The medbay was quiet, but not peaceful. Machines hummed, monitors beeped, and the sharp tang of antiseptic hung in the air—an all-too-familiar symphony of survival.
Even after their victory against Asmodeus, the atmosphere inside Titans Tower was somber.
Raven lay unconscious on one of the stark white beds, her pale face framed by strands of midnight hair damp with sweat. Beside her, Cyborg and Beast Boy were strapped to their own beds, their bodies wrapped in bandages and enchanted seals. Both had taken the brunt of Asmodeus's fury—Cyborg's metal plating was dented and scorched, and Beast Boy had yet to stir, his breathing shallow but steady.
The other Titans weren't much better. Robin sat upright on his cot, posture straight, eyes shadowed but sharp. Already his mind churned with contingency plans, strategies, possibilities. The others could almost hear the gears in his head.
Starfire hovered beside him, her hands folded tightly together. Her voice carried a fragile warmth, like she was trying to sew the room back together with hope.
Starfire: "We have endured much, but we still endure. That is what matters."
Megan moved gently around the room, not healing—there was no need—but smoothing blankets, adjusting pillows, offering soft presence. She was the quiet gravity holding the shaken group together.
And Jinx, sprawled in her own bed, hair mussed, eyes lidded but sharp, let out a dry chuckle.
Jinx: "Endure. Yeah. That's one way to put it. I call it barely holding on by duct tape and sarcasm."
Starfire frowned at her tone, but Robin didn't even look up. He was lost in strategy.
The fight was over, but the cost lay lined up before them.
The medical wing was quiet, too quiet for the Titans. The faint hum of machines filled the silence where last night's screams had been. No one was broken anymore—Wildcard had seen to that hours ago.
But no amount of physical healing could erase what the battle had done to their minds. The trauma lingered in hollow stares, restless shifting under blankets, and silent prayers whispered in the dark.
They lay unconscious or breathing shallow, their bodies healing.The scars of memory still weighed heavier than flesh.
***
The quiet shifted when the doors hissed open. Wildcard stepped through, not in a hurry, not even carrying the weight of what had just passed. He carried himself like someone who had already moved on to the next game.
Robin's head lifted, eyes narrowing immediately. Starfire straightened, her fingers twisting against each other in silence. Megan glanced over from where she was adjusting blankets, a trace of relief flickering across her face.
Wildcard ignored them all. His gaze swept the room once, uninterested, then he walked with casual precision toward Jinx's bed. Without asking, without hesitation, he sat on the edge of it as though it were his rightful place.
Jinx (dryly): "You know, most people at least ask before invading a girl's space."
Wildcard (unbothered, settling in): "Most people aren't me."
Jinx (smirking despite herself): "Lucky me, then."Jinx raised an eyebrow, her exhaustion hidden under her usual veneer of sarcasm. Out of all the places in the room, you pick my bed?"
Wildcard leaned back slightly, resting one elbow behind him as if her bed was the most natural throne. His voice carried that sharp calm of his, neither apologetic nor arrogant—just final. "Comfort chooses me, not the other way around."
Jinx snorted, half-amused, half-annoyed, but didn't push him off. Instead, she watched him like a cat deciding if it was worth swiping its paw.
Megan hesitated, then walked toward him, a steaming mug in her hands. She held it out carefully.
Megan: "I thought you might like this. Even you need a little warmth sometimes."
Robin finally broke the tension, arms crossing. "You seem awfully comfortable here."
Wildcard didn't look at him. "I usually am, Boy Wonder."
He turned, one brow arched. His gaze lingered on her in that unsettling, sharp way of his before he finally accepted the mug.
Wildcard: "Careful, M'gann. If you keep being this kind, I might forget I'm supposed to be the dangerous one."
Megan smiled softly, trying not to shrink under his words.
Wildcard took the cup raising it briefly to his lips. For a moment he said nothing, then gave a faint hum.
"Hot. Bitter. Not terrible."
M'gann blinked, unsure if that counted as gratitude, though there was no sharpness in his tone. Before she could respond, a low voice from the far wall cut in.
From her bed, Jinx smirked, voice dripping with mischief.
Jinx: "Oh, please. If coffee's all it takes to tame the great Wildcard, then we're in far less danger than I thought."
Wildcard sipped, unfazed.
Wildcard: "Depends on who's holding the cup."
Jinx's grin widened. Megan flushed. The atmosphere shifted just a little—still tense, but not entirely bleak.
"Well," Jinx drawled, arching a brow, "isn't that sweet? The scary masked man and the girl with the heart-shaped eyes. Should I leave you two alone, or…?"
M'gann's cheeks flushed a deeper green as she stammered. "It's—it's not like that! I just thought he might—"
Wildcard glanced lazily over his shoulder at Jinx, one corner of his mouth quirking upward.
"Relax, Hex Girl. She's just being polite. You wouldn't know much about that."
Jinx's smirk widened, sharp and unbothered. "Touché."
The others exchanged glances but said nothing—Robin stiffened, Starfire tilted her head in visible curiosity, and M'gann just shook her head softly, a tiny smile betraying her amusement.
Wildcard leaned back slightly, the picture of ease, as though the battlefield and the bloodshed from the night before were nothing but distant memories.
Wildcard (glancing at Robin): "Still brooding, Boy Wonder? Don't tell me you've run out of plans already."
Robin's jaw clenched at the nickname, but he didn't rise to it. The others, however, noticed the weight in Wildcard's tone—mockery, yes, but also… something else. A strange kind of recognition.
Wildcard's eyes flickered, thoughtful, almost nostalgic.
Wildcard (quietly, to himself): "Wonder… it's a rarer title than you realize."
No one caught that but Sage,humming softly in his mind with her usual warmth.
Sage: "You're letting old roots slip again, Kairon."
Wildcard (under his breath): "Maybe. Or maybe I just like watching him bristle."
Sage: "Mhm. And here I thought you only liked your coffee bitter."
Wildcard smirked faintly, hiding it behind another sip.
Without warning, Wildcard lifted his free hand. Two spheres of pale-gold light blossomed into existence, hovering above his palm like miniature suns. The sudden glow drew everyone's eyes — even Robin's breath caught mid-word.
Before anyone could react, Wildcard flicked his wrist.
The lights streaked forward, one toward Beast Boy, the other toward Cyborg.
"Wildcard—!" Robin started, but it was too late.
The spheres struck, shattering on impact into waves of warmth that flooded the infirmary. The sterile dimness was replaced with a brief, golden radiance that seemed to hum with something alive, something steady.
Beast Boy's taut features softened instantly. His tense jaw slackened, his hands unclenched. His chest rose in a slow, steady rhythm instead of the erratic gasps that had haunted him since the dreamscape. A flicker of green eyes blinked open.
Across the room, Cyborg stirred as well. His frame jerked once, systems whirring audibly as lines of blue diagnostics flickered across his exposed plating. He groaned, a sound both mechanical and deeply human, then forced himself upright with one arm.
Beast Boy stirred first, blinking up at the ceiling. "Did we win? Because I had the worst dream about demon karaoke." He grinned, and the room finally exhaled.
Cyborg groaned, rolling a stiff shoulder as diagnostics pulsed back online.
"Systems… rebooting…" he muttered, before glancing around and catching sight of his team. A tired grin spread across his face. "Systems… nominal. And weirdly comfy. Did somebody install heated seats in my ribs?"
The tension shattered in an instant. Starfire let out a relieved cry and darted forward, wrapping Beast Boy in a crushing hug before moving just as quickly to Cyborg. Robin was there too, steadying Cyborg by the arm as if half-afraid he'd collapse again. Megan hovered nearby, hands wringing nervously before she finally leaned in, her shoulders sagging when Cyborg managed a laugh.
Even Jinx pushed herself upright, arms crossed, trying to hide how her expression softened as she glanced at the two boys.
Beast Boy's grin widened when he realized everyone was crowding around. "Whoa—don't all get mushy on me at once. I'm fragile."
Cyborg chuckled weakly. "Fragile my circuits. You just slept through the hard part, green bean."
The Titans pressed in—checking vitals, steadying them, crowding the two back into reality with warmth and noise. Relief rolled through the room like a tide.
Then all eyes flicked back, inevitably, to Wildcard.
Still perched on the edge of Jinx's bed, he spun the empty cup between two fingers, a lazy circle of ceramic.
Starfire floated closer still, her eyes shimmering with both relief and curiosity. "What did you do to them?" she asked, her voice carrying more wonder than suspicion.
Wildcard twirled the empty coffee cup by its rim, still perched casually on the edge of Jinx's bed. "Magic," he said, unbothered. His gaze flicked to the two recovering Titans, then back to the cup. "Eased the pain, nudged recovery. That's all."
Robin's eyes narrowed, sharp and cautious as he watched Wildcard toy idly with the cup , the leader in him parsing every word like a potential threat. Relief didn't erase suspicion—not with someone whose power bent rules so easily.
Starfire drifted closer, her hands clasped at her chest, eyes shimmering like dawn breaking through the dim room. For this… you have my deepest gratitude." Her voice carried no edge, only warmth, the kind that wrapped the room like a gentle flame and made suspicion feel small in her presence.
M'gann leaned forward, brows knitting. "That wasn't just healing. You… shifted something. It felt deeper than muscles or wounds."
Wildcard didn't rise from his seat on Jinx's bed. He balanced an empty coffee cup between two fingers, spinning it lazily. "Already fixed those idiots last night," he said flatly, as if it were obvious. "But waking them right away would've left cracks in their heads. Asmodeus dug deep. I only held them under long enough to patch the worst of it. Now?" He tilted the cup in a mock toast. "Now I just… raised the alarm clock's timing."
Across the room,Jinx didn't speak. She just watched from her bed, silent and unreadable. But her eyes lingered longer than they should have, not on the Titans, but on him.
Wildcard moved without looking at them, crossing to the far wall where a sealed nutrition dispenser was recessed into the polished steel. No hesitation. No scrolling menus like the day before. His fingers danced across the keypad with surgical precision, punching in a code as if he'd done it a hundred times. A foil-wrapped ration bar dropped into the slot—oats and berries, the standard-issue meal for patients cleared for solids.
Bats really sunk money into Boy Wonder's team, he thought.
He tore the wrapper one-handed. The sound—crisp, metallic—seemed louder than it should have in the sterile hush. He bit into the bar and chewed like a man starved, but with zero apology. Healing their bodies while his own burned through fumes—none of them noticed, or maybe none of them wanted to.
Finishing the last bite, he tossed the wrapper into the recycling chute with efficient precision, then turned finally to Beast Boy and Cyborg. His voice was flat, but steady.
"Everything looks good."
Wildcard's tone was too casual, his smirk too sharp. Robin's instincts screamed trap. He tried to keep his voice clipped, detached— interrogative.
But what slipped out sounded too human: "…You alright?"
The instant it left him, he regretted it. He wasn't supposed to care. Not openly.
Wildcard caught it, of course. The amused tilt of his brow said everything. He'd heard the crack in Robin's armor.
"Don't worry about me. Worry about your friends, Boy Wonder."
He shifted his eyes to Beast Boy and Cyborg, letting a rare ghost of a smile tug at his mouth.
"Good to see you both awake. And looking better than yesterday."
He straightened, his tone hardening again as he pointed subtly toward the still form on the bed.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but we've still got one more to deal with. Sleeping Beauty over there. And while you've been catching your breath—Asmodeus hasn't stopped. The city's bleeding under him whether you notice or not."
Silence pressed into the room.
Wildcard broke it with a sharp exhale, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed his gaze direct
"So I'll ask. Do we wake her now… or after breakfast? Because I'm starving."
He turned away, the faint tang of artificial berries lingering in the air long after his voice fell quiet.
The Titans traded uncertain glances, the choice hanging in the air along with the fragile scent of morning coffee and the weight of what might be coming next.
End of CHAPTER
Author's note: Don't forget to add this story to your library and drop a Power Stone to show your support!