Replacement
Chapter Two

)O(

Raven sat in the window seat, leaning against the plastic walls of the cabin, and staring out the window, watching the dark expanse of sea below her as if it was the most interesting sight in the world. Wally was beginning to understand that she didn't like a whole lot of social interaction, either one-on-one or in a group setting. She hadn't joined in on breakfast, barely nodded a greeting to Aqualad when he returned from Atlantis, and hadn't said much of anything to the Young Justice, except maybe Wally. The only time she ever said something, it was about their mission, and that was no way to build a friendship.

Man, he had seriously fucked up that whole friendship thing.

"Order your thoughts, Wally." She turned to face him, eyes dark. "I'm already bombarded with three hundred other passengers' emotions, you shouldn't be one of them."

He sighed and leaned back into his seat, paging through the SkyMall in his seat pocket. "It's not my fault M'Gann couldn't get the BioShip to hold all ten of us. And that stupid Batman wants us to be as low profile as possible." He glanced across the rows to see Starfire and Robin chatting up a storm. Lucky bastard. At least he got to have a real conversation with a real girl, and not whatever the heck Raven was.

"No, it's not." Raven returned her stare to the window, lips tugging down into a frown. "But it is your fault for being so… emotional."

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Well, excuse me for being normal."

"I'm trying, but you make it so difficult." Her eyes flitted to their teammates for a moment, before turning back to him. "Sorry I'm not enchanting or feminine enough for you. I'll make a note of that for any future missions."

Wally cringed. Empath. He needed to start remembering she was an empath. "You're rude."

"I'm rude?" She turned to him and barked out a shred of humorless laughter, her eyes filled with several unrecognizable emotions. Not good. Wally really needed to watch what he said to people, especially her. "Coming from the man who thinks I'm out to undermine his team… I cannot believe that you think I'm rude."

Wally, rather than be the bigger man and step down from the argument, became defensive. "Yes, you're rude. You infiltrate my team, you read my thoughts, and you've been picking fights with me. All of that pretty damn rude in my book." Okay, some of that was a little stretched, but this girl was getting on his last nerve.

"Sorry I'm a nuisance." Raven's lips twitched into a frown. She reached up and turned off her reading light, bathing her in a weird, diffused glow from the other passengers' lights. "Next time we fight to save the world, I'll make sure to keep all my faults in check for you." She turned away from him, and closed her eyes. "I'm going to sleep. Please leave me alone for the rest of the trip."

Wally winced and stared at her face, feeling guilt rise into his chest. He shouldn't be so damn hard on her. The Teen Titans were just trying to do their job, and it wasn't their fault that they weren't strong enough to fight Deathstroke on their own. He should have been more receptive and more sympathetic to the team, but there was something inside Raven that set him on edge. That cool calmness, the quick, snide remarks, the stoic pragmatism… something about all of that made him feel uncomfortable and itchy, and his first instinct was to run from her.

Of course, there was nowhere to run to on a plane several thousand feet in the sky.

Wally sighed and settled back into his seat, staring at the weird pattern on the seat fabric in front of him. Just forty eight more hours and then this mission would be over. The intel would be collected, Wally would be done with Raven, and everyone would be free to go their separate ways. And he would never have to see her again, thank God.

Although…

He glanced over at Raven and frowned. Something in his chest seemed to twist and tangle as he thought of never seeing the Titans again. Okay, they were annoying, disorganized, and had no leadership from any of the League… but at the end of the day, they were the Young Justice's peers and comrades-in-arms. And, aside from Raven and all her odd character traits, the rest of the team was pretty okay to be around. Beast Boy could be kind of funny, Cyborg was crazy smart when it came to pretty much anything, and Starfire was nice to look at.

"Wally?"

Speaking of which…

He jerked and stared up at the tall, slender girl next to him. She flashed him a too-bright smile and cocked her head to the side, hair falling softly over her shoulder. "I wish to sit next to my friend Raven for a little bit, if you do not mind." Her voice dropped to a whisper and she leaned close to his ear. "And Robin wishes to discuss some important things with you. About the mission."

"Oh." He stood up and slid into the aisle. "Be my guest."

"Thank you!" Starfire dropped into the seat and started chattering on to Raven, who opened one eye and stared at her. Finally, both eyes opened and she looked up at Wally with an expression that sat somewhere between pleading and resentful. He just waved and walked down the aisle towards Robin, hearing a quiet curse drop from her lips. Serves her right for reading his emotions without his permission.

"Hey, Wally."

Wally dropped into the seat next to Robin and let loose of a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. There was a long pause before he stared at his friend. "Please tell me we're almost there… I don't know how much more of that girl I can take."

"Who? Raven?" Robin shrugged. "She seems nice. Quiet, but nice. She's got a lot of really good tactical ideas."

"She's rude and mean." Wally leaned back into the seat and grumbled under his breath. "And she keeps feeling my emotions. Do you know how annoying that is to have someone keep feeling your emotions and then telling you to stop feeling? Well, I'm sorry I think she's annoying, but it's not my fault she can feel it. Maybe she should stop barging in on my brain."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "Dude, are you done? You've been complaining about her since last night." Wally jerked in surprise. Had he really been complaining that much about her? Sure he'd made a few quips here and there, but for a whole day? That wasn't like him at all. Robin rubbed his forehead in annoyance. "Look, I know you don't want to help them, but in case you haven't noticed we're on a plane to Taipei, I don't think we have much of a choice anymore. We're helping them, whether you want to or not."

"I never said I didn't want to help them." Wally frowned at his friend. He wasn't that mean. Okay, he was suspicious and kind of irritated with the Teen Titans, but that didn't mean he didn't want to help them. He just wanted some normalcy back in his life. "I'm just upset that everyone was paired up with someone… normal and I got stuck with her."

Robin snorted. "Normal? What part of any of us is normal?"

Wally shrugged. Okay, that was a good point, but that still didn't mean he wasn't jealous. After all, Robin got to spend his time chatting it up with a hot, redheaded alien. Wally got the creepy goth girl, because he just lucked out. "It's just not fair that you get to be with Starfire on this mission."

"Seriously?" Robin rolled his eyes. "That's what you're upset about? Starfire might be cute, but she's a lot of work to keep in check. She's got super alien strength and wants to touch anything fluffy. I basically had to tackle her in the airport to keep her from stealing some poor kid's stuffed animal. And she's smart. Like, can-quote-relative-theories kind of smart, and she can prattle on about the effects of gamma waves of the fabric of space-time like she's discussing a romantic movie. That's annoying. Do you know how dumb she makes me feel?"

Wally snorted. "Well, at least someone can knock you down a few pegs."

"Stop being an asshole." Robin glanced over at the two girls and shook his head. "I'd give anything not to have to babysit an alien who could disembowel me with flick of her wrist." There was a long pause and he looked back at Wally. "She can't be that bad. And, besides, Cy told me that Raven's the toughest fighter out of all of them, and you're lucky to have her as your teammate."

"Her?" Wally snorted and glanced across the plane to Raven. She was gritting her teeth as Starfire animatedly talked her, waving her hands and shouting on occasion. They were an odd pair of friends. He turned back to Robin and shook his head. "She's about two inches above being considered a midget and has the muscle mass of a twig. She can't be that tough."

"Strength isn't always skin and bones."

"Awe, that's nice… the Bats tell you that one?"

Robin flushed and rolled his eyes again. "Seriously, dude… stop being an ass." There was a long pause between them, and Robin sighed. "I'm serious though, Wally. You need to be nicer to her. The mission will go a lot smoother if you two would just get along."

"Jeez, you sound like a mother hen." Wally stood up and stretched, glancing around the plane at the other sleeping passengers. It had to be at least another seven hours before they landed, and he needed rest and calories if he was going to be on his A-game in Taipei. "I better get back to my seat before the air-marshal starts thinking we're doing something weird."
Robin smirked up at him. "You just want to avoid the fact that I'm right."

"Stop being such a brat." Wally rolled his eyes and started for his seat. Starfire seemed to sense him coming, and she quickly finished her story with Raven before standing up. Her arms wrapped around his midsection and squeezed the breath right from his lungs. No wonder Raven steered clear of her! She could kill you with a hug.

"Thank you very much, Friend Wally!" She let go and Wally managed to grab a few, deep breaths of precious air. "Oh, it was most enjoyable to spend time with Raven!"

Wally, who was doubled over still trying to breathe, looked from Starfire to Raven and back again. Raven was hiding a smirk, but she kept quiet. Cheeky girl. He smiled at Starfire and managed to pull himself upright. "Sure. Don't worry about it. I'm glad you two had fun."

Starfire ran off towards Robin and Wally flopped back into his seat. "Is she always like that?"

"She's holding back because there are humans here." Raven chuckled, which was slow and deep. Almost husky. Wally felt shivers run down his spine at the sound. "Normally she'd be much louder and giddier… if you can imagine that."

No, he couldn't. That was just too scary a thought. Raven took a deep breath and let it out slowly, glancing over at Robin and Starfire. She had taken to resting her head on his shoulder as she slept, and Robin's face burned a bright red in response. Lucky bastard.

"So, what did he want?"

Wally glanced over at her and shrugged. "Just to tell me to keep it together, this mission is important." Well, that wasn't exactly a lie. Right?

"I don't need you to baby me, Wally." Raven's eyes slid close and she leaned against the window again, adjusting herself for sleep. "I know you don't like me, and I understand why. You don't need to pretend to make me feel better. We're adults, we can agree to disagree and move on with our lives."

"That's not it." Wally sighed and rolled his eyes. It was going to be really annoying if she was always this damn perceptive about him.

"Oh?" Raven smirked, but her eyes didn't open. "So, our conversation the other evening wasn't true?"

He leaned back into his seat and watched her. "I'm suspicious of you, but that doesn't mean I hate you."

Raven's eyes slowly opened and she looked at him for a long while. Wally fidgeted under her gaze, it felt a bit like she was taking apart his soul and slowly piecing it back together, trying to understand what made him tic. She sighed and cocked her head to the side in frustration. "In spite of everything I told you last night. You're still suspicious of us?"

"Yes." Wally saw a strange emotion flash across her eyes before disappearing. It looked a bit like pain. He cringed. Sometimes, he just needed to swallow his pride and listen to Robin. He really did need to be nicer to her. "But I don't want to be."

The silence between them turned thick, and Wally watched a small, almost seductive smile pull across her lips. Not for the first time, he was drawn to the delicate slash of her mouth and he felt his tongue wet his lips before he could stop himself. Seriously, what was wrong with him?

"So don't be. It's that easy."

"Give me a reason to trust you." Wally nearly choked on his own tongue. That was stupid.

Raven just chuckled and pressed her face closer to his. Her smile had morphed from seductive to sinister, and she dropped her voice to a whisper. "I'm not killing you right now… isn't that enough?"

Wally stared into her eyes, trying desperately to not notice that she smelled like fresh lavender and black tea. Instead, he was trying to focus on the fact that his life was in serious danger, and if he didn't choose his next words carefully, he was dead. Or worse, castrated. "Yes… yes it is."

"Good." Raven slid back into her seat and closed her eyes.

Wally breathed a sigh of relief, glad to know he had cheated death, at least for a little while.

)O(

Raven wrapped both hands around her tea cup and stared at the unassuming two story building down the street. Pressed against its concrete sides, were ordinary houses with small families, some shops, and a few restaurants. The street was nearly empty, except for the occasional kid or the stray cat. It looked exactly like a suburb should look, so why did Lex Luthor have an ultra secure server out here of all places? Why not somewhere where information was readily accessible and business prevalent? It just didn't make any sense.

"Weird." Wally was slurping noodles loudly next to her, and Raven fought against the urge to roll her eyes. If he didn't need those calories to function, she would have broken the bowl over his head already. "Why here… I mean… it's a suburb. You would think he'd want this information somewhere… I don't know, where things actually happen."

"I was curious about the same thing." Raven chewed on her lip and looked over at her temporary teammate. He'd been relatively civil since she threatened his life on the plane, and working with him had started to become almost enjoyable. Except for the snarky comments, and the incessant slurping. She sighed. "Do you have to be so loud?"

He shrugged. "No, but being quiet takes the fun out of it."

Raven raised an eyebrow. "It also makes you sound like a human, and not like an animal."

"Ha ha. Very funny." Wally rolled his eyes and dug out the last few noodles in the murky broth. He slurped them down and leaned back into his seat, staring at the building with Raven. "So, what's the plan then… we just wait until we see some massive explosion from downtown and hope that's Kal and Beast Boy?"

"No." Raven pulled her communicator from her sweatshirt pocket. "Cy made these up for us awhile ago. When Kaldur and Beast Boy set off the diversion it will trigger an alert on my communicator and we head in."

"Huh…" Wally picked up the communicator and examined it. "Cyborg made these? How long is their range?"

Raven raised an eyebrow. "All over the world, they're linked via satellite."

"That's cool…" He handed her communicator back to her, and shrugged. "M'Gann links us all telepathically, and it's useful… but it's got a limited range, and sometimes I really hate sharing my thoughts with everyone, especially if we're all fighting at once. It gets distracting." He seemed to ponder something for a moment before looking back at Raven. "Plus, I really hate listening to Suberboy drone on and on about protecting M'Gann, it kinda makes me sick."

"I can't imagine listening to a lover's tiff via telepathic link is any fun, or be useful during battle." Raven shuddered. The thought of sharing her mind with anyone made her ill, let alone her friends during the heat of battle. There were all kinds of skeletons locked in a closet for a reason, and her friends didn't need to know about them. Silence settled over them again. She took a long sip of tea and continued to stare out the window, waiting patiently for the communicator to go off.

"I'm sorry."

Raven jerked in surprise, nearly spilling tea over herself. She looked over at Wally, who was staring out the window as well, lips pulled down into a frown. He gave her a sidelong glance, and Raven felt something slither under her skin at the sight of his freakishly green eyes.

"I mean it…" He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "I know I'm kind of annoying to work with, and I know I've been kind of mean to you lately… I just get worried about stupid shit. And you're at the center of my anger, but you shouldn't be. This isn't your fault… it isn't anyone's fault. And I've been stupid and selfish thinking you want my place… so, I'm sorry."

"Oh." Raven blinked at him, trying to keep herself from sounding shocked. It seemed like an impossible task. Wally had spent the last two days picking fights with her, so to have him suddenly apologize, and actually mean it, threw Raven off guard. "I… thank you? I guess I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything." Wally gave an awkward, one-shouldered shrug. "I just wanted you to know."

Raven opened her mouth to respond, but her communicator started flashing. She sighed and stood up, and Wally followed suit, the conversation fading into the severity of their current situation. This was not going to be easy or fun. "Come on, we're accessing the roof via two buildings down."

"Right." Wally held open the door for her and they slid into the night. In the distance, Raven could hear an explosion rattle the ground and surrounding buildings. A few people had poked their heads out of windows or doors and looked toward the sight of smoke spiraling from a building downtown. Whatever Kaldur and Beast Boy did, it worked. All eyes were turned toward the downtown area, including civilians and local police, and no one seemed to notice the pair of teens inching toward the unguarded, nondescript office building.

The two of them slid into a small alleyway a few buildings down from the office. The sound of far-away sirens echoed loudly in the tight space, reminding them that the clock was still ticking. It would only be a few more minutes before Lex Luthor turned suspicious and his eyes moved toward the other servers. Raven offered Wally her hand. "Come on, up to the roof."

Wally looked from her to her hand and winced. "I hate flying."

"It's two stories…"

He rolled his eyes. "It's the feeling of nothing solid beneath my feet, it makes me sick."

"Ugh…" Raven rubbed her forehead. "Will you just grab my hand and shut up? We're going to miss our opportunity if we don't act soon." She continued to stare at him until he slid his hand into her own, mumbling curses under his breath. His fingers were warm and a little calloused, and something about the contact made Raven blush and her heartbeat quicken. What was wrong with her? Furthermore, what was wrong with him? She never had this problem with Beast Boy or Cyborg…

Shaking her head of the thoughts, she whispered her mantra under her breath and flew them both to the roof. Wally suddenly looked a bit green and he sat down on the ledge of the roof to regain his composure. What a baby. "Suck it up, Wally, we don't have time. And shed your street clothes."

"I know." He stood up and began peeling off his clothes to reveal his uniform hidden underneath. "Jeez, Raven… you're so damn bossy."

"Well, someone has to keep you in check." Raven was about to make another snide remark, but it died on her lips as she looked over at him, undressing quickly. This was not the first time Raven had seen him in his uniform, and it wasn't her first time watching a boy undress (Beast Boy had a nasty habit of forgetting he lived with two girls), but that didn't make the situation any less awkward. And it certainly didn't keep Raven from casting sideways glances at him. He may have been annoying, frustrating, and a whole world of cocky and rude, but that didn't mean he wasn't shaped nicely.

Very nicely.

As a young woman, Raven was inclined to notice these things.

"What?" Wally crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her. "You're staring at me like you're going to rip my head off any minute." Well, that wasn't exactly the analogy Raven would have used, but it was fairly close. He shook his head and sighed. "Come on, you're the one that said we were running behind."

Raven winced as she was thrown, full force, back into the present. The mission. She had to focus on the mission, after all, that was the whole reason behind why she was stuck here, on a rooftop, at night with Kid Flash. She was trusted with an important job, and she couldn't keep her humanity in check. "Sorry, I was distracted for a moment." She shed the rest of her street clothes and motioned towards the office building, a few rooftops away. "After you."

"You first." Wally rolled his eyes and pointed to the sky. "Just fly and double check ground patrol and air patrol. Make sure we're not getting in over our heads and there aren't more guards than we can handle, okay?"

"Now, look who's being bossy?" Raven rolled her eyes again and took to the sky. The street was empty, the sidewalks around the building were empty, the sky was empty, and even the windows were empty. Not a light or shadow from a security guard or nighttime worker. There was no one there. A shiver ran down her spine as she stared at the dark windows, something felt off about this building. If this building really did house a super secret server like it was supposed to, shouldn't there at least be a security guard? Maybe even a video camera or two?

There was nothing, and that scared her more than a thousand security guards.

It just felt too easy, and something in the situation set Raven's teeth on edge. But, what choice did she have? She couldn't abandon an important mission like this, just because it felt weird. There was too much at stake, and she needed to complete this mission. She sighed and dropped down to the rooftop again. "We're clear."

Wally raised an eyebrow, suspicious. "Clear? As in…what? Is there one guard? Two? More?"

"There's none." Raven pushed hair out of her eyes and looked over at the building, still feeling uneasy. "Not even a video camera."

"Uh… and that doesn't sound kinda weird to you?"

"Of course it does! But we can't mess this up, we've got one shot before they move this server, so either we make the move now or we lose our opportunity all together. And I am not going to be the one explaining to the Justice League that we didn't complete our mission because it felt too easy." She poked a finger into his chest and crowded his space. "So, shut up and move it."

"You are bossy." Wally didn't say anything else and jumped across the rooftops to the building. As soon as his feet touched the pebbled tar, Raven expected sirens to ring out across the night. But it stayed quiet and still, the only sound of chaos coming from the downtown area. It just wasn't right.

They entered the building with no problem, the roof access door wasn't even locked. And they strolled through empty offices and hallways. It was an office ghost town, filled with cubicles with no desks and no chairs, flickering, yellowing florescent lights, and the smell of old carpet and stale coffee. Most of the ceiling tiles had been stained, and a few of them had come down all together. At no point in the recent past had this building ever been used as an office, it was mean solely to house the server.

"This is really creepy…" Wally's voice was barely above a whisper, but it sounded like a shout in the emptiness of the building. "Like… Night of the Living Dead creepy…"

Raven rolled her eyes. "We're not battling zombies, Wally. We're just here for the intel."

"I know." He shrugged. "But, that doesn't take away from the creepiness factor."

Raven couldn't argue that. She ignored his rambling and pushed between a set of steel doors, which led to an antechamber outside where the server was supposed to be held. The room was carpeted in black, painted in gray, and was the only room that didn't smell thirty years old. Someone had been working here recently, but who and for what purpose?

"The server should be through the door." Raven pointed to a door at the end of the room. "We go, access the information, and leave. That's it. We have… maybe five minutes before Luthor starts securing all of his servers and we're locked out of the system and potentially found."

Wally paled slightly. "That can't be good."

"It's not. So, we have to work as quickly as possible to make sure that we can get out and stay safe." Raven took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "If you have any reason to panic, let me know and I'll make sure to get us out of here as quickly as I can. Okay?"

"Got it." Wally pushed open the door and led them inside. Towers upon towers of servers stood linked together in a forest, the connection cables twisting around them like vines on trees. Wally's face fell. "Holy shit… there's no way we're going to be able to get through this data quick enough. It'll take us at least a year to figure out what server we need to connect to."

"Cyborg already thought of that." She pulled out her communicator again and hooked it up to the nearest server. The screen lit up as it pushed a program into the servers, hunting for information. "He created a virus-like program that will sift through and attack any files that are excessively encrypted or coded as 'Top Secret'. These servers in this building should all be linked together, so it shouldn't take us more than a few minutes to locate and access the file."

"Well, we better do it quickly…" He shivered and looked around the room, coated in an eerie, blue light. "I've got a seriously bad feeling about being here."

"You're still trying to treat this like a monster movie, aren't you?" He shrugged in response and Raven rolled her eyes. "Well, stop it."

She turned away from him and watched her communicator, trying to locate any anomalies in the code that flashed across the screen. There wasn't a whole lot of useful information, and for the most part, it all seemed to be pretty boring info. Tax files, expense reports, rental contracts to buildings in cities all over the world, how much Lex Luthor took as his personal salary… wait… that wasn't right. She slid her fingers cross the buttons of her communicator, her stomach dropping to the floor.

That was exactly what Raven didn't want to find. "Wally… look at this… it's a list of some of the most notorious adversaries the Justice League ever faced."

"What?" Wally moved toward her side and looked down into the screen. Names upon names scrolled across the small display. Aliases, current locations, detailed notes on powers and vendettas. It was a spreadsheet for almost every known, live villain in the world. "Are you for real? There has to be over a hundred names of villains on this list, what would Luthor want with all of them? I mean, he doesn't even like the Joker. At least… not that I know of."

"I don't know what this is for…"

"And you shouldn't."

Raven whipped around to find the cool, smooth blade of a sword pressed against her throat. Of course it was too easy, because Lex Luthor had hired the best security system available. Deathstroke. She stilled and stared up into his masked face, feeling the sinister smile slowly creep across his lips.

"Hello, little demon… it certainly has been a long time."

)O(

So, there is chapter two. Once again, I'm not sure how well I proof-read this, but please leave a review. I love to hear your thoughts.