A/N Hey, so this is my first fic for Teen Titans! Please don't judge me, there's a very good chance Raven and BB are a bit OOC, mostly because all I know about them is from what I saw on the 2003 cartoon, so I'm sorry if I accidentally made up a bunch of egregiously inaccurate lore. Anyways, I don't usually write this kind of stuff, but it helped me work through a traumatic experience I suffered a couple months ago. Hope you all enjoyed it or found it relevant/important, and don't hesitate to reach out if you want to talk more about Raven's experience, my experience, or anything else.
Please leave a review with positive/constructive feedback, I really appreciate it!
Silently, Raven approached the figure hunched on the rocky bluffs behind the Tower.
About thirty feet away she stopped and stood still, her cloak billowing behind her in the gentle sea breeze, and waited. Patiently waited for her friend to realize he wasn't alone. As she always did whenever she sought someone out this way. As he himself had done when she was the one who'd needed solace not too long ago.
Well, and could use it again right now. But she wasn't the focus this time.
It didn't take long. Just under a minute later he broke the silence. "So…he was the one who hurt you, right?"
A beat.
"...not me?"
Though muted and faced away from her, his voice alone bore all of the heavy turmoil she could already sense in his thoughts. Turmoil that, for the time being, ran parallel to her own. Absently, her hand drifted up to clutch her shoulder, where her sleeve hid a rapidly blooming bruise from only a couple hours before.
"He broke into the Tower to attack you," Raven confirmed matter-of-factly.
She could still feel his gleeful touch prickling in her skin…
"And...he wound up attacking me, too."
Beast Boy nodded, a slight motion she almost missed, and she felt her confirmation settle something in his soul. "Eugh," he groaned aloud, his emotions shifting to disgust. "I still can't believe I ate meat."
She could understand where he was coming from. Him involuntarily going against vegetarianism for a day was quite a different matter from her knowing she was destined to bring about the end of the world on her rapidly-approaching sixteenth birthday, but it was still another kind of betrayal of self.
He kept going. "I acted like a jerk..." His shoulders slumped a little more. "I'm sorry."
Okay, not gonna lie, Raven did appreciate the apology. Still, she now knew it wasn't entirely his fault in the first place, and he deserved to accept it too. "You weren't yourself."
"Cyborg says the chemicals in the lab messed with my DNA. Unleashed something...primal."
Which was different from animal. "And he gave you an antidote," she reminded him. "You're better now."
"Yeah..."
She sensed a but.
"But that thing...that beast...it...it came from inside me. And..."
Quietly she stepped closer to him. Muted fear and disgust radiated from his thoughts. As she got close enough to see his reflection in the water, she watched as he looked at someone he wasn't sure he liked. "And...it's still there. I can feel it."
"Good."
Finally Beast Boy looked over at her. Not quite returning the look yet, Raven sat down beside him and stared straight ahead at the full moon.
How much do I tell him? How much does he remember?
"If it wasn't for that beast," she said softly, "I might not be here right now." She turned her head to meet his eyes, the ghost of a caring smile dancing around her lips. "Having that thing inside you doesn't make you an animal. Knowing when to let it out...that's what makes you a man."
On the outside, Beast Boy's eyes widened a fraction and his lips parted. On the inside, the dark turmoil cracked, exploded into a starburst of hopeful colors. Even if her empathic abilities didn't strictly extend to concrete thoughts, she knew he was thinking of what Adonis had taunted to him before the chemicals had burst. Knew his mind was rewriting everything he'd known and believed about manliness, a threshold his fourteen-year-old self was inching ever farther across. Knew he had rediscovered confidence in himself, who he was and who he would become.
And when Beast Boy was confident…
"Hmm," he mused, an all-too-familiar gleam creeping back into his eyes. "Maybe you should call me..." he hopped up and struck a pose, "Beast Man from now on."
Raven folded her arms. Yep, her little therapy session had worked, and he was back to his annoying little self. "We're having a moment here. Don't ruin it."
He plopped back down beside her, a goofy little grin lighting up his face. "Beast...Dude?"
She groaned.
"Okay okay, what about...Beast Bro?"
"Ew. That sounds like a name Adonis would use."
Adonis…
It took all her willpower not to shudder.
"Beast Guy? Nonono, wait, Beast Buff, to match those awesome muscles I've been working on. Or maybe El Beasto Masculino? Nah that's too wordy..."
On and on he went, and Raven was just about to get up and make her exit in irritation when—
Wait.
Was that a note of panic in his voice?
Ignoring his wild rambling, Raven prodded a bit further at that particular current, isolating its dark thread from the surrounding rainbow blossoms. It was old as far as short-term emotions went, dating back to when he'd first come out here to sit. It seemed to run in the same vein that much of his earlier turmoil had flooded through, but had somehow survived the explosion of positivity that had destroyed all the rest, so it had lurked and now was resurfacing to direct itself at—
Raven froze.
Oh.
Oh.
The grass stain, as Cyborg often called him, had a more mature awareness than she'd given him credit for. One he was almost too young to have at all.
"Maybe Beast the Mighty? Or Beast Macho? Or wait..."
She sighed. Might as well address it aloud then, before he chatted them both to insanity. "Alright Beast Boy, that's enough. Spit it out."
The grin cracked. He faltered. "Spit what out?"
Pressing her lips together, she looked away. "There's something else you want to ask me. Isn't there?"
Just like that, the blossoms wilted and the colors died away. The tiny current Raven had honed in on burst through its damn, becoming a rushing river that consumed everything else going on in Beast Boy's scattered little brain. And she knew exactly where that river was rushing towards.
His pointed ears drooped and he too looked away. "Yeah. There is," he admitted, his voice husky again. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him clench his fists, as if to squash the fear she could feel bubbling up from the torrential river in his mind as he forced himself to say it. "Did you…what he...what did he do to you?"
Raven caught her breath.
"…No…Stop…Get off me!...Azarath Metri—"
THWAM!
Even though she'd been expecting the question, she still felt jolted as an icy fist clenched around her heart. Her leotard suddenly felt too tight in some places, too loose in others. The soreness in her upper thighs, mild before, grew stronger and more uncomfortable. Her shoulder bruise throbbed. Abruptly her eyes glowed and she felt herself levitating, trying to rid her mind of the flashbacks in a frantic attempt at meditation, failed, failing, falling falling—
"Raven?"
His voice. It pierced the fog of her mind and brought her back down to earth. Literally. With a gasp she thudded back to the ground on her behind. Reaching a soul hand inside herself, she felt around for the little ball of trauma bouncing around inside her mind and gently cradled it until it calmed itself. For awhile she said nothing.
"You don't…have to talk about it. If you, uh, don't want to."
If she were being honest with herself, which she was tempted to be, she could get used to this quiet empathy from her most annoying team member. As much as he got on her nerves, he knew how to adapt more than just his physical body.
Raven shook her head. "No. You deserve to know why you did what you did in your primal form." She took a deep breath. So much for not being the focus. "I was…well, he…forced himself. On me."
Silence.
Beast Boy stilled, tension creeping into his every limb. His breathing grew heavy. The turmoil flooding his mind spiraled into a barely-restrained hurricane.
"If you don't want me to talk about it, I don't have to—"
"No. Please. I...I do want to know. If you want me to."
She nodded. "Very well."
And so she began. Began with how, earlier that night, she felt a burst of fear from Beast Boy's room, but the door to her own was smashed in before she could leave to investigate. Went on with how she barely had time to scream before a giant fist to the side of her head plunged her into darkness. How the next thing she knew, she was sprawled on cold cement, the night breeze chilling her exposed body. How she groggily tried to puzzle why her shoulder was pinned down in a tight grip, why there was thick smelly hair moving around her and...in her. How her eyes snapped open as the pieces clicked in her mind. How she struggled to get away but was knocked out again before she could call on her powers. How she came to weary and sore, the immense pain in her groin a radiating fire that paralyzed her physically and mentally. How she grew vaguely aware of a green and brown blur locked in hand-to-hand combat nearby. How the last thing she remembered before she succumbed to her healing trance was a familiar anguished howl…
"That's how you saved me," Raven finished, her voice steady.
Beast Boy was silent. Throughout the whole tale he hadn't said a word. Didn't need to. The emotional hurricane in his mind that had exploded into flames, then died down with a whimper into charred ruins, told her enough. So did the millions of questions bouncing around in his mind that, in a way so unlike him, couldn't seem to bubble out through his mouth.
One of which was almost kind of funny, despite the context. "Believe it or not," she answered with a hollow chuckle, "it's not actually that hard to pull off my leotard. How it got back on is what puzzles me. Although..." she gave him a grateful smile, "I can believe you did that part yourself."
He returned the chuckle, albeit just as hollow. "Guess that means I'm not totally primal."
"No, you aren't."
Not so subtly, Beast Boy inched closer to her until they were sitting practically hip to hip. But while not subtle, the action was slow, careful. "I think...I think some of this is coming back to me now. Something about—I mean, I don't remember there being any blood. On you."
Raven watched him work through the implications, impressed with his rare flicker of intuition.
"So this, um...isn't—uh, not the first time this has...er, happened. To you. Is it?"
"No," she confirmed. "The first happened shortly after I left Azarath. But it was years ago, and I don't remember much of it. I think some kind of drug had to have been involved. This is the first one I really remember." On some level, she was surprised to hear herself talking about all this so openly, so willingly. Even moments ago the flashbacks had been overwhelming her normally controlled emotions, threatening to spill out of her in the form of untamed power.
Trauma could be like that.
Beast Boy bit his lip and glanced at her. "Guess you haven't had the best couple weeks, heh. First Malchior, now this."
Raven shrugged. Already the different kind of pain from Malchior's betrayal seemed a distant memory. "You could say that." Her arms drew themselves in and she hugged herself absently. "Are you sure you're okay with hearing all this?"
The currents shifted again, solidifying the charred ruins into something warm and soft. "Me?" he asked in disbelief. "I should be asking are you okay! Er, I mean...are you?"
She thought long and hard about her answer.
"I...truthfully, I don't know. To me, it makes sense why Adonis felt the need to do that. He taunted me and I insulted him right back. He didn't like a woman who was better than him, wanted to show me who's boss."
"Doesn't make it right, though."
"No, it never does," she agreed. "That's what makes him an animal, using the beast within to hurt instead of protect." Another sigh escaped her lips. "And as for me...it's hard to tell. I'm so used to controlling my emotions, this whole thing just...it feels...dim. Like a disconnect."
"Oh."
They sat there for awhile longer, not saying anything more. A minute in, Beast Boy's arm slowly reached up and wrapped around Raven's shoulders. He looked at her with a question in his bright green eyes, and she nodded in answer, taking his wrist and guiding his arm around her so he wasn't pressing into the bruise on her shoulder. A few more minutes in, she slid her own arm out to hug him back. Together they watched the moon rise higher into the night sky, its milky white reflection bouncing and scattering into shimmering fragments in the murky dark Pacific waves below.
How long they sat there, leaning on each other for support, they didn't know. It didn't matter. Until Beast Boy started to yawn. "We should probably go to bed," he murmured. "Star and Cy promised they'd finish fixing our bedroom doors and windows while I came out here."
"Yeah..." Raven kept her face blank, but with Beast Boy's arm gone her skin started to prickle again. Suddenly she didn't like the idea of returning to her room, alone.
As Beast Boy stood up and stretched, a thought seemed to occur to him. "Are you going to tell anyone else on the team about it? Or the police?"
"Not the police," Raven said, shaking her head. "We've put Adonis in prison, he got what he deserved. Besides, I already healed myself. There's nothing else they need to do."
"And the team?"
Still sitting, she smiled up at him in reassurance. "Don't worry, I won't make you keep a secret. I'll let Robin know tomorrow morning, and he can decide how we'll tell the others. Knowing Starfire and Cyborg..."
Beast Boy winced. "Ooh, yeah they won't take it well."
"Nothing we can do about that. I keep enough secrets as it is."
"You sure do. Care to tell me any more?"
Raven shot him a mock glare, and Beast Boy snickered. "I'm kidding. But seriously," he went on, holding out a hand. "Thank you for trusting me."
Though completely unnecessary, she obliged him and let him help her to her feet. "Mm-hmm. And thank you for saving me."
"Hehe, no problem," Beast Boy said with a slight flush, reaching back to scratch his neck. "And you, uh, let me know if you ever want to talk more about this. Or if I can do anything for you."
"Careful. I could get used to this new Beast Boy."
He laughed outright at that.
"But actually...you have a bunk bed, right?"
"Yeah?"
It was Raven's turn to flush. "Would you, um, mind if I stayed the night with you?" She tried to dispel the prickles that kept haunting her. "Just for tonight. I don't really...well, I don't want to be alone right now."
To her startlement, Beast Boy pulled her in for another embrace. "Of course you can. Anything you need."
She narrowed her eyes at him, and this time didn't return the gesture. "You had one hug from me already today. Don't push your luck."
"Whatever you say, Raven."
Even so, the two walked back into the Tower arm in arm that night.