I killed him.
Raven wakes up long before the team realizes she has. She can't even register the itchy hospital bed sheets on top of her; her limbs are glued to the cot. Her chest expands as she breathes but she'd struggle less breathing underwater.
Malchior was a disgusting being. Intent to create chaos wherever he went. His only goal was to wreak havoc because he could and because no one could stop him. His life's work was figuring out ways he could outdo his last destructive feat. His eyes only twinkled when he was asserting his dominance over something.
And she had killed him.
Or at least, separated his consciousness from its physical manifestation.
Or can you even separate that?
She made his limbs stop working.
His mouth would no longer form incantations.
Where would his thoughts go?
Would he be able to sort them or even hear them?
Or were they just whispers on another plane of existence?
Nausea makes Raven sit abruptly, the IV tugging painfully in her arm. She feels more than tastes the vomit fly out of her mouth. Chunks of yellow bits propel out onto the floor next to her, right by Starfire's purple boots. Starfire is quick to move Raven's hair out of the way, despite the fact that doing so sinks her boots right into the undigested food. A few tears escape Raven's eyes.
"Star…" she groans, making a feeble attempt to push Starfire out the way but the alien just shushes her and rubs her hand over Raven's back. A green hand extends a plastic cup of water towards her.
"Small sips," Gar reminds her. She takes the cup out of his hands and raises it to her lips. Raven stiffens when he moves closer, replacing Starfire's hands with his own. She stares over the rim of the cup at his torso, feeling her eyebrows crinkling. He picks up the hair from her neck. She hears a snap and feels her hair moving left to right. Then he's at a reasonable distance again. She places a hand on her warm, now bare, neck.
"You-" she clears her throat. "-you can tie a ponytail?"
"Can't you?" Garfield asks, looking incredibly amused. She feels her face heat up as she places the water on the tray next to her and lays back on the cot. She looks to Star's boots and then to her face.
"I'm so-"
"Shh I will be hearing none of that friend," Starfire says, handing Raven a wipe. Raven wipes off one side of her lips. Her hand pauses when she gets to the other side.
"How many civilians?" Raven asks, her fingers trembling behind the tissue. Garfield immediately straightens out his relaxed shoulders. His jaw tightens. Starfire looks down to her feet. Raven turns to Cyborg.
"Two."
Two fingers touch her lips as the contents of her stomach turn again. Her eyes well up as she swallows around the undigested food rising in her esophagus.
"Ages?" she asks in an almost imperceptible voice.
No one answers.
She clenches her fingers around the wipe and presses it to her forehead.
"Ages?" she pleads.
"54 and 65," Cyborg says; his rage is like a hot iron in her side. Raven feels Starfire's despair pelting her on the other side like an open waterfall. Garfield's emotions are all sharp corners and metal bristles. She can't even bear to approach the edges of it for fear that she'll pop and everything will come pouring out of her. She sinks back into her cot trying to tighten her core under the pressure of all their emotions. She almost finds balance in the current until she senses something, like seaweed twisting on her toes when she's swimming in the ocean.
"You're not telling me something," she says, eyeing Garfield who hasn't looked her way since tying up her hair. She almost didn't want to ask considering how tenuous her hold on herself is.
"There was a six year old boy," Nightwing says, entering the room with arms crossed over his chest. He leans against the doorframe of the med bay. Raven lets out a long breath. She spends a lot of her life thinking about how she breathes. Breathing is the first step to meditation. Right now she wonders what it would be like to be trapped at the end of a long exhale.
"He-"
"Is in ICU," Nightwing finishes. She brings knees to her chest and sinks her head into them, gripping the fitted sheet on the cot. Her throat is one fire.
"We have to visit the family," she says, looking at her team members. Everyone pauses.
"We did," Garfield says, scratching the back of his neck the way he does when he's pensive or nervous. Raven squints her eyes. She lays her legs flat on the cot.
"I have to visit the families," she says, shifting to get up. Garfield quickly puts his hands on her shins and she almost kicks him off in surprise.
"You can't," Garfield says.
"Why not?"
"The public doesn't love us right now," Nightwing says, moving from his position at the door.
Then she feels it, pressing against her. Fire, all around her, filling the gaps between her fingertips, licking up the back of her knees. She almost gasps at the intensity of it.
"You're angry," she says, quickly looking up at Nightwing. A few strands of her hair have escaped the ponytail Garfield made for her. Starfire steps forward.
"We all are," she says. Raven doesn't look her way, keeping her eyes locked on the immobile Nightwing. This is a different anger. Nightwing knows she knows; their bond hasn't faded in the years since she went into his mind.
"Where's Malchior, Raven? Nightwing asks, his index finger twitching against his bicep. The fire around her stops all together. Something cool, fragile, and thin settles over them like a layer of frost on water. Then Raven makes the mistake of looking down. A fireball hits her in the chest like a cannon, she tumbles backwards on the cot.
"Damnit Raven!" Nightwing says. She looks up at his face, now red underneath his mask.
"Yo dude, chill out. She just woke up," Garfield says. Nightwing whips towards him, his index finger inches away from Garfield's chest. Raven is ashamed that she feels immediate relief at Garfield's expense.
"How about instead of worrying about Raven you explain to me where the hell all the animosity for me came from?" Nightwing says, leaning much too far into Garfield's personal bubble. Garfield leans back and tilts his head.
"Dude, clearly that wasn't me."
"So what you're saying is that you're not you when you transform into other animals?" Nightwing poses this as a question but the fact that each word is coming out like hisses between his clenched teeth makes it seem like he has already decided his answer.
"You know this isn't just one of my other animal forms and could you check your tone?" Garfield asks. Raven feels his irritation like pricks from a cactus. She wiggles her fingers.
"Everytime the Beast has been present, I have been targeted," Nightwing's tone is even when he says this but punctuated in a manner that suggests he has ruminated on this and has already come to his own conclusions. His words sound rehearsed.
"That's just not true and either way I've shown you for years that I've been able to control my powers as much as everyone else on the team, if not better."
"You weren't able to two days ago."
"We don't fight magical dragons everyday," Garfield bites out and Nightwing swivels towards Raven again.
"And apparently we never will again!" Spit flies out of Nightwing's mouth as he leans over the end of Raven's cot. She sits up straight even though Nightwing's words land heavy like a punch to her stomach.
"Almost sounds like you're going to miss him," Raven hisses back. Nightwing's face is so red that Raven is sure it will explode off of his body.
"How can you be so desensitized to the loss of a life?"
"Jesus Nightwing relax! It isn't like she hunted this man down, which is more than I can say about you and Slade...every six months...like clockwork!"
"And yet he's still alive." The muscles on Nightwing's neck are straining as he turns towards Garfield, bumping his chest a little. Any other man would have taken a step back and on any other occasion Garfield would too but right then, he doesn't.
"Is that because you haven't tried or because you've never gotten close enough," Garfield says, jutting his own chest outwards so it bumps Nightwing's.
"Much closer than you did when he turned Terra into stone."
"Dude what in the actual fuck?" Garfield growls.
"That is quite enough!" Starfire yells, wedging herself between the pair. "You have both done the crossing of the line! Friend Raven is barely recovered!"
Neither man stands down, glaring at each other over Starfire's shoulders.
"Are you going to arrest me Richard?" Raven asks, chin tilted upwards. Nightwing turns away from Starfire and removes his hand from his utility belt.
"He will do no such thing-" Starfire starts.
"You're not being fair," he says. Raven tilts her chin higher and arches an eyebrow.
"If you are not going to arrest me then we have more important things to talk about right now than any morally ambiguous decisions I made that there is no way I can undo," Raven mumbles. "Even if I reallywanted to."
Nightwing runs a hand through his hair then drops both of his hands on his hips. He's looking her in the eyes. Anyone else wouldn't be able to tell because of his mask but she knows he is. He's trying to consolidate all his anger into a concentrated cube. She respects the effort. Garfield, who is hunched over like his spine is ready to break through the skin of his back, clearly does not.
"We have two of your brothers in custody. Lust and Gluttony. I will be handling interrogations. You can watch from another room. "
Raven sucks in her bottom lip. She knows her brothers better than Nightwing but she's on thin ice with him as is. She'd have to let him cool down a little before she can get anywhere near that room.
"If you're going in alone, I need to heavily armor you."
Nightwing shrugs stiffly. She nods.
Behind Nightwing, Garfield takes his exit; his anger is radiating off of him like an electric heater. Nightwing looks after him, his lips in a straight line but doesn't try to stop him.
"How much of a dick was I?" Nightwing asks once Garfield has left the room.
"12/10 bro," Cyborg says, rubbing his forehead. Nightwing cringes.
"I'm going to go talk to him," Raven says, looking at Cyborg and then towards her IV. Cyborg looks hesitant at first but eventually sighs and does as he's told.
"This is very carnivalesque." Raven says as she sits next to Garfield on the roof. Garfield raises an eyebrow at her "Usually you're the one who comes to see me on the roof."
"What?" Garfield asks.
"Nothing," Raven says, looking down at her feet. She's not as good as he is at this.
"You should be in the med bay for observations."
"With all the healing it would be very hard to kill me," she says. She feels a few fat drops of rain smack her cheek but Garfield doesn't flinch so she stays put. Raven looks up at the thick clouds moving in the sky.
"Do you think you'll die like the rest of us?" Garfield asks. Random. Raven hums. "I mean your father...sorry I know it's a touchy subject-"
"No, go ahead," Raven says, keeping her eyes on the sky. A warmth spreads in her chest like when she drinks hot tea. It's been nice for her to see how delicate Garfield is with her boundaries in the last couple of years.
"Trigon is immortal. Does that make you immortal too?" he asks.
"I really hope not," Raven mumbles immediately. "I'm not a god."
Her mind immediately goes to Malchior's lifeless body beneath her.
"Don't lose any sleep over him," Garfield says. Raven hums again. "Malchior. That's who you're thinking about, right?"
Raven looks away from the sky. Garfield's lashes are dark and long. He's green almost everywhere but around his pupils there is a rim of orange that she's always been fascinated by.
"I took his life away," she says, curling up her bare toes. "I-I'm afraid…"
"You don't have to tell me," Garfield interrupts softly. She feels the warmths curl through her insides again. She has to break eye contact.
"I don't know if I made the right choice. It kind of feels...heavy? If that makes sense."
"It makes sense."
It grows quiet again.
"Nightwing was more angry at me than he was at you," she says. Silence.
A few drops of water land on her thighs. She's getting a little cold now. She had only come out in the oversized t-shirt she was wearing in the med bay. She thinks it's Cyborg's. It fits her like a dress.
"I think he might be right."
Raven looks up at him, ready to protest. The protests die on her lips when she makes eye contact.
"I keep banking on the fact that I can control the Beast but it kind of sucks. He's pulling at me all the time."
"He doesn't like Nightwing?"
"...He doesn't like Nightwing's power over me. Doesn't like that he's the one who calls the shots. Which is the complete opposite of me. Usually Nightwing and Cyborg are the ones measuring their dicks to see who gets to be boss."
Raven snorts.
"Would it be so bad to let him out every once and a while? What else could he want?" Raven asks. Garfield presses his lips together. And his silence stretches like cheese. Just when she thinks it's about the tear, it stretches some more. For much longer than it should. She can't pinpoint exactly what changes but she is suddenly hyper aware of how long she's been looking into his eyes. She isn't about to let on that she noticed the shift though because that would mean that it actually happened.
But maybe she should move?
Or look down?
Why isn't he saying anything?
Did he lean forward?
Breathe Raven.
She inhales sharply.
There is a flash of lighting in her peripheral vision.
He doesn't break eye contact.
"Can I see the scar The Beast left?" he finally whispers, keeping eye contact. Oh, that's what he was thinking about.
She can't think straight. What did I think he was thinking about? She pulls up her shirt without a second thought, looking down with him...
Then screams internally when she remembers she isn't wearing any pants.
She freezes. Thunder rumbles.
He doesn't say anything. She wonders if she'd hear him anyway over the long 'AGHH!' reverberating in her head.
She looks up at him; he hasn't said anything about her lack of pants. Instead he's staring intently at her side, eyebrows furrowed and bottom lip wedged between his teeth.
Breathe. The team has changed in front of each other before. No big deal.
She wishes she can get a clear read on his emotions but she can barely get a hold on hers.
Then he reaches out his fingertips and slowly runs over the ridges of the three bumpy stripes on her side.
This time she actually shrieks out loud, dropping her shirt immediately. A few rocks on the shore explode into a million little fragments. He pulls his hands away like he just accidentally touched a stove.
"Fuck, I'm so sorry! Jesus, I don't know why I did that," he squeals immediately, running a hand through his hair roughly.
Aghhhhhh
"No! It's... um... fingers were just cold."
The skin around her scars is burning.
Aghhhh.
He shuts his eyes so tightly that she can see little wrinkles at the edges of them. It looks like he wants to turn into a mosquito and fly away. She stays quiet. He places a hand over his eyes.
"Listen...I...I'm sorry about that. The touching," his voice squeaks. He clears his throat. "But also giving you the scar in the first place."
He reluctantly moves his hands away and looks at her again.
"I'm serious. I don't want to hurt Nightwing. I don't want to ever hurt you," Garfield says, his skin changing from brown to green as his blush fades.
Agggghhhhh.
She hums.
Not the right response.
He sucks his lips into his mouth, face getting incredibly brown just as it was resuming its original shade.
"I-" he starts.
She looks at him.
He looks at her.
He flies away.