Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. At all. Wait, let me check... Nope, still nothing. Sorry.
Dedication: For guardyanangel. I hope that I didn't mess these two up too horribly for you.
Quiet Silence
A One-Shot
The sound of the clock on the wall was deafening. Each tick of the second hand felt like a stab in the heart. And yet she ignored it, knowing that sooner or later his time will be out and he will have to come back.
He always has to come back.
Bumblebee took a deep breath and gripped her coffee cup tighter, thinking that if she ever let go of the cup she would also lose grip on her sanity. And if she did that she would react just like she told herself that she wouldn't.
She would scream and cry and demand and let her pain show through. She would wake up the whole tower and then Steel City and then possibly the whole entire world. It wouldn't surprise her one bit.
She knows what he's doing. She knows who he's with. She knows that while he's warm with another she is sitting at the kitchen counter alone and shivering.
Maybe Bumblebee should have expected it. After all, she knew guys like him the way that she knew the back of her hand. She had met several at the HIVE Academy as well as in her worldly travels.
They were arrogant. Ignorant at times, when it pleased them. They were good looking, and they knew it, which meant that their egos were also about as big as the Empire State Building.
The fact that she actually fell in love with him is what really gets her. Bumblebee hadn't meant for it to happen, but then it did. She fell and fell hard and now they were reduced to this.
They were now reduced to secrets and lies and deceit and waiting up at two in the morning. They both looked the other way and ignored the facts that were in reality slapping them both in the face.
She swallowed his lies and pretended that she believed him. He pretended that he didn't know that she knew, and that all of the guilt and the shame that he felt occasionally showed past his mask. They both turned their faces from the fact that Aqualad and Mas and Menos knew and yet were too afraid to say anything, for fear of breaking up the team.
But now it was time to face the truth. She was just so tired from all of this. She was tired of everything, so, so tired. She didn't like admitting failure, neither of them did, but they both knew the truth. They had failed.
He failed her. She felt as though she failed him. They both knew they failed their relationship. It was failure any way that they looked and now it was time to admit it and move on.
There was still a part of her, though, that just didn't want to give him up, as crazy as that seemed. Because if she didn't this would poison the team, and Bumblebee refused to let her personal feelings get in the way of business.
Suddenly she heard the door open and she knew that this was going to be one of her last chances to say something before she totally lost her sense of purpose.
Speedy walked in, in civilian clothes no less, with his mask in his hand. She was surprised to see that, but she knew that he didn't need to be covering his eyes to actually be wearing a mask. He was wearing one right now, but instead of being made of fabric and getting stuck on his face by a specially formulated glue this one was made of guilt and embedded by lies.
He looked at her silently and she understood with a single glance that he knew exactly what she was going to say, how she was going to say, and how he had nothing to say in his defense. He was in the wrong this time and there were no words that could ever change that.
"So." The single word slipped out of her mouth and she found that with those two letters more words would begin to flow like a stream of water on rock. There may be stops bumps along the way, but they would get around that and flow.
"So," he replied, looking at her straight in the face.
"Where were you?"
"Cut the bullcrap. You know where I was."
Bumblebee reminded herself to stay calm, because he was doing this to protect himself. He didn't want to be hurt, because he was selfish. He should have known that he never could have had them both.
"You're right. I do know where you were. With Jessica, am I right? Or are there more?"
"No, it's just her. But I swear Bee, I never-"
"You never meant to hurt me? Now that's bullcrap. You knew what you were doing every night you left, every night you lied, every time you looked me in the face and told me you loved me. Don't deny it."
"I wasn't going to."
"Good, because we both know that there's nothing left to say. I've already cried myself a river, built a bridge, and got over it. I suggest you do the same."
Bumblebee turned to leave, knowing that she was probably going to go straight to her room and cry her eyes out the way she deserved to when she heard him say her name softly. "Don't you want to hear my side of things? Could I ever get a second chance?"
"No. That ship sailed the very first moment that you were with her. Some people deserve second chances. You aren't one of them."
"I love you." The words were said with a desprate edge, and he knew even as he said it that they weren't going to change a thing. She knew that he didn't mean them, not like he used to.
She didn't look back when she walked away.
A/N: Yeah, well, yeah. Not my normal sort of thing, but I did it! I never thought I'd ever write this couple, and here I am writing it. Lord, I hope this isn't total crap. I really do. I don't know what to think about it, to be honest.
