Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Raven was staring up at wooden planks and for a horrifying minute thought she was staring at the lid of her own coffin. Light filtered in through the spaces between the boards, though, so she couldn't have been buried. She tried to sit up, nearly smashing her head in the process.

Voices rose above her, and she tamped down her rising panic to better hear them. Wait, she thought, I know this dream.

"We know she's here," someone was saying. They were standing right above a small gap in the wood and Raven could just barely see the scuffed slacks and oddly polished shoes of the speaker through the hole. "We will find her—with or without your help." His voice was the cool, slimy hiss of a snake, and Raven shivered despite having heard it countless times before.

This dream had been recurring in the weeks since her first session with Nightlocke, although normally she woke up after staring at planks—floorboards, she realized—for five minutes. The dream had never really moved past that point. Even as the taste of foreboding invaded the back of her mouth, this time she was eager to see where it went next.

A sharp crack! made Raven jump and a bodily thump hit the floor above her, showering her in dust and in darkness. A whiff of too-strong old-lady perfume rushed by as a body was dragged along the floor and belatedly Raven realized that the sound had been a gunshot.

The snick of a knife being drawn brought Raven's attention once more to the peephole, and immediately she wished she hadn't.

The man with the snake-voice and polished shoes was drawing a blade across an elderly woman's throat slowly and with much pleasure—though it seemed as if she were already dead from the gaping hole the bullet had made in her forehead. Crimson pooled around the blade and fell generously, staining the woman's blouse and splashing to the floor beneath them. Drops splattered Raven's frozen face as she looked on in abject horror, unable to lift a finger to stop him.

The snake-man was unperturbed as he dipped his fingertips in the blood and smeared a circle on the wall behind them, carefully inscribing some sort of rune. It gleamed wetly when he was through, ardent red in the lamplight. He spoke to the blood and it boiled on the wall, suddenly sentient. It garbled a reply she could not comprehend.

"We think she's here, but her energy is guarded. We are…unable to find her presently. What are your instructions, sire?"

"Yes, there was some...trouble. But that has been taken care of! Shall I leave the body here as a warning to the mother?"

"Yes, sire, I understand. No, this will not happen again. Yes, sire, I am aware of what will happen if I do not return with the child."

"Thank you, sire. I will contact you again once we find her."

He bowed deferentially as the rune ceased to bubble and dried to nothing more than a brown smear. Another man—one of his lackeys, perhaps—stepped into view and whispered something inaudible to him and the snake-man straightened with a nod. Slowly, deliberately, they hauled the body out of Raven's line of sight. She cringed as the woman's slippered feet scraped the floor above her.

Suddenly, the snake-man's face filled Raven's peephole. He smiled indulgently at her as if they shared a secret-the curve of his mouth snaking out on either side of the blood-stained finger he placed to his lips. It split his face in half, reaching past his ears and his eyes—they were nothing more than desolate hollows with fire burning where his soul should have been. An ear splitting cry tore from her mouth unbidden, but it did not deter him from leaning closer and darting out a forked tongue to taste the air inches from her face. Her screams grew deafening as the snake-man opened his mouth to show her the rows and rows of broken glass meant to pass for teeth. His blistered lips were moving, mouthing out the words "wake up" but she didn't understand-she was too busy scrabbling backwards on her hands and heels as scream after scream fell out of her mouth and threatened to tear open her dreamworld.

Robin blinked at the LED readout on the alarm clock near his bed. 4:30 AM blinked back at him, unrepentant. He sighed and rolled over, just about to give up on the idea of sleep when thrashing and a loud thump above him had him halfway up the loft's stairs before he even registered that he was out of bed. Belatedly he thanked what lucky stars there were that he'd remembered to pull on his boxers first. A straight month of sleeping in his suit while he had worked on an important case with Bruce last summer had given Robin a fondness for the freedom of sleeping sans-clothing while in the safety of the dorms.

A low, anguished groan interrupted his thoughts, calling up the memory of a sprawled, bleeding, comatose Wren. Robin's heart tripped over the sound of panicked whimpers as he hurried up the steps and made his way over to where Wren lay, fallen beside his bed in the pre-dawn darkness, twisted in his sheets. A deep hum rose as everything in the room rumbled with unbridled magic—desk drawers opened and slammed shut, curtains strained on their hook, his bookcase shuddered in hysterics—and Robin ducked as a large tome nearly clipped his head as it flew by to crash against the opposite wall.

"Wren? Are you awake?" Kneeling beside the mass of sheets and writhing pale limbs Robin realized the boy was dreaming—no, convulsing with a nightmare—and relaxed slightly. Nightmares, at least, were a problem he was familiar with—years of experience had made him expert in handling them.

Robin unraveled and maneuvered Wren into an upright position and noticed with a start that his eyes were already open—pupils so dilated with unadulterated terror that there was no longer any violet to speak of. His grip tightened reflexively as Wren cried out in fear, pushing away and lashing out with his fists. A couple blows managed to connect with Robin's jaw and he cursed as he grabbed Wren's hands to prevent him from hurting himself.

"What the—dude, chill out." This kid is even able to land hits in his sleep, Robin thought incredulously, somewhat proud yet one-hundred-percent sorry that he had ever decided to tutor him in hand-to-hand combat.

A few more books whizzed by out of the darkness as Wren's bookcase suddenly decided to upend itself, and the bed behind them groaned as it was lifted into the air. Okay, now he was a panicking. Just a little. Robin held Wren's forehead against his own and stared hard into his glazed over eyes, desperately hoping his words would get through to him with the mere strength of his will and eye contact. "WREN. WAKE UP."

Wren's nails drew paper-thin lines of crimson where they scratched and scrabbled at the hands cradling his face, but Robin's stubborn streak ran a hundred miles wide—he was notabout to give up. Seconds turned into minutes until finally, Wren realized he was no longer dreaming, and his hands fell limp at his sides.

"…Robin?" he asked, voice heartbreakingly small. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's okay, I'm here," said Robin, deflating with a sigh as he felt the bed lower itself to the ground behind him. The room slowly began putting itself back in order. "I'm right here."

A myriad of expressions almost too quick for Robin to name flit across Wren's face—he saw terror, confusion, and relieved surprise before registering Wren's arms suddenly around his neck. Robin felt dirty sort of thrill as the featherlight touch of Wren's breath ghosted across his skin, and his heart thrummed with the memory of the last time they were in a similar situation.

"I was so scared," Wren was trying to say as he sagged against him, but the words kept coming out as hiccuped sobs, "He…killed her…he was going to…he was going to…"

Robin nodded his understanding, awkwardly patting Wren's shoulders as they hitched with each gasped breath and trying to ignore the apocalyptic implications of a normally unflappable Wren coming undone in his arms.

"Don't be scared," he said, a cold, uncomfortable feeling pooling in the pit of his stomach as he felt tears drip onto the skin of his neck,"No one is going to hurt you. Not…not while I'm here."

They both jumped as a lightbulb shattered to pieces.

"You, um, really need to calm down," said Robin, laughing nervously, "before the entire dorm comes crashing down around our heads."

Wren took a deep, trembling breath and nodded, pulling away. He realized his arms were still draped around Robin and he jerked them away as if he were on fire. "Yeah, c-calm. I-I need to…calm down."

"Just…take deep breaths," said Robin as he stood and offered his hand, but Wren didn't see it—he was too busy looking down, eyes trained on the floor in shame as the enormity of his actions dawned on him. Robin rolled his eyes. "Come on, up you go," he said, reaching down to grab Wren's arms and supporting him as he rose shakily to his feet.

"Okay, I'm fine. You can let go of me now." Wren jerked away from him again and rushed to put space between them, his hands shaking as he bent to pick up his discarded sheets. Robin didn't even notice, he was too busy trying to convince himself that the only reason he was up in the loft at four-thirty in the morning comforting a terrified Wren was because he had come to think of him as a younger brother.

As he helped Wren re-spread his bed and right the bookcase a small voice in the back of his mind scoffed at his denial—even his subconscious knew that his impulsive emotions around Wren had crossed the knife's edge of friendship after their first sparring match weeks ago. It knew that filing away the odd pull he felt towards him as a desire for brotherly companionship was only more safe-sounding than the…alternative.

Once Wren was safely back in bed and the room was back to some form of decency, Robin could not find an acceptable reason to remain. He hovered awkwardly for a few moments before quickly spinning on his heel with a gruff "g'night" and jerked suddenly—the cold hand suddenly circling his arm stopping him.

"Stay," Wren doesn't look at him as he says it, and Robin has to struggle to hear his voice. "Please. I…don't want to be alone right now." His tearstained cheeks are a little pink and his knuckles are white against the corner of the navy blue sheet he has clenched in his other hand and suddenly it's like Robin is looking at an entirely different person. Who was this stranger?

Wren wordlessly shifts over to give him room and they lean together against the headboard in a companionable, if somewhat tense, silence. Eventually his hand slides off of Robin's arm, and his skin feels strangely cold in its absence.

"We can…talk about your dream if you want. Sometimes voicing your nightmares takes the fear away—"

"I'd…rather not, thanks."

"I think it would help if—"

"No."

Silence blanketed them again, and after a minute Robin glanced at Wren out of the corner of his eye, assuming that he'd fallen asleep. He hadn't though, and instead quietly contemplated his folded hands, stark white against the dark covers. "O…kay—"

"I think it's a memory," Wren suddenly spoke up, and Robin shuts his mouth so quickly he nearly bites his tongue. "I…don't have any memories from before I turned thirteen."

"You're an amnesiac, yeah, I've heard," said Robin, quickly adding at Wren's look of alarm, "I remember Professor Huang—Nightlocke—mentioning your memory that day in the library. I just put two and two together."

"It's not just simple amnesia. I…we think that someone purposely blocked my memories via magic or something. But our…sessions…never revealed anything. At least, not to me. And…and then I started having these…dreams."

"It's not uncommon for people who have lost their memory to remember bits and pieces through dreams," said Robin gently. "Maybe you can learn from your nightmare."

Wren looked dubious, and Robin scoffed, slightly insulted. "I'm a detective, remember? I can help."

"Detective in training, last I checked." Wren says it lightly, but Robin can see that his eyes are squeezed shut, and his hands have fisted in the blanket again as he relives the nightmare behind his closed eyelids.

"Hey," he said, hesitantly touching Wren's curled fist, "I used to have nightmares all the time when I first came to live with Bruce."

"Ha." Wren wasn't smiling, and clenched the sheet even tighter. Robin withdrew his hand, resting his head back on the headboard and closing his eyes.

"I'm serious. Eventually Alfred installed a baby monitor near my bed so that he could talk me out of whatever dream I was having without having to walk across the entire Wayne manor every night."

Wren chuckled quietly, for real this time, and Robin opened his eyes just in time to see his lips twist into the wry almost-grin that could only be classified as Wren's trademark 'smile'.

At what point did he become able to tell the difference? Just how much of his life was now occupied inconspicuously studying Wren?

"It's a little hard to imagine you being afraid of anything, ever," said Wren, misunderstanding Robin's slightly scandalized expression and shrugged. "But, I suppose a life of fighting crime could traumatize a kid."

"It…wasn't crime fighting, exactly," said Robin, staring hard at the shadows the moonlight made on the ceiling. He could see Wren giving him an odd look out of the corner of his eye. He sighed. "I actually enjoyed that. The real reason isn't something a lot of people know, and I don't even know why I'm even telling you about it, but…I guess I'm kind of tired of keeping it secret."

The look on Wren's face had progressed to one of mild alarm and Robin realized that he might be coming to the wrong conclusions.

"I used to…dream about the night my parents died. Every night was the same—my mind replayed the moment over and over again and I was always frozen, always never able to move and save them." The words come out in a rush, but Robin's chest suddenly feels suspiciously light. He clears his throat in the shocked silence that follows, knowing that he just made the both of them insanely uncomfortable but that talking about it to Wren would keep his mind off of his nightmare. And that maybe, just maybe, a thought whispered somewhere in the back of his mind, offering up this piece of myself, this eight-year-old secret, could win some of Wren's trust. (Although, to be honest, Robin had no idea when it had become about Wren trusting him— he was sure it had always been the other way around.)

Wren digested this for a moment, and Robin could tell that he was caught between wanting to know more and wanting to stay quiet out of decency. Eventually, he guessed his curiosity won out because he asked,"How…did they die?"

"My family were circus acrobats. I was born in one of the circus tents on the first day of spring—my mom called me her 'little Robin'," Robin smiled a smile that was more of a grimace, and his voice grew bitter. "I took my first steps on a tightwire twenty feet above the ground and cut my teeth on greasepaint and sawdust. By the time I was nine, being an acrobat was my entire life. I never wanted dreamed of anything else. I always knew that this was what I would be doing forever; flying in the air with my family and traveling the entire world. We were weightless—falling wasn't a word in our vocabulary."

"Actually, I take it back, you don't have to tell me what happened—"

"One day I saw something I shouldn't have, but I was too much of a naïve coward to say anything. My idiotic, selfish fear caused my family to pay the ultimate price all because I was too afraid to speak up—"

"I…have no idea what happened, but…it kind of sounds like you're blaming yourself." Wren's voice was incredulous. As if he actually believed that there was a way in hell that Robin could not be responsible for what had happened.

"You don't understand—it was my fault. If I'd have said something, they never would have gone up on the stage and the ropes never would have snapped and we could have gotten that bastard—"

"Did you cut their ropes, Robin?"

"No, but—"

"Then stop it," Wren's voice was suddenly sharp, and Robin complied, shocked into silence by the clarity of conviction in his violet gaze."Obviously it wasn't your fault—you were achild. You of all people should know that by now."

"…You actually believe that, don't you?" asked Robin after a beat.

"Of course."

They were both quiet for a while until a chilly breeze from the open window forced Wren to wriggle under the sheets.

"How did you stop the nightmares?" he said, yawning up at him from his pillow and sleepily attempting to deter the conversation. Robin decided to let it go, secretly relieved that there was someone that didn't believe something he thought everyone suspected.

"I never said they stopped."

"…Oh."

"Yeah."

"Does it…ever get easier?"

Robin turned to study Wren, allowing himself to openly memorize the soft planes of his face in the fading moonlight. "I'm not going to lie to you. It's a price that we have to pay sometimes, as heroes. Nightmares and fighting criminals and making sure the same fate doesn't happen to others is our charge and our burden."

"A burden can be shared, though. Between…friends." Wren offered him a faint, reassuring smile. It was gone quickly though as his eyes drifted shut, and Robin wasn't sure if it wasn't just his imagination.

"Right. Between friends…and teammates."

"And Robin?"

"…Yeah?"

Wren didn't answer for a long time, and this time, Robin was sure he was sleeping and almost didn't hear him when he murmured, "It's time to let go. Mary says—yawn—she says that she forgives you."

Robin blinked, sure that he'd misheard him somehow. "Excuse me?"

He waited for an answer, but Wren had fallen asleep, leaving Robin alone to deal with the demons of his past.

Light filtered into Robin's eyes as he woke with a start. Content with the rare feeling of a good night's rest, he stretched languidly and nearly fell to the floor. He tried to sit up and scoot closer to the center of the bed but stopped as he registered a soft and warm weight on his chest. He looked down in confusion. Wren slept soundly atop him, arms spread on either side in the blissful abandon of sleep. He'd also somehow managed to sprawl out across the entire bed, forcing Robin to the very edge. When did he—? How did he—? Oh. The events of the night prior flooded his memory, including Wren's last odd phrase before he'd inexplicably fallen asleep.

The boy in question shifted in his sleep, causing Robin to nearly jump out of his skin—not because Wren had moved, but because of where was his hand right now?! Robin knew there was no possible way to disentangle himself without physically moving and potentially waking Wren so he could only hold his breath and pray fervently that Wren would move on his own because hoooooooly shit he was not supposed to be having this reaction. All intelligent thought vanished from Robin's mind as his blood, spiked with familiar heat, rushed south. His boxers tightened in response. Oh, please, god, not now, not now, not now.

The swish of someone opening the suite door yanked him out of his stupor and, not caring if he woke Wren, Robin leapt out of the bed, calming just enough to nonchalantly descend the stairs—like he always came down from Wren's room in just boxers—and call out a quick "Hey, Gar, hey Vic," before quickly shutting himself in the bathroom.

Garfield, always oblivious, contented himself with raiding their fridge. Victor, being far more observant than Gar and knowing Robin long enough to know that all kinds of wrong was written all over his face, narrowed his eyes. "Hey, Robin," he said uncertainly, approaching the bathroom door. "Everything okay?"

"Sure, why wouldn't it be?"

"I dunno, you looked kinda spooked, like you saw a ghost or something—oh, g'morning, Wren—" Victor paused to greet a sleepy, confused looking Wren. "Yeah anyway, Robin, like I was saying, you looked kind of spooked when you were coming down from Wren's—"

"Uh!" Robin suddenly burst out of the bathroom, interrupting him in the middle of his sentence, "Vic, wait, isn't today the day we get the Winter Exam results back?"

"Um…yeah," said Victor, eyebrow raised as his good eye flicked between Robin (who was so clearly trying to change the subject) and Wren, (who seemed like he genuinely just got out of bed and was two seconds away from blasting Garfield to another dimension—understandable, as having a furry green teen rooting around in your fridge is the last thing you want to wake up to first thing in the morning). "We made team Gotham, of course."

Robin grinned as he joined Garfield and Wren in the kitchenette, playfully shoving Gar out of his way and grabbing two mugs from their hooks above the sink. "Was there ever any doubt?"

"Nah, I knew we would make it. All five of us." Suspicion forgotten for the time being, Victor turned to Wren and handed him a crisp envelope. "Congratulations, man, I heard you made top marks in Physical Defense."

Wren looked at him with a mixture of amusement and confusion before opening the envelope. "I…I made the team?" He gaped at the paper in disbelief.

Robin put the tea kettle on to boil for Wren and poured himself some coffee. "Like I said, was there ever any doubt?"

The door beeped again as Roy entered a few seconds later, hair dripping wet. "I heard the news—"

"Did you hear it in your shower?" said Gar, offering him a hand towel from the sink.

"I did actually, roommate broke the door down to yell about how unfair it was," said Roy as he accepted the towel, and they all laughed. Robin's eyes narrowed as he noticed a quick look pass between Roy and Wren, and Victor's eye narrowed as he noticed Robin noticing Roy and Wren. Something was up, and damned if he wasn't going to find out what it was.

"Sooo….first order of business…" said Garfield as he read over Victor's shoulder from one of the shiny tablets they'd all received earlier that evening at the schoolwide assembly. "Choosing our codenames."

The five of them were gathered for the second time that day in the penthouse suite, all unanimously deciding that it would be their temporary HQ until it was time to move to Gotham for the Spring Quarter. Raven stared down at the electronic surface she held in her own lap, outwardly serious, but inwardly probably more excited than the five of them combined. She had to take a deep breath and count to ten every few minutes as to not blow the suite's light fuses with her all of her contained emotions.

"Actually, Gar, first we're supposed to vote on leader," she said, calmly reading from the guidelines on the tablet. Garfield groaned loudly from where he hung upside down on the sofa beside her.

"Oh, come on. We all know Robin's the undisputed leader, can't we just pick our codenames now?"

"No, Wren's right. I think we should vote," said Robin. "Let's do things the right way, guys."

Roy and Gar rolled their eyes at each other. Raven turned to Victor, but he just shrugged. "Alright, everyone. Everyone in favor of Robin being Team Gotham leader?"

Everyone besides Robin and Raven raise their hands.

"Majority rules, then. Robin you are now the leader of Team Gotham. Please, restrain your enthusiasm." Victor deadpanned, entering Robin's name into the database as leader. Robin shrugged at Raven and spread his hands as if to say hey, what can I do? Majority rules.

"Whatever! Codenames, then," Garfield bounced upright in his seat, barely able to contain himself, as Raven huffed and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "should've murdered him while I had the chance" to her tablet.

"I really hope—for your sake, Gar—that your codename doesn't involve the words green or tofu," said Robin, and Raven watched the wind abruptly leave Garfield's sails.

"Dude, like you can talk. You've been running around as a human traffic light outfit for the past five years." Garfield's tone was dead serious as he stared accusingly at him, causing Victor and Roy to burst into helpless laughter.

A muscle ticked in Robin's jaw as this went on for a few minutes until even Garfield joined in their raucous display. Only Raven looked on mirthlessly, not having ever personally seen Robin's uniform, and suspecting that its design might have something to do with his past life as an acrobat.

"You guys done?" Raven held up her tablet, reminding them that this was an official team meeting—they needed to get serious.

Roy eventually straightened and schooled his features into some semblance of seriousness but Victor still clutched at his stomach, gasping for air. "Come on, now you know that was hilarious, Rob," he said between gasps that quickly subsided once he registered the look on his leader's face. "…I'm…I'm sorry, man. Won't happen again."

Robin tried to look curt and indifferent but Raven knew better, being the only one on the team able to feel his projecting emotions for what they really were. He locked gazes with her suddenly, determination masking the hurt in his eyes as they searched hers. There was a message in them that Raven couldn't quite make out.

"From now on, I'd like to be known as Nightwing," he said in the brief silence.

"Aw, Rob, I…I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Garfield shifted into his favored apologetic form—a kitten—and rubbed against his leg.

"No, Gar. I'm serious. It's time to…let go of my—of our—past as sidekicks and as children because right now we are being sent to Gotham as adults. So either grow up or go find another team."

The mood in the room sobered quickly after that. Raven looked down at her lap once more, replaying the unreadable stare he'd given her over and over, analyzing it as the others rattled off their chosen codenames.

Feeling everyone's gaze on her, she looked up. "What?"

"Your codename? What do you want to be called?" Victor spoke slowly, and Raven realized that she'd just been asked twice but had been too preoccupied to notice.

"Raven. I…want to be called Raven." The name rolled easily off of her tongue before she could call it back but the others had already accepted it without question, Victor's fingers quickly tapping the screen as he entered her name into the database. She could see Roy try to catch her eye but purposely ignored him. Raven was a unisex name, wasn't it?

"Alright, you guys. Tell me if I have this right," Victor read the names on the list one by one, "Raven, Nightwing, Speedy, Beast Boy and, yours truly, the one and only Cyborg."

Garfield snickered. "That's a pretty long codename, 'yours truly, the one and only Cyborg'."

Raven felt the corners of her mouth curve as the gang went right back to arguing good-naturedly and the meeting's heavy atmosphere lifted.

Maybe…she could get used to this.

Raven peered through the slits in the uneven planks. Beast Boy was taking an awfully long time with the diversion.

"Remind me again how hiding in a storage crate will give us the element of surprise," Raven spoke to the wood in front of her face, "as opposed to simply cloaking ourselves with my magic?"

"You said yourself that your cloaking spell is energy intensive," His mouth was at her ear, and she could hear the smirk in his tone loud and clear yet shivered against her better judgement. "We need your magic at 100 percent tonight because, as you know, the Slayers now have a sorceress."

Nightwing fidgeted, trying to dig out his communicator in the cramped space, and every time he moved, the length of his chest slid along Raven's back. It was finely crafted torture and she wondered, not for the first time, what vendetta Speedy had against her. It had been his plan, after all.

"Well, could you at least try to stop moving? It's distracting." Raven snapped, trying to focus on the empty moonlit dock. What in the actual fuck was taking them so long? She wasn't worried so much about Nightwing and his…strange tendencies as of late than she was of herself, and what her more carnal side would do to the hormonal—and quite attractive, she admitted to herself reluctantly—man she was currently trapped in close quarters with. Naturally, for some odd reason Raven's hormones had been running majorly haywire recently. She had no idea what was causing her heart to flutter and give her false heart attacks whenever she was near certain members of the opposite sex—let alone two inches away from one who proudly flaunted his new 'sex god' status (+) wherever he went. Apparently, since he was legal now—his birthday having passed a few weeks ago—every woman within a six mile radius wanted to get into his pants.

Nightwing sighed into the exposed skin on her neck, and she could feel the muscles in the arms he'd braced on either side of her clench. Frustration and heat rolled off of him in waves. Underneath it all, nagging at her senses, was the musky scent of desire. Raven couldn't tell whether it came from her or from him—they were so close—but she was pretty sure that it was hers, and that terrified her. She wondered if Batman had ever trained his prodigy to smell pheromones.

Raven's world screamed to a halt as a hand pressed into the dip of her waist and her mind grew cloudy. What…what were they doing here again?

"Raven," he bit out, and was all she could do to keep frozen as her entire being narrowed into the patch of skin beneath her suit that his hand covered. She was aware of nothing else as he drew closer, if that were even possible. "Let me see your communicator. I can't reach mine."

"Delta to Alpha squad. I'm running them to you now." Raven's communicator chirped with Beast Boy's voice and a sudden commotion on the dock outside brought her mind back to the situation at hand. As planned, she waited until they were close before blowing open the front of the crate. It worked surprisingly well—Raven and Beast Boy showered the dazed Slayers with tag-teamed over-the-top aerial attacks, providing cover for Nightwing as he secretly went for their leader—and it was all over in less than fifteen minutes.

"Alpha to Beta squad. What's your status?" Nightwing was barking into the communicator he'd commandeered from Raven as she and Beast Boy helped load the criminals into the waiting transport bus. She looked over at him, slightly worried. Speedy should have been back by now. "I repeat, Alpha to Beta squad, what is your status?"

Static feedback burst from the communicator, and they all sighed, relieved. "This is HQ," Raven's heart dropped as Cyborg's voice responded instead of Speedy's, sounding even tinnier than usual. "We have a situation—I think Speedy's down. Transmitting his coordinates now."

Nightwing cursed loudly, and Raven grabbed the communicator before he could throw it in frustration. "Thanks, Cy. We'll find him. Raven out." She exchanged a quick, wordless agreement with Nightwing before grabbing Beast Boy. "Let's go, we're taking the skies."

"You know, I think it's really creepy when you guys do that whole no talking thing." They cruised the skies above Gotham, Beast Boy scanning the streets below with his eagle eyes as she did the same with her magic.

"And I think it's really annoying when you do that talking thing," said Raven, trying to feel for Speedy's aura. She hated when Speedy went rogue while on a mission. It was like finding a tiny needle in a haystack the size of Gotham, especially when Beast Boy was talking. "You're making me lose focus."

"You guys are always making eyes at each other and making the rest of us feel uncomfortable. Just get married already and get it over with."

"Gar, would you shut up and concentrate for two seconds? Roy might actually be in trouble."

"Please, Raven, you and I both know that he's probably at some chick's house, just like last time."

"Actually, that chick was working for our target. Speedy was the one who found out in the first place, dumbass."

"Uh oh, somebody sounds jealous," sang Beast Boy. "Just wait until our fangirls hear about this—a forbidden love triangle among Gotham's hottest new bachelors—"

Nightwing's tired voice came in through her communicator just as Raven was about to send her teammate hurling out of the sky. "This is Alpha. I found Speedy. Report to HQ. Nightwing out."

"See?" Beast Boy banked low as they changed direction to head home. "Told you so."

Raven could feel the tension inside the compound for blocks before they actually arrived there. She put a hand on Beast Boy's shoulder before he bounded in and said something stupid. His eyebrows drew together in understanding, and they paused together at the compound's hidden entrance—an old, heavy cast iron door sequestered at the end of one of Gotham's many forgotten alleyways—bracing themselves for whatever was happening inside.

She turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "Ready?" He nodded, and they exchanged solemn looks before she punched in the passcode.

Cyborg stood in the common room between Nightwing and Speedy, not physically touching either of them but somehow still effectively stopping them from murdering each other. He glanced at the Raven and Beast Boy, the words help me written all over his face.

"How many times do I have to tell you to follow orders, Roy? You could have gotten yourself killed, or worse, endangered the entire mission!"

"Do you fucking hear yourself right now, Dick?" Speedy's voice rose to match Nightwing's. "Where the hell are your priorities?"

"What the hell is going on here?" Raven approached them. It always ticked her off when they fought, mostly because they would be so angry that they'd purposefully say things just to hurt each other instead of actually talking about what they were fighting for in the first place. It was also annoying because she could feel just how deeply their friendship ran under the surface and she just couldn't understand why they were trying so hard recently to rip each other apart.

"I think that maybe it's time we chose a new leader." Speedy glared openly as Cyborg took that as his cue to sidle away, and Raven heard him mutter to Beast Boy, "I am not touchingthat with a ten foot pole."

"Stop it, both of you. We are not choosing a new leader tonight, Roy." Raven crossed her arms and tried to look bored as she used their given names, "And I don't know what Roy did,Richard, but you need to take that bit about his life being less important than our mission back." Her eyes narrowed as she spat the last part at Nightwing, who looked slightly ashamed before his trademark stubbornness kicked back in.

"I'm not taking anything back. He put everyone at risk just because he didn't want to follow orders. He could have gotten himself killed and revealed our location while he was at it. All for some floozy and a blowjob." Nightwing's lip had curled into a savage snarl by the end of his sentence but Speedy just smirked at him.

"Well I didn't, did I? What's the matter, bird wonder, haven't been getting any alien ass lately?"

"Roy! That is out of line! What the fuck is wrong with you?" Raven felt her patience thinning. She was not equipped to be the voice of reason here. "You guys are best friends! Partners, even!"

"Oh, stop acting like you're so good yourself, Raven." Roy snapped at her and her skin went cold. "I see the way you look at Dick sometimes, why don't you just tell him how you feel? Oh that's right, you can't because of your little secret mmpfh—!" Black magic encased Roy's mouth and he glared daggers at Raven, who froze in shock as sudden comprehension dawned on her.

"He's been enchanted! I don't know why I couldn't sense it before." Her magic had immediately found the cause of Speedy's uncharacteristic aggression once it came into contact with his skin and her senses cast out further, feeling along the borders of the foreign spell. "The Slayer's sorceress got him on our first mark. Weeks ago. Shit. Shit. I should have known."

It hit the rest of the team a moment later, and their eyes widened as everything clicked into place. Cy recovered first and went into full-on medic mode, at Raven's side at once. "I'll sedate him and get him to the medical wing. Do you think you can reverse the spell?"

"I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I'm sure it can be reversed. They don't call me the best warlock in Paladin for nothing, you know." Raven offered a small smile up at him and he nodded, administering a tranq as she kept Speedy still until he slumped forward. Beast Boy helped Cyborg load him onto a hoverstretcher and together they whisked him to the medical bay, leaving Raven and Nightwing alone in the common room.

She turned to him. He winced as Raven's magic washed over him, confirming her suspicions. "You, however, are not infected. You have no excuse for the way you were acting tonight, Richard. What's your problem?"

"What did he mean when he said you had a secret, Wren?" Nightwing shot back as he closed the distance between them. She held her ground as he neared, unwilling to show that she was intimidated. "And how do you look at me?"

"Your Nightwing mask doesn't scare me, you know." Raven averted her eyes, refusing to acknowledge his question. "And I couldn't have less time for your nonsense. Answer the damn question."

He drew even closer to her, pulling off his mask to fix her with his unrelenting ice blue gaze. She hated when he did that. The pure, unadulterated hunger she always saw reflected in his eyes never failed to shake her to her core. "You first."

"No."

"Disobeying a direct order, Raven?"

She scoffed. "Friends don't give their friends orders, Nightwing. We're a team, remember?"

"Friends—teammates—don't keep secrets from each other."

"Do you really want to have this conversation? As if we know all of your many secrets, o fearless leader?"

That seemed to shut him up for a moment and they glared at each other, volatile emotions simmering under the surface. "I seem to recall trusting you with the only secret that matters to me," Nightwing finally said quietly. "I don't know why I thought you'd ever return the favor."

"Where are you going?" Raven called after him as he stalked towards the exit, grabbing his motorcycle keys from the bowl near the door.

"Doesn't matter. Tell Cy I'll be back later. Com me if anything." Nightwing said curtly, not sparing a glance in her direction and slamming the door on his way out.

Raven cursed at the door as it trembled in its frame. Why were boys so frustrating?