Jim Starluck- Yeah, she was a bit obvious. That was the point, though. I would have thrown some trick in, but I think it was more surprising that she was who you would guess. There were about four clues just in the name, and putting up with Robin is another thing entirely. I like the guy, but he's a bit too much like a few people I know. It takes a talent to deal with them.
BeastWithin- "Yes, you're very smart. Shut up." Sorry. Couldn't resist- that's from Princess Bride, which would be the best movie ever made if Buttercup wasn't acted out so horribly. The Grandfather rocks. The L was yet another attempt of mine to tie in Poe's awesome poem. He earned fourteen dollars for that masterpiece, sadly enough. He deserves Bill Gates's entire massed wealth. I liked your story, but the bashing is a bit extreme, even for a devout BB-Rae 'shipper.
They-Call-Me-Orange- Thank you so incredibly much. -basks in worship- I thought I was being a bit too forward-people kept leaving me the usual I-know-what's-going-on-more-than-you rants. There's little hints all over, if you look. For commitment- I write three times more stories than I ever post. The ones that fizzle and die get to wait until I feel like they're really alive, or until I can at least have a real idea where the beginning, middle, and end are. I write a few chapters ahead, revising all the while until it's all what I want, and then post what (I hope) are chapters that move the story along. The story got away from me at a part coming up soon, but I like the new addition. I won't say (type, at least) another word until that part's officially complete. Thank you for reading, my minion. This rocks- how did you know I've always wanted a minion? Now accepting applications- she (or he, sorry about the gender-cluelessness) already has a position. Wow- that's a long reply, but what can I say? Everyone else probably is skipping to their name, or to the story because they don't leave reviews because they're irritating like that. I'm done now. Really. I'll shut up.
YumeTakato- Thanks for the review. Curiouser and curiouser- the motive comes up soon enough, but not completely in any chapter.
mirsan4ever- I love reviews. I'm glad not everyone was suddenly pointing her out as obviously Rae. She was supposed to be similar, but not identical. I was pretty proud of the name- I'm glad other people liked it.
XPhoenixX- I don't pick up on small clues half the time, to be honest. Most of these additions are spur-of-the-moment, and get a purpose in the story later. I planned out the name, and that twist, but not what comes later. This story will be longer than originally planned, but it doesn't seem that anyone will mind. Her reasons make a little more sense later- she gives a better explanation in another chapter.
Mudd26- Making people cry is always a good sign, unless the tears are caused by the utter futility of the author's message. I love confusing people by saying "Read this!" It's amusing. Thanks for the recommendations- tell them to review, too. Who needs drugs when you have reviews? I try to keep the characters authentic, but changed, to make sure the emotions stay in play for the entire story.
FernNu- Everyone blundered, not just him- I don't like singling anyone out for all the blame. She has her own things to be blamed for, all mentioned later. And of course he has to be proud to be green to get Raven- she would not accept someone parading around with a ring. Neither would I. I love green- if you have it, show it off. I might feel different if I actually had green skin. Maybe.
D- Know it all you want. I have more tricks up my sleeve that you don't know about. If you do know about them, you should get out of my sleeves because I'm wearing a tee-shirt and it's going to get a bit crowded. I only saw the top of your review, for a minute, and thought you had put the entire poem in. That would have been . . . interesting.
Regrem Erutaerc- Don't over analyze the situation yet. I still have a few more scenes to pull out, and it'll be at least a few chapters before it really is understood why Raven didn't just poke Dick after a year, or jump out sometime and yell "Surprise!" really loudly. She knows, and he knows, so eventually they should know that they know that the other person knows that they know.
Over a page of responding to reviews- I'm happy. People not interested can read some or all, as long as they read the story. If the replies are too long, I'll switch them to the bottom. They'll still be there, so just look somewhere else. My goal is to break my old record of 54 reviews. I think that's covered. If at all possible, breaking three digits would make me ecstatic. Just something I'd like to shoot for- thanks for reading.
Gar changed to bloodhound, the sudden rush of scents almost overwhelming his nose. He had barely changed form at all in four and a half years, not since that prank he and Sam had done that nearly got them suspended. They hadn't known that the professor had a deathly fear of snakes- he taught herpetology. After seeing how people looked at him after that prank, even more than before when he was just green, he lost all desire to change.
He finally isolated her scent after regaining control of sorting the aroma, lighter on the herbal tea but laced with mildew and anger. Judging from the whole condition of the cab and the fact that Dick's office still existed, he guessed she kept control over her emotions.
Luck was on his side, for once. The cab he flagged down still smelled of Raven. The luck quickly ran out. The cabdriver had dropped her off in a beauty salon. A very exclusive beauty salon, as a matter of course, in the best parts of town and frequented by celebrities and the rich and women eager to spoil themselves for a day amidst good company alike. He was going to stick out like a sore green thumb. He instinctively reached for his ring- it wasn't there. He would have to face the crowd. The cabbie coughed discreetly, prompting Gar to pay his fare and head for the salon, which had a name no one but a person born speaking French could hope to pronounce or understand. With the amount of curlicues in the gold-scripted name, he couldn't even read it.
When he walked in, manicurists, hair stylists, all employees without titles, and the customers stared. A receptionist rushed over, brandishing a clipboard. Gar's worst nightmare of being stared at and whispered about, even giggled at, was coming true. He wasn't a hero here. In Gotham, he was a green freak.
"I'm looking for Raven Roth."
"Wait for her outside," the girl with the clipboard snapped, quiet but speaking with enough enunciation that all straining ears could hear. She glared regally, obviously feeling superior over someone for the first time in days. "Unless you want an appointment- we've seen worse, but not much."
"No. I like being green. You can all dye your hair blonde or whatever shade is 'in' this year, but I'll stick with green."
"We prefer natural colors," the girl retorted, less certain but gaining confidence from her coolly approving audience of snobs. "Go to Barbara's scissor-jabbers. They'll even accept pink- can you imagine?"
"I'm not natural, am proud of it, and Barbara already sounds like a great person. Don't let too many people know you don't like pink hair- Jinx would be mad." He shifted to a wolf for a second, inhaling once. He could control the rush of sensations now. Raven had come and gone with a fast-setting hair dye, and even freshly-dyed hair was a rare enough scent outside in this weather. "Have a good day," he said when back to human, waving cheerfully to a shocked crowd.
He tried to follow her using every possible trick he had learned in years of criminal justice. She knew them all. She walked through puddles, flower vendors, changed her clothes at a tiny boutique with a half-blind cashier, and had been quick to pass through a perfume store, wiping out old scents without giving a real trail to follow. By the time he reached the less affluent parts of town, he was ready to admit that he was well and truly lost. It was three o' clock, he hadn't eaten, and he was in front of a place that served Chinese. Remembering what she had said, he went inside. There was always a chance.
He looked at every patron. He hadn't known violet eyes weren't unique to Raven. A woman and her young daughter had them, strikingly similar. The violet-eyed woman didn't wear a wedding band, and kept away from him. She wasn't Raven. Raven wouldn't smell of bulimia- that smell took at least a week to grow that strong. At least two other patrons had newly-dyed hair, but the scent wasn't fresh enough.
A waitress pointed him towards an outside table. All the inside tables were full, and a few outside picnic areas were filled despite the December weather. She approached brazenly enough when he was seated, but stayed out of reach of her green customer. She didn't just avoid arms- she was farther back. Her sunglasses made sense- the light as his back would have blinded her, at least for a few seconds. Brilliantly crayon-red hair was typical of the neighborhood, and she smelled faintly of perfume. If she was a waitress, she hadn't touched any plates of food.
"Hey, Raven."
She didn't smile. "It'll never work. You don't really like me. You loved the idea of me, the thought that you could be the one person to reach the poor shut-out Titan. If you never felt that way at all, that e-mail you sent is bunk."
"You actually got it?" He blushed slightly- this time the darkening wasn't hidden by a hologram. He had never thought she would get that e-mail, written and sent in the dead of night in Titans' Tower just after she left, detailing everything he had ever felt about her. He had only hit the 'send' button because Cyborg said he would know if it was opened. She had probably changed her mind after five years. He could barely remember what the letter she had written to him had said, after years of studying complex courses in the university.
"You sent it to my e-mail account. Cyborg never guessed that I could re-route a basic algorithm. What else would I do, living with a computers expert? Anyone who tries hacking into my digital journals will have an interesting time, and that's all I'll say."
"What I said earlier- that's the first time in more than five years I've said something like that. I've been kicking myself about Corvidae for a while now."
"You don't get it, do you? I wouldn't have minded if you found a date. What matters is that you found a sit-in, not really wanted as a date. That was me. I don't think I can go back. I have emotions, I can barely recognize all of you after so many changes, the names I want to call you aren't right anymore, and I can't remember who used to live inside that shell, back when I was still the Goth Titan."
"We can all accept that change is hard to get used to."
"No, you can't. I can't go into that tower. Vic's in the Fortune 5, close to knocking down Bill Gates for the Big Number One. Kori's liaison groups between superheroes and police are world-wide, and I have it from a good source she's up for a Nobel peace prize, the first ever awarded to an alien. You're the expert on zoos. Dick's the head of a Fortune 15 company. I'm doing secretarial work- to prove a point, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't know any of you. Robin's Dick, Starfire became Kori, Cyborg turned into always-cloaked Vic, and you're not Beast Boy anymore. I'm still Raven." She looked ready to either strangle him or cry. He didn't know which would be worse.
"No, you're not."
"Who am I, then?"
"Rae."
"Who's that? I couldn't get into college. My transcripts weren't enough, even with a G.E.D. The only choice would have been a community college. That's how I ended up with secretarial work. None of you would have ever noticed a secretary. If I hadn't been a Titan, I never would have had you guys as friends." She was in a full rant now, not yelling only because they were in the middle of a restaurant's patio.
"I was your friend. If I hadn't been so preoccupied with missing Rae, I would have asked Rachel out the second day I met her, just to avoid being too forward." It was true. She would laugh, now, but he had told the truth.
"You really do mean it, don't you?"
"I do, Rae Roth."
"Rae Roth? That sounds like a character doomed to die some tragically violent death on a daytime soap opera."
"If you don't like Roth, you could always try Logan." He waited, holding his breath, second-guessing his joke already.
She smiled slowly. Letting her sunglasses slide down the bridge of her nose, she looked him in the eye. "In your dreams, Monster Man. If anything, there'll be a Garfield Roth." She pulled her hair back, keeping it away from a starting wind. She didn't need it to protect her any longer.
He saw the scar on her forehead and brushed it with a finger. "It looks kind of like a heart mixed with a star," he observed.
The sunglasses were on the table. She didn't need them, really. Her eyes adjusted well to light- her father's home was dark, but had flares of bright light that hurt non-demonic eyes bad enough to cause blindness. "It's an oval, genius. A college actually gave you a degree?"
He puffed out his narrow chest. "A doctorate, but I have a bachelor's in flirting."
"A bachelor's in flirting? My, what a consolation prize that must be. All that flirting, and still not a girlfriend."
"I forgot you have a master's in sarcasm."
She grinned. "Now you're catching on. What do you say we do the whole dating thing, despite your horrible and nauseating attempts at flirting, and order some food?"
"Want me to order for you?" he offered.
She shook her head critically. "Not unless you have it in you to order poultry. I'm having the chicken with snow peas." She ignored his faces and protests. "No, they did not ship in a dead chicken massacred in some factory," she said after the predicted comment nine minutes into his usual speech. The waitress had already brought the food..
"How do you know?"
"They kill them here," she commented, sipping from her (soy) milk. She wanted to avoid the cow debate, if possible. The one about chickens was just funnier, somehow. The animals hated her, so she had no qualms about eating them. She was a predator. She could deal with it. She smirked at the aghast look on his face while she ate as he began yet another monologue. He was fun to annoy, but she hardly had to make any effort. Life was unfair, but sometimes it helped her out, instead of everyone else.
Raven disappeared to the ladies' room after paying the bill, and didn't reemerge for almost twenty minutes. When she did, he couldn't think of a joke to save his life, and the muscles usually used to close a mouth hanging open in a most unattractive fashion seemed to lack all possible tone.
The bulky overcoat was gone, revealing a sleeveless black dress that reached the ground. She never did seem to be cold from the weather. He hardly noticed the dress, however well it fit her. Her hair was violet again- she had washed out the dye, and cut it to shoulder length in an even trim that a stylist would be happy to achieve. She was an older version of the Teen Titan he had known, without the dye, curls, glasses, or bulky sweaters. Her full-body mask was gone.
"I like your hair," he blurted.
She smiled. "So do I." Short hair couldn't be grabbed in a fight. If she was hanging around with a fellow superhero, she wanted to be able to hold her own if they engaged multiple enemies.
"Are we going to see the others tonight?"
"We have four hours to get to Jump City. It takes an hour by car. I have three hours to decide." She was defensive, almost ready to run instead of face this confrontation. She didn't want to go back, though she couldn't begin to explain why. She was mad that he insisted, felt that he was only doing this for some immature reason, felt the need to hide, and was jealous that he didn't have such a conflict to fight through.
"Come on, Rae."
"Don't even bother, Gar." There was a tiny pause before his name. "That just sounds odd, but Garfield's worse."
"Says the girl who's named after a bird?"
"Chill, Monster Man. Let's go find something to do- in a city this size, there's bound to be something."
"Want a VIP tour of the soon-to-be Gotham City Zoo?"
"No way. I've spent way too much time buried in that ridiculous paperwork. Let's just go somewhere. Do you want the taxi, or a bus? We are not doing the subway again."
"Why not fly?"
"Aren't you forgetting something?" She looked around- they were walking down a fairly crowded street. She continued at half the volume. "You're the guy who has hid being green for almost five years."
"I still know how to fly- animal instinct. It comes with the animal magnetism."
A conveniently placed pigeon conveniently chose that convenient moment to empty its bowels on Gar's conveniently white lab coat. Raven didn't bother to stifle a laugh. "Can I get that in writing?"
"You're changing the subject."
"You started it, and it almost worked."
"You haven't used your powers since that one burst after you left, have you?"
"Well-"
"Have you?"
"No."
"Why not? You were the one mad at me for hiding being green."
"Something's wrong with them."
"Something?"
"Remember how powerful I was right after Trigon went back to Hell?" She had never thought of him as a father. He was an overly aggressive sperm donor who deserved his kingdom's lowliest position for even bringing himself near Arella. "I had more power than I could ever really need. I could have moved the Tower without spilling a full cup of tea sitting inside on the table. I could barely lift a sheet of paper the last time I tried, and that was just a month ago. It didn't even turn black."
"So try again."
"It's no use. I can't do it. I'm not Raven."
"Then who are you?" She didn't have an answer. "Rae, no one expects you to be the same."
"Don't you get it? I'm not the girl you liked and wanted to go out with." She was yelling by now. They had come to the bridge overlooking the park below, a construction funded by Stone Technology. Philanthropy was a very alive institution in Gotham. Only a few people turned their heads before quickly looked away from what they guessed to be a lover's quarrel.
"No, you're not."
She didn't even protest- she had known it, had known he could never love her, or even want something as innocent as a real date.
"You are the girl I would love with on a date tonight. Present tense, Rae." If he took out the would, with, on, a, date, and tonight, he had a truer statement, but that could come later, once he determined how likely it was he'd be hurt for bringing up something that heavy.
"Really?"
"Really."
"You better mean it, Gar, or I'll break your face."
"I do, and I wouldn't expect anything else."
"Do you- do you think I could be Raven again?"
"I know you can."
Gar had spent thirty minutes outlining his plan over her disbelieving interruptions. Raven's reaction was still not favorable. Her descriptions ranged from "possible," before she knew exactly what the plan implied, to "the most moronic piece of assorted tripe ever thrown together and called a plan the world has ever seen." She added a few words to it in a language he couldn't understand.
"Raven, it's just what I said. I think, given the chance, your powers would surface."
"You are absolutely sure that this isn't a joke, you're dead serious, and no one's going to jump out and yell 'Smile, you're on Candid Camera?'"
"Positive."
"Let me go through this one more time. I am going to stand on a roof. When you're in place in the air, I jump. Hoping I don't alert people on suicide watch, I try to fly."
"Yeah, that's about it," he agreed.
"You are insane, and I think your being green has nothing to do with it."
"Yes, that's arguable, but you haven't run away screaming for a straight-jacket yet."
"If you drop me, Gar, I will find my powers just before I hit the ground, and you'll be coming with me."
"Understandable. I wouldn't drop you, anyway. Are we going to do this?"
"We are. You better be ready to catch me."
"If you need it, I'll catch you."
"I don't think I can trick my powers into working, but it's worth a shot." She waited for him to take off. He chose a pterodactyl, one larger than she remembered. He had grown- it made sense that his animal forms would, too. Concentrating on thinking of nothing, she cleared her mind and said three words under her breath, just in case. Raven closed her eyes and jumped.