A/N: Boy this one was hard to write...well, not hard, but...difficult. (That's the same thing, isn't it? Oh well, you'll see what I mean and the end A/N explains why.

Thanks: Generally: I love to hear what you guys liked in particular about any of my stories and why, so go ahead and continue doing that! It's like a drug to me, seriously. Individually: On emsscraps.

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Estranged
Part V: Raven

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"Stroke of luck or gift from God/ Hand of fate or devil's claws/ From below or saints above/ You come to me now..."
- Stroke of Luck, Garbage

It wasn't until she was back in the warmth of her room, and her uniform had been discarded on the floor en route to the bathroom and she was actually under the hot, nearly scalding spray of the massaging shower head that she thought of something to say. She kicked herself for having walked (or, flown as the case might have been) out of the confrontation so quickly. So what if he didn't want to face her? Since when had she ever run away from telling someone what she thought of them when she thought of them?

Especially when that someone was someone who had acted for all intents and purposes as if she had been the one who had been in the wrong. She wasn't. She knew she wasn't.

And, she wondered starting to revive her anger, what was with the harping on the fact that she left Jump City before he did? It wasn't like she was the only one. They all left. She just...

Well, yes, technically, she might have left him, but it wasn't like she left him. She left Jump and she left her life as a superheroine before, yes, but she didn't intend to leave her friends. She managed to keep relationships with Victor and Garfield and Kori. She even spoke regularly with Roy and Garth and some of the other honorary Titans. Hell, Melvin, Timmy and Teether still called her every weekend and came to stay with her most summers.

She didn't leave anyone. She moved.

What right did he have to make her feel guilty for getting on with her life? For doing something to reach out for her happiness?

After all, it wasn't like he had asked her to stay and she said no.

The Gods knew, if he'd asked her to stay, her life would have turned out very differently.

And as she turned off the water, she ignored the voice inside her that pointed out that his life might have turned out very differently as well.

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By the time she walked out of the shower she had worked herself into a fine state, remembering more than one thing she should have said to the ex-Boy-Wonder. So, understandably, she was halfway to the bed across the rather large junior suite by the time she noticed the cool breeze ruffling her hair. As soon as she did, however, she went completely still and her thoughts screeched to a halt, until there was only the tingling of another aura right behind her. If she had been thinking straight, she might have recognized the aura without turning around. Out of practice and half in shock, she didn't recognize anything except the faint panic of 'intruder!' before she whirled around.

For a moment they stared at each other, as if enthralled. Because she had fully expected never to see him again, the vision of Nightwing crouched, hands on knees and easily balanced on the stone edge of her balcony's balustrade, like some sort of predator, dark straight hair waving in the breeze and eyes fixed right on her seemed impossible and somewhat dreamlike. She had a moment, as her eyes grazed his form, where she was almost certain she must be dreaming, for only in her dreams might he show up as if she had conjured him. In her waking world, no amount of thinking had ever conjured him up before, after all.

And then, her mental lightbulb suddenly turned on, and she realized what he held dangling from the fingers of his right hand. Her eyes snapped to his and the startling crystal blue of his irises on her stopped her breath for a split second. As if he had been waiting for her to meet his eyes, he was suddenly moving. To Raven, it seemed as if a waxwork figure had suddenly come alive. One moment, he was perfect stillness and motionless and the next, he was all fluid movement with that gracefulness he had never lost and obviously only gained with the years. So startling was the fact that he was not only on her balcony but walking toward her, actually entering her room, that it took her a moment to react.

When she did react, however, it was a completely instinctual response and when she found the hard object in her hand, she threw it with startling force and not a moment's hesitation or thought.

Her hairbrush crashed against he wall as he dodged it easily.

"Get out!" she exclaimed.

He stopped advancing, but he didn't leave. Raven was torn between tossing her shoe which was within reach or escaping back into the bathroom and hoping he'd get a clue and leave while she was inside. She knew she could threaten to call security, but she also knew that it wasn't like security would actually pose much of a threat.

And it wasn't until the thought had occurred to her and she had discarded it as useless that she wondered at when she had started to think like a human? Certainly four years ago the fact she had her own powers to make use of wasn't the second thought that entered her mind?

For his part, Nightwing looked a little surprised and like he was trying very hard to make no sudden moves. It was just the way she acted around skittish kids or animals – or unstable chemical compounds. She tried very hard to stop herself from giving in to her anger and surprise and forced the calm that had once been so easy for her to portray but that she now used less and less in her day to day life. In her present life, it was the kind of detached calm that served her well when she had to deliver bad news or when she lost a patient. She had grown to associate that calm with bad things and couldn't help but wonder at the fact she fell back on it when faced with a maskless Nightwing. It was the calm he was used to seeing from her, however. The stoicism and emotionless.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice calm and cool – controlled.

"I came to talk," he answered, still wary, as if he knew it had taken quite a bit of control on her part not to keep throwing things at him until he either went away or she ran out of ammo.

"I thought we tried that already?" she countered, a good dose of sarcasm leaving no doubt as to what she had thought of that attempt.

He raised his eyebrows and it drew her attention back to his bare eyes. Slowly, their eyes locked, he raised the mask in his fingers up between them. Then, with a flick of his wrist, it sailed across the air between them, toward her, so that she automatically caught it before it could hit the ground.

"Not like this," he spoke, his tone still cold, still serious.

She took a moment to feel the fabric of his mask between her fingers. "And what's this supposed to change?" she asked, looking down at contrast of pale flesh and dark material. She scoffed and shook her head. "The mask you wear goes deeper than this scrap of material," she said, tossing the mask away from her, waiting for him to say something.

Instead of replying, he merely stared at her. The look in his eyes giving away nothing, and looking no more alive than if he were wearing the whites of the mask instead.

Uncomfortable with those eyes boring into her, uncomfortable with the situation entirely, she let her frustration show in the way she dropped her hands to her sides. "What do you want from me?" she asked. "What could we have left to say to each other?" she pressed and she was tired. "I already told you I was leaving tomorrow."

As if she had reminded him of something surprising or shocking, some emotion flashed across his expression, too quickly for her to name it, and leaving behind only the trace feeling of emptiness echoing inside her. "You were here for three days," he said and his voice was as flat and empty as hers used to be.

Was he really pissed at her because she had treaded on his terrority for three days? Was that really what this was about? "I barely left the damn hotel for those three days," she spat. "It wasn't until tonight that I put on the uniform," she explained. "But," she added, crossing her arms, her eyes flashing angrily. "Do forgive my intrusion for so long," her voice and tone a mockery of politeness. "Is there a large fine?" she asked caustically.

He took a step toward her but stopped when she took a step back, keeping the distance equal between them. She exhaled as if getting control of herself again.

As if he were thinking very hard of his words and measuring them carefully before speaking, it took him a few moments before he spoke again. "I don't want to fight."

Raven looked skeptical, "Then what do you want?"

His eyes caught and held hers and it seemed to her that the something that had flashed in his expression was there again, in his eyes. She couldn't figure it out and was too tired suddenly to keep trying. He had said he didn't want to fight, but he couldn't answer what he did want. Why did he come to her now, of all times? Why did he have to see her like this? Reminding herself of her state of undress, she started to turn back to the bathroom. She wasn't running away, not really. She had only wanted to get out of the towel into some decent clothing.

Being in a towel hadn't impeded her arguing with him before because she had frankly forgotten that it was what she had been wearing in all the commotion, but when she realized it, she wanted nothing more than getting into something less revealing. It didn't seem fair to her all of a sudden (or, conducive to the equal footing necessary for proper discussions) that here she was arguing while in a fluffy white terry-cloth hotel towel tucked around her body, just barely reaching her upper thighs while he was in full Nightwing armor. So, she turned and started as calmly as she could back to the bathroom door which was still half-ajar from her recent use. She, however, got no more than two steps away before his voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Raven."

She couldn't decide whether it was a note of demand or pleading in his voice but whatever it was, it snapped some reserve inside her and the anger she had fought so hard to push aside surfaced like a wave.

She whirled on the balls of her bare feet to glare at him. "You have no right to use that name or that tone," she said, her anger making an icy frost of her words.

He took a step back unconsciously, but once he realized he had done it, he stood firm. "I just want..." he started, seemingly at a loss.

"What?" she pressed when he took too long for her liking. "What do you want?" the anger was there in her eyes, in the clenched fists and narrow eyes.

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A/N: It's not really a cliffie because I'm going to update this tomorrow with the next part, I promise! I already have plotted and outlined through the end of this, so it shouldn't be long. The hardest part was this part and the next chapter because I kept thinking they should really be angry with each other and show it by screaming and yelling, but the birds just wouldn't cooperate. ((le sigh))

Music: For this chapter, I had to get some deep stuff, some emotional stuff...and some angry stuff. So...

1. Extreme Ways, Moby
2. Far Away, Nickelback (Yes, you've seen this one on the list before, because it's THE theme song for this whole fic, really...)
3. Through Glass, Stone Sour
4. Somewhere Out There, Our Lady Peace
5. What Hurts the Most, Rascall Flatts
6. Estranged, Guns N Roses