Disclaimer: Three little words… they aren't mine.
A/N: I actually didn't think I'd get to post this. I've been out of town and school is still crappy, but I finished Chapter 3! It's a little shorter than I originally planned, but it gets the job done. Hopefully the next one will have a little more to it. I actually don't have a lot to say except once again THANK YOU TO ALL MY REVIEWERS! I don't know if I can say enough times how much your encouragement keeps me going. This story would be dead if it wasn't for you guys.
Chapter 3: Mama, You Got a Daughter
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos. Azarath Metrion Zinthos. Azarath Metrion… Damn it, why isn't this working!"
Alette's frustrated cry crushed the thin layer of her concentration and sent her falling through the air. She landed on her bed with a soft thud, black hair cascading over her pillow. Discouraged, she did not move from her defeated position and continued to stare up at the popcorn ceiling of her dorm room.
An hour ago she'd flown away from her mother in anger, leaving explanation to the wind. She had tried and failed several times since getting back to the dorm to meditate and achieve calm, rational thought. Instead memories intruded: nights she spent listening to Raven's soft sobs when she was supposed to be sleeping, the night before when she'd been mistaken for her mother, and the events of the past sixty minutes that had finally revealed her mother's elusive past.
Alette had heard of the Titans, and she'd seen them on the news almost every night since she'd arrived in Jump City. She had stood across from them tonight- Cyborg, Beastman, Starfire, and Nightwing- and felt their emotions upon seeing her mother. They felt shocked initially, and then the feelings of loss, anger, and the desire for an answer began to take over. A number was there too, flashing in each of their minds like the bulb of a camera.
Eighteen.
Her mother's nervous energy prompted Alette to draw a single conclusion, one that she knew was nothing but right. Two of her mother's many secrets were standing across from each other, and Raven was caught.
I suppose everyone is going to want an explanation.
She remembered the sudden conflicting feelings of betrayal and guilt that had crept over her as she'd backed away from her mother. So long she'd wondered what had made her mother cry at night… and now she knew.
"Why are you crying, Mommy?"
"For what I've lost, Alette."
And though the idea had presented itself to Alette as she'd grown older, her suspicions were confirmed in light of the events of the night. She had been the person to steal her mother's past. Raven had been a Titan; she had left them eighteen years before, which conveniently happened to be the same number of years Alette had been alive.
"Alette, don't walk away from me."
"I'm not stupid, mother. I know how to add. I see how long it's been since they've seen you. Maybe they need an explanation. As for me… well, just don't let me get in the way of things… again."
She shamefully remembered her last words to Raven before flying off to the dorm. Her mother would not try to bother her, not until morning at least. Until then Alette would stay here, blaming herself for the miserable look her mother would sometimes wear, and at the same time realizing she was simply an innocent bystander of her mother's actions.
And there was another, more important matter distracting Alette from her meditation.
If her mother had been in Jump City before she fled to Gotham, then there was a very good chance that her father, too, was in the city. She had constructed a wall long ago around the topic of her father, but now that he might be within her reach, she wanted to extend her hand.
"Mommy, where is my daddy?"
Her energy now focused on something constructive, Alette moved from her bed to her desk and turned on her computer. Thanks to her Uncle Bruce hacking was second nature by now, and she was determined to leave no stone unturned.
There would be no more secrets.
Raven found comfort in the exotic and familiar smell of the herbal tea sitting in front of her. She sipped absently from her cup, carefully avoiding the eyes that watched her every move. Her nerves were reaching a breaking point in the silence, and if Starfire did not join them in the next few minutes, she was sure nothing in the living room would be safe from the wrath of her uncontrolled powers.
Just as Raven was beginning to construct an escape plan, Starfire joined them announcing that Tamara, her daughter… his daughter, Raven had to remind herself… was safely tucked into bed for the night. The red-haired alien made herself comfortable on the arm of Nightwing's chair, and Raven found herself restraining her jealousy. She could not bring herself to look at the couple.
"Rae?"
Raven was reintroduced to the matter at hand by the sound of her old nickname. How annoying she'd found it back then… how nice it was to hear it again.
"Yes, Cyborg?"
"Where have you been?"
"Gotham."
Her answers were clipped and restrained, not like the information she had provided Nightwing earlier in the night. She hoped it would be possible to have this conversation without mentioning Alette.
"That girl that was with you… she's really your daughter?"
Damn inquisitive little green changeling…
"Yes."
"Is she the reason why you…"
"Yes."
"Damn," Cyborg said, releasing a low whistle.
"Friend Raven," Starfire piped up, "when shall we meet the father of your child? I am sure he will be a glorious new friend!"
Well, Raven thought sarcastically, some people never change. Starfire's naivety had always served as a source of annoyance for Raven. As a teenager new to the planet it was excusable, as a grown adult it was not.
"Never," Raven said through gritted teeth.
She saw the exchange of uncomfortable glances between three of the Titans. One masked pair remained trained on her, though she did not meet his stare.
"Raven," Beastman started carefully, "you weren't… I mean nothing…" He floundered in his discomfort.
"You weren't… hurt… were you, Raven?" Cyborg's instinctual brotherly protection could be heard in his voice.
Raven had to hand it to her friends. They were trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she'd been raped, and then having a baby at sixteen wouldn't be so bad. She couldn't possibly have been so irresponsible to get pregnant so young. Not their calm, stoic Raven. "No, Cyborg."
"Then who is the father?"
"That is none of your business, Nightwing."
She was looking at him from across the room. Was he trying to rat himself out? Did he want to cause mass chaos and confusion? Don't do anything stupid, Robin.
For his part, Nightwing was frustrated with Raven. She was protecting him again. She was taking the consequences of their careless teenage actions and placing them in her shoulders, leaving nothing for him to carry. He was tired of being rescued in order to save a reputation he hardly cared about. It was time he let Raven know exactly how much he cared for her.
"If you don't tell them, I will, Raven. They deserve to know."
His team turned to look at him, their eyes wide with surprise. "Dude, you knew!"
"And you didn't tell us?"
"I didn't know the entire time. I found out tonight."
"When? We've all been with her since we found her."
"I was with her when you called me to the fire. She had something to tell me…" He was talking to the team, but Nightwing never stopped looking into Raven's eyes. He was asking her to trust him, asking for her to realize that sooner or later the truth would come out and he'd rather their friends hear it from them.
"Please, Nightwing…" she offered a weak final plea.
"I'm the father of Raven's daughter."
The collective intake of breath at the declaration seemed to take all the oxygen out of the air, and Raven began to breathe heavily, trying to calm her nerves. Then she noticed they were all looking at her as if seeking conformation.
"It's true," she admitted, looking at the floor.
"You're serious?" Cyborg asked, looking from Raven to Nightwing. "You two were… together… and never bothered to tell anyone about it?"
"We were going to… eventually," Raven offered. "But then… well, you know how the story goes from there."
"How can this be?"
The attention of the room was now on Starfire who still sat on the arm of the chair Nightwing had abandoned for his confession. Her bottle green eyes were wide, and Raven could see tears as they formed in the corner of her lids. A wave of sympathy for the alien washed over Raven as she felt Starfire's immense pain.
"Nightwing," she moved closer to her husband, taking him by the shoulders. "You cannot be both the father of Tamara and the father of Raven's daughter. It is not possible."
"Star, I'm sorry," he offered, looking guiltily into her innocent eyes. "It's very possible and it is the truth."
"I think I musk seek solitude now."
Starfire walked out of the living room and into an adjacent hallway, her footsteps fading as she walked farther away. Nightwing moved to follow her, but a hand on his shoulder stopped his progression. "I'll handle this," Raven said, walking past him and following the trail that Starfire had just taken.
Raven found Starfire gazing out at the last hours of darkness that hung over the city. Standing beside her she watched their obscure reflections in the floor-to-ceiling windows carefully. Starfire was still much taller than her, and really Raven could find little that was different about her former teammate. She was still the same pretty alien that had made guys forget what they were doing when she walked into the room.
Raven remembered asking Robin once what he'd thought of Starfire. And in the silence his words came back to her as clearly as they had been the day that he'd said them. "Raven, Starfire is my friend and I love her, but the way a brother loves a sister. I don't want to see her hurt and I feel the need to protect her from some of the harsher realities of Earth. But she's not you. With you I can be exactly who I am and not have to worry about exposing a secret that you can't handle. Starfire's too gentle, too naïve, and she and I would never be able to truly understand each other."
Now Raven found strength in his words, and she broke the growing silence between herself and Starfire. "We were sixteen, Starfire. It was before the two of you got together, I promise."
"But you knew I liked Robin."
Raven couldn't help but chuckle slightly. "Starfire, everyone knew you liked him. I wasn't doing it to hurt you. You were my friend and I would never do something like that just so I could rub it in your face."
"I've always thought he might be keeping something from me," Starfire said. She continued to look out to the skyline of the city. To Raven, Starfire looked utterly depressed, an emotion that was normally observed for the dark empath, not the bubbly alien.
"He didn't know until I told him tonight."
"I believe you. I know that he wouldn't abandon a child that he knew belonged to him." She turned to Raven for the first time in the conversation, and Raven looked up to meet Starfire's eyes. "But he never told me anything about you and him."
"I suppose that is because he's spent all this time trying to forget me."
"He never really loved me."
Raven was caught off guard by Starfire's declaration. Perhaps she wasn't as daft as Raven perceived her to be. "What do you mean, Star?"
"We've been married for ten years and not once has he looked at me the way he looked at you just now. Our marriage has always seemed different from that of Cyborg and Bumblebee… It was merely an extension of our friendship. He is kind to me, and he dotes on Tamara… but… Raven, he does not love me."
"I did not come here to break up a marriage, Starfire. I wanted this to happen for Robin. I wanted him to be happy. No one was ever supposed to find out about my daughter."
"Raven, for my daughter's sake, I hope that is true." Starfire walked away, never looking back at Raven. Sighing, Raven turned back to the window and watched as the pink sky announced daybreak in Jump City.
"Do you have a place to stay?"
She turned slightly to face Nightwing who was standing behind her. He walked over to where she stood and together they continued to stare out at the city. "I'll find a hotel," she told him.
"Why don't you just stay in the Tower? No one's ever here anymore, so it's not like you'd be bothered."
"I think I've caused enough trouble. Probably best if I distance myself from the Titans again."
"That's going to be hard seeing as how we're fighting the same enemy?"
Raven quirked an inquisitive eyebrow and turned to look at Nightwing, her shoulder and hip resting against the glass. "Since when?"
"Since we just decided that your cult buddies are a threat to our city and they must be stopped."
"You don't know what you're getting the team into, Nightwing."
"It was a unanimous decision."
"Except for Starfire, who was not present for the vote."
"I'm sure she won't object to protecting the city. It's her job."
"No. What she'll object to is protecting me."
"Raven…"
Raven looked into his eyes, knowing that she could not continue to argue with him. As important as this little twist in her life was, she had to remember what had brought her to Jump City in the first place. He was right. She and Alette couldn't do this on their own, and she did need a place to stay… "Alright Boy Wonder," he responded to his old nickname with a smile, "I'll stay here, but only on one condition."
"And what is that?"
Raven could have asked for anything and he would have given it to her, she knew that. And the almost kiss they had shared earlier that night still lingered on her lips, but her eyes followed the dark hallway into which Starfire had disappeared. "You should go to Starfire," she said dejectedly.
He did not miss the loss in her voice, but he knew she was right. "Okay," he agreed. Before he left, he took her face in his hands and drew her close placing a kiss on top of her head, something he used to do all the time. She lingered in his grasp for a minute that could have lasted a lifetime and then pulled away. She offered him one last smile then turned back in the direction of the main room.
Raven crossed the large open area as if dodging bullets, but what she was really trying to avoid were her two friends who had found GameStation to be a satisfying outlet for the shock they'd experienced that night. She was almost to the entryway that led to the hall with her room when Beastman called to her.
"Raven, wait!"
She turned around slowly to face Beastman and Cyborg. "Listen guys, I'm really tired. I'll talk to you later, okay?"
"When can we meet her?"
"What?"
"Your daughter… she's got to be inducted at some point… she can't avoid it. She's part of the family."
Raven smiled and released a breath of relief. Though she knew that Nightwing had to have talked to them in her absence, she should have known that her friends would not shun her simply because she'd made a mistake in leaving them. And certainly they would not shun Alette, for she had done nothing wrong. "Maybe someday soon, Cyborg. She's got a lot to deal with right now. But I'll let her know you're interested in meeting her. I'll talk to you guys later, okay?" She turned around and continued down the hall, laughing as she heard Beastman call after her, "You better believe it. We have a lot of catching up to do."
As the morning sun slipped in past her curtains, Raven crawled under the sheets of her old bed. Was she supposed to feel happy or sad now? Yes, she'd revealed her secret and confronted her friends and now she felt much freer with the burden gone. But the truth could not free Nightwing from his family, and she did not want to make him choose between one daughter and another. She could not allow him back in her life no matter how much she wanted to. Feeling that she could more easily assess her current situation with a clear head, Raven closed her eyes and fell asleep knowing one thing for sure. She was home again with the people she'd learned to love and had missed all these years. That was enough for her right now.
Cause you have been drifting for so long
I know you don't want to come down
But somewhere below you there's people who love you
And they're waiting for you to come home
- Drifting, Sarah McLachlan
A/N: It took forever for me to figure out what I wanted to say in that last paragraph! Sorry if it was a little rough to get through. Next chapter I'll go more in depth about the whole cult plot line now that most of the initial secret telling has been done. I hope everyone's planning on reviewing! Thanks in advance!
