2013-02-07 Cosmic Irony, Raven is a guide

Disaster. Ultimate fail. Cosmic irony. Eternal despair. Bad luck.
One or more of these things surely had to be to blame for the reason why Raven, of all people was chosen to show a new prospective member around the Tower. Sure, the official reason was that, of all the people around right now, she 'knew' Heather. But what she knew about Heather was about as extensive as knowing that she liked clothes. Raven? Not so much. She'd sought advice from both Cassandra and Koriand'r on how to better acclimate herself to clothes, but she'd yet to be brought out onto that torture called 'shopping' again.
Unfortunately, Wonder Girl's lessons hadn't quite sunk in and Starfire's had been... unorthodox, to say the least! Just like almost everything about the orange-skinned Tamaranean.
"And..." Raven says as she presses the admittance button and the hydraulic door opens with a sibilant hissing sound. "...This is the infirmary." It reveals a rather standard nursing station to her 'visitor', Heather. It's got a few beds, some fancy top-of-the-line medical equipment, x-ray machines and such, and- oh look! -a patient! "...I have to play nurse today."
Raven motions to the hospital bed Nate's supposed to be sitting on, who knows if he is or not, and told by the on-duty physician to wait, as his HMO didn't cover supernatural healing. The dark-haired goth reaches up and pulls back her hood as she moves into the room with just a smidge of humor evident in her voice. "How is the arm?" But she already knew.
It wasn't hard to tell what people were feeling when you were one of the most powerful empaths on the planet.
Nate is a very, very bad patient. He barely waited for the medical crew to put his badly shattered arm in a cast before trying to leave. The doctors said he needed surgery, so he agreed to come the next day. He returned just a couple hours ago, and even now he is grumbling about it. They wanted to give him general anesthesia. He is a telepath! Are they nuts? So now the doctors are arguing at the other side of the infirmary. As if he couldn’t ‘hear’ them. The arrival of the women makes him lose some of his frown, and he waves with his good arm. “Hey. It is alright. Just broken.” Yes, that made no sense, so sue him.
Mend has an odd relationship with the infirmary. Minor stuff, she'll come here for. Anything major? There's a point where medical treatment is simply counter-productive with the young mutant. Right now, she's moving to go past the doctors and to the cabinet where they keep bandages and stuff. Given she doesn't seem to be hurt, she's probably just renewing her stash. Nate is glanced at, then Raven, then Heather...and she changes course to join the small group by Nate's bed. "Feeling better yet?"
Well, Heather is doing her best to give the empath perky-overload. "Oh! This place is huge!" She murmurs as she gets shown around. The lack of enthusiasm in the tour guide's voice and body language provoke even more questions about stuff from said tourist. "You guys live here? This place must be expensive!" And things like, "Holy crap. I bet I could tweet gigs of pictures every minute from that console!" she blurts out as she follows and points at a computer.
Then the infirmary. "Ah, the one place I wager I would spend the least amount of time visiting." She's not in that new costume yet... heck, she has about seven variations on it that are all laid out back home. She can't decide which pieces she likes best, and so she's just not bothering. It's not like she's really worried about her ID right now. She's already a bit of a celebrity. But then she sees Nate and pauses. "Well, that's interesting." she remarks. "Wish I had a snickers bar about now." she adds as she steps into the room and pauses just inside the door.
"I can only speed the process." Raven tells the male as she approaches, her suede boots whispering quietly across the floor, her floor-length cloak giving the impression she's levitating towards his position. "You will still need the cast for a day or two until the bones finish healing."
The dark-haired teenager finall parts her cloak as her hands come out, moving to stand close, and to the side of, Nate. Her hands gently apply themselves to the cast, but when she talks to the blonde-haired model, she's looking at the patient's arm. "To answer your earlier question... only some live here. I do. ...I have nowhere else to go."
Then she closes her eyes. "...Please, all of you calm your emotions. It is difficult when you are so... loud." Her hands begin to glow in the space between her palms and the cast as she concentrates her empathic abilities into it, her brow knitting just below the chakra in her forehead in a expression akin to pain.
“Really?” Nate humor improves a 180% at hearing maybe there won’t be surgery. “Best offer I had today. And hmm,” control his emotions, that is not easy for him. But at least he switched from ‘gloomy-broody’ to ‘hopeful’. “I will try, thanks,” try meditate, he never manages, but at least he sits down on the bed and remains still (instead of pacing around). Besides, he spots Heather and nods at her in recognition, “interesting, you said?”
"Control my... huh?" asks Heather and inclines her head. "Well, I watched you take on what... three or four rather spectacularly powerful metahumans at once. So I find myself wondering what could've broken your arm when they didn't." she adds. "And if whatever it is might be visiting us here to try to finish the job, so to speak."
She looks around and wonders aloud, "They keep any snacks in here?" Well, she didn't see a vending machine anywhere in the place, and already went through the two bags of cashews she brought with her. Of course, she did them in on the way over here. She just doesn't quite understand how someone can control their emotions really. After all, she's just... her. It is who she is. So, she steps back and away from the patient, hoping proximity might help.
Mend glances at Raven. She hasn't seen her in action much. Not sure how to control her emotions, she moves over next to Heather. "If you're really desperate I can snag you something from my cache." As one immortal mutant to another, even if it does work somewhat...differently.
Well, for Nate, there's an instant lessening of the pain as Raven literally draws it from him and into herself. Her brow tightens and her mouth turns down into a teeth-clenching scowl as her hands move over the broken bones and her power works to accelerate it's healing. Little beads of sweat begin to form near her hairline.
Unfortunately, proximity doesn't help much, not for someone who can feel particularly strong emotions from over a mile away, or many miles from a large group of people. But they do the best they can and she relies on her training to make up the difference. The rest of the world fades away, and now there is only the pain in Nate's arm, the pain she is drawing into herself. It's like transferring the broken arm into her.
Raven lets out a slow hiss, and then, after nearly two full minutes of concentration, her hands stop glowing and she takes them away, gasping aloud as her eyes fly open. She steps back, wavering in place like she might faint, reaching a hand up to rub at her eyes and wipe away a trickle of sweat making a track down the right side of her cheek.
"Nngh... It is done." Though her tone is as lifeless as ever, her expression and speech are somewhat wearied, as if she'd just spent several hours doing hard labor. "I can do no more for you. Be wary of your arm's use... it will still take some time for it to support you."
"My arm, oh... that is a funny story," mentions Nate with a smirk, and looking at the ceiling to try to avoid feeling anything. It does not work great, his arm hurts and... then it does not hurt so much. Now he feels grateful, and still really bad at controlling his emotions. "It feels much better already," he can move his fingers without seeing stars, and definitely his arm feels less swollen under the cast, besides of hurting much less. "Thanks a lot, Raven. Hey, are you alright?"
Immediately, Heather is moving back towards Raven. Sure, proximity might help or hinder some aspects of things, but... this is her tour guide! And a Titan! She reaches a hand to offer some sort of support, though she has -no- idea what she might be able to do to help. She -wants- to help so that might mean something. "You look like I do if I go all day without eating." She shrugs and adds, "Side effect of my abilities.. I need like ten times the calories of a normal person.... or something along those lines. So... Raven... where's the kitchen at?" She grins to Mend and adds, "Keep your stash. I appreciate it but... I know better than to raid someone else's emergency supplies."
Mend laughs. "I can refill it easily enough...but going to the kitchen sounds like a good idea." She grins at Heather. "Mend, by the way," she introduces, then glances at Nate again. "I don't think we've met. Well, maybe in passing." That's aimed at both of the non-Titans in the room.
The gothic teenager quickly pulls up the hood of her cloak, like a proverbial shield against scrutiny, as Nate inquires into her well-being and Heather puts a hand on her to steady her balance. Only her eyes and mouth are visible beneath its now-dark confines, hiding whatever expression she may allow to grace her features. There's the nearly-imperceptible motion beneath the blue cloth of her head nodding.
"I... will be fine." Though her voice makes her sound tired enough to drop. "I merely require time to rest my powers."
Once she trusts her legs not to wobble and give beneath her, the dark-haired girl motions idly towards the exit of the infirmary. "...The cafeteria is near by. It was our next stop." With that, Raven begins to head out of the sick-ward and back into the hall, immediately making a right. Her gait is a little slow and unsteady at first, but after stopping by the door and placing a hand on the wall to suck in a deep healing breath for strength, she manages to keep to a straight line. She's really not much of a tour guide. She doesn't even give any history of the place as they pass, make introductions, or even greet any of the soldiers stationed here in the tower's lower portion!
Though, to be fair, they don't seem to make much effort to greet her, either, except to mutter about 'the witch' as soon as she's out of earshot. Their emotions might as well be shouting, however. "...I am an empath." She adds without preamble, half-turning to show the profile of her hooded features as she presses the admittance key into the mess hall. The door hisses open, allowing entrance into an area with a half-dozen tables or so and a buffet of rather standard lunch-time fair being tended to by a single underpaid military chef. "When others express strong emotions, they tend to... intrude."
The young man nods to Mend, “I am Nate, Nate Grey. I have been at the Tower a couple times, but not recently. And not here,” he glances in the infirmary, which he hopes not to see again. He gives the doctors a smug glance on his way out. Poor Raven, Nate is one of those persons that seems broadcast strong emotions all the time. Right now, he is worried about her. There is gratitude, curiosity and a some guilt, and she can probably still feel all that underlying anger he must have been accumulating for years and years.
Concern from Heather as well. Not guilt so much.. just concern, curiosity... oh lord, she's brimming with curiosity. And well, other things are apparent as she sees the soldiers and she goes out of her way to talk to them... almost trying to cheer them up. She even pauses once to ask if Raven.. yeah, she's trying to involve Raven... maybe trying to provoke some emotions... anyhow, she asks the teen witch to take her picture with two of the guards, her arms wrapped about each of their waists. Of course, she offers her own phone for the picture... but eventually she follows into the cafeteria. "Oh lord, this is the best room in the place!" She says as she just kinda energetically bounces over towards the food.
Mend actually has a fair amount of control over hers, for somebody without that kind of training. "So...are you applying to join?" she asks Heather. Trying to recall what abilities the other woman has...of course, Heather beats her at one of her schticks. Hopefully not the other...and she's hot enough to be forgiven.
When asked to take a picture, Raven stares at the phone with a blank look for so long one might reasonably come to the conclusion that she isn't going to do anything with it. But once she's shown HOW to take pictures with it, she wordlessly obliges before continuing on to the eatery that Heather had seemed eager to get to. ...And then went out of her way to hold them from reaching!
She would never understand happy people.
She does her best not to pry into the emotions of others. But for someone who spent so much of her life hiding her emotions, she never really understood why others tried to do the same. After all, they were quite obvious to HER! She allows the others to enter the mess hall before her, before she finds her way to a mostly-clear table containing only a male and female soldier on one end. Raven sits at the other end.
The two glance in the cloaked female's direction as she once again takes down her hood and prepares to wait for Heather to go attack the food, then glance at each other... and then pick up their trays and move elsewhere.
"...Neither of you need concern yourselves." She affirms. "I will be fine. I am simply not well acquianted with... that much pain."
Nate frowns at the soldiers as they leave. What is going on here? He directs an inquiring glance to Mend. Then flops down on a chair at Raven’s side. “You are an empath. Well, I am a telepath and usually I can keep foreign thoughts out of my head with mental shields. Can’t you try to do something like that?”
Grabbing a tray, Heather starts loading up. "Oh, sorry... was a bit distracted. I'm Heather." nope, no codename yet. But it's not like most folks don't already know her name and many of them think they know HER before they meet her these days. Dagwood sized sandwich, deviled eggs, four cupcakes, oh, bacon for the sandwich. Two cups of juice and she adds to Mend. "Well, I was semi-approached. I mean Superman invited me to test out the limits of my abilities.. and when I Was there, some of the Titans were hanging out and... well one thing led to another. So yeah, you might call this an audition." She smirks as she grabs a pretzel stick, takes a bite and heads for the table.
“Oh, pain is an old friend of mine. Kinda hard to -not- get used to it when your body works like mine does. Only good news is... hurting me isn't the hard part, keeping me that way is." And she settles down across from Raven. "Don't worry, most guys are easily creeped out. Present company excluded of course." she says with a smile given to Nate.
"Great. Knew it. Somebody who beats me at one of my schticks." Mend grins a bit. "Yet more reason to work on my skills." Mend glances at the soldiers. "Raven's...intimidating. To most people." Mend, for her part, doesn't scare easily. Except at mind control. Nate admitting to being a telepath gets a slight, sidelong glance.
"I can only shield so much." Raven's voice answers in a dull reply, her eyes moving blankly onto the lone male of the group. "I do not just feel emotions... I leech them. I can dampen them with concentration, but I may never shut them out wholly. It's like..." She tilts her head. "...a temperature change. I can not help but feel it."
The dark-haired teenager gives a glance in the uniformed personnel's direction as they resettle somewhere away from her, then quickly looks away. "I am used to... rejection. Many find my presence unsettling." A pause. "The few who have accepted me make it a bit easier." She admits.
"...But I do not think I will ever get the hang of 'shopping', 'fashion', or these things that many find normal."
Nate looks at Raven again, taking about ten seconds. Intimidating? “Yeah, I can see why someone could be afraid of you... if they are morons.” Seriously? He draws breath and tries to smoother his anger out of consideration to her. He glances around for some other subject and blinks at food that Heather has brought to the table, and so quickly. “You were serious about needing food, uh? Now I think about it, last time I saw you, last Summer, I think, you did the same.”
Shrugging after swallowing a bite, Heather shakes her head, "It makes a lot of folks jealous. But yeah... it doesn't stop really." She grins, "It is even worse after a serious injury. Replacing bone, tissues, and all that.. takes a lot of energy and there are times when I've gorged after healing." And this... isn't gorging.... she reaches for a cupcake, might as well have dessert first, right?
Unwrapping it, she takes a small bite, chews, swallows and tries to turn her own focus away from Raven's awkwardness. "Mend you said your name was?" she asks towards the other woman. "You mentioned something about Schtick infringement? What were you talking about?" She asks, really trying a subject change here.
Mend is snagging food for herself, but settles down next to Heather in time to answer that. "Well, you have regeneration. I just come back from the dead." There's a difference. She can't heal unless..well...
Raven's cool gaze finds Nate again, the ghost of a smile breezing across her lips. One eyebrow arcs an infinitesmal fraction of an inch upwards. On Raven, it was the equivalent of laughing out loud. "You haven't seen me try. ...Yet."
She pauses for a moment, as if debating how much to tell. But in the end, what did she have to hide? Besides being the interdimensional pawn of the universe's version of Satan of steroids. Yeah, that part she'd keep to herself until, unless, the time came when she'd be forced to share the true reason she's come to Earth. Which just happened to be the target of said roid-raging master of Hell.
"I am able to force emotions into others, as well. This ability also requires concentration to avoid doing. There was a time when I... liked someone." She looks away. "...It got awkward. There is a reason the monks kept me apart." Though it was only half the truth.
“I saw you fighting your double,” mentions Nate with a smirk. But he is pretty hard to scare, anyway. “And you have not tried to intimidate them, have you? Maybe they fear empaths; lots of people fear telepaths, even powerful mutants and metas, it is annoying.” He is very much -not- looking at Mend. “See if they are going to make me feel guilty for being a telepath. Nope. As for past mistakes, well, now you know better.”
Stuffing her face, stuffing her face, Heather pauses as folks keep talking and she -is- listening, mostly. "From the dead?" she asks between bites. "That's wicked. I don't think I -can- die." she shrugs and shakes her head, "I mean, I fell sixteen stories after being halfway acid melted, and landed on a car... I was out for a while but never stopped entirely.... Let me tell you though, waking up with a muffler in your gut. Hurts.." she adds before looking back over towards Nate and Raven, suddenly worried that she might be grossing them out... and so she offers one of those worried, nervous smiles.
Mend winces. "Telepaths make me nervous, but only because of the mind control incident with Stonewall." Who never did come back to the team after that. "The idea of having to fight a team-mate *really* disturbs me." See. She's got reason...it's not the normal phobia. "But you wouldn't have been allowed in if somebody I trust didn't trust you." She offers Nate a smile. "Sorry."
"I think it has to do..." Raven looks towards the soldiers again. "...with the way I look. I imagine if I had blonde hair," That almost-smile is back again. "And 'chic' clothing, I would blend in much better." And then it's gone. "...And not be known as 'the witch'." Well, to be fair, she was even called that on Azarath, and, though kind and pacifistic, many of the monks still kept her at a distance. But then, they knew the truth of her heritage, too.
Then she looks at Heather, again, long enough for the silent stare to perhaps become uncomfortable. "...Do not fear. I have seen worse." Maybe only in her nightmares, but those images were certainly clear enough. Then a look, in turn, is placed upon Mend.
Raven dips her head, looking down into her lap. "I will do my best to... keep my abilities to myself if they are a cause of distress for you."
Grossed out? Hardly. Regeneration is very useful. He has been seriously injured a few times, because he is kinda careless, mostly. "I think Stonewall was controlled with magic. I was there when he was rescued; he was confused, seeing things that weren't there." That was serious business, remembering the whole deal with Vandal and Limbo is quite the mood-killer. Lets not go there. "Raven, there is nothing wrong with the way you look or dress. And I for one I am glad to see someone does not even use a silly codename or wear a bright, multi-colored costume. I swear every time I hear someone saying something like 'Superboy' or 'Wondergirl' I want to laugh, even in the middle of a battle."
Opening her mouth to say something to Raven, Heather flickers her eyes towards Nate... then she just shuts her mouth and goes back to eating. Well, it doesn't take an empath to realize that what Nate just said was almost... well, it might've been scripted to upset her. After all, she -loves- bright colors, and was just costume shopping, and has been trying to figure out a codename that sounded cool and all that. I mean, she's trying to become a Titan, right?
She just settles for being quiet (which is like... odd for her!) and eating. Well, maybe she's quiet because she's hungry and has food here?
"It's become traditional, though. And Raven is perfectly good as a codename anyway. It suits you." It might be her real name as well, but its descriptive. "And yeah. It was magic. Just as long as nobody mind controls Supergirl into turning me into a pretzel." She flickers a grin at that. "Mine...eh. It works."
"Wonder Girl wishes to live a normal life outside of being a hero. She has loved ones, those she wishes to protect. Her mother, her friends who would be put in harm's way." Raven returns with barely any hesitation for once, even if her tone is deadpanned. "I... have none. Everyone whom my enemies would hurt reside in another dimension, far from me. Where they are safer. I have no life outside of the Titans, nothing to protect. It is easy to confuse it with a strength."
"...Thank you." Raven inclines her head towards Mend appreciably, raising her eyebrows slightly. "It was simply what my mother chose to call me. I have nothing else to go by. I suppose it is a good thing it is found... acceptable." This time there's an ACTUAL smile, albeit a very small one.
Nate hesitates. But talking of friends and family quickly pushes him into non-happy thoughts. "Yeah, Nightwing explained to me about the secret identities business, and I know about war names, but still... adding 'boy' or 'girl' to the a codename," he shakes his head, smirking. "You know, since Raven here saved me from gods know how much hassle with surgery and healing times, I am going to get to New York and check a few things I left pending when I went to Limbo. Thanks again, for everything."
Shaking her head, Heather shrugs, "Well, when I think of a name and get a costume, I'll be sure -not- to solicit your advice on the matter." she says to Nate. "I was shopping a bit and all, and I think colors and a cool codename would do well. Someone actually suggested I use like... Cover Girl" and she rolls her eyes at that, looking to Mend before she shrugs once more, "Not sure. All the cool codenames seem taken though. Maybe I should fight someone for one." She smirks and keeps stuffing her face.
Mend laughs. "Oh no, that would be awful...although I know what you mean about them all being taken. But I'd better go. I'm still trying to work on some kind of personal flight device." She eyes Heather. "Nah. I won't ask you to test it." Even if it is tempting!
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