Chapter 13

Things had gotten a lot better for Raven after the day that Starfire met Jason. Something about bringing the two halves of her life together, even if only in part, had healed something in her and she found the tension at the tower finally lessening.

But it was about a week later that things really turned the corner for the harmony of the tower. The Titans sat in the common room, Cyborg and Beast Boy playing video games and Cyborg edging out his friend in Order of Assignment: Modern Tactics while Raven read on the other end of the couch.

"What?!" Beast Boy yelled, throwing his hands in the air. "How did I die?! Again?! They have cheat codes or something! Hacked the game! It's the only way!"

Cyborg laughed from beside him as he continued playing. "Can someone get a blood test from the med bay?" he asked deadpanned as he leaned to the left along with his strafing character as if it would get him there faster. "Need to check BB for hypernatremia."

"What?" Beast Boy said, confused.

"Extra sodium in your bloodstream," Cyborg said simply, as if it made perfect sense, still focused on the game. Beast Boy stared at him for a moment, utterly perplexed.

". . . What?!" Beast Boy said again, agitated, still not understanding.

"It means you're salty," Raven voiced, not looking up from her book at the same moment that Robin said the same thing, not looking up from his newspaper.

Everyone froze as they looked between the two who finally looked up from their reading and made eye contact with each other. They hadn't spoken much, or really spent much time in the same room, since Raven had announced her relationship.

But as they looked at each other, they couldn't help the smiles that came to their faces at their identical, simultaneous statements before they both broke up into laughter. Cyborg joined them and his uncontrolled laughter at his friend finally cost his character his life.

"Hey," Beast Boy whined, finally getting the joke. "Why's everyone picking on me?"

Raven could feel a tiny flicker of hope in her that maybe her relationship with Robin wasn't completely beyond repair, but their laughter ceased as her phone's alarm went off. Friday night, early evening; she had set an alarm for her plans with Red X. She turned off the alarm, the smile gone from her face as she watched Robin turn serious.

"I should go," she said awkwardly, rising from her seat. "I'll see you guys later."

She closed her book and walked to the hall, anxious to be out of there before the tension grew thick again and lamenting the ruined moment for reconciliation.

Robin watched her leave and as soon as she was out of sight he stood abruptly and followed her. He saw her down the hall and called her name. She stopped, closing her eyes and hoping that this wasn't going to be another awkward conversation. She turned as he reached her.

"Raven . . . I . . ."

He stood there, words failing him, for several moments before he reached out to grab her by the arm and pull her into his arms. He hugged her, resting his head on hers and he sighed as he felt her arms wrap around his torso in response. She gripped him just as tightly as he held her and they stayed that way for what seemed like long minutes.

Their bond resonated harmoniously for the first time in over a month and it brought some manner of peace to them both.

"I've missed you, Raven," he whispered into her hair.

"Gods, I've missed you too," she murmured into his chest. "I was beginning to fear that I had ruined this."

He pulled away and held her by the shoulders.

"You didn't ruin anything, Raven. I haven't handled this well. And before you tell me that my feelings matter and that I had to handle it in my own way, I still should have taken your feelings into account too. You tried to spare my feelings and I treated you poorly in spite of it. Raven, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Raven threw her arms around him again and he chuckled in surprise, holding her to him again. Their bond hummed happily and Raven felt as if something dark within her had finally been banished.

"I'm sorry too, Robin. Sorry that it came to this. But I'm not sorry he came along. I am sorry that it hurt you, but I can't be sorry for what I have."

"I know," he whispered, tightening his hold on her. "I know, Rae. And it's not your fault, it just . . . sucks."

They shared a laugh again before he pulled away from her once more.

"I mean, if you ever feel the need to cut him loose I won't complain-"

Her face's wry mix of admonishment and amusement cut him off.

"I know, Rae. Sorry. Had to say it. You should go. You'll be late."

She smiled at him, tinged with just the hint of sadness and he gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead before turning back to the common room.

The following weeks saw her happier than ever. She was always happy and complacent with Jason, but now that feeling carried over into the tower as well and she was so relieved. For her and Robin to be in a place where they could hold conversations again and at least have a semblance of what they used to have together before all of this with Red X was what Raven had really needed the most. He was still her best friend, even if there was still some tension there, and she hadn't realized how much she had missed having that connection with him. She was riding on the emotional high of the peace in her life and it was a feeling she was unaccustomed to.

And so it was that Raven found herself one evening sitting curled up on Jason's couch and reading a book waiting for him to return with take out, trying to banish this niggling feeling in the back of her mind that happiness like this just didn't last.

She heard the keys jangling and smiled as the door opened, though she didn't lift her eyes from her book. She had figured that her joy at his presence – the calm that he brought her with nothing more than his proximity to her – would have faded at least a bit after all the time they spent together, but she still could not help but smile when he came into a room.

She heard the plastic bag get placed on the counter as the door closed behind him, but then no other sound was made and Jason made no move to come toward her.

"I can explain," he said when she didn't look up.

Raven lowered her book to her lap and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. It was never a dull moment with him.

She looked over and saw a guilty looking Jason standing by the counter, his arms held against his chest with a small grey kitten nestled in them, playing with the drawstring of his hoodie.

Raven's eyes narrowed as she opened her mouth, but she couldn't figure out what words she wanted to say. Even for the strange scale that Raven used to measure his actions, coming home with a kitten when she had sent him out for food was still rather random.

"Before you say anything," he said, finally making his way toward the couch, "she was just sitting in a box in the alley and she started following me. She waited for me outside of the restaurant, Little Bird. She's thin, but surprisingly flea free and she's adorable and I couldn't just leave her on the streets of the city and it's supposed to rain tonight and she's just so little."

Raven managed to keep a straight face during his rambling but a smile came to her face when he handed the kitten over and she curled up atop Raven's book as if she belonged there. She stared at Jason who looked at her hopefully and she started laughing.

"So . . . laughing means we keep her?" he asked.

"I just . . . can not reconcile the Red X that was Robin's enemy number two to the one that rescues kittens and brings them home because he just can't help himself."

Jason flashed his characteristic smirk at her as she lifted the cat the cuddle it against her chest.

"I can always take the kitten back and go rob a museum if you would prefer, Little Bird."

Raven held the cat to her and said in a deadpanned voice, "You can take this cat over my dead body. And you can rob a museum at the risk of yours. Your tentative status with the Titans only holds as long as your thievery is used to steal things back, Jace."

He hummed thoughtfully at her, but the smile on his face belayed any mock irritation he tried to project. He sat beside her and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers, but the action only spurred the kitten into trying to fight his hand as they both laughed.

"Besides," he said, "every witch needs a cat. It's tradition."

"Well I wouldn't want to fly in the face of tradition, now would I?"

She fell asleep that night, curled up against Jason while the cat curled herself up in the crook behind Raven's bend knees. The Titan lay there, eyes closed and breathing in Jason's familiar scent, reaching down to stroke the kitten's ears. She was finally happy, truly happy, with her life as a whole. Sleep should have come easily that night.

But the niggling in the back of her mind still would not leave her.

O • O • O • O

The rains plagued the city for the last week, never letting up quite long enough to give the citizens a respite from the windswept water that just didn't seem to want to fall in any direction but sideways. The general feeling that Raven could feel from the city was a general sense of misery and she was grateful for her newfound happiness to negate the depression she could feel pulsing from the city. At the week's end the rains finally lifted, but the dull, grey feeling and the purveying damp seemed to haunt the streets.

The Titans went on patrol that night, splitting up the city as they did when there were no active crime alerts, making their rounds as sentinels of the city. They did it often, as much to deter crime as to ease the public with the sight of their presence.

Raven had cleared it with the Titans to patrol with Red X weeks after revealing her relationship with him. Since he had put off petty thieving and taken to returning stolen items instead the Titans had decided to test Raven's endorsement of their former foe. He had helped stop a robbery that night and the Titans were forced to reluctantly accept this limbo of grey where he was allowed to exist.

Not long after he had learned about a case plaguing the Titans about stolen research on a new super drug. The files were found on the Titans doorstep not two days later along with the bound body of the man who had stolen them, a sticky note on the folder with a red x marked on it.

And this was how Red X's interactions with the Titans had gone since then, not a part of them, but no longer watched by them either. Recently even Robin had admitted to the thief's helpfulness, though it clearly pained him to do so.

And so on this gloomy, heavy night Raven flew over her sector of the city while Red X roamed the streets below, tag-teaming her slightly larger patrol area together. Raven flew down to the street to meet with him after their sweep was done.

She pulled out her communicator as she landed and, after a few seconds, nodded and tucked it away.

"The others are done and back at the tower," she said as she approached him.

"Anything from above?" he asked as he grabbed her hips and pulled her against him.

"Nothing," she purred. "You?"

"Not a thing."

"So, we're done here then."

"Which means it's finally time to take you home and have my way with you."

She hit him in the chest playfully as she rolled her eyes.

"All you ever think about," she murmured, winking at him.

"I mean, two people as beautiful as us? It's a wonder that we allow each other to ever get dressed at all, Little Bird."

"Are you insinuating that it's all I ever think about as well?"

He pulled her hips more tightly against his. He leaned over her shoulder, his breath escaping his mask and brushing against her skin and raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

"I mean, if it's not I'm not doing my job very well."

The timbre of his voice sent shivers through her and she pulled back and smiled up at him.

"I think you do your job quite admirably, just so you're aware, but you know I'm due at the tower tonight."

Her head turned suddenly as soon as the words were out of her mouth, the playfulness gone from her face and her body growing still.

"What is it?" He asked, his body reacting to her sudden change and growing defensive. He had grown accustomed to her heightened senses and awareness and knew that something had felt off to her if it had drawn her attention like that.

"I don't know," she whispered, her gaze flitting from window to window in the buildings around them. "Something's just . . . off. I feel . . . dread. And the presence of something magical, but I can't place it. I can't really explain it."

They saw the two shadows at the same time, the first darting into the doors of an abandoned textiles company the next block over and the other stumbling into a nearby alley, clutching it's side. Raven could smell blood on him and the sense of magic was coming from the second figure as well.

They looked at each other, Raven inclining her head at him and then to the building. He nodded, and used his head to indicate the alley. She nodded back.

"I can smell blood," she whispered. "If someone's hurt I can help. And the magic is coming from them too. I'll be better equipped to deal with it."

He squeezed her hand before turning to the building, using his belt to transport into it to check things out in there as she wrapped her soul self around her and appeared in the shadows of the alley.

She reached out her senses and found someone hiding behind the dumpster up ahead and she called upon her powers again to appear behind it. She saw a huddled figure there, a boy no more than fifteen, crouched and trembling, holding a hand to his side and looking around the edge of the dumpster as if waiting for someone to appear. Something was clutched in his other hand but Raven couldn't make it out in the shadows.

"Expecting someone?" she asked, startling the boy. He threw his back against the dumpster, the fear in his face palpable. He held no weapons and looked at her with abject terror.

"Hey, hey," she said, holding her hands out, though she didn't step to approach him. "What the hell are you doing skulking around in alleys and abandoned buildings in the middle of the night?"

The boy was trembling and she could see a deep gash in his side. She sensed that he would be unable to answer her until he calmed.

"You're hurt," she said holding out a hand as she sent out some of her power to help slow his heart rate and ease his breathing. The effect was immediate and she repeated her question. He still did not answer her.

"What do you have in your hand?" she asked, gently, inclining her head at the object in his hand. "I can feel the magic from it. Is it why you're wounded? Are you in trouble?"

He dropped the object that she felt the aura off of, as if just now remembering that he was holding it. She watched as it rolled away from him toward her, her head cocked in confusion. It was a small stone and as she used her powers to examine it she recognized it as a crude magic beacon. It was something that someone would use to call those sensitive to magic to their aid, which was why she felt called to it.

"Where did you get something like that?" she asked as she crouched down to look at his wound now that she could sense no more magic on him. She began to heal him in hopes he would be more inclined to answer her if she helped him.

"I-I-I was just told to try to draw your attention," he stammered. "We were told to get your attention and separate you. I-I'm sorry. They cut me, gave me the stone and told me to wait for you to notice us and hide in this alley. They said they'd kill my brother if I didn't do it."

Her sense of dread grew.

"Who did? Why did they want us separated? Where is -"

She had gotten too distracted in trying to calm the boy, healing him, and using her magic to sense out the beacon; she almost sensed the other presence too late. She turned, putting herself between the kid and the other figure just as the first shots rang out through the alley. She focused on holding the shield as the barrage of bullets hit it, the man on the fire escape outside of the second floor of the building not letting up on his sub machine gun fire.

It took only a few seconds for him to empty the magazine but the focus she'd had to put into her shield had been tiring after a night of patrol and her recent use of magic with the boy. As soon as she heard the metallic scrape that indicated him changing the magazine, she dropped the shield and lashed out with her power, slamming the man into the railing of the fire escape. She saw the spray of blood through the air as he stumbled and sliced his leg on a broken piece of the staircase.

She lashed out her powers again to subdue him now that he was injured but the rapid popping sound of another sub machine gun behind her made her realize that the man she had been fighting was just a distraction. She noticed the other figure on the fire escape behind her too late and she froze in shock as the pain blossomed from her back and chest. She felt her knees hit the wet pavement and then the darkness took her.

O • O • O • O

Red X caught up to the shadowy figure in moments, grabbing him by the arm and asking him just what he thought he was up to. But the figure turned out to be a boy in his mid to late teens, fear in his eyes mixed with a cold stare in a look that spoke to Red X. This was a kid who had been hardened by the streets. A kid that was desperate.

"What the hell do you think you're doing skulking about the industrial district in the middle of the night?" he asked. "The fuck are you up to? And what did you do to the guy in the alley?"

"The fuck do you care?" the kid spat back, taking a swing at Red X that he easily dodged.

"How old are you, kid?"

"I'm eighteen, asshole. I'm not a kid."

"Then I don't feel bad at all about doing this."

Red X reached out and punched the kid in the jaw before using a kick to sweep out the boy's legs from under him, knocking him to the floor.

"What the fuck?!" the kid yelled, still sprawled on the floor.

"Now, we can keep playing this way where you disrespect me and I knock you to the floor, or you can start being helpful."

"I was just told to get you on your own," he said, his demeanor not nearly as tough. "We've been on the street since our parents went missing last month. I'm just trying to do what I can for my brother. I was paid to lure you in here."

"Why?"

"I don't know, asshole! I just did what I was told. They still have my brother, they hurt him, I didn't have much of a choice."

"Who are they?"

"Fuck off."

Red X kicked him in the ribs, causing him to cry out as he grabbed his side.

"They said you were a hero," he gasped. "What kind of hero does something like that?"

"That's just the thing, kid," Red X said, leaning down over him, "I'm not a hero."

"Then why were you with her? She's a Titan, isn't she?"

Dread bloomed in him.

"What does she have to do with this?" he hissed, grabbing him by the shirtfront and hoisting him to a sitting position while using a hand to press on the man's wounded ribs.

"I-I don't know," he said, suddenly sensing that he was in more danger than he had first thought. "I was just told to get you away from her. They gave my brother something that would call her to him and they told me to distract you in another direction. They wanted you lured away and they wanted her in the alley. That's all I know."

The man's words sank in and terror crept into his heart and it was then that he heard the popping sound from outside that was an all too familiar sound. He delivered a swift blow to the man's head, knocking him unconscious before using the belt to appear in the alley where Raven had pursued the other shadow.

It only took a few seconds for him to see her, the slumped figure of the woman he suddenly realized that he loved laying in a puddle that was being stained red by the pool of blood growing beneath her.

"Raven!" he screamed, the sound tearing through his throat as he ran for her. He could see the wounds in her chest and back and he could feel the life draining out of her. His heart clenched as he reached for her and his belt at the same time. It would take several jumps to get to help. He hoped she had enough time.