Consequence
:x:
Raven woke to eerie calm. The world seemed suspended in motion, like a dark god had touched it with the palm of his hand and held it still. There was no sound but the ringing silence, no light but the blue slivers of morning from the cracks in her curtains, and no movement but the play of dust by the window, drifting in the light.
Closing her eyes, she could feel every separate sensation coming, crashing together like a symphony composed of slow, melancholy notes. The heavy silk of the bedding against her bare skin. The ache in her arms and knuckles where Robin had pushed her into developing hand-to-hand combat skills. The cold of her toes, sticking just beyond the end of the covers. The cracked, dried feeling on her cheeks that meant she had been crying.
She pulled herself out of bed, to sit on the edge, facing the windows. As she tugged on her boots, rustling in the absolute quiet, she stared down at her fingertips. Her small, gray fingertips that danced across the buckles and laces. She wondered what made her skin like the dust in the blue light that spun in lax, morbid circles, down down to the ground. She wondered what made Starfire's skin like ripe peaches in the afternoon sun, sweet and soft to touch. She wondered as she rose to her feet, swept on her cloak, and ran a long comb through her hair.
Her steps were soundless as she came down the hall. The stillness pervaded the Tower: church, or a funeral. She came into the kitchen and put water on the stove. As she waited, her eyes drifted to the tall windows that covered the western wall. It was just before dawn; the sky lightened moment by moment from a washed-out royal blue to cyan to white.
She pulled out a small glass, filling it half-way with tap water. Clear as the morning sky, clear as the calm, translucent sea, clear as his conscience as he just upped and walked away from her.
Raven took a sip, rinsed her mouth, and spat. Her palms against the light tiles of the counter, she ducked her head, closed her eyes. She willed herself to breathe, to maintain as calm and clear a composure as the sea, as the sky, as the water in the glass.
Nevertheless, the cup shattered in her hand. Shards of glass flew over the counter, into the sink, impaling itself onto the wall. She opened her eyes, surprised, as the kettle whistled its discontentment. Hissing a sigh, she turned off the heat and, with a wave of her hand, swept the glass shards into a tight ball that she flicked toward the trash bin.
Another silent morning, another unbidden memory, another broken object.
:x:
Something about the sound of heavy clamping footsteps in the morning, the first thing that broke the calm, was comforting. She listened to it, and somehow it was in sync with the rhythm of her breathing. A shiver of warmth traveled down her spine, the corner of her mouth curved so mildly she looked as if she was being sardonic rather than appreciative.
She levitated in front of the windows, the west-facing windows, with her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted. The daylight outside played on her eyelids, gentle with youth. She always meditated in the mornings, because she hated the noon sun.
"Yo Rae," Cyborg greeted her. "Hungry?"
She didn't bother to answer him. Whatever he'd make, she'd eat—at least enough to make him stop pestering her to. Cyborg was a good guy, a pillar she could tether herself to. Yet he cared too much; one day he was going to get hurt, and she couldn't do anything about it.
Her meditation deepening, she tuned out the clanging of kitchen pans and the smell of sausage, holding the image of a circle circumscribed around a reverse triangle. She branded it in her mind, turning it over and making it glow, warmth spreading through her fingers and toes and upwards, targeting her core, that point of center where her powers rooted from. Breathe in, breathe out.
She withdrew herself into a glowing ball in her center, and then out, releasing herself from the constraints of her body. She felt parts of herself detach with a slight pop. Her arms and torso was climbing out, floating, flying, free. She lost all consciousness of breathing, and could only think about pulling herself out of her physical body and into the realm of the metaphysical.
Hush.
"HEY, I was making breakfast today!" yelled Beast Boy, zooming in. His raucous voice slammed Raven back into her body. She fell to the ground, scraping her calves and landing solidly on her posterior. "Jeez, Cy, you KNOW how much I hate MEAT!"
"You don't get it, BB. Protein helps you, it makes you strong."
"By killing other beings, people just like you or me."
"Not really. They're animals raised to be killed. It's just how life works."
"Which is why life sucks! Think about it! Everyone deserves a chance at life, even the chickens and the hogs and the cows that you think are just so—"
Raven rose and brushed herself off. "Will you two shut up? I was busy, in case you didn't notice."
"Raven, c'mon, take my side," pleaded Beast Boy.
"No! Raven, you realize where I'm coming from. Tell BB you've got to be ruthless to survive."
The dark girl lowered her hood and fixed them both with her withering violet stare. "And you wonder why I always go to the roof to meditate. No respect," she said spitefully. Grabbing her mug of tea off of the table, now lukewarm, she turned and made for the door.
"Now look what you did. You pissed Raven off," BB snipped.
"Oh, I pissed Raven off? I'm not the one coming in here yelling at the top of my lungs."
"If you had just let me make breakfast, it wouldn't have happened."
"Oh-ho-ho! And taste that bland, disgusting stuff you call food? No thanks!"
As Raven exited, the closing door muffling the argument, two figures at the end of the hall caught her attention. Starfire and Robin stood in close proximity, talking with their heads together. The way they were standing, with their bodies facing one another (how could they be so near each other without touching? Was it even possible?), told Raven all she needed to know. She left the other way, walking her soundless steps. She'd paced these steps so many times, it's amazing there wasn't a worn path down this hall and up the stairs to the roof. As she walked, she thought.
I have a girlfriend.
We can't go on.
I'm leaving.
Goodbye, beautiful.
X
She hated thought. Thinking about it, she realized that if she dwelt on the past, she'd encounter incongruities and confusion, questions that could not be answered.
Questions she didn't want answers to.
Staring back down at her fingers, at her gray skin, at the lank violet hair that fell around her neck, she knew with certainty why he had left her. Why he had lied.
I have a girlfriend.
Words like that fall off his tongue easily and untruthfully. He was not also a master thief, he had the most silvery, cruel, unconscientious mouth she'd ever…
Ever kissed.
Suddenly she didn't want to go to the roof anymore. Suddenly, dragging her eyes up each individual step of the stairwell, she realized all she wanted to do was find that lying son-of-a-gun and hang him by his toenails. Her hands began to glow, negative energy swathing her skin.
The path of apathy was difficult, perhaps too difficult for her to return to. Raven vanished her cup and started off in a different direction, phasing through the walls of the corridor to find the monitor room.
The room was dark, the computers humming gently as they kept watch over the crime throughout the city. Raven sat down at one and logged into her account, pulling up her most recent searches. Three windows popped up, one streaming data from the Jump City Underground, the others searching all over the country. Like usual, there was nothing. She sighed, typing furiously.
The most difficult part, the part that would probably get her the most information, was hacking into the data systems of Hector Crowley, mob boss and crime lord of the entire West Coast. If anyone had hired Red X, he would have it recorded.
Raven rather disliked how often she came to the monitor room nowadays. She felt as if she was being held underwater; she couldn't rise from her position, couldn't shake herself free. She was trapped, trying to decipher his whereabouts and repress the disappointment she'd felt. She was trying to find closure.
She waited, listening to the computer whirl urgently.
A window popped up—something she hadn't clicked. An ad? She wondered.
She gave it a cursory glance, preparing to close it. She caught herself before she clicked the button in the corner, pulling back and giving the message a quick skim. Her heart drummed insistently into her ribcage as she read.
To Whom It May Concern:
That means you, Raven.
I understand that around a year ago, you met a gentleman who calls himself 'Red X' and developed a relationship of sorts with him. Surprised? One can know everything, as long as one has enough money. Now, it has come to my attention that he left abruptly six months ago. Being as I have a personal grudge against Mr. X, I propose a sort of alliance. I'll put you in contact with Red X, as long as you provide the means to eliminate him from the Jump City crime ring.
Consider my offer, because it is both beneficial to you and me. I will be in contact with you.
Y.
Raven's breath hitched; someone had gotten past Tower security and planted a message in the system for her. She copied and pasted the text, saved it in a file that she hid and encrypted, and closed the window. Should she tell Robin? He'd worry too much, and ask her why the man left a message for her. In true sleuth-like fashion, he wouldn't stop until he got to the heart of the matter. That's why she couldn't trust him; she couldn't even trust herself.
She thought about confiding in Cyborg. It seemed the most prudent choice, yet she knew it would hurt Cyborg to know that she still thought about Red X, still wanted resolution. He'd hoped she would be over it by now, so many months later. She'd wonder why she hadn't told him, why she couldn't trust him with the truth.
So, until she received signs of danger, she'd just recommend Cyborg to update the defense of their hardware system, and ponder over the message.
I'll put you in contact with Red X, as long as you provide the means to eliminate him from the Jump City crime ring.
What did that mean, but: I'll lead to you him, as long as you can kill him.
:x:
Revenge is a dish best served cold, as the saying goes. Such an eloquent, elegant idea. It really was too bad, decided the empath at breakfast, picking at her fruit, that she really didn't want revenge. She wanted to see him again, to demand why he left her, to slap him once across the face—
And that was it. That was it all. She did not want to "eliminate" him.
Camaraderie was hard to come by, for an introverted cynic like her. It took effort to curb back caustic statements, to know your friends so well you can predict what they're going to say a moment before they say it. With X, it had come faster and harder than with anyone else—what they call a whirlwind romance.
She took the time to observe Starfire and Robin together. They were like two small furry animals lying side by side in the grass—quietly and peacefully content. They smiled in conjunction, moved in conjunction, did everything together, complementing one another. Lovey-dovey stuff. After about a minute of watching them, Raven was distantly aware of a desire to puke. All that, that soft, romantic, simultaneous support of each other was actually quite repugnant. In a way, she felt like they had lost their individuality and become, instead of Starfire and Robin, "Star-Rob."
Ew.
If she thought about it in comparison to "Star-Rob," she was happy that her turbulent, flirtatious, short relationship with Red X had not robbed her of her sense of self. At the same time, it did not excuse him from taking off in such a hurry—which was why her interest needed to be satisfied, and therefore she must track him down, no matter what.
Twenty minutes after she'd come to this conclusion, she saved a file in the computer, under the name "To Whom It May Concern," bearing only two words:
I accept.
:x:
Note: the monitor room and the control room are different. The control room is the main room, with the television, the kitchen, and the row of computers. The monitor room is a room in the tower with computers connected to the central system the computers in the control room are connected to, but much more private. It's connected to Robin's personal sanctuary, the one he plotted to search for Slade with, and to the evidence room.