Haunted

Chapter One

"I... made a mistake."

Raven lifted her eyebrows and looked over him, her lips curling up at the edges. Perfect Damian Wayne, making a mistake? Never. Blinking, she leaned against the door frame leading into her shop, and stared at him. He was quite a sight in front of her, the dingy lights of midnight in Gotham lighting up the space behind him, rain pouring down into his eyes. Something about the shadows in his eyes was making her uncomfortable, like there was a secret he was trying to tell her without saying anything at all.

Raven crossed her arms over her chest and looked down the darkened alley, seeing one of her regular customers stop and stare at her and Damian before moving on, pretending to look somewhere else. She didn't really blame him for running away, Damian had shot up like a weed in the years after she'd left the team, and his massive form nearly blocked out the entirety of her entry door. In the flickering street lights and neon signs, he probably looked like the kind of nightmare that haunted you forever.

She sighed and tilted her head to the side, watching him. "And what do you expect me to do about it? I thought you were handling this all on your own."

His lips twitched and he looked away, shame coloring his cheeks. "I need a favor. A big one this time."

"Of course you do. That's all I'm good for anymore, isn't it? Favors you're too anxious to ask Constantine for." She puffed out her cheeks, trying to control the sudden burst of anger flooding her. At the end of the alley, a transformer sparked before going out, bathing them in the inky shadows that stretched their spindly fingers towards Raven.

Raven took a deep breath and let it out slowly, it wouldn't do her any good at all to be angry with him, even if she wanted to. She stood there, trying to weigh her options as her eyes searched his blank expression. Honestly, she had already done far too many favors for him in the past few years, and he was getting close to maxing out his quota. But still... their long (and very messy) history kept her from immediately pushing him away from her and out of her life - again.

He would always be her weakness, and that was something she was going to have to accept.

A long moment passed between them, uncertain if she should move forward and let him back into her life or not. But, she knew the answer. She knew exactly what she was going to do the moment she saw him in front of her shop door, eyes pleading with her like he was some kind of beaten pet.

"Fine." She flicked a lock of hair out of her eyes and sighed, taking a step into her shop, motioning for him to follow her. "Come on in. Let's take a look at you and see what we can do to fix whatever you did."

She waited until he was standing in the small, open space in the middle of her shop before she flipped the lock on her door and turned the sign hanging on the door to closed. Damian shed his jacket and set it on the counter, looking around the shop, as if intrigued by all the bottles of tinctures and tonics on the wall - bits of magic carefully enclosed in glass and steel. He reached out and touched a display of chintzy love charms next to the cash register. They lost all the magic within a day, but the high school girls who came into the shop on a dare usually bought them for fun.

"Why are you here?" Raven sighed and took a step towards him, her eyes narrow. "You made your point loud and clear last time we saw each other."

"That's not-" Damian looked at her and sighed. "Raven, however you interpreted our last... meeting-"

"Fight. It was a fight, Damian." Raven bit back a curse and glared at him, halfway tempted to open the lock on her door and shove him back into the alleyway. Her patience was wearing thin, he had to have seen that. "And you kicked me out of the tower, in case you need a reminder of what happened. The minute Kory left and you took over the rest of the team, you cleaned house faster than anyone expected."