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The rain was coming down hard outside as Raven ran down the sidewalk on Trumbull Street in Gotham City. Her shoulder length, ebony hair was becoming damp, and her clothes, a dark green t-shirt dress with grey tights and short rain booties, were becoming damp as well. She tried to pull the hood of jacket over her head to offer some protection from the rain, but she realized this one didn’t have a hood. Shit. She pulled the entire jacket up over her head and began running toward the local café which was just a block away
This was the normal, Wednesday night routine for her. Every Wednesday night at 8 PM, they’d meet up at the café and have a study sesh together.
She entered The Batty Café, and a little chime above the door alerted the baristas to her arrival.
A brunette woman named Chloe greeted her with a quick “Hey Rae!” and a big grin, then quickly went back to the latte she was making, concentrating on her job. Raven knew Chloe was newer and therefore needed to focus more on her job or she risked messing up, so she said a quick greeting to her and made a left into the rest of the coffee shop.
The Batty Café (or The Bat, as they usually called it) was a cozy place to warm up on this chilly, rainy night. The room she stepped into was big, with comfy, light orange walls, and filled with a modge podge of different types of furniture. The styles of the furniture ranged from rustic to retro to mid-century, and even some gothic pieces; all of it appeared to be antiques, or at least used before. The owners had definitely thrifted everything that filled the room. But despite it all being so different from each other, it all fit together somehow. It really made a person feel comfortable, like no matter who you were, you were welcome there. It was one of Raven’s favorite places.
Plus, the café came with the added bonus of doing Batman-themed drinks and pastries that she’d laugh at while Damian would just scowl when he saw them.
As she weaved her way through tables, booths, couches, and chairs, the floor in the old building creaked. As she walked back toward their usual spot, she took in all the autumn decorations. Cutouts of pumpkins, bats, and leaves were strung across the windows on the left side of the room, and at the center of every table was a fake candle in a mason jar with fake leaves surrounding it. She loved the Fall and she felt herself relaxing as she took everything in.
Raven made it to the back center of the room where a tall gothic couch was placed in front of a coffee table. In front of that was a fireplace, burning just enough that Raven could feel the heat as she got closer. She sat down and immediately took her backpack off. It was soaked from the rain, and she prayed to Azarath that all her books and such weren’t soaked as well. College textbooks were NOT cheap, and she would be so upset if she just ruined them while on her way to a study session of all things. She opened her backpack and felt inside; relief swelled in her when she felt nothing but dry books and notebooks.
She emptied the contents of her bag so they wouldn’t end up soaked like the bag. She let herself sit and breathe easy just for a moment, watching the yellow and red leaves drift down from the trees as the wind knocked them around. The rain was keeping a steady pace, further jostling the trees.
She suddenly remembered what she really needed at this moment; coffee. She made her way back up to the counter at the front of the shop, where a woman with piercing blue eyes and long, orange hair stood, giving Raven a kind smile.
“How’s it going? Getting the usual for you and your ‘boo’?”
She did air quotes on the word boo. This place loved their puns. Raven looked just to the side of the barista with a deadpan look, as if a camera was seeing her reaction to such a ridiculous joke.
“Anna,” Raven said exasperated, “You know it’s not like that. And yes, I’ll take the usual for us, please. Damian will be joining me later. He’s running late from a study session.” Which was a lie, but this woman didn’t need to know that he was actually training with the Titans back in Jump City before he’d zeta back over to Gotham in just a few minutes.
“Awwww Rae, if I didn’t know any better I’d probably think you were joking back with me. But knowing you, you probably really believe that.” Anna had teasing lilt to her words and a smirk on her face. Raven didn’t respond, just pursed her lips. She was plenty used to her friend’s teasing manner.
“Fiiiiine, I’ll stop. But you’ll admit it to each other one day, and I can’t wait to attend that wedding!”
Raven rolled her eyes and paid the barista, ignoring her last comment and letting her mind drift a bit as she waited for the drinks to be made.
Both Damian and Raven had taken a bit of a break from superheroing, but trained once a week with the Titans to keep their skills sharp in case the team needed them as backup. Tonight was Damian’s night. Raven’s was tomorrow. They didn’t take them both out the same day to ensure enough heroes were still watching over Gotham’s streets. With how much trouble this city had, it was a smart move.
Raven and Damian both served as backup for Gotham’s streets as well. With so many members of the Bat Family, they were rarely, if ever, called in. Bruce and Dick had agreed that letting Damian focus mainly on his studies was the smart thing for him to do, and he could come back as a hero full time when he had graduated. Damian still took every opportunity to train as he could. Typical Damian.
But for Raven, things had totally changed. She was no longer living in Titans Tower, but instead had a cute little one bedroom apartment above a yoga studio just a block away from Gotham University. She was in her Senior year at GU and enjoying the break from saving people every other day.
Being away from the Tower had been hard, especially with her abilities. If she wanted, she could just open a portal and be there in less than 30 seconds. But she was trying to push herself to experience more “normal” feelings. She was limiting her own use of her powers, except once a week to train. And she wasn’t allowing herself to pop into the tower either. She had grown up around superheroes, aliens, and magical beings. Now it was time for her to just be Raven the human, and learn how to exist in the world as herself, not just the magical empath that she was.
Which is why when she got accepted to Gotham University just a few years ago, she was both ecstatic and nervous. It was new and out of her comfort zone, so she knew she had to do it. But saying goodbye to the team, who had become family to her, and her home of so many years, it was very difficult. Luckily, she didn’t have to do it alone.
Less than a year after she left the team, after announcing his own acceptance into Gotham University, Damian stepped down from the team, too. He was accepted in early, and after he graduated high school, he started classes the very next week.
Overachiever, as usual, she thought.
The first year of college was not the easiest for Raven, but having her best friend there made things much easier. They tried to schedule their classes together, or at least in the same building on the same day, so they could walk to the building and hang out in between classes together.
Together was becoming a big word for them. You’d almost never see one without the other on campus, and their friendship was growing even stronger without the constant stress of superheroing distracting them from each other.
Speaking of which, the little bell above the door chimed and let everyone know someone new had entered the shop. Raven turned to see Damian coming in, hair wet from the rain, cheeks pink from the harsh wind, searching until he spotted her and began walking toward her. He was wearing a tan coat that reminded Raven of a detective, except it didn’t look comical like it did on the Pink Panther. It looked sophisticated on him. As did all his clothes, since Alfred picked them out.
He’d done good with this one, she thought.
“Hey Rae, sorry I’m late.” He showed her one of his classic smirks and she returned with a smile
He approached the two women, taking his eyes off of Raven only to talk with Anna and Chloe for a minute.
“Medium chamomile tea with milk and honey, please.”
“Already on it, Damian!” Chloe said, shining her kilowatt smile at the group as she poured coffee into a cup for one of the other customers.
“Yeah, your girl Raven took care of it already, since she knows you so well,” Anna responded with a smirk.
Damian turned his eyes back to Raven and gave her a genuine smile. “Thanks Rae.” His emerald eyes were kind, as they always seemed to be when she looked into them.
“You’re welcome,” she responded, “but you definitely owe me next time.” She had a teasing tone to her voice.
She could tell he was amused by her in the way his smile reached his eyes. She didn’t see him look so happy often, but he almost always had a good spirit about him when they were at The Bat.
“Did you grab our couch?” He asked
“Yup, I’ll bring your tea back with me once I’m done talking to Anna. I’ll meet you there.” Raven had more to talk to the barista about, and she was not about to do it in front of Damian.
He gave her a quizzical look, a bit confused about the way she dismissed his presence like that, but he went to the back anyway.
Raven was looking after him as he made his way to the back of the shop, then turned back to her friend.
“There is nothing friendly about the way he looks at you! He has feelings for you.”
Raven gave a deadpan look at her friend. “Suuuure Anna, believe what you want.”
“I’m serious Rae, he doesn’t take his eyes off you. You two are always together, have been best friends since what, middle school? And you’re gonna tell me you’ve never thought of what it would be like to be more than friends? I call bullshit.”
“We’ve been friends for a long time. I don’t allow myself to think like that.” Another lie, but Anna didn’t need to know that.
She smiled a big, mischievous grin and responded, “that’s not a no.”
Just then, Chloe had walked over, “Here you are Rae!” She handed Raven the drinks.
To Chloe she said in a friendly tone, “Thanks!” To Anna, she rolled her eyes and said very matter-of-factly. “I’m not answering you and I’m leaving. I have studying to do.” And with that, she turned to head toward the back of the shop, drinks in hand.
Anna called after her, “Suuuuure, you’re gonna study all right; study those beautiful green eyes of his! You can’t fool me, Raven! I know better! ”
Raven let out a sigh and continued on her way.
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Raven got to the couch to see Damian had taken his tan rain coat off and was wearing a maroon sweater with grey slacks. The color popped against his olive skin and Raven turned her thoughts to something else to distract herself.
“Sooooo what happened after class today?” She asked as she approached.
Damian said nothing, just stood up and helped Raven get the wet rain jacket off of herself. She’d forgotten to take it off earlier in her haste to get their beverages ordered.
They both sat down before he answered, “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? Marie asked to talk to you, alone.”
“It was nothing.” He responded very nonchalantly, gave a shrug, and began unpacking his books from his backpack.
Raven knew better. She knew exactly what happened. “She asked you out, didn’t she?”
Damian didn’t respond, just kept his attention focused on his books.
“I knew it! I mean, obviously she did.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Damian stopped unpacking to look at her, shocked by what she had just said.
“Damian.” Raven looked at him very deliberately this time, right in his emerald eyes. “Come on, I’m not gonna spell it out for you.” She rolled her eyes again as she fished through her pile of books that were still sitting on the coffee table and searched for her textbook and notebook.
He gave an amused look, “What aren’t you going to spell out for me, Raven?”
She continued to search through her books, trying to locate the correct notebook for the class so she could take notes for next week’s test. And also to very deliberately ignore the butterflies that were beginning to stir in her stomach. This always seemed to happen to her when they talked about either of them dating someone else.
“You know why, Dami.” She had begun using her teasing name for him and he knew it was game on for them.
“Maybe I don’t, Rae. Maybe I need you to spell it out for me.” He was testing her.
“Knowing you, you probably really do need me to spell it out for you!” She responded, her words oozing with sass.
“Really? You of all people are going to talk to me about being oblivious? After Connor’s been in love with you for years, you’re gonna lecture me on ignoring feelings?” There was an attitude in his words that almost sounded angry.
“I don’t ignore Connor’s feelings. I just don’t feel comfortable reading my friend's feelings, and he’s never been direct with how he feels, so there’s no need for me to even say anything. I can’t ignore his feelings if I don’t know that they exist!”
“So if Connor were direct about his feelings for you, would you say something then?”
“Of course. I’m not gonna leave him hanging when I know that he’s not the person I want to be with.”
Their banter had been going back and forth quickly, but after this last sentence, a silence fell between them as they stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment.
Raven looked away first, but Damian was the first to speak, “So you’ll only know about someone’s feelings if they’re direct with you?”
“Of course. I know I’m an empath, but I don’t purposely read my friend’s feelings. That’s an invasion of privacy.”
“What if someone wanted you to read their feelings? What if they were trying to reach you that way because they aren’t as articulate with their emotions as they’d like to be?”
She was taken aback with how serious his hypothetical questions were and she paused to think about her answer.
“I’ve been training for so long to put blocks on that, to allow myself to not read people unless they want to be read. But I’m not at a level where I can comfortably only let some feelings in while blocking out others. I’m working on it, but it’s an advanced skill and going to take a lot of work to get there. So if that were true, I wouldn’t know it.”
There was a long pause between them, but she could see Damian’s chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath and broke the silence.
“Then I need to be direct with you, Raven.”
He was serious, and she looked back at him, a thousand questions buzzing in her brain. What could he be talking about? Weren’t they always honest and direct with each other?
“When I decided to come to Gotham University, there was a reason for it beyond going to college.”
She waited for him to continue.
“I… I had feelings for you.”
A thousand butterflies rumbled in Raven’s stomach. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Damian leaned in and got quiet, never taking his green eyes off of Raven’s purple ones. “And in honor of being direct, I should let you know that I have felt this way for a very. long. time.” A smile played upon his lips and Raven couldn’t help herself. Before she knew what she was doing, she had her hands on either side of Damian’s face, pulling him closer as her lips crashed into his.
There were a thousand thoughts flooding her system and all she could think was, I’m kissing my best friend. I’m kissing Damian and I don’t want to stop.
They pulled away, both a little out of breath, still within inches of each other.
“And if we’re continuing to be direct,” Damian swallowed, “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, too.”
Raven’s heart felt so many emotions at once, but all she could do was grab Damian by the shirt and pull him into another kiss, this one even more passionate than the last.
A split second later, Damian’s right hand was in Raven’s ebony hair, his left on her neck at her jawline, returning her kiss with as much feverity as Raven was giving him.
Years of pent up feeling came spilling out in their passionate kisses. Raven felt herself pushing against Damian harder, forcing him to lay down. She was losing control; it wasn’t a bad feeling, it was just something she really wasn’t used to. She could feel all the blockades she put up between her and Damian’s feelings come crashing down, a warmth surrounding and filling her entire being. Raven was overwhelmed by the emotions he was sharing, and suddenly she pulled back with an exasperated, “Damian!”
He opened his piercing green eyes, staring straight through every wall she had ever built between him and her. He was searching her face, concern in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, was that too fast? We can stop.” There was a twinge of hurt in his voice, and Raven felt awful for ending things like that. She couldn’t help it though; he was flooding her every cell with his strong emotions.
“No… I… hold on.” Raven responded, trying to catch her breath. They both sat up, adjusting their clothes. She began a breathing exercise, trying to distract herself from the fact that she was still very close to Damian, and that they had just had a quick little make out session in the middle of the coffee shop.
She snuck a glance at Damian and saw concern in his face. She had to explain. She couldn’t leave him hanging there thinking that he had done something wrong.
“It’s not you. It’s your feelings. While we were… doing that, the blockades I put up to keep your feelings at bay basically disappeared. It’s like I completely lost control. And I was overwhelmed...”
“Overwhelmed? By what, the kissing? We don’t have to do that, Rae. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’m sorry if I made you feel like you had to-”
“No!” She shouted a little too loudly at him, desperate to clear the air and make him aware of the fact that she did not want to stop kissing him. Not at all. She’d still be doing it now if it were completely up to her.
Raven, quietly this time, responded, “No, I want to kiss you. I didn’t want to stop.” She looked around the coffee shop, feeling awkward that they were in such a public place talking about such serious feelings. She didn’t miss the smirk that Damian had on his lips.
The soft lips that she had just kissed. Oh Azarath, I need help.
“This place is too public for this kind of talk. Grab your things, let’s go.” She demanded. Damian, shockingly, didn’t even argue. He just started grabbing his things and stuffing them back into his backpack as quickly as possible. They were in a weird spot now, and they needed to talk about everything as soon as possible.
They left the coffee shop and Raven led him down an alley next to The Bat. She conjured a portal and they both stepped through, straight into Raven’s small apartment in downtown Gotham. Damian had been there a hundred times, but this time felt different. He sat his backpack on one of the barstools she had at her kitchen island. She deposited her backpack and jacket on the couch, not caring about dirtying up her apartment at the moment.
He didn’t know what to anticipate from Raven, but he had to break the silence between them.
“What happened back there? Are you okay?”
She turned back around so she was facing him. “How long?” was her only response.
Damian wasn’t dumb; he knew what she was asking. “Probably since I was 14.” He responded sheepishly.
It took Raven a minute to realize it, but the confident guy she had just kissed in the coffee shop had become the embarrassed, genuine guy she was seeing in front of her. This was a side of him only she got to see, and rarely.
“That long?” She questioned, bewildered. Her mind was racing, sifting through years and years of memories together trying to figure out how she missed this. She could still feel his emotions reaching out to her; they were some of the strongest she had ever felt. HOW did she miss this??
“Raven…” he shook his head in disbelief, lightly chuckling, “for an empath, you really don't understand feelings.”
“That's not true. I’ve been purposely shutting out everyone’s feelings to not invade privacy.”
“And I’ve been trying to reach you through my emotions, hoping you’d feel them through your abilities and understand me. I didn’t know if I could articulate it with words. I’m great at many things, but you know better than anyone that I don’t always vocalize my words in the right way or tone. I didn’t want to mess this up. I’ve been basically training myself for this.”
Raven was stunned. “Training?” She questioned.
“When I’ve been going to the Tower to train with the team, I’ve also been “training” with Dick and Kori. They’ve been, essentially, teaching me how to feel and express my emotions better. It’s been going on for a while now. My mind was clouded with thoughts that I didn’t know what to do with. My body and mind need to be in the best shape when I’m in battle. So just like we have trainers for our bodies, Dick and Kori have been the trainers for my mind, especially my emotions.”
“Why now if this has been going on since you were 14?” She really, truly, could not believe everything she was hearing.
“I stuffed them down, for years, but eventually they became too much. Especially what I felt for you.” He paused, obviously gathering up the nerve to continue. Damian could face an army by himself and not feel nervous, but matters of the heart were much different for the young man.
“I was distracted in battle, always worried about you, and even when I was out of the field, I found myself completely unfocused, thinking about you and what you were feeling. It made me angry that you could probably read my feelings, but I had no access to that information. You can’t hack a person for information like you can a computer. You are a mystery to me. And I needed to do something to change it.”
“So, I talked to Dick about it all. Spilled everything out for him. And ever since, he and Kori have been training me for this.” She looked at him questioningly as he looked up, took a breath, and continued, “to finally let you know that I have feelings for you, and have for a very long time. I’ll gladly continue to be your friend if you don’t return the feelings, but I at least need you to know, so you can make that decision.”
Of course Damian would choose to approach his romantic feelings for her as if it were a battle he were training for. To get this right with her, he needed training, and that’s exactly what he did. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her.
Raven closed the distance between them and pulled Damian down to her, lips meeting lips, hands grabbing for each other, and their strong feelings for each other being expressed in the passionate kisses they were sharing.
They both, as if on cue, opened their mouths to invite the other’s tongue in and deepen the kiss. Raven couldn’t help herself; she didn’t care about letting her powers get the best of her, she freely let them spill out of her and it felt good to not hold back all that she was feeling for once.
Damian wasn’t holding back either. He had been trained to have self-control. But to let go and just enjoy the taste of the person he was in love with; it made him feel things he had never felt before. He was starting to understand Dick’s weird, lovey-dovey behavior with Kory the more he continued to kiss Raven.
He couldn’t help but pull back though, for a brief moment, and Raven let out a breathy, “Damian.”
He couldn’t even explain what that did to him but he was feeling more than butterflies in his stomach.
“Raven,” he began, a little out of breath. He was staring into her amethyst eyes and he decided right then and there that if she let him, he would gladly drown in them.
“Can we talk about this? Before we go any further?”
A blush crept up her neck, and he had to walk back what he just said.
“Not that we need to go any further.” His face was beginning to turn red as well. He cleared his throat, “I just meant-”
“Damian,” she smiled up at him, trying to reassure him that she was all right despite the brief embarrassment she felt thinking about what further could mean for them, “I feel the same way.”
She couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. It felt so good to finally say it, to get it out there in the open. To stop hiding something so huge. It felt freeing. She was here now, she might as well keep going, get it all out to completely free herself from these feelings. She was ready for this, finally.
“I couldn't stop thinking about you. Couldn’t stop feeling these overwhelming feelings. You consumed my thoughts, until I couldn’t handle it anymore. Do you remember, a few years ago, when I went hard in my emotional control and empathetic ability training? That was largely because of you. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I just learned to exist with those feelings and push them to the side. Not to ignore them, but to acknowledge them for myself and that was it. We were becoming close friends, and I didn’t want to ruin that for either of us. We both really needed a friend back then.”
“And what if I no longer want to just be your friend, Raven?”
His piercing green eyes were looking at her expectantly.
“I don’t want to just be your friend anymore either,” a mischievous grin played upon her lips, “Not after the way you just kissed me a minute ago.” A smirk played upon his lips.
In a husky voice, Damian responded, “Then maybe we should continue where we were before.”
Without another word, Raven grabbed his hand and pulled him along to her bedroom.