Chapter 9: Crystalised by The xx
The Dreaming:
Dream looked from door to door, his star-like eyes deep in thought. Gar looked at the doors blankly as he trailed a bit behind him, more than a little confused about what they were doing.
Gar interrupted the silence, "So...do we just go through random dreams until we figure out what I need to from this or what?"
Dream sighed. "There are no 'random' dreams. No, we are looking for a specific one. I can sense how it formed, I'm just having trouble locating it in this mess you call a subconscious." he motioned to the hallway.
"You know, I may use this as the example when people say my head's empty." Gar looked down the endless hall one what than the other. "Anything I could do to help?"
Dream looked at Gar for a moment, thinking. Or whatever the equivalent of that is for a being like him. "You just may. This...situation you need help with; it involves your lover, yes?"
The phrase induced a word vomit from Gar; "Well, she's not my lover, she's my girlfriend, I mean, we haven't really hit that moment, I mean we almost did, but it didn't go well, and also I don't know if we're actually still dating because she kinda threw me into a window after I called her something shitty and I should probably shut up now, shouldn't I?"
Matthew looked up at Gar from his position on the floor. "I think the phrase nowadays is TMI, kid."
"Hrm." Dream raised his hand to his face in thought. "You said you almost made love, but did not because it 'didn't go well?"
"Wow, you could piece that together from that mess?" Matthew flattened his feathers out in mild shock.
"Uhm...yeah..." Gar scratched the back of his head. "H-H-How is that useful?"
"Just hold onto that moment in your mind." Dream made eye contact with Gar, before reaching his hand through Gar's forehead as if he were vapor, pulling out what looked to be a very thin wire. "Excellent."
"What just happened?" Gar looked down with wide eyes at Matthew, whose feathers flattened more.
"Don't ask me, I just work here."
"This, my perplexed companions, will lead us to the proper dream to unlock the fullness of Garfield's emotional distress. And supposedly help me in some way." Dream said the last part in a low grumble, before tugging at the 'wire' and, upon watching it go taut, began following it.
"Why are we going back to where my...private dreams are?" Gar winced as he followed.
"It is where we are being led." Dream replied.
"Well, at least this won't be boring." Matthew flapped his wings to begin flying along.
Gotham:
"You have a lot of explaining to do, kid." Nightwing folded his arms. "For one, how'd you figure it out? For second, why not sell the info, half of the scum here would kill for that, not to mention the one's that'd pay through the nose."
"Okay, first off, I'm not a kid, I'm 13." Tim folded his arms in a huff.
"Still a kid by our books." Nightwing raised an eyebrow.
"Fine, whatever." Tim grumbled. "I figured it out through watching you, actually. My parents and I were at your last show at the circus, so that stuck with me, being 4 and all. Anyways, as I grew up, I kinda sorta became a Batman and Robin fanboy. Devoured any news footage I could find, youtubed the shit out of the videos people took when that started happening. And as I got older, I realized there was something familiar about your moves as Robin. So, I started digging and eventually, after about a year, made the connection that you were Dick Grayson. And then if, Dick Grayson was Robin, and he was adopted by Bruce Wayne...well, that was pretty elementary." Tim smiled modestly, scratching the back of his head. "And I guess the first part answers the second question, I mean, why the hell would I sell out my favorite heroes like that? Kinda stupid."
Dick was stunned. "You figured it all out...just by being curious?"
Tim nodded.
Dick and Kory spoke at the same time, both with shocked expressions. "X'hal" "Jesus."
Tim shrugged. "I live on my own most of the time, so I got a lot of free time."
Kory tilted her head, "Where are your parents, Young-Tim?"
He sighed softly; "My dad's an archaeologist, so he's always out on trips and digs and stuff, mom passed away a few years ago and my step-mom just kinda...ran off a year ago. Probably another reason why Dad doesn't stick around home."
Dick looked at Tim sadly, "No school or anything?"
"Well not right now." Tim said wryly. "Hence the following, I was actually hoping you would've caught me sooner. But I get it, playing safe an all."
Dick nodded, "So...if you don't want to sell us out, what do you want? Blackmail money?"
He scrunched his face in disgruntlement, "No, I actually want to help."
"How?"
Tim inhaled deeply then breathed out before keeping as serious a tone as he could "I want to be the new Robin."
Jump City:
Raven woke up slowly, looking at the clock. Eight in the evening, she had been out about 6 hours or so. Her nap was nice, if a little restless. She had dreamed of Gar, it looked like he was aimlessly wandering the halls, following a tall, gaunt man with stars for eyes and a raven. She felt like she had recognized the other figure but Raven couldn't place from where so she dropped it for now. Dreams had their own methods about them, so she rarely pried unless she had the gut feeling to do so. Currently, her gut was saying "Food. Now."
As soon as Raven opened the door to the hall, her sense of smell was overwhelmed by something that smelled at once amazing and heart attack inducing. 'Oh good, Vic must be cooking.' She grumbled internally as she walked towards the common area. When she hit the main room, she noticed a few things slightly out of place. Rose had completely hijacked the TV, watching a Stallone action movie from the eighties (they all blended together to Raven), Jinx and Donna were chatting in soft, hushed tones, and Wally was zipping around the kitchen, trying to steal the finished bits of dinner. Everyone noticed her walk in and there was a slight pause in all the actions, before Rose simply looked back at the screen and Wally suddenly invaded near all of Raven's vision.
"Awesome, you're up just in time!" He said excitedly.
"For what?" Raven monotoned wearily, quirking an eyebrow.
"Bacon-wrapped cheeseburgers!" Wally near burst with delight.
Raven maintained a flat expression before looking over at Cyborg, who was still getting everything wrapped up, in more ways than one. "Have you been watching that damn youtube cooking thing again?"
"No!" Cy shot at defiantly. She glared at him until he cracked, "Okay, maybe a little. But this is going to be awesome, even made you one!" He grinned ear to ear.
Raven's glare continued as her eyebrows furrowed. "Why is no one watching Gar?"
Cyborg sighed. "I am watching Gar; the camera's and all electronics in the Tower are hooked up to my brain, remember?" He tapped the metal side of his head lightly. "I've been keepin' the security feed and vitals in a window off to the side. He's still sleeping it off. Doing better, I think your patch jobs put him almost two weeks ahead of normal recovery, but he's still out of it for the time being."
Raven sighed. "I should at least be in ther-"
"Nah-uh. You're gonna sit down, you're gonna eat, and you're gonna relax." Vic said sternly, glaring Raven down. They glared off at each other, a small silence in the room save Rose, whose attention hadn't left the TV, whistling the theme from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.". After a minute or two of whistling, Raven's eye twitched.
"Fine, but I only need a half of the burger, if that. I really don't think I can stomach that much meat right now." Raven grumbled, while thinking 'Hell, I don't think I stomach any meat at the moment. Damnit, Gar. Not even here and he's still pushing his vegan agenda.'. Raven walked over to the couch, sitting next to Rose on the side closest to Donna and Jinx, who she noticed promptly stopped talking. After a minute of protracted silence, Raven looked at them, "Seriously, try and make it more obvious next time, I could barely tell you were talking about me." She said in a biting tone.
Donna looked a little hurt, as Jinx furrowed her brows at her, "Well, excuse us for being worried about a friend."
Raven sighed, feeling terrible. "I'm sorry it's just-"
"Stressful, we know." Jinx breathed out as well. "Donna was just...filling me in, that's all."
Raven looked at Donna, not glaring but the hints of it were there. Donna looked away, looking pretty guilty. Raven maintained the look before sighing. "It was gonna happen sooner or later." She slumped into the couch, wrapping her cloak around her. "Guess sooner is better." She grumpily monotoned.
Donna sighed, "I'm sorry, I just thought it would be fair if at least Jinx knew."
Raven raised an eyebrow. "Just Jinx?"
Donna nodded.
Raven looked over at Rose, "Did you hear anything?"
Rose didn't break her eye contact with the screen, as Stallone was now stabbing a guy, "Hear what, now?"
"Don't worry about it."
"'Kay." Rose said simply, smirking. Raven eyed her for a second; if she did know, she wasn't saying, but that's fine. Mean's she'll keep it to herself.
Wally ran up behind the couch. "Foo' beh reahey." He spoke through a burger.
"So I see." Jinx said dryly. "Save some for us, honey."
"No pramashz." Wally zipped back to the the table.
Raven looked at Jinx and Donna, "Impromptu time-of-girls after dinner?" Donna and Jinx nodded quickly. Raven looked over at Rose, "Uhm..do you want to join-"
Rose cut her off "Does it involve drama?"
"A little." Raven replied simply.
"Thanks but no thanks." Rose responded.
Raven blinked at her, gaining just a few more ounces of respect for the white haired woman. "Okay."
The Dreaming:
Dream followed the wire that they had plucked from Gar's mind through the hall that was his connection to the Dreaming. Gar looked side to side at the various doors, knowing each was a dream. Maybe?
"So...are these, like, every dream I've had or...what?" Gar finally asked.
"Hrm?" Dream looked back at him momentarily, before resuming following the wire. "Oh, the doors. Well. Yes and no. Some are existing dreams, that re-occur. Some are simply dream components specific to you; memories and personal unconscious symbols. Others may simply be 'empty' in a manner of speaking. Space for dreams or ideas yet to be."
"Dreams or ideas?"
"The dreaming does not just encompass the nature of dreams, young Garfield. Within my realm are all stories, images, archetypes, myths. Ideas of what is, and more importantly, what isn't, are born here. They live here until they find some form of expression amongst the dreamers. Be it good or ill." Dream spoke idly, as if the topic bored him, but Gar got a sense that the entity enjoyed getting a chance to actually explain things to someone.
"So why are there...so many doors? I mean, I guess most are empty. Right?" Gar grinned.
"Quite the opposite. Your imagination is quite...pardon the pun, wild. So your potential for dreaming and ideas is vast. Hence, this hallway." Dream gestured at the area around them with his free arm.
"Oh." Gar...wasn't quite sure what to say. "...and Steve said having an overactive imagination was a bad thing."
"It can be, if it goes wrong. But usually people slide into my youngest sister's territory when that occurs." Dream sighed sadly, speaking under his breath. "Poor Delirium." He then cleared his throat. "I digress, I assume there is some reason for it, other than flights of fancy. Otherwise, well, you would not be so...together."
Gar thought for a moment. "Well...I do have to keep my brain open to animal ideas in fights; and there are animals that do things nobody thinks about, ya know? So that might be part of it."
Dream hummed positively "Well, that does seem to be a go-"
"I also read lots of comic books and watch tons of movies." Gar added.
"Ah." Dream said dully. "There's the other shoe as it were." He suddenly stopped, causing Gar to hit his back and Matthew to fly over them a little ways before turning around with a confused caw. The wire was point at a door to Dream's left.
"I believe we have arrived." Dream let the wire fade into the door as he stepped to the side of it, gesturing. "Shall we, Mr. Logan?"
Gar stood there dumbly. "Wait, Why do I have to open it?"
"It is your dream, your subconscious. I am merely a guide." Dream stated matter-of-factually.
"Oh." Gar felt...uncomfortable looking at the door. Like he could feel like what was on the other side was not going to be pleasant. He sighed, pushing the thought away as his hand hit the door panel. It slid open with the familiar metallic woosh, and suddenly the area was filled with an overwhelming light.
When he had opened his eyes again, Gar noticed that they were no longer in the hall; the group stood in a field surrounded by rolling hills and vineyards. It all stretched on for an almost infinite distance. The sky was bright, but the sun itself was obscured by extensive cloud cover. Directly in front of the group was a large hill, topped by an equally large tree. The grass was dying in patches around the tree, which itself looked as if it had seen better days. Then Gar saw them; two figures on opposite sides of the tree. He slowly began to get closer, trying to identify them; but it became easy the second he made out the color of the young woman's hair and the green tint of the young man's...everything. Both of them were near curled up into fetal positions, nude, backs to the tree. Gar stopped and simply took it in.
Matthew fluttered to the ground next to Gar, looking about. "Huh. Nice area."
"It's...wine country. It's a ways from the city, far enough to feel like you're in nature but not be in nature at all. Just...kinda an overly nice place to be, I guess." Gar said slowly. "We came out here last year...to. .."
Matthew titled his head up at Gar, as Dream came to the other side of him."Some of the symbols and structures I recognize. Others...others appear to be of meaning only to you, Garfield."
"No I...I understand it. It's...it's all about that...night...and what happened because of it." Gar said increasingly uneasy with words as memories he did not like to remember flooded back to the forefront of his mind. "I forget what we told the others...just we each had business that just so happened to be close to each other that was more than a few days out...and Cyborg said, just share a room, it won't kill you. Raven acted less than pleased, but was 'persuaded' by me bringing up that I could foot the bill, and would keep out of her hair. Robin made me swear on that last one." Gar smiled only a little. "We were elated; team was 'in the dark', we had a space just to ourselves...what could go wrong?"
Over a year ago...:
"Gar...please..." Raven pleaded. Her strained voice rang throughout his soul. When they did get to this point?
Hours Before;
When they had gotten to the hotel, small out of the way place he had nearly pounced on her. Wrapped his arms around her and attacked the weak area of her neck. She had jumped initially before leaning her neck towards him, sighing lightly.
"You certainly waste no time." Raven said, near breathless.
"What can I say? You have that effect on me." Gar grinned, resting his head on her shoulder.
"I can tell." She replied flatly, quirking an eyebrow at him as her face tinged red.
Gar's face reddened as well, catching the hint, unwinding his arms from her quickly and backing up a step. "Oh-shi-erm...sorry." He said quickly, trying to cross his legs a little.
"I didn't say you had to move." Raven said wryly, grinning ever so slightly before walking further into the room to drop her bag. He blinked in his spot for a second, before shaking his his head for a second.
"You are a temptress, you know that?" Gar raised an eyebrow at her as he tossed his bag on top of the dresser. They had actually gone for a nicer bed and breakfast type thing that didn't have any TV's in the room, just focused on emphasizing the beautiful area around it. It was well out of the way, and the rooms were practically divided mini cabins, all with paths leading back to the main area. Raven never did bother to ask how Gar could afford it, but at the time, she really wasn't hung up on the details. They had chosen these features for a few reasons...
They had been...skirting the edges of sex for a while. Never getting quite to that point just, moving around in the region. Heavy petting here, a mouth applied there...small things. The main problem that they skirted up to was two-fold; Both were incredibly nervous about the idea of it. Sure, they had both watched porn at some point (it took Gar at least 6 months to drag out of Raven that a good chunk of her books were romance novels that she "enhanced" to look like tomes), so they knew what to expect. What to...do. In practice however...they were both nervous. It was one thing to flirt, tease and make all sorts of suggestions. It was completely another to follow those up; to touch, grope, kiss, suck, bite and apply pressure to sensitive areas. These were new things for both of them, and they had discovered Raven had...difficulties applying this. If a kiss could destroy a hall, both were slightly terrified of what an orgasm would do. So they had moved slow. Almost methodically. Gar had been impatient initially, but he did his best to move at her pace. Raven was appreciative...and showed it in quite a few ways. Which Gar didn't mind, he just...didn't feel it was fair. A one sided kind of thing. Hopefully this trip would end that.
But that was all for later, right now, it was time for settling in.
An Hour Ago;
When they had got back from the very nice, very fancy dinner that they had gone to, Gar had near pinned her to the door to their room, the deep kiss broken by Raven, who was breathing heavily.
"One...moment...let me just get the-Ah!" She gasped when his teeth hit her collarbone, closing her eyes slightly, and having to use the door and his arms he had around her waist to hold herself up for a moment. She felt his hand moving up her leg, sliding her long, blackish-blue dress up slightly, sending sparks throughout her. She sighed before grabbing the wrist of the traveling hand, which stopped. Gar pulled his head up to look at her, hazy but understanding.
She breathed for a minute, collecting herself, before saying softly, "Couldn't wait for me to open the door?"
"I've been staring at you in that dress since you put it on all evening, holorings or no, that's torture." Gar said in almost a low growl.
"One could say the same for having to stare at you in the suit." Raven raised an eyebrow, smirking as her hand stealthily unlocked the door behind her back. "You clean up nicely." The door popped open, allowing her to disappear inside quickly, almost causing a slightly stunned Gar to stumble over.
"Oh, c'mon, that's not fair." Gar said into the dark room, closing the door behind him and near instantly taking the holo ring off, skin color changing back to normal. They had worn the clothes over, half for fun and half because they have discovered that the rings' projected clothes are shit when really close to people. Gar looked about the room, sighing. "Y'know I can still find you in here, lights or no lights."
"Who says I'm trying to hide?" Raven said playfully from the dark, a slightly warm large piece of soft cloth hitting Gar's face as she said so. He pulled it off and squinted at it, checking to make sure that his nose was right in confirming it was Raven's dress. It was. "Okay, that's just cruel."
"Oh, and pushing me up against the door wasn't?" Raven's voice asked from the dark.
"No, that wasn't." Gar grinned at the dark, following his nose to her scent as he removed his suit jacket and kicked off his shoes. She had to be on the bed, from the smell and where it sounded like her voice was coming from.
"And why is that?" She tried to maintain her normal flat tones but failed slightly.
"'Cause I did it, that's why." Gar leaned on the bed, crawling towards where she was slowly.
"Oh. Well that's fair." She tried regain her normal sarcastic tone a tad as she felt him crawl over her, feeling his breath line up with her face.
"Damn right it is." Gar said lightly before kissing her deeply as she wrapped her arms and legs around him.
This moment:
"Gar...please..." Raven pleaded breathlessly.
Gar's brain went over the entire evening that had let up to where they were at the moment. It, seemed to have gone well, and everything seemed to go smoothly...but at this moment...
"Please...just...wait..." Raven looked at him, eyes wide.
She had been saying that over the evening as they kept getting closer to this moment. She didn't really stop him but just kept asking him to slow down a bit. And he didn't. 'Isn't that why they were here?' He had thought. And she was enjoying herself, he knew it. Or did he?.
"Gar..." She looked up at him and he saw it in her eyes; abject terror.
And it all clicked with him; She wasn't ready for this much yet...and he just had kept barreling through and now they were here; he was over her. He was...ready...as was she; they hadn't quite...done anything. A simple movement and they would be but he had stopped when she finally fully spoke beyond pants and moans.
And all at once, Gar felt like the largest known piece of shit in the universe.
He let his breath catch and slow to a normal rhythm, looking at her eyes, ears dropping as he sighed and rolled himself to lay next to her on his side, back to her so he could regain his brain, beyond the guilt that was eating up at him. Raven breathed heavily for almost a minute, staying on her back before rolling around wrapping her arms around him from behind, hugging him.
"...Thank you." She said softly, to which he said nothing, but intertwined their fingers of their hands as they laid there. Recovering from what almost was.
They didn't do anything else the rest of the weekend. They actually checked out early and headed home, the drive in the rented car being very quiet, no speaking beyond what was necessary. A precursor to the next couple of months for them...
The Dreaming:
Gar was sitting down, head in his hand, crying softly. The dream seemed to respond to this, as the heavy clouds began letting loose slow, heavy rain on the area that gradually built into a continuous downpour.
"Aw, damnit!" Matthew tried to shuffle his feathers as they became drenched. Dream sat next to Gar, the rain apparently not even hitting him. He sat in thought, his star-like eyes staring into the distance as Gar continued to sob softly next to him.
"You have a great deal of will." Dream finally said.
"What?" Gar looked over at Dream, curling into himself for warmth.
"You have a great deal of will." Dream repeated, in as comforting a tone as he can maintain. (Which, granted, isn't that comforting but still better than his usual one.)
"Mrmph." Gar shoved his face into his knees. "Not really. If I did, we wouldn't have gotten that far in the first place. I would've...I should've...stopped sooner. I'm a god-damned rapist, man."
"Are you now?" Dream raised an eyebrow.
"If you saw the memory, then, yeah, I kinda am, dude." Gar looked up just enough from his knees. "I mean...she told me to stop, and I didn't...and didn't...and almost didn't before it got worse."
"You stopped when it registered to you to do so." Dream said slowly. "People...young people especially, can get caught up in the moment...you seem to ignore the fact that you did listen to her. It took a moment, yes. But you listened and did what you could to comply with her wishes. There are...a great many others who can not say the same." Dream kept his distant star gaze straight ahead as he said this; the words seeming to be just as much thinking aloud as it was comfort.
Gar also took the moment to stare ahead, his chin resting on his knees as he did so. "I just...I still can't help feeling guilty over it. I should've been better, I promised I wouldn't hurt her and...I did. How do you recover from that?"
Matthew hopped closer to Gar. "Look kid, before I was a raven, I was a guy. Like you. Well, not like you, y'know not green and shape shifty, but anyways, just a guy. And I did a lot of shitty things. Especially towards the end. Towards someone I cared a lot about. You can only move on from that kinda thing with two things; forgiveness from them, and forgiveness to yourself. If I've been followin' all this right, didn't this chick already save you from dyin?"
"It would seem like it, yeah." Gar said flatly.
"Okay. Well, I dunno about you, but that's several steps closer to forgiveness than a lotta other people get." Matthew hopped in front of Gar directly. "Whatta bout you, kid? Are you gonna forgive you?"
"I...I...don't know..." Gar felt his his eyes sink to the now muddy ground beneath the bird. "I...feel like if I do, it'll just make it...go away...and...I don't want it to? If I hold onto it, I can know not to do it again, right?"
Matthew stepped forward so he was in Gar's line of sight again. "What the hell do you think forgiveness means, kid? It's not about forgettin'. It's about recognizin'. It's letting yourself go 'I fucked up' and then keep goin', Because what you got here, kid? This is just sittin' in the mud, feelin' shitty for fuckin' up. Where's that gettin' ya?" The raven tilted his head.
"Not a whole lot, really." Gar looked down at the raven in thought, before flicking his eyes back up to the tree and it's hill. Yeah, the tree looked like it was dying, and some of the grass too...but then he took in the fact that it was alive, like most of the grass. Is this what his mind was trying to get to him? That all he had to do was just...forgive? Was...he worth it to forgive?...He wasn't too sure, to be honest. But...maybe it was worth a try. Just to see.
Dream sighed with a wry smile. "Maybe I should have just sent you, Matthew."
Matthew tried to shake the water out of his feathers. "No idea what your talkin' about, boss."
"Indeed." Dream stood, and held a hand to Gar, who took it to help right himself up.
"Thanks. I think...I think I know what to do now. Sorta. Kinda." Gar still sounded a little unsure.
"Well that is better than having no idea of what to do." Dream smiled, putting his hand on Gar's shoulder. "I believe we have both found things we were not expecting to this day, Garfield."
"I guess?" Gar raised an eyebrow at Dream.
"I would elaborate but, it seems our time is up." The dream they were in was beginning to fade into an endless white light, until the only thing Gar could clearly make out was the silhouette of Dream, his raven on his arm, eyes shining through. "I wish you the best of luck, Garfield Logan."
Gotham:
"You want to what?" Nightwing blinked.
"Be the new Robin." Tim said sternly.
There was a small pause as Dick stared Tim up and down. The kid had to be crazy; the last Robin had died not too long ago, horribly. He just gave up the position today. What the hell was he thinking? "Why on earth do you think that's a good idea?"
"Batman needs a Robin." Tim said in a matter of fact tone.
Dick raised an eyebrow at him. "And you think this because...?"
"You've only been back here for a few months, I've been watching Batman since whoever was the second Robin disappeared. He's gotten reckless, damn near suicidal. I don't think he cares what happens to him anymore. A few weeks before you got here, he actually willingly took a shot during a hostage rescue. One of the hostages posted it online as 'Batman being awesome.'" Tim grumbled, "Idiot."
Dick folded his arms in thought, considering what Clark had told him earlier as well. Bruce wasn't holding up well, and, frankly the only thing that seemed to have perked him up the last few weeks is training and patrolling with Dick again. Tim was a kid, but so was he when he started. Hell, he already had an edge on the detective work...scarily so. Might actually be better than him already, and given a few years and practice, might rival Bruce himself someday. Then an idea crossed Dick that gave him a grin.
"Alright." He said simply.
Both Starfire and Tim blinked looking at Dick and saying the same thing at the same time in slightly different tones of confusion. "Alright?"
"Yup. We'll take you to Bruce, see what he thinks, but first things first." Dick looked over across the buildings near them. The apartment buildings near them were spaced extremely close, this being Gotham after all, some having no space between them, and the ones that did had, at most, a six to eight foot gap. They were in a rough square shape, and loaded with minor obstacles. A perfect mini-testing ground. "I'd like to see how fast you can run around these for building and back to this spot."
Tim blinked at him. "Right now?"
"No, tomorrow, at noon, where everyone can see. Damn right, now." Dick said cheerfully.
Tim gulped. "I...I uhm, only...just started taking parkour a few months ago so-"
"I said run, not give an excuse for why you're gonna suck before you get started." Dick said sternly, in his best Bruce impersonation he could give. Might as well prepare the kid now.
Tim looked at Dick with a skewed expression at first, before sighing and then putting on a face of grim determination. He settled down in a running stance before taking off, starting to make his way around the buildings.
Star floated down next to Nightwing with a worried expression on her face. "Are...are you sure this is the best method to test him out?"
"I'm sure. Just keep an eye and be ready to dive after him if he misses one of the gaps." Dick said calmly, watching Tim awkwardly climb over an air conditioning unit with a smirk. 'I remember when those gave me some trouble.'
Star watched as well, hovering up a bit to get a better look from higher up. She winced as Tim botched his landing after clearing the gap, stumbling and rolling into the loose rock on the roof. "He does not appear to be an acrobat." Star said simply, to which Dick nodded. To his credit, Tim simply got up and kept going, running over any other obstacles in the quickest route as best he could. It was the second gap that gave him a tad bit of trouble. He had jumped to early, and ended up gripping the ledge frantically. Starfire initially began to move towards him but Dick held up his hand at her, watching intently. Star stopped, but gave a weary look at her boyfriend. They were quite a ways up, but she could only out fly gravity so much. Then she watched as, after a minute of straining, Tim pulled himself up, and rolled onto the roof that he had started on, panting wearily and resting on his back.
Dick walked over to him and looked down as he loomed. Tim looked up, still panting and gave a smile. "So?" He asked.
"I said make it all the way around to the starting point." Dick said grimly, causing Tim's smile to falter. "And you took almost ten minutes." That erased his smile completely. "But..." Dick smiled. "Not bad. Could use a lot of work, but it's a start." Tim smiled again, still worn out.
"So now what?" Tim asked in a slightly exhausted tone.
"Now you have to argue your case to Batman, and pray to whatever God you believe in that he listens." Dick raised his eyebrows at Tim.
Jump City:
Jinx and Donna settled in Raven's room after dinner and let her fill in some of the gaps in the story of how everything had reached this point; going over the trip to the wine country and the aftermath.
Donna and Jinx simply stared when Raven described the evening's...events and the moment where everything pivoted and changed.
"You mean he just stopped...because you asked him to?" Donna asked, almost confused at the concept. Raven nodded softly, embarrassed as hell that she was even going over this with the two of them, but they had put up with her lying for this long, she might as well tell the truth now. Donna took a sip of water before stating outright what was on her mind; "I don't think there are Green Lanterns that have that much willpower."
Raven shrugged uncomfortably. Jinx picked up on her awkwardness about the entire story, and did her best to delicately pluck at it. "What's wrong?"
"What do mean?" Raven asked in an unsteady manner.
"I mean, he stopped when you asked him to, that...doesn't seem too bad, so why are you...unsettled?" Jinx raised an eyebrow at the question.
Raven grabbed the edges of her cloak and wrapped them around herself slightly, hands wringing at the cloth lightly, biting her lip in thought, before sighing and muttering something they couldn't hear.
"What?" Donna leaned forward a little.
"...I...I...didn't...want...him to stop." Raven finally said out loud in a barely audible tone.
Jinx and Donna blinked. "What?" they said at the same time.
"I...didn't want him to stop. At least not completely." Raven wished her cloak could swallow her whole at this point, but she needed to get it out, "I just wasn't prepared...I mean...we made preparations for the magic, and in case my powers acted up...we triple checked the location to make sure it was safe...he brought protection...all the...essential things to prepare for...what we were going to do. But the thing I didn't prepare for was just the...weight of it all. The emotions from both of us...the...physical sensations...I couldn't handle all of it at once..."
Jinx immediately thought of the Grey Raven from the safe room. "Couldn't do it too scared too close..."
"You got overwhelmed." Jinx said softly.
"It was just all too much." Raven kept curled up in her cloak, the fabric straining where her hands gripped around it tightly. "I just needed him to slow down...but in the moment...he didn't see it like that; he thought he had gone too far. So he stopped everything...I could feel him shift to guilt almost immediately...and I just...just couldn't talk about it to him. Maybe I felt like I couldn't get the words right. Maybe I was still recovering from everything to think clearly enough. I don't know...I just know that afterwards we started avoiding each other. Neither of us could talk to the other...and then one day...we just started ignoring it. And then suddenly it's almost like it used to be...but it wasn't. And I didn't want to bring what happened up, because then he'd go away again and...I just couldn't handle that. So I just did what I always do; hide that there's a problem. Then hide the relationship too, because I can't handle dealing with the attention that would bring as well. And this mess gets worse and worse, all because I'm too fucking scared to talk to my boyfriend to reassure him that he did nothing wrong." No one was quite sure when the tears started going down Raven's face, but once they had started, they just kept flowing, "So we're stuck with us hiding from our friends, and to keep it up I just start the old habits of flinging him about. And you know what's worse? He took all of it, because he probably thinks he deserves it. But he doesn't. He never did. I don't deserve him." She pushed her face into her knees sobbing softly.
Donna and Jinx looked at each other, each trying to figure out what to say. Donna nodded at Jinx, deciding to defer to her experience, before Jinx shook her head, saying softly to Donna "Why don't you tell her about you and Roy?"
Raven looked up, tears still going down her face. "What about you and Roy?" she asked though a small sob.
Donna sighed, grumbling internally at Jinx. "A few years ago, actually before the Titans were first formed, the Justice League members brought up their sidekicks with them. Different reasons of course; Bruce to point out to Dick who everyone was, Donna to get me more acquainted with the superhero community as I had just got here from Themescyra, Barry just to be nice and show Wally the tower, and I honestly think Arthur and Ollie brought Garth and Roy to show off." She rolled her eyes at the last part before continuing. "Anyways, Roy and I started talking then, and kinda been friends off and on ever since. About three years ago, I met up with Roy to check out the Titans East tower and...he started hitting on me. I didn't really know what to do in that situation and do what I know to do..."
Raven winced. "How bad?"
"He was out for about a week." Donna sighed. "Since then...I dunno, I've learned a bit more, it's still just...I feel bad, I didn't want to hurt him or anything I just...didn't know what to do."
Raven nodded softly, sniffing. "So what do you do now?"
"Well, I learned from it. Asked Diana about it. Which was probably the most awkward conversation a sister has to have. And then just...kept going, making sure to not well...react badly in all situations. Just the unwanted attention ones." Donna said with a grin.
"So I noticed." Raven raised an eyebrow, remembering the Adonis fight, if you could call it that, clearly. She sighed to herself, looking over at the large mirror she had over her dresser. "I'm a mess."
"Well, yeah, you've been kinda sobbing for twenty minutes or so now." Jinx said frankly.
"Not just that, in general..." She sighed again, looking back down. "What am I gonna do?"
Donna tilted her head. "Learn from it. Talk to Gar when he wakes up, settle things. You two obviously love each other."
"You make me and Wally feel almost self conscious." Jinx raised her eyebrows, then grinned "Almost."
They all jumped at loud thumps coming from the door. Cyborg talked through it without opening. "Sorry to interrupt, Ladies but I'm about to get Gar up, thought Raven should know."
They all stared, then looked slightly confused.
Jinx was the one who first said what was on their minds. "What does he mean by "wake him up"?"
"I guess I better go find out." Raven said simply, standing up quickly to wash her face in her small attached bathroom's sink before walking as fast as she could out of the room.
Donna looked at Jinx. "Should we...follow her?"
"Naw, let them have this. I think Cy being there is going to be bad enough." Jinx replied calmly.
"True." Donna nodded.
Down in the infirmary, Raven walked in to find Cyborg standing next to the mess of machines connected to and around Gar.
"Cool, you're here, I can start now." Cy said with a grin.
"Start what? What the hell do you mean wake him up?" Raven folded her arms as she walked to the chair that was next to the bed to sit down.
Cyborg looked over all the machines; "We thought he was in a coma state, but going back and forth with the doc who helped you out a few days ago, that's highly unlikely given the amount of healing you gave him. He's just in a sleeping state...kinda like a non-magical version of your trance? We still haven't figured out his healing factor yet. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it takes a bit-"
"Victor." Raven said his name as sternly as she could.
Cyborg coughed, "Right, sorry. So, since he's really just sleeping at this point, all he needs is some form of mental stimulation to wake up. Figured we wake him, check his mental state, then let 'em get back to rest. Sounds good?"
"Sounds good to me, what are you going to wake him up with?" Raven raised an eyebrow at Vic.
"I was gonna fire off a sonic blast over his head, like not a real one, but the sound of one." One of Cyborgs arms shifted into it's cannon mode.
"Did...did the doc say that was safe?"
"Sure." Vic said calmly. Raven's glare told him she wasn't convinced, so he sighed. "Look, it'll trigger his alert instinct, that'll wake him up, guaranteed."
Raven continued to glare at Vic as she covered her ears. Vic pointed the cannon to the area just above Gar's sleeping form and fired; technically it didn't fire anything, but the created a distinct, small booming noise in the room, almost the same noise level as a firecracker. Gar's ears twitched as his eyes shot open, initially moving to sit up but he groaned as he laid back down and shut his eyes.
"What the hell, dude?" Gar looked over at Vic wearily through a single squinted eye as he rubbed his head.
"Welcome back to the world, green bean. We've been worried about you." Vic smiled as he gestured over to Raven.
"We?" Gar looked over to where Vic's armed move, seeing Raven looking at him with slightly wide eyes. "Oh...hey Rae-" He was cut off as she jumped onto the bed, hugging around his neck and kissing him. Gar was caught off guard, but wrapped his arms around her, kissing her back deeply.
Vic looked at the two and began backing out. "So I'm gonna count that as my neurological test that everything's doin' good and just...leave you two alone." Gar gave him a thumbs up, not breaking the kiss. Vic leaned out of the room, then back in quickly. "No strenuous activities!" He barked before closing the door.
They broke the kiss after a moment, Gar scooting over enough to let her lay next to him better. They simply laid there for a few minutes, Raven wrapped around him as best she could be.
He then broke the silence. "You could use a shower."
"You too."
A/N: So. Lots to go over here. Arguable one of the shortest chapters I've had to edit and it had the most rewriting. Partially due to the extensive scenes in the Dreaming, because my god I couldn't write Dream to save my life back in the day. But also everything around their trip. The trip itself I actually left untouched, I was okay with it. Everything around it though; Gar and Raven's reactions I really wanted to fine tune. Gar's guilt and horrible habit of psychological self-flagellation because of it. Raven's terror and inability to properly communicate because really, she was never prepared to deal with these situations as a kid because she (and the world) weren't supposed to live this long. Add in Gar probably hasn't had the best examples of relationships in his life since he was six, this whole thing is just a shit show of broken people in love. I hope that came across well, I'm kinda paranoid of it, because this can be...tricky as hell to get right. To say the least. I don't wanna get on any soapbox more than these little ego trips that the notes are already but I'll go ahead and say one thing; Lads, Lassies, Everything in between and out of the known spheres of gender, if you're in a relationship, and you want it to be healthy and work: communicate. Talk. Text. Write letters if you can't say what you want out loud. Just whatever you got to do to keep an open line with your partner. So many problems can just immediately solve themselves that way.
Okay, now that I got through the serious stuff; So originally, Vic woke up Gar by injecting caffeine into him. Yes. Laugh. It is a horribly dumb idea and shows how little I knew and still don't know on medical things. After a bit of googling, I leaned on the cannon thing based on the fact it felt funny in a "this is something a best friend would do to wake up his buddy" kinda way. Is it proper medical ethics? Hell no. Is it funny? I think so. And I felt there needed to be something at least a little funny at the end of such a heavy chapter.
Whew, that was a long one. Sorry. Please, review if you could. I hope to have the next chapter out soon, and then we'll be all caught up. ...oh boy dot jpeg ... Thanks for reading, y'all. - Tearlach