The following two weeks Raven was on a rampage or well a rampage for Raven. Most people would see only an apathic girl. Her friends knew her better. Her closet had been out and her costumes were replaced with girls' outfits and shoes, most of them still had the tags on. Her real clothes were folded neatly and in a box under her bed.
The petite girl's eye dart back and forth between whatever she happened to be doing and the time. She was only truly calm when she was meditating and none of the other Titans knew what was wrong with their now fidgety friend. The tower was completely spot less and a vein in Raven's fore head twitched whenever on of the boys made a mess, and when ever Starfire cooked, but that wasn't any different than before.
As the Titans investigated what may have snapped their friend in that anonymous building they slowly adjusted to the change.
Two weeks after Raven's mysterious visit she was more collected than she had been in a fort week. Some how this made the others distinctly uneasy, like an Indian summer before a harsh and devastating winter, calm before the storm so to speak.
At dinner they were having waffles, again. Raven sipped herbal tea. The box read tension tamer. Slowly she lifted her head from the tea and politely cleared her throat. Her lips were pressed together as she finalized exactly how to phrase what was coming next. Her grey skin was as white as paper. "I...uh" she stopped the eyes of everyone were on her. "I have company coming over tomorrow," she waited for her friends' arguments.
"Wondrous! I wish to meet your new friend. Perhaps they shall enjoy in a Tameranian dish of welcome!" Starfire clasped her hands to her chest and the Titans cringed.
"No! Starfire" Raven said. "I don't think they'll be here for the food." She stopped and waited again for her friends' protests. Or at least for Robin to remind her that company wasn't allowed. "Beastboy...Cyborg, it would be helpful if you weren't here."
Beast boy nudged Cyborg. "She's embarrassed of us dude." But he was still smiling.
"Go do what ever idiotic this it is you want." She kept her gaze level. "On me."
Cyborg looked at Beastboy and Beastboy looked at Cyborg then they both looked at raven. "I don't think she's joking."
"I don't joke. I need you out of the tower tomorrow." She hated that her friends looks had any thing to do with any thing, she hated that this was required so that she could stay, most of all she hated that she cared. But all the hate went in to he meditation mirror and though she was aware of the feeling it was completely remote.
Now Robin and Starfire looked at each other. "What about us?" Robin asked not entirely able to keep the resentment out of his voice. "Do we have to leave too?"
Raven looked back at her two companions "that's up to you, you can join Beastboy and Cyborg if you want. I don't care."
"Well then I don't think I really want to be in the same place as you right now." Robin stood up and dinner was over. More than half the food was still on their plates but one by one the Titans stood and left Raven alone at the table.
Starfire stayed behind a second longer. "Raven? What has happened to you?" she said sadly. With out waiting for a response she too turned and left.
When she was alone her eyes began to burn and a lump formed in her throat. She swallowed hard and blinked back her tears. She followed her friends out of the room. As she passed a black glow surrounded and destroyed all the items in her path. In her room she quitted her self. In meditation the things orbiting around her bad began to slow. Finally they landed softly in a circle around her.
She lowered herself to the bed and got up to repair the kitchen before the inspection tomorrow.
The next morning the tower was silent, Raven didn't dare to check but she presumed tat the others had gone out as she requested. The place was creepy when it was empty. Normally she would have enjoyed the silence but today here friends were gone for all the wrong reasons. She could have used the mindless babbling and videogame sound effects right then.
Promptly at ten o'clock there was a knock at the door she got up, pressing the wrinkles out of her new skirt. Thought it covered her more than her costume she felt cheap in this. She firmly decided she would not be nervous. It was a good house and she and the others took care off themselves.
She opened the door for a man dressed entirely in tweed with a clipboard. He was 40 years old or so and already almost completely bald.
"Good morning. I'm James Markus, I'm here to inspect this uh, building to make sure it is suitable for you to living in." as if she didn't know why he was here.
She stood aside and motioned for him to come in. "where do you want to start?"
"You seem less than thrilled to have me here." He stepped in and took a look around the room he now found himself in. It was not lacking anything though it did seem to be rather primary. "I can't blame you. I should see the kitchen, living room, and bedroom. The places you spend your time."
She led him to the elevator at her room she slid the door open. He looked at the hallway. "Sterile." Then he followed her into the bedroom. "It's uh, very dark in here."
"I can't sleep if there's much light." Raven sat on her bed and watched the man circle her room. No one should ever be in her room. He paused at the bookcase. The archway was filled with mostly old books.
"These are all yours?" he asked reading some of the titles. The Count of Monte Cristo, Of Human Bondage, The Killer's Cousin. "You have the entire collection of Shakespeare."
"Yes, why?"
"Nothing, just unusual selections for a girl your age." He moved on.
"I appreciate his sense of irony."
Mr. Markus moved to her gazing sphere. He picked it up and Raven twitched. "Paper weight?" he asked thinking of the faux-crystal balls that his daughters used to decorate there rooms. Not that anyone who had never used one would recognize it for a gateway to the spirit realm.
"Yes." Raven said it so shortly that it was obviously a lie.
He jotted something down on his clipboard. "Well I think I'm done in here, what's next?" Raven led him again to the elevator and this time it opened on the living room. He stopped in awe of the big screen TV. "You're quite obviously materially taken care of, by whom?"
"One of my house mates guardians pays for all this, I never thought it was my business to find out who that was." (AN(cough Batmancough cough))
"Well every thing seems in order, the uh, kitchen?"
"Next floor, we eat more than pizza if that's what you're wondering." Raven said.
"That would be the point." He got on the elevator himself this time and waited for Raven who had managed o show no emotion though the entire ordeal. When she was on he pressed the up button.
In the kitchen he opened the fridge and all the cabinets. "You have a lot of tofu," he mentioned observing Beastboy's side of the fridge. "And herbal tea. You buy in bulk?"
"Yes." Another scribble. The door to the elevator slid open and Raven and Markus turned around. A tall red headed girl stepped off. "Starfire!"
"Hello Raven and raven's friend!" she crossed the room. "It is pleasing to meet you."
"You too, uh Starfire was it?"
"Yes Raven's friend." She caught him in a hug.
"Star he needs to breath." Star released him and Markus gasped slightly.
"You're ...ahem...very strong." He resisted the temptation to check for cracked ribs.
"Yes I am stronger than I look."
Raven looked at Starfire. "Excuse us." She grabbed the other girl by the wrist and drugs her across the room. "That man is from social services Star. Those are the welfare people, the people that, if they think I'm not living well, can make me move out of the T-tower and never come back."
"That is why you have been acting strangely?"
"Yes."
"Why did you not tell us? We would have helped."
"I--" Markus cleared his throat and cut Raven off. He was still stranded on the other side of the kitchen but now he was tapping his foot.
"Please—behave in some resembling human." Raven beseeched her friend.
"I will certainly try!" Star responded overly cheerfully. "I will help you in any way I can!" Joyously she floated, thankfully not literally, across the room and Raven followed. "It is a glorious occasion for us to meet and I wish to inform you that Raven is truly the calmest and most collected of us all, she is sullen and quite and---"
"Ok Star that's enough helping." Raven cut her off. Suddenly the mainframe alarm went off and the other Titan's who were on there way back anyway poured in to the kitchen form elevator to reach the computer room all the boys stopped dead when they got there and say the strange man.
Every one was silent for a while and Markus took the opportunity to take everything in. chirp chirp, robin turned off the alarm. He also broke the silence. "James Markus from social services, I'll be seeing you all again." Now he turned to Raven alone. "I've seen enough here and will contact you about the conditions of you continuing to living in this building. Good day ms. Allen." Then he took his leave and left the group silent.