Raven knocked on the door and, after a pause, a very frowny Damian opened it.
He stood in front of her, arms folded, expression giving nothing away.

The witch rolled her eyes and contemplated using a hex or two to get him to move out of the way (a fire-foot hex would be nice, he'd be hopping about like a frog all through the night) before settling on civilly asking, "Can I come in."

Damian pursed his lips, "For what?"

Don't be difficult, you can speak to Raven if-

For the first time since the god had been forced in to Damian's mind -by way of magic- he found himself shut off from the boy. Damian had thrust Anubis back and rammed up the walls separating their consciences. The god's voice was a muffled sound, nothing in comparison to Raven's unyieldingly stern voice.

"To talk." She said, as Damian folded his arms tighter. Her voice dropped threateningly low, "I'm going to make this quite clear to you, Damian: I am coming in to talk to you whether you like it or not. So I suggest you move."

He narrowed his eyes, cocked his head, saw that she was going no where, and permitted her to enter. Damian shut his door louder than was necessary, and spun on his heel to face the witch.

With a familiarity Raven reserved for Damian alone, she had made herself comfortable on an armchair by the window, sitting back. The empath watched him in a way only she could: like she saw past the flesh and bone and straight into the soul. Damian had the momentary fear that she was troubled by what she saw.

Though it was night and the curtains were drawn, the wonderful human invention of artificial lighting basked the half-demoness in white light. Vividly blue, Raven's keen eyes followed Damian from the door to the foot of his bed, where he sat.

"TT. What is it?"

He could faintly hear Anubis shouting at him to have some more tact.

Raven knitted his fingers and rested them on her crossed legs, "You don't like Selina Kyle."

Ever the cynic, Damian said, "Oh you noticed did you? Well done. Have a sticker."

"Just answer the question without the dramatics." The exasperation in her voice registered with Damian.

He unwound his jaw and took a moment to figure out how much he wanted to tell her. Raven watched with understanding patience, all the while observing his volatile aura.

Finally, Damian settled on, "No. I don't particularly like Kyle."

Channeling the energy of a middle aged therapist on her last session of the day, Raven raised an eyebrow at Damian and asked, "What don't you like about her?" Before he could answer, she amended, "Sorry let me correct myself- what don't you like about her besides that she's in a relationship with your dad?"

If looks could kill, the witch would be seven feet under. Unfortunately for Damian, he was not a kryptonian and as such, he did not posses laser-eyes. Tragic.

Under Raven's unnervingly Alfred-like stare, Damian's resolve wore away: those intense orbs had that frustrating power to command his heartbeat. As it did, he loosened the blockade between Anubis and himself. The god's youthful voice was indignant as it grew in sound.

...what insolence! Truly! Never have I been so spurned- well maybe I have- but that's besides the point! You know, Horus would never stand for this! I should strike you down!- oh no, but then you'd die and I'd regret it. Oh well- you'd be in my realm (maybe) so that wouldn't be too bad. Wait...what was I saying before? I had a point...

Damian pushed Anubis' ramblings to the side and begrudgingly answers Raven's questions.

"My primary issue is that she is a criminal-"

"-was-" Raven pointed out.

Damian sneered, "there are no ex-criminals. She couldn't deal with father's code after the conflict with Hush, she was too weak. She's been a criminal so long, I can't believe she won't relapse in to her old ways. And that'll only cause emotional turmoil for father that could lead him to make a misjudgement (likely misjudgements) on a missionand put his life at risk."

Raven let out an incredulous laugh, while Damian sat on his bed, positively steaming. The pressure cooker that was Damian seemed close to bursting open. "TT. Don't mock me."
He seemed close to standing and sparking conflict with her.

Raven, leaning forward in her seat and clasping her hands between her knees, asked with genuine concern, "Damian...are you hearing yourself?"

He was silently simmering.

"You-" she laughed again at the absurdity, "-you can't even hear the hypocrisy." She didn't let him get a word in. "Damian...you are a reformed criminal who has taken up your father's code. Since the both of you have forsworn killing, there is as much of a chance of her breaking the rule as there is for you."

She rubbed her temples with her fingertips, "What about that is so hard to get?"

That side of Damian that she'd so wished not to see rose within him. A word, a phrase, or perhaps the topic she'd touched, set off a trip-wire. Whilst she knew that his past was a shaky subject for Damian, she recoiled at the unexpected explosion. His face screwed in a way that chilled Raven's blood, and he stood with fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. He didn't hear a single squeak of Anubis' voice.

Damian Al Ghul's eyes were the haunting colour of Lazarus pits. His voice, ever in the perfected American accent, gave way to escaped rolled 'r's and skewed vowels, as he burst with seldom-seen savagery, "She is a common thief. Something churned out by this wretched city- another Gotham underling who couldn't get anywhere by true merit so resorted to crime as a quick way out. We are nothing alike! I was raised with noble purpose! Raised with all the ambition worthy of the family of Al Ghul. At every stage of my training, perfection was expected and perfection was delivered and perfection I became." His face was flushed and he was stabbing the air with every gesture. "I did not endure ten years of torture and self discipline to be compared to a woman who could never stand in my mother's shadow- leave alone in her place!"

Damian's words shook the walls.

"What makes her worthy? Tell me what makes her worthy of my father's love? "

His father's room was on the other side of the storey, but Raven didn't doubt that the entire house heard him.

Her eyes welled with stinging tears whist Damian paced the room. She cursed the blurring of her sight and the cords tightening around her chest.

Damian bit his knuckles and cursed in his native tongue.

Raven couldn't get any words out. There was an emotion that she couldn't put a name to coursing through her being. It made her vision flicker between clear and bathed in red. Her throat was awfully dry. A part of her wanted to smash his head in to a wall; another wanted to hold him close to her chest like a baby and shield him from the world. As alluringly piercing as his eyes were, they had a profound melancholy that was far too old. Those old, old eyes were on show, while the rest of Damian's body roared with youth.

Raven closed her eyes. Then she sighed.

Damian faced the wall, resting his forehead against it. His chest heaved with laboured breathing and his eyes were shut tight.

Anubis began like a man walking on eggshells, Damian...perhaps you should try to talk about your feeli-

No.
No, no, no, no! I've ruined it all again. All these years and I can't escape the League! Mother is dead. Grandfather is dead. But I can't get them out of my mind. They're always there, at the back of my head- their teachings, their principals, their words. He scoffed, I actually thought I had passed them. That their way of thinking was behind me. TT. I'm a fool Anubis. An idealistic fool.

He was thrown off guard by a diffident hand on his back. Damian took a wavering breath, the vibrations of which Raven could feel through her hand. She had wiped the emotion from her eyes and disregarded her own state to deal with Damian. And in spite of the hot rage burning in his blood, her tentative touch cooled him.

Upon activating her empathic senses, it had become abundantly clear that, for all his prior rancour, Damian was fragile.
He lifted his head from the wall, took a steadying breath, and centred his thoughts on that soft palm on his back.

Damian turned around and, after a moment of shame, confessed, "I know Kyle- Selina- may have...changed. And I know she cares for my father...but..."

"She's trying to fill a place where your mother should be." Raven finished his thought, gripping Damian's hands gingerly.

He shook his head with regret, lamenting, "Talia has never in my life shown me mercy or kindness. The number of times the Lazarus pit was the only thing that could salvage my body after training..." he winced at the recollection, "..I don't want to think of. And yet, despite the monster that she was, I still-" Damian stopped himself from speaking, for fear of choking up and wounding his pride beyond measure.

Raven found her own sentiments mirrored his. She cursed that damned rock that made its home on her forehead.

Damian came to that realisation and met Raven's eye, "Of course...you understand. Is it- is it the same for you?"

The witch nodded, "I hate everything that he is. Everything that he's done. But there's still that small part of me that wants that connection more than-anything." Her voice faltered at the last word. When she blinked, her eyelashes clung together and her vision clouded.

"Why is family so complicated? It's not fair." He all-but whined.

Raven sniffed and gave a watery laugh, "I second that. Look, Damian, you don't have to like Selina. Just try to put up with her." Upon facing no backlash, she added, "Besides, you two could work very well together on at least one project."

"Oh? What's that?"

Raven smiled, "Some kind of cat's protection program."

"Huh, you may have a point."

It was unreasonably late and Damian hadn't slept well the night before. But in her hands, fatigue didn't touch him. In the prolonged pause that followed his words, Damian's eyes pinned on Raven's. She didn't seem to be able to move them away, though his stare make her breath catch and heart beat out of rhythm.

The intensity of Damian's gaze almost made her sweat. She made the mistake of breathing and caught his cinnamony scent. That, accompanied by the heat radiating from him was positively intoxicating. But it was those wildly sensual emotions leaking from him, and that stupid lopsided smirk (when he saw how flustered she was) that tipped her over.

Pride gave her a nudge, and Raven crushed her mouth with his, reaching up on her toes and wiping that smirk off his lips. Immediately leaning in to motion, Damian rested his hands on Raven's hips and bit back a groan as her arms wrapped around his neck, gluing them together.

Right-well-uh...I'll leave you two alone for this part then.

***

Squinting, Raven looked outside the kitchen window, smiling at the patches of flowers Alfred had cultivated. Whilst Raven was no fan of the plants, she could appreciate them from afar. She drank her cup of camomile tea (prepared by Alfred) and skimmed a particularly old scroll. The parchment was moth-bitten, the script a melting pot of Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Aramaic and a few- more recent- scribbles in old French. The scroll reeked of magic, as such, Raven figured that the time it took to work her way around it would be well-spent.

She started on a scrawled passage in the left-hand corner, when she heard a light, padding sound. Sure enough, Titus rounded the corner, coming to sit by her stool. Having presumably grown tired of watching Damian train, the dog had trotted off to find something more interesting to do.

Raven turned around in her seat and bent down to pet the Great Dane. After putting some food in Titus' bowl, Raven left him to eat while she read.

The witch's progress with the scroll was cut short by an explosive crashing and glass showering her. As the shards nicked her skin, Titus barked his alarm. The stool toppled over in Raven's haste to stand and she readied her magic for combat.

The intruder jumped out of the skin, and after surveying the damage he caused to the window, muttered, "Holy mascarpone Al's gunna kill me." Before turning so that Raven could see his face.

His eyebrows shot up and he reached for a gun that wasn't there, simultaneously flicking the white chunk of his hair out of his eyes. Reaching for the nearest weapon- which happened to be a silver spork- the man shouted, "Who the fuck are you?"

A.N:

Yes, I'm leaving it there. Sorry!
I hope you liked that chapter my lovelies- we got a little Damirae sauciness, some fluff, and a good old cliffhanger to top it off.

Before I go, I'd just like to shout out a really really reaaaaally good book I'm reading. It's by the incredible artist @_kasieli who happens to be a wonderful writer also.
The book is called 'What happens undercover stays undercover'

I really encourage you all to read it!

Anyway, thanks for reading, I'll see you all next week!

-Bats :3