What kind of jerk takes a months-long hiatus on a nearly-finished fic and doesn't just come back and finish it? :(

(One who's been grappling with a year that's felt more like ten years in disguise—and it's still only September.)

Where even where we? Oh yeah! Hive is gearing towards a big showdown, Kitty seized the opportunity to blackmail Dick into taking her to prom, and Terra being found out for a traitor is impending :) Onwards!

April. Baby's first villainous motivation p.4

The Club was meeting up at school some fifteen minutes before the dance officially started. Vic, Gar and Terra arrived first, and snuck in through the side door so the other students wouldn't see them.

"Why are you even thinking of prom? You're a sophomore," Vic was telling Gar, because Gar had never stopped being sulky that Dick hadn't even considered letting him and Terra spend a while at prom. "If Kitty wasn't holding Dick hostage, we wouldn't have thought of prom at all."

"Okay, but she is," said Gar. "So the possibility's there, what was I supposed to do? Not take the shot?"

"Um, yeah," Vic remarked, but Terra was smiling at Gar's antics, and that was all that counted for him.

"Come on, Vic," he grinned. "You're telling me you're not thinking of taking Bee to prom next year? At least a little bit?"

"Actually, she's told me she plans on only going to her senior prom," Vic said, smiling wide not just because he got giddy whenever he thought about Bee, but also because he was still relieved he'd finally told his friends he was officially dating her.

"Wait, seriously?" asked Gar. "Does she already know you're a bad dancer?"

Now Vic frowned. "She says she's only willing to go through prom once! It's efficient, and I love that about her!"

When Dick joined them in the hallway, he was tugging at the collar of his dress shirt.

"Where's Kori and Raven?" he asked.

"Raven texted they're on their way," said Vic.

"Okay, when they're here, tell them this." Dick rolled his shoulders—Vic figured out he looked uncomfortable because the suit was too small. He figured the boy had refused to go shopping for the occasion and grabbed a random old suit from his closet, and tried to hide a fond smile as Dick gave them the mission prep. "This thing should be somewhere it can ruin prom if it's set off. Try and follow air vents. Did you bring the flashlights?" On being shown three flashlights, Dick said "Okay." He stood there, clearly trying to find something that would make him stay, but ultimately looked at the time on his phone and sighed. "I'm going in. Wish me luck."

"I do not envy him," said Gar after him.

When Dick went into the gym, Raven arrived, almost like she'd waited around for Dick to leave before she appeared, and in fact that was exactly what she'd done.

"Kori's not coming," she announced.

"What? Why?" asked Gar.

"She's going to keep an eye on Dick, because she thinks at least two people should be there to handle Kitty if she freaks out," Raven explained. The dryness in her voice left no doubt as to what Kori's intent really was. After she recited what Kori wanted her to say, she put finger and thumb to her forehead and massaged it. "I just spent the last five hours helping her find a dress."

"So she's at the dance? You mean…" said Vic.

"We're doing the mission. Dick and Kori are doing prom," Raven confirmed.

"Man, that's so unfair!" Gar said as they moved up the hallway. "Dick didn't want to give me a pass for prom but Kori gets to go?"

Raven turned to him. "What?" she demanded.

"I asked Dick to get me and Terra into prom, but he said he didn't wanna owe Kitty anything," Gar elaborated.

Raven frowned at him and Terra both. "So you were also gonna leave us alone to find this bomb?" she rejoined, with a sudden forcefulness in her voice that Gar ascribed to being on edge from her afternoon at the mall.

"Stink bomb," Vic said through gritted teeth, "say stink bomb. That way if someone hears us, there won't be instant panic."

The four Club members started on the first floor. They moved silently, with Vic leading. They spread out to open each closet door in their way and looked around corners before they moved ahead. Terra moved with them, drenched in cold sweat, her heart jumping at every new door they opened. It seemed inevitable they'd find the bomb eventually, and she didn't know how she was supposed to stop it.

Kori arrived to the dance right before Kitty did, in a stunning pink dress, to tell a surprised Dick she had realized he should have back-up for the night, and she has decided to fill the role.

Dick hadn't argued as much as he probably should have. He had to admit that with Kori there, the night suddenly seemed doable. A little later, when Kitty arrived, dramatically claimed him as his date at the top of her cheerleader lungs, and dragged him to the photobooth, he could see Kori in the corner of his vision -her scarily angry expression laser-pointed at Kitty whenever he wanted to turn to see her-, and it did make him feel safer.

The dance moved at a snail's pace for Dick. Every time Kitty felt he was dragging his feet too much, or not smiling enough, she'd pull out her phone. "Do you want me to give the sign to set off this stink bomb?"

"I don't know. Is it somewhere important? Like near a lab?"

"Nice try," Kitty would say. "Now take another picture with me. And you better smile this time."

Whenever he could, he slipped away to get a mission report.

"Online," he said into his phone. It was a new feature—the spoken command they'd chosen to automatically pull up all six of them in Vic's walkie-talkie function.

"Hey, man. Second floor is clear," said Vic.

Gar said, "And I'm with Vic, so… yeah."

"I can confirm the second floor is indeed clear," Raven stated, half sardonically.

"…I'm with everyone too," said Terra after a moment, just in case.

"Okay… one person reporting in was enough," returned Dick. We have to make protocols for these calls, he thought. "Uh, keep up the good work."

And then he had to go back to Kitty. He found her sitting in a table, drumming her nails on her crossed arms and looking onto him disapprovingly. When he sat, she offered him a bottle of booze from under the table. Thankfully, she respected it when Dick shook his head, and just took a big gulp herself.

That was when things got a little more remarkable.

Five minutes later, Kitty had launched into one of her long stories, telling Dick how Fang had once stolen hundreds of dollars of makeup from the mall for her, apparently trying to make Dick know he had to step up his game. Dick was absent-mindedly considering they might have to make it policy to follow Fang around sometimes, when things were slow, because he seemed to commit a lot of crimes, when Kitty said, "And I know you're not a stranger to the five-finger discount, so."

Dick looked directly at her for once. "What?"

"Oh, you're surprised I know about a little watch from a little jewelry store?" Kitty replied coyly, lapping up the fact that she'd gotten any reaction from him that wasn't him playing hard to get—as she saw it. "Don't worry, I like bad boys."

Dick's phone buzzed. "You want some punch?" he asked Kitty, getting up from the table.

"I just showed you I have the good stuff right…" she began, but Dick had rushed off.

He answered his phone; Vic's face appeared.

"We're in front of a closet door that's locked," he said. "It's a good contender."

"What floor?"

"Third."

Why all the way up there? Dick thought, but just told Vic, "One of you come down here and get my lock-picks."

Gar appeared on the screen. "We volunteer!" he cried, and Dick could only assume he was taking Terra along.

But up on the third floor, when Gar grabbed Terra's hand to pull her down the hall, she stayed put and looked panicked. "Um… that sounds like a one-person mission, doesn't it?"

Gar gave her a meaningful look, thinking she hadn't caught his real intention.

"Yeah, Gar, go by yourself," said Vic. "That way we make sure you actually do the mission."

Gar had no choice but to sulk away, alone. He spotted Vic press Terra's shoulder as he walked off, and felt a twinge of pride along with his disappointment: she was more responsible than he was, she just wanted to do a good job of the mission.

He went into the gym. This year's theme was 'Date with destiny', and the decoration was all pink and purple, with balloons and paper flowers arranged in lush arcs and garlands. Gar took note of how pretty it all looked. He imagined himself dancing with Terra here, but told himself, Maybe next year.

He walked by Kori, who was stationed at the punch bowl, eternally serving herself the same cup, which overflowed and poured back into the bowl, her gaze focused on Kitty across the room. "Hey, Kor," he greeted.

"Hey," she returned, not breaking her watch. She was holding up the entire line to the punch bowl.

Gar went up to Dick, who was clearly disassociating as Kitty literally dragged his dead weight across the dance floor. When he saw Gar, he seemed to snap alive. He stopped them dancing and wordlessly took some lock-picks out of the depths of his jacket. Kitty regarded Gar with her usual look of disgust, which Gar ignored as he took the lock-picks and left.

The three on the third floor were waiting for Gar when Raven saw it—a figure at the end of the hallway. She shone her flashlight towards it, and it revealed only a hooded figure she didn't recognize, for a split second before it ran off.

"There," she said for her friends' benefit, and took off after it.

Vic, who hadn't seen anything, took off after her, and Terra had no choice but to follow suit.

The three came to a point where the hallway split. Vic signaled at the girls to take the left, and he took the right.

Terra knew the way they were going led to another split hallway. When they got to it, Raven stopped them. She shone her flashlight into the mouth of one hallway, then took a finger to her lips for Terra and pointed her to the other hallway. She turned her flashlight off, so Terra did too, and then she took Terra by the elbow and made them stand by the wall.

Terra understood her plan: the person could be in one of the two hallways. If they were in the one Raven had shone her light on, they'd stay hidden thinking they were about to go into it, so they could get to him later. But if they were in the other one, they'd likely try to slip past them, thinking the girls far away, and then they could catch him on his way out.

As moments passed, Terra thought she did perceive someone in the dark. After a few seconds, it was clear someone was walking through the narrow hallway towards them. Terra felt faint.

Next thing Raven knew, a light suddenly blinded her, the person she heard treading took off running, and she turned to see Terra's wide eyes in the light of her flashlight. "Sorry!" she exclaimed.

Raven said nothing as they took off after the person. By the time they came out into the main hallway, they had lost him. "He must have gone down already," Raven surmised, shining her light down on them. "Let's just see if he dropped something on the way."

Terra was watching her face and trying to read her tone. When she'd flashed her light, she'd seen Raven's face for a split second, and she was trying to piece apart the expression she saw then. Hadn't it been a searching look, trying to see if she'd done it on purpose? Gar had said Raven had a sense about things.

Both of their phones buzzed. They answered to Gar.

"Where are you guys?" he asked the girls and Vic.

"Chasing someone we saw on the floor," Raven explained. "But we lost them."

"Well, I picked the lock, and there's nothing in this closet." Gar turned his phone around and showed them an empty closet.

Dick came onto the screen, and his screen came with a lot of background noise. Raven noted that a prom apparently sounded a lot like a bar brawl, before Dick said, "Kori and I need backup! Kitty's boyfriend is here and he wants to fight."

"We're on our way." Raven put her phone away and turned to Terra. They were by a window; she could see her face by moonlight without needing the flashlights.

Terra didn't breathe.

But Raven said, "Don't dwell on it. Everyone makes mistakes. Let's just go help Dick."

And Terra breathed again. She nodded, acting like she was putting on a brave face after an honest mistake, and followed her.

As they ran, she got real courage back; she even came to feel smug. Gar had said Raven had a sense about things. But Terra had fooled her completely.

By the time the last four Club members made it into the gym, prom had descended into chaos. They quickly located the source of the conflict: Fang and Dick were tangled in a fight in the middle of the dance floor. Other students were watching, a large portion filming, and some were leaving the prom entirely. Kitty looked onto the scene as if her every last wish for prom night had come true.

(They clearly heard Fang shout "This will teach you to stay away from my girlfriend!" and Dick reply "You can keep! Her!", but Kitty apparently didn't.)

Vic moved forth to split up Fang and Dick, so the others went to Kori's side. Gar noted she looked entirely more relaxed than before.

"Fang wants Kitty back," Kori said pensively, "I could not say why."

Gar felt a gust of cold air, and looked around to realize someone had wisely opened the emergency door, through which students were now leaving in droves. The decorations had taken some abuse in the brawl: balloons lay broken or had floated aimlessly on the ceiling, the curtains hung off center and dirtied. They had stopped the music and turned on the lights, so nothing was glistening anymore. "You guys, this looked so pretty last time I was in here," he told his friends.

A fire had somehow broken out by the music console; the Secretary was serenely putting it out.

Raven turned to talk to Kori (she was going to say "I like it better this way.") and found her friend was gone. She located Kori a bit ahead, fully thrown over Kitty in an all-out fight. She didn't know how that side-brawl had started, or when Kori had even left her side. All she knew for sure was that Kori was winning, and the way Kitty was still insisting on fighting proved she had less of a sense of self-preservation than Raven thought humans evolutionarily capable of.

"Shit, why's the police here?" Terra suddenly asked.

Raven and Gar's heads whipped around and indeed saw officers entering the gym. The two moved immediately, exiting the gym and pulling Terra along. "Out the back door we go," said Gar. "When we see cops it's every man for themselves. It's new team policy. No sense in all of us going down."

From a spot out of the way, where Raven texted the group chat to leave immediately on account of the police, the three got to find out that the officers were there because the stink bomb had been called in, by a student who had apparently heard whispers of it. Apparently it technically counted as a biological weapon, so they had to come.

When all fingers pointed immediately at her, and at risk of getting a criminal record, Kitty was forced to confess the truth: there was never a bomb, it was all a lie.

No one was arrested that night.

The Club ended up sitting on the curb as prom night deflated around them. The smattering of angry teenagers still waiting around for rides shot angry looks at them whenever they could.

"Well done," a girl spat at them as she and her date went to an Uber.

"Why're they blaming us?" Gar asked when they were out of earshot. "It was Kitty's bomb that wrecked prom."

"The popular kids have immunity," said Vic. "No one wants to get on their bad side."

"All I'm hearing is we should be meaner to the student body," replied Raven.

At that moment Kitty walked out of after Fang, shrieking. They gleamed he'd apparently asked her for some 'time'. Kitty was limping from something Kori had done. All things considered, she'd gotten off lucky.

"How did she think she could win against Kori?" Gar asked, and Kori pretended not to hear.

"Power of love?" suggested Vic.

Dick closed his eyes. "Don't even joke like that."

When she could, Terra discreetly moved away to look at a text from Jen.

J (22:41): Billy says it went well

So that was Billy we were chasing, thought Terra. Jen's friends blurred together for her, but she thought she remembered he was the fastest runner.

She wrote back, I know there was never a stink bomb.

Jen replied with three smiling devil emojis. Terra rolled her eyes.

When she looked up, she accidentally made eye contact with Kitty. Kitty scowled at her, and Terra was struck by the fear this idiot would be angry enough to address her in public. She turned away, then went to where Gar was talking to Vic, took his arm and furrowed into his side.

"Can we go?" she asked him.

Gar looked at her curiously, found her face, pulled some hair behind her ear. "Sure. What's up?"

She shook her head. "Just tired."

So Gar put her arm around her and they walked off.

Vic grinned at the couple leaving arm in arm, shouted "Be safe!" and rejoiced in the angry look Gar shot at him.

Some distance away, Dick and Kori were talking and laughing. Kori had calmed down back to her usual sunshine self. Dick had given her his jacket, and she looked at peace with the world because of it.

Vic turned to Raven to suggest leaving the two alone, and his smile soured.

For days he'd been noticing something off with her. She was a bit quieter than usual, angrier than usual, and sitting out of hanging out more. Right now she stood with her hands shoved in her jacket's pockets, staring at nothing and looking sad—looking like she thought the world had forgotten about her.

Vic felt a knot in his throat at seeing her like that. It occurred to him to fear something was still going on with her father. Would she tell them, if she had to suddenly move away? Without Gar getting on her case, getting her to promise she'd tell them if something was up, not letting up until she confessed? And lately Gar had been too distracted with Terra, understandably, to look out for Raven.

"Rae," he said. She looked at him with those sharp eyes of hers, and the sadness evaporated into her usual impassive expression.

The next question died in his lips, because he could clearly see what would inevitably happen. If he followed it up with 'Are you okay?' or 'What's wrong?' or even a 'What's up, really, come on', those eyes would narrow, and she would close up, deflect, and leave. And he'd never get to help her.

He didn't have Gar's mettle. He couldn't pester her until she shared whatever was wrong. Gar had a way of not treating Raven like the solemn sacred being they all kind of saw her as, and it brought her down to human scale for all of them. Vic didn't have it in him to try to be Gar, and he also suspected he wouldn't be able to work the same magic, if he tried.

So he shifted his weight. As he desperately looked for what to say, his eyes fell on the roadside. Then he got an idea. "You wanna learn how to drive?"

Half an hour later, Vic watched Raven methodically go through the steps he had outlined for her.

"I step on the clutch," she said, as he nodded along. "Go into first gear. Let go of the clutch."

"Yes, good."

The car slowly moved forward in the deserted street.

His idea had worked out better than he'd hoped for. Tonight she'd learned to start, go, and turn left. As she learned and focused on each task, her forehead cleared, and he thought he could see her worries ease somewhat. He knew he couldn't have solved whatever she had going on, but she was more… present and solid, so to speak. No longer in a cloud of nondescript sadness.

Raven herself wasn't ignorant of what this really was. She could sense Vic's worry oozing off him, back when she'd let her guard down as Gar left with Terra. She knew perfectly well Vic wished she would just talk to him.

And she had considered talking to him about what was bothering her. That is—she'd considered telling him about her mother. Not the other part. If she told him about Arella leaving, then he'd understand something, she'd get to vent a little, and she wouldn't have to tell him about Gar—she wouldn't have to confess something that would cause his head to explode and that she didn't completely understand, accept or even want to acknowledge.

But as the night went on, she felt she didn't need to say anything. His method worked too: she got less and less in her own head while she started to acquire a valuable life skill. By the end of the night, she got the sense that her problems must be smaller than she thought, given that she could always go on a drive with a friend and take a break from them.

They called it a night after a few more turns. Raven was mentally tired, and Vic said, "I'm starving."

She replied "Sure," which between them meant 'Take me wherever you want and I'll have something too'.

So they changed seats and Vic took them to a drive-thru.

"I still can't get over how Kori ditched us to keep an eye on Kitty," Vic was saying a while later, in between bites of a burger.

"She said she wasn't letting her pull one over her again, remember?" Raven told him, sipping her milkshake.

"Yeah, but she kept up this whole pretense of being concerned for Dick's safety," laughed Vic, sounding amazed. "I didn't think she had it in her."

Raven didn't laugh back. "No one really knows anyone," she said a moment later. "You think you know what people are made of, then they surprise you."

When Vic looked at her, she had a small smile playing on her lips, and wasn't looking at him. And seeing as he still had no earthly idea what she'd been down about, he guessed she was right.

He had no idea what to say to that, but he thought maybe it was her way of telling him they were on the same page: that his attempt to comfort her hadn't gone unnoticed; that she was sorry she didn't tell him what she was sad about.

Vic pulled up on her house, and Raven wondered if she would ever become the sort of person to lunge forward and hug a friend who'd been there for her like Vic had been tonight. But she just got out of the car, and Vic waited until she unlocked her door and then waved and left, because none of her friends expected that from her anymore.

And she was still herself, so she let him go without even a word of thank you. Vic had smiled wide and her, and seemed satisfied his plan had worked, so she thought he knew she was grateful. But still, he deserved more.

Raven entered her apartment. Truth be told, she was beginning to like being able to get home late to no questions. She could turn on all the lights and not tiptoe to her room, and not wonder if Arella was up and listening for her, and not wait for the frantic interrogation the next morning.

She thought of going to sleep as she was—holding on to the good feeling from Vic's companionship. But again, she was herself, and she knew what she needed to do. She sat cross-legged on her bed and meditated the whole night away, both the good and the bad.

Then she went to sleep.

The next morning, she slept in. She opened her window to see it had rained overnight. After having a late breakfast of chai and store-bought dosa, she stared at the grey, drab sky for a while, gathering strength. Then she went to find Azar; she figured it was time.

Sitting in her office, Raven struggled to explain what was wrong. "Meditation… hasn't been working properly. I had… a feeling… and I had been misidentifying it until recently."

"What feeling?" Azar asked.

Raven looked down at the table. "Jealousy."

Azar smiled. "Ah. A terrible one to admit. It's very normal to deny jealousy and call it something else."

As always, running her problems through Azar's view of the world calmed her down.

"Has it had negative effects in your life?" Azar asked.

Raven thought about it. Besides having possibly misjudged Terra and keeping her at a distance, she hadn't made such a big fool out of herself. "I don't think so."

"Then you're only better equipped to deal with life than you were yesterday," concluded her leader.

Raven couldn't smile back.

"Is that all?" asked Azar, probably knowing it wasn't.

Raven launched onto the second part, the harder one. "Does my mom keep contact with you at all?"

For once Azar didn't understand her meaning. "Her affairs are managed by her new head of house, dear."

That told her everything she needed to know. "I see." Raven cast her eyes down, feeling hollow. Maybe she hadn't been ready to hear that.

"That is not what you wanted to hear," observed Azar.

The night before had been one of many Raven had stayed out late without telling anyone about it, before or after. It had been a sort of experiment. No one had ever said anything to her about it; no one had grabber her in the temple or summoned her telling her Azar wanted to know where she'd been.

Until now, Raven had assumed Arella kept watch over her through Azar. But if Azar had been in contact with her mom—if Arella had been asking if Raven was following her rules, Azar would have at some point told Raven 'Don't come home so late, dear. Your mother worries', at the very least. But Azar had never said anything to her. Which meant she wasn't in contact with Arella—and Arella wasn't watching over Raven from far away.

It hadn't occurred to Raven until now that she had been simply cut loose. That her mom wasn't taking a vacation—maybe she was simply gone. Maybe she wasn't coming back.

She looked out of Azar's ample window. The rain had made it so every plant in the inner garden was green and glistening.

"It wasn't," Raven replied. "But it's fine."

Somehow, it would have to be.

End of April.

Next up: May. It was just a school club.

Thanks for reading! ^^

~The Lighthouse