A/N: Apologies, readers. Not only was I incredibly busy, but I was having a hard time with this chapter. I'll try to update sooner in the future. Also, in regards to the restrictions being placed on M rated stories on this site, stay updated on my Tumblr in case I move this story. Thank you!
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Chapter 16
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"I have theories," Cyborg admitted, typing out a few things on his keyboard and tapping every now and then on a tablet to his right. The monitors flashed with his lightening speed commands, and Beast Boy looked away to keep himself from getting sick. "I mean, how could I not, right?" His voice trailed off and Beast Boy flipped the scrapbook closed.
"And…?" he prompted.
"And I don't want to voice any of them because they're either completely outrageous or inexplicably dangerous."
"Or both?"
"That too."
"You could try, though. Offer some insight."
Cyborg locked up his screens and turned to look at his friend, his expression stern. "It's not quite a lobotomy," he started, and Beast Boy grasped the edge of the table. His legs suddenly felt weak.
"I was really hoping you weren't going to say that," he said quietly, and Cyborg nodded.
"Yeah, I know. And I didn't. But it's staring us right in the face, BB, how can we not see it?"
"You said it's not quite a lobotomy."
"Well, it's not," he explained. "Because she's not focusing on the prefrontal cortex. She doesn't want to alter her personality, she wants to..." he drifted off, looking little less than stressed. But he didn't need to go on, because Beast Boy already knew what he was going to say.
"Erase it," he finished. "Her memory."
"Simply put, yeah."
"But that's insane."
"Simply put, yeah."
"And only Raven would ever go to such extreme lengths."
"Simply put." Cyborg rubbed at his temple. "But can you really call it an extreme length if it's the only length she can take?"
"How do you know it's the only length she can take?"
"I don't know, man," he said, fixing Beast Boy with a hard stare. "You tell me."
"I need to talk to her," he said, breaking the eye contact and striding towards the door. "This…this isn't…"
"What are you going to say?" Cyborg asked calmly.
"I don't know," Gar snapped, unable to keep his anxiety in check. "I just need to. We need to." He opened the door and started to leave, but Cyborg's voice held him back for a moment longer.
"Garfield." Beast Boy paused, his hand still on the door. He waited. "Dude. What happened between the two of you?"
He didn't even offer a pause of consideration. Within the next breath he was gone, hurrying down the hall to look for Raven.
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She had accumulated so much knowledge about the team over the years. She had learned, (as Robin and then Cyborg had learned), what the strengths and weaknesses were of each one of them. That was how she knew just how to entrap Starfire. The girl was unwaveringly trustworthy of her friends, so the easiest way to subdue her was to exploit that very trait. She was blind to lies and false intentions, and so had fallen at the hands of a girl who was clearly not in her right mind.
But Robin…
Robin was different. Subtleties didn't work on someone who was trained by the world's greatest detective. He would catch on too easily, and he would form a counterattack within a matter of seconds. The best way to deal with him was head-on; offer no chance of a reaction.
So that was exactly what she did.
It had been quick, but not exactly painless. She had attacked him, in full force, head-on. She threw him across the room like a ragdoll, his unprepared figure hitting the glass window and then sliding to the floor. But very few could spring on the ward of Batman without repercussions, and unfortunately Raven was not one of them. His hands were at his belt within seconds, and before she could strike again he had thrown down a handful of smoke pellets, obscuring her vision.
She had cleared the smoke with a wave of her arm and a few words from her lips, but he was already gone. Before she could turn to look for him there was a whizzing sound and she jerked her head to the side, dodging two discs aimed for her throat.
A surprised smile caught her lips.
"That was a fatal move," she said, astonished. "The valiant leader is looking for blood."
He did not respond with words, only action. Robin was far too quick-witted to be distracted by idle prattle. His bo staff came crashing down within seconds, colliding with the black barrier Raven swiped through the air. He continued to swing and jab, aiming for hot spots, hoping to shut her down with a swift and paralyzing strike. But she continued to block his attacks, her smile tightening into a hard line as she concentrated. "You were always the weakest," she breathed, ducking from a blow and guarding against his kick. She dematerialized and reappeared behind him. He spun on the ball of his foot and pushed forward with the blunt end of his staff, digging the end into the tender part right in the middle of her shoulder. She cried out as her arm went numb, dangling uselessly at her side. She rose into the air and out of his reach, narrowing her eyes. "And yet, still the strongest. Always making up for your lack of uniqueness."
"Spare me the banter," he said darkly, his low tone masking the heaviness of his breathing. "What is this? Trigon? Slade? Who has taken over Raven's body now?"
"No one but myself," she replied, seeping into darkness and leaving only her voice behind. "Dear little Raven has been keeping a very dangerous secret from the Teen Titans; even more dangerous than her apocalyptic parentage."
"Can't say that I'm very surprised," Robin replied, slowly making his way towards the exit, his eyes darting back and forth, trying to anticipate her next move.
"Then don't say anything at all."
Warping blackness rose up around Robin's shoulders, but before he could duck out of the way it had constricted around his throat, getting tighter and tighter and tighter until he was forced to drop his staff and grab at it helplessly, choking and struggling. He rose into the air slowly, and his panic rose as the weight of his body put strain on his throat. Raven silently reappeared beneath him, and as she walked towards the vast windows he hovered in her wake, helplessly following through the air.
"I have always wanted to do this," she said, her hand eerily still as she kept him aloft. "I, like so many of our shared enemies, have wanted to silence this songbird. You tend to talk too much, you know." She stopped near the sofa and rose up into the air, loosening her magic just enough so that he would stop moving and focus on her eyes. "You could make her feel weak and so terribly inadequate about herself. And because it was you she would always take your words to heart. You are so disgustingly special to her, do you know that? So irreversibly precious. It doesn't matter what Garfield has become for us, she will always give you your pedestal to stand on. Do you know why?"
"Ra-Ra-…," he tried to say, but words were sacrificed for breath.
"It's because you're her hero, Robin. You're her knight in shining armor. No matter what happens, she knows that you will somehow make it all better in the end. And you've never disappointed anyone before."
"Ple-ase…"
"That's the only reason I'm bothering with anyone else, after all. Because if she broke then everyone would just come and put her together again. And I can't risk having anyone put her together again. So I have to eliminate the contingency plans. I got rid of Starfire, and now I have to get rid of you."
Robin's eyes widened at the information, and he choked even more drastically on his bindings. "What…di-…do to—Star…!"
"She's not dead," she answered quickly, harshly. "There's no cruelty in a quick death. Death is merciful. Existence, life…those are harsher punishments. Kory exists, she's just not here at the moment. She is…elsewhere." Her smile was plastered on, unfeeling and unreal. "And she'll stay there for the time being. She'll come back. Eventually." She reached forward and grasped Robin's face, her fingernails digging into his scalp. He cried out feebly. "You, however, aren't so easily disposed of. You, with your plans and your tricks, will not be going anywhere. You will be staying right here, dangling helplessly in the air, bound tight enough to suffer yet loose enough for you to survive. You will have no choice but to think of yourself, to focus on staying conscious, focus on drawing the next breath, and the next, and the next. And you'll be so preoccupied with surviving that you'll have no time to worry about anyone else."
"Wha-…do you-…"
She leaned over him, her face hovering over his. Raven's face, but not Raven's face at all. "I had thought, for quite a while, that you would be the one she would feel for," she whispered, her lips ghosting over Robin's forehead. "But there are too many similarities between you. You are too alike, with nearly all the same flaws and all the same misgivings." She furrowed her brow. "I wonder…do you have the depravity that she does?"
She leaned down and pressed her lips to his, her hands holding him like a possessor and not at all as a lover. Robin struggled, trying to turn his head away to gasp at the air she was depriving him. But she held fast, satisfying her needs with no regard to his discomfort. When she finally released him he choked on the rush of oxygen he forcibly drew in. She narrowed her eyes as she watched him, her expression thoroughly dissatisfied.
"Terrible," she said. "Absolutely terrible. Nothing at all like Gar." She kissed him again, with more aggression and with more earnest before pulling away once more. "Horrible." She drew her hands away and tightened the magic around his throat. He kicked frantically, tried to reach for his utility belt…but with a simple glance of her eyes it unlatched itself and fell to the floor, useless. He grunted in a mixture of anger and retaliation. "Like I said," she repeated, sauntering languidly from the room. "You won't die. Death is easy. And I am not someone who is content with what is easy."
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Something felt off in the Tower.
Beast Boy could feel his skin prickle as he hurried down the halls. He slowed down to a stop and looked around, wary and worried and more than a little nervous. The wolves in him howled and the bobcats hissed. The birds in his veins wanted to take flight and the sea creatures wanted to scatter. The Beast wanted to growl, prepping itself for a fight. But there was no one in the hallway with him.
"Raven," he murmured, quickening his pace once more. "Raven."
He hurried towards the main room, picking up frantic speed as he went. By the time he got to the sliding doors they were moving too slow for him. He pried them open, pushing against the steel and bursting his way in.
The first garbled sound that escaped Robin's mouth made Beast Boy want to throw up, but the second one was so desperate that it pushed him to run to his leader. He stood helplessly below him, staring up at his writhing figure as he fumbled to get his communicator out.
"Cyborg," he cried, talking into his comm as he frantically searched for something to help Robin. He ran for the table and started to drag it across the room.
"BB? What's up? I just saw you-,"
"Code red! Lockdown the Tower, now!"
"What?"
"Initiate the lockdown! Raven's on the loose!" He settled the table beneath Robin and hoisted two chairs on top of it, trying his best to work fast with his one good arm. He positioned the first one beneath the boy's feet, trying to alleviate some of the strain from dangling in the air. It was just barely high enough, but Beast Boy had to get him down, soon.
"Loose? What do you-,"
"She's torturing Robin!"
"What?"
"Just do it, man!" Beast Boy shoved his comm back into his pocket and clamored onto the second chair, wrapping his arms around Robin's waist and lifting upward. The Boy Wonder gasped at the relief of stress, but the darkness still held fast to his neck.
"Beast…Boy!"
"Yeah, I've got you," Gar replied, doing his best to keep Robin aloft. "I just…I don't know how to get you down!"
"Raven-,"
"I know Rob, I know." Around them the lockdown of the Tower started to activate, with metal blast doors closing down over the windows and the blaring alarm echoing throughout the compound.
"Do you really think that will stop me?" a voice said in his ear, and Beast Boy felt his stomach drop right onto the floor. In his arms Robin wriggled helplessly, trying his best to hold on to the noose and carry his own weight.
"Let him go, Raven!" Beast Boy commanded. "This isn't a game anymore! You're hurting people!"
"Oh, Garfield," her voice said, drifting over him like a sheet of ice. "It was never a game to begin with."
Before he could do anything he felt her darkness wrap itself around his legs and begin to creep up past his hips and waist. He knew this feeling, knew that she was about to whisk him away, teleport him somewhere where he'd be useless to Robin.
"No, no! Raven!"
He tried to hold on tighter to his friend, anchoring himself to Robin's helpless form. But, just like the weeks leading up to this harrowing moment, Beast Boy felt himself succumb to Raven's whim, and he was torn away by shadows and carried off, out of the Tower.
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She dropped him in the woods.
Literally.
When he reappeared it was a good twenty feet in the air, and the teleportation had been so disorienting that he didn't have time to transform. He landed on his bad arm, and the moss-covered forest floor did nothing to soften his drop. He coughed at the wind that was forced out of his lungs, and he rolled onto his back with a loud grimace. He gathered his bearings for a moment before he struggled to sit up, blinking in the darkness. He morphed his eyes into a cat's and looked around, trying his best to take in his surroundings. He was in one of a million indistinguishable clearings in the woods, and Raven was nowhere he could see.
"Raven!" His cry bounced a little off the trees. He groaned and got to his feet, shaking off dirt and leaves from his thin shirt. "Damnit, Raven! What are you thinking? What are you doing to Robin?" He angrily swiped at the moss still caught in his hair, shaking his head vigorously. He looked around a few more times, hoping to catch a glimpse of movement amongst the trees. Nothing.
He pulled in a breath and flexed his muscles, preparing to jump in the air and fly back to the Tower. It was at that moment that she appeared behind him again, her breath on his neck the only indication that she was there.
"Don't scream," she whispered.
He reacted on instinct, wheeling around and throwing up his guard. If he hadn't, then Raven's combat boot would have collided solidly with his left temple. He staggered a few steps back and blocked twice more, taking another kick and a right hook with his forearms. He grabbed Raven's wrist and tried to twist her arm behind her back, but she ducked and slid out of his grasp. With two hands she braced herself on the forest floor and swung her leg around, forcing his feet out from under him. The wind was knocked out of him for a second time, but he recovered considerably faster and pulled an easy Chinese getup to his feet.
"AzarathmetrionZINTHOS!"
The debris of the forest floor rose rapidly and careened towards Beast Boy. He transformed within a breath, hiding beneath his turtle shell as dead wood, moss, leaves, and rocks collided above his head. The minute he morphed back Raven was attacking once more, right hook again, elbow towards the chin, twist around to the left, strike for the neck, back kick to the stomach and a fan kick towards the head. Beast Boy responded speedily, absorbing the first blow, dodging the elbow, blocking the neck strike, slapping down against the first kick and ducking under the second. Raven took a quick step back and raised her arms, calling two large branches to her aid. She threw them forward, and Beast boy changed into a bear to swipe at them. He spared himself from the first one, but he only barely escaped the second.
"Raven," he forced out, turning back into a human and staggering backwards. His back hit a tree and he braced himself against the trunk, trying to push the pain of the blow out of his mind. "Wha-,"
"You're doing well, Garfield," she said, instantly appearing behind him again and hooking her arm around his neck. He gagged as she tightened her hold. "It's been two whole minutes and you haven't screamed yet."
Beast Boy tightened the muscles in his neck and jabbed backwards with his elbow. But she was already gone, his strike hitting nothing but air as the arm around his neck disappeared in the span of a breath. He wobbled a bit on his feet before regaining his bearings and running forward, pounding through the forest. He was nimble, to say the least, and he was fast, but land speed was pointless against teleportation, and he found himself slamming into the heel of her boot. The blow sent him flying backward, clear off his feet, and he rolled a few times on the damp ground before settling on his elbows and knees as he convulsed into the dirt.
"Are you adamant on not striking me?" she asked, striding to where he had landed. Gar swiped at his face and his hand came away wet with blood. "Because I know you're better than this. You're faster, stronger."
"I don't want to fight you," he answered plainly, and he truly didn't. He wanted to end this, quick and fast. He just needed an opening. He needed to wait for an opening.
"What you want and what must be done are often times two very different things," she said. "It's up to you to decide which course of action is the most appropriate at this venture."
"Awesome." He didn't have time for riddles and under-handed meanings. Robin was being tortured, and who knew what had happened to Starfire. He needed to get the real Raven back so they could go to the Tower, undo the damage, and garner what little mercy they could from the Titans. "I'm here to persuade you to give up your control of this body, or else wait you out until Rae takes control back on her own."
"Takes control? What ever do you mean? It is me, Gar."
"Uh-huh. No."
"It's nice how you're able to notice the difference. It's positively endearing."
"Great. Now how about you just give me back the real Raven?"
"That's not going to happen."
"Yeah, I'm sure," he said sarcastically. She narrowed her eyes.
"You don't have to believe me for it be true," she said pointedly. "But just know that when you do finally realize that 'your' Raven isn't coming back, you have no one to blame but yourself." He couldn't argue against his role in everything, but it didn't mean he was compliant with her claim.
"You're going to lose eventually," he went back to saying, rising carefully to his feet. "You'll run out of energy, your hold will weaken, and Rae will break through."
He watched as her lip curled into a snarl and her eyes began to glow again. "I already told you, I'm not going to lose control." The trees surrounding them started to shiver, and Beast Boy quickly transformed into a falcon and took to the sky. "Of this body, at least."
She rose up after him, throwing out her hand and creating a solid barrier over the canopy of the trees. Beast Boy veered in his ascent, started to careen for a tree branch, and took hold of the bark with his deft, ape hands. He tried swinging through the trees, but Raven attacked the trunks, crashing down the forest with ease. He ended up landing on all fours and darting across the leaf-littered ground, his wolf senses on high alert.
"It was so easy, you know," she called out to him, her bodiless voice echoing through the darkness. Raven's voice was unaccustomed to taunting. "Melding into her segregated emotions while the two of you were distracted with fucking each other every minute you could get." A growl from his fangs was interrupted by an evergreen collapsing to his left. He morphed back into human form and kept on running. "It's ridiculous how one, forbidden action can consume a person's every waking thought."
"Evil usually takes a lot of looking after, " Beast Boy muttered, trying to find an opening where he could leap back into the air. Just when he thought he had found a window she was upon him again, appearing at his front, automatically blocking his reflexive strike and slamming the heel of her hand into the base of his stomach.
"You love to call me evil," she said, landing on her feet and watching as he staggered heavily but retained his footing. "It makes it easier to think that I'm evil, to put things in the black and white categories of right and wrong."
"Perks of being a hero," he continued to banter, grimacing despite the pain in his abdomen. Raven was seriously kicking his ass, but it wasn't as though it were out of the blue. All the Titans had become well versed in how to defeat one another, but of course there had never been a reason to utilize any of that knowledge. Until maybe now. "Our job is pretty straight forward."
"Stupid boy."
"Psycho-erratic, shadow clone girl."
"It amazes me that even now you can't understand the simple truth of the matter." She raised both hands, and withered vines rose from beneath the carpet of dead leaves. Beast Boy widened his stance, his eyes taking in all the points of attack. But when he glanced at Raven's face he saw a different expression there, one that put her façade of sadistic pleasure to shame.
It was one of triumph.
"And what truth is that?" he asked. Quietly. He knew she'd hear either way.
And she did.
"That we are the same person, no matter how much you hate the idea of shoving your cock into the likes of me."
There.
The opening.
Her impending victory had made her brash, and the muscles in her left arm relaxed, her guard dropping for a millisecond.
He was off the ground before she had even finished speaking, his feet barely touching the soil. The vines honed in on his spot, but he was gone before they could graze his skin, careening towards Raven like a bat out of hell. He pulled forward with all his weight, threw his momentum into his right arm, and brought down a gorilla's fist along the left side of her body. Her clavicle shattered on impact, he felt her shoulder dislocate, and her body went limp in an instant.
A ragdoll. A puppet without its strings.
Crumbled as if she were nothing at all.
It took a few seconds for Beast Boy to calm his adrenaline and morph his hand back into its normal form. When he did he forced himself not to kneel at her side, not to hold her tenderly and feel ashamed for what he had done. Instead he pulled out his comm and rang up the Tower.
"Cy," he said the minute the connection went through. Cyborg's voice responded with an exasperated sigh.
"Dude, what the hell just happened? I found Robin here in the main room, and that noose thing around his neck just disappeared and…oh damn."
"What? What happened?"
"No, everything's fine it's just…what the-…Star? Star! Starfire?"
"Cyborg-,"
"Gar, she literally just dropped out of the air. I don't know where she came from or what happened to her but…ah, geez." There was a huff of frustration and anxiety before Cyborg's voice rounded on Beast Boy. "What about you? Are you okay? Where are you?"
"Yeah, I'm fine" he said curtly. "I'm…I'm with Raven."
"What?"
"I'll explain later. She's unconscious right now, but we're…we're okay. How are Robin and Star?" he asked quickly, shifting the conversation away from Raven. Cyborg was breathing hard, probably because he was running around trying to take the Tower off lockdown while catering to the injured Titans.
"Not good. They're both unconscious too, and in some serious need of medical attention. I need to get them to the infirmary."
"Make that three," Beast Boy said, glancing down at the sorceress at his feet. She didn't look like she was breathing, but he knew she was.
"That…doesn't sound very promising," Cy commented. "Did you guys engage-,"
"It's not the real Raven, but yeah. She attacked me after I found Robin. Took me out of the Tower. We fought." He swallowed. "I won."
A silence stretched out from the comm, and he knew Cyborg had heard the tightness in his voice.
"Did you hold back?" his friend asked. Beast Boy squatted down, gently pushing Raven's hair away to expose her neck. Grisly, jagged lines of red, purple and blue splayed out beneath the surface of her skin. They darkened even as he stared at them.
"No," he admitted, pulling his hand back. "I need you to send the T-ship. I can't carry her back in this condition."
"Shit. All right. Locking onto your coordinates. It should be there in about ten minutes."
"Thanks."
"Hey, BB."
"Yeah?"
"We'll fix this. Whatever it is, we'll get her back to normal. We'll get her back."
"Yeah, sure. We'll get her back." The connection cut out and Beast Boy slipped his comm back into his pocket, swiping at the blood that was still freely running down his face. Around him the world was unfazed by the night's events, and everything kept moving on. He glanced down at Raven for a second longer before turning his eyes away. "You win," he said quietly, looking up, waiting for the ship to arrive. "I broke."
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By the time dawn was breaking everyone was back at the Tower, although the Titans were far from out of the woods. Beast Boy sat on a table in the infirmary as one of Cyborg's animatronic machines stitched up a gash on his back. Across the room Robin and Starfire were asleep in their respective hospital beds, with the former boasting a neck brace and multiple tubes, and the latter piled up with blankets. To his right was Cyborg, preparing medicine for Robin's IV and a few painkillers for Beast Boy. Raven was in a completely different room, still unconscious, ensured by a heavy dose of drugs.
Silence had been the Tower's bane for quite some time.
All the while Beast Boy thought, his brow heavily furrowed and his mind too preoccupied to notice that Cyborg had forgotten to numb him before he was patched back up. He just kept replaying the fight in the forest, the look in Depravity's eyes as she struck at him with the intent of pain. There was nothing left of his Raven there, nothing of her restraint or discipline or strength.
"Her plan will work," Cyborg suddenly said. He was carefully measuring chemicals, his large hands working his instruments with practiced delicacy. Beast Boy looked up from where he had been staring at the floor. "Raven's smart, and so am I. The mix of science and sorcery is in perfect balance. Her plan to fix this will work."
"But…" Beast Boy said, already know it was coming. His robotic friend placed a glass slide under his microscope and adjusted the optics.
"But she needs to be the one to perform it. I can do the science part. I can't do the sorcery part. And I highly doubt this version of Raven will be willing to participate."
"What if we got someone else?"
"Who else could we get?"
"Jinx."
"No way. Even if the real Raven agreed to it, Jinx isn't nearly as adept in the same magic."
"Argent."
"She follows the same occult belief, but she doesn't practice it."
"Rae's mother. Arella."
Cyborg glanced at him. "That's something personal she's only supposed to have shared with you. And again, without Rae we have no way of contacting her. No matter what we do, we need the real Raven." He shook his head. "Let's just hope that she's the one that wakes up."
"And if she's not?" Beast Boy snapped. He didn't mean to, but he couldn't help it. Thankfully, Cyborg didn't take it to heart.
"Wouldn't hurt to have a back-up plan. If you know of any please, feel free to share." And his tone was devoid of any and all possible humor.
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For the second time Beast Boy refused to stay the night in the infirmary, even though the stitches on his back were fresh and his muscles were too sore for movement. But he had insisted, telling his friend that Robin and Star were in much more need of his attentions. When he had left he had trudged through the halls like a man labored with pain, both physical and emotional. He had a thought to go check on Raven at first, but a bitterness came with her name that made him change course and head for his room instead.
He ended up passing by her own room, and before he knew it he was standing in her open doorway and staring inside. He looked around at her spellbooks and candles and crystals, and thought for maybe the millionth time how stupid he was to not have tried to take an interest in her practices beforehand.
Maybe if he had known a little more about her powers…
Maybe if he had tried to ask about her spells or methods…
His eyes found her portal mirror lying on the floor. He stared at it.
He had entered it once, but that had been because Rage had pulled him and Cyborg in.
Maybe if he could enter it again…
Ignoring his exhaustion, Beast Boy strode into Raven's room and closed the door behind him.
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When she opened her eyes she wasn't in the woods, and she wasn't fighting Beast Boy. She was in a room with dim white light, and there were ancient runes glowing along the walls.
The safe room.
She tried shifting her body, to gather her bearings about her state of being. Before she had passed out there had been an immediate and sense-shattering pain on her side. She tried lifting her left arm, but found an unprecedented restraint.
The jingle of chains. Cold metal against her skin.
She blinked and glanced down at her arm where a shackle was clamped around her wrist, the chain running down the side of her hospital bed and onto the floor. She looked to her other side and found a similar restraint on her right arm. She moved her feet and found her legs boasting chains as well.
Panic was her first response, and then a quick sense of anger. She felt an almost immediate sense of fear, and then it was washed away with instant vengeance. She almost lost herself, almost started thrashing and screaming and demanding to be freed, but her sense of extremity disappeared at the first words of a well-worn voice.
"Stainless steel shackles reinforced with ancient runes," the voice said somewhere behind her. "A trick you shared with Robin a few years back. If you remember."
"I remember," she said after a moment, laying her head back against her pillow and staring at the ceiling. "I remember well." Footsteps sounded on the tile and Beast Boy moved into her peripheral vision. He kept his distance from her, and his brow was furrowed in dark disapproval. She kept her eyes towards the ceiling. "How long have I been out?"
"Couple days."
"Long time."
"Do you remember it at all?" He sounded tired, and she vaguely wondered if he had stayed by her side the entire time.
"Can't say that I do."
"Well then, do you remember trapping Starfire in an inescapable vortex deprived of light or sound? Or perhaps stringing Robin up to be slowly hanged by his own weight?"
She tried her best to keep her expression blank, but despite herself a grin spread across her lips, and the corners of her eyes crinkled in absolute delight as she stared at the ceiling. "I remember those," she repeated. "I remember those well." Beside her Beast Boy's aura hardened.
"You're still her."
"I'm still me."
"You're not Raven."
"I am Raven. Just not the 'Raven' that you want."
"You're not Raven," he repeated, and this time she turned to look at him, the grin gone from her lips.
"Say it again, Garfield. Say it as many times as it takes for you to convince yourself that it's the truth." She stared at him, her eyes devoid of any sarcasm or dark playfulness. "Lie to yourself. It worked so well for her in the past." His cheek twitched as he clenched his jaw, and when he strode up to her bedside and leaned over her she felt her weak body spike with his proximity.
"You've been out for days," he said solidly, staring down into her eyes. "It took three hours and a lot of Cyborg's bio-engineering training to heal Robin's throat so he can eat properly. At the same time Starfire hasn't spoken at all, and only yesterday she finally walked outside and into the sunlight. Her powers have been moot the entire time." He gripped the edge of her hospital bed. "How does that make you feel?"
"Tired," she replied without hesitation. "Maybe I went overboard with them?" She sighed in exasperation, but Beast Boy didn't take her response lightly.
"Even when she was consumed by her father's evil, Raven wasn't so cold-hearted," he murmured. He started to turn and walk away, but she reached out a chained hand and grabbed his arm. He froze, looking down at her grip. "You've healed yourself," he said, disappointed. "I didn't think you'd be able to heal so quickly after what I did to you."
"You're not as strong as you think."
"Neither were you when you crumpled onto the ground."
"I'm not giving her back," she said, and this time she made it a point to accentuate her sincerity in the matter. "You can kick and scream, you can perform your acts of sadism on me that you veil in justice, you can exorcise me or deny my existence all you want, but I will not give her back."
He held her gaze for a surprisingly long time, the bruises and gashes on his face paling in comparison to the animosity in his eyes. When he finally pulled out of her grasp he did so with a forced silence as he kicked at the control panel and passed through the sliding metal doors.
.
.
.
Around her the darkness of her mind had become something of the norm, and in its silence she had berated herself until the voice in her head became the words that escaped her lips. Now she had fallen back into an eerie calmness. She didn't sit, for she had been sitting for so long, so she just stood. And stared.
"So this is what it feels like," Raven said airily, staring down at her hands, inspecting her palms, her wrists, her knuckles. On the floor next to her Happy flipped onto her back to look up at her. She had remained with her the entire time, growing so tired at moments that she'd drift off to sleep, and then laughing uncontrollably at other times without an explanation as to why.
"What does what feel like?" she asked. Raven shook her head.
"To be Depravity. To feel what I've done to her all these years." She sighed and her emoticlone rose to a sitting position, her head tilting to the side.
"What are you talking about?"
"I can feel it. Or I guess, I can't feel it," she explained quietly, curling her fingers into fists and then letting them ago again. "I'm becoming detached from my own body. I can't hear my own thoughts. I can't listen to my own heartbeat. I have no sense of connection whatsoever. I feel severed."
"You've been here for ages," Happy tried to offer. "Who knows how many hours or days have passed in the real world? You've been away from yourself for so long that maybe-,"
"No, it's not distance that's cutting me off. It's her. She's making me feel what I've made her feel since the beginning. Nothing." She dropped her hands and started pacing around her solitary rock, closing her eyes and concentrating on her breathing. "Was I so naïve all this time?"
"Honestly? Yes," her clone said. "But I'm guessing you already knew the answer to that."
"I was scared of her," Raven defended quietly. "Scared of what accepting her would mean."
"Just because you accept that you're capable of cruelty doesn't mean that you'll act upon it."
"I'm starting to understand that now."
"A little late."
"Yeah. Just a little."
"And sexuality and desire-,"
Raven shook her head. "No need to offer wisdom in that department. I already know what I've done wrong there."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
She kept pacing. "Perhaps."
"You thought of sexual desire as evil because of what happened between mother and Trigon."
Raven grimaced. "Hearing Knowledge's words come from your mouth is a bit unsettling, you know."
"And then you somehow found confirmation when you fell for Malchior."
"Seriously, I don't need the reminders."
"And then your deprivation of it made you resent it, and your resent turned into hate, and that hate found a home with…her." Raven stared at her emotion. She just shrugged from her place on the ground. "I'm just saying."
"I know all this already."
"But you don't know that we were also happy at those times."
Raven stopped walking. "Happy?"
"Yes."
"Was I happy when Arella told me the truth about her seduction to a demon king? Was I happy when Malchior betrayed my trust?"
"We were both happy when our mother was grateful for us, something that would not have happened without our father. And you were happy, for a time, when Malchior shared in the things you enjoyed."
"What is the point of happiness if it's short-lived?"
Her emotion suddenly held out her hand at that, her fingers spread wide in a halting motion. She smiled sadly and shook her head. "Ah. So we have finally come down to it, haven't we?"
"Come down to what?"
"The reason," she said. "The reason for everything. 'What is the point of happiness if it's short-lived?'"
Raven just sighed in exasperation, closing her eyes and pushing her hair out of her face. "What are you talking about?"
"What's the point of anger if it's selfish?" she asked. Raven frowned, not understanding. "What's the point of feeling sorry if the damage is already done? What's the point of attraction if it gets messy? What's the point of cruelty if it's wrong?" She started to rise to her feet. "What's the point of love if you can get hurt?" Raven opened her eyes and stared at her doppelganger.
"I don't want to play at riddles right now."
"They're not riddles," she explained. "They're all the things you used to tell us. All of us. When you didn't want us to come out." She walked up to Raven and right into her arms, leaning her weight into her body and resting her head wearily on her shoulder. Raven let her, but did not hold her. "You used to suppress me too—harmless little me—because you were always afraid-,"
"I was afraid of losing control of my powers."
"That is a lie, Raven. Was I so scary that I could break your steel resolve and make you lose control? No, you used to suppress even me because you were afraid of a short-lived happiness. You suppressed the extent of Bravery because you were afraid you'd get too confident, too reckless. You suppressed Timid because apologies make you feel guilty, and feeling guilty would make you undisciplined."
"I suppressed my emotions because that was what I was raised to do," Raven said, but even she was starting to get annoyed with the constant repetition. The words were slowly losing their meaning for her. "And once you get on that track…once you've done something for so long, you just keep doing it." She pushed her emoticlone away gently, but continued to look into her face. "I sound annoying, even to myself."
"Don't say that."
"It's true."
"Yes, but you don't have to say it."
Raven turned towards the edge of the rock, her eyes watching the darkness as she mulled over her thoughts. "I wonder what she's doing out there," she said absently. Behind her Happy practically whimpered.
"I wonder too. There are moments when she is happy and I feel it, but then the next moment she is angry, and then the next she is in agony, and then next she is resilient, but then the next she is resentful."
"She doesn't know how to handle it all," Raven said. "At this rate she'll end up breaking from all the strain."
"No," her emotion said, sitting back down on the ground. "Not her. You."
Raven reached an arm out into the darkness, concentrating, trying to force herself to feel connected to her own body again. She felt nothing reach out in return. "It really is all my fault," she said plainly. "I did this to myself, and now I have to go back and relearn how to be…"
"A girl?"
"A person. A human."
"Ah," Happy sighed, laying down again. "That sounds…"
"Fun?" Raven said sarcastically. Her emotion shook her head.
"Hard."
.
.
.
"I guess we need to talk."
Robin turned his head on his pillow as Beast Boy walked into the infirmary and pulled a chair close to the bed. On his opposite side Starfire was sound asleep in her bed, her body once again curled up beneath a mountain of blankets. Even though she had been out for a majority of the day soaking up the sunlight, she had insisted she was still too cold and had refused to sleep alone in her room.
"I guess we do," Robin said quietly, but clear enough so that Beast Boy heard every word. He stared right into Gar's eyes. "How is she?" he asked, and he didn't need to say who he was referring to.
"Fine. Better than fine. Better than you and Star." He raked a hand through his hair aggressively. Robin's expression didn't change.
"But she's still not Raven."
"No. She's not."
Beast Boy waited as his leader struggled to sit up, settling himself against his pillows so that he was more present in the conversation. Robin was grateful he didn't offer to help him, and he knew Gar was grateful that he didn't ask him to.
"You need to tell me what happened," Robin demanded lowly. "Cyborg already told me that you've kept the details from him, but you can't-,"
"I will," Beast Boy interrupted, leaning his arms against his knees and staring at the floor. "I just…you have to let me tell you the whole story."
"Okay."
"Everything. Without interruption."
"Okay."
"I'm serious, Rob. Even when I stop talking and start wandering around, pacing the room, leave to go get something to eat, fall asleep in this chair…you have to wait until I've told you the entire story. You can't say anything before then. You can't judge me and you can't judge Rae. Not until everything's been-,"
"Beast Boy."
Gar clamped his lips together, instantly realizing that he had been rambling nervously. "Sorry."
"I'll listen," Robin said sternly. "And I'll wait until I've heard everything. And after it's all been said, then you have to agree with whatever course of action I choose to take. No matter what."
Robin saw the falter in Beast Boy's resolve and felt the strength grow in his own. This was the same feeling he had had when he was pursuing Slade, and when he had retreated into the depths of the mountains to train with a master. This was how he had felt when he had ventured out on his own, away from Batman, away from the mentor that had taught him everything. It was with this hardened feeling that he had committed the sacrifices it took to be a true hero, and this Robin was going to take any means to fix the damage that had been done…no matter what.
"All right. Agreed." Beast Boy consented, swallowing hard. His leader nodded and then leaned his head back against his pillows.
"Good," he said simply, and then fell silent, allowing Beast Boy to begin his story at his own leisure. On his part, Gar covered his face with his hands, gathered his scattered and fractured senses, and then opened his eyes and took a deep breath.
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