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Titans Legacies

Chapter II

Heart to Heart (to Heart)

Was it a knock that awakened her? Mar'i Grayson was still quite fuzzy on that question as she stirred, prematurely, but mercifully, removed from her slumber. Her half-hour nap had been completely accidental, and it certainly would not have happened if she'd had a choice in the matter. Mar'i knew very well that sleep was necessary for good health, but she loathed to be unconscious a minute more than what was necessary for that particular end. For, with every lapse in consciousness, rapid eye movement is possible; and from that comes the dreams that had plagued her since she was a little girl.

"Will it happen to you?" A chill ran down her spine as she willed herself not to cry in reaction to the memories the dream had dug up. It was her own voice, or rather a past version of her voice, which carried the words. She couldn't have been more than six years old at the time she asked the question. Shaking her head, she willed herself to suppress the thoughts. She loathed unconsciousness because the dreams reopened old wounds and made her feel once again a loss which could never be undone.

A knock sounded at the door; yes, it must have been a knock that had awakened her. "Star," the familiar voice of her best friend sounded from the other side of the door, "are you in there?" Tears began to pool in Mar'i's eyes as she heard that familiar name. Red had taken to addressing Mar'i as 'Star' years ago, when she learned that the Tamaranian princess absolutely adored the association with her mother. But at this particular moment, the familiar appellation cut her like a knife.

"Yeah," the raven-haired girl responded as she wiped away the tears and suppressed the emotions that were pressing for release. "I was just taking a nap."

"A nap?" the daughter of Garfield Logan queried. "Are you sure you're not an imposter implanted by a race of super-intelligent space squirrels, who kidnapped the real Mar'i to use her as a hostage to coerce Tamaran into giving them an endless supply of nuts?"

'Where does she get these ideas?' Nightstar thought, perplexed by her best friend's tendency to come up with highly improbable explanations. 'Could be genetic', she thought as she remembered some stories her own father had told her about Garfield Logan. Wiping away her tears, she responded, "no, I just kinda dosed off when I was reading. It happens sometimes; you would know these things if you actually gave reading a chance!"

"I DO SO READ!" Red shouted. "It's just that the books I like tend to be a little spicier than what you're used to."

"Then how come I've never seen you reading one of them?"

"I don't want to spoil your innocence," the changeling said, sticking her tongue out at the door. "Anyhow, could you open the door? I forgot my keycard again!" It was so typically Logan; Mar'i suspected that Lil would probably forget her head if it wasn't attached to her body. She chuckled a bit at the thought, as she got out of her bed and to comply with the request.

"You are soooo you're father's daughter," Mar'i said as she opened the door. Then her eyebrow raised slightly as the door slid shut behind Red. "Why didn't you just shift into an ant and crawl under the door?" It was a good question—the changeling had been as much a snoop as her father was when he was a teenager, and had performed that particular maneuver more times than she could ever hope to recall.

"Didn't feel like it," Lil deadpanned. "All the shifts I did while training kinda tired me out," she said while sitting on her own bed, "and do you have any idea how much it hurts to shift when I run out of stamina? My dad makes it look easy, but when I start running out of energy, the transformations start to take longer, and the pain increases by the same margin." She sighed as her roommate took a seat on the bed across from her. As she inhaled to replace the exhaled air, the young changeling noticed something. "Have you been crying?"

Nightstar paused, not knowing how she wanted to answer the question. However, she should have known better than that, as her crimson friend possessed an extraordinary fluency in body language, and the half-Tamaranian's body language was screaming that she was in the process of considering a lie.

"Remember who I am, Mar'i," Lil said to her obviously troubled friend, "I can smell your tears, I can read every tell you don't even realize you have when you're about to lie to me, and I can tell when something's wrong." The changeling crossed the space between the two beds in their shared living quarters, seating herself close to her friend and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "Hon, we've been best friends since before either of us can remember," she pointed out, "you can always come to me when something's bothering you." She gave her friend's shoulder a squeeze. "Unless I'm what's bothering you," she teased, but then her eyes darkened and her gaze turned to the floor. "But if it was me, you wouldn't have to put up with me for much longer."

"Oh, shut up!" the princess was not amused with the changeling's insinuation that she'd ever been a cause of what was bothering her. "I'll have you know that I could never have wished for a better friend than you. I've just been having some bad dreams."

"You've been having bad dreams for at least as long as we've been sharing a room," Red pointed out.

"How do you know these things!" the daughter of the world's third greatest detective was continually surprised by her friend's occasional displays of what often appeared to be omniscience.

"That's an easy one," the crimson changeling noted. "For one thing, I have inherited from my father the distinction of having the genetic code of the entire Animal Kingdom locked in my body, and, by consequence, my normal senses are often off the chart in comparison to... well, just about anyone I guess. And the sixth sense I have inherited from that genetic cocktail also gives me a sixth sense about emotions that is only slightly weaker than if I had been an empath; have you ever heard that animals can 'smell' fear?"

"Yeah, but I always though that was bull."

"Nope, it's pretty much true, except that 'sense' would be a better word to use than 'smell.' And I'm actually a lot better than my dad when it comes to this sixth sense too; my parents actually had to have Auntie Rae teach me how to block out others' emotions when I was little, because reading everyone's emotions started using up so much of my brainpower that I couldn't think. Plus, on top of all this, I also inherited my mom's limited precognition, which, while it doesn't explain how I know you've been having nightmares, it does explain some of the more difficult-to-explain things about my insights; although I'm much weaker at precognition than my mom is."

"Wow."

"Psht," Red interjected, "it's nothing, really. I'm still a lot less powerful than you are, between your Tamaranian genes and the martial arts training your dad gave you."

"I don't know about that," the princess replied. "I know I'm strong as hell, but I remember when I was little, my dad would occasionally have Uncle Vic and Aunt Sarah babysit me if he had to pick up and help the Batclan with something, and for whatever reason Alfred wasn't available. Vic used to tell me stories about your dad's Beast, and told me that if I wasn't a good girl, he'd tell Gar to unleash it. Normally, I'd suspect that Vic embellished some things," she noted, "but when my dad found out about the empty threats, he had a panic attack. That's enough to tell me that Vic wasn't making things up." The changeling very successfully suppressed a laugh at the thought of Nightwing having a panic attack; from all she'd seen, Dick Grayson and panic attack really didn't belong in the same sentence.

"My dad absolutely loathes that transformation, and he kinda forbade me from even attempting it."

"Why? I mean, that sounds like it would be a hell of an asset to have in a fight."

"He told me he used it a few times as a transformation of last resort, but he doesn't want me to ever even attempt it because that transformation would mean surrendering my capacity to reason. The thought of himself going berzerk in that form and hurting people he cared about scares him enough, he absolutely does not want me to ever use it. In fact, he won't even let me see what it looks like."

"Damn."

"Yeah, I know," Red responded. "Anyhow, don't think this sidetrack made me forget what we were talking about. What kind of dreams have you been having that have been affecting you so strongly?"

"Well," Mar'i bit her lip, really not wanting to talk about it. But she knew her friend only wanted to help, and she had bee bearing this burden for some time. Lord knows her father would never talk with her about it. "I've been dreaming about my mom... about when she was sick... about certain conversations from before she was sick..." Fresh tears began to form in Mar'i's eyes. "It's just been digging up a lot of painful memories."

At that moment, a single emotion came to dominate all of Lillian Logan's being: sympathy. She pulled her friend into a close embrace, and in nearly an instant Mar'i began to literally cry on Red's shoulder. She hated seeing her friend feel so much pain, but she also knew she was ill-equipped to really help her. No, the best she could do would be to let her friend cry on her shoulder. Kissing the raven-haired daughter of Dick Grayson and Koriand'r of Tamaran on the top of the head, and affectionately running her hand up and down her dearest friend's back, she just silently kept the embrace for a long moment. "I wish I knew your mom better," Red broke the silence, "I mean, you know, I did have the honor of meeting her before... But, I was really young and didn't get the chance to really truly know her. Maybe it would help you work through your feelings if you talked to your dad about it."

Holding onto Red like she'd been in a shipwreck and the changeling was the only floating object nearby, Mar'i reined in her tears to give herself an opportunity to respond. "It'd never happen," she lamented, without removing her face from her friend's shoulder. "My dad has never talked to me about my mom, or what happened." Sniffling, she let go of her friend and proceeded to lie back on the bed. "Babs told me once that she had tried, not long after she and my dad had gotten married, to get him to open up about it, and to talk with me about it. She had the same idea I suppose you're having, that if we talked through our feelings and actually celebrated the better things about her life—who she was—that it would help both of us. But my dad absolutely refused." Turning on her side to face her friend, she continued. "Babs said that she thinks it's that it devastated him so profoundly, and then there's Bruce's influence... Bruce never talks about what he's feeling, so I guess my dad just kinda figured that talking about things like that does more harm than good." She paused to give a sad chuckle. "My dad actually almost left Babs at one point, because she was pushing him too hard to open up with me."

Red repositioned herself to lie on her side alongside her friend, facing her. "I wish I could help you."

"What are you doing right now?" Mar'i asked, with a sad smile. "Even just letting things like this out helps a little. Even though I think you're right, I'm probably going to have to talk to someone who knew my mom better, you shouldn't underestimate how much it helps to have you here to listen to me, and to prod things out of me when I need to open up." She embraced her friend once more. "You're more help than you know. I don't know what I would ever do without you."

With that, Red's eyes very noticeably darkened and her gaze focused squarely on the mattress beneath her—or, at least, in its general direction. Mar'i may not have been able to 'smell' emotions, but she didn't need to.

"Red," she addressed her friend while taking her hand between her own, "what did you mean when you said that I wouldn't have to deal with you much longer?"

Now it was Red's turn to start forming tears. It was even worse now; before she had been worried about living without her greatest friend, but now she had been reminded that their friendship was a two-way street and Mar'i needed her as much as she needed Mar'i, if not more so. It took little over a second for her to devolve to bawling her eyes out.

"You..." Mar'i swallowed, "you're not going to hur..."

"No!," Red interrupted. "It's nothing like that. It's just..." She paused to bring her crying under control. "It's just that there's a really good chance that we're gonna be separated soon. Today, my dad got a request from Robin, saying that he needed new members for Titans West. My parents agreed on you, Stonehenge and Zatara, but then he tried to convince my mom to let me go, but she absolutely put her foot down, refusing. She's scared I'll get myself killed, so she won't let me be a real Titan. She won't let me go to Jump City with you."

"Well," Mar'i began, "I could just refuse to go to Jump City if they won't let you go."

"No!" Red exclaimed. "I don't want you to throw away your shot at being a Titan because my mom won't let me go. She'll probably never let me go out into the field, and then if you stay with me, you'll never get to go out into the field."

"Well, if your dad thinks you should go, isn't that all that matters? I mean, he's actually the head of the Titans, isn't that his decision to make?"

"Technically, yes," Red acknowledged, "but that's under normal circumstances, where my parents aren't talking about sending their only child into what my mom is convinced will be the path of death. Whenever it has anything to do with things that concern my mom, and my mom's emotions run particularly high on the subject, the rule between them is that what she says goes. My dad learned that the hard way, actually: remember that time my dad disappeared for two months when we were little?"

"Uh, maybe," Mar'r responded. "Was it around the same time that Bruce and my dad needed his help with something, but they had to search for him throughout half the country?"

"Yes, that was the time. Anyhow, the reason why my dad was so hard to find was because he was having lunch outings with Slade—who actually wanted to be a grandfather to me, and was trying to convince my dad to let him visit. My mom flipped out so bad that my dad had to leave the state for his own protection! I still remember all the things she said about him that whole time; I think Rae has said nicer things about Trigon than the kindest words my mom had for my dad at that point in time. Of course, they eventually patched things up, but my dad learned to tread lightly where my mom's emotions were likely to be explosive, especially where I was part of the picture."

"Well, maybe my dad..."

"Doubt it. My mom respects your dad as a hero, but she doesn't have the highest opinion of your his parenting skills. No offense."

"None taken. I don't have the highest opinion of his parenting skills either sometimes. I mean, seriously, it's been like three months since the last time he called me." Mar'i frowned at remembering another thing she'd have rather not thought about. "I know that he loves me, but he's really, reeeeaally bad at showing it." Mar'i pondered for a moment before getting up to reach for her communicator. "I think I know who might have good advice for negotiating your mom's emotions, though."

"Who?" the changeling asked, the features of her face taking a quizzical form. Red did not have to wait long for an answer as the princess brought the screen of the communicator within her view just as the call was answered. In the screen was the face of a certain gray-skinned, purple-eyed and -haired woman.

"Hello Mar'i," a raspy monotone greeted, "Lillian. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Hi Auntie Rae," the two younger girls said in unison. "We've kinda got a problem, and I thought you might know how to fix it," Mar'i continued.

"What's wrong?" the demi-demoness questioned. The casual observer would have noticed no alteration in the tone of Raven's voice, nor in the features of her face. The princess and the changeling, however, were no casual observers. They'd both known the amethyst-featured sorceress since their own births, and they could read the subtleties that betrayed her concern. The older woman was not related to either of them by blood, but that did not prevent the development of a mutual feeling that she was their de facto aunt, and neither of the girls doubted that Raven cared very deeply for them.

"Well," the brunette looked to her animorphic compatriot, "Red should probably tell you."

The changeling took her friend's cue and explained at length everything she'd heard while she was spying on her parents. "And I don't know what to do. My mom will never let me be a Titan," she began to cry again, "and I can't lose Mar'i! I never see Lian or Irey anymore. I don't want that too happen with my best friend!"

'For Azar's sake, Rose, she's almost eighteen!' the empath thought, though she could understand the Ravager's motives. Understanding her motives did not, however, mean agreeing with her choices. Red was only a few weeks short of the age when normal teenagers could enlist in the military, and she had superpowers to protect her on top of it. "You're her only offspring," Raven noted, "so it's to be expected that your mother would be somewhat paranoid as to what might happen to you if you were to go into active duty as a Titan. I suspect that her maternal instinct is overriding her reason in evaluating your readiness. Actually, for that reason, I have always figured that it was a bad idea for her to be in charge of your training—she has absolutely no objectivity in this case. It would have probably been better if your parents had arranged for Dick to train you. I suspect even Bruce might have been willing to train you; your powers are fairly unusual, and thus probably very interesting, as far as the detective in him is concerned."

Raven paused for a moment before continuing. "But I think I know how you can convince your mother that you're ready."

The young changeling's eyes brightened as hope flooded her mind. "Really?!" she spoke at a volume approaching a scream. Beneath the surface, she was almost giddy at hearing that there might b a solution to her problem.

"You need to defeat her."

"Du hast wohl einen an der Klatsche?!" the changeling exclaimed, so caught off guard by Raven stating such a thing in such simple terms, as though it were something she could just do without much effort at all, that she felt the need to respond in a foreign language. A fact that often surprised those who didn't know the young changeling very well, she was extremely multilingual. Her father taught her to speak French and Swahili. Dick Grayson brought her into the lessons he'd been giving Mar'i in Roma. Mar'i had taught her how to speak Tamaranian, a language the princess had herself picked up in the womb, thanks to the unique nature of Tamaranian biology. When she was ten, she'd asked her father about Spanish, but seeing as he could only understand, and not actually speak, that language, he referred her to Mas y Menos. After learning Spanish, picking up Portuguese in online lessons was far from difficult. Garfield Logan even convinced Leonid Kovar to take the time to teach Lil Russian, hoping that she could serve as his interpreter if he ever needed to visit Russia—or any of the former Soviet republics, really—when Kovar was unavailable. Raven had taught the daughter of her one-time lover Latin, Romanian, Sanskrit, and, most importantly in this particular exchange, German.

"No," the empath responded with the corners of mouth rising slightly. "I'm not nuts. I know you have your doubts, and I won't sugarcoat things by telling you that the odds wouldn't be against you, but I have experience with fighting against a parent I'd never thought I could beat. Trust me, nothing is impossible. But, to prove to her your capacity to keep yourself safe, you'll need to defeat her in a sparring match. And it has to be a clear win. Don't 'go the distance'; don't win by decision. You need to leave her with no doubt in her mind that you've defeated her."

"I don't know," the changeling said with trepidation evident in her voice. "My mom was trained by Slade Wilson and Dick Grayson, has two decades more experience fighting than I do, is probably the most skilled swordswoman in the world and one of the most skilled martial artists, and on top of that she's got comparable strength to my grandfather and, while I have them too, she's got precognitive abilities that are far better trained than mine." She sighed. "I don't think I'd have a snowball's chance in Hell of actually beating her."

"Oh, come on Lil," the Tamaranian responded before the Azarathian had the chance. "You're stronger than you think, and like Rae said, this is the way to convince your mom that you're ready. Anyway, what will you lose if she wins? If you don't fight her, she'll keep thinking you're not ready. If you fight her and lose, she'll keep thinking you're not ready. Everyone know how badass your mom is, so it's not like anyone would think any less of you for losing to her. We all know that this entire problem is based on her fear that you're going to get yourself hurt, so I'm pretty sure she's not actually going to do any damage to you..."

"And that's exactly why Lillian has a good chance of winning," Raven interrupted Mar'i with the sudden realization. "Rose will hold back, because her maternal instinct is not to harm her own daughter. Her emotions will not allow her to go beyond what she thinks you can handle; and since, like Mar'i, I'm quite convinced that the whole source of this problem is that Rose underestimates you, you can use that to your advantage."

"Hmm," Red interjected while processing the information. "It does make perfect sense," she said as she sat up, eyes brightening, "I think I'm gonna go challenge her now!" Without another word she jump off the bed and ran out the door.

"Damn it, Lil!" Mar'i exclaimed, causing Raven to raise an eyebrow. Sensing her surrogate aunt's confusion, she pointed towards the desk on Red's side of the room "she forgot her keycard, again!"

Raven gave a ghost of a smile. "She's definitely her father's daughter."

"Was he really that bad?"

"Worse," the Azarathian replied, "but Steve, Dick, Vic, Tara, Rose, some other people, and I all worked to eventually help remedy that, over time."

"Sounds like he was a handful," Mar'i noted, hoping to prod Raven into talking about the original Titans.

"He was," the sorceress noted with a sad smile, "but, in hindsight, I wouldn't have it any other way. If not for him and your mother, I would be a complete recluse with no social skills whatsoever. Dick and Vic were usually content to leave me alone unless it really seemed like I needed help, but Gar, and, to a lesser degree, your mother, always prodded me to join in on activities. Gar forcing me to watch movies with the team, Kori begging me to go to the mall. Both of them seemed to want to break down my walls in their own ways, and, I suppose, they were ultimately successful. And I don't think I've ever been grateful enough to them for that."

"The way you describe Gar, it sounds a lot like Lil," Mar'i noted. Pausing for a moment, she recognized an opportunity. "What was my mom like? I mean, I remember some things from when I was little, but my dad never wants to talk about her. I thought about asking Gar about her, but from all I've heard, you were the closest to her. Other than my dad, of course."

"Your mother was the sweetest person I've ever known," Raven said with another sad smile. "I was convinced for a long time that I would never meet another person as sweet as her in my life; but you remind me of her a lot. That said, she was unique and you're unique as well. She always had trouble understanding Earth's customs, which often made her seem naive to others, even though she was probably one of the most brilliant persons I've ever known. But that sweetness of hers... I see it constantly in you."

The younger girl smiled, even as tears began to pool in her eyes. "I suppose I've taken up enough of your time already..." Raven attempted to interrupt, but Mar'i kept taking, "I mean, I know you'll say it's never a bother, but I also know how demanding the Justice League is on time. Don't worry, Raven, I know you'd never want me to feel like I'm being a burden." She paused as she willed herself to ask what she needed to ask. "Do you think you can come and spend some time with me, and we could talk about my mom in person sometime?"

"Absolutely," the elder woman said without hesitation. "I suppose I should be there to help give Lillian some moral support when she finally does fight Rose, since I gave her the idea to begin with. Perhaps I could take a leave of absence from the League and spend some more time with you, so we can talk about your mother at length."

"Cool!" the teenager exclaimed. "Like, could we have, like, a slumber party; like, you, me and Lil?"

"Uh," Raven was at a loss for words. 'Oh, Azar, what have I gotten myself into now?'

Author's Notes
Sorry that it took so long for me to add this second chapter to Titans Legacies. I was having some problems figuring out what I wanted to do with the story, but now I've got a clear vision. I don't want to spoil anything, but eventually (though, probably relatively early in the story) there will be a somewhat shocking reveal that will both explain who our big bad will be and violently throw a budding relationship off its rails, and said reveal will obviously have immense plot implications. I'm not giving you more than that, though: evil, aren't I?

I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapters as it is, but I figured it has been far too long since I last updated this story, so I stowed my doubts for now. Just as the first chapter served to introduce Red, this chapter served to introduce Nightstar. I also hoped to showcase the strength of the friendship between Mar'i and Lil, and the surrogate niece-aunt relationship both of them have with Raven. As of this chapter, it does seem that Red will probably be the lead for this story, but we'll have to see where it goes—though I have some idea of where I want to bring the plot, I'm still writing by the seat of my pants.

Also, for the time being, I've downgraded the fic's rating from M to T. I may need to reverse this decision in the near future, but for now there's nothing that absolutely necessitates the M rating.

And, unfortunately, yes, Koriand'r of Tamaran is no longer among the living in this continuity. Her death in this continuity is very similar to how she died in the Kingdom Come continuity—that is to say, she died of a circulatory illness when Mar'i was still a small child. As I've alluded, in this continuity, Kori's death devastated Dick so much that he still can't even talk about her, more than a decade later, even though he ultimately did remarry. And yes, I had him marrying Barbara Gordon as his second wife. Also, as I've alluded, Dick's refusal to talk about Kori has also made it more difficult for his daughter to sort through her own feelings, and has left her, in a way, not knowing her mother.

Emmeline C. Thornbrooke—Sorry that I disappointed you. Though, if it's any consolation, (and I hope not to give any spoilers,) past interractions between Beast Boy and Raven will have serious implications to the plot of this story, if said plot follows along the path I presently have in mind.

DianaLaura—I'm sorry I kept you waiting, and I hope you're still with us as the story continues. It is one of those pairings that doesn't often see the light of day, and, being that my own OTP is BBRae, it does feel weird for me to write this story with a BBRavager pairing sitting in the background like that. I'm not even sure where this story is going, so I can't promise that it'll be great; what I can promise is that, as long as I'm still alive, even if it takes me two years to update, I fully intend to see this story out to the end, wherever that might lead.

Knight of Eons—Either Red was a shapeshifter who had advanced in her skills to the point of being able to master partial transformations, or she was born with the lower body of a kangaroo; I figured it was a safe bet that it was the former, though the latter isn't exactly impossible either. As far as Blur goes, I have no idea; that issue didn't flesh out much in the way of details about the introduced characters' powers. I remember hearing somewhere that DC may have been toying with the idea of spinning a series or miniseries off from that issue, but it never happened, which is unfortunate. If they'd have done that, the introduced characters would have been given more development and we would know more about them, and it's a shame that we don't, because those characters, even for only appearing in a couple slides, were extremely interesting, IMO.

CheeseJellyBean—I hope my writing style continues to be engaging as you've noted it has been, though, as I said above, I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter 2 as it is. Also, I think chapters 1 and 2 are both kinda short, though we'll see if that issue can be rectified as I move ahead with this fic. Gar, Rose, Raven, and even Tara will all have important places in the plot moving ahead, so, while the plot will not be centered on the relationship between Gar and Rose, and I cannot actually promise anything in this regard, there's a pretty good chance there'll be some interactions between them that'll sate that desire to a degree.