DamiRae Week: 2020

May 10: Handcuffed/Bounded together

He couldn't believe what had happened. Damian Wayne couldn't fathom how he, the son of Batman and Taila Al Guhl, had gotten in this position. He would have never predicted that he would be in this situation, with her no less. Damian currently had his hands and feet bound together, leaning against an unconscious Raven.

They had been taken hostage by Deathstroke. He had knocked them out, and Damian had only just woken up. He was stripped of all his armour and was left with just his black muscle-shirt and black pants along with his green boots. He couldn't see what Raven was wearing, considering she was behind him, but he couldn't feel the material of her cloak and that worried him.

Damian knew that Deathstroke was a maniac and would do just about anything to get under his skin, including hurting Raven. He cursed himself for letting her get involved in this. Of course Raven would have seen this differently.

He had been acting secretive, even towards her. So one day she made the stupid decision to follow him, little did she know that he was actually following someone too. He knew that the gas leak hadn't been some accident and knew only one person would do something so malicious. So he had been gathering intel on him. He hadn't told any of the other Titans, even Raven, because he assumed they would just call him obsessive and Kory would have ordered him to stop at once.

However, he underestimated how much they all cared for him, especially Raven. Although he was furious about the situation and being captured he couldn't help but feel good that she cared about him. This, in turn, made him feel guilty because he knew she would never feel about him the way he felt about her, and why would she, it was a surprise she even cared enough to follow them.

They had been close friends for a year and half, but recently he had been getting distant and snapping at her. However, this was unrelated to his case on Deathstroke and more of a personal matter. Seeing as how growing up he was taught to manipulate his emotions so anything he felt was turned into anger, which is what he used to fuel his strength and energy in a fight. It came to no shock that when he started to feel emotions, ones that he had never felt before, for Raven he naturally turned it into anger. When he wasn't working on the case he would be in the training room for hours on end trying to burn anger, to no avail. It had seemed that the more he tried to deny the emotion and manipulate it the stronger it became.

On a rare day that he decided to do something other than work and instead opted to read a book also happened to be the day that Raven decided that they needed to talk.

"Damian...we need to talk," she said coming into his room. He looked up at her with a blank expression on his face. she sighed, knowing that this wasn't going to be easy. Before she could continue though he spoke up "if you need help with something I'm sure Logan is more than useful" he responded in a controlled voice, much like her own. "Actually this is something I can only talk to you about," she said, trying to gain his attention. "Maybe you try learning how to deal with your problems yourself for a change" he used such a cold and unwelcoming tone that she had to suppress a shiver. From there he had said some pretty awful things to her, like how she had dragged them all into a suicide mission when they went to hell for her, or how she was basically useless without her powers.

He didn't mean it, any of it. He liked that Raven could confide in him about her issues and he was actually fine with going to hell for her, he didn't think his stay at the Titans would be anything interesting but obviously he had been wrong. He also had to admit that Raven was an admirable fighter, he had seen her knock over grown men and held her own against him on the rare occasion they would spar. He was jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of moaning and some movement behind him.

She had woken up, not being able to remember a thing. having her hands and feet being bound together was only adding to her confusion, along with being in the dark leaning up against... and then she remembered. She remembered how she had somehow convinced herself that going after the ex-assassin was a good idea even after he had basically told her off, for what? That's what she was still trying to figure out.

If she had been anyone else she would have taken what he said to heart, and have her feeling hurt. Not to say that they weren't, but she was able to keep them under control, happiness didn't like the distance he was putting between them and anger wanted to rip him apart but she managed to get them to quiet down. She knew he didn't mean the things he said to her and he was going through something. She could sense his anger and it was straining her empathic shields, but she also didn't like seeing him angry. So she wanted to talk to him. Only to figure out that the anger was just a mask and wasn't real.

So while she may have been upset with him for saying all those things, true or not, whether he meant them or not, he was still her friend and teammate. She had followed him, he had just turned the corner and then everything went dark. It was then that she realized that the object she was leaning against was the baby bat himself. She turned her head slightly and was able to see a bit of his form. He wasn't in his uniform like he had been when he left. She looked down at herself and realized neither was she, not fully anyways. Her cloak was missing and she was not happy about that. She didn't know where she was or who did this but one thing was for sure, there would be hell to pay if she didn't get her cloak back.

"Raven?'' Damian asked, unsure if she was conscious or not. "Are you awake" "Yeah" she said softly, he had almost missed it. She sighed, not understanding how she kept managing to get herself kidnapped. "Do...do you remember anything?" she asked him, hopeful he knew what happened to them and why they were tied up. "We were kidnapped by Deathstroke" came his hesitant reply. She knew that he had captured Damian before and kept him in a much worse condition, so she could only imagine that being captured by him again was a lot harder for him then it was for her. "Why" she asked after a moment of silence, which he just gave his typical "tt" but seeing as she hadn't spoken up again he realized that she was serious. "He's an evil, manipulative, disgusting person, that's why Raven" he thought it should have been pretty obvious as to why he would do something like this. "But why would he kidnap us. He may be an evil bastard but he also has a reason behind all of his crimes. so it seems kinda odd that he would capture us two, just us two, out of nowhere. If he wanted to pull something like before he would have the entire team here...so why us?" which was actually a valid question. Of course he knew why they had captured them.

Damian was getting close to figuring out what his next move was, while Raven was a case of wrong place at the wrong time, but he didn't know if he wanted to tell her about the countless hours he had put in to figure out what his plans were. "Damian?" he heard her speak up "I know that you know why we're here so you better tell me what's going on," she said in her usual monotone voice. He decided that if they were down here then he might as well. "I've been tracking his movements ever since the gas leak a couple of weeks ago. That's why I've been so distant" he assumed that she would be furious or at the very least upset that he would do something so dangerous but all she did was sigh. She knew that wasn't the entire truth but let it go anyways.

"My wrists hurt" she mumbled a moment later and then they were engraved in a black swirl and were suddenly in the common room. Damian blinked, he couldn't believe that Deathstroke forgot about her powers. "A little help here" she growled at someone, and he felt them untying their wrists. After he had his hands free he got to work on untying his feet, still not believing the events that had just happened, he would have to train extensively after this.

***

Deathstroke had just come back from visiting a church. He had gone to get some holy water as he assumed that would be the most efficient way to suppress the little demon's powers, he also knew that it would burn her and make the baby bat worried about his teammate. Capturing her, or any of them, wasn't really something he had expected to do and since his last hideout had been destroyed he was running low on supplies. When he had gotten back to his lair he immediately went to where he had put the young Titans. "This'll be fun" he thought before walking into an empty room.