Chapter Three
Tyler had gotten into the CD collection when he had left the room. The tower that contained a wide variety of genres and titles, all carefully arranged by Beast Boy in alphabetical order, had come down to the floor. Tyler sat among the wreckage playing with one of the cracked discs.
"Shiny!" He said proudly.
"Oh thank goodness that you were not hurt baby!" Starfire said, grabbing and hugging Tyler. He giggled.
"Hi!" He said, and hit her on the shoulder with the sharp end of the disc.
"Ouch! Tyler, we do not hit!"
"Hit!" Cried the child in delight, and hit her in the shoulder a second time.
Raven crossed the room in three strides and grabbed his little wrist. "She said no," she told him.
Tyler screwed up his face in a grumpy expression. "No!" He said, and giggled. Then he lifted the disc and began to hit Starfire in the shoulder again. Raven pulled him from Starfire's arms.
"It is okay, friend Raven," said Starfire. "He did not mean any harm."
Raven held the toddler at an arm's length. He was disgusting. Ketchup clung to his hair, toothpaste was smeared all over her now-ruined cloak, and he held a cracked piece of CD in his hand like a prize. As Raven stepped backwards, she heard one of the cases crunch underfoot and sighed; this kid, so far, had destroyed most of the possessions in the living room.
"Dirty!" Said Tyler.
"That about sums it up," Raven told him.
"Hug!" He said, and tried to lunge forward in Raven's arms. Raven pulled back to avoid his hug, and Tyler screamed.
"Friend Raven, do not be mean to our baby!"
"Starfire, he isn't our baby. I'm sure that we'll figure out what to do with him soon."
"But children are very delightful!" Starfire said. Raven looked her up and down. Starfire's customary outfit was stained beyond all belief, her hair in knots, and her shoulder bleeding very slightly where she'd been hit.
You'd think there'd been a battle here, Raven thought to herself grimly, still holding Tyler, who was screaming furiously, at arm's length. She felt herself becoming irritated with Starfire, but bit her lip. She had to admit, in this situation, she needed all the help she could get.
"Sure, delightful," Raven muttered. "Here, Star, take him upstairs and start a bath for him, would you?"
"Of course! Come, little friend, and you shall be clean!" With all of her usual pep and vigor, Starfire picked up the baby and zipped up the stairs. Raven leaned heavily on the wall, sighing. She was worn out.
She caught sight of her own reflection and almost laughed. She was pale, with a stain of some kind of food on her left cheek. Her new cloak was disgusting, and her hair had matted together with something.
She could not tell why she felt like laughing.
The damage around her was less laughable. She counted the causalities silently in her head. One jar in the kitchen, a bowl that would forever reek of mint goop, a couch that 'had once been white' returned to its original color on both one cushion and the right arm, and a CD tower that was broken.
I have got to figure something out before he breaks everything in the house.
Sitting down, Raven combed her sticky hair with her fingers, quickly pulling it back at the nape of her neck so that she would not have to deal with it. While wiping at her face, she pulled her phone from her pocket and frantically attempted to dial Robin again.
Across town, the phone vibrated, dropped down between the seats of an empty car, which was parked outside the local arcade. Her calls would go unheeded, although she had no way of knowing this.
Four calls and a hysterical-sounding voicemail later, Raven stuck the phone back at her belt and headed upstairs. The unearthly quiet, which she normally would have appreciated, was unnerving today.
Upstairs, she heard the sound of laughter coming from the bathroom she shared with Starfire. "Baby!" She heard Starfire cry.
Part of Raven debated intervening, but she knew the logical thing to do was to go into the bathroom and see what was happening. Before she had a chance, however, the bathroom door burst open, and Tyler came running out, dragging his 'security blanket' behind him.
Otherwise, he was naked.
"Tyler, please come here!" Starfire was chasing him. "You are in need of cleaning!"
The child laughed. "Chase, chase!" On his spry little legs he ran towards Raven, who bent, readily, and caught him.
"Mama!"
"Not your mother," Raven said.
"Thank you for catching him, friend Raven! He escaped from the water and began to run around before I had a chance to clean him!"
For the first time, Raven noticed that Starfire's entire front was wet. She could guess that he had escaped his bath while Starfire had leaned into the tub.
"Ducky?" The child asked.
"Do we have a rubber duck around here he could sit and play with?" Raven asked Starfire. "Just something to keep him in the tub long enough to clean him up?"
"I believe that we do!" Starfire ran off down the hall hunting the plastic toy while Raven stood, holding the kid at her leg while he played with her cloak.
He smiled up at her. "Hi!" He said as though just noticing her for the fourth or fifth time.
"You're just a load of trouble you know," she told him quietly.
The little boy looked sad. "I sorry."
Her heart melted and, rewrapping him in her cloak, which was tattered beyond belief on all edges, she held him. "Its okay."
Just then, Raven heard a squeaking noise behind them. Starfire held up the rubber toy. "Ducky, as you have requested!"
Tyler held out his hands to her, giggling. "Ducky!"
Starfire took the child. "Friend Raven, would you please assist me with the bathing of Tyler?"
Looking at Starfire, who was wet and covered in bleach stains, Raven felt guilty for being angry with her. "Of course," she said.
As they walked down the hall, Raven heard a squishing noise under her feet. Looking down, she realized that the carpet was wet. The trail was coming from the bathroom, as though in a flood.
She moved ahead of the other two and flung the door open, only to have additional water flood out around her ankles.
"Oh no! I have forgotten to turn off the water! Friend Raven, what do we do?"
Raven waded forward, water around her ankles and calves, and managed to turn the tub off, before surveying the damage. The room looked like a swamp, the only outfit Tyler had come in floating past her, the tub splashing water out onto the floor.
One of her towels floated past her, along with Starfire's bottle of shampoo, and she sighed. She realized that Starfire must have tried to use the bottle for bubbles, because now the tub bubbled over dangerously, and disgusting soap clung to the edges of yet another ruined cape.
Tyler had wrestled his way away from Starfire. Carrying his ducky and once again completely naked, he threw himself into the middle of the floor. "Ocean!" He shouted, and began to laugh.
Starfire sat down next to him, squatting in the ruined bathroom. "At least he is happy, friend Raven!" She had not lost her happiness throughout the entire incident.
Raven sank down on the toilet, biting her lip, and wordlessly handed Starfire the soap. "Just clean him," she said, unable to think anymore.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw things. Instead, she watched an alien and a tiny child play in the middle of the bathroom, Starfire slowly scrubbing Tyler's face and little hands while he laughed.
"Play with me," he said to Raven, smiling, holding out the ducky. "Play Ducky?"
"Not now, Tyler," she said, and walked out of the room. The hallway squelched under her feet and she sighed.
What are we going to do with this kid?
"Tyler, do not splash me in the face!" Starfire yelled, amid a fit of giggles.
Outside, the storm came down, although Raven could've sworn for all the world that it had already come inside.
(A/n: Thank you to those of you who have reviewed my chapters/watched this story so far. Tyler is actually based on one of the boys at a preschool I worked at. I'll try to keep my updates regular if you keep the love coming.)
