The last few days had been worrying.
Appearances were deceptive more often than not, and nobody embodied that adage better than Raven. There was a heart beneath that gray skin, light underneath the cloak, hope behind all the gloom.
It didn't seem so lately.
The very concept of enthusiasm appeared to have been drained away from her persona. Raven hardly broadcasted her emotions but Cyborg could tell the difference. He didn't remember her to have ever been so down. She seemed to drag a black cloud along wherever she went.
Her glumness was all that more surprising and distressing that she had been uncharacteristically giddy the week prior. She had remained shut away in her room much more than usual, to the point of rushing all her meals, but her joy had been unmistakable. He knew why, being linked to it, but he doubted the source of her happiness could have turned round and have depressed her so.
Cyborg had racked his brain and memory core for the explanation Raven refused to give anyone. He feared it was another Malchior, but he trusted her, perhaps against reason, not to fall twice in the same trap.
Either way, this had lasted too long and he was fully determined to find out what downbore his friend and to dispel it with extreme vehemence.
He stepped up on the roof of Titan Tower from the covered staircase and found Raven sitting on the edge, knees up to her chest and arms wrapped around them, staring off into space as she faced the ocean. Her hood was down, revealing headphones.
Well, she didn't look entirely dead for once, Cyborg mused briefly before sitting down on her left.
No movement showed she'd noticed him until she absently handed him one headphone and he carefully put it in his human ear. The volume was extremely low and Cyborg wondered how she managed to hear anything with the ocean breeze until he recognized the music.
An End, Once and for All, by Clint Mansell.
Mass Effect 3.
Cyborg felt like punching himself. He'd dismissed that option like Beast Boy waved away a chore, even though he had been the one who had built her the leanest, meanest gaming machine this side of the Pacific. At her own request at that.
He couldn't pretend he had ever actually expected Raven to be affected by a video game, especially in that way. Maybe he gave her too much credit... or maybe not enough? He honestly didn't know. He should have been aware of the power video games, or rather their stories, music and such, could have over people and particularly their fans. Didn't he take part in the dreaded console wars in his youth, himself?
Cyborg didn't need to actually ask Raven what the problem was; the internet had been set ablaze by the controversy. He hadn't cared much about it, preferring to enjoy the game and focus on its good moments, though he had conceded the issue was severely disappointing and even slightly surprising, considering the developpers' history.
Raven herself hadn't taken it in stride.
He knew exactly how to solve this, he thought with a smug smile as gears started turning in his head at an inhuman speed.
Cyborg then noticed he'd stood up to his full height, his left arm stretched up before him while his forefinger pointed heroically at the sky and Raven dangling a few inches above the roof floor on his right, her head tilted up comically because of the headphones still linking their ears.
"Cyborg," she said, a hint of life in her voice.
"Raven," he replied sheepishly.
He gently knelt down so she could sit back on the floor and handed her her headphone with a slight, embarassed chuckle. "Sorry, just had... an idea. Yeah, an idea."
Raven merely stared emptily at him, shrugged, and returned to her music as he retreated down the stairs while rubbing his hands together.
The next morning, when Raven drudged into the living room looking even deader than the previous days, Cyborg startled her by jumping over to her to present her with an USB key as she was going for the kettle.
She took the device and turned it in her hands curiously. "Uh, thanks?"
The circles under Cyborg's eyes deepened as he grinned. "You have no idea what it is, do you?"
Raven shook her head.
"This is nothing less than the unique mod allowing a female Shepard to romance Tali in Mass Effect 3. Fully-voiced." He looked very pleased with himself. "Made it myself."
And everything was right in the world again.