Hi everyone! SO, I'm a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, especially The Adventure of The Speckled Band. 😊 I enjoyed putting Raven and Beast Boy in this position because they really are opposites, which means their characters will inevitably work well, but undeniably with contention (which only improves the story)! This is how I think they would do together solving this mystery. Of course I put my own twist on it, but this is not AU for Teen Titans as I generally dislike AU stories and avoid them at all costs.
If you have any other classic storylines (Romeo and Juliet, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Frankenstein, etc.) that you'd like Beast Boy and Raven to experience, let me know! I'm going to make one whole story out of all of these. Some of them will be my own stories, but I'm hoping to do at least a few more classics. 😊 It's very late where I'm at so please excuse my grammatical errors and I'll fix them when I can!
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teen Titans or to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work! 😊
Enjoy the story and don't forget to let me know what you think!
The Speckled Band
The team of juveniles were cooped up in their tower, evading the eye of the public. The team had become a bit awkward around reporters since Tokyo. The image of Starfire and Robin clasping hands on the Tokyo stage had spread across the internet like wildfire and was trending within a couple of hours. Since their return, Starfire and Robin were chased by the paparazzi without end. They had even resorted to impersonating average citizens when they went out on dates.
Beast Boy scrolled the comment section of the "Starfire and Robin are TOGETHER!" video for hours, leading him to scroll fan pages, which led him to scroll other celebrities love lives, which eventually led him to an instructional video on how to put a cigarette through a quarter. Somewhere along the way he read several disconcerting comments.
"CYSTAR!"
"ROBRAE!"
"BBRAE!"
Beast Boy scrolled blindly past many 'BBRAE' comments with no reaction before moving on to the next black hole in his internet adventure. Then it finally clicked in his brain. Beast Boy and Raven.
"Oh, come on! Gross!" Beast Boy gagged. He ran a cautious eye over the young sorceress who happened to be levitating in the midday sunlight that was surging through the sizable glass windows of the Meeting Room. Sure, she was beautiful, but so was everyone else he worked with. Chiseled superheroes had a leniency to be extremely well shaped.
Beast Boy continued to shake his head in disapproval. Something that these people would never understand was that being in proximity and having a natural affinity for another person are two very different things. An affinity was certainly something they never had for each other. Beast Boy had taken a long time getting to know who Raven was. He believed for the longest time that she thoroughly despised him. Once he had gone to Nevermore and gotten to know who she really was, the tension between them melted into a tentative friendship that had grown stronger over the years. But love? Please. They were friends and co-workers, but Beast Boy was positive he would never take her on as a lover. And she would never have him. He was too loud for her, and she was too dark for him.
"What?"
Beast Boy cocked his head to the side uncertainly. Raven had just spoken to him while she was meditating, which she loathed doing.
"What?" Beast Boy retorted, his confusion evident in his voice.
"You've been starring at me." Raven opened one of her eyes and raised an eyebrow. Her face was both vexed and attentive. A new burst of an unsettling feeling crashed into Beast Boy's chest.
"Well- yeah! People have been saying we should be a couple, that's just- just-!" He was getting geared up for a rant. Raven stopped the long conversation before it began with a shrug.
"Oh well. People are going to talk. Let them. We cannot change what they believe." Raven said firmly, closing her eye. Beast Boy shot to his feet and began pacing.
"Rae, how can you say that? This is our lives! Our friends- practically family! And they're adding this weird-" Beast Boy paused to obtain the correct wording.
"Dynamic?" Raven asked.
"Yes! To all of our relationships and it's- disturbing! Listen, I like you Raven. I might even love you. But not like that!" Beast Boy pretended to gag for the second time that day. Raven simply nodded, continuing her meditation. Why couldn't he have this conversation with someone else? She was attempting her meditation routine, couldn't he just let her be?
Beast Boy took in another breath to continue just as a blaring signal screamed into their senses. In a matter of seconds Robin, Starfire, and Cyborg stood in the Meeting Room.
"Dr. Light is terrorizing downtown. Titans, GO!" Robin yelled. Only minutes later the Titans were rushing to the downtown area. Beast Boy, Raven, and Starfire flew side by side. A commotion was uprising for sure- but Dr. Light was no wear to be seen. Beast Boy squinted his hawk eyes. What was going on here?
The group landed, Cyborg slamming the T-car to a halt and both Robin and himself jumping into action.
"You're here! You're really here! Oh, thank God!"
Robin was an expert detective, but he was unsure as to what conclusion he should draw from the scene before him. A young girl of approximately seventeen stood ten feet away, her hands raised above her head in joy. She was wearing a hospital gown that went down to her knees that was covered in dirt and leaves, her feet bare.
"I was so scared you wouldn't come!" The girl cried.
"Uh- am I missing something?" Beast Boy spoke aloud, directed towards Robin.
"Yeah, I thought we were here to roast Dr. Light?" Cyborg interjected.
"No- no!" The girl ran closer to them, a seemingly wild look in her eye. "I had to call the cops and tell them Light was here! I needed to get your attention-"
The Titans groaned. This fan seemed to have been through a lot just to meet them. However, it would be her only chance to meet them for a while. For the next sixty days she would be jailed for misusing 911. Robin rolled his eyes from behind his mask and the Teen Titans began to disperse. Robin pulled the girls hands behind her back and attempted to dial that police.
"No, no, you don't understand I-"
"Wait." Raven said forcibly. Robin took his hands off of the girl's wrists. "I sense her emotions. We need to listen to her."
Robin nodded, and the eyes of the team turned to look at the youthful girl. Jump City's smoggy air caught in her esophagus.
"Sorry- I just, I-" The poor brunette was clearly nervous under the eye of the heroes. Starfire walked forward from the group and placed a gentle hand onto her shoulder.
"Please, do speak freely. We have no qualms with honest people." Starfire comforted, though everyone noticed her words also sounded a bit like threatening her to be truthful.
The girl gulped, a sullen expression crossing her face.
"My twin brother, Tom- he died five months ago. Three days before he died he said he heard rustling in his room and strange whispers. They continued night after night, until, on the fourth night, I heard a terrible scream. By the time I got to his room he- he was already-" The girl paused and gave herself a moment to get herself together.
"Cause of death?" Robin asked stoically.
The girl looked up with her rounded, bright blue eyes.
"Poison."
"I see. My condolences. I just don't see how this isn't a problem for the police. We generally take care of bigger problems-"
"I already tried the police!" She blurted out, tears brimming her eyes. She grabbed her left forearm with her right hand. "Sorry. They've been brushing me off as crazy. They even contacted my doctors. They have tried to keep me at home and drugging me to stop the 'hallucinations'."
"What hallucinations?" Beast Boy was starting to take a deeper interest in this story.
"Three nights ago- I started to hear rustling and strange whispers, just like my brother said. Tonight, is the fourth night- I'm scared that I'm running out of time! I could die tonight." Raven could sense that the girl's heart practically burst from the pressure that had been building up to this conversation. The girl before them pressed her hands over her face. Starfire continued to gently rest her hand on the girl's shoulder but turned to Robin.
"Robin, no life is more or less valuable than another. We must help her."
Robin nodded. "I'm just not sure how we are going to help. You and I are supposed to leave tonight for Germany to follow up on that lead..."
"And I have to infuse that subatomic particle producer to the T-ship main-data-and-rocket port's or it's gonna-" Cyborg started.
"Ugh, dude, could you speak English?" Beast Boy released a groan, his face falling in complaint.
"Fine! I got to attach the doo-hickey to the doo-dad before it doo-blows up!" Cyborg bickered.
"Titans!" Robin yelled.
"I'll help her." Raven said from behind them all. Everyone turned around.
Robin cleared his throat. "Okay. But remember that you have a busy day tomorrow starting at noon. Meaning you have twenty four hours to complete the mission. Probably less if the what the girl says is true."
"My name is Dana." The girl interjected quietly.
"Dana." Robin said firmly with a nod.
"Twenty four hours?! That's crazy." Beast Boy yawned with his arms high above his head.
"That reminds me Beast Boy, what are you doing today?" Robin raised a brow.
The verdant shape shifter laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head.
"Uh- pass?" He smiled. Robin smiled in amusement.
"No. You join her Beast Boy. Titans, let's head back. Good luck you two." Robin finished, turning back to the T-car. Both Raven and Beast Boy walked up to one another, but not before watching their teammates fly off.
"So… What next?" Beast Boy turned to Raven.
"I- I do need to get back home." Dana whispered from behind them. Raven and Beast Boy whirled around.
"Didn't you just risk everything getting out of there? Why do you want to go back?" Beast Boy questioned.
"It's not that I want to! I just- my doctors think I'm unstable. But I haven't been taking the pills they've given me. I'm too smart. I know something is happening. If they find out that I crawled out a fourth story window- they'll freak out and call the cops, and they'll think I've proved them right."
Beast Boy and Raven exchanged a glance. Raven could read his look like a book. It was saying 'Are we really going to trust this girl? She seems crazy.' Raven remembered her experiences with Teether, Timmy, and Melvin. She didn't believe them, yet ended up being wrong. She wouldn't make the same mistake again. Raven responded to Beast Boy's look with one of her own. 'Trust me.'
"Where's your house?" Beast Boy turned to the girl.
"Just outside of the city. We live on a huge farm. I can give you the directions, but it looks like your friends took your car. How are we gonna…?" Dana drifted off from her sentence as she saw a smirk appear on Beast Boy's face. Raven just sighed. He loved doing things like this a little too much. He closed most of the space between himself and Dana before turning around and swiftly squatting on the ground in front of her. Dana, being a young seventeen-year-old, couldn't help but notice his broad and muscled shoulders. Green or not, Beast Boy was a superhero- and they had a leniency to be well shaped, as previously stated.
"Well?" Beast Boy smiled.
"Well what?" Dana asked in shock.
"Are you gonna get on or not?" Beast Boy stated impatiently.
"Umm su- AH!"
Beast Boy grabbed Dana's legs and wrapped them around his midsection, then secured her hands with his own to his shoulders. In a moment, Beast Boy was a green horse rushing down the side of 5th avenue. Raven flew above them, making sure their path was clear.
"Take a left! A LEFT!" Dana screeched, burying her face into Beast Boy's mane. The stallion whinnied and hooked left as cars honked and heinous words were thrown out of vehicle windows. Needless to say, the rest of Dana's ride home was mayhem. Reaching the threshold of her home, Beast Boy morphed back into a boy. Dana, however, wouldn't unhinge herself from his back for fear of falling into traffic.
"You okay?" He grinned.
Raven had landed only seconds before. She walked close and smacked him in the back of the head as Dana finally retracted to the ground.
"Of course she's not okay, you idiot."
"N-no I'll be fine." Dana said. She didn't have time to be shaken up. She had to get back to her room. To her uncle. Possibly to her death. A shutter fell through her.
They escorted her to the back of her home. Just before they parted, Raven wanted to get a few final words in. "Dana, we're going to search your house. Based on what we find, we'll be back tonight. No matter what, we will protect you." Relief shown in Dana's eyes. She nodded in understanding.
Beast Boy watched as Raven flew Dana up to her bedroom on the very top floor of the four-story house and phased her through the wall. He observed the overwhelming amount of undergrowth surrounding the home. The house had been hidden from the rest of the classic farm in a grove of trees. Running up the side of the walls were thousands of vines, it was easy to see how Dana had escaped from her room by descending the greenery.
Within a matter of moments Raven was back at his side. "You just couldn't help flirting with her." Raven rolled her eyes.
"Chicks dig the ears Rae."
"Come on you idiot." Raven muttered. She grabbed his collar and pulled forcefully. After a few attempts to release himself from her grip, Beast Boy gave up and allowed her to drag him to the front door. He stared at his boots being dragged through the undergrowth and finally the dust of the driveway. With a quick glance around, he noticed random stacks of rusted tires, several underused gardening tools, and a lawn mower that hadn't been put to use since God knows when. What kind of person keeps their house in this condition?
The question's response came as Raven's raps on the front door were answered by a burly and gruff man. He opened the flimsy wooden rectangle with an aggravated snort.
"What?" He asked. Beast Boy slunk back from the man's presence. He smelled of alcohol and meat. Beast Boy's nose was reeling.
After acknowledging that Beast Boy was not going to speak, Raven glanced over the man's shoulder. "We were informed by the police to come investigate this home due to a recent death." She lied.
Raven had expected to be turned away and glanced over the man's shoulder, taking in as much detail as she could. To her surprise the man instead smiled, showing an unsettling mixture of white and yellow. "Why, of course. Please," The man turned in the doorway, gesturing to the rest of his house. "Come in."
Raven nodded apprehensively and pulled down her hood, setting it on her shoulders. Beast Boy followed, turning into a blood hound behind Raven. He sniffed around the first floor of the house- nothing. The two Titans ascended the stairs, the uncle following closely behind. Beast Boy hastily morphed into his original form, trying to lessen the awful smell of bacon, ribs, and vodka. He gagged for the third time that day. Raven glanced back at him curiously. He gave a weak smile and forced a thumbs up. Beast Boy cleared his throat and looked briefly at the man tailing him.
"So, you lost a nephew recently?" Beast Boy asked.
The man looked taken aback. "How did yo-" Beast Boy pointed to his nose. "I can smell it all." Beast Boy explained falsely. He had actually heard this fact from Dana, but her uncle didn't know that.
The uncle cleared his throat. "Well, yeah. They never did find out how he died." The man shook his head. Raven could feel his false grief. The uncle didn't miss his nephew. Something more disgusting pulsed through the mans veins- delight.
"Do you miss him?" Raven asked, hiding the anger from her voice.
"Of course." The uncle said plainly. Beast Boy's face crashed into the back of Raven's cloak as she stopped walking. He was about to start yelling when he saw her famous black aura enveloping her hands. Against his better judgement, he delicately reached out a hand and rested the tips of his fingers on her wrist.
"Rae- are you-?"
A heavy breath escaped her lips.
"I'm. Fine." She muttered. Beast Boy new better than too pry, so, taking his hand back, she led them to the next floor. Beast Boy sniffed around the second floor, again finding nothing. Raven used her skills of observation to obtain no new information. On to the next floor.
"How do you afford this place? Did you grow up here or hit the Jack Pot or-?" Beast Boy's barrage of questions was cut short by the Uncle.
"I inherited it from my brother." He mumbled almost defensively. Raven was at a loss as to what the man had said, but Beast Boy's enhanced animal senses had not been mistaken.
"Cool."
They scoured the third floor for clues. Here Beast Boy caught a whiff of something he had been looking for since they got here. He followed the smell of rotted cheese and grease to a tall, white door. He changed back into a boy.
"Your room?" Beast Boy asked delicately, not wanting to urk the man.
The man seemed upset anyways. "Yes." He grunted abruptly while crossing his arms.
"And who's room is this?" Raven asked darkly, as if she didn't already know. She pointed to a door a few paces right of the uncles.
"That," The uncle huffed, "is my nephews room."
"I see. That seems like a tough memory for you." Raven ground out. The uncle simply nodded, a challenging look in his eye.
"We need to look in your room." Raven dared after a few tense seconds. Beast Boy saw the build of suspicion between the two. They would get nowhere like this. He scratched the back of his head, "If that's okay with you, that is." Beast Boy charmed.
"Hm." The man grunted. At first the two Titans looked at each other, unsure of what would happen next. After a moment of hesitation, the man opened the door to his Master bedroom.
Raven took in all of the details. Not a clean spot in the room. No personal pictures. Dust and mud coated different parts of the floor. In fact, mud was on the wall. Raven discerned from finger prints that this sick person had smeared mud on his own bedroom wall. And on the roof. But finally it clicked in Raven's head. A pattern of mud lay like a blanket over the right most wall and the roof. She suppressed a gasp and stared blankly ahead. She had what she needed. She glanced down to see Beast Boy pacing the room in the form of a blood hound. What was he doing?
Beast Boy kept himself from rushing into the room once the door opened and transformed once again into a scent seeking dog. Immediately, he pinned down a trail of scent that he knew like the back of his hand. Through the grime and filth, Beast Boy had a familiarity with this smell. He circled the room several times. What was it? He knew it well, but placing a name to it was another battle for Beast Boy. Eventually he circled the room so many times, he ended up looking at two sapphire shoes. Was this the smell he had been looking for? He looked up at her hopefully, his big puppy dog eyes rounded.
"What?" Raven asked.
No. It was something else. But Raven's familiar smell was masking this other one. Beast Boy morphed.
"Rae, you're smell is distracting me. I'm sorry, but you have to get out." Beast Boy said seriously, grabbing Raven by the shoulders, turning her, and pushing her towards the door. He slammed himself in the room with the uncle. Raven stared at the door in shock. Her smell bothered him? Not Alcoholic-McMeat Man? Raven suppressed her anger and pulled her hood over her head, repeating her mantra desperately. She leaned against the door frame. After they caught this murderer, she would kill Beast Boy.
A few more minutes of snooping around the uncle's bedroom and they moved on to the nephews. Both of their expectations were met. Both of them knew what was happening in this house. Or so they thought. They began to scale the stairs to the fourth floor.
"How much equity is in this farm?" Raven said quietly. The uncle laughed gruffly.
"Not as much as that fancy tower of yours, but enough to have me set for life." He smiled.
"What about your niece?" Beast Boy's eyes narrowed. Did he expect her to have future?
"Her too." He said without emotion. But Raven knew. He was nonchalant about it. Yet his insides grinned wickedly. Now it was Raven's turn to gag with disgust.
Raven looked at the top floor, confirming her suspicions. "We don't need to see anymore. I'm sure your niece has been through a lot, we don't wish to disturb her."
The man's eyes slanted as if her was trying to calculate this move Raven had made. Beast Boy was about to protest, but a side glance from Raven told him otherwise.
"Let me show you out." The uncle muttered. Within a minute they were practically pushed out the door. "Come back anytime." He grunted. Something about his demeanor made Beast Boy think he was being sarcastic. But instead of accepting this sarcasm, Raven challenged him with her tone.
"We will." With that she turned and began walking, expecting (correctly so) for Beast Boy to follow her.
He caught up to her. Hairs stuck up on the back of his neck and he turned back towards the house to see the uncle staring out the window at them. A shiver ran up his spine. They walked a long winding road toward the street. Once the house was out of view they both looked at each other.
"The uncle did it." They stated in unison. The pair let out a soft chuckle.
"Jinx." Beast Boy said. Raven looked at him in silent anger.
He laughed lightly. "Sorry- I know you don't like her." He repented.
Raven sighed. "C'mere."
Even with Beast Boy's intense hearing, he barely made out the words. She grabbed him by the wrist and led him into a field. His heart started beating wildly for reasons he couldn't comprehend. Where was she taking them?
"I could feel them. They need your help." Raven murmured.
"Who?" Beast Boy asked softly.
The grain broke around them and a large, red barn stood stalwart. Tall weeds grew close to it. Weak neighs and moos escaped the structure. All other plans forgotten, Beast Boy immediately shifted into a barn mouse and crawled towards the malnourished animals. Raven sat outside of the barn and waited for Beast Boy to finish taking care of them all. After a few hours, Raven observed the sun starting to go down and decided it was time to discuss tonight's plan with Beast Boy. She set her feet to the ground and rounded the corner to see Beast Boy had turned into a pig and entered the pig pen. He was now wrestling another one in the mud. His beady eyes widened as he saw her and he squeaked at the other pigs before transforming into his original form.
"I'm surprised." Raven said with a deadpan expression.
Beast Boy walked suavely to the fence while splattered in pig mud and leaned both elbows on it while talking to her. "Yeah, it's a little-known fact pigs actually love to play. It really lifts their spirits, kind of like dogs-"
He glanced at Raven's eyes to see if she was interested and she gave him a bored expression. He scratched his head. "Uh- sorry." He gave a signature grin. She rolled her eyes and huffed.
"I meant, I thought you would do something extreme, like letting them all out into the wild, or calling PETA." Raven said, crossing her arms.
"Oh. No," He leaned down as one of the pigs brushed against his leg and reached out his hand. The pig snorted into it. He laughed. "This farm isn't going to be owned by him for much longer. It's going to go to the right owner. And she's going to do great."
"Cause we're putting him in jail." Raven reasoned. Made sense to her. Beast Boy shook his head.
"Also because Dana is turning eighteen. Her uncle inherited this farm from her father, but once she turns eighteen- it's going to be legally hers. That's why he's doing this. The uncle is trying to kill off the correct owner of the farm."
"How do you know?" Raven asked.
"He kind of said it. And I've been through the same thing, when I was younger." Beast Boy said quietly.
"You have?" Raven inquired.
"Yeah. I was really young when my uncle tried to have me assassinated. It was- pretty messed up." Beast Boy chuckled lightly. Raven felt sorrow burgeoning from him. She reached a hand forward and grabbed his forearm, which had narrowly escaped being covered in mud.
"You are not your past." She repeated the words to him that she had told herself night after night during her most difficult times.
"You're right." Beast Boy smiled.
So, they finally agreed on something. She could feel the emotions in him alleviating.
He glanced nervously at her hand that was resting on his arm before pulling his forearm to his side. They both cleared their throats awkwardly.
"So- did you figure out how he's been killing yet?" Beast Boy looked at her with knowing eyes, leaning onto the fence once again, his chin leaning on his palm. His fingers were curled. He had a mischievous smile on. She couldn't possibly know how the uncle had done it. She didn't have the nose to know.
"Yes."
Beast Boy took a step back. "A- are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
...THE SPECKLED BAND...
Beast Boy's uniform clung to his body a little more so than usual. After his roll in the mud, he had jumped in the nearest pond and was still drying off. Now he had scaled the wall of the house to the fourth story. There he waited. And waited. And waited. He glanced over at Raven who was levitating peacefully next to him.
"You're lucky you can fly." He muttered, his muscles vexed by the task of hanging on to the side of the house. She snorted.
"I'm just happy to see you finally putting in the work to get a girl." Raven said sarcastically. This remark made Beast Boy laugh, almost losing grip on the vines.
"You know I'd do this for you too." He said thoughtlessly.
Raven lifted an eyebrow. "Doubt it." She joked.
Beast Boy smiled at this. "I mean it. I'd scale a tower of this stuff for you. There's a condition though," he lowered his voice. "You'd have to call me Romeo." He lifted his eyebrows.
A disturbing image of Beast Boy calling out to her from under her balcony crossed Raven's mind. It almost elicited a shutter. "That's the wrong story. Rapunzel is the one in the tower that needs a prince to rescue her. Romeo just talks to Juliet on the balcony." Raven said.
"O-oh. Well-" Beast boy flushed with embarrassment. "Whatever you say Rapunzel." He joked, trying to divert from the fact that he had almost no knowledge of classical stories. Raven gave him a bored look.
"Call me that again and you'll find out what happened to Romeo in the end." She retorted.
"Y-you're gonna kiss me?!" He gasped with a stupid look on his face.
"N-no!" Raven was fuming and blushing from the implications. "Romeo died, idiot."
"Oh. That makes more sense." After this, Beast Boy finally got the idea to shut his mouth. Minutes turned into hours and Beast Boy continued to shift on the vines. Suddenly an ear boiling scream cut through the night. Raven phased into Dana's room, prepared for what she and Beast Boy had deduced. Raven saw a simple farm girls room surrounding her. There was a desk with a lamp next to it, a fan, a beanbag- and most disturbingly, a young girl sleeping soundly in her bed.
'Then the scream came from-?'
Raven phased from Dana's room to the room immediately below hers- Her uncles bedroom. In a contorted mess, there he lay on the floor. He was dead within half a minute of the bite. A snake curled around the uncles deceased body.
Moments later, Dana rushed into the room with Beast Boy by her side. Quick as lightning, Beast Boy grabbed Dana's waist and pulled her closer to him, wrapping one hand around her eyes. She struggled against him but he kept her firmly in place. Raven rushed them both out of the room. The group stood in the hall together. Raven was never sure how to give this kind of news.
"D-Dana… Your uncle is dead." Raven said, searching Dana's emotions for a reaction. Her face was dismayed, but her heart felt many things. Pain, mostly. She let go of Beast Boy and looked at Raven in shock. "But we have the answers to your questions. And there is good news." Dana listened intently. Raven was suddenly at a loss for the correct words, so Beast Boy did one of the things Beast Boy did best- he talked.
"Dana, when I first searched your uncle's bedroom… I smelled a snake. And not just any snake. A Speckled Band. They're exotic and rare. More than that, they are extremely poisonous and deadly. My father worked with them in his lab a few times actually… I recognized it, but there were no signs of your uncle owning a snake in the house."
"Because your uncle didn't own a snake." Raven cut off. "He had patterns on the walls of his room. One on the roof below your room. One on the wall adjacent to your brother's room. The patterns are the exact ones that can be used to conjure Shadow Creatures. They will bring deadly animals, phase through walls, do your bidding. They can even heal an outer snake bite while it's poison kills you from the inside, making the resluts of an autopsy inconclusive. It can take three to five nights to train them in what you need them to do- but a lapse of judgement or leadership and they'll betray you-" Raven swallowed, trying to be delicate with the situation. "Your uncle has paid the price."
Dana leaned against the wall behind her and slowly dropped herself to the floor. She sat in the fetal position. Tears fell from her eyes. "H-he killed my brother? Why?" She begged.
"He knew something that you didn't." Beast Boy smiled, leaning down to her level. "Happy birthday by the way." He smiled, not because he was happy, but because he knew his smiles were contagious. She could really use a smile right now. He pulled out a small piece of paper he had been keeping in his waterproof communicator and unfolded it. Then he handed her a birth certificate. "I took it from your uncle's room while I was sniffing around." He winked.
"This is my name- but that's not my birthday." Dana said, grabbing the edges of the delicate paper.
Beast Boy sighed, still smiling, but a sad look in his eyes. "He didn't want it to be too suspicious when they found you dead. That IS your birthday. And now you are the rightful heir of this farm."
Raven tsked. How had Beast Boy caught that detail and not her?
Raven felt so many emotions swirling in the air that it was making her dizzy. She looked down to see Dana was crying with her birth certificate in hand. Raven was thankful they had taken this mission. THIS was why they did it. For citizens that may not otherwise be able to help themselves.
Overtaken with emotion, Dana wrapped her arms around Beast Boy and cried as silently as she could. Beast Boy had dealt with these sweet moments between him and a damsel in distress on more than one occasion. He was more approachable than most of the other team and girls flocked to him. Not that he was complaining. But this time he looked up from the crying girl in his arms and briefly glanced at Raven who was now dialing the cops to come and take care of the snake and body.
She met his eyes and a weak smile crossed her lips. It was Raven's way of saying she was proud of this mission. The way it turned out. Proud of him. It swelled in Beast Boy's chest. They had done justice today. Dana left Beast Boy's arms briefly and boldly hugged Raven. Raven accepted it under the circumstances. They waited for the next hour with Dana before the cops finally made an appearance, seeing as they had to drive quite a distance to get to the farm. Once they arrived, Raven and Beast Boy broke the unfortunate news that they should be getting back to the tower.
"Oh- that's right. I forgot that you have to-…" She laughed nervously and tucked a fallen piece of brown hair behind her ear. "Fight crime. Just know that you're always welcome here. Always." She smiled at them. Her face was puffy, and her eyes were red from tears, but she was still smiling.
"Count on it." Raven said.
Beast Boy agreed wholeheartedly. "Definitely. We'll bring the whole team over and make dinner for you or something. Well, maybe just pizza. But then you can give us a full tour and show us how much you've done for all the animals and the land. I'm so excited to see it!" He grinned.
Dana smiled. She leaned in and kissed Beast Boy on the cheek, making him blush heavily. She then hugged Raven one last time and they all said they're goodbyes.
Raven and Beast Boy walked slowly under the moonlight back out to the main road. They knew they both could've flown home- but what was the point? This place was beautiful. The silver rays soaked the fields of grain. Trees rustled in the wind and Beast Boy's ears could hear the gentle gurgling of a far off stream.
"That was pretty smart back there. Grabbing her birth certificate." Raven praised.
"Thanks- you too. I would've never known about the shadow creatures if you didn't recognize those markings."
"I wouldn't have known about the snake if you didn't smell it out."
Beast Boy blushed from all the praise he wasn't used to receiving from the dark teen. No, not just teen. Girl. Dark girl, but girl nonetheless. He lightly leaned his shoulder into hers.
"I guess that means we make a pretty great team, huh?" He faintly smiled, looking for any kind of reaction. Raven had been walking around with her hood pushed back onto her shoulders since they solved the mystery. Beast Boy could see her full expression.
"Yeah." Raven pressed her shoulder back to his. "I guess you're right." A ghost of a smile crossed her lips and Beast Boy felt pride surge once again in his chest. It was short lived.
"We're about to reach the main road." Beast Boy muttered, disappointed their walk was now coming to a close.
"So?" Raven shrugged.
"So," mischief entered Beast Boy's voice. "I'll beat you in a race back to the tower!" Beast Boy yelled, morphing into a hawk. Raven was too surprised to respond before a smirk crossed her face.
"That's what he thinks." She whispered to herself. She lifted her hood over her head and flew off the ground, speeding after Beast Boy's trail.