A/N: This is my first fic, so please be kind, but I welcome constructive notes. Thank you! Xo -Pix
Not all teenagers are demonic spawns who spent weekends in another dimension as kids, but all teenagers have secrets. Raven was no different. Titan Tower was Raven's home now and her teammates were her family. They knew the young demoness better than anyone else could boast, but this didn't stop them from prying into her life on occasion.
Robin called from the far end of the couch "Where did you go last night, Raven?"
Raven's hand stilled in the midst of stirring her tea. The spot where her second set of eyes would be tingled in an unpleasant way. "What do you mean? I was in my room meditating."
She could feel the boy wonder's eyes watching her from the living room now. "Uhh, Raven, the power went out last night, and we wanted to ask you for candles..." Raven's teeth unclenched as she released her breath. She explained that she must not have heard them knock in her trance. That was close.
"Well, that's what I thought, so I let myself in" piped in Beast Boy with disinterest. Raven's hands moved to seize the countertop. Her second eyes were burning now. How many times had she demanded that they stay out of her room? How many times had she threatened Beast Boy in particular? She remembered specifically threatening to mount his head on her wall just for trying to use her personal bathroom once. There was an unsettling silence, and the empath could feel everything in that moment. The pulse in her neck was throbbing. Her heartbeat flooded her ears. Robin was a beacon of curiosity with a twinge of suspicion. Beast Boy, however, exuded annoyance and discontent far too strong for this situation. It was so uncharacteristic of him. Shouldn't he be a mess of exposed nerves and fear at the thought of what she would do to him?
Raven wasn't cruel, but she found that it was best to keep people at a distance especially people like Beast Boy. As a general rule he was loyal to a fault, sweet, thoughtful, attentive, and too much maintenance for someone as fucked up as Raven to keep close. What could she have done to upset him? Or… he knew where she had been. Whatever he might know, he kept it to himself. Robin was just his normal nosy self. He didn't have a clue.
Raven turned to them as casually as possible. Her inky black hair hung like a curtain around her porcelain face. She pursed her lips, pondering darkly. "I went for a walk around the tower late last night. Maybe I missed you," she said as way of explanation to Robin. She turned her countenance to Beast Boy a little more sternly. "If you ever feel the urge to enter my room without permission again, then I beseech you to fight it or it may be the last thing you ever do." She flashed her eyes at him for good measure, but didn't press the issue since he was keeping whatever he knew to himself.
"Who wants pizza?" she called out instead.
Starfire's bright locks swept around the corner before her golden face. "I would love the pizza, friend Raven!" she chirped. The room blossomed with her sweet rosy aura. It was such a relief after the heaviness that was hanging in the air. Being an empath in the tower used to be pretty manageable between Star and Beast Boy's exuberant emotional ambience and the cooler more mellow auras of Robin and Cy.
If anything, the positive vibes could be a little overwhelming. On the day that Starfire brought Silkie home, Raven had to meditate for hours just to quell the sense of emotional suffocation. Living with so many roommates had certainly taught her to balance time with each and assuage the pressure of all the feelings in the house. Lately though Beast Boy had not been a dependable source of lighthearted glee. He put up a good front, but his aura stained the air around him a dull green-grey. She wanted to know why, but most people felt like her power was an invasion of their privacy. She couldn't help it, but that wasn't usually enough to get her off the hook. He would ask if he needed help. Right?
Cyborg joined them in decimating 3 large pizzas. He nearly ate one to himself. He kept the conversation pretty lively while doing so. Apparently he had a breakthrough concerning the T car's proton cannon. Most of what he said was incomprehensible, but Robin nodded along, so perhaps it was just her. His enthusiasm did nothing to drown out Beast Boy's angst though. She kept her head shrouded in her cloak as she tried to wait an appropriate amount of time before leaving her friends to recharge.
When she had endured all of the ups and downs that she could handle for one night, she rose from her seat as the second gloomiest Titan and drifted to the wall. "I'm going for a walk. Good night. Don't go in my room" she spoke grimly and absolutely then phased through the wall.
Raven stood outside the tower resting against a rounded boulder for about 5 minutes when Beast Boy appeared. "Hey, Rae." The bounce in his step was noticeably missing. She was supposed to be the only brooding one in this house.
She asked if he was okay. That was surely okay. He stepped closer and her eyes were drawn to the shadows along the sharp planes of his cheeks and smooth jawline. Seemingly overnight he had become much less boyish. He even requested that they stop calling him Beast Boy a few weeks ago. The way he asked was so serious that no one but Cyborg really poked much fun about it. She couldn't bring herself to call him Changeling though. It felt like a name for a thing not a person. She called him BB which seemed okay with him for now. Her eyes began to wander down as they sometimes did when she was alone with him. She mentally traced his protruding collar bone, broad shoulders, long sinewy arms and began to note the lines cut into his torso even through his uniform.
Suddenly her attention snapped back to his lidded green eyes not because she had caught herself ogling him, oh no, but because a wave of self-satisfaction hit her full force.. His smirk confirmed that he had caught her himself. Her cheeks were inflamed, and she pulled her hood a little further down. "I said, 'Are you okay, BB? I can tell that something is up," she repeated.
That did it. Beast Boy wasn't so smug anymore. In fact he was at least a little angry. "I know where you were last night, Rae. It won't take long for Robin to wonder why you would go for a walk in a thunderstorm, and if you don't want me to tell the rest of the team, then you had better have something amazing to offer me."