Teen Titans Roster Day Off (7)

Little Dollies

Penelope Ack

The fallout for Robin's little jaunt across the country side was not unexpected. The Inscutable Machine, ie Ray, Claire and me were trapped in Metropolis another day. We didn't mind too much, having met Counsel-man  Luthor once already he assured me of a good hotel that wouldn't mind unattended minors or ask questions. We stayed that day as Claire ran down the results of our new front business.

We were getting traffic. Turned out that owning a logistics company did get on the radar of villains and people were paying us not so small fees under the table to get goods around.

"In total the hero team in Gotham caught two hundred and thirty seven of the ragdolls! They're still trying to figure out what do do with them!" Claire was explaining, passing back the reports from her contacts.

"And they haven't disappeared? My father initially thought they'd vanish after a day or so!" I mimed my father's gestures as I mimicked his summary, "The dolls reproduce too fast to be completely real. The unreal parts will lose energy over time and leave scraps!"

E-Claire shook her head, "I had always wondered about the crazy one we had. Either your father was wrong, or there's something else at play. The heroes also reported that the dolls had superpowers!"

"What?"

I gawked from my position on the bed, seated next to Ray. Ray watched tv while Claire and I talked, and every single one of us was trying to ignore the arm that snaked around my waist, and under my shirt.

Nothing perverted was happening. Claire was there and she'd let me know if something perverted was happening.

She would stop it right?

Right?

"The dolls do use the cloth they consume to build new dolls. Is it possible that the magic that lets them replicate has combined with super-power enhanced clothing?" Ray theorized. A good theory, probably the one the heroes were working with.

"If that's the case though, where was the apotheosis. The point where we lost control? We used the dolls originally when we attacked Mech's vault last year!"

"Really, we just used the dolls to cause a panic. Mech's secret base being under a bank, almost all of the dolls were distractions." Ray supplied. "The ones we took back however never encountered any heroes!"

"No... but mech had clothes there. They might have found some power enhanced tuxedo!" Claire thought out loud, thinking over the catalogue of Barbera's power enhanced clothing. "Clothes that are super durable or repair themselves are highly requested by the industry!"

"So the doll we had was made of self-repairing cloth?" I shivered, a cold horror coming over me. "We bred up a dozen from the stock we had for use during the Reactor job. Could there be rogue colonies of immortal ragdolls all over the place? Like, the spate of crimes wasn't just a couple of dolls bred up by the villains, they were rounding up rogue ones from all over the state?"

The three of us looked at each other in horror.

"It can't be! That could mean we're slowly breeding up a ragdoll apocalypse!" Claire declared with a squeak of terror. "Penny! I think when Raven get's a chance, we should have professional magic users pull apart one of the dolls, and try to make a counter for it!"

"Or a way to track them!" Ray suggested, "We can at least round them up. Try to destroy them."

Ray's hand was wondering up and down my rib-cage distractedly and touching places I I wasn't sure I wanted to be touched in this moment. Also, no Claire had seen and was purposely ignoring us while she went through the correspondence on her phone.

I pushed Ray away from me, letting him flop backwards on the bed.

"Dang it!" He sighed in that slightly posh voice of his. "Missed it by that much!"

I gawked, smacked him then turned off the tv.

"Behave yourself boy!" I chided him, grinning in spite of myself. "And I agree! Claire, cane you make sure a small collection of the dolls are contained and shipped nearer out lab. Only, not to it! We'll need them for later!"

She nodded, still smiling slightly.

The room thing was her fault and I knew it. It was a decent sized room, tv, fireplace, couch, one king sized bed. Last night Claire's idea of chaperoning was that we all share the one bed!

Weirdly I slept well.

This time, it looked like she was set up on the couch. The couch that faced away from the bed where she could feign ignorance.

"You know, I wish you would make up your mind Claire!" I demanded.

"About what?"

"About whether you want to be a good influence on me or a bad one!" I told her hotly. This bait just got a snort and a giggle from the blond as she finished her paperwork.

Claire's phone pinged quietly one final time. "Oh, it looks like they sorted out Starfire's chocolate fueled bender. We should have a ride home tomorrow morning."

That was good. I clapped my hands, and the fireplace went out with a puff of smoke, leaving the room in darkness.

"Night you two!" Claire said quietly. "Don't be too noisy!"

"Well, things didn't go as planned but we're done here at least! Thanks for everything, and goodnight Claire!" I said, settling down. Ray cuddled into me as we settled in, and I thought over the situation back home.

Father had messaged me that Mother was home. That he had not told her anything, but that things were still tense. I had no idea how I was going to fix that, and had been mainly staying at the lair with Ray, when in fact everyone else thought I was staying at Claire's. I would have to make that right, I didn't like the idea of living in the base full time. Plus I missed my mum and dad.

The night passed quietly, with any fooling around kept to a minimum to avoid disturbing Claire.

Then the next day, I made arrangements to try and make peace with the parentals, and set up a time with Raven to solve the Rag doll issue permanently.