B'shert

There will always be something...

Chapter Sixteen

As it so happens next time doesn't happen anytime soon.

Because Damian gets obsessed with a case for the rest of the week and then its Ravens turn to swap places with a member of the Mt. Justice team. Nightwing goes with her.

And it's kind of awkward in a sense because you don't need to be an empath to understand the tension and the hurt that's there in that room. You don't need to be Raven to understand that Tigress, or Artemis, Meghan, Aqualad, Conner and Dick have some unresolved issues. But since Raven is her she can't help but over hear tiny snippets. She tries to ignore them but it's hard.

There's so much confusion and anger and blame and she wonders how Miss Martian can block it all out (but then again the older woman is more telepath than empath so maybe that helps.)

"Like I said, Artemis blamed him for their teammate's death," Damian says when she tells him, (she calls him because they'd never really gotten to testing out their new bond.) she's walking through this patch of forest on the side of the mountain because there are less people here than at the tower, unfamiliar people and she needs a break. "But it's more complicated than that, the others seem to have a problem with him too. And as soon as we got here Conner's been acting weird,"

"Conner was on the team too," and Raven kind of stumbles because what? "What? He's like...our age." She says. "He's actually about eleven." Damian says and she gets the vibe that he's smirking because even as an adult he's still and insufferable brat who likes taunting people with the fact that he knows stuff that they don't. "Stop confusing me and explain" Raven says, making a random turn. "Superboy is a clone. He has Superman's DNA but he was engineered by CADMUS labs and would have been used to take down the big guy, if Dick- as Robin then, Aqualad and Kidflash hadn't gotten to him first. He was programmed with a lot of information about the world but he doesn't age and is technically about eleven years old." Damian finishes, Raven hears the familiar swoosh of a blade cutting through air and deduces that Damian is practicing form in his room.

"Are you supposed to know this?" She asks.

Because while he does respect other people's privacy more than he did when he first showed up at the tower, Damian still has this annoying habit of needing to know shit (which has on multiple occasions saved their sorry assess which is why they keep the complaining to a minimum as long as he doesn't go too far.)

"I knew about it before Kon joined the team," He says. And Raven pauses mid stride because she see's glowing up ahead. They're holograms. "Hey I'll call you back okay?"

"Hmm, Goodnight Raven,"

"Goodnight beloved," and she ends the call, tucking her phone into the pocket of her jeans she walks closer to the holograms. They're images of Jason Todd, the Robin before Tim. Of a girl with short red hair and another with blonde who Raven recognizes as the first Wonder girl. There are others, but she doesn't really have much time to take them in because she zeroes in on Nightwing. He's sitting cross-legged with his head in one hand in front of a hologram of a man in a red and yellow costume.

Kidflash.

"Dick?" Raven asks softly, and the brown eyed man's head snaps in her direction. She stands there awkwardly not knowing whether she should approach him or go away. He decides for her by giving her his small brotherly smile and patting the grass next to him. When she's seated there's silence for a while. Then finally; "I'm guessing you picked up on the tension between me and my old teammates huh?" She looks away. "Yes, I'm sorry I didn't mean to but-" Dick laughs, "Rae it's fine, I know you can't help it when we're basically throwing our emotions around. If anything I'M sorry."

"You shouldn't be," she says quietly.

He looks back at the hologram of Kid flash. He reminds her of Bart.

"I always will be for something," And she knows they're not talking about the same thing anymore.