Keep your emotions in check
Never let them out, hold them on the tightest leash you can. It is the only way to control your powers.
Your abilities
Your telekinesis
Inextricably linked, they are, with your feelings.
Raven knew all of this. Had known it for years. Had managed to abide by it for years.
Until now.
She was seated at Beast Boy's bedside. He had tubes coming from his nostrils and both arms. It was no hoispital room but Cyborg had at least been able to provide an IV of sorts.
Beast Boy's normally robust green color had paled. Dulled. Although his eyes were open, they were lifeless and inanimate, fixed upward on the ceiling.
Seeing him like this made her want to cry. It literally felt like she was being torn in two. She couldn't understand how this . . .emotion could be so powerful, but it was. It was a pain that bordered on the physical. There was so much regret. So much that she wished she had told him.
Now, it looked like it would be too late. Her and Cyborg's efforts had been valiant and were it not or them, Beast Boy would have long since been dead.
Pain is necessary. Pain is what gives life meaning. Without pain, there would be no joy because the disparity between pain and joy would not exist.
They words of some great philosopher or another. One of many men who tried to explain the world in a way that they could cope with it.
Raven disagreed. Pain was pain. There was nothing good about it. Nothing.
A tear fell. She hadn't even been aware of its formation, but there it was. Falling down until it plopped on Beast Boy's lifeless hand. She put his hand in hers, stroking the spot where the tear had fallen with her thumb.
With a creak, the door behind her opened Starfire walked in. "How is he?" the Tamaranian girl asked. Instead of her normal costume, she simply wore purple sweatpants and a smiley face halter top.
"Living, for which I suppose I should be glad."
"Do you wish we had never taken the job?" asked Starfire.
"Yes. No amount of money is worth this." She looked up at Star. "I guess you were right in having reservations."
"To be truthful, I do not think that refusing the offer would have helped matters?"
This surprised Raven. "Why?"
"These people, Rupert Thorne, his mercenaries, Ana and Karl, they would still be out there. They would still be able to do this to other people with no one to stop them It would only have been a matter of time before we had to face them. Better now than later."
"We still don't know what their powers are, do we?"
"No."
"Knowing Robin, he probably has an idea. Where is he, by the way?"
"I am sure Kay would know." The way Starfire said it startled Raven. She peered closer at her teammate.
"What happened?"
"Nothing. Nothing happened."
"You and Robin had a fight, didn't you?"
Some people thought Raven might have telepathic powers in tandem with the telekinetic ones. No one had asked her. Starfire certainly didn't know, but then she also wondered how Raven had managed to grasp the situation so accurately. "It was not a fight."
"Close enough though, wasn't it. Come on, tell me what happened."
"There is nothing to tell." The lie was plain on Starfire's place even as she made the statement.
"We've already been down this path. C'mon. Did you tell him how you feel? He tell you something? What?"
"I do not know. We were . . .interrupted."
"By what?"
"You. We were talking and then you burst in, delivering the news about Beast Boy."
"Oh."
Starfire leaned against the wall. "Perhaps it is best you did. He-he cares for Kay."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. They have so much in common, Raven. I am . . ." Starfire searched for the right phrase. "Out of my league."
Raven sighed. "Aren't we all?"
"Pardon."
The purple-haired girl shrugged. "These twins or whatever. They've made this personal. I mean, no mercenary would have attacked Beast Boy like that. They would have gone straight for the target, ignoring anyone else unless they got in the way. Beast Boy was just out for a veggie burger. And those . . .bastards attacked him anyway. Not even in a fair fight, they had to pump him full of tranquilizer fluid.
"Whoever these guys are, they've probably come the closest anyone has to killing a member of the Titans. May end up succeeding, with Beast Boy's condition."
"Are you scared?"
Raven contemplated this. "No, I'm not. I probably should be at least worried. But right now, I'm just angry. Really, really angry. I want to fight them. I want a battle. I want so badly to look down on their lifeless bodies like I've had to look down at Beast Boy's."
The rage beneath the words was a palpable, almost visible entity. It was creeping out from the rigid, emotionless mask that Raven held. Obviously, she cared much more for Beast Boy than she had ever let on.
Feeling like an intruder, Starfire pushed off from the wall. "I should probably leave you two alone."
"That's not-"Raven began to protest, but Starfire had already backed out, closing the door behind her.
"-Necessary." Unbidden, more tears began to flow.
Spencer was toast.
Robin threw a left jab that mashed his face in. He elbowed him in the side of the head and then, using the momentum from the spin, finished off the combo with a high roundhouse that spun Spencer around three hundred and sixty degrees. Six quick-succession jabs doubled Spencer over, only to have Robin knee him violently in the chin, snapping his head back. Robin easily maneuvered behind him, swung his right arm under his chin, and broke hi neck in a swift and clean move, an audible snap reverberating throughout the room.
Spencer, the sparring dummy, fell to the ground, his head twisted at an impossible angle.
"This what you do whenever you come down here?" asked Kay from the doorway. She was dressed in a pair of beige cargo pants and a Charlie's Angels T-shirt. She had two steaming mugs of hot chocolate, one in each hand. Her hair was tied up in a bun, twin chopsticks helping to keep it in place. "Beat the crap out of wooden dummies?"
"Beats doing nothing,' said Robin.
Kay nodded, observing him from where she stood. Although he still wore the mask, his cape and costume were folded neatly in the corner. He was shirtless and it was easy to tell he had been working out for quite some time because of the rivulets of sweat that ran down his torso.
His loose, black pants and karate shoes reminded Kay of old Bruce Lee movies she used to watch. He was by no means buff, but he was muscular in a lean, powerful sort of way. He could inflict lots of damage, even if he couldn't bench press two-fifty. She liked that.
Holding out one of the mugs, she asked, "want some hot chocolate."
Robin nodded, walking over and taking the preferred cup. "How'd you know I liked hot chocolate?"
"Everybody likes hot chocolate."
"Can't argue with that." He took a sip. "Yum."
"Thanks." Kay took a sip of her own steaming liquid and then set her mug down. "Mind if I practice with you?" she asked.
"You mean spar?"
"I mean spar," she confirmed.
Robin grinned. "I don't know, I saw you earlier. I'm worried I'll get my butt kicked."
Kay smiled back knowingly. "Somehow I doubt that."
Robin shrugged. "I don't mind." He set his mug down next to hers and assumed a relaxed martial arts stance, resting lightly on the balls of his feet.
Kay nodded and adopted a crane position, slowly circling Robin. If his eyes were following her, she couldn't tell because of the mask.
She threw an almost playful kick, one that Robin sidestepped easily. She executed a high close-fisted strike that Robin deflected off course easily with a small sweep of his hand.
She jumped, kicking twice in midair. Robin backed off enough to completely avoid the first one. The second one he blocked with a defensive kick of his own, causing Kay to land on only one foot. It was child's play to sweep that foot out from under her, causing Kay to fall squarely on her rump.
Gingerly, she rose to her feet, a smile on her face. "That was good," she said in admiration.
"Thank you."
Kay resumed her stance and wasted no time in trying again, this time a little more serious in her efforts to hit Robin. They should have called him Viper, she thought as a result of the speed in which he evaded and counterattacked. Each of her attempted blows was either blocked, diverted, missed outright, or worse, turned against her. Frustrated after five minutes of whirlwind sparring, she lashed out with a vicious back kick, putting al of her strength and balance into that one blow.
Had it connected, Robin would probably have gone down like Spencer. Of course, by the time it reached the space Robin's head was occupying, he wasn't there anymore. Standing in such an awkard position, all Robin had to do was gently shove her to send her tumbling to the ground once more.
Clothes damp with sweat, Kay didn't immediately get up. She still had to catch her breath and it was the second time she'd fallen on her butt in the space of a few minutes.
Robin walked over and offered a hand to help her up. "You OK?"
"Yeah." Kay took the hand. And then yanked, a move even Robin hadn't expected. He fell tumbling down on top of her.
He blinked. "No fair."
She didn't look apologetic. "Neither is this." She kissed him, without warning. His eyes (even through the mask) went wide. His stance relaxed.
Giving Kay the opportunity to flip him over so that she was on top of him. She pulled back and grinned devilishly. "One, two, three. I grounded you, so . . .it looks like I win."
"So now I guess you get to crush the air out of me."
Kay's eyebrows shot up. "Oh. Sorry." She rolled to the side, assuming a sitting position so that she was sitting beside Robin.
"Better?"
"Yeah."
"I'd heard you were good. At fighting, I mean."
"Didn't live up to your expectations?"
"You surpassed them."
"I'm no superman. Or even Batman. I could easily name off a dozen people who are far better than me."
"How'd you get to be as good as you are though?" inquired Kay, sitting up so she could look at him easier.
"I had a heckuva teacher, for one. I guess the rest was natural skill. I was raised in the circus, doing stunts on the trapeze and high wire by six years old. That helped a lot with the balance and control. Then my parents died. Murder. I vowed I would do my best to make sure that people like those that killed my parents were stopped. That provided the motivation and discipline."
"That it?"
"No, but if I told you any more, you'd probably be able to figure out my identity with nothing more than a quick Google search."
"Would that be such a bad thing?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because, my two identities, the two different people I am, are completely segregated. I can't afford to have it any other way, or else I involve those around me as a civilian in the stuff I have to deal with as a crime fighter."
"I fight crime," said Kay. "Sort of anyway. I don't wear a mask."
Robin was silent for a long time. "There was once this guy," he said. "His name was Bane. Real big guy, muscles on top of muscles. He could play catch with a Volvo practically he was so strong.
"Like a lot of people who discover power, he was corrupted by it. He turned to crime. Petty stuff at first, but then it escalated. Pretty soon, he was committing serious crimes. He and Batman had a few run-ins. Batman was finally able to beat him though, and off Bane went to jail.
"He got out though, emerging stronger than ever. And he was armed with a vital secret: Batman's identity. He hurt some people close to Batman real bad, people who weren't even involved in his vigilante life. Bane came close to killing him in his own home."
"And so from then on, maintaining a secret identity was like, really important to you, huh."
"Yeah. Learn from other's mistakes, or something like that."
"I don't mind," she said. "About the whole secret identity thing. Doesn't make me like you any less."
"Oh," was the only thing robin could think to say. He liked Kay and the feeling was obviously reciprocated, but he wasn't sure how much wanted to encourage her, if at all. Especially this early on.
Kay, sensing his reticence, backed off slightly. There was unspoken disappointment in her eyes, but she shared none of it. Instead, she stood up. "Tell me Robin, have you ever fired a gun?"
"Once or twice. Guns never were my style."
"They can save your life is used properly," said Kay. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a Glock .23 handgun plus a clip. Walking over to Spencer, she uprighted the dummy and then took a good twenty steps backward in the spacious room. She popped the clip in, cocked the handgun, assumed a firing stance, and drilled a bullet right between Spencer's eyes. In a one-handed shot.
"That was good," said Robin, his voice not quite conveying his surprise. It was ovbvious that Kay was quite proficient with firearms. "I didn't know you had a gun on you."
"I carry one wherever I go. Tai Chi Quan is nice, but it won't put someone out from thirty feet." She walked behind him and placed the gun in his gloved hand. "You try."
"We've found them," said Karl.
"Who? You found who?" His sister asked. Her speech was slightly slurred, due in part to the large amount of alcohol she had just consumed. Being a near-immortal and possessing magical abilities that were second to none didn't seem to restrain the human weakness of alcholism. Not for her anyway.
A sigh of longsuffering. "The Titans."
"How?"
"One of our tracers. Just started broadcasting again."
"You're kidding."
Karl turned the laptop he was working on so that his sister, slouched on a nearby couch, could see it. A red dot was blinking on the map of Gotham on the screen."
"It's one of our tracers."
"Yes, that's what I just said."
"But I thought they'd all shorted out."
"Apparently not. The Titans missed one, and its broadcasting a signal. Pretty dang strong one at that."
"Where's it coming from?"
Corner of Maple and Juneau. There a deli and a car wash right there."
"I know. I've been there. There's nothing even resembling a secret base."
"You're right. Not aboveground anyway."
Drunk as she was, even Ana couldn't miss the obvious. "Its an underground base! No wonder we couldn't find them."
"Well that's about to change." He smiled. "Isn't it."
