This is my very first AU story, with my very first OC! hugs Raph His name is Raphael, and…… I can't tell you any more. In this chapter, which is the prologue, Raph is about six years old, while the Titans are their "normal ages", or however old they are on the show. Thanks to Dusty for betaing this chapter, and for betaing all the ones that haven't been written yet. Enjoy!

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before,

-- Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

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Snow fell softly, suddenly, a flurry contained within a single breath, a storm of stars that had been torn from their lofty perches and now spiraled down to the dank earth like a swarm of autumn leaves, dislodged by the wind that snarled through the city streets and tore long gashes in the night with its icy claws. The dark, fathomless expanses of the bay that cradled the city in its sweeping shore lay tranquil and calm, undisturbed by the snowflakes that drifted down and floated on the surface in a fleeting half-life before disappearing. It gave the illusion that the world had twisted itself and become a mirror, water strewn with snowflake-stars reflecting the ice-studded sky that arched above.

Deep in the tangled labyrinth of the city streets, imprisoned by the steel-and-concrete monstrosities that loomed on all sides, a small figure trudged, head bowed, through the light glazing of snow and ice that clung to the tar-black alleyways beneath his feet despite the angry attempts of billowing exhaust and screeching tires to eliminate it.

Wrapped about by a baggy, threadworn coat, hands buried deep in pockets that stretched for untold depths, the small boy stumbled through the howling teeth of the winter storm, shuffling feet tracing bizarre patterns in the slush that rose to his ankles, a foul brew of oil and snow that threatened to drown the city. His shoulders hunched with the weary defeat of a beaten dog, mouth set in a thin line, he glared fiercely at the ground, allowing thick, dark hair to fall forward and mask the world from his view.

Something terrible had happened. He knew this, knew it with the naïve certainty of childhood, the irreversible conviction that held all of the wisdom gained in six bludgeoning years. The large, dark eyes that now stared hungrily at the ground as though trying to draw some virtue from the pavement were cold with certainty, wide with fright, yet at the same time narrowed in a mask of anger. He knew something was wrong; some inconceivable higher power, a looming, invisible god, had been made angry, and had seen fit to disrupt this child's world with the most terrible of signs. The trembling in his father's voice; the anger, the roaring rage, the huge calloused hands clenched into fists for the first time in the boy's young memory, the sudden ferocious snarling that faded into silence, blankness, tears. The kind, craggy face distorted first into a blaze of anger, then of agony; the mouth that had once opened to laugh and sing now uttering first thunders of hate, then blank empty words of comfort, the eyes first terribly alive, then hideously dead. Something had been taken from his father; and the boy, kicking at the ground in imitation of his rage, wanted nothing more than for that fleeting something to be retrieved.

He remembered his mother.

She knelt in front of him, suitcase standing by her side, leaning against her as he himself had often done. Her face was close to his; the perfume she wore, the very embodiment of safety and home, was rising from her in gusts, until he began to grow light-headed from lack of air, her thick brown curls brushing his neck. "Raphael," she said softly, the use of his full name strange in her mouth, "Raphael, I want you to know that I love you. And none of what happened is your fault."

He stared at her, blankly, not understanding, noticing vaguely that she who had always loomed over him, overshadowed him, looked suddenly very small on her knees surrounded by the darkness of the world. A faint tremor of fear stirred in him as she took his hands, his tiny fists lost in her enveloping grip. A faint smile touched her lips, gleaming and bright with lipstick, and she released one of his hands long enough to brush the thick matted hair from his eyes, a familiar gesture that soothed him, reassured him. His father had been angry before, and his mother had been tearful, but everything was all right now; he was safe.

Then what was this strange, almost inaudible trembling in his mother's voice?

"Listen," she said anxiously, "some things have happened, and –" she cast a nervous look over her shoulder, at the dark doorway where his father had disappeared a moment before, that seemed to breath silence like some terrible beast. " – and I just want you to remember that I love you."

She remained on her knees for a moment more, looking down at him with tender compassion, then stood without another word, heaved her suitcase from the floor, and disappeared out into the winter gale, leaving behind only the creaking of the weather-beaten door as it swung silently closed.

The crash of breaking glass from the next room almost, but not quite, managed to drown out the screeching of rubber on asphalt of a taxi cab screaming away.

He remembered the blank silence of that closed door, the image that seemed burned into his memory, thousands of questions emblazoned into the wood. He remembered staring at that door, blankly, for an eternity after it had swung shut, waiting for his mother to reappear and explain everything, make everything all right, laugh and tell him that it was all just a game, a joke, that the tears that filled his father's eyes were tears of laughter and nothing more – but she had remained gone, and the door had remained shut, stark, silent, unanswering.

I don't understand.

He bowed his head in something close to shame as he accepted the thought, recognized it as the truth. He didn't like to not understand; the sense of confusion left a sour taste in his mouth, the feeling of being surrounded by shadows made him shiver. He did not like being made to feel small, stupid, insignificant, worthless; he was sure that if he could only understand, then all would be well and his father would stop crying, his mother would return and all would be right with the world. It was his stupidity that had caused this mess, his failure that had torn apart his entire world.

Desperate to escape the burning sense of shame that engulfed him, he raised his eyes from the street, gaze flicking desperately, hungrily, over the bright, blazing advertisements and storefronts that somehow seemed muted and dull in the snow that continued to fall. Letting his entire mind be absorbed by the bright colors, he stopped beside a vibrant movie poster, reaching out to small fingers to trace the bold letters as he slowly, laboriously spelled out the words.

His fragile concentration was shattered a moment later as a group of people, huddled closely together and conversing in hushed tones, rushed down the street, one of them knocking into him from behind, pitching him forward into the front of the building. Turning around to face his ambushers, little hands curled into fists, he managed to catch a glimpse of the woman who had jolted him, and was shocked to see tears tracing well-worn tracks down her face.

The simple sight sent his mind reeling, as he felt a coldness clench about his stomach. Grownups never cried – especially not stranger grownups. Crying was a thing that his friends did when they lost a toy, or that the people on TV did for reasons he could never understand. Crying was not something to be done in real life, by real people, in the open streets!

Watching as the group of people, many weeping openly, vanished into a nearby doorway, Raphael let his hands fall back to his sides, staring gloomily at the pavement again. He knew now for a fact that something terrible had befallen him, even though he did not understand what it was. The only sad thing he could think of was his mother leaving; that must have been what the woman was crying about, and if people he didn't even know were crying about his mother, than her leaving must have been terrible to make them so sad.

Losing himself once more in dreary memories, he hunched his shoulders, sinking deeper into the folds of the coat that hung loosely on his small frame, letting his feet carry him through the maze of city streets without any kind of destination. Absorbed by phantoms of the past and the glitter of moonlight on the new-fallen snow, he barely glanced at the people he passed, nearly all of whom were weeping. He took it as a matter of course that since he was sad, since he could feel the pressure of unshed tears rising inside him, everyone else could too. He was too young to understand that his world meant nothing to the multitude of strangers all around him, and that something more colossal and more terrible than his own personal tragedy had occurred.

Trudging along with his head hanging, he passed through the mouth of an alleyway that stretched between two buildings, and looked up, blinking, as eyes used to the street's darkness were suddenly flooded by a blaze of white moonlight that gleamed from the snow and metal all around, blinding him. Raising one small hand to shield his eyes, he peered around intently, and his mouth twitched into something vaguely resembling a smile.

He had emerged from the winding labyrinth of the city onto the broad banks of the bay, which lay glassy and calm before him, its ebony blue depths concealed by the moonlight that was reflected by the waters as by a mirror that captured and distilled it. Fascinated by the dancing ripples caused by the snowflakes on the surface, Raphael lifted his head, stepping carefully down to the shore, letting the frigid water lap about his feet. Looking up through the vapors he exhaled with every breath, he let his admiring gaze fall on the immense tower that stood, upright and looming, as a shining silhouette against the sky.

He had come unwittingly to his favorite haunt, the place where he came whenever he was troubled or disturbed; the wide expanse of the waters comforted him somehow, whether they were stormy, reflecting his own inner rages, or calm as a sea of brittle glass. The tower, eternally rearing up to lift its head proudly above the swirling waters, seemed to him to be a living thing, a guardian that kept watch always over the city, a protector against darkness, evil, and tears. It was this tower that, since his earliest days, he had spoken to, wept to, shouted at, asked questions of; and though it never answered, though it always remained stark and staring, its mere presence was comforting, soothing. The tower was a constant, indestructible, invincible, more faithful even than the moon, which sometimes disappeared; as long as the tower still stood, than nothing could be wrong.

Staring intently at the tower, his hungry eyes drinking in every aspect of its mighty form, Raphael drifted ever closer to the water's edge, as though pulled by a magnetic force towards the object of his gaze. The golden light that usually gleamed from the wide bank of windows at the tower's crown was gone, and he thought he could see a dark, gaping hole, as though the glass had been shattered by something plunging through, but he soon dismissed the strange signs as yet another thing he couldn't understand. The tower was still erect, and that meant everything was all right. There was nothing to worry about, nothing to hate, nothing to fear…….

Lulled by the soothing whisper and hiss of the waves that threw themselves onto the shore, and the rhythmic crunching of the snow beneath his own feet, he let his gaze drop to the beach, staring in fascination at a small pool, sheltered by rocks, where the water had frozen over. The snow and the sand made a strange combination, a warped design that changed every moment as the water washed the snow away only to have it fall anew; it was bizarre, but Raphael liked it for its strangeness.

His eyes roaming the curve of the beach as it encircled the bay, he lifted his foot to take another step forward – and frowned, as his ears were met with not the snap of snow being crunched beneath his boot, but the rustle of cloth. Glancing down, he saw that he had stepped on something small and black, grinding it into the frost. Stepping back, he stooped down to pick it up.

The thing, which had been lying unprotected perilously close to the rising tide, seemed at first glance to be merely a discarded scrap of black cloth fluttering in the wind. Curious, Raphael straightened it out, wondering why it was in such a peculiar shape, of what appeared to be two rounded ovals joined together in the middle. Then, running his fingers over the rough fabric, he discovered a hole cut in either side, and that what he had first taken for frost on the cloth was actually a pair of lenses, staring up at him with a dead, opaque, and lifeless gaze.

The thing was more than merely a scrap of cloth; it was a mask.

Scowling at the mask which had no place lying on the snow-covered midnight beach, he clenched it in one fist, thinking to drop it again; but as he held out his hand, dangling the mask over the ocean's hungry maw, his fingers encountered something wet and warm that stained the cloth's edges. Unable to overcome his curiosity, he transferred the mask to his other hand and examined his fingers, finding them covered in something red and sticky that he did not recognize. Letting his gaze drop to the ground, he realized that more of the red stuff had dyed the snow, and now was congealing in streams that ran sluggishly into the water, letting off a coppery scent that stung his nose and left the taste of rusting metal in his mouth. Grimacing at the foreboding sight, he stepped back, away from the red rivers, the mask still clenched instinctively in his hand; even though he was still looking at the ground, he could feel the dead gaze of those milky white lenses boring through his skin. He once again held the mask out over the water, but could not open his hand; finally, scowling at this new mystery, he stuffed the offending cloth into his pocket.

With one last glance at the tower that now seemed suddenly foreboding, he turned and plunged back into the maze of city streets, turning his back to the bay that had suddenly turned sinister rather than soothing. He could feel the mask burning, taunting him in his pocket; and though he reached in and wrapped his fingers around it, he could not bear to throw it aside.

So engrossed was he in the mental struggle with the mask that he darted right past the electronics store where he usually loitered to watch TV in the windows. Lost in thought, deaf and blind to the world around him, he hurried away, small shoulders squared as though marching off to war, not heeding the voice that droned from the speakers and followed him into the night;

"……..city continues to mourn. Robin, one of the five Teen Titans who have risked their lives to save this city on countless occasions, is now in critical condition in Jump City Hospital. He was propelled through the window of Titans Tower today, thrown by what witnesses describe as a 'bolt of black lightning', plummeting almost twenty stories. The coastguard, signaled by his fellow Titans, rushed to the scene, but whether our hero will recover is still unclear. Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy, Robin's teammates, are with him at the hospital and were unavailable for comment. However, Raven – the fifth Titan, and the primary suspect regarding Robin's injuries -- seems to have disappeared……………"

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Dun dun dun! Review, please! Reviews get the next chapter written faster!