A/N: Thanks for reviewing everyone, cause it got me thinking. The story and the characters are getting rather…odd. To odd for my taste really. So, I'm going to be coming back to sanity with the characters. Thanks and read on!
Breaking apart all this love in my heart,
Close my eyes and move to the back of my mind,
Where feelings mean nothing.
- Yesterday's Feelings, The Used
Raven stood in the doorway quite terrified, her heart beating as if it was going to rip through her chest. She turned her head away from him, and made a run for her room. She was all disgruntled, and she needed to iron her feelings out. She slammed the door as she entered the room, running and jumping on the bed, tears forming in her eyes. Raven felt she was a little to emotional, but still felt the need to cry her eyes out. She had always had a hidden knack for Slade, a feeling she could not ignore. She used the alcoholic beverage to her advantage, and now she felt completely brainless. There was hidden feelings in both there hearts for each other, and it made the past events, quite odd indeed.
Slade seemed to act out of the "norm". He was not his cunning and villainous self, and he seemed distant and his actions were far from what she considered normal. The two were stuck in the most abnormal situation both of them have ever faced, but then why did it feel so right?
-xXx
Finishing his second beer, and his last one for a while, he sat there dazed, his eyes lost and gloomy in thought. The clarity of the situation was most unclear and unpleasant. Slade realized that she was primarily his prisoner, not a love interest. He was using her to infiltrate the Titans, totally obliterate them. He wanted to forget what had happened yesterday, and wished it never happened.
Slade through the bottles out and went upstairs to the closed door leading into Raven's room. He knocked on the door two times with his right middle finger knuckle, and held and ear to the door. From the sounds of it she was whimpering. He held a grip on the knob of the door, and pushed down on it, and forced the door forward with little to none amount of effort. Raven seemed to have cried harder as Slade entered her room.
"I want to talk about this," he said, his voice sad and deep.
"Go away. It's all my fault and I hate when anyone sees me like this. Just, leave," she said in-between tears.
"I want to start this over, Raven, with you being my prisoner. Nothing of what happened will leak out, I will make sure of it," he sighed, as if a knife went through his chest, thinking of the insanity of yesterday.
Raven, belly down, on the bed turned around to see him standing at her doorway, where she had dreamed him to stand. Her face was red with tears, showing her agony.
"I would give anything to make this feeling go away," she said, sniffling. And with that she slid of the bed and Slade guided her back down to her wall in the basement, where she was before any of this madness started. Her place in the basement was the small sliver part of the basement, undone. On the other side of the artificial wall (not the wall she leans on…it's a different wall in the room) was where Slade trained, where he studied hard practicing strength, agility, and mind games.
Raven sat down at her spot, and Slade tied a cloth around her eyes and hands. Once he was done with that, he walked back upstairs, not turning around to look at his captive.
-xXx
She sat there for two weeks, with bathroom breaks and little food. This was what she expected when she first arrived, to be glad she was still alive at the mercy of her captor. Raven seemed to have thinned a little in her face and waist, showing a bony structure. The two had not talked once in the elapsed time, as if completely focusing on ignoring each other as much as possible. Raven still secretly admired him, but it pained her to think about it. Slade went about his normal day, usually working out or upstairs where he worked on his technology.
Raven meditated for most of the hours she was alone, channeling most of her emotions away. Her mind was empty of feelings, and it saved her for a little while. But it was when she slept, lost in a fantasy dream world, she could not erase the past. Nightmares enclosed her happy thoughts, drowning her in frustration and fear. She feared that her friends were never going to come and get her, and she would die, in the basement of her secret love interest, starved, sad, and alone.
-xXx
The mechanical soldier fell to the ground, the circuits zapping with energy, jumping in-between the wires.
"Not enough sense of agility," he said, trying to find the flaws in his robotic army, "needs better sense of what is going on around it." Slade walked to the folding table and with slightly messy handwriting wrote 'agility' on the second line of the blank piece of paper. He quickly programmed the next robot to attack him, placing a critical blow to a leg joint.
"Stronger material," he noted, once again walking to write down what he need to enhance his machines.
He continued this for another hour, making notes and taking apart his masterpiece. Slade piled the mechanic carcasses to a pile in the corner of the room for later disposal. He walked to another part of the rather large basement area, where hung an orange and black punching bag. It was thick and whenever it was moved the boards above creaked, showing strain. He approached the bag, and started to viciously punch it, each strike just as forceful as the last. His subconscious took control of his physical action while his mind raced. He thought intently, thinking of the mask he created to hide under. The man behind the mask was truly suffering, the past ate at him like a ravenous tiger at a carcass. What troubled him most was the look on Raven's face when he told her she was drunk; she looked frightened, as if she was hiding something.
'Could she have been sober?' he thought, almost completely denying the idea as soon as it came across his mind, 'That means--' Slade punched the bag harder, his knuckles felt as if they were forming cracks from the blows.
"Couldn't have, just couldn't have," he said aloud, "It's not possible." His breathing became uneasy and his arms became more aware of the pain, as his mind started to pay more attention to the physical "work" he was performing.
Truthfully, he had always been impressed by Raven's sense of control, and power. Slade had been in the villains run a few months before the Titan's formed, and, when they made their debut with him, he seemed to have watched her more before he quickly realized that Robin was the greatest physical threat of them all. But little did he know that Raven might be his greatest emotional and mental threat. Impressed by her strength didn't seem like the right word for Raven, nor then or now. The word is heart had been searching for was attracted, but Slade never wanted to admit it, and he didn't have to if he worked alone.
-xXx
Raven's head leaned against the wall, her eyes closed under the piece of cloth that covered her face. However, she would admit that it was much more comfortable then the crap he originally had plastered on her face. Furthermore, the cloth mocked her abilities. She could easily get out, but she had no gumption, which was what he heavily relied on. Her stomach growled, and she moaned for it to stop, although she knew it never would, not until she got home.
What would she say happened these past two weeks? Should she not entirely tell the whole truth? Although being locked in a basement with little food and comfort was the truth. She would tell them she was "blinded" the whole time, and could not get an idea where he was "located". Her ears told her brain to draw its attention more to other room in the basement. She heard metal crashing to the floor, and a deep voice, and then once again more crashing metal. Her curiosity level was high, wondering what he might be doing, since he wasn't dealing with her.
Raven had always wondered who really was the man behind the orange and black mask, the man that once was. She found men with mysterious pasts and thoughts quite eye-catching, especially when a masked man was a villain. She loved the feeling of staying up all night, imagining what he might be like, what he might look like. Was the mask a strong case of symbolism, representing all the evil he is capable of doing, but truly ashamed by it with his mask off? The fact that he wasn't predictable, and you couldn't read him like an open book had her wanting more about him. And Raven had a strong hunch that he may be intrigued by her too, and might have been for a long, hence the episode two weeks ago.
She exhaled heavily, and once again heard noise in the room next to her. The sound was a little distorted, but it resembled a sound that was familiar, Robin constantly hitting his knuckles against the punching bag. A deep voice, she could hear was quickly covered up by more hits.
'What's he saying?' she wondered, 'Was it about me?'
-xXx
Slade put the plate down and started to walk away, but before he disappeared upstairs, he said some glorious news.
"You are to be set free back to the Titans," he said, his voice maniacal, the way it was before the kidnapping happened.
"Wha? When!" Raven said in a joyous tone.
"As soon as an order comes in, you are to leave."
"How long do you think that will be?"
"At the most, five days. Do not be disappointed when it arrives on the fifth day, so do not get your hopes up for soon," Slade said, coldly. He walked lazily back up the stairs, and a door was shut at the top.
Raven could almost cry in excitement. She would be set free of hunger and worry, liberated of the thought that the Titans would never come to get her. She shoved what little food she had, and curled up on the floor, to dream of their smiling faces.
-xXx
Beast Boy poked a fork at the tofu he refused to eat.
"Friend, you should eat. It is not healthy to--" Starfire started to say.
"I know what is healthy, Star. I am just choosing not to be healthy," Beast Boy coldly snapped. Starfire frowned at her green friend. His temper was thinning down to a mere nothing, and the teams patience with it was thinning.
"Please do not be cross, I was only trying to help," Starfire meekly said, before retreating to the kindness of Robin sitting on the couch, smiling at the Sunday comics. Starfire placed herself close to his body, and leaned her head on his strong shoulder.
"I am worried about our friend," Starfire said, taking a glance at the paper Robin held in front of him.
"Which one?" Robin said, he himself more concerned about Beast Boy at the moment.
"I fear for both of them. But I fear more that Beast Boy is going to intentionally hurt himself."
"There is nothing we can do until Raven shows up, that is when he will lighten up."
Starfire
sighed, disappointed that the team was acting dysfunctional, entirely
unorganized, and very rude to one another. She snuggled in closer to
Robin, whose smiled seemed to grow larger with every inch her body
got closer to his.
Beast Boy looked in disgust at the mumbling
"couple". He thought they were to busy kissing each other's
butts to be worried about Raven. He sincerely felt that no one cared
about her anymore because she was gone, but he was to busy wrapped up
in the thought to pan out the truth from what was false. And all of a
sudden, red flashing lights blinked across the tower. Robin and
Starfire jumped from their position on the couch to check the
computer. Robin's eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed with
hate.
"Slade," he said, his voice just as manly as it was cold.
-xXx
Raven was sleeping, curled in a ball on the cool floor of the basement of a large beautiful house. Slade came down the steps at around ten o'clock in the morning to wake the sleeping woman from her deep slumber. His hand shook her awake, and her eyes popped open in surprise.
"It is time for you to return to the clutches of your pathetic friends," he said, his voice edgy and deep. Raven stood up, and slumped over a bit to show her stomach was in pain from lack of food. "I have already sent a tougher robotic army out to occupy your friends for my cover," he said, his right arm on her right shoulder guiding her up the steps and out a doorway of the house. The two took back streets and alleyways that many of the city dwellers didn't know existed.
Slade peeked around the corner of a building and saw the Titans struggle with the upgraded robots, but he would watch his success with the army later. He untied her hands, and gently slipped the cloth of her eyes. Raven looked up at him with a scared look, an emotion he never thought would cross her. She opened her mouth, and then quickly shut it, her eyes staring blankly. But sure enough, life flowed into her purple eyes again, and she said one last thing before departing his company.
"What happened to weeks ago, Slade was real. I was never drunk," she said, turning away, leaving the corner of the building to the street where all the action was. His eye showed all of his emotions, horror, lust, confusion, and happiness. But he kept his stance and disappeared back into the alleyways.
Raven shot the black magic out of her hands, and knocked the last robotic soldier to the ground, decommissioning it.
"Raven?" Beast Boy shrilled, turning from lion form back to human. Raven looked at Beast Boy, smirked and put a hand to her hand, and suddenly became unstable and fell to the ground. Beast Boy ran over, and collected her into his arms, with tears filling his eyes.
"You're OK," he said, stroking her oil covered purple hair, "Your home safe."
