A/N: I can't wait for the new movie, Teen Titans: Fear in Florida, but until then, enjoy!

Chapter Nex: Recuperation

It was the third time he had slipped into that beckoning darkness, the one that loomed so invitingly just behind his eyelids, and damn did it feel good. With each blink, he could feel his aching limbs growing lighter; with each blink, he felt the strain over his chest, so much like a stubborn brick, ease off just a bit; with each blink, all the purpling bruises that gleamed that badges of honor just underneath his clothes seemed to lose their sting.

Never, in all his life, had Beast Boy wanted to pass out so badly before.

Alas, every time he blinked for a second too long, the blasted order bell rang, along with an accompanying shout from the barista behind the counter, and he was jolted back into consciousness.

"C'mon, man, can I just… five minutes, that's all I need," he grumbled, holding his cheek in his hand, "just… five… measly... minutes…."

When he started to fade for the fourth time, it wasn't the order bell that woke him up, it was when his head bobbed a little too hard, slid out of his palm, and collided with the table. He jumped up like someone had zapped him with a cattle prod, hastily wiping drool from his bottom lip. After a quick glance around, he saw that nothing had changed… the cafe was still packed to the gills with customers who, just like him, were having their nostrils tickled by the scent of energy-fueling coffee. The line at the front counter was crazy long and Beast Boy sighed. Knowing the popularity of this place, he had planned to get here as early as possible, like crack of dawn early, and while it was technically still early morning, his battered body hadn't been up to the task of holding onto a transformation long enough to secure a safe, quick flight. So he took the bus, then fell asleep by accident, missed his stop—twice, stopped to help get this old woman's cat out of a tree—it was like some twisted 'everything can go wrong' montage from a cartoon, and the primary reason why he was still waiting thirty minutes later for his ticket to get called.

"This is nuts," he whined. "How long does it take to make five stupid cups of—"

DING-DING!

"Ticket twelve! Order twelve is up for a Misterrrr… Garfield?"

"Oh, finally!" Beast Boy exclaimed, and he pushed his way to the front, eagerly holding out both hands to the familiar server. "Man, I thought you guys were picking the beans back there yourselves!"

"Well, well, well, if it isn't my favorite green looney toon," the barista said with a smile that was just as sarcastic as it was friendly. "How ya' holding up, eh?"

"Like a rickety bridge.

"You look it, sugar."

"Oh, gee, thanks," he snorted. "And you?"

"Fairly meddling, fairly meddling," she replied blithely, grinning as she handed over one cup at a time. "Saw the news this morning, though. You guys had quite the battle yesterday from the looks of it. Felt the shockwaves all the way across town where I live!"

Unsurprisingly, even mentally dwelling on the what he and the others had barely managed to survive caused Beast Boy's body to give an unholy throb in protest and he grunted, nearly dropping his drinks. "Yeah, the, uh… the villain contingency decided to throw us a little party. You know how it goes…."

"Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure." She drummed a couple fingers over the marble surface before finally asking what he knew she had been inching toward: "Did you win?"

"You're still alive, right?" There was an unmistakable edge to Beast Boy's tone as he grabbed a four-pronged drink holder. When she nodded at him, he hunched a shoulder. "Then, yeah, we won. You're welcome, by the way."

"Much appreciated, green one, I do so enjoy living," she responded evenly, the snark in her tone easily heard even over the store's commotion. "So," she casually glanced side to side, "where's the rest of the squad? Robin and them?"

"Back at the tower, where I wish I was."

"Tired, eh?"

"What, me? Tired? Psssh, nope. Beast Boy never gets tired, not when the city needs him," he boasted, yet even as he said that, the exuberance he tried to puff his chest out with quickly deflated leaving him looking more exhausted than ever. "I'm not tired, I'm just… just—"

"Sporting fifty-pound bags under your eyes because of all the effort you put into leading your team through that battle," the barista supplied, her eyeteeth showing with the smirk she flashed him. "Obviously, right?"

"I'm glad you know," he said with a weary laugh, struggling to fit each cup into place. "Ain't easy being so awesome, lemme tell ya."

"Oh, I'm sure," she agreed genially, and without a word she spun the container in a full circle, effortlessly fitting a cup into every hole. "There you go, Mr. Hero," and she lifted her hand.

A very grateful smile grew over Beast Boy's worn face and he slapped her a congratulatory high-five. "Thanks, Jules."

The barista, whose badge read Julian Spears, snapped into the most casual salute Beast Boy had ever seen. "Hey, just doing my civic duty, hun." Then she made a shooing motion. "And you should be off getting intimate with a bed right about now, might be needing you later for round two with those villains."

Once the sun was up, the concept of rest didn't exist for Beast Boy, or any of the other Titans, really. Hence the coffee. Without any prior sleep, it was going to be a very long, very arduous day ahead, and God help them if the alarm went off for any reason, but she didn't need to know that. A big part of superheroism was putting on a brave front even when the urge to fall over was nigh unbearable.

Picking up the fifth drink, Beast Boy gave her a two-fingered salute then forced an enervated grin.

"You can count on me."

"I knew we couldn't count on him," Robin slurred, lying slumped over the kitchen counter. He had only gotten as far as pulling on his pants and his mask askew with one shoe on and one shoe off. Looking at him you wouldn't be able to tell if he was trying to get dressed or undressed. He pointed a feeble yet very accusatory finger at Cyborg. "I… blame… you."

"What, me?" The look of shock that flashed over Cyborg's face only lasted for a blink until it subsided into the pain that raged all throughout his circuitry and he sank back into the chair he had unknowingly risen from. "It wasn't my idea to send BB—it was Star's."

"That is the lie," Starfire replied groggily, and unlike the others, she was half-hanging off the back of the common room couch. Through sheer force of will, she managed to lift her head and fixed Cyborg with a bleary-eyed scowl between her curtain of red hair. "I did not suggest Beast Boy to go because I was taking a short coma."

Robin snorted against the countertop while Cyborg actively chuckled. "That was the quickest coma I've ever seen anyone fall into and get out of," he remarked with subdued awe. "You Tamaraneans are something else."

"What is this else you speak of? Am I not the flesh and blood?" Starfire wondered with sincere confusion, her head falling limp before she could finish.

"No, no, that's just—" Cyborg caught himself mid-sentence, deciding it wasn't worth the energy to explain the phrase and just nodded. "You sure are."

It was rare that Raven ventured anywhere without her hood and cape combo, mostly because how else was she going to bathe her face in the calming darkness that kept her emotions in check, so to see her now, seated at the kitchen table alongside Cyborg with half her face resting in her palm, sans her concealing garment, was almost picture worthy. Like the others, she hadn't slept a wink since last night and, also like the others, her body pulsed with an agony that made sleep a moot point anyway.

"Robin," she called in that droning monotone, "this coffee of yours… I hope it has the effects you so heartily claimed it does."

Somehow, after placing his palms flush against the counter, Robin found the strength to push himself up, showing them a self-assured grin even while his arms wobbled like jell-o. "Trust me, Raven. You don't even know what it feels like to wake up fully refreshed until you've had this."

"Whenever BB decides to come home, you mean," interjected Cyborg, reclining so heavily in his chair that it audibly began to strain. "Oh, don't you wimp out on me now, chair. Dig deep, push through, c'mon now."

Starfire lifted a thumbs up but otherwise said nothing, leaving her haggard wheezing to fill the silence of actual words. Not that anyone could blame the alien girl; each of them was struggling at the moment, whether with injuries, the fatigue, or just trying to fully wrap their heads around what had transpired. Because it really made no sense. No one could have predicted a full-frontal attack of such magnitude to kick off like it did, without warning or time to prepare—and that had instilled a very disturbing spark of anxiety within the Teen Titans. This time they were lucky, one of Cyborg's alarms had gone off only minutes prior, which gave them just enough time to get their gear together.

After that… it was chaos, a bitter struggle that lasted the better portion of three hours. Robin led to the best of his capabilities, and some onlookers might saw it was due to his leadership that they didn't get completely overwhelmed, but it became a team effort around the two hour mark with everyone splitting off to handle different objectives. The cohesion they exhibited during the entire fight was something that exceeded even their best test runs and practice simulations: orders were relayed with a single glance, team-attacks flowed as easy as breathing, where one fell short another was there to pick up the slack—they were, for lack of a better word, flawless. Erratic, but flawless.

When it was all over, when the last of the foot soldiers had either been beaten back or else was in the process of being thrown into a patrol car, the last thing Robin felt like doing was standing tall for the the influx of paparazzi or entertaining the several questions the police chief had. But he did it anyway, with his team behind him.

Because being a superhero meant working well into overtime.

"You ever think about just… I dunno…." Robin grunted as he shambled his way around the counter toward the table. "What it'd be like to be… normal? For like a day?"

In unison, Raven and Cyborg stared at Robin with varying degrees of disdain; even Starfire tilted her head so as to get a really good look at her teammate, because there was no way their leader had just asked such a stupid question.

"Riiiight," said Robin with a light chuckle, easing himself tenderly into an empty chair, "because what's normal about a trans-dimensional cross-breed, a bright-blue cyborg, a girl from another planet—"

The front door suddenly began to open and everyone seized up—Robin's hand shot to his unbuckled utility belt, a hostile green glow sparked to life around Starfire's eyes, Raven lifted a very flexed hand that swam with a miasmic black aura, and Cyborg's entire left arm made the shift into his sonic cannon—but the tension bled away just as quickly as it came when Beast Boy stumbled through, beaming triumphantly.

"—or a green-skinned shapeshifter," he finished lethargically, lurching his was over to the table and bypassing the fact that the rest of his teammates had been seconds away from flaying the skin off his hide. "I mean, we just have so many choices for normal up in here I'm surprised we picked superhero as a career path."

"You know, next time you could knock," said Robin stringently as he and the others visibly settled back into their previous states of silent agony. "That could've gone really wrong really fast."

"But it didn't," Beast Boy replied matter-of-factly, and he chuckled. "I'm not gonna knock on the door of my own home, dude. You guys knew I was comin' anyway."

"Yeah, like twenty minutes ago, it's been forty," Robin pointed out, hitching his pants up higher when they slid past the hem of his boxers. "What in the world took so long?"

"Can someone be of the kindness and bring me my beverage?" Starfire called weakly from the couch, feeling around blindly.

Giving his trademark laugh, Beast Boy nodded, "Gotcha comin', Star," and passed a cup to Robin who bravely began the ten foot journey to the couch, though one would swear he was gearing up for a ten day excursion given the strength of his stance and the sheer look of determination over his face. "And hey, just be glad I'm back," Beast Boy said, deciding to take what had happened to the grave. The teasing would have killed him anyway. "Anyway, Star, if Robin ever makes it to ya, that's a—"

"White chocolate mocha," Robin interjected, collapsing to one knee next to her, not out of any romantic gesture but due to the numbness that suddenly wiped out all feeling; though he managed to keep his arm straight, "with four extra shots of white chocolate to make it extra sweet."

The most bleariest, dopiest smile surfaced over Starfire's face. It cut through her fatigue and gave her the kind of wondrous glow that caused Robin's heart to skip a few beats. "Thank you, friend Robin," she said softly, and an enormous amount of gratitude glinted from those resplendent green eyes. "We will most appreciate this drink."

Several seconds passed by way of Robin not moving, barely breathing, just observing the alien woman before him in all her tired glory, until Cyborg called from behind him, "Yo, this is the part where you give her the coffee, dude," with a snide smirk that was almost as audible as his words.

If his other hand hadn't been busy keeping him upright, Robin would have flipped Cyborg the bird. As it stood, he only cleared his throat, "Um, h-here you go, Star. It's kind of hot so be careful."

"You have no need to worry," Starfire said, floating off the couch into an upright, cross-legged position. "My tongue is very… what is the phrase… dextrous."

A trace amount of red leaked into Robin's face at that and he blinked, many times. "That's… that's, er… good to know."

"Good to know, certainly, though not even close to the phrase you're looking for, Star, mostly because that's just a word, not a phrase," Raven pointed out as Beast Boy hand-delivered her beverage, turning his cheek toward her. She cocked an eyebrow. "And you're doing that because…?"

"Oh come on, I don't get a delivery tip?" he whined with his best puppy dog eyes.

"It took you four steps to get here. I could have reached over that distance."

"Ah, but you didn't. Because of me and my gentlemanly ways, always at your service, Rae'."

"Then a true gentleman knows he does good deeds not for the reward but for the sake of the deed." A smug twinge of victory leaked into Raven's tone as she watched Beast Boy valiantly open his mouth like he had something to refute that, only to find that he didn't. "Mhm. Thank you, though."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, slinking into his seat and snatching up his own cup. He took a heavy sniff with a shuddering sigh. "Ooooooh yeah… this is that stuff, man."

"I'll say," agreed Cyborg, hefting his mug. "A little bit of motor oil in the system and we should be right as rain."

"I sincerely wish it not to rain," Starfire quipped hopefully, glancing back out the window. Considering all the carnage that had happened yesterday it was quite the sunny morning. Beams of soothing light were trickling in through the blinds and she smiled, almost as if pulling energy from the suns very rays. "It should stay just as it is."

"Yay verily, Star… now if I could just—hold on, before we drink I wanna do something, just lemme…." Walking seemed to be beyond Robin at the moment, the numbness had claimed both legs now, so he took to crawling army-style back over to the table, calling on strength he hadn't used since his training days with Batman to pull himself up properly. "Okay," he grunted, taking the cup Cyborg held out to him. It was warm to the touch, invigorating. "I want to propose a toast, Titans."

"Does this mean I have to lift my arm now for the speech or later when we do the clinky part?" Beast Boy asked.

"I second Beast Boy's ask," said Starfire.

"For the sake of all our souls, after," said Robin graciously, and there was a group-wide sigh of relief. "Anyway… guys?" His gaze, falling back into its usual commanding leer despite the drain in his tone, traveled from one teammate to the other. "What we did yesterday, the way we handled things? It cannot be overstated how immaculate our teamwork was."

"That, despite the fact that we were dang near blindsided," added Cyborg, grunting when his infrared eye went through a series of spastic blinks. That was the casual heads up that his body was a breath away from shutting down whether he willed it to or not. "The way they came at us…"

"It was just unreal," Beast Boy murmured, shaking his head and gripping his cup in both hands. "Like freaking fire ants, man, crawling all over the place… like, twice I thought I was gonna catch a rod up the butt."

"I think you did catch a rod up the butt," Raven mused, massaging her temples. "It's all a bit hazy but I keenly remember pulling something out of you at one point…."

"You did." Beast Boy pointed to his right leg. It was bound by a thick layering of crimson-stained gauze. "A couple of bullets."

"Oh, yeah."

A wave of auburn hair ghosted over Beast Boy's face as Starfire floated by overhead, somehow managing to keep her drink from spilling despite slowly revolving in every direction possible. "How is your pain, Beast Boy?" she asked flightily.

The urge to sneeze was strong when Starfire's hair tickled his nose but Beast Boy fought it down and replied, "The bullet wounds are almost healed—thank God I'm the only one that got shot, eh? Not too many of y'all with the same level of regenerative awesomeness, I'm noticing," he said with a haughty look around the table. "The bruises, though…." He rubbed a particular sore spot on his side. "Sting like a mug, man."

"I hear that," said Cyborg, glancing about himself and the many cuts and dings punched into his body. That he was scratched at all was proof that the opposition was gaining traction with their weaponry. "I don't know what kind of steroids those guys were on but, man… it was kinda touch and go there for a second."

"More like hours but hey, who's counting," Raven remarked sarcastically.

"It was a fight for survival," Robin continued, the grip over his mug subconsciously increasing. "They clearly came with an agenda: to kill us. Normally, we already expect that, they're villains after all. They're not coming to talk out their plans for world domination or whatever over dinner. They want us out of the way, point blank period, through any means necessary, and up until now it's… there's always been this benign underlying code of understanding. They move an inch, we move an inch—some of them I'd go so far as to call a frenemy."

"Right, but there was something different with this assault, something dire… and I'm sure you guys felt it, too," Cyborg said, and the others nodded in unison. "It seemed almost… desperate, like they had nothing to lose and all to gain. There was no teamwork, no strategy, I couldn't get a bead on their attack patterns for more than two seconds!"

"They attacked us in a manner most befitting a wounded animal," Starfire said, hovering completely upside-down next to Raven with her cup held right-side up. "They sacrificed many, many of their friends…."

"They were clearly cobbled together for a rush job," Raven pointed out after nudging Starfire toward Robin. "We know for a fact that many of them detested the other so something leads me to believe there was a large sum of money involved. Either that or we really somehow pissed in their cheerios that day."

Something of a groan rose in Beast Boy's throat but it came out far more feral than intended. "Man, all I know is they were not kidding around. They had a goal, we were clearly in the way of that goal, and they were determined to mow us down," he said pantomiming pushing a lawnmower.

"We're going to need to rethink our strategies, Titans," Robin pressed on, turning from one member to the other. "They hit us hard and nearly clawed their way in, I'll give them that much. Now that they see the damage a kamikaze-style tactic can bring there's very little doubt in my mind that they're gonna fall back. We have to assume someone was watching behind the scenes and gathering data on this little demonstration, monitoring our every move. I assume this because… it's exactly what I would do. Catch us with our pants down and see how we react, find out where the cracks in our armor are. And then I'd hammer… and I'd hammer… and I'd hammer some more until I eventually broke through."

He paused, climbing to his feet.

"There were a truckload of cracks in our armor yesterday. Not our fault, we were virtually bumrushed out of the blue—but!" And he smirked. "That's a good thing."

There wasn't a need for Robin to explain his current train of thought. One glance around the table at all the determined faces told him they understood perfectly.

"Because now… we've got the upper-hand," he told them and Beast Boy thudded the table with a fist, nodding just as firmly. "We're gonna hit the training simulator and the obstacle courses, we're gonna come up with new tag-team maneuvers and hone our skills….No doubt they probably think they've got us on the ropes right about now, paranoid and scattered. Uh-uh. On the contrary… I feel like a fire's been lit behind my chest—I'm feeling pumped!"

"Well, for lack of a better word, I agree," echoed Raven begrudgingly.

"Yes! We shall overcome!" Starfire cheered, spinning gleefully. "I believe the next time we will bring them all the pain!"

"Amen, amen. Things been gettin' kinda bland around here anyway, I'm all for it," Beast Boy said sporting a fanged smirk, then he turned to his mechanical brother. "You down to learn some new combo's, Cy'?"

Cyborg only cracked his knuckles. "Boo. Yah."

"So," bolstered Robin, "I propose a toast to not only how we handled last night but also to our continued drive to be the best titans we can be!"

When Robin lifted his mug, four others met it with a unified cry of varying levels, from Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Robin's prideful battlecries, to Starfire's excited giggling, right down to Raven and her monotone, "Hoorah, us."

"Drink up, team," Robin said after they all promptly collapsed back into their chairs, except for Starfire who merely continued to float without aim. "We've earned it."

Before Raven could take a sip, something about her cup caused her eyes to narrow into venomous slits that she fixed onto Beast Boy and he shuddered like a cold front had rolled through.

"Anybody else feel that draft?" he wondered, glancing about in confusion. "Like somebody just walked over your grave?"

"I feel nothing but a great warmth in my belly," Starfire cooed, rubbing her stomach affectionately. "This sweetened beverage is indeed the miracle nectar of the humans!"

"Told you so," smirked Robin.

Raven cleared her throat. "Beast Boy, I think you might have my drink," she said tersely. "In fact, I know you have my drink."

"Huh? What makes you say th—" The rest of Beast Boy's question died away into a helpless squeak when he finally turned to Raven, meeting her chilling glare head-on, and suddenly, he had a good idea as to where that breeze had originated from.

"Because," she continued, her tone just as icy as her stare, "I'm pretty certain I'm not the 'green gentleman' mentioned on the side here."

Cyborg nearly spit his coffee all over the table. "Wait, wait, wait, hold up—what? Green gentleman? Lemme see!" and Cyborg snatched the cup to his face. He blinked, once, twice, then exploded in laughter. "GAHAHAHAHAHA! Dude, no way!"

"Look, look, there is even a number as well!" Starfire pointed out, squinting her eyes and floating sideways. "Who has ownership of this number, Beast Boy?"

In a blur of his arms, Beast Boy switched their mugs and clamped both hands around the message with a twitching smile. "I'm q-quite sure I have no clue who's number that is, Star."

"Now that is the lie," said Robin and he joined Cyborg in laughing while Beast Boy seemed to sink in on himself.

Rolling her eyes, Raven lifted her drink for a sip. "Whatever."

A/N: #yearoftheoneshot