Dangerous Seduction

The Pure Magician

"So..."

Damian sighed, his fingers pausing in their rhythmic taping on the computer keyboard. Sometimes he thinks he should listen to his father and enforce absolute discipline on Jonathan Kent – not that he wasn't disciplined now, it was just that Damian allowed him much more lee-way than any of the other Titans – but if he did that Jon might consider their friendship over and Damian valued their friendship; despite his best efforts, he actually enjoyed Jon's company and besides, it was like having a nuclear weapon as a friend, all too willing to detonate in any direction you pointed them.

"What's with the white witch?"

Damian clicked his tongue. "White witch? I don't think that term's entirely appropriate, do you?" He was teasing of course, the red flush that spread across Jon's cheeks and his stammering response made Damian chuckle internally. Was he getting soft? Between Jon and Raven, he now had emotional connections to two of his teammates.

That caused him to pause. Since when did he consider himself to have an emotional connection to Raven?

"Okay," stammered Jon, still embarrassed. "What's with this second witch? I thought you had a thing going with Raven?"

"Maybe I'm board of Raven," said Damian, airily.

A long silence from Jon made Damian glance round. His friend was smirking at him with an eyebrow raised. Damian recognised it as one he himself often wore when he didn't believe a word of what someone had said.

"Alright," the assassin growled. "Maybe I'm not. But there's nothing wrong with making her a little jealous."

"Jealous?" Jon screwed up his face. "I don't think Raven's jealous. I think she's been looking like crap for the past few days."

Damian frowned minutely. Yes, he had been observing that as well. The demon-girl had objected to their hostage the first time she had been able to corner Damian alone after they brought her back to the tower.

She had claimed to just find her presence distasteful at the time, but over the past few days Damian had noticed a distinct change in Raven. She had stopped eating at meal times; her skin was looking sallow and clammy; during combat training, her reflexes were slow; and she seemed either constantly on edge – to the point where a small teasing remark from Blackfire had resulted in the alien's current internment in the medical bay – or apathetic to the point where Damian had practically fucked Wonder Girl on the table where Raven was drinking a cup of tea and she had just stared at them with dull eyes.

She had even stopped coming to the Tower roof in the mornings, her lack of presence seemed to take some of the serenity out of his morning routine.

"Well, what do you want me to do Jon?" Damian huffed in annoyance.

"Kill the hostage," Superboy replied simply. "I don't really care what weird kind of foreplay you and Raven are doing, but I do not want to go into battle with a dangerous whatever-the-fuck-Raven-is in the state that she's currently in!"

"I can't kill her yet," muttered Damian. "I can't," he repeated at Jon's disbelieving tut. "We need to find out about the resistance movement and my father has ordered me to keep her alive until he can take care of her interrogation personally."

"If we needed information from the group, why didn't you tell us to keep more of them alive during the raid?"

"The night after the raid, I found some interesting activity on their computer that indicates they may have been in contact with others." Damian yawned and stretched his arms, looking back to the computer monitor in front of him. "We have to keep her alive and in the tower; father doesn't trust Klarion to guard her and I can keep an eye on Raven to make sure she's doing her best to keep the bitch from breaking free."