Author's Note: The ideas I have for this story are starting to become a little difficult to actualize in a series of one shots so now my story will be a series of interconnected one shots and multi-chapter arcs that lead to Garfield and Raven falling in love. This chapter will be a part of an arc.
When Raven walks into the kitchen to make herself some chai tea she is surprised to see that it is near noon. She woke up early, even earlier than usual. 4am early in fact. When she sat up in her bed, her body felt taut. She was hyper aware of how the ends of her hair were tickling her shoulders. Something had felt threatening about the pitch black darkness of her room. When she left it felt like something was trailing behind her, waiting to grab at her ankles. For the first time since she came to Titan's Tower, she felt as if she couldn't have gotten out of her room fast enough. It was only the feel of the morning sunlight on her skin that had soothed her paranoia but the tension in her shoulders was still there.
Raven absently places a tea bag into the hot water in her mug as she questions what could have set her body off. They hadn't watched any scary movies lately. Sometimes her body feels heavy after healing but she hadn't been seriously injured in any of the battles they've had recently. Aside from last night, she was getting her regular eight hours of sleep. You're not tired. Raven says to herself, putting the mug to her lips.
She hears someone clear their throat. She shakes the thoughts out of her head and looks at Cyborg who is twirling a whisk enthusiastically and smiling at her in an uncharacteristically goofy manner. He has a chef's hat on. She raises her eyebrow in question.
"Um?" she asks. When Cyborg doesn't say anything she speaks again. "Cooking something?"
"Not me," Cyborg says and suddenly he pulls a dark blue apron from underneath the counter. Raven's afraid her face is going to freeze with her eyebrow in her hairline. "You're going to learn how to make waffles."
"Cybo-" she begins but pauses when she feels his excitement seeping into her bones. "It's noon," she says, in a feeble attempt to do this another day.
"Is noon too late for breakfast BB?" Cyborg asks Changeling who she realizes was sitting on the couch in pajama bottoms since she walked in. Changeling doesn't look up from his game.
"It's never the wrong time to eat breakfast. The real question though is if it's ever the right time to eat waffles Raven makes," Garfield says, facing his video game but peeking towards Raven to catch her reaction. Raven unplugs his console with her powers and snatches the apron from Cyborg.
"Hey!" Garfield grumbles half heartedly, looking as Raven ties the apron around her small waist tightly. "Well I'm clearly going to have to teach you how to make vegan waffles too."
"Why would I need to learn that?" Raven asked, looking disinterestedly at Garfield over the edge of the recipe Cyborg had given her to skim.
"Aren't you the one who loves learning new things?" Garfield teases, flicking some flour at her. Raven glares at him, wiping her face with a napkin.
"You're going to need to put on a shirt," Raven says, reaching for the flour. Cyborg shakes his head at her and takes the bowl out of her hands.
"Why? Distracting?" Garfield asks, flexing the muscles in his arm. Her eyes linger on his arm. He feels his face heat up.
"It's either that or a hair net for your chest," Raven says flatly. Garfield sticks his tongue out at her.
"Women love the chest hair," Garfield says, running his fingers over his chest. Raven takes another sip from her tea.
"Just like they love the ears?" Raven teases, smirking over the rim of her mug. Garfield wiggles his eyebrows, puts his arms out in front of him and shrugs.
"What can I say? I'm delectable all over." Raven puts a hand to her ear theatrically.
"You said something about being detestable?" Garfield rolls his eyes and for lack of any retort he dips his fingers in the flour bowl and flicks it at her again.
"Hey, get your germy paws out of my flour bowl!" Cyborg says, holding the flour bowl protectively to his chest.
…
An hour later, Raven is trying not to look too proud as she stands over her own waffles. They're a little browner than waffles should be but they don't look alive which is more than she can say for the pancakes she made for the team on her sixteenth birthday. Sometime after the trio started mixing the dry ingredients, Starfire and Nightwing had walked into the kitchen and started helping them cut up some fruit and chocolate for toppings. She almost forgets the nervous thrumming in her body.
Until they're showered in the red light of the tower's alarm system.
Nightwing's lackadaisical smile immediately straightens out like a flat sheet of paper as his fingers dance over the large touchscreen in the middle of their common room.
"Reports are of an unidentified being downtown. Definitely not human. Large enough to knock down the abandoned building on 44th street. Three injured and one in critical condition. The attack is coming from the sky so we are dealing with an aerial being. It's causing fires. Star, you'll have to be in the forefront. Titans go!"
And together they dash out into the sky. The first thing Raven feels when they are near the scene is a wall of heat. Her eyes water at the thickness of the smoke. Nightwing gives out directions as they fly closer.
"Raven, Changeling, I'm going to need you two to put out the fires. Cyborg try to contain the battle to a three block perimeter. Star, you and I are going to try to take this thing down. Raven, Changeling, try to join us as soon as you can. We don't know what we're up against."
Changeling transforms into an elephant before his feet even touch the ground, going straight to the nearest fire hydrant. Raven blocks out the fire's sources of oxygen. They get ninety percent of the fire put out before Garfield changes back into human form and sways. He coughs heavily into his arm. He isn't able to wear the protective masks that Cyborg designed for them when he switches to animal form. Raven looks as the fire department rolls in and flies down to Changeling.
"We're getting out of here," she says, putting her arm around him. "They can handle the rest."
Changeling can't stop coughing long enough to agree. Raven finds a roof at a reasonable distance from the fire but within the three block radius. The minute her energy dissolves Garfield falls to the ground in a coughing fit. She moves quickly to heal him but he raises an arm.
"I'll be-" he coughs. "Fine."
Raven debates whether she should leave Garfield here and join Nightwing and Starfire but she's afraid he is not assessing his injuries accurately. He lays down on the roof and closes his eyes, trying to catch his breath.
"Alright this guy's gotta go. He's already working his way up to my least favorite villains list," Garfield says, getting on his feet and swaying a little.
"Garfield, maybe you should stay here."
"I heal fast Rae, I'll be-" he coughs, sticking his finger up when he sees she's about to protest. "Fine Raven. I'll be fine."
"You heal faster Garfield. Faster than Nightwing and Cyborg. But you don't heal fast."
"Fine, I'll let you heal me halfway," Garfield says, shrugging.
"Fine?" Raven growls when she puts her hand on his chest and realizes how much smoke he's inhaled. She does her best to glare at him without breaking her concentration.
"But am I dead?" Changeling jokes. Raven wonders if she should stop healing him and just strangle him now. In five minutes he's breathing a little more normally but Raven doesn't even try to move her hand. Garfield grabs her wrist immediately interrupting her concentration.
"We agreed on half way."
"You'll need your energy."
"So will you. Now let's go, the team needs us, " Gar says, shapeshifting into a bird before Raven can stop him.
…
In the past Raven has struggled to discern between her general cynicism and her intuition. But as she approaches the battle all the nervous energy in her consolidates into a certainty that something is not right. She is lost in the clarity of that feeling when she feels fireworks of pain explode at her side as a force rams into her. Her power shoots out blindly in defense but she can't get a clear image of what she's up against as they plummet to the ground. She is smacked against the floor with surprising restraint. Raven immediately attempts to gather her wits long enough so that she can phase through the floor until she hears it.
"Hello my sweet Raven," the voice sounds saccharine as it practically sings into Raven's face. She's frozen.
"Malchior? That's impossible," she mumbles, the curse she put on him ringing over and over in her mind. It was a solid curse. He was trapped in a book. In her room. If he was out that could only mean... Raven feels heat bubble up in her stomach and shoot up her throat. She was going to be sick.
Someone had been in her room.
"Surely you can understand that there are things beyond your understanding. Just remember all of the things I taught you," he says. His red eyes look as if they are twinkling as a huge claw runs down the side of her cheek. Raven moves her face away instantly. Malchior tightens his hold on her waist. Raven tries frantically to conjure up any of her power.
"Or do you only like to remember the things we did in this form."
And suddenly Raven feels his heavyweight transform into something more supportable. He was back in the form he originally took when he toyed with her six years ago.
"How did you-" Raven struggles against the grip he's placed on her wrists and legs. Surely she can bring up enough energy to displace a man who weighs 160 pounds.
"Did you tell your friends about everything we did locked in your room? In the dark of night," Malchior leers, voice dripping with honey. He grips her wrists with one hand as the other inches up the curve of her ribs. Her eyes darken.
"Get the fuck off of me," she says and propels him into the air just in time for Changeling to ram into his side as a rhinoceros.
"Friend Raven!" Starfire says as she zooms over to her friend and helps her to her feet.
"How did he get out of the book?" Nightwing asks when he lands next to Starfire.
"I don't know," Raven mumbles, looking with wide eyes as Garfield engages with the dragon in dinosaur form.
"How will we get him back in?" Starfire says, her arm still protectively around Raven's waist. Raven also doesn't know the answer to that. She's afraid whatever answer she gives will come out of her mouth with the mug of tea she had for breakfast.
So she doesn't say anything.