Another Terra

Raven needed tea.

It was a simple equation, a nonchalant cause and effect that even a small child could understand. At this point, she thought it a bit presumptuous of Robin to ask her a mild, "Where are you going?" when she so clearly meant to take a nice thick book, visit her favorite, quiet café and read until the sight of the other Titan's face didn't make her want to unleash wrath on things. Excluding her frustrations with Red X, her mental exhaustion, Beast Boy's jokes, Starfire's cooking and once again, excluding Cyborg's sudden desire to lead a team on his own, the sorceress found herself still hip-deep in wanton and rampant emotion.

Mostly violent emotions… directed at Robin.

The young woman departed the tower despite Robin's protests against her leaving alone. She merely turned to him with a bland expression and replied, "I'll start respecting you as a leader when you start acting like one again. Until then…I'm going to find some peace and quiet." Then she left.

Two hours later the teenager twirled a strand of mauve hair between her finger tips like a woman spinning wool into thread, the motion a reflexive, an anxious reflection of her internal workings. She felt almost guilty for leaving, but how could remaining help? She could not think clearly amid the clashing energies of her teammates and the obvious aversion Robin displayed for her. Part of her, a small, childish portion felt a sharp sting at the Boy Wonder's rejection…but the rest of her stifled the complaints.

Here at least the quiet murmur of coffee house activity warmed Raven's auditory senses like a comfort doughnut and a blankie to an abused child. The scent of mocha and the mild flavor of herbal tea helped sooth and rinse away the acrid tang of bitterness toward her teammates, leaving her – for a time – content with the passing of hours.

She sat at a comfortable corner of the lounge, enjoying a good book and better atmosphere. The clicking of lap-tops reminded her distantly of Robin's obsessive time at the console at home, but she dismissed it from her mind. Her book. She just wanted to read her book in peace and forget all about the fraying life-lines that tied the Titans together as a whole. Book…yes. No Red X, no Robin, no murder and indecipherable mysteries to solve, just her book and all the wonderful text within.

To bad she hadn't really read a word of it.

Raven sighed and set the tome aside, cradling her tea with two hands and gazing at the sparse company scattered about the tiny room. A couple business men and one female college type studiously working at their laptops. A bored waitress glided about the empty tables, wiping up coffee stains that didn't exist, straightening and unstraightening various chairs that looked too aligned somehow. Raven felt herself relaxing at the sight of menial human life, moving and fidgeting restlessly around her. It gave her hope to see tedious, unfettered activity because it meant that the world didn't need to rush around in a frantic haze.

However…the lack of focused activity provided much lee-way for idle thoughts to wander in.

Red X…the thief. The murderer. Her paradox.

Raven stirred her tea idly as she considered the morbid image of the darkly garbed thief. A face like the Grim Reaper and a mouth sharper than an irate demon, she honestly pondered why he still failed to arouse thought of fear or odium within her. Maybe because she knew true evil? In comparison to the horrors she knew, Red X seemed little more than an impudent child, stealing cookies and sticking out his tongue. He seemed utterly juvenile…brilliant, dangerous, even a force to be reckoned with but juvenile. The girl tapped her spoon lightly against the edge of her saucer, placing it alongside the cup.

The bell over the doorway jangled. Raven glanced across the café just as a trendy looking teen in jeans and sweatshirt crossed the room. She took another sip of her herbal tea and mulled over last night's events. The waitress at the counter smiled politely, taking an order for a hot chocolate and dipping away to find whipping cream in the back room.

Her eyes wandered back to the teenager ordering the hot cocoa, his hair dark and disheveled, from this angle he looked startlingly like Robin in civilian clothes. He seemed to sense an audience and glanced over his shoulder, eyes hidden behind tinted blue sun-glasses and he seemed startled by her attentions, a potential smile appearing at the edges of his mouth. He looked away quickly though, probably embarrassed to hold eyes with the local heroine and dark mage. Once again, so much like their stubborn team leader that she felt herself almost unsettled. Robin. Her thoughts turned back to the Boy Wonder.

She could not allow this to go on. This Red X obsession, this unhealthy fixation that drove sense from his mind made his most valuable asset he greatest weakness. His focus, power of will and indomitable determination that would hear no reason other than his own, it made him stronger than any of them despite having no powers to speak of. He would blindly turn his back on them and pursue his imaginary Slade until one of them – the Slade, or Robin was destroyed.

She felt part of her shudder, an icy kind of terror that she considered only when face with grave danger to her teammates. She tried to help him, be his partner in the hunt, but he wouldn't accept someone else within the house of mirrors that was his mind. She could help him by assisting in his hunt, she had to intervene whether he liked it or not. Whether he knew it or not.

She had to stop Red X…discover some kind of tangible evidence, some kind of unwavering proof besides her gut instinct. Her gut instinct had once told her a Titan would turn on them and she ignored it in favor of Robin's judgment, of Beast Boy's judgment and it had nearly killed them all.

It had certainly broken one of them, shattered something precious, intangible as a whisper. Beast Boy…Did he ever realize that through mere touch Raven could feel the gut-wrenching sobs? That she knew how deeply the betrayal went? Weeping like a child late into the night and clutching his stomach, heartache so acute he ran to toilet to puke, blocking out the nightmares with laughter and jest. If she could pick a single reason to go back and change the past…she would do it just for him.

Terra…traitor.

She startled slightly as her tea cup clattered slightly against the saucer, trembling within the rage of her aura and she calmed herself, releasing the breath she hadn't realized she held. She felt dark tendrils of hatred slither back into the recesses of her mind, retreating as her morale stepped back into authority. The young woman felt a touch of shame nudge her, warming her face slightly. How could she think that about the girl who'd killed Slade? Who sacrificed herself for them? Why couldn't she forgive her even after all this time?

But she already knew why, she'd had this conversation before. As long as she could feel that resonating sorrow, that echoing, secret pain behind the eyes of their youngest comrade…what kind of Titan would she be if she so easily forgave it? With a sigh the girl dismissed thoughts of Terra. She wouldn't let her instincts go ignored this time and turn Red X into another Terra.

Raven ran a delicate finger along the lip of her cup, frowning into her greenish-brown reflection within the shifting liquid surface. She rubbed her fingers together, polishing and imaginary coin, feeling material not really there. She remembered through the misty pain of a head injury, taking a sinewy hand, shaking and hot with blood. She could still feel the thief's pulse racing under his skin as she pulled the glove free of his fingers, traced the feather-light marks.

Robin had hands like Red X…beaten, worn and calloused about the knuckles and tough, but Red X also had hands like Raven…slim, artisan. The scars betrayed his talent, scars only years and years of intense dedication can leave, so intimate a talent that it ingrains itself into your very finger tips. Raven touched the centre of her left palm with her fingers.

He played violin once. Well.

She could feel it murmuring through her skin, through her own finger tips and she let them fall into a familiar curl, aligned for an intricate chord. Her other hand wanted to feel a bow between her fingers, but they hadn't touched Red X, skin to skin, person to person. She let her hand hover above the table, watching with a cool interest as her finger formed invisible notes, following an inaudible metronome. Her breathing slowed, her heart aligning itself with the rhythm of the sound she'd never heard, letting her own thoughts slip slowly into a new sheath, a different mind.

She sucked a sharp breath through her teeth, biting her lip at the sudden shift; her body tingling as alien memories welled up, stolen from a clandestine touch…they exploded through her, flying past in snap-shots like shrapnel through her brain flashing out like a slideshow. Random shards of knowledge piercing her consciousness and blooming into recognizable words, running through her mind.

The gutted innards of a car laid out across a garage floor. She knew the name of each one.

Hundreds of violated vaults, safes, checking account numbers, social security information, the sleeping habits of Dobermans.

A red-headed girl-child in pleated skirts.

Circusrunaway.

The sound of violin. Her favorite chords.

A beautiful blonde woman, middle-aged, but fierce. "Never make the first move! You almost make the second, third, fourth…"

She knew how to make a mean eggroll and teriyaki dish.

Socio and Espia.

She liked the smell of cinnamon.

A horrific Halloween mask, sliced black and burnt orange down the centre, snowflakes melting against the metal. "If I'm too much for you only say the word and I'll stop, X. Simply swear yourself to me and it will stop."

She, Red X, didn't romanticize anything.

Several coffee machines exploded, rocketing potential de-café lattes across the room and spraying the occupancy with the sweet smelling hot-drink. People screamed and dove on their laptops to shield them from the flying beverage, others gaping at the dark hot splatter across their shirts and jeans, and – if you happened to be the teenager in the trendy clothes seated at the computer behind Raven – merely glancing at the chaos and grinning. But the young vigilante had no thought for coffee catastrophe; she could only see that horrible last image.

She stood up swiftly, knocking her chair over and rushing out the door without so much as an apology to the shell-shocked waitress. The teen at behind her glanced up from his computer, sliding his glasses slightly down the bridge of a slim nose. Raven didn't see him; her mind had fallen into a spinning whirlpool of thoughts, whipping themselves into a dangerous frenzy in her skull. The broken images stolen from a thief's mind ebbed away, slipping out of her brain like a tide, already she could barely recall their contents.

But not that last image. She could see it clearly still behind her eyes, burned there. She felt her hands coiling and uncoiling on themselves. Electric fear coursed through her blood stream like a shot of adrenaline, making her entire body tighten with anticipation. No. No! This was exactly the wrong thing! Exactly wrong. All wrong. She couldn't know this. Not now! Not now of all times without Cyborg to talk sense into Robin, without someone he wasn't furious with to keep him from snapping. No!

"Slade is dead," she whispered. "He has to be."

Author's Note: Forgive me my delays, forgive my the boring chapter and oh my gosh, I'm so freaking sorry. This is such a very dismally poor chapter, but I can't think of a way to make it any more interesting. Gah! Fillers make me angry! I want action and violence and wanton killing of plot-bunnies, but thatmakes for an even poorer story still.

Cheezit: At least you're not dead?

Cloud8.9: At least you're not ugly? Oh wait...

Me: unleashes wrath