Chapter 9

The One Who Knocks

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately.

A single drop of awareness fell into the inky sea of Raven's vacant mind. Its ripples spread in every direction, illuminating the circuitry of her consciousness; cognitive systems hummed and whirred back to life, switching on one by one.

Beneath her, soft and solid.

The smell.

The medical bay, a recovery bed.

Her senses reached out.

Concern, worry, and guilt. Frustration, restrained but bordering on anger.

She took a deep, filling breath and exhaled slowly through her nose. Opening her eyes, she found the others, all of them.

Next came the chorus of relieved sentiments, so expected that she hardly heard them at all. More pressing matters waited behind them—physically, behind the others who crowded around her: Robin, who held back, arms folded, eyes stern, jaw set. No attempt at all to hide his mixed and warring feelings, but displayed in full view, probably on purpose. A pillar of tempered indignation crackling behind the soothing mist of the others.

Once the commotion, and Starfire, had calmed down, Cyborg took the floor.

"Gave us quite a scare," he said. "Heart never stopped beatin', but for a while, couldn't even tell ya were in there. Not like your healin' trance."

"It's…not a trance. It's a failsafe," Raven admitted reluctantly. "When I started experimenting with my emotions, I designed it to…shut me down, cognitively…before I completely lose control."

"Before what?" Beast Boy asked. "You mean you…"

Shock, disbelief, more worry blended into fear.

Perfect…

Raven looked away, ashamed.

"Is she all right?" Robin asked from the back.

Cyborg gave a nod.

"Then if you all wouldn't mind, I think the three of us need to have a conversation," Robin told the others. His eyes narrowed pointedly behind his mask. "Alone."

Cyborg touched a reassuring hand to Raven's shoulder before acquiescing to their leader's request, Beast Boy not far behind him.

"Uh…sure," the changeling said before making his way out. He looked back. "Glad you're okay."

Starfire, meanwhile, merely smiled at Raven and Jinx. Upon her exit, though, she stopped in front of Robin.

Courage, confidence. Staunch, fearless support.

She touched her hand gently to his face, but he didn't flinch.

"You are upset," she said. "I have observed that, sometimes, when you are upset, you speak or act rashly, without consideration. I understand that, as our leader, you must have this 'conversation.' However, as my more-than-a-friend, understand this." She moved her hand to his chest, pressing a firm finger into it—but he didn't flinch. "You will not discourage our friend from exploring her feelings, and you will not discourage our friends from exploring their feelings for each other. Or I will be discouraged in mine."

Touching his face one more time, and seemingly without awaiting a reply she knew he would not give in the moment, Starfire resumed her exit.

Jinx crossed her arms, rolling her eyes in a petulant display. "Oh, here we go. The Bird Boy and the bees."

No reaction.

"I know what you're going to say," Raven told him. "But you know me. I wouldn't have taken anything I considered a risk. I thought…" She realigned and tried again. "I misjudged. Underestimated. This is all new to me. I thought I had things under control, and I made a mistake. I'm sorry."

"I know," Robin said finally, in a tone whose sincerity did not seem to match the hardness of his body language. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked. "You heard Star. And honestly, I feel the same. Most of me. Part of me…"

In the interlude, somewhere in the bowels of the tower, a bat chirped and fluttered about in the gloom.

Robin's eyes winced. "I can't…ignore that part of me. As much as I want to. It's there, and it's sounding alarms all over the place, and it makes sense. For the first time in your life, in the history of this team, you can't trust your own judgment. The territory is so unfamiliar that any call you make is a shot in the dark, and with the consequences at stake…" He looked down and away. "But…we're more than a team. Much more." He paused, seemingly in thought. "I won't ask you to stop, couldn't. And I won't allow the risk, can't. So I'm asking this." He switched to Raven, eye to eye. "What am I supposed to do?"

With a screech, a black raven engulfed the empath and carried her through the ceiling.

Alone with him now, Jinx strolled right up to Robin, poking him with her finger. "I don't care what ya do, but in case ya didn't notice from the way I blew my girlfriend's bulb last night with emotional rebound, I'm pretty into this. And you're not gonna screw it up for me. Capiche?"

Before Robin could respond, whether he would, Raven returned, book in-hand. Opening it to a specific page, she handed it to Robin.

He looked it over, along with Jinx, and then they both turned their attention back to Raven, at which point she explained her plan in detail.

When she finished, Robin read over the passage one more time, then looked up. "This would work?"

"It's the best I can think of," Raven replied.

"You know he'll want a set," Robin pointed out, no question in his tone as to who he meant.

"I expected as much," Raven said.

Jinx offered nothing.

Robin still seemed stuck in consideration, scrutinizing the angles.

"Side-effects?" he asked.

"Feverish symptoms, elevated temperature, general discomfort," Raven guessed.

Jinx scoffed.

Robin caught it. "Something to add?"

"General discomfort," Jinx said. "Yeah, right. For me, maybe. But she ain't human."

"So?" Robin asked.

"So there's no way to know the exact reaction," Raven explained, although she had hoped that would've slipped by unnoticed. "It…could itch, or be uncomfortably cold—"

"Or burn," Jinx said with emphasis. "They could melt your friggin' skin off, for all we know! Not like it's ever been tested."

Robin closed the book. "I agree. While I can see your point in having them around as an insurance policy—and even applaud you for volunteering—I also agree that we should test them before we bet the world on whether they work. I'll contact the League, track down Fate. Then we get these things made, reconvene with the others, do some tests and go from there."

"Lovely. Another team meeting regarding my romantic development," Raven quipped.

"I don't see any other way. Not until we know more," Robin decided. "Do you need to be present when Fate makes these? For the infusion?"

Raven shook her head. "A vial of blood should be enough. I imagine it's…probably better that way."

Robin acknowledged with a nod. "Wait here. I'll brief the others, then send Cyborg in for the sample."

"Uh-huh. And what do we do while you're all off doin' whatever?" Jinx asked, still clearly displeased.

"Take some time. Both of you," Robin told her in a more understanding tone. "You had a rough night. Go out somewhere. Talk. Decompress. I'll contact you when everything's ready." He approached Raven, returning her book.

When she took it and tugged, Robin didn't let go.

"We'll figure this out," he told her, then released.

"If the League doesn't decide to cut out the maybe and neutralize the risk first," Raven replied.

Nothing further, the boy wonder turned to leave.

"They wouldn't be wrong," Raven said, causing him to pause momentarily at the door.

The door swished open when Robin walked out, closing behind him.

Jinx practically threw up her arms. "The heck was that?"

"My emotional fulfillment weighed against all the lives of the universe?" Raven asked her. "It's…pretty much the most selfish risk anyone could ever take."

Jinx set her hands on her hips brazenly. "Yeah? Well accordin' to you, ya saved the stupid universe to begin with, so from where I'm standin', it owes ya one."

"Maybe," Raven admitted. "Still, you can't deny the—"

"The risk, yeah. I know. Blah, blah, blah." Jinx rolled her eyes again, then snickered. "Hey, while we're at it, might as well axe half the League. Right? I mean, 'Supes. C'mon. Guy sneezes wrong and knocks a whole galaxy outta whack."

Raven offered only a very mindful stare in response, one that gave eerie and frightening depth to Jinx's remark.

A few seconds later, Raven turned her eyes away. "It's…a valid point: not just those with powers, but sentient life itself as the greatest and most inevitable threat to the universe."

"Valid point?" Jinx asked in shock. "That was a joke! Like, to demonstrate absurdity?"

"Is it?" Raven asked. "Altering reality. Obliterating star systems. Bringing nightmares to life, or designing machines to do any or all of the above. Is it really that absurd, to wonder whether lower life—the universe, in general—would be better off without us in it? If we had never been?"

Seconds ticked past as Jinx watched her companion peer through the floor into infinity; having begun with a joke, she now found herself considering her words very carefully, under the distinct impression that she had stumbled into a minefield Raven had been navigating, or constructing, for a very long time.

Jinx sat down beside her. "Okay, I get where you're comin' from. Kinda…makes sense, when ya think about it, or at least that you would think about it. Y'know, considerin' your dad and…all that. But…maybe you're lookin' at it the wrong way."

Raven glanced up, unsure but willing to entertain the notion.

"Ya said sentient life. Right?" Jinx asked, trying to articulate something she had yet to really wrap her head around. "But, like…doesn't that just…I dunno…evolve, or somethin'? From regular life? So, like…if ya really want that way of thinkin' to work, ya can't just stop at sentient life. Ya gotta go the whole way—and ya can't even really stop there, 'cause where does that come from? Like, atoms and molecules and stuff. Right? Over time. So you'd have to nix all that, too. And at that point, what's the point. Y'know?"

Raven remained quiet.

"It's like…it's inherently risky. Existence, or whatever. Like it's designed that way. So I guess…you're sayin' it's too risky for ya to be happy," Jinx tried to sum up. "But I'm sayin' everybody deserves the chance to be happy, or else there's no point to the risk of bein' around at all."

Raven sported a small smile. "Even if hurting people is what makes someone happy?"

Jinx scrunched her lips. "Y'know what I mean."

"I do," Raven admitted. "And…it might interest you to know: now you're starting to sound like a hero."

"So no more of this self-deprecating crap?" Jinx asked.

"No more self-deprecating crap," Raven promised.

"Good. Now get up, bleed into a tube somewhere, and date me," Jinx demanded.

"Date you?"

"Duh. You heard bird-brain. Take me someplace fun. Someplace that's not a dead dimension where ya drag my soul around on a leash."

"I'm…bad at 'fun,' in the usual sense," Raven told her.

Jinx grinned. "Well, it's a good thing I'm not a girl in the usual sense. Just pick somewhere ya like."

"Someplace I like?" Raven asked.

"Sure." Jinx picked up Raven's hand in both of hers, tugging it until the empath rose from her seat, suddenly less fervent and more sincere, more genuine, almost apologetic. "Look, I had a great night—y'know, up until that one part—and you had a not so great one, so…just pick someplace ya like to go. If you're havin' a good time, I'll have a good time."

Raven raised an eyebrow. "Coming from someone who isn't an empath, that's probably indicative of a low-grade co-dependent personality disorder."

Jinx batted her eyelids. "Never said I was sane."

"Hence your interest in me."

"Maybe."

The door to the medical bay slid open to reveal Cyborg on one side and the two women on the other, in rather close proximity.

"Am I interuptin' somethin'?" he asked.

Raven straightened up. "No."

Jinx didn't move a muscle, but turned her eyes on the metal man with a smirk.

A few minutes later, Cyborg had secured Raven's blood sample and set about calibrating his machine for another trip to the dead dimension. At Raven's request, he had promised to personally see that any unused blood got destroyed after their work was done, with the warning that, in the wrong hands with the right knowledge, it could be used to grave and nefarious effect.

They stood in the hall outside the medical bay.

"So…where're we goin'?" Jinx asked.

Raven thought about it, but came up more or less empty. At least, as far as places she went for enjoyment. She mulled over the stock options of the pier, a carnival, the movies, maybe a restaurant.

But then, it occurred to her that she needn't choose any of those, that doing so might actually have been disrespectful. After all, she didn't enjoy them. Pretending she did would have been tantamount to lying, something she did lightly for friends and acquaintances in an attempt to put their 'fun' above her preferences.

Jinx, however, didn't want that. Didn't want to be just a friend, even a close friend like the others. She wanted more. Claimed she did, anyway. Honesty, then, would be the most respectful option, to honor Jinx's wish to go somewhere she enjoyed.

The truth, however, was that she rarely experienced enjoyment in the way others did. In fact, the closest she probably came was…

"I know a place," she decided.

"Sweet!" Jinx latched onto Raven's arm excitedly, all smiles as the black soul-self appeared and swallowed them.

They emerged to the sound of crows squawking and fluttering away.

Scanning the horizon, Jinx took a few steps forward to the edge of the great rooftop, or what remained of it. Once she got a better look, she found them atop a ruined cathedral. "Uh…"

"This…is where it happened," Raven said.

Jinx turned to her in confusion. "Where—" She cut her own question short when the meaning dawned on her; her eyes widened and her smile drained. "Oh."

Raven stood quietly in the moments that followed, cape flowing gently in the evening breeze. Apparently, she had lost a whole day.

Could've been worse, she decided. No way to tell how long her kill-switch would put her out. Could've been days, plural. Or weeks.

Or worse.

"So…" Jinx paced idly, uncomfortably, hands clasped behind her back. "This is…fun?"

Raven shook her head. "I told you. I'm bad at 'fun.' This is…balance. It's…about as close as I get."

"Okay," Jinx said. "Care to share?"

Raven looked out. "This is it. This is where the world ended. Where I gave up and let it end, where my father first broke through into our dimension—because I let him in."

Jinx's brow furrowed. "You—"

"To save them," Raven said. "I thought… I knew, if they kept trying to save me, they…" Her arms wrapped unconsciously around herself, nothing to do with the chill. "It…was them or the universe, and…I chose them."

The gears in Jinx's head turned with the new information, reprocessing the conversation they had just finished in the medical bay. Suddenly, it was no wonder the empath seemed so at home in wrestling with the few versus the many. She had done it before—and taken the other side.

"Do you know why I did it?" Raven asked, once Jinx's shifting emotions suggested her inner thoughts had reached a conclusion of some kind.

Jinx shook her head.

Raven gave pause, seeming to struggle with organizing exactly what she wanted to say, then turned to her. "Can I show you something?"

"Okay." Jinx said.

"When it comes to my father and his arrival here—the purpose for which I was created—I can be lightly prophetic. These aren't like the nightmare I showed you. They're not baseless fears or insecurities. They also aren't true prophecies," she made clear. "They're possibilities, derived from deep meditation and reflective not of this future, but of the roads not taken. Stories written by the decisions I didn't make but that I could have. These are what might have been."

Raven touched Jinx's head, in the same way as when she had shared the nightmare, and Jinx felt herself swept away.

An icy wind stung her cheeks, her face exposed while the rest of her took refuge in her cloak, held tightly from inside. Her vision opened to the darkened streets of Jump City, seen from a rooftop. Her soul-self embraced her as she phased from the roof down to the alleyway below, careful to avoid the roaming eyes of passersby as she embarked on her nightly routine of scavenging for sustenance and anything useful she could find.

Memories of the League and other missed opportunities, retreated from or lost to hesitation, swirled in her mind, haunting it like ghosts she could not seem to banish. In the day, they invaded her meditation with tapestries woven from shame, self-loathing, and frustration. At night, they whispered her regrets, highlighting her isolation and held at bay only by her determination to endure.

Her cowardice, to endure.

A thousand, thousand memories clamored, slobbered ravenously at the door of her mind with the thought—years upon years of biting back dark consideration, of denying the only proper course in the face of a destiny that could not be denied and that held countless worlds of lives hostage.

But, if it could…

If she could deny it…change it…avoid it somehow…

Hope dangled. Incessantly, day after day after month after year, hung like fool's gold in her heart: ultimately false, but glittering and promising enough to keep her from the ultimate despair necessary to overcome her cowardice.

And so, she endured. Lingered. Languished. Prisoner of a fate she could not change, held in a cell of hope hand-crafted by her own freedom of thought and will. A perfect, sadistic design.

Cries for help rang out from a nearby dead-end passage; she phased away, ignoring them as best she could.

With all the quickness of a lightning strike, another far-flung thought flickered: the thought of helping, of using her purgatory as some half-hearted blessing to do as much good as she could, to try to make some small penance for all the wrong her birth and cowardice would bring.

An avalanche of frightened faces piled on the blissful notion and crushed it, faces of those she had saved, frightened of her as much as of anything from which she had delivered them.

She found herself at the pier amid the sound of clanging buoys and lapping water; the darkened waves held her gaze in a trance, whispering as they rolled familiar thoughts of grim abdication.

Another shout, a man this time. Several.

She turned and saw a group of men dragging another toward the water's edge. For a moment, she envied him his helplessness. Then, the spark of hope in her chest.

Why bother?

Another cry—for someone, anyone.

It wouldn't matter.

Another—desperate, pleading.

One more chance.

Phasing through the ground and appearing in grand display, she chased off the group and reached down to help the man they had been dragging.

He moved away.

"Wait," she told him.

Fear. Always fear. He scrambled back.

"Please. I—"

He cowered.

Lured in and jilted again by a hope she could not forsake, frustration welled up inside her; momentarily out of check, indulged in selfish satisfaction, it kindled quickly into anger, ignited into rage—knee-jerking catharsis.

Red.

…

Wet, slick-sticky.

Blood.

Trembling.

Regret, horror, disgust.

Panic.

In shock, she fell back to a nearby building and huddled into a corner, curled up as tightly as her shivering body could manage; rocking in place, she buried her head in her knees and forced her eyes shut, sobbing quietly and clutching her head, digging her fingers into her skull.

Why hadn't he understood? Why didn't any of them understand?

Why had he—

If he had just—

It didn't have to be that way.

Why did it always have to be that way?

Every day.

All the time.

Why did everything have to hurt?

But it didn't.

It didn't have to hurt.

It hurt because she let it.

Because she allowed herself to feel it. To feel anything.

Didn't she understand, yet? Had she never considered?

Conflicted, every moment. Tortured, every day. Why? An empty scale balanced just as well.

An empty vessel. Devoid of feeling, devoid of power. Weak, but at peace. To end it or await the end.

Meditation. Time. She could manage it.

Why had she not?

She stopped rocking, in thought.

She did not wish to be weak.

Did not wish to be devoid of power.

She wished to control it.

Her breathing calmed as she worked through the implications.

Her power required emotion. Emotions precluded control.

Some, perhaps. But…not all.

Maybe…

Maybe not all emotions were as prone, or even able, to spiral out of control. If she could just find one that didn't inherently want to run wild, just one, she could latch onto it and sever the rest. She really hadn't ever considered that. Why had no one ever told her?

Was it really such a difficult question?

No…

No, it wasn't.

They hadn't told her because they hadn't wanted to. Because they hadn't ever really wanted her to control her power; they had wanted her to be afraid of it, afraid of herself, to spend her life neutered and torn, maybe even enough to do on her own what a society of pacifists could not. And if she'd let them, if they'd had enough time, they would have 'helped' her in learning to cut off her emotions completely—for their sake, their safety, not hers. Never hers.

No more.

She stood up, sifting through her emotions one-by-one in search of the one that would finally allow her the control she had always sought, always deserved, that would finally allow her no longer to bemoan her own existence for the sake of the self-serving and the ungrateful, but instead to take pride in it.

Perhaps…she had already found it.

In agreement, or at least willing enough to test the theory, she embraced her newfound pride in herself and, in one swift, mental motion—with only the briefest of considerattions—cut off everything else.

Her heart slowed. Her thoughts clarified, normalized.

Profound.

In the distance, footsteps. Running toward her.

The group she'd scared off, along with many more.

They pointed. Shouted. Raised weapons.

Curiosity gripped her, and she called upon a depth of her power she would not have considered moments before, channeling it into an illusion that saw the men turn on one another in horror; they opened fire, seeing what was not. When those who survived attempted to flee, shadows sprang to life around them—reacting to her will—and tore them to pieces.

She stood amid the gore in the aftermath and felt nothing, only that she had finally reached a thing long in coming, a thing both natural and deserved, as though she had, at long last, begun to swim with the current instead of against it. A void filled her, hollowed her out of everything that had caused her pain, and she resolved herself entirely to the notion that she had taken the first step to her natural role.

That she existed not as a person, not as an individual, but as a thing—like fire, or lightning, or some cosmic event—not to be judged but merely to be: like fire, to burn. No right, no wrong. Just to burn. Just to be, in the role that was hers.

Time passed, and Jinx found it difficult to distinguish one series of events from another, as though the river became muddied, as though the visions themselves encompassed so many possibilities that it was impossible to properly distinguish between them.

Confrontations with the Titans.

Confrontations with the League.

Some she survived, stripped the universe of its protectors a few at a time as she softened it, readied it and presented it to her father on a platter in a demonstration of her worth and continued usefulness. Every severed emotion atrophied over time, withered and died until she could no longer recall bygone sensations like pity or remorse, compassion or sympathy, joy or sorrow or rudeness or even rage, all shriveled and gone, lingering only as passing empathic curiosities. Through it all, she felt nothing—only pride in herself, in a role realized and fulfilled, in a place taken.

And so her father arrived, to great fanfare and unparalleled procession, to a dimension already enslaved. And so his power grew, and hers with it, and his pride in her and hers in herself. And so she departed, on to the next.

The Gem.

The Dark Lady, Herald of the End.

Some, she survived.

Others, she did not.

Jinx recoiled at one of those, pulling her head away. She stared at Raven, wide-eyed, then remembered Raven's previous instructions and gave herself a minute to process what she had been shown.

"Do you want to know the difference?" Raven asked, once it was clear that Jinx would not fly into a reaction. "Between this, and that?" She held out her hands again.

Wary but curious, Jinx approached.

The world rushed away, and she found herself in an alley in Jump City. In the distance, a shackled Starfire, eyes a furious green, tore apart everything in her path.

The Titans—Robin in his uniform, Cyborg in a gray hooded sweatshirt, and Beast Boy wearing a mask—took cover behind a bus from a hail of starbolts that shredded the block.

Starfire dropped to her knees, catching her breath—anger, frustration, desperation, fury.

But no malicious intent.

"Girl's gonna wreck the whole city," Cyborg said.

"I won't let her." Robin socked his fist into his palm. "I won't lose this fight."

The group rushed out.

Torn between the urge to run—to stay hidden—and the desire to intervene, to help, she paused only a moment before committing herself to a decision.

She extended a hand, summoning her soul self in a grand, screeching display; the barrier stopped the others in their tracks.

Sinking into the ground, she emerged from the sidewalk behind them. "Maybe…fighting isn't the answer."

Raven released Jinx's head. "One moment," she said. "One chance. One choice. That's the difference, between everything I am…and everything that never was. One choice that saved my life, maybe the universe. And one that nearly ended it."

Jinx moved toward her, but the empath turned partly away.

"This is the best…possible…version of me, and I have to work every day to keep it that way. I didn't save the Titans because it was the right thing to do. I did it because I wanted to do it. That's why I come here: for perspective. To remind me of the importance of every…decision…I make. That I'm at my best when I'm not thinking of what I want…" she looked down at the cathedral, "…and of what can happen when I do."

"Okay…" Jinx said, trying to make sense of things. "Thank you…for showin' me all that…" she offered, not really sure what else to say.

Raven's conviction gave way to something closer to sheepishness. "I guess this isn't really what you meant when you asked to go out, but… I…wanted to bring you here, to help you understand how careful I need to be, and why."

Jinx moved forward, raising her arms in preparation, but stopped when Raven made to do the same; she smiled, giggling lightly. "You're new, so…lemme show ya." Guiding down the empath's arms, she held her instead.

For her part, Raven just followed cues as best she could and let it happen. Even hugs, it turned out, had their own subtle language she hadn't been aware of: who embraced whom, whether both parties did, seemingly determined by the situation and who intended to comfort whom.

Lots to learn.

One hand moved from where it had been on her shoulder and came to rest gently on the back of her head.

Reassurance and relaxation radiated from her partner.

Raven relaxed in response, letting her eyes shut and her head nestle in, and then realized. "You're manipulating me."

"Hm?" Jinx asked, going for innocent but landing closer to someone caught in the cookie jar.

Raven let out an entirely unconvincing grumble, which would've been even less so had Jinx been able to see her peaceful smile, otherwise content to soak in the emotions—manipulative or not.

Some people wore makeup, or styled their hair certain ways, wore certain clothes, used perfumes or certain tones of voice or body language to send signals to their partners, influence the ways their partners felt. Raven almost found it funny; she had long considered herself immune to such shallow attempts.

Jinx, as it turned out, had managed the emotions she'd broadcasted to achieve a similar end, effectively taking the one thing Raven had always considered her most unfair person-to-person advantage and turning it against her.

Maybe it wasn't so unfair after all.

Still, it…wasn't bad, either.

The pair recoiled at a golden light that pierced the encroaching eve. Their eyes adjusted in time to catch a glimpse of the monolithic ankh and the figure silhouetted against it. The figure hovered in place as the portal vanished, and Raven removed herself from Jinx's hold and stepped forward.

Fate, it seemed, had finally come knocking.