"Alright, that's it," Gizmo said, shaking his head. "Dams really screwed the pooch again."
"Heh," Mammoth said with a chuckle. "Just like always."
"The guy really should give up being an assassin," Gizmo said, flicking a couple of switches. "With his talents, he could probably make a great thief. Better pay, less risk."
"Are we going to talk all night or actually help him," Raven asked coolly. She, Gizmo, Mammoth, and Blackfire were squeezed into the back of a panel van, along with a ton of electronic equipment. She suspected when it was just the two boys, everything was fine, but at the moment she was stuffed into a corner between blinking things she didn't understand, and Blackfire was practically pinned between Mammoth's shoulders and the roof of the van so that Gizmo could access his equipment.
"Look, lady, you got a lot to understand about guys," Gizmo said. "Especially guys like Damian. Their egos are massive. You go bursting in there all big damn heroes, you'll save his ass, but he'll never forgive you for it."
"So what," Raven hissed, "I'm just supposed to let him get captured or killed?"
The dwarf twisted in his seat to look at her.
"What the hell makes him so important to you lady?" he asked, looking at her with a squint. "It's fucking Damain. Yeah, he's the grandson of Ras al Ghul, god knows he wouldn't shut up about that for about a year, but he's a massive screw up. You could find a dozen guys way more qualified who would do anything you asked them to for a kiss."
Raven ignored the way his eyes drifted to her breasts. Mammoth had been staring at them the entire night anyways. She didn't get the obsession, but she could feel the desire. Hell, she'd used it to get the pair of them to help her and Blackfire provide Damian back up if he needed it. Apparently, though, lust was only getting them so far now that he actually needed help.
"Whatever," she said, wriggling her way out of the corner and popping the van's back door open. "You can sit here and debate egos. I am going to help him."
"I'm going too," Blackfire said. She practically slithered off Mammoth and past Gizmo with catlike grace. "This is boring. I am bored. I owe him a debt and this will let me clear it."
A hundred meters away, lit by both moon and the lights of the mansion, a slim boy with a bow was aiming at something in the room Damian had vanished into. He kept looking in the room, but Raven could tell he was glancing their way, likely drawn by the noise and light escaping the van's interior. She thought he said something, but it was too far away to hear the words.
"So, do you want a lift-" Raven started to ask, only for Blackfire to haul back her fist and launch a bolt of lilac plasma at the archer. It streaked through the night like a blazing comet. Even at this distance, Raven saw the boy's eyes go wide as he yelled and dove out of the way.
Before she could ask again, Blackfire was racing across the pavement. In a single leap she was on top of the wall, and a second sent her hurling towards the balcony. Stone crumbled as the princess grabbed it and hauled herself up onto the balcony.
"Right," Raven said. She took to the air, cape flapping behind her.
When she got to the balcony, she found the room in a state of absolute carnage. Damian was fighting an older man with blonde hair and a goatee, while Blackfire wasn't so much fighting the young archer as she was bulldozing her way through the room while he ran away screaming and firing arrows uselessly at the alien. A woman lay unconscious on the ruined bed.
She could feel fury and humiliation pouring off of Damian. Perhaps Gizmo had been right. Maybe it would have been better to let Damian get captured, then effect a jail break. It would have left the humiliation of his defeat at the hands of his target, and left him in a position where he owed her more. Still, what was done was done, she'd just have to find a way to salve his ego later.
Perhaps the feelings he had emitted while they had been trying on the 'underwear' would provide the key?
A lilac bolt of power flew past her head and Raven raised a jet black energy shield in front of herself. She could feel several dozen people racing towards them, a mix of confusion and focused intent. The fight had gotten noticed now, apparently.
"We need to go," she shouted at the melee, "come on!"
Blackfire picked up half of a chair and threw it with a casual carelessness that belied the speed it shot across the room. The young archer dodged it, but that allowed it to hit the blonde man in the back. He let out a shout of pain, which turned into one of agony as the force threw him forwards on to Damian's blade.
The young assassin went down under the older man, pinned by his body weight. Raven reached out with her magic and tossed the older man away, tearing the blade free. Damian climbed to his feet, ready to finish the older man off, but Raven grabbed him and Blackfire with her magic and hauled them out the balcony doors just as the bedroom door burst open.
"Damn it, let me go!" Damian shouted as she took off. Blackfire burned with that resentment again as they flew. "I have to finish the job."
"Job's done," Raven said. "He'll be lucky to survive that blow. Sticking around would have only gotten you arrested and the rest of us in even more trouble."
Wrapped in the form of a giant raven, her companions in her claws, she carried them several streets over before setting down on a roof. Gizmo and Mammoth could be trusted to get away, she was sure. Right now, she needed to deal with these two.
Damian rolled to his feet, seething with anger. Blackfire stood up and brushed herself off, then frowned as she checked a rip in the side of her shorts. Raven landed between them and to the side, forming a triangle.
"I had everything under control!" Damian snapped angrily, putting his blade away. "I didn't need your help!"
"It sure looked that way," Blackfire said dryly. "That's why you were pinned down by a boy with a primitive stick launcher."
"Listen you!" Damian said, rounding on the princess. He marched up to her and tried to get in her face, but the height difference made that rather futile. "I had it under control!"
"Damian," Raven said softly. When he didn't stop glaring at Blackfire, she repeated louder, "Damian!"
"What!" the young man snapped, rounding on her. He was so furious it burned like a fire against her skin. She had to salvage this and fast, or everything was going to go to hell before it even started.
"It doesn't matter that you had it under control," Raven said. That made him angrier, so she raised a placating hand. "What I mean is, we're a team. Teammates have each others backs, even when it isn't needed."
"We're a team," Damian repeated. "When the hell did we decide that?"
"When you accepted my help paying for your equipment," Raven said gently. "And when you agreed to give me shelter in your apartment. Then, when we rescued Blackfire and helped her out and she agreed to help us in return."
Blackfire looked a tad nonplussed at that, but didn't protest.
"In the League, you had teams right? People who worked together to accomplish the mission?" Raven asked.
"Yeah," Damian said. "But that was for other people. I as the heir. I didn't need a team."
"You mean you were never given one," Raven said gently. "Did they ever send you out on missions?"
Damian opened his mouth to protest, then fell into an uncomfortable silence. She could feel his emotions so brightly it was like she could see his thoughts. He'd never been sent out on a mission, only ever gone through training. His first mission had been to find his father.
And he'd failed.
A failure that had marked his life ever since. Even his costume, was a mark of that failure, from its red and green colors, to the bright yellow R on his breast. A lost son trying to take up the legacy he had been denied. A constant reminder of his failure to reach his father, to protect his grandfather, his mother, or to get revenge for them.
Raven went over to Damian and hugged him. It was painful, he was burning so brightly in the dark. It felt like her flesh would be seered from her bones. She pushed on, though, ignoring the emotional pain.
"It's okay," she said softly. "You're not alone anymore. We're a team and we have each other's backs."
"Are you two done with this touchy feelly stuff?" Blackfire said, her voice bored and scornful. "I fail to see-"
The alien was cut off as Raven grabbed her and pulled her into the hug too. While the princess's emotions weren't nearly as bright as Damian's, she could still feel the fires burning behind the facade. Blackfire had lost everything, just like Damian.
"It's okay," Raven said softly, holding the two of them close. "We don't have to be alone anymore. We can have each other. Together, we can take back what we lost, or make something new for ourselves. It's okay."
Both her companions were frozen stiff, refusing to give into her. On the outside, anyways. On the inside, she felt their pain, their turmoil. Damian hadn't been held since his mother died in his arms. Blackfire hadn't been held since long before that. She'd been rejected by her parents, her people, because she was broken, damaged, less than them. Raven felt just how badly they needed what she had to offer them, what they all had to offer each other. If only they were brave enough to risk willing opening up to each other and taking what was offered.
So she kept holding them, refusing to let them run away. Despite the fact they should be running, because who knew was coming after therm. It was worth the risk. If she didn't build her team now, she never would.
"Damian," Blackfire said quietly. "Your hand is on my stidnica."
"Your what?" Damian asked, awkwardly from Raven's shoulder.
"My-," the alien seemed to roll the word around in her mouth. "My cat?"
"Your cat?" Damian repeated. "Your ca-AT!"
The trio of them shifted as he tried to wriggle his arm out from between the three of them. Raven blushed with sympathy at his embarrassment, feeling the emotion wash over her in a heated wave. An awkward silence filled the air.
"Were you a lesser man," Blackfire said stiffly, just as embarrassed, but hiding it better, "I would take your hand for daring to touch me there."
"Oh yeah?" Damain snapped. "I'd like to see you try."
Unlike Damian, though, Raven caught the truth behind Blackfire's words. As the two bickered, she hid her smile in the darkness. Blackfire, at least, was starting to see Damian as someone worthy of respect. Maybe even more. It was a shame the boy was too blind to see it.
After all, even if they had both lost their kingdoms, the only one worthy of a princess was a prince.