4700/When is a Raven like a Writing Desk

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When is a Raven like a Writing Desk
Date of Scene: 20 June 2018
Location: Unknown
Synopsis: Stardust enters the Raven's lair. Something very vaguely approaching a heart to heart ensues, without anyone losing an eye or being sent to any hell dimensions. Raven is recruited into the plot to capture Red X.
Cast of Characters: Stardust, Raven




Stardust has posed:
Into the Raven's lair. The dread, dark corner of the Tower into which few Titans have dared tread, and even fewer have returned, possibly. This is where Colette is making her way. As she walks down the corridor, she selects some suitable music to play through her earbuds. Chopin's Funeral March. A few bars in, she pulls out her phone, does a little searching, and finds herself a dubstep remix of the piece, and hits play again.

By the time Colette reaches Raven's door, she's bopping along to the music, lost in a world of her own. Even through earbuds, it may just be loud enough to be mildly annoying to any Ravens who may be sensitive to loud noises, but honestly by Colette standards it's pretty inoffensive.

Which she spoiles by knocking loudly on the door. "Rae? You at home? It's Colette. I want to chat about a few things. May I come in?"

Raven has posed:
    Raven is seated on, well, literally nothing. Hoody off, room serene and full of the absolute void of silence that the position of Raven's room and its non-traffic offers it. She is happy. She is calm. Everything is KNOCKING. Raven doesn't thud to the ground out of her meditation- instead, her mood elevates to a strong aggravation, as she makes her way over to her bed.

    Even as she's pulling on the hooded sweater, she calls out. "No, no, no you may -NOT- come in, give me a moment." There is, admittedly, a lot involved in preparing herself to be seen- she has to make sure she has the proper disinterested expression, that she's wearing enough that one can't see her figure, and that she has at least three sarcastic comments prepared. If Colette gives her the time, a minute or so after the knocking, Raven will open the door, hood up- even though she's inside.

    "Yes?"

Stardust has posed:
Colette is patient, and is actually not trying to antagonize Raven (this time). So she waits. A listens a little more to the tune. It's pretty cool. No actually it's kind of lame, but it's fun, and she's enjoying the beat. Thus when Raven opens the door, Colette has her eyes half closed and is dancing around the corridor outside. When the door opens, she stops dancing hurredly, pulls the buds out of her ears, and blinks a couple of times at Raven.

"Is it raining in there?" She asks as she steps inside, noticing the hood. "I didn't bring a coat." Apparently Colette's tactic is to get the sarcasm in first, though there's no edge to it.

Colette looks around curiously, doing that thing people do when they want to take the peek into someone's personality that viewing the place they live gives, without looking too nosy. The faint smile, the I'm-taking-it-all-in-but-not-judging expression. "Heya Rae. I wanted to say sorry. I've been annoying you lately. Sometimes on purpose. I had a good reason though." She stops her looking around to face Raven, smiling. "Look, I know we've got very different temperaments and will probably never exactly be besties, but we're team mates. And I'd like it if we can at least vaguely be friends. So... sorry. I mean for instance the other day in the danger room. I was being intentionally annoying to you. Because you've been keeping secrets, and it seemed like the best way to provoke a revealing response. You're not the only one. But I've got it all figured out now, and I think I know why you were keeping secrets. So, sorry. And it's time we talked it over." She looks around for somewhere to sit that doesn't look too messy, fragile, demonic, or otherwise dangerous. "Um, I'm talking about the X-Face thing, by the way," she adds, remembering that clarity might be needed.

Raven has posed:
    As secretive a person as Raven is, Colette can view as much of her room as she can see around Raven. The goth doesn't seem to be letting the blonde into the room itself. All throughout Colette's statement, Raven's expression is thoroughly neutral. It betrays little- if not nothing- of how she feels. It is even harder to get a read on her thanks to the pillow's worth of sweater she's wearing, and the hood keeping the shadow on her face.

    "Okay so," she begins, "Is that it, or...?" Raven isn't entirely mean in these situations. She is, however, nowhere near -used- to them. Not entirely confused, just... Not a social situations he has a lot of experience in. "I accept your apology. Whatever you hoped to learn, that's... Great. And it is great that you felt you couldn't ask."

Stardust has posed:
"Asking only works for things that people aren't keeping to themselves anyway," Colette points out, perfectly levelly. "Be honest, Rae. Red X said that you'd almost found him out, and your response to that was to shrug it off as 'generic insults' and walk away. You blanked my attempts to prompt you." She gives a shrug of her shoulders. "Not like you were the only one. Vorp was acting wierd about the whole thing, Damian has been avoiding the important questions and claiming he suspects people I know he doesn't suspect, Moon Moon changes the subject, you go to your room and tell people not to disturb you. Honestly, I found myself in the position where everyone who'd joined the team after me wasn't taking it seriously and everyone who'd joined before me was keeping their suspicions to themselves. Put yourself in my place, what would you have done?"

Concluding she's not going to get invited in, Colette does the next best thing and gets herself comfortable leaning against the doorway. "So, your suspicions were that Red X was whoever broke into your room last summer and went through your... papers. You had a suspect, but you didn't want to say anything because it was a member of the team. So, now I've figured that much out, want to tell me more?"

Raven has posed:
    Raven stands there for a few moments. In the doorway, the silence sort of creeps around, and she lets it pervade for a long time before she actually speaks. When she does, she's pulling away from her door, letting the other woman enter, if she desired. "So everyone's avoiding giving any sort of answer?" she asks, slipping her hands into her pockets.

    "That's... Probably to be expected. To be fair, in your place, I wouldn't have bothered me. But I'm more respectful." she states, moving towards the windows that have been shuttered over, closing off even the moonlight from the room. "SO who do you suspect, exactly? What have you figured out on your own?"

Stardust has posed:
Colette loses no time in stepping in after Raven, taking the concession as perhaps a slight softening of attitude. Living in hope, maybe, but sometimes you have to grasp any straws. "Oh, I've figured out pretty much everything. I'm not one hundred percent sure exactly who's wearing the mask, but I am a hundred percent sure /what/ is wearing the mask. But let's make this easy for you. Your suspect is Damian."

Inside the room, Colette looks for somewhere likely to sit. She doesn't really find the room inviting, and in the end decides the best compromise is to continue leaning. "You like it dark, huh? Well that figures. I guess you're the anti-Starfire. But tell me Rae, if you're more respectful, why would you keep me in the dark? We're meant to be a team. With half the team cutting me out and half the team too new to have any clue at all, I've been stuck in the middle. On my own. I mean I get it. From your persepective. I wasn't here when this all started. As far as you're concerned, I'm still a newbie on the team. Not someone you feel you could open up to, especially given you suspect one of your team mates. Unfortunately I'm not enough of a newbie to miss the evidence that this was an inside job. So with a team around me that was completely failing to act as a team, I didn't exactly see a choice."

Colette folds her arms and looks down, a little sullenly. "But I'm apologizing for that. It didn't exactly feel good to do it. If you'd trusted me, I wouldn't have had to. If any of you had trusted... well. To be honest, given what I've figured out, you're the only surprise. Vorp had me puzzled for a while until I realized he's just isolating himself from everyone as a defense mechanism 'cos he was hurt when Beast Boy left. I got the full story out of him, by the way. About the little visits Red X paid to the Tower last year. At that point it was just confirming what I've been able to figure out from other sources. On my own, because everyone else on the team has either been well meaning but knows too little, or has been too distracted to pay attention, or has been keeping things from me intentionally. So here we are. You're not involved. And I'm ninenty-nine percent certain that you were keeping things secret because you suspected Damian and didn't want to say anything until you could find evidence. Which is understandable. So. Sorry. Now, can we put that all behind us and resolve the situation?"

Raven has posed:
    Raven stands there for a moment, looking at the shutters in silence, as if she can stare through them. For all of the knowledge other people have of her powers, she very well might be. Colette hits the nail relatively close to the head, though, and once she's done speaking, Raven offers this little shrug. "You're pretty close, but you haven't really figured a whole lot out. There's... More to it than you're thinking of. Admittedly, you were there, so you should have figured this out, but I expect nobody really cared to pay as much attention as they needed to."

    There is a sigh, then, that follows. "I don't suspect Robin, I essentially know that this is all Robin's doing. Which means that this is all one big training exercise." she notes, turning somewhat to face Colette. "Which means that, you should know, this is all my fault. I made the suggestion- specifically, I told him that if he wanted to help the team, to bond with us, then he should devise methods for all of us to improve. I would say he has taken this suggestion to heart." she notes, offering this small shrug. "I'm not sure the extent of his methods. It fits the Bat family. Which means that, while I'm not beating myself up over it, I'm responsible for everything he's done as part of this. To an extent, I feel like I should not be involved- Or should not have been. Because at the end of it all, because of how much I know, this mystery, this intrigue he is building- it would have... Less effect than he wishes for it to."

Stardust has posed:
"It fits the Bat family better than perhaps you know," Colette says with a nod of her head. "Red X has been using Bat Family resources. That's how I tracked this down. And I hope you'll forgive me if the details of that are something I don't detail in full, because it would rely on me stating a personal secret I don't know if you know, and shouldn't share if you don't." She raises an eyebrow, looking at Raven under it. "There's something you've missed though."

Colette bumps away from the wall she was leaning on, and circles the room, pacing. "He's been doing this since before your training program suggestion. Breaking into people's rooms. Trying to break the tower security systems. This isn't on you. To be honest, I'm not certain it's on Damian either. Oh, he's wet to the neck." She pauses a moment. "In it up to his neck, sorry. But I mean I'm not convinced it's purely him doing the testing. There's a good chance it's more of a Bat-family test. Checking to see who's worthy of being Robin's... sidekicks. That's kind of beside the point, though."

  Colette stops pacing and stands beside Raven, taking in the view of the shutters. Who knows, maybe she can see through them too.

She can't. But hey.

"However here's the thing. He's gone too far. Whatever his motivations, hospitalizing Rainman and Vorp is crossing the line, and it stops here. This isn't good training. It's divided us. It has asked us to fight singly, on his ground, with all the preparation aimed at defeating a single one of us at a time. Which is exactly what a team shouldn't allow to happen. And from the very start, every single person in the team has gone along with that. Failed to talk to each other. Failed to bring our different skills together. Hell, I'm probably the last person in the Titans who should be doing the detective work, but without any kind of a team to work with, I've had to. But that doesn't matter. Call it passing the test, or call it putting an end to the stupidity, whichever you like. I'm not going to play by his rules, I'm going to change the rules and win. And I want you to be part of that, because you're part of the team. So the question is, will you help me set a trap for him, or are you going to go on hiding out in here and not being part of the team?"

Colette turns her head to face Raven, a challenging look on her face. She's silent for a few moments, then her expression softens. "I'd really like you to be part of this, Rae. I'm sure the idea of following a plan hatched by one of the annoying and noisy blondes doesn't sit well with you. But I'm the one with the plan, and we're supposed to be a team. So help me out? Please?"

Raven has posed:
    Raven nods along for a few moments. "I'm aware that he had started his efforts before I really told him to. He broke into my room long before he started this. He found out a lot of things about me." There is a silence that follows, before she continues. "That is neither here nor there. I agree." It takes her a long time to properly express that, but despite pausing before 'agree', it's still a positive message. "I imagine it's why he's left me out of it. I think he knows I know."

    "I can't really say anything about who else might be involved. But whatever help he's gotten, it's just made him more... Aggressive. I don't know where he comes from, but I can... I can guess. I think he's only doing what he knows, and putting people in the hospital... I wonder if they really know it's been him. I wonder if everyone that's helped him get where he is is aware of what he's been doing."

    Offering a sigh, she moves away from the window. "I don't know what you have planned, but I'll help however I'm needed. The most important thing, pass or fail, is that we approach this as a team. Unified, and whole. He's had his fun singling us out, but it's gone... Too far. He can't be allowed to continue this way, and if he needs a royal beatdown to learn that... Then that is what we will give him."

Stardust has posed:
Colette answers with a nod of her head, and a few moments of blessed silence. She smiles a little, and there's a slight release of tension that's easy for Raven to pick up on. It's obvious she wasn't sure what reception she was going to get from this most unpredictable of her team mates.

"I've been annoying him too," Colette says finally. "Messing up his...'game'. It's been fun, but also has a purpose. He sets these things up specific to the person he's dealing with. He knows our powers, he tries to counter them. His next battle is at Gotham Knights Arena. Against Breath. Only Breath isn't going to show up, I am. That puts him at a disadvantage, because he'll be prepared for a very different fight. But I don't think he'll be able to resist the challenge. He's a much better fighter than I am, but he's going to have a very hard time actually hurting me. So I'm going to tire him out a bit, and I'm going to get him into position. Then I'm going to give a signal, and as soon as the signal goes up, Vorp's going to open a rabbit hole, Brick's going to open a boom tube, and everyone will step into position, leaving him surrounded. Breath will be ready to stop any escapes by air. Brick and Vorp will cut off any escape routes going down. And we grab him. But..."

Colette turns to look at Raven, joining in the chorus of sighs. "No beat downs. We capture him. We don't hurt him, or at least as little as possible. Because ultimately he's a part of the team too. And he may be the one of us who has the most training, but I think that's a lesson he still needs to learn. You don't injure your team mates. Um. We don't talk about this for now though, okay? Moon Moon... Wolfie... is not involved. For reasons I can't go into, there's a good chance anything we tell him will get back to Robin. Vorp and Brick are the only two others who have the full story, and for now it's best it stays that way."

Colette moves closer, then hesitates. Raven-senses tingle with the sure knowledge that some kind of bonding gesture is on Colette's mind. Possibly involving a comradely hand on the shoulder, maybe even a hug. Fortunately, she refrains. "Thanks, Rae. I've got like diagrams and stuff for how I see this going down. How to ensure the exits are covered. I'll send it to you. Just... be ready when the time comes, and hopefully this will go pretty smoothly. Faced with all of us, when he sees a trap has been laid, I suspect he'll come quietly."

Raven has posed:
    The silence is easy to appreciate in Raven's room. Admittedly, it's hard to see anything, and the silence only compliments how close to a sensory deprivation chamber this place actually is. Though, it is somewhat clearly the room of a person who is... Well, very, very alone. It is harder to tell whether Raven herself is specfically loneLY, but she very much imposes solitude upon herself. It's anyone's guess why.

    "That won't work." she starts with- the statement isn't derisive or mean. It almost sounds slightly... Worried. "He's like the Bat. He's prepared for that. Everything he has to counter powers will be on him at all times. He'll just have to switch modes." There's a moment of silence, as she slips her hands into the pockets of her hoody again. "It'll keep him on his feet. You need to be aware of what, exactly, your weaknesses are. Because he already knows, probably better than you do. Just be ready for that. If you can take away the advantage, then we can have him surrounded, but only then. If we bumble in while he's serving you- somehow- then it's going to be a lot messier. Keep in mind, though- he might be brutal... But he -is- pulling his punches. It's why nobody's dead yet."

    The monotone of her voice hasn't dropped, but the girl is... Really insightful. Nobody knows people better than Raven. That might be... A little scary to realize. As Colette gets closer, the commpletely unexpected happens. Instead of talking about the last thing Colette says, Raven speaks up. "Whatever you're thinking about doing... Go ahead. I'll allow it. Once."

Stardust has posed:
What Colette does is... laugh. Raven's response is so unexpected that she can't really help herself. She does however put one arm around Raven to give her a half-hug. It's a compromise. Colette takes her up on the rare invitation, but at the same time doesn't go too far over Raven's boundaries. A friendly gesture, but one that doesn't get too close, and doesn't last long enough to be uncomfortable. A gesture of acceptance of Raven's offer, but also of who Raven is.

Who knows, it may be that Colette isn't entirely lacking in insight herself, contrary perhaps to expectations.

"It'll work, and I'll tell you why," Colette says as she steps away. "He doesn't know my strengths and weaknesses as much as he'd like. Actually I already probed that question a little. But he picked out his location for the fight with me, and it stands out from the other locations. It's remote. Not in the middle of a city. That tells you a lot about his approach. He doesn't want to risk injured bystanders. He's a better fighter than me, and he's fitter than me. But actually hurting me is a tough ask. There's only so much he can physically carry around with him, so no I don't think he can be fully prepared to deal with me, if the fight is in the wrong place. And I think I can surprise him a little.But ultimately? All I need to do is move around and get him into approximately the right position for you guys to come in and surround him. I don't have to beat him, I just need to not get beaten. And that's the one thing I'm really good at."

Colette pauses a while, then shrugs her shoulder. "I'm the bait, because I'm the one who's annoyed him, and because I'm fairly sure I'm the hardest person on the team to actually injure, even if I'm not that great at actually fighting. I think the plan is as good as we're going to get, but if you can come up with something better, well let me know. I never claimed to be the best strategist on the team, but I think the main thing here is team. He can probably beat any of us one - on -one, but against all of us at the same time? I think our biggest challenge is stopping him from escaping, and I think the plan covers that as well as we can."

Raven has posed:
    Raven isn't exactly uncomfortable- she's just a measure of... Not entirely comfortable. It's a strange grading scale on which this particular gesture is neither favorable nor unfavorable. Probably a lot of questions that that brings up, but probably best left unsaid. It's a matter of tact at that point- and Colette has a lot of it, which she tries.

    Raven merely nods along otherwise. She doesn't have a great deal of input. "It's not a bad plan, but I do worry that whatever he has in store for you is going to be pretty portable. You should probably stay... Stay close to the position where we want him. At least at first. Play into his first move, and then if it happens to be something that incapacitates you, when he comes to gloat- because he will- he'll still be in position." she notes, offering this small shrug. "That's all I've really got."

Stardust has posed:
"I've been hit with missiles," Colette says, grinning. "They're not so much. And not very portable. But eh... don't worry. You're not the only one telling me to be careful, and the other guy lives in my head so I can't really get away from him." She stops a beat. "That is real, you know. When I have angry arguments with myself, I'm not doing it to annoy you. There really is a very annoying dead guy nobody but me can hear who I'm arguing with. But uh. Yeah, I think it's a fair bet he had lasers or something set up on the island, which he won't have here. 'Cos Breath is a lot more fragile than I am. I expect he'll have some emergency measures as a just in case thing, but even if he has something that works, which is doubtful, he won't pull it out first thing. He'll want to see what I can do first. I mean, he wants to have a better idea of what I can do, and that means he's got to give me a chance to do it, right?"

Colette steps over to the door, pulling it open but stopping in the doorway. "Thanks, Rae. I'm sure you think I'm a huge pain in the ass and a... a loose cannon. So, well. Thank you for giving me a chance."