain in them.
"Do I know? you betrayed me Raven, you had me locked away, you let them do this to me" he shouted, a clawed hand dragging up his chest the white marks left from various experiments and prodding evidence on his green skin. "I trusted you when you told me that they wanted to help me train, all they did was treat me like a fucking science experiment, trying to figure me out acting like I was the strangest thing the justice league had ever seen, all because you told them that the beast came out again, no one in the league trusts me anymore because of you, I only have one friend left because of you, I have no home to go back to you because of you, and you have to check up on me to make sure I'm still in control like I'm some kind of ticking time bomb, pretty ironic huh? The ticking time bomb herself assigned with the task of making sure that I don't let my other side take over and yet I still can't stop loving you, fuck you raven, fuck you."
The Challenging's breathes were heavy by the end of his rant, his chest heaving as his eyes watered at this out pouring of emotions, he wanted nothing more than to run away and cut everyone off until he decided to pop back up on the map but this pain was paralyzing and he couldn't do anything but sit down hugging his legs to his chest, not caring if he was being judged or not.
Tears were spilling out of the mystics amethyst eyes long before his rant had ended, she could vaguely sense as a ball of black energy surrounded them, her emotions tearing up the world around them as she broke down, falling to her knees next to the Challenging. "I'm so sorry I did this to us Garfield, I'm so sorry I ruined us" she said through tearful gasps.
Instinctively an arm found its way around the woman's smaller frame and pulled her closer, she could feel the rumble in his chest even more now and it shook her to the core how much damage she had down to such an positive person, but at the touch her emotions calmed the dark energy surrounding them dissipating into thin air, revealing a landscape of broken trees and up rooted shrubs.
The pair sat there in silence for hours, until both of their tear ducts ran dry, relishing in the opportunity to have another person's presence with them. Until the man broke the silence, "don't do it again" he said meekly, his head remaining looking at the setting sun in front of him, but as the mystic looked over him she realized he was holding out a pinky towards her, and she if she had tears left in her they would have spilled then and there, this man was far too innocent for his own good.
Her pale pinky intertwined itself with the emerald green skin of his pinky, "never again" she muttered, her gaze catching a hint of his trademark smile playing on his face before she faced the sunset with him, content for now, for there was hope and if there's one thing she knew Garfield was good at, keeping the hope alive was it.