Birds without wings

Punishment

Garfield was standing on the roof of the Tower. He was ashamed of the way he acted, he alienated himself to everyone around him. He thought about what Raven said, she is right, it takes two people with the same feelings to form a relationship. He can see now that clearly he was just one.

"What did you do this time?" That voice was so familiar. Dare he turn around.

"TERRA?!" Gar was in shock. His eyes widened at the sight of the girl he once loved but had sadly died.

"Someone's happy to see me!" They enveloped in a warm hug. All of a sudden it was as if Terra had turned off and she became unresponsive.

"Terra?!"

"Let's test that theory of grief making you weak shall we." Deathstroke appeared and kicked Garfield to the side, who quickly turned into a gorilla and began aimlessly swiping at him.

"What did you do?!"

"That's only an android kid, I just needed to see how your fighting style would change. That theory proves correct." Deathstroke was out for blood. Gar was first on his list and he'd like to end this quickly. He threw a power dampening collar around his neck and Gar quickly reverted to his human form.

"Hmm can't kill you here, they'd find you. Lucky I've been monitoring your team for a while and I know they aren't expecting you back anytime soon." Deathstroke took off with Gar.

...

"Mr Wayne I hardly think that's necessary."

"He is to reckless for his own safety and the safety of others."

"He's a part of our team."

Kori and The Dark Knight had been bickering amongst each other for a good while now regarding Garfield's status on the team. Batman wants him off the team and Kori wants him to stay. It was clear to them however that this matter was not going to be resolved any time soon.

...

Damian groaned as he fell on the floor once again. While his legs were basically back to normal, he would still need to regain his skills. He was making good progress but that could've been Raven going easy on him.

"Dammit Raven you're going easy on me!"

"Well we wanna prepare you don't we? You're not ready for me to use my full abilities on you yet." Raven helped Damian up and kissed his cheek trying to reassure him that's he'd get better.

"Shall we just call it a day for training? Sun will be setting soon." As per tradition for the two, they would always watch the sunset on the roof. Damian always liked it because of it's beauty and it meant another day where he didn't revert to his old ways had passed. Raven loved it because it was something she never got on Azarath. She found it to be one of the most intoxicating things about Earth.

As sat on the roof they had begun staring at each other for a while. Looking into each other's eyes. Raven noticed that there was still something bothering her boyfriend. Damian on the other hand knew that something was bothering his girlfriend.

Damian spoke first. "Raven, what's wrong?"

"Oh I-I just have a lot on my mind right now." It wasn't her father for once. It was something that she was afraid of outside that realm. She knew Damian was strong but he wasn't fighting as well and she was scared that he would get hurt again... or worse.

"Raven, tell me. You know that you can tell me anything. I'm always here for you and I always will be." He took her hands in his. She couldn't help but smile at him. She still didn't know how to tell him. She just had to go with it.

"I'm just... I'm afraid that you'll get hurt again. You're not back to full strength yet and last time when you were... you almost... you almost died." Raven could feel the tears streaming down her face as she pulled Damian into her arms. "I can't go through that again. Especially not now. I can't lose the person I love most, I can't lose you."

Damian was shocked, this came very suddenly and it wasn't what he expected. He had a tear coming down his face and knew that he needed to comfort Raven in whatever way possible.

"Raven, look at me." She pulled back looking into his eyes. Her eyes were red from the tears and she looked as if she could melt into his arms. "You will never lose me. I will always be with you, I won't allow anything to happen, not to me and definitely not to you... I love you."

Raven pulled him in to the most passionate kiss they've had so far. It was long and neither of them really wanted to pull away, they did need to breathe however. "I love you too Damian."

Raven hadn't forgotten what she was going to ask Damian, she needed to know what was bothering him. It wasn't big but she knew that it wasn't any better than his dreams. "What's bothering you? I can feel it in your head Damian tell me."

He thought it'd be unfair to withhold the information. Raven just poured her heart out so he knew he had to tell her. "Tomorrow is my birthday."

"Isn't that good? Although you've never mentioned your birthday."

Damian looked down trying to think of what to say. He knew what his birthday meant but it wasn't a 'nice' thing that used to happen on that day. Eventually he concentrated on her eyes again.

"When I was in the League of Assassins, my birthday was seen as a day where I would have to prove my loyalty by either killing someone they had captured or enduring an awful punishment. I chose the punishment every time, those people did nothing wrong and there was no reason to kill them." Damian shut his eyes trying to see if there was a better way of describing the punishment other than the obvious but no such way existed. "The punishment I would have would be swords put into my arms, pinning me against a wall. I was to either pull them out or move my arms down the swords so they went all the way through. The worst part was that they executed one of the prisoners I spared while I tried to escape. I could never save them in time. I failed every time."

Raven was sitting there, eyes wide and she noticed what was going on. Damian was crying right in front of her. She took his hand and engulfed him into the warmest hug she could.
"Damian, it's not your fault." The crying intensified. "Shh, it's ok, it's ok." She did everything she could to comfort him, she eventually just held him and drew little circles into his back.

"It was my fault, I couldn't save them." Damian pulled away, his eyes were beyond red. Raven could still see the green inside and she cupped his face in her hands.

"You weren't as strong as you are now, you were misguided and they were cruel. Listen, you save so many people all the time now and those people you couldn't know you tried..." after calming him down a bit they kissed yet again. It was just as passionate as the last one and they sunk into each other's arms. "...I love you so much Damian."

"I love you more, Raven."

...

Garfield awoke to chains around his wrists and him being on his knees against a wall. Deathstroke had left but Garfield could see his list of targets and what order he was going to get them in. He saw his next target was his best friend: Jaime...