Despite feeling sand under my fingers I still seethed, "You'd lobotomize us because you fear we'd abuse our power." I spat salt water off my lips, "When in doing so you abuse yours."
"What do you want me to say?! Yes?! I already said I was sorry!" She threw sand at me from where she landed.
I rose up, hostility still in me, but hands smaller than mine embraced me from behind and I froze. It wasn't Donna or the monkey, they were in front of me. The head of the culprit rested in my back, murmuring, "Let's walk down the beach. Blow off some healthy steam."
The monkey took Zatanna's hand, saying, "That sounds like a good idea. Thank you for your help. Maybe we'll meet up after everyone is cool."
"Donna," Raven murmured from my back, "I'm exhausted. Please radio everyone for us."
"No problem." She added, "Hey, Kevin." I looked up at her, "We'll sort this out. You're still cool in my book, okay?"
"Okay," I said weakly before turning with Raven and walking down the abandoned beach.
Once we were out of earshot I noticed the sad state Raven was in. She was limping, paler than normal and was about to cough some more. I sighed, saying, "Lay down."
"What?" She croaked.
"Lay down, let me check if your leg is broken."
"I'm fine."
"Sit your stubborn, BLOOD hacking self down." I ordered.
Rolling her eyes at me, she gladly fell back into the soft sand and crossed her arms with a cough.
"So melodramatic," I chuckled, getting on a knee and slipping my hands up her split dress.
"No funny business."
I laughed a broken laugh, "You think I would seriously do that after all that hate I just spat?"
"No, if I did, I wouldn't trust you right now."
"And you are an empath, so you know I was being platonic."
I felt her knee cap and grimaced. "So that's what that pop was. Your kneecap is dislocated."
"I dislocated my whole leg before."
"Pfft, weak, I had my leg eaten by a shark before."
She couldn't help but smile before a hard cough, sending blood into my face. I sighed, wiping it off with my hand. I complained, "C'mon Raven! Jesus!"
"Sorry!" She croaked.
"You need to go to the doctor for that. Not the kneecap, I could fix it right now if you want, but that coughing… I don't know if I've ever done that and I've been used as a guinea pig for chemical weapons."
"You never coughed blood before?"
"Not that I can- actually, yeah I did. Second wave of the Spanish Flu, additional effects were spontaneous mouth and nosebleeds, miscarriages for pregnant women, a peculiar smell, teeth, and hair falling out, delirium, dizziness, insomnia, loss of hearing or smell, blurred vision, and impaired color vision. Whole face turned blue as well."
"Whatever, I'll probably treat it with maggots and leeches."
I gave her a disgusted look and she laughed, "Because, you know. Doctors thought leeches were like the Fountain of Youth."
Oh, it was an attempt at a joke.
"You never caught infection from a medical leech when you were ten so that's not funny."
"You were ten?"
"Yeah, two hundred years and that's one of the things I remember."
"You know," she coughed a little, "in Europe leech and maggot treatments are making a comeback."
I couldn't help but look at her in disgust and she justified, "I read it in a medical journal!"
"Dear God." I groaned.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
"You said something about Dresden… isn't that a town in Tennessee?"
In reply, I popped her kneecap back in place.
"Owwww!" She groaned, "Crap! You could have given me a warning!"
I didn't hear her though as I watched the ocean, trying to sort out the swirling memories.
"It was Valentine's Day in Germany, 1945. Specifically, Tuesday through Thursday. The thirteenth through the fifteenth." I admitted, "As you've already pieced together. I was experimented on extensively and piqued interest when I wouldn't die. A few months prior, they locked me up with a Polish woman. We grew close." I sighed, "That was the whole point of the experiment. What would I do after they took her— no, killed her." I shrugged, "I snapped."
"The Allies were scheduled to do a fire bombing on that city but already saw a writhing agent of chaos that even attacked them." I added, "I had completely lost my humanity for three days. I slaughtered everything in my path." The pictures swirled in my head, "I reduced people to husks a third of their size. People scrambled into wells and fountains to escape the fire. I-"
Raven's hands looped around my neck and she whispered in my ear, "It's okay."
I laughed bitterly, "No it's not Raven. Over twenty-thousand-"
"You didn't mean to."
"Did I?"
"You were provoked. It's okay."
"No, it's not."
"I destroyed my home with even more people in it than that, Kevin."
I looked her in the eye, caught off guard, and she added, "Wayyy more people. Now," she asked, "you worked with your brothers over the years?"
"We all had a falling out one by one as they embraced their immortality. That they were more than humans. One of my brothers, the eldest, further enhanced his abilities by becoming a vampire. That was 1871, and our battle leveled one third of Chicago. Out of the thirteen of us, only four of us held onto our humanity by the 20th century (1900). We had another fight in 1911, New York at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Then another, in Reichstag, 1933 in Germany. The last time I was allied with a brother of mine was when I confronted him on a leisure boat going down the Cuyahoga River in 1969. It all started off noble, cowboys heading West and such; but if I learned anything… you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain."
"I don't think so."
"How strangely optimistic girl… or naive."
"Aww you two having a moment?" Donna had walked up behind us.
Raven undraped her arms from around my neck and cleared her throat, "Anyways, are you good Kevin? You think you could apologize?"
"I'm calm, Raven. And as for you Donna, I only got here less than a week ago so hush."
"Riiight, only got here not even a week ago." She said, boiling Raven with a teasing look.
"Anyways," I stood up, "is Zatanna still here?"
"Hell nah, after I grilled her about what you accused her of I told her to scram before *I* punched her."
I let out a sigh of relief, I kinda felt the need to apologize for some of the things I said, more for the childish way I acted. Even if we both were to blame for antagonizing one another she apologized and I didn't. I also started spazzing out bemoaning my immortality among other things.
"Don't worry too much about it," she added, "we'll probably be having drinks one day and boom you two will wake up next to each other."
I couldn't help but laugh, my mood starved for the humor and said, "What? You got a thing for enemies to lovers or something?"
"No but that's how it goes sometimes. We'll make up with them later, a little argument won't hurt anything."
Jesus… little? What's her definition of a big argument?
Next thing I knew the T-Car rolled up to us from out of the ocean and cyborg leaned out the window.
"Yo Kevin! You owe everyone that blood sausage! Just buy Gar some tofu!"
Smiling, I flicked some seaweed off the hood before sliding over. I tried to forget what just happened and the team really helped. Cyborg yelled, "Hey! No butts on the hood! If a belt or something scratches it you are dead!"
"Sorry!"
I opened the back door to get in and a big, ugly, squealing face greeted me. Instinctively screaming and punching it the green pig head hit the widow behind it as Beast Boy groaned as he turned back to normal. Cyborg went silent, "Did you just almost break my window?!"
Donna was behind me laughing so hard she rolled in the sand. Raven couldn't help but lean over, laughing so hard. I yelled, "Jesus Beast Boy! You scared the crap out of me!"
"Ha! Got ya! Owwww…" he groaned in pain as we got in.
"Everyone! Everyone!" Robin said, "Business. Give me a debrief."
I sighed, so much for forgetting about it.
"The demon had incapacitated Justice League Dark before we got there. It was human-like and after attempting to combat it we also were incompacitated."
"So it escaped?"
"Sadly yes."
"Well, that's kinda really bad," but he leaned forward and patted my shoulder, "but every mission where we all make it out is a good mission."
"My stomachs hunger everyone!" Starfire squealed, "Let's go get sustenance!"