Raven

Every morning, or what I can only presume to be morning, the same man comes to take me to the classroom. He wears the same uniform as the others: blood red robes kept clean and pristine, even if the bodies underneath stink like they haven't showered in days. He keeps his hair covered with the hood. From the few slips I've seen of it, it is dark brown, greasy and unkempt. The high-ranking members' cheeks bulge with the fat of good food and health. This man's cheeks are sallow, his eyes are sunken with the dark circles of someone who does not get enough sleep. He undoes the chain keeping me in the room with rough hands covered in callouses. The skin is dry and cracking. He's perfect.

This morning when he comes in, I look him straight in the eyes. Naturally it catches him off guard. Normally I don't like to look at them. I don't like to look at anything here. I keep my eyes closed as much as I can, as if the closing of my eyelids can erase my current reality. Today though, I look straight into his face. He pauses, body noticeably tense even under the loose folds of his robes. He glances this way or that, as if expecting something. After a few seconds, I look away. Still, he stays tense, waiting for an escape attempt or some other threat. When it doesn't come, he slowly recovers by moving to undo the chain.

By now I have earned the privilege of walking to the classroom on my own. After the incident with the bystanders who tried to help me during my escape, I have been on my best behavior. My best behavior is only not resisting them and doing as I am told. Brother Blood thinks he is winning me over, but that is also part of my plan. Let him think he's winning. Let his arrogance destroy him, the way it allowed her to escape. They never dreamed she would defy them.

The next morning, I repeat the eye contact. I must keep it short, only a few seconds. I know they are always watching. If anyone notices, it could ruin my plan. If this man is switched out with someone else, I'll have to hope they are a good candidate and start over. It will take a long time to build his trust and use that trust to destroy them. The way they destroyed her. I have to hope that despite all my life's misfortunes, there is some merciful god somewhere that will want to help me stop them. He has to keep coming. They can't change things. I also have to have enough time. They've been patient, but soon they will try to raise Trigon. If I'm to stop them, I need enough time to gain this man's trust.

I know I can move to phase two a few days later when I notice he's begun to wash his face. His chin is freshly shaved, his cheeks shine not from grimy oil, but lotion and soap. This morning when he enters the room, he does not panic at my eye contact the way he did the first two days. He does pause and stay unmoving until I look away, but I sense something that I don't often sense here, joy. He is happy.

He undoes the chain and I move to walk in front of him down the hall to the classroom. The hall is empty today. It usually is, except for a few rare occasions. Some involving violence between blood members. Our footsteps echo on the hard floor.

"Special," I whisper. We're halfway there. I know he heard me because I hear him pause his steps, but I keep my pace as normal. He can't know for sure it was me, because he can't see my lips. I try to move them as little as possible, so that if anyone is watching on their security, they won't see it. The rest of the day is normal. I repeat the utterance the next day and the next.

It takes seven days to really take effect. Now when he enters the room I'm certain I sense joy and I can see it on his face in the form of a small smile. The word has sunken into him. He's starting to think that he really is special. And he is special. He will be the one who helps me destroy them. That will make him noticeable to Trigon. Just not in the way he'd hoped.

The next step is harder. I only see this man for a few minutes each morning and that could be taken away at any time. I need to find a way to communicate with him without anyone else knowing.

Richard

It's been a few weeks since he discovered his guardians secret, but he's still not used to seeing the man up close and in full costume. Anger bubbles up from the bottom of his lungs, creeping up his throat, but he presses his lips into a fine line, not letting the words come out. He can't be angry right now. StarFire gives his shoulder a squeeze. She's standing a step behind him. She knows what this man took from him. He'd explained when he told her about Raven, and she understood his rage like it was his own. Not only had he prevented him from getting his revenge, but he'd also help separate him from the two people who mean the most to him. It may as well be his fault that Raven jumped in front of the truck. If Garfield and he had been there... It wouldn't have happened. He'd have made sure it didn't happen...

They stand on the roof of the hospital. Batman crosses his arms over his chest, his stance annoyed an impatient. Richard crosses his arms over his chest too, because an icy breeze chills them. His fingers tingle with the cold and he presses them tighter to his chest.

"It's past your curfew," he says.

"It's not a school night," Richard argues.

"Go home," Batman says, unwilling to even retort a proper argument.

"Fine," They're done for the night anyway. He hadn't even meant to stay out past curfew, they'd simply lost track of time when Victor found a lead. With his internet sleuthing skills and nothing but free time on his hands Victor had scanned through thousands of news articles revolving around the time of the fire and more recently. He'd noticed a pattern. More and more people were going missing in Gotham. Thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people go missing in Gotham every year. This by itself is not news, but tonight Victor had started mapping it. Through this map he had noticed a twenty-mile radius of a significant number of people going missing in one of the shittier parts of town. Once he noticed the trend, he looked into the dates they went missing. In that twenty-mile circle, the number of people who'd gone missing had nearly doubled after the fire at the orphanage. Within the last few weeks the number was even more increasing. Thirty people had gone missing just last week. In a few days Richard would find a way to get over there with Garfield and StarFire, to see for themselves, to talk to people on the streets. Someone must know something. Someone must have seen something. That many people don't go missing without a trace. It's impossible.

Batman had promised him the Justice League was looking into it, but Richard knows the Justice League has a lot on their plate. Batman alone has a lot on his plate. If they were really dedicated to figuring out what happened and finding her, they would have done it already. With all of their resources and skills, why didn't they notice the twenty-mile radius Victor found so quickly? Why didn't they already find those murderers? Richard doesn't need their help. He can do this without them, with his own team.

"We will depart now," StarFire says.

"Good," Batman takes that as his cue to leave. He turns and they watch him jump from the roof, scaling halfway down the building before jumping onto a lower rooftop. Richard turns to StarFire.

"Thanks again for your help," Richard says. StarFire just met him and she's got an entire new planet to explore, plus the grief of what happened to her people. Her friendship and loyalty to him have not gone unnoticed.

"No thanks is needed," she says. "I cannot wait to do the hanging out before the team meeting tomorrow!" He smiles. He'd told her he'd show her some cool places in Gotham, but he still hadn't exactly chosen what they'd do. They'd been spending a lot of time hanging out in the hospital and while StarFire hadn't complained, he had seen her stare out the window longingly and he knew Wonder Woman, who she was temporarily staying with, had been too busy to show her much of the city.

"I'll meet you at your apartment at ten," he says.

"It is a plan," StarFire gives him a salute, something stupid Garfield had taught her when they were joking around about Richard being the team leader earlier that week.

"Goodnight," With that she takes off. She's not supposed to be flying around the city, the Justice League wanted her to keep a low profile, but StarFire has a hard time not being herself and people where she's from fly when they're happy, so she flies home. He stays on the roof for a few more minutes, taking in the night air and the neon lights that block the stars from view. Nothing in his life has ever gone the way he'd hoped or expected. Most of the time that had been a bad thing, but meeting Garfield, Raven, StarFire and Victor had been unexpectedly good. They're special to him. The constant pain that plagued him since his parent's death has subsided a little and to them, he's grateful. That gratitude is what sends him home, where he's supposed to go, instead of the darkness of Gotham's streets, where he sometimes imagines disappearing.