Getting out of the shower hurt a lot more than getting in. Raven ended up sitting down for most of her time in the shower, being too tired to stand and not necessarily wanting to hurt herself even more if she ended up passing out. And after all, there is no rule saying that you have to stand to shower. It felt nice to sit there and have the water fall across her chest and stomach. In some way she felt like a cupcake with sprinkles falling on her. Her back still hurt like hell, but it allowed her at least a bit of relief to sit down.
Raven sat once more, on the edge of the tub this time wrapped in a fluffy towel while she dried off. Looking down at her hands, she was surprised to see a few cuts slowly leaking blood. How has she not noticed those before? It must have been the hot water that reopened them, she supposed.
She laid the back of her hands on her knees and watched as the blood slowly started to pool in her palm and ran down the sides and gaps of her fingers. Calling forth her healing powers, she only blinked when they refused to help stitch her hand together. "Huh, weird." Looking across from her at the sink, she concentrated on the hand soap and tried to lift it a few inches off the counter. But once more, nothing happened.
There was only once when her powers didn't work, when Beast Boy brought home that Wicked Scary movie and she wouldn't admit that she was afraid. But, she wasn't sure what she was feeling. She wasn't necessarily afraid, the scary part being over and done with hours ago, but for the first time in a long time, she wasn't sure what she was feeling.
She watched her hands for a minute more, just in case her healing did decide to work, but it didn't. So she sighed and stood up, wincing and bracing herself as pain went down her body and shot back up.
Slowly she shuffled her way to the sink and turned it on with the back of her hand so as to not get any blood on the handle. It didn't hurt as much as she thought it would while she rinsed off her hand. It stung a bit, sure, but not as painful as her torso.
The water ran shades of pink and red, swirling in the sink away until the water ran clear. Raven placed her palms gently against her hips on the towel, carefully patting them dry. A few red spots appeared on the towel but she wasn't too surprised, or worried for that matter, she knew Robin had a first aid kit under the sink.
Taking a sharp breath in as she bent down to open the cabinet, he shook her head at herself. "I'm acting like I birthed three children." She mumbled to herself. But she couldn't help it, she was hurting.
Thankfully, Robin was a smart boy and had the kit in the front of the cabinet so she didn't have to dig around. She made a move to sit on the floor but decided if she did that then she most likely wouldn't be able to get back up. So painstakingly slow, she stood up and shuffled back to the edge of the tub. It took a few moments to finagle the wrap to properly secure her hand, it being much harder with the addition of no powers, but she did it with a triumphed exhale and nod.
'Now,' she thought, 'how am I going to get into my clothes?'
Cyborg entered the main room with a heavy sigh. He placed Ravens blankets onto the counter and sat on one of the bar stools, head in his hand as he shook it somberly.
What were they going to do? How were they going to fix Raven's room? Will their funds from the city cover this, or will they personally have to pay for the repairs? How long will both Raven and Robin be kept from their rooms? How will Raven handle all this instability? How will they all handle the instability?
The thoughts swarmed him as he sat and let them come, mulling through different ideas and scenarios.
There was no way that this was going to be an easy process, not by a long shot, but he knew that the priority at the moment was Raven. To make sure she's ok, that they're there for her and will help her get settled as quickly as they could.
Right now though, they were all tired. It was already late into the night and there wasn't much that they could do. So, he stood up, reheated her dinner, and filled up a water bottle as well as a thermos with her tea, just in case she wanted it, and made the trek to Robin's room.
It took him a second to get himself situated with the load, but he balanced it all with only a few times where he almost dropped the plate.
Approaching Robin's room, he reached out to knock with his hand but stopped and tapped the door with his foot seeing as his hands were full.
Raven finally got her, well, Robin's clothes on. She was glad she chose the shorts, those were easy to pull up, but she had a bit of a hard time finagling with the shirt.
She decided to forgo the lotion tonight, being too sore and drained from showering, plus not wanting to mess up the wraps on her hands, and made her way to lay down when she heard a knock on the door.
She stood and groaned for a second, just wanting to lay down but having to go see who was there.
"Hey." Cyborg greeted her with a soft smile when the door opened. "I brought you some things. Can I come in?"
"Yeah." Raven sighed and stepped aside to let her friend in.
Cyborg gave a nod and walked towards the bed. "So I brought you what was left of your dinner in case you get hungry," he said, placing the plate down on the nightstand followed by the two bottles, "some water and there's tea in this one." He placed the two blankets on the bed and gestured to them. "B found these in the dryer and we figured you might want them for the time being."
He stopped his rundown and turned to look at Raven. She looked beyond exhausted and fragile at that moment. She faced her palms away from him and balled her hands as best as she could in the fabric of her shorts, hoping he wouldn't notice the wraps. Her wet hair fell down her back, dampening it as the excess water seeped through the thin fabric, shoulders coming forward in on herself, a gesture he picked up over the years as a sign of her not wearing a bra. Her purple eyes, normally active and attentive, were lowered to the floor, not meeting his.
His normally strong and sarcastic friend looked so frail, so vulnerable. That one wrong word would push her to tears, which also was definitely not normal for her either. She looked like a kicked puppy just standing there, so defeated.
His big brother senses were going off big time. Red flags were being flown all over the place and alarms rang. 'Are you ok?' He wanted to ask and scoop her in a hug, but already knew the answer. No, she wasn't. She was tired, hurt, betrayed, and probably just wanted to be left alone.
"Do you need anything else?" He asked instead, eyes not leaving her. "Some ice or a heating pad?"
She tensed slightly at the mention of ice, hoping the bruises on her thighs aren't peaking out from the hem of the shorts and shook her head.
"Are you sure?" He pressed, not totally believing her but wanting to respect her space and comfortability.
"Yeah." She met his eyes with a halfhearted nod. "Thank you for bringing me these."
Cyborg eyed her for a second more before nodding. "Of course." He reached forward and gently put his hands on her shoulders. It didn't escape his notice the way she flinched, whether in pain or just the contact in general he wasn't sure. "If there's anything else you need, anything, let me know. Or you know, Robin too or whatever." He grinned teasingly and gave a short chuckle when she cracked a grin. "But for real, we're all here for you and I don't want you to forget that. Now come here," he gently pulled her to his chest and wrapped his big arms around her small frame, "you look like you need a hug."
She knew there was no escaping a Cybear hug as they liked to call it, much like Starfire's spine breaking embraces, but his were much more gentle and soothing. Unlike the others, he was cooler due to his metal exterior. He wasn't as soft as the rest of them but he was big and could easily swallow any one of them and knew how to hold each of them just so.
Pressed against his chest, Raven could hear the soft whir of his gears and inner machinery which soothed her more than she would like to admit. She didn't return the hug, she rarely ever did, but she leaned her head against him in appreciation.
He only held her for a few seconds, not wanting to further annoy her or cause any more stress. So he unveiled her back into the world, gave her shoulders a light squeeze, and wished her a good night.
She could have spoken out then. Told him that no, she wasn't ok. That everything hurt, her powers aren't working and she didn't know why, that she was scared. But instead, she stood there as he closed the door, leaving her alone.
Raven sighed in exhaustion when she finally laid down. This, this was what she had been waiting for all day. To just lay down and go to sleep, letting all her worries disappear. To have this day finally be over and let sleep take over. But no matter how comfortable she was, well, as comfortable as she could be, she just couldn't manage to fall asleep.
She was all cozied up in Robin's bed. His blankets got pushed aside for the familiarity of her own. The curtains were drawn shut keeping the loud city lights out and the quiet dark in. Everything was the way it should be, quiet, comforting, dark, cool, but things aren't right. She wasn't in her room. This wasn't her bed. It was still too bright with the city light stubbornly shining through the edges of the curtains, as if they were going to open them. The usual nook where her bed resided was now in the middle of the room. The hooded-like overhang on her bed that provided more comfort and protection than she realized wasn't there, leaving her open and vulnerable.
It was too empty, too open.
All she wanted to do was be in her room, lay in her bed, but she couldn't. Her room was destroyed. Holes in the floor and ceiling, bookshelves torn apart, things knocked over and broken, it was all destroyed in a matter of seconds.
Like it was nothing. The room that she spent the past two and a half years building to be her safe place, taken away from her just like that.
But what hurt the most, why she was so much more upset, was because she let it happen. She was the one who talked to the charismatic dragon in her book. She was the one who helped him by his careful flattery. She was the one who listened to him, let him teach her dark magic. She was the one who released him from the books binds, ultimately showing his true form. She let it all happen because she thought that maybe she'd have a chance. Maybe he did understand her like he claimed. Maybe she finally found someone who accepted her for who she was. That maybe he liked her.
But it was all a lie.
He manipulated her, showered her with the utmost praise and flattery to get her to trust him, to get what he wanted. And she fell for it.
'This is what happens when you let people get close.' She scolded herself. 'You knew things like this happen if you aren't careful, if you don't let them in. But you let it happen anyway. You let yourself fall for it all. You're an empath for god sakes, how did you not know his intentions? How could you not see past the charm? You let your room get destroyed. You let yourself get hurt. You distanced yourself from your friends because someone was giving you a crumb of attention. You deserve this. You let it all happen. How were you not suspicious of a god damn talking book?! Why didn't you show it to Robin or Cyborg and get their opinion like you normally would. Why did you keep this a secret?'
'It's all your fault.'
Raven looked down when she felt something warm drop on the back of her hands. The wrap was damp but it was her palms that were bleeding earlier, not the backs of her hand.
As she turned her hand to look at her palm, she saw a single drop fall onto her wrap. She blinked in surprise and carefully touched her cheek feeling the warm trails of tears and sat up in alarm.
No. No no no no no no no!
'Don't cry, you can't! You know what happens when you let out just a few tears, the destruction it brings. Just breathe, in and out. In and out. In, and out.'
"In," she muttered, "and out. In, hold two, three, four, out two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. In…" she paused and looked around the room, looking for anything her powers might have broken, but seeing a normal room. She rapidly blinked and kept looking around checking to see if something had broken, something had to have.
But everything was just as she left it. No windows were cracked, no lightbulbs were shattered, no papers and books skewn across the floor, nothing happened.
She sat there in astonishment. Nothing broke. She cried, and nothing happened. Was it because her powers weren't working? There were no powers to respond to her emotions? Could she finally cry, let it all out without any consequences?
Letting her breathing slip from the trained evenness, she let it become faster, more frantic and let the tears come. She watched as Robin's room became nothing more than a blur through her tears, feeling them stream down her cheeks and pool on her hands beneath her. She watched as just like before, nothing happened. His room was just as still as it was when she first got in.
So she let it all out. For the first time since she was little, she didn't stop the flood of emotions. She let herself feel them, let herself fully embrace the sadness, the guilt, the anger, and push it all out.
Her chest heaved with her ragged, uneven breathing, becoming more and more painful to her already bruised ribs but she didn't care. She welcomed the pain. It was just one more thing on the list of things that hurt. This might be her one and only chance to be able to finally cry like her friends were able to do. To be normal for a moment.
So she did.
She could barely see through the flow of her tears, just blobs of colors as she blinked to try to clear her eyes but the tears just kept coming. She couldn't stop it and frankly she didn't want to. This was her first time in a long time that she was fully able to experience a good ugly cry, and frankly she quite enjoyed it.
Raven had always heard how important it was to let it out, to release the feelings in a healthy way, to not push it down and ignore it, and now she understood. She understood how easy it was to let it happen, how good it felt to just release everything that had been bottled up.
But as freeing as it was, it was also very exhausting.
When it seemed like she had no more tears left, she gradually returned her breathing back to normal with some deep breaths. Every now and then it would hitch but she just focused on her mantra and eventually fell asleep, still an emotional wreck but somewhat more at peace with herself.
