Swallowing thickly, she rose from her room and drifted to the kitchen, relieved at the noise the china cups made against the counter, and watched the steam rise towards the ceiling from the boiling kettle. She rolled a sore shoulder back to work out the kinks until the water was ready. Pouring hot water into each, she grabbed for a box of tea on the top shelf, drawing it down surrounded by black magic. It was a special brew she’d ordered when first coming to the tower, sweet with chamomile followed by a smooth mint. It was only tea, but magic was everywhere if you could pluck it out of thin air, and Raven hadn’t found anything more calming or reassuring of this plane or others.She lost her courage just outside of the filing room, though the door looked almost comically flimsy; just a sliding piece of metal that revealed an opportunity where none had been before. Know someone too well and it’s a weapon, not a kindness. She glided forward and allowed the door to open, revealing her figure in the doorframe with two cups of tea in hand.Robin’s hair was damp at the ends, and his gloves were lying on top of an unused display case. A nearby case held the silver gloves she’d seen on his hands less than 24 hours ago, and she wondered if the memory of how they felt would be hard to shake.“Is that for me?” Robin asked, and Raven nodded, holding out a cup. His gaze was fixed on the teacup instead of her gaze, and when he got close enough to take it, Raven smelled a trace of soap, wondering how long he’d had to shower until he found some peace.“Thanks.” Robin moved back to the desk, holding his cup though making no move to drink it. He busied himself by picking up a sharp piece of metal, jagged and S-shaped, made of sharp edges. It was the first time she’d seen him since they’d returned, and the empath was beginning to wonder if the seclusion had been deliberate.“You don’t need to punish yourself,” Raven said, shocking herself a little with how soft her voice had come out. Robin froze over the desk, gripping the emblem tightly as he turned to her, brows furrowed.“You were trying to save us. That’s what you should remember right now.”He didn’t reply, but she swore she saw his shoulders relax slightly, his brows raise a minute amount, and the smallest note of gratitude reached her.—ii.They had been complete as five. When Terra had burst into their lives, Raven had worried that there would be no room for her, or worse, that she would take the place of another Titan, one who had always been apart, distant, and ultimately easy to replace. But when six shrank to five again, Raven even found herself missing Terra. She left holes in a spotless bathroom, a mid-morning silence where she had found snores that she was convinced could rattle the walls, a smile in a boy who’d never been slow to smile before.When she caught Robin alone, he’d been staring at Terra’s door a few days after she’d followed Slade from the carnival, packing box in hand but hesitant to enter.”If you’re going to tell me ‘I told you so,’ I know.””I wasn’t.” She almost felt bad about missing Terra. Beast Boy was by far the one most affected by her betrayal, and the team needed her to be angry, needed her to be the place they filed their emotions when they were too difficult to bear. But Raven had no anger to offer.Terra’s nameplate was a stamp on Robin’s file, a note he believed made him unfit to be a leader, a misstep that had cost his team dearly. For Raven, Terra’s friendship had been a lapse in judgement, a reminder why letting people in too close was exposing her neck to a blade. But you can do everything right and still lose; the benefits of the doubt should have been more rewarding than being right.They stood outside Terra’s room for what felt like an hour. Finally, Robin stepped inside and packed away anything that had been hers.—iii.There was a knocking at her door long after there should have been silence. Raven’s bed had offered her no relief after the day’s events, even though exhaustion had settled in close by, so the distraction wasn’t entirely unwelcome. Not bothering to grab her cloak on the way by, Raven opened the door to find Robin, mid-knock outside her door.“You’re up late.”“I need a favour.”Summoning her cloak to her, Raven followed Robin down the hallway, winding the hallways in silence until they arrived at the infirmary once more. They’d spent too much of the day there, but judging by the lights, Robin hadn’t left after the rest of his team had.“Robin, we ran every test we could think of. Your system’s clean.”
“I know. I need you to run them again.”Rather than argue with him, Raven took the needle he’d offered her and tied off his upper arm with a band he’d prepared nearby. “This will sting, I’m sorry.”“Just do it.”She drew his blood as quickly as she could, working to ignore the grimace in his expression and the number of marks that already marked his veins. She set the blood to test while offering Robin a canister to breathe into. The results from the last test were still on the screen, negative of course, but that gave Robin no assurance.Robin broke his silence when her back was turned, having taken the canister from him and set it inside the analyzer, a process that was familiar to her by now.“I still see him. I don’t think he’s gone.”Folding her arms across her chest, Raven raised her eyebrows, concern rising up her back.“Does he say anything?”“No.”“Does he try to hurt you?”“No, I just see him in the corner of my eye.”Letting out a sigh, Raven pressed her lips together to mull over her choice of words.“After something like this, it’s not uncommon of for the brain to look for patterns it’s gotten used to. You might keep seeing him for a bit, but he’s gone. He can’t hurt you again.”She stepped toward him, ignoring the beeping of the machines behind her.“I promise.”—iv.She cleaned without any use of her powers. Any trace of him shouldn’t be spirited away but scrubbed out. She wanted to feel tired, feel the exhaustion of the physical labour it took to vacuum the carpet, lift every book one by one back into its original place on her bookshelf, ensure every magical ingredient was carefully tucked away where it belonged.When it came time to hang her white cloak in her closet, a tightness in her throat made the gesture all the more difficult. The book holding him had been locked away in a chest that sat far from the door, well secured behind not one but two different locks, but she didn’t feel any more at peace.The hole in the ceiling was too conspicuous to ignore, but she left it alone. Let the evidence show how wrong she’d been. How stupid she’d been. How naive, how willing, how wanted she’d been, she’d felt—She woke up one morning to the sound of construction on her roof. After a few moments of bleary, barely-awake blinking, she could see the billowing edges of a yellow cape from the lip of the hole apart from the construction.Grabbing her cloak, she joined Robin on the roof, letting the cool wind of the morning wake her up. “It was only a matter of time before it started to rain.” Robin explained, turning towards her. Raven offered him a shrug in response — it had been some time since she’d seen any of her teammates, as it had been a quiet past few days. She hadn’t asked for an excuse.Her silence was obvious as the pair looked over the city, the noise of the construction behind them not enough to make it any easier. But it was Robin’s glance towards his boots that betrayed his thoughts before he spoke.“We’ve missed you these past few days.”She had no response to offer him, just a surprised glance towards him. Robin’s mask wasn’t enough to cover his uncertainty; neither of them were particularly well-equipped to deal with the situation ahead of them. There was no step-by-step guide for ‘How to deal with your friend’s love crush turning into a dragon and betraying them.’“And… I’m sorry he did that to you. You deserve better.”She couldn’t meet his eyes after that, but felt the first stirring of a smile in days.—x.She remembered a noise in the hallway, a sniffling along the ground coming closer. Careless — no. Uncaring. Magic in her hand, she stepped out of her room, wishing in vain for more light. Then, she saw the figure — taller than she’d remembered, angry, and bearing its teeth in a delighted grin. When it lunged, she screamed, and the world went black too.They’d recovered her in the sewers, with the bottom of her cloak stained with god-knows-what. For a horrible moment, she looked dead; limp and unmoving in the beast’s jaws, even peaceful. He froze, ice in his veins as he searched for any blood, a rising chest, anything to reveal that Raven was still alive. She let out a groan as she hit the floor that birthed a relief Robin couldn’t ever try to vocalize, but now, back in the tower, with her levitating form prone on the bed, that relief seemed far away.He didn’t leave her side. Even if the monitors she was hooked up to would’ve revealed any change in her condition with an alarm he could hear throughout the tower, he wanted to be there, watch if her breath faltered, she fell limp again. As if his vigil would do any good. This was his team, his responsibility. And if she didn’t wake up…Best he could tell, she was healing herself from the inside out, even though the telltale sparkling blue magic was nowhere to be found. Had she always looked that pale? Certainly not that vulnerable. Try as he might to busy himself with charts and vitals, her silence was too conspicuous to escape his notice.He needed something to do. Something to change. If there was a mountain he could move, point it out and he’d throw everything he had at it. Sitting and waiting, helpless, wasn’t something Robin ever dealt with well.“Come on, Raven. Come back to us.”If he hadn’t been watching her for the past hour, he wouldn’t have caught it. But her body rose slightly higher than it had in previous times, closer to where he stood over her, and Robin could remember what relief felt like.—xi.Every moment he didn’t spend working on a case, he put into the panic room. He’d consulted with Cyborg on the security measures to break into the room if, god forbid, they were unable to stop Slade from advancing. Two Titan hands on the panel, biometric scan; a fail would set an instant alarm triggering numerous booby traps designed to take out the enemy. Beast Boy had stolen the book from Raven’s room on the rare occasions she left it, and Robin had pored over it with Starfire for the relevant protective sigils. And he didn’t mind the paint on his clothes.The observation deck felt too clinical, but they couldn’t run the risk. If Trigon tried to access her psychically, Robin wanted to be sure Raven could strike back without fear of harming her teammates, but if he’d had his choice, Robin would wait this out beside her. He settled for the frontline.She’d looked so scared in the days leading up to her birthday, Robin remembered. Any peace Raven should’ve been able to find within herself had long since abandoned her. He’d catch her sleeping in random places — in the gym, on the couch, even on the roof once, catching a few moments of sleep where she could. But he could tell when the dreams began every time, and shook her awake before she could finish her plea. ‘No, please—’ The noise may have faded, but it lasted in Robin’s ears.~In all their preparations, they had never imagined that Raven would let herself out of the safe room. A stupid, stupid, stupid oversight — Raven had succumbed to her emotions before and had let Trigon loose; he should’ve known that now, when her defences were low and Trigon growing stronger, he would try to control her.At least, that’s what Robin had believed when he saw that Raven had left the safety of the tower. Chest heaving, with every bone in his body aching with exhaustion, he could still feel the rush to his temples as her blue cloak came into sight. But the sadness in her eyes was all Raven’s.The energy she’d released was like nothing he’d ever felt before. It was the closest he’d ever come to being struck by lightning, feeling so alive and in pain at once that his body couldn’t hold onto it all. Fighting — and losing — for consciousness, the last thing he could hear was something Trigon would never wish upon them; to be safe.~This would not be how it ended. How the story of Jump City, the Teen Titans, of Raven ended. He wouldn’t let it.~When he grabbed her hand, it was shaking. Friendship hadn’t been enough.How many times had the team been shielded by Raven’s barrier before? To keep them safe, away from harm, but now it was Raven walking into the fire. His fists were useless and he had nothing left — no gadgets, no magic ace up his sleeve, nothing left to say or do, but just watch.Any connection, any bond they had was tearing at him with every step she took. The sigils began to burn violent ridges into her skin, and though he held Starfire, he felt numb, outside of his own body — he’d rather be anywhere than her helpless witness to her own destruction.‘Please don’t leave me alone.’Her face collapses into a grimace, and he can see the lights dancing around her reflected in tears budding at the corner of her eyes. But when they open again, they’re white — pure white, nothing-left-but-the-pain white, death white.He owed it to her to watch every second until there was nothing left.
