*Hello, readers! Why is the CyRae community…well, not so active anymore? I just hope you're still 'flying the ship flag' high and enjoy the story. Here is your fourth chapter and as always, thanks for reading and please leave me a review by the end of it!*

CHAPTER FOUR

Raven woke up to the loud sounds of pop and RnB songs coming from the stereo. A familiar smell filled her nostrils and she stood up, following it to the kitchen. Inside, she saw Cyborg, shaking his lower half to the rhythm and pouring his pancake mix on the pan once again.

"Hey." She said, standing at the doorway.

"I see you weren't jokin' about stalking bein' a new habit after all, uh?" Cyborg said, giving her a wide, hearty smile. Raven shrugged and took a seat at the small table. "How many pancakes do you want?"

"Just one."

"Tsk. How can you stay at only one? One equals none!"

"I think our appetites might be just a little different." She replied, arching an eyebrow.

"Little witch, you'd better eat well today, 'cause we got a long day ahead of us!"

"Long as in…?"

"We got work to do."

OOO-OOO-OOO-OOO-OOO

"Oh, boy…" Raven mumbled upon taking a look at the Titan Tower. She couldn't really believe that that's how it had become after they left. She hadn't returned to the Tower ever since the split-up, trying to leave the past behind, but seeing it filthy and filled with ugly graffiti made her chest feel tense. She noticed that some windows over the entrance were broken.

"I think we might have some…pests." Cyborg said, folding his arms.

"Good thing I brought pesticide." Raven said, summoning two black orbs over her hands and flying to the entrance. Cyborg smiled playfully and joined her, passing his Titan pager over the door's locking system. Though the team was no longer together, the door still only recognized their pagers and slid open silently. A gush of dusty wind made Raven wrinkle her nose.

In a few moments, they had reached their main room, confirming that the broken windows were from there. The place smelled badly and the same ugly graffiti 'decorated' the walls on the inside as well. When they had vacated the Tower, they had taken their belongings with them and Robin had taken most of the electronic equipment but the duo soon realized with a quick look around that whatever equipment had been left behind was either destroyed or taken out and, probably, sold somewhere.

"My heart aches when I see this place, man…" Cyborg said, shaking his head. "My beautiful couch, my precious kitchen!"

"It is bad indeed, man." Raven replied when they heard some footsteps coming from the corridor that led to their rooms. A group of approximately a dozen guys appeared. They were dressed in dark colors and appeared to be what she often heard Robin describe as 'thugs'.

"Looks like we got company, guys…" One of them said, drawing a pen knife out of his pocket, followed by the rest of them.

Raven rolled her eyes and sighed. "Leave."

"This is our house, babe." Another said and Raven's eyebrow twitched. "We ain't gonna be leavin' any time soon."

"She isn't joking, folks." Cyborg said, grinning playfully.

"Oh, the robot speaks, guys!" One said and Raven snorted, surprising Cyborg a bit.

"He speaks alright." She said. "And trust me, he isn't going to stick to words if you don't get the hell out of here."

"Or else what?" The first one said, giving Raven a head-to-toe look.

"Or else I'll make the hell in here."

Just as the guy was ready to signal his comrades, Raven's eyes turned red and she flew up, black magic ruffling her cape around wildly. The guy stumbled back and fell down. Cyborg laughed loudly and soon, the whole group of them was jumping out of the broken windows in sheer terror. "And don't come back!" Cyborg shouted, standing near the edge of their escape route.

"That was fun." Raven commented, half-smiling. Cyborg half-smiled back, liking seeing her active and enjoying herself.

"Let's take a look at the rest of the house." He said and they started taking a stroll around the chambers.

When they reached Raven's room, she was pleasantly surprised to see that it was probably empty while she was gone, meaning that no uninvited guest had inhabited it. "Probably crept them out even without your weird stuff…" Cyborg mumbled and Raven huffed. The rest of the rooms, mostly the boys', were filled with empty beer cans, dirty clothes, some old cell phones and left in a dreadful state, as the carpets and every other cloth had been torn and any remaining furniture was not respected either. Cyborg's lab's walls were painted over and over with the names of –he guessed- the thugs, but other than that and the beer cans, it was okay. He had made sure to take every piece of technology he owned with him when he left.

"Where do you want to start from?" Cyborg asked when they had inspected the entirety of the building.

"You go buy what we need, I'll take care of the outside."

"Roger that!" He said winking and left for the shopping district. Once he was gone, Raven grabbed the backpack he left behind and took the cleaning materials out. She wasn't exactly familiar with household chores, but she was familiar with magic, and she knew a few tricks that could help her out. She grabbed the window-cleaning spray bottle and flew outside, to the top of the tower. Most of the windows only needed a quick clean, just the lower side and the walls at the sides needed to have the graffiti removed. Itching to try a new trick she had come up with, she unscrewed the bottle's top and magically carried the entire liquid out. Summoning some more of her magic, she blended the liquid with the black substance, magically enhancing it and unifying it with the magic. With one swift, upward motion of her hands, every Tower surface was covered with a black magic veil. Raven moved her hands again, and the magic veil shook lightly and started getting wavy, resembling curtains that caressed windows. A few seconds later it disappeared, leaving the windows sparkly. She took a look down, and saw that most of the paint left on the glass was gone. She smiled to herself and went back inside, to do them from the inside as well.

For some reason Cyborg didn't know, he had turned his head back when walking to the shops and he was actually glad he did. He hadn't expected to see the whole Tower turning black, but in just a few seconds, it had returned to normal and the sun rays that hit it were reflected, appearing like sparks on its surfaces. It was clean again. He grinned widely, seeing what an amazing and quick work Raven had done. But that was her, he thought. Even though she didn't think so, she made things so much easier most of the times and he was very much glad to have her with him now.

OOO-OOO-OOO-OOO-OOO

By the time Cyborg was done replacing the broken windows and checking the aluminum frames, Raven had went back to her apartment, returned with ten of her books along, searched them meticulously and found the perfect charm to repair all of the cloths that had been ruined.

"So, you're tellin' me that you need to meditate just to make some stitches on the couch?" Cyborg asked, confused.

"I'm telling you that I will be magically repairing every single piece of cloth inside the tower. That means curtains, carpets, couch covers, the remaining sheets, pillows, everything. These are a lot of objects."

"Oh, right. I remember that you give a piece of your soul to whatever object you magically interact with, right."

"Exactly. So, I will meditate to make some space in my mind. It won't take too long, so give me half an hour."

"Take your time, Rae! I'll just work on the kitchen."

Raven nodded and levitated herself, crossing her legs and laying her hands on her knees. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos…" She whispered and drifted to the depths of her mind.

Cyborg moved to the kitchen corner and ran his fingers over the counters. They sure were an awful lot dusty but dusting was the last thing he would do. For now, he had to repair the rickety cupboards and check the oven which, luckily, hadn't been removed; he guessed due to the fact that it was too heavy and, well, just an oven. Just as he opened the first cupboard, whose first hinge was completely torn off, his eye caught something at the back which he immediately recognized; Raven's tea box. He supposed not even the thugs wanted to drink that tea and huffed to himself, turning to look at his fellow titan.

Raven's beauty wasn't one that stroke someone at the first time they met; yet it was there and Cyborg realized he felt its presence quite strongly. She didn't have the typical 'pretty girl' face or characteristics, but she was, for Cyborg at least, quite beautiful. Small lips, cute nose, big, piercing eyes and pale skin, all framed perfectly by her purple hair, which, he now noticed, had gotten fairly long during the time they hadn't seen each other. She looked tranquil, floating there, meditating and before he allowed his thoughts to drift that way, he pulled himself back together and focused on the cupboards he needed to fix.

Time flew by, replacing hinges and screwing handles in, and Raven came out of her limbo, landing gracefully on the dirty floor. "I'm ready." She announced and Cyborg closed the cupboard he was working on.

"Let's see it!"

Raven stood behind the couch and outstretched her hands, as her eyes shone brightly. "Pallium Totum Reparo Rex!"

Black magic threads appeared on every cloth Cyborg could see. The couch pillows, the shreds of the carpet they had, the remains of some curtains, the tablecloths, everything, was filled with magic streaks which, like tiny snakes, worked their way around the strings of the fabric, patching everything back together. The process must have lasted around a minute, but for Raven and Cyborg, it sure seemed like more. Raven lowered her hand and observed the result.

"Seems it cleans as well…"

"Yeah!" Cyborg said excitedly, seeing how almost everything had returned to how it used to be, not only in shape, but in color too. He grinned widely and turned to the oven, as Raven glided towards the corridor to –he guessed- observe the rooms. When she got back, she was holding a big plastic bag filled with clothes in her arms. She placed it in front of the door. "What'd you got, Rae?"

"Our guests' clothes were cleaned and repaired as well. I suppose we should hand them out to a charity, right?"

Cyborg nodded smiling.

OOO-OOO-OOO-OOO

Cyborg fell heavily on the couch and exhaled deeply. "Boy, that was a long day indeed!"

Raven joined him and sighed. "Yes…"

"But, it is startin' to feel like home again, isn't it?"

"I think so."

"Just a little more things to buy and fix and repaint and we'll be done!"

"And then there's three people we need to bring inside for the ensemble to be complete."

"That's the easy part!"

"Easy…"

"Yeah, Rae. What makes you think they haven't missed us too?"

Raven shrugged. "Maybe they moved on well."

"Hell no. I'm a gazillion percent sure."

"If you say so…"

"So, is it safe to say that once this place is decent we'll move back?"

"Without the others?"

"The others will come. If we stay back here, we'll keep the place tidy and coordinate our plan better. So, what do you say?"

"Why not? My room here is much better than my current apartment, so I have nothing to lose." She yawned.

"And then we'll start talkin' to the others. Who do you think we should contact first?"

"I don't know, Beast Boy?"

"Mm, that's what I was thinkin' too. I mean, Robin is a bit proud and stubborn and Starfire's in another planet. I bet Beastie's wanting to get back together just as much as we do, so it can't be too hard to convince him, right?"

"We'll see when the time comes."

"Yeah, sure. But, Rae, do you want me to, like, talk to him to alone or-"

"No." Raven said decisively. "It will be fine, Cyborg."

"Okay, okay, since you say so…"

"Good."

Cyborg turned his gaze on the sun setting on the horizon and the fluffy clouds that turned different colors as the time went by. Not taking his eyes from the view, he kept on babbling. "I'll start bringin' my stuff here from tomorrow. The lab isn't goin' to set up itself and I'm tellin' you, it isn't easy putting it up. All these chords and machinery are quite complicated, you know. But I suppose I can have it ready in half a day or so. Yeah. Half a day should be enough. I need to carry them first, though. Ugh, that might take a while. Hm." He looked at Raven from the corner of his eye.

The sorceress had rested her head on the couch's arm and was breathing slowly and softly. She had fallen asleep. Half-smiling, he got up and removed a loose hoodie from the pile of cleaned clothes for the charity. He gently placed it over her and reclaimed his seat, congratulating himself for remembering to bring some food along, as, as it seemed, he'd spend the night there as well.

*A light-hearted chapter, just to start bringing the Titan stuff together! On the spell I used some latin words and stuff, don't mind it too much, I improvised! Anyway, I hope you liked this and I also hope I'll be updating soon!*