Two gazes met her.
She walked in.
Joey's jaw dropped, he was leaning forward in a large, red, luxury chair and had apparently been hand signing something vulgar to his merc father when she entered.
Their gazes met, Raven tried to reassure Joey with her eyes.
He seemed to get the message.
"Well, how about this? Long time, no see." Slade bassed from behind his desk.
Raven had looked for Joey first when entering the room, but now she gazed forward and saw something she never thought she'd see.
Slade was sitting behind a large wooden desk. The desk had a few books strewn about, ranging from fiction to non-fiction, from T. H. White to H. P. Lovecraft. It was obvious the man was an eclectic reader. There was even an exotic reading lamp on the desk.
But, despite the detail just given to you, Raven saw none of this, she was too busy staring at the unmasked Slade.
He was in white. All white, as it turned out. Long white pants of some flannel material, a white undershirt and a long sleeved relaxation outer shirt, and like his daughter he was barefoot. This untarnished ensemble of white was made more surreal as she absorbed more of him, he was remarkably fit with a well toned build, but he was far more aged than she had expected as he had pure white hair and a white goatee. The scene of unblemished blank was finished off by the white eye-patch over his right eye.
Raven nearly faltered.
His lonely, light blue eye shown brilliantly and pierce Raven thru with it's knowing. He lifted a glass of wine and took a longer sip than was the norm.
Slade gestured in his snowy glory at a twin chair to the one Jericho was sitting in, "Please, Miss Raven. Take a seat. There is so much to talk about."
HStumbling, burnt, charred, but strength returning, courage had never faltered.
And she in his arms.
Beast Boy looked down at her smoked and soot covered figure… thankfully not burnt except for a little singe here and there.
"Tara…" he whispered to the unconscious amnesiac.
He was in the back schoolyard, on the opposite side of the inferno as the rest of the student body. They were surely wondering what happened to the green Titan with grave anticipation.
But fortune had given the two of them privacy, and he wasn't going to argue.
Tara wasn't the semi-anorexic stick from the days of old when she had been running from town to town. This wouldn't have ever been a problem had she just stayed with the Titans long enough for them to take care of her.
She had a little meat on her now, although it was obvious she was athletic as ever. Had Garfield not brushed with death a little closer than usual back there he probably would have been slightly aroused. But as it was he was euphorious that she was merely unharmed.
"Guess once a hero, always a hero…"
He set her down gently on the green grass…
-and then flopped down ungracefully next to her.
Breathing, breathing, breathing…
Feeling the grass beneath him, the earth.
He could feel the entire globe beneath him and as he gazed tired and sweaty and burnt up at the clean, cool stars in the infinite night sky. He realized that despite being a superhero he too was indescribably insignificantly miniscule. And the green Titan in an epiphany realized that superhero or school girl, we are all mortal. We are all not timeless. We are all alike.
We are only human, little insects buzzing around the flickering lights that shine down upon the stage of the universe.
The he let his head fall to the side, shifting his gaze away from the starry starry night and onto the sleeping girl next to him. And suddenly it didn't matter that he was so small.
She stirred and moaned uncomfortably.
"C-col-ld…" the blonde mumbled in her sleep. The burning school, now just a flaming skeleton of wrecked panopticon, had caused her to sweat profusely, and now that she was out in the fresh night air she was shivering very much so.
Garfield acted on impulse; he turned on his side and grabbed her in his arms, hugging her against his chest. He put his chin on her crown and stroked her soft gold hair as she shivered against his green form.
"Shhhhhh…. It's ok Tara, I'm here."
She stirred, and her eyes fluttered open to a green chest.
And for a second, it seemed perfectly right…
-and then she was nothing but confused, 'where was she' 'what happened' 'who was this?'
But she let it go… because for some reason she remembered these arms, this chest.
And then, his voice.
"Everything will be ok Tara. Even if you decide to forget everything about your life as a Titan, I'll still be there for you. Watching over you, you can count on it." Garfield said words he thought fell on absent ears.
But those words were very much caught by the confused blonde's ears…
… and those ears, though puzzled, liked what they heard.
H"How the SOAKED-IN-BLOOD-HELL did she knock out Cyborg anyway!" Kid Flash shouted across empty street to Hot Spot(Isaiah).
"HellifIno! Probably the same way she took out Herald and the Brokeback Titans!" Hot Spot tossed over his shoulder while unleashing heat charges upon the still performing Cheshire.
…
"… Snkkkrtt! HAHA! Oh man. 'Brokeback Titans', classic. Haha! That was just waaay too good."
"FLASH! What are you doi-AUGH!" Hot Spot shrieked as he was jumped kicked across the battle-scarred street.
He eyed his rag-dolling comrade with a grimace, "Oooh, that's gonna leave a mark. Heh, Sorry Buddy!"
And the Asian warrior was in front of him. Needles in hands. Ready to strike.
"Hello there, handsome." Cheshire purred in her fighting stance.
The Fastest Boy Alive smirked as he kept a relaxed posture, "Hey, baby. Not that I don't appreciate the flirt, but you should know guys, well… we really don't like bad pussy."
…
Cheshire frowned behind her mask.
…
Kid Flash mocked, "Mrrooowww! Baaad Pussy!"
A small, freezing breeze blew.
"You… will… DIE!" she screamed as she hurled her deadly needles at his figure.
But before they could get halfway to him Kid Flash had dashed forward and grabbed every single one of them out of mid air.
Cheshire gasped and was taken aback.
Kid Flash twirled the needles carelessly between his fingers, "Giving me presents? How nice of you! I usually don't get things this nice on the first date, y'know. Although I guess you'd have to dish out good presents. What with the whole 'Mean Pussy' and all."
He ducked a powerful roundhouse kick-related retaliation.
A dodged punch.
A back-stepped low kick.
A side-stepped jump kick.
Cheshire turned and glared thru her mask.
Kid Flash yawned, "Oh man. I am bored out of my min-DAAAH!" The Fastest Boy alive cried as he fell to the ground, holding his groin.
"Hehehehe…" the martial artist giggled lowly, retracting her leg from the low blow.
"Not cool… so not cool."
"That's just the beginning. RAUGH!" Cheshire roared as she brought a full kick to Kid Flash's head, sending him rag-dolling.
HNot very far away from the newest scene of Cheshire's rampage, an Atlantean and an archer were regrouping and planning a counter attack on the vicious villain.
"Oh… my head."
"Just get up, Garth! Dammit, I know you can stand."
"Alright, alright. I'm up, Roy. Now, lets attack together, but sneak up on her while Flash is distracting-"
"No Garth."
"Whu- What the hell do you mean, 'No Garth'?" Aqualad asked confused.
Speedy stared around an alley corner as Cheshire kicked Kid Flash across the scarred street.
"You go get more help. I'll take care of her-"
SLAP!
"What are you thinking, Roy? For some reason that girl is twenty times as dangerous as the last time she cause trouble! She took out Robin and Starfire at the same time! You can't handle her by yourself!"
The archer stared for a moment of cold, crimson silence, "You're wrong, Garth. I can't beat her in combat because of whatever new-found abilities she's practiced tonight. But I can definitely handle her. I am her ex, afterall."
…
A long, cold silence. A chilling breeze blew thru the alleyway between the two.
"So that's how it is. Going to whore yourself to your ex and you don't want me here to see it?" Garth asked, slightly hurt.
Roy turned on his heel to face the black-eyed Titan. "That's about the size of it." He grunted before pulling his lips to his.
After a long moment they parted, "Now go get help. I may need it still."
"You got it." Aqaulad said as he lifted up a man-hole and jumped into the sewers to find help.
HCheshire grinned as she picked up Kid Flash by the collar of his uniform, "What do you say now, fool?"
Kid Flash, who despite his superspeed he had been caught in her web of ass beating and hadn't escaped, sneered at the masked villainess with his bloody lip, "I say, you're not bad pussy, you're just plain rotten! Ptcho!" the Fastest Boy Alive finished by spitting on her mask, saliva and blood ran down the oriental carvings.
Cheshire quivered with anger.
Kid Flash sneered in defiance despite being in great danger, "What now? Bitch."
Cheshire tightened her grip on his collar and rose a fist back to pummel him, "RRRRR-"
"Stop!"
She turned, and growled, but was taken aback by the sight of Speedy, without his bow drawn, arrows still in their quiver. He was at ease.
"Don't you ever just lay down?" she hissed with malice.
"C'mon Jade, you know I can go all night." He smirked.
With a growl she took a menacing step towards him.
"Whoa!" Roy thru his hands up in the air, "I'm not here to fight. Not again. (he had enough bruises) There's something going on here Jade. You weren't always this strong. You weren't always this malicious, either. Lets… talk. Just like we did back when we were together. Like we did back in Kyot-"
"Talk is for the weak, Fag! Let's fight!" She whipped out more needles from her long, green sleeves.
"No, Jade." Roy said, dropping his bow, his quiver of arrows, and finally his eyemask to the cold pavement, "You can beat the shit out of Speedy. But you can't hurt Roy."
…
A breeze blew thru the night.
…
Cheshire's head turned to the side slowly in contemplation.
…
Roy stood in a relaxed posture, his face telling her to come to him.
…
Kid Flash gave the whole scene a look that said, 'What the Hell is going on?'
…
Another cold breeze…
And she dashed, quicker than the blink of an eye, and swung her needles for his face-
Only to stop a millimeter away from his temple.
"Jade…"
Her small, cold hand trembled with trepidation in the night air, long silver wands of metal death balancing between her delicate fingers. Stars twinkling in the sky.
"Jade." Roy took her trembling hand down and made her drop the needles.
The rouge villainess fell against his chest and began to sob, "God, Roy. I hate you so much." She placed a hard fist lightly against his chest. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you…." Tears, Roy could tell, were welling up in the green eyes behind that mask, "H-hold me. Like you used to. Before I k-knew you were a hero. Before you knew I was a v-villain. Before any of this."
And he did. He held her short, lithe, sobbing body against his as this deadly assassin wept on his shoulder like a little girl who felt guilty about stepping on a bug. The tears came down from the mask and onto Roy's chest now and her sobs grew a little louder.
Roy was taken aback. Jade had opened up to him in the past ('Literally.' he amusedly thought) but she had never ever cried like this. He brought a hand up and ran it up and down the length of her trembling back, soothing and reassuring her.
As he moved to take off her mask she stopped him, "No, n-not here." She sniffled, "Somewhere people won't see. You, y-you said we could… talk?"
"Of course." He whispered roughly into her ear, "If you'd like that."
She sniffed and nodded, "Yes, I'd like that. Very much."
And the two walked off into the jungle of buildings abandoned from the battle in each others arms under the night sky and it's glowing full moon.
H"Would you like anything to drink? Wine, maybe." Slade offered the mystic girl as she sat her pretty, stoic self down. Raven's petite figure seeming mildly comical in the massive chair.
She pretended not to notice.
Slade acted like he didn't notice, but subtly made it known that he did.
Jericho was still in such shock that he neither noticed nor made an attempt to falsely not notice.
All he could do was sit there. Beaten and bruised, tired, headache pounding from arguing with his father for the past half an hour. Worried like a mad man for Raven's safety in this place filled with booby traps and other assorted oddities; so much that his stomach had cramped up horribly. And she just walked in like it was nothing a mere few seconds ago.
He was happy, relieved… but at the same time he wanted to throw up. But obviously he couldn't. For multiple reasons.
He was in debate with his father.
Raven, whether she would show it 'Or even knows it.' he though, needed and quite possibly wanted him there.
And, perhaps most influentially, his legs had refused to move since the mystic girl waltzed into the study.
"No." Raven turned down the offer of alcohol.
And so, the heated banter began between the empathic jewel of Azarath and the One-Eyed Lord of the criminal Underworld.
And poor Joey was caught right in the middle.
