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The Titans: Triptych	By : hentaigoten Category: DC Verse Cartoons - Teen Titans > Crossovers > FemmeSlash Views: 1932 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans or JLA. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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#6

The Sundering

Chapter 6 of 6: The Fallen

He pawed through the newspaper, scanning the pages for the few articles that truly interested him.

One caught his eye. A half page article, about ten pages in. A stock photo went with the generic text.

Titans. Gotham. Return. Talk of...

Most of it was utter drivel. Information about their origins, the departure of two of their members nine months ago, a major victory five weeks ago against a notorious super villain...

He actually laughed at that. He’d have thought they’d have barely been able to spell his name, let alone call him notorious, five weeks after the event. Saying reporters, along with the newspapers and stations they served, had the attention span of flies would be doing an insult to the insect kingdom.

Putting down the paper carefully, he knuckled the patch of skin that used to be his right eye, deep in thought. So, the Titans were returning home. It’d mean some of the other super heroes temporarily on the west coast would return to the cities and countries they normally guarded like mother hens.

It would be a mixed blessing. It’d mean he’d be facing foes he knew well, but it also meant he would be facing a foe experienced in combating him. It’d be…interesting to find out who the victor would be. Probably painful for one of them, but that was a chance he was willing to take.

But this time, no allying himself with H.I.V.E. The whole organisation was stacked with imbeciles. And he wouldn’t get conned by another super villian’s ideas that giant, mutated insects were the greatest weapons ever conceived.

He must have been hit on the head one too many times the month he’d agreed to fund that breeding program.

Keep it simple this time. Low key. Play to his strengths.

And absolutely no being goaded by the mention of the betrayal of his previous apprentices, his choice in colours for a costume, or his brother.

They really knew him too well.

And he really knew them too well.

They’d been back all of an hour. Deafening blasts of noise came from the ludicrous sound system Garfield had hooked up to the television, his own cries of elation and shock adding to the noise as he wound down by attempting to get a new high score, or something along those lines. Koriand’r sat nearby, consuming enough waffles- and something that looked suspiciously like baking fat- to feed most normal beings for a month.

Raven floated in mid air, screening out the noise. It was one thing to meditate in the quiet of your quarters, quite another to do so in the chaotic noise of the living room. Fortunately, she was some distance above the others, and that helped slightly.

It took more effort, more self control, to keep her emotions in check as she levitated here. Especially near her.

Three years ago, the mere thought of having to try and do this amongst the others would have been unthinkable. Two and a half years ago, she’d finally given in to Koriand’r and her insistence that ‘doing things with friends makes it better’. It had seemed a good way to get her off her back at the time.

Not that that was a bad idea.

Raven quickly focused, ruthlessly eliminating that line of thought. Not now. Not while she was in the same room. Not. Now.

Eight months ago, and nearly all her meditation was in this room. The others had learnt not to interrupt her, but they knew the point. She couldn’t shut herself away from the others now. She had to face up to them, to everything, even if it...

She wanted to shut off her emotions. Even with Nightwing’s words, she doubted. Her emotions were her weakness. And it wasn’t just about control of her powers.

No. Every time emotion had affected a decision she made, it had never…turned out well. She couldn’t turn it off. No matter her wishes. She had to turn it down. Dull her mind to her heart. Make it numb to the screaming. Her heart was her weakness.

Even if it was the only reason she’d meditated here for the past eight months. A physical reminder of her presence. Constantly there...reassuring, promising, tempting...

She breathed in deep. Pushed the emotion away.

Control.

Control, not cathartic methods. It was the only way.

It was all she knew. It was all there was.

The only way.

In solitude.

It…had worked so far…

And it would work now.

She breathed out, purging herself of all emotion.

He was already growing to hate the walls of the hotel. Plush and lavish and full of decadence.

He’d been here nearly two weeks, and nothing had gone according to plan. Nothing.

There had been interviews, statements, private meetings with prominent members of government, with businessmen…

And no one had the backbone to do what he knew needed to be done.

Wayne sat back in the chair, gazing out the windows to the view of Washington D.C. before him. He’d memorized nearly everything about the place; all the streets, all the places of governance, of major housing areas…everything. He did it for most major cities. Besides, he’d had to come here on...business a few times before. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had to do so more times in the years to come.

But it was filled with incompetents. With spineless cowards.

He’d already privately decided that several people would not be receiving funding from Wayne Enterprises for their campaigns. A minor retaliation, but a gratifying one.

He’d been called a sentimental fool. A playboy with no true understanding of economics. A man out of his league.

Of course, that was an image he projected. But most in the circles Bruce Wayne travelled in knew better. They thought he was a womanising fool, but a smart businessman, a charitable man...

All of that meant nothing here.

He’d been in Metropolis for a couple of days, trying to find support there. The only one person who seemed marginally interested in his plans for rebuilding Gotham was Lex Luthor.

The thought of him getting a foothold into Gotham made his skin crawl.

But even Luthor and Wayne combined didn’t have the money to rebuild Gotham on their own. And so he had returned here, to this hotel suite he hated…all in the name of a loosing battle.

He was used to fighting insurmountable odds. He’d fought villains with the power to drop a city block on his head, with insane schemes, with minds as warped as they were brilliant. He’d wrestled his city out of the grasp of the mob bosses, he’d half destroyed the corruption in the GCPD, he’d saved his company from the grasp of unethical businessmen. He’d turned Dick Grayson’s life around when he had nothing. He’d done his best to give Huntress a new lease on her career, one filled with a morality she had been lacking in.

It would all mean nothing if he didn’t win this battle. Millions of lives hung in the balance.

Depending on him, whether they knew it or not.

He couldn’t fail them. He’d sworn that long ago. He’d fight until there was no foe left to fight, or until he was broken and spent.

His city. What would happen if they implemented the plan they were proposing? The one no one had mentioned to his face. The fate he dreaded.

What then? What could he do?

Only...what he always had done.

Hours passed as she silently meditated. Eventually, her eyes snapped upon and she disappeared out of sight, teleporting away.

“I hate when she does that...” Garfield muttered, sprawled on the couch, flicking through the channels, his game abandoned hours before.

“Yes, she...” Koriand’r paused, before asking, “Garfield, have you noticed something...different about Raven?”

“Dunno. I was too busy winding down.”

“If you were any more winded down, you would be a clock.”

“...I’m not going to ask where you got that from...”

Koriand’r looked crestfallen for a moment, before recovering.

“So...have you noticed anything?”

“Dunno. There’s something there…ever since you met up with me at the camp. I thought it was just from being on Themyscira. Thought it’d just done her some good, or something.”

“No, she wasn’t like the way she is being when we entered the city...it was...something else. I am not sure what this thing is, exactly, but I am in the know that it was there.”

“You’re misplacing idioms again. And grammar, probably, but don’t look to me for answers.” Garfield said, clicking through several music channels, snatches of song blaring out as he did so. “But, I don’t know. You were in Gotham with her. Did you say anything to her? Or anyone else you met? You know, maybe you said something really cool. Something so cool it makes ‘They’re Taking the Hobbits to Isengard’ look like crap.”

“Well, we only spoke briefly with Batman-”

“Creepy guy.” Garfield interjected.

“And Nightwing, too...but I can not think of a single thing that could have been said to her.”

“Well, I dunno. Maybe we’ve been thinking cool emotions.”

“That is a very silly idea, Garfield.”

“Best idea I’ve had today, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh! I am sorry. It is an interesting idea, but I do not think it is the right one.”

Garfield shrugged. “It wasn’t that good an idea, anyway. Besides, I’m sure you’ll think of something. You always do. You find solutions. That’s why I stay on the team- I hear at least one crazy, optimistic voice.”

“What of yours? Are you not-”

“Pfft, I dunno. I’m just me, aren’t I?”

“I suppose so.” Koriand’r paused, and then said, “And Raven is not that pessimistic. She is...she just had some bad experiences, is all that there is.”

“Hey, I never said nothing! You go talk to her about these ideas of yours. Maybe she’ll actually answer them.”

“She is...unlikely to speak of them.”

“Then do a psychological report on her, then. With your insider knowledge, you’ll make millions.”

“I do not have this ‘insider knowledge’ you speak of.”

“Could have fooled me...”

Raven collapsed on her bed, seconds, minutes, hours later.

She didn’t want to think of time anymore.

Cathartic, purging methods had won the instant she had teleported inside her room.

Books, clothes, supplies, furniture- all lay scattered all around the room, thrown about as her telekinesis had fluctuated, before pressing out around her for an instant, a fraction of a second.

She curled up on the bed, her legs pulled up to her stomach.

Maybe she could sleep.

Maybe she wouldn’t be plagued by dreams again.

Even if her old terrors had been replaced by something. Something new. Something tinged with hope. Something gaining power in the past two weeks…

Two things, she thought as she drifted into half sleep, aware and remembering in a way like no one ever did in their waking hours. She only remembered one vividly. The other was…never there when she woke...

In minutes, she fell asleep.

As she slept, as Koriand’r and Garfield eventually drifted away from late night television, their bodies still operating by Gotham time, something stirred.

Something in the corner of the mind. The edge of vision.

It watched, for now. It studied.

In her bed, sprawled messily, Koriand’r murmured in her sleep. Murmured a name, muffled by the sheets spread illogically over her head.

She turned over, air escaping from her lungs. Half seeming to be trying to escape the sheets, half trying to tangle herself in them.

Her arm sprawled out onto the other side of the bed, and she murmured sounds of disappointment.

The dream passed, eventually.

It’d return soon enough. It always did.
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The Titans: Triptych