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I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.
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“Azarath Metrion Zinthos!”
The incantation comes to Raven with the easy rhythm that breathing does, and it leaves her mouth with the same conviction for survival. She's ripped a traffic sign from the ground it stood posted in, and now it sails through the air towards her assailant. Had he not been a combatant of some skill, it would have likely crushed around his rib cage, as had been her intention. Instead, the man flings himself into the air in an awkward flip, his violet cape flapping around him like deformed wings. Raven lands on the pavement with a dull thump, her chest heaving with every breath. She's trained her body for long strain and endurance, but she has long since become worn. This is not her first battle today, nor is it her first on her own. She fought with her team that morning, twice on her lone patrol earlier in the evening, and now it’s long into the night. Shadows have been creeping along the brick walls and ground for ages, chased by the light of dim streetlamps that do little to provide comfort. Raven has grown weary, but still, submitting to anyone's will but her own is not in her blood. The separation from her team has set her back, but Raven understands this is for the best. It's easiest to separate when it came to finding their targets, a tactic that rarely failed. Their call out to the city had been to take down an overgrown, mutant creature earlier today.
That had escalated when a second one, somewhat smaller and presumably the first one’s mate, had shown to defend the larger one. Robin wanted to ensure no others were roaming around, hidden in the guise of night. Raven had discovered two small ones, and Cyborg had disposed of three. The battle was long, tiring, and really rather sticky. And, it had carried over into this one. Raven can still feel slime clinging to her skin each time she moves, her cloak even clings to her skin every so often. She brushes it off for the umpteenth time before launching back into the air, her breather now over. Heroes had no time to recuperate, even when the villain seemed so pitiful. Raven hopes her thoughts won't turn out to be an erroneous assumption. This crook had instigated her into a fight, and though she had originally assumed him to be a drunken fool, he proved to be quite the adequate adversary. He wielded small throwing knives with impressive skill, of which were a couple that had nicked Raven and left a thin red sheen in some places on her skin. Raven raises her hands once more, unsteady with exhaustion and instability. She's been out since the early hours of the morning with no chance to escape for a moment to breathe, to meditate; her powers are taking their toll on her now.
“I don’t wish to harm you,” Raven calls down to the man below her. She believes it to be a man, at least. He is far taller than most women she has met, save for Starfire, and he is quite stocky and bulky in build.
A raspy laugh echoes from underneath the mask the crook has on, and Raven knows her guess had been correct. It’s undoubtedly a masculine voice, thick from age and husky from chain-smoking. “But, I want to hurt you.”
Raven narrows her eyes at the cryptic statement. It’s disconcerting, but no more so than any other lowlife criminal. Plenty of people hate Raven, she's heard countless insults and curses over the course of her lifetime. Some worse than others, some downright threatening, but she's still here fighting. If this man thinks he can do her harm with only a petty claim of hatred, he’s as foolish as the rest. Raven swings her fist and, shrouded in dark magic, a nearby dumpster careens towards the male with the full intention of knocking him down and out. Though, Raven has to wonder when her plans have ever gone as she intends them to. The man reminds her of a weasel with the way he slinks about the shadows and worms his way out of the direction of most of Raven’s arsenal. She’s landed a hit here and there, but for the most part, all the two of them seem to be doing is dodging each other. Raven must say that she is quite exhausted with this dancing. The man's breathing is heavy, too, which she tries to take some relief in.
“That’s a shame, I’ll have to do what I must,” Raven replies. She feels darkness creep at the edge of her vision, but she’s certain she has enough for one final blow. She can do this, she can keep her control, she has to! White begins to glow from her eyes as powerful magic seeps from her, encircling her body and spreading through the alleyway in tendrils. The man has fallen still, and now he only stands, watching Raven from below with awestruck wide eyes. He unnerves her with this. Raven hasn’t placed her finger on it, as most criminals are unnerving, but there’s something about this man that leaves her guts writhing inside her. It's prickling at the back of her mind, but she cannot focus on it now, she has a fight to win. She shakes off her paranoia to focus her energy on what she hopes to be the last attack of tonight. Right as she opens her mouth, the man opens his own, and his voice bellows out over hers with enough force to shock her into silence.
“Sohtniz Noirtem Htaraza!” the man screams the spell with such conviction and volume that the very brick walls seem to shake around them. The oxygen from Raven’s lungs gets sucked out of her in a retching gasp. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated as they stare up into the night while her magic dwindles and the glow recedes. Raven feels frozen, unable to move, unable to even take a breath. She remains hanging in the air like a macabre decoration for a grueling moment, until she comes crashing down onto the concrete in a heap of scraped skin and bloody cloak. It cascades around her, a protective shield, while she scrambles to find her control of herself again. She sucks in a frantic, scalding breath, but it’s a struggle to swallow any air in at all. She feels dizziness and nausea wrap around her senses; soon after, that same paranoia returns to her, and it's screeching like a siren.
Up. Get up, you have to get up! You can’t lie here, you’re in danger, GET UP!
Raven’s panic makes the empty cars nearby rumble, but they don’t lift off the ground like she wishes for them to. No, they sit and they shake with the violence in her heart, but she doesn’t possess the strength now to move them. She can’t even move herself. She feels herself drained, empty...her magic and strength both sapped. A gleeful laugh resounds throughout the alley, and Raven hears footsteps bounding towards her. She struggles to lift herself to prepare for the oncoming threat, but she needn't bother. The man comes to a halt before Raven and leans over her, the glint of his mask is gone now, replaced with pallid flesh and sunken in eyes that are watery, but they gleam with a twisted joy. Raven has seen that joy, in the past. It’s the joy of a victory, it’s the joy of a capture gone right.
It’s the joy of something powerful having their victim at their mercy.
“Look at you, all sprawled out like a broken bird.” The man kneels, but his hands hover above Raven instead of actually touching her. She chokes on her voice, unable to find coherency in it despite how much she wants to snarl. He seems to find amusement in this and chuckles, shaking his finger at her as if to admonish her. “I wouldn’t try if I were you, you’re only wasting energy. I’ve done a lot of research on you, you know! Don’t think I would only half-ass it," he sounds offended that she may think that, as if she has any idea what he means.
Raven swallows, but she almost suffocates on the lump in her throat. Who is this man and why does he seem to know so much about her? That spell has never left her lips, never left her books. She's kept it a secret close to her heart, like every other weakness of hers. She never, ever allows anyone close to them. Her fingers clench in pain from where they lay at her sides, useless. This time, the man rests his hand on her stomach, where she's heaving for breath. Bile rises up Raven’s throat the instant he touches her. She's never felt so disgusted by any villain's touch, but this isn't the villain itself, this is the intent behind it.
The man shivers. Her stomach is firm with muscle, but soft enough for a woman, he thinks. “You always parade around, don’t you, Raven?” Oh, he spits her name, no longer having the previous joy. “Glorified, inspirational, empowered. You’re so strong, aren’t you? The strongest of the Titans. But, here you are! Broken! Brought down! Wings clipped!” The man begins to dig his broken, grimy nails into Raven’s abdomen. She doesn’t wince. Every time the man speaks it’s jumbled and shaky, like he’s reciting a speech while hopped on adrenaline. He's not making any sense, but the confusion is meant to add to the fear he intends her to feel. Prey doesn't deserve to understand; its purpose is to die.
“You always fly around like you’re so above everyone else. Untouchable! You think you’re invincible! No one can touch you, can they Raven?” he asks, but it doesn't look like he wants an answer. The man’s nails tear through Raven’s leotard now and break her skin. Still, she doesn’t wince. He doesn’t deserve that satisfaction. Instead, she lifts her head up weakly and spits into the man’s face. Bulls-eye.
It delights him. He throws his head back with a laugh that echoes around them. Raven feels her head pulse with an oncoming migraine; closing her eyes seems a good option right now. She won’t have to look into this guy’s ugly face as he blathers on, at least. He can’t kill her, no human can kill her, and boy, have some tried. Her life, at the very least, is safe until her team picks up on her location and finds her. Her comfort and sanity are another matter, but she's learned to shut them out. Raven knows they all have to be searching by now, they should have met up ages ago. Robin knows Raven isn't the type to keep them waiting.
The man looks down to see Raven’s eyes shut. This isn’t right. She should be watching him! She should be staring up at him, afraid! He grabs Raven by her hair and slams her head into the ground, cracking her against the concrete. Raven’s mouth opens with a startled cry as pain reverberates through her skull. Darkness covers her vision moments after she blinks, stunned, but her eyes are open, and that’s all the man cares about. “There…there. I want you to watch me! I’m the one that caught you, I went through the trouble, so I deserve that much," the man sneers. "A big price is out there for you, Raven. Do you know how many people have waited for this? Waited to see the arrogant and untouchable Titan brought to the ground? And I'm the great guy to do it!"
Raven’s body goes rigid when she feels a pair of legs straddle her waist. His weight bears down on her, at least a hundred pounds greater. “You’re such a pretty bird, aren’t you?” the man says, before ripping the blue, protective cloak from Raven's body. She hears the cloth tear as it’s flung away from her, but at first, its loss is slow to register in her head. Cold air prickles her skin, but that is not the reason for the goosebumps that rise on her flesh. Ugly things begin churning inside Raven. A scream bubbles in her lungs and it boils up to burn her tongue, but she can’t force it out of her mouth. Only a wheeze comes out. The man looks into her eyes with adoration and admiration. It makes Raven ill. “Raven…” the man coos her name, using his clammy fingers to smooth her hair back. It's a tender gesture, intimate, almost. Realization rises up Raven’s throat as bile. It was never his intention to kill her.
This man is going to rape her.
No. That cannot happen. Raven won’t let it, it won’t happen like with her mother. No! Raven’s heart begins to pound wildly against her chest, scorching adrenaline through her bloodstream. It singes her veins as it burns through her, but she has nothing to do with it, no way to dispel it all. Rough, eager hands bruise her arms as her attacker yanks them away from her, clawing at her leotard with the ferocity of a beast that hasn’t fed in ages. The ground trembles with each beat of Raven’s heart now, but the man isn't fazed. She’s weak now, knocked off that throne of hers. He can take what he wants from her, and there's not a thing she can do! “See? I can do whatever I want now, just like you do to people all over the world!”
Raven slams her eyes shut. Weakness hides in them, weakness that this man can’t see in her. Even as his hands claw and scratch at her clothes and skin, mixing blood with the nighttime air. Thick fingers wrap around Raven’s slender throat, squeezing against her windpipe, and threatening to crush it. “Do you feel that? Do you feel me, Raven?" he asks, "I’m in control, I own you, now! And there’s not a damn thing a pitiful little witch like you can do to stop me.”
No. No, she refuses that. She rejects that. Raven’s jaw clenches, rage surges through her. This man has dared to touch her, dared to vilify her? She is not a toy, she is not an object for ownership, and never by the likes of a man who is so lost in his own mind that he has warped his own reality. Raven is a sorceress. Raven is a Titan. Raven is a woman, and above all else, Raven is her own.
With all the strength she can rip from her uncooperative body, Raven jerks her head and sinks her teeth into the man’s hand. It's the nearest body part to her. Blood spills onto the ground and into her mouth, and she desperately wants to spit it out, but she refuses to let him go. A shriek wails from the perpetrator’s mouth and he beats against her head with his free fist, trying to yank his wounded one away, but she only bites down harder. Her fingernails claw into the ground as she struggles to push herself backwards, away, anywhere but underneath this disgusting scum.
Flesh tears away in Raven’s mouth when the man finally jerks himself free, his hand mangled and face twisted into fury. Raven retches, hoping to get rid of that metallic taste that covers her tongue. The man bends over Raven’s body in a hunched form, snarling in her face like he’s a rabid animal. But, Raven is the one with the teeth and claws, now. If she can fight no other way, then she will use everything she possibly can. Her body is her weapon, and she will hurt him in any way she has. She bites him again, this time on the throat.
Screams of pain erupt from his mouth, but she’s deaf to them. As long as they aren’t hers, Raven doesn’t care. She bites and holds on, because if he’s distracted and hurt, he won’t focus his attention elsewhere. “You little bitch, I should have let the others have you out first!” the man snarls the crude threat, ripping at Raven’s hair and skin as he tries to pull her off him. Raven fights against his attempts, but she can only hold out for so long before he gets in a good hit on the already wounded girl. She's forced to release him, but she's satisfied to see blood still dripping down his chest. She's torn him open, left him bleeding. She'll fight him the whole way, no matter what, she swears on that. She's exhausted, pained, but she is also enraged and powerful.
“You bitch!” Heavy panting fans over Raven’s face, he drips blood onto her cheek as he closes in on her. “I’ll make sure you’re so fucking mangled, your own Titans won’t recognize you.” Raven spits his own blood back into his face. As long as she’s hurt him, surely someone will see him, wonder who did it. Someone will figure it–
“You will do no such thing!” Above Raven, something plows into the man sitting atop her and knocks him off her and some feet away. The relief is instantaneous and great. Green, powerful energy illuminates the alleyway and an agonized cry bounces around the brick. A blur of green and purple races past Raven, but she is too unfocused and startled to notice it. Her body trembles from exertion, pain, and unparalleled terror that she has never felt before, not once in her life has any fear compared. For all that Raven is brave, she is also afraid. It simply isn't something she wills her attackers to see in her.
Someone kneels beside Raven and reaches a hand beneath her head to cradle it. She flinches away, not voluntarily, but entirely on reflexes kicked into her.
“Ssh, Raven. It’s just me. You’re safe, now.” Robin’s voice is a steady, firm anchor in the sea that once threatened to swallow Raven whole. She isn’t ashamed to cling onto it. Robin helps her to sit up, but he doesn’t move away once she does. She has to lean against him for support, otherwise she's sure she'd collapse again. Raven's had enough of cracking against concrete for one day. One of Robin's hands holds on to hers while the other holds her around the shoulders, keeping her upright. Wary, stinging eyes blink open, watching as Starfire pins the filthy man to a brick wall and holds him there by his throat. Raven cannot recall a time she’s seen her friend so livid. Beast Boy paces beneath the vengeful Tamaranean, in the form of a tiger and snarling something hateful. Raven sees blood covering the man’s clothes, but in another second, she’s come to the realization that it’s all due to her. She is who hurt her attacker so.
“You will be imprisoned for a long, long time! I will see to it!” Starfire slams the man into the brick once more, knocking the groaning mass unconscious. When she drops him, Cyborg secures the man's arms behind him and leaves him propped against the wall. Raven catches his eye for just a moment when he turns to look at her, but she breaks her gaze away before it can linger. Cyborg can read her too easily, and she doesn’t want to be read right now.
“Friend Raven…you–are you undamaged?” Starfire floats above Raven, seeming to debate touching her or not. Raven appreciates that Starfire respects her space this one time. Even with how unfamiliar Starfire is on how to handle certain situations, she isn’t stupid nor is she blind.
“I’m all right.” Raven’s voice is scratchy and grates on her throat, but she wants to get at least that much out. She is all right. A little beat up and very drained, yes, but she considers herself to be just fine. Beast Boy fetches her cloak for her and wraps it around her, for which she is extremely grateful. Raven takes a breath, and her chest throbs, as does the rest of her. “But I can’t walk,” she confesses. Or move much at all, but Raven sees no need to disclose that much. She'll rely on her team, but she won't burden them with unnecessary worry.
“I’ve got it,” Cyborg tells her, stepping forward and crouching down to lift Raven off the ground. Raven clutches her cloak close and leans her head against Cyborg’s shoulder, sighing in relief. It feels good to have someone else worry about such trivial things like walking, right now.
“Robin, I will take this fjorngleb to the police,” Raven hears Starfire say. Starfire's native tongue rolls off her lips with an ease that’s always surprised Raven. Starfire has taught her some words in Tamaranean, and they all feel awkward and clumsy. Raven doubts she wants to know what Starfire’s insult means. The injured girl stays awake long enough to listen to Starfire soar off, she wants to ensure that man is gone, away from her for good. Robin speaks up shortly after.
“Come on, we need to get her home.”
Home sounds wonderful.
Raven has never been quite so grateful to see her home, especially when she hears Cyborg turn on their security system. It beeps in reassurance. He takes her to the medical ward, where she's stayed the past few hours. She confides in Robin that the spell the man cast is a reversal of her own, one that steals her magic, caps it, and leaves her unable to access it. It will return to her soon, like she's recharging, but it may take a day or two. Her body will heal on its own too, but it does take time. Fortunately, time is what she has plenty of, right now. Drifting in and out of consciousness for the past several hours, Raven’s body works to repair itself and replenish what she’s lost. In her brief moments of coherence, and sometimes even in her slumber, Raven hears a faint sound. It’s soothing, somehow, despite her inability to make out what it is.
Finally, in the middle of the night, Raven rouses from her catatonia with her body still sore, but the worst of the earlier battle mostly patched up. Her magic tingles at her fingertips, but it's still quite weak. She gives herself a couple of days before she's at her peak, healed and ready to soldier out again. She blinks up at the ceiling for several seconds, gently lowering onto the bed from where she had been hovering, her natural healing state. Raven can tell that she isn't alone. She cuts her gaze up and tilts her head, looking towards where Beast Boy is seated in a leather chair. A part of her wishes she hadn’t woken, so that she might listen to his humming a while longer. He gives her a weak smile, and she tries to smile back. At the very least, he seems to understand.
“How you feeling?” It’s not an answerable question, even someone sixteen years old understands that, but Raven finds herself appreciating it. He isn’t treating her differently. He never has.
“Better. At least I’m in control, again.” Raven is talking about her emotions, but she sees a flicker of recognition in her friend’s eyes. She reminds herself she’s only a year older, but still, she likes to think of Beast Boy as still young. She sits up, slowly, hesitant to push herself too much. Beast Boy follows suit and stands, reaching a hand out to help her up. Chivalrous as always. Raven hopes he keeps that.
“Ah, I’m sure you want to get back to your room. Meditate, or something. If you need anything though, I’d be happy to get it!” Beast Boy rubs the back of his head as he releases Raven’s hand. That smile she had looked for moments ago now tugs slightly at her lips.
“I’ll be sure to,” she tells him, to which he smiles broadly at her acceptance of his offer. He turns to go, to leave her to wander back to her room and to her own peace, but she catches him at the door with a simple murmur of his name.
“Thank you," she says.
Beast Boy glances over his shoulder at her, eyes wide before his expression melts into something of affection and respect. “We’ve always got you, Rae.”
Beast Boy’s departure gives Raven some room to breathe a bit freer. She inhales the cool air and exhales the remnants of unwanted touch and terror. Eventually, she gains the strength she needs to leave and walk down the hall. The tower is silent, tranquil, and dark. When she arrives to her room it welcomes her with open arms and she has to lean against her door once it shuts to simply bask in the privacy. This is hers. This can’t be taken from her. Nothing has the right to take anything from her, anymore.
Not that it ever did.
A knock surprises Raven and her eyes fly open. She almost let herself get lost in a trance; she’s already floated above her bed. Softly, she lands on it and, with a second’s hesitance, she decides. “Come in.”
On the other side of the door, hesitance also follows. Raven almost never says that, usually she comes to the door or tells the intruder to go away. Soon, however, the door slides open, and in walks Starfire. Raven straightens up, surprised to see her friend here, much less so late. The door closes behind Starfire, and Raven can see this isn’t a mere visit.
“Hello, Raven. I saw Beast Boy heading to his room and presumed you to have returned from your dreams.” Starfire folds her hands in front of her, appearing quite formal. “If I may, are you…truly undamaged?” Starfire looks upon Raven with great concern and a little nervousness.
Raven takes a moment to find the words she wants to use, though Starfire is far from impatient. When Raven pats the bed beside her, a small smile lights up the Tamaranean’s face. She floats over and sets herself next to Raven and, after a brief pause, reaches out to hold Raven’s hand.
Raven lets her. “I…am not, no. Things like this leave marks on a person, Starfire. Marks that take time to heal.”
Starfire looks Raven over, but she doesn’t see the bruises or blood from before. “But, I do not see any wounds on you. Tell me Raven, where are you hurt?”
Raven has to look into Starfire’s eyes and face the innocence that lies there. How does she explain this to the girl when it seems so foreign to her? “Inside, Starfire. The marks are left in a person’s soul and mind when someone does things like this to them. Are you…” Raven doesn’t want to voice it like that. “Do you know what the man was trying to do, Starfire?”
Starfire nods her head. “Mostly, I do. He wanted you to engage with him in a way you did not wish to do so, and he was going to force that onto you against your wills and wishes.” Starfire doesn’t use the word rape, but it lingers in the air. Raven believes she knows it, she’s heard it before, during excursions fighting criminals or at police stations. It’s clear she at least has a grasp on the concept. “It is unheard of, where I’m from, to force your body onto another’s in such ways. Yet here, it seems so…” Starfire trails off. Common? Praised? What is the word she wants?
“Accepted?” Raven finishes the sentence, and something clicks in Starfire’s head that makes her eyes lower. “You aren’t wrong. Many people and parts of the world accept it, or at least, they do little about it. But what’s important is that we aren't like that, Starfire. You are not from here, and yet you can recognize how heinous it is. What’s important is that we stop it, and we put monsters who commit or support acts like this away.” Raven squeezes Starfire’s hand, but she isn’t sure if it’s for her friend’s comfort or for her own.
Starfire digests this, reeling from what she’s seen and what is being told to her. Starfire understands the wrongness of forcing one to do what they don’t desire. She knows better than most, being a crime fighter, but seeing someone trying to force love and lust onto Raven? “I fear I will not ever truly understand why humans do such a thing to one another, and I’m not sure I truly wish to understand at all.”
Raven can’t fault Starfire for that. She doesn’t even disagree. Why would anyone want to put such a burden on anyone’s shoulders? Even if Starfire could hold a yacht above her head, it’s the invisible weights that drag them below the surface. Raven’s eyes glance down to where her hand is still connected to Starfire’s, having realized she’s never let go. Maybe, Raven decides, she isn’t quite ready to. “Humans don’t really understand themselves either, Starfire. Maybe that’s why we have to protect them from one another.” And protect each other from them.
Starfire spares a glance out of the window and, for a moment, she wonders if her definition of "monster" is a childish one. “Raven?” Starfire pauses to give Raven a moment to look at her, “I wish to stay here with you tonight, if you also wish for that, too.”
Raven is taken aback by the offer, but Starfire’s eyes shine in the moonlight with such hope that she can’t turn down such a heartfelt request. Raven has only barely formed the first syllable of “yes” before Starfire is smiling and bouncing up out of bed. She takes off her boots and heads to extinguish the lights, but before she comes to blow out the last candle, Raven stops her. “I’d rather leave one light on, tonight.” Starfire retracts her hand immediately and stares down at the dim flame, flickering on its lavender wax.
“Of course, Raven,” Starfire nods, not questioning the request for a moment. She floats back over to her spot on the bed and takes her place beside Raven, who pulls the blanket up to give them both something to cover up with. Raven has never seen Starfire get cold in the time they’ve known each other, aside from that one terrible blizzard they braved, but the blanket isn’t truthfully there to guard against the cold.
Starfire reaches down again and clasps her hand with Raven’s. Raven doesn’t pull away, though by tomorrow Starfire is sure Raven will return to her habits of wishing for solitude. Sitting in the peaceful quiet of the cool bedroom, Starfire speaks up again, her voice is of that imperfect whisper that she’s never quite learned how to keep steady. “Raven?”
“Yes, Starfire?”
“You are the strongest person I know.”
Raven’s eyes open and she’s faced with Starfire’s, whose eyes glow in the dark as if they’re small green stars themselves. Raven smiles, now. It’s a ghost of what a full smile might be, but Starfire can’t imagine the energy it must have taken for even this expression. She thinks it makes Raven look much younger.
“We’re strong together, Starfire.”