Chapter 2: Surprised
A/N: This entire chapter is BB/Rae, so to those here for Rob/Star, you can skip BB/Rae sections such as this without any consequence to the main storyline.
"No!" Beast Boy's panicked cry reverberated throughout the hotel suite.
Raven bolted upright from her bed where she'd drifted off reading about magical theory in the Orient. "What now?" she wondered, irritated.
Her empathic senses picked up severe panic nearby and she transported herself to the source. The soft blue of her dimly lit bedroom gave way to the canary yellow of the suite's small, bright bathroom. She landed on the counter and nearly toppled into the sink, but righted herself at the last moment by wrapping one of her legs around the body in front of her.
"Whoa!" Beast Boy shouted. "Some privacy, Rae?" He pulled out of her accidental embrace and backed up with his hands still grasping at his recently gelled hair.
She pulled a face at the use of her nickname. "Some quiet, B?" she retorted and crossed her arms and legs. Her cloak fluttered around her as she settled and she flipped her hood up to cover her embarrassment.
"Thank Azar he's clothed," Raven thought as she noticed the new outfit: a black and grey plaid button-up matched with dark wash skinny jeans. "No Hawaiian shirt? You looked great in floral print."
"Quit it, Raven. I'm running late!" he complained.
"For what?" Raven asked, eyebrow quirked.
Beast Boy rushed forward and dunked his hands beneath the running water.
"My fans," he answered, indignant. "I needed some beauty sleep to rest up for the night and overslept. Then," he stopped to inspect himself in the mirror before squirting soap on his hands and started scrubbing beneath the faucet. "I woke up with bed head," he finished mournfully.
"And you thought stealing Robin's hair gel would solve your problems?" she asked, flicking her gaze to the familiar-looking spikes on the changeling's emerald head.
He pouted and dried his hands off with a towel hanging on the wall to his right. "I didn't know what else to do."
Raven slid off of the counter. "I'm going to regret this," she thought. "Need some help?"
"What are you gonna do?" He asked and looked toward the exit behind Raven.
"Fix it," she answered through gritted teeth.
He narrowed his eyes as if considering his options, then took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Do your worst."
Raven rolled her eyes. "Before you freak out, I want to warn you that I am not digging my hands into that mess." Instead, she summoned a shadowy claw and used it to gently style his hair, swooping it this way and that until she found a look that satisfied her. Finished, she stepped forward and gently grasped him by the shoulders to rotate him toward the mirror. "What do you think?"
He peeked one eye open, then the other. "Rae, this is awesome," he said excitedly. He tilted his head at different angles. "A faux hawk," he said thoughtfully. "I never woulda thought to try that."
Raven shrugged. "Don't mention it."
"You got a mirror so I can check out the back?"
"Nope, but I can assure you it looks fine."
Surprisingly fine, actually. "Personally, I think it's a little too relaxed to be considered to be considered a 'faux hawk,' but I wanted it to tilt a bit to the side so that's—that's what I came up with." She trailed off self-consciously.
"Very nice," he complimented, tapping his chin, thoughtful. The motion brought attention to his new gloves—solid black and soft cloth that contrasted with the grey ones he wore with his uniform.
"Well, have fun tonight," she said, then backed away and headed toward the door.
"Do me one more favor?" he asked, still admiring himself in the mirror.
"No," she replied in a flat tone and exited the room.
Beast Boy followed her out into the empty suite lobby. "Please, Rae? I'm already super late and it'd take you two seconds to zip me there and back."
"Ask Cyborg," She stepped onto her room and shut the door.
"He already left," he whined.
Raven sighed. "How can I get out of this?"
A green snake slithered in beneath the door.
"Get out of my room," she seethed at the reptile.
The snake morphed back into Beast Boy. "If I miss it I'll have to come back here and bother you all night."
"I'll be asleep soon," she lied.
He waggled his eyebrows mischievously. "I drank an espresso as soon as I woke up; I'll be awake for hours, yet."
"Make a peep and I will transport you to the moon and leave you there."
That gave him pause. He blinked, shocked, then allowed a smile to spread again. "No you wouldn't. You'd miss me too much."
"Ridiculous," she muttered.
"Please," he pleaded and sank to his knees where he grasped at her cloak and sobbed into the dark fabric. "I'll never ask you for anything ever again."
"Okay, okay!" she barked. "Just get off of me."
He leapt up. "Thanks Rae, you're the best."
"I know," she joked dryly. She shook out her cloak. "Now where do you need to go?"
Beast Boy withdrew a map from his back pocket and pointed to a spot not too far away from the impromptu festival thrown in their honor.
"Alright." She raised her cloak and beckoned Beast Boy to come nearer. Just before he reached her, she held up a finger.
"What?" he asked.
"You know that saying 'hold on tight?'" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Don't."
Her cloak lengthened to envelope the changeling, and both of them phased through the hotel floor and raced away in a miasma of shadow.
They arose from the ground miles away, rising into a wash of neon lights and blaring horns. Raven deposited Beast Boy into the middle of a busy square with a name she couldn't pronounce, and appeared beside him in the next instant.
"Ladies!" Beast Boy shouted. "The Beast is here." Hands on hips, dark glasses perched on his green nose, chest puffed up and exposed by his half unbuttoned dress shirt, he waited for the answering cry of his excited fangirls, but heard nothing but the hustle and bustle of city life one usually expected in urban areas.
"I guess no one cares," Raven commented.
Beast Boy kept up his triumphant stance for at least thirty seconds, but as people passed by without scarcely taking notice of him, his smile, ears and arms drooped lower and lower. Finally, he relaxed his hands at his sides. "Come on," he said, defeated.
"Titan!" someone shouted behind them. Beast Boy turned toward the voice, hopeful.
They saw a young woman running toward them. He smiled widely and his fang jutted out with his elation.
"Hello!" he called out. She passed by without a glance in his direction. "Goodbye?"
"Titan Raven!" the woman yelled enthusiastically. She sprinted over to the cringing sorceress and produced a pen and newspaper featuring a story on the Titans and accompanying pictures. "You are my favorite" she said in accented English. "Please sign?" she asked.
Raven hesitated and looked to Beast Boy uncertainly. "Sure," she finally agreed. She took the pen and signed an inelegant scrawl in the corner.
"Thank you!" the teen exclaimed. She took back the newspaper and pen and flounced away with a final bouncing wave.
"Figures," the changeling grumbled.
"What?" Raven asked, eyeing the other people looking her way and talking behind their hands as she walked to Beast Boy's side.
"I knew this was too good to be true."
The crowd that had gathered around them began to close in. But they didn't care about Beast Boy. Instead, they all waved excitedly at Raven as her gaze swept over them all. She looked at her friend, his eyes were fixed on a pebble he moved with the toe of his boot.
"Want to..." Raven started then trailed off. She glanced uneasily at the people surrounding her.
"Huh?" Beast Boy grunted.
She sighed. "We could get something to eat," she shrugged. "At least the night wouldn't be a complete loss."
"Er yeah, I guess," Beast Boy shrugged.
A bold admirer stepped forward, a camera around his neck and wearing a T-shirt with her grimacing face on the front.
"Not here, though," she added. "People are beginning to stare-"
"Finally!"
"-At me."
"Oh." Beast Boy moved closer and allowed Raven to grip his waist so she could transport them in her cloak. "Let's go, then," he sighed dejectedly.
Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans
"Where are we?" Beast Boy asked when they materialized on a busy street.
"The last place I remember seeing food," Raven answered. She hadn't eaten at the restaurant she'd brought them to, but the smells that came out of it when she'd passed by during her exploration of the city were mouth-watering.
"Are you good with this?" Raven asked, indicating the brick building in front of them.
"I think I can find something," he shrugged cheerfully.
A hostess greeted them as soon as they walked in, wearing a white button down shirt and starched black dress pants."Konichiwa," she called out.
"Um...you wouldn't happen to speak English, would you?" Raven asked, hopeful.
The hostess gave them an assessing look as she registered their clothing and unique skin colors, then babbled something incomprehensible to Raven. She directed them to a secluded corner, spread two menus onto the chopstick-laden mats on the floor and bid them a farewell-presumably, because she left immediately after.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Raven muttered, staring at the floor-level dinette settings.
"Aw cheer up, Rae," Beast Boy told her as he settled onto a straw mat. "And don't forget to take your shoes off."
Raven placed her shoes beside Beast Boy's by the wall and took up the lotus position on the other side. "How are we supposed to order?"
Beast Boy considered the menu, nodded to himself, and smiled jubilantly. "Pictures," he said wisely, and pointed at the tiny rectangles of photographed food.
Raven was about to spout off a retort when another young woman in a uniform identical to the hostess's approached them.
"Hello," the waitress greeted them brightly in slightly accented English. "I was told customers requested an English-speaking server. Imagine my honor and surprise to find two of the Teen Titans!" she smiled joyfully yet respectfully; nothing like the obsequious excitement of Raven's earlierfans.
"Speaks my language and she hasn't invaded my personal space," Raven thought approvingly. "Jack pot."
"See, Rae? I told you it would work out!"
The waitress gave a shallow bow. "My name is Makoto. If you need anything please say my name and I will come as soon as I am able. Do you need help ordering?"
Raven nodded helplessly, but Beast Boy piped up without hesitation.
"Do you guys do shojin ryori?" he asked. "I'm a vegetarian." The ease with which the foreign words slid off of his tongue indicated he spoke them often.
The waitress blinked, apparently as surprised as Raven. "Yes. Actually, we have received much praise on ourmodoki-ryori dishes. I can recommend an excellent eel dinner if you like tofu."
"Tofu's the best," Beast Boy replied. "And can you make sure they don't use dashi in my rice?"
"Is soy sauce acceptable?"
"You're reading my mind, babe," he winked.
Minako smiled. "And for you, miss?"
"Surprise me," Raven answered blandly. "Whatever the chef recommends."
"It will be the finest Japanese dish you have ever tried," Minako assured her. "I will return. Would either of you like some tea?"
"Yeah."
"Please."
Minako bowed again and departed for the kitchen.
"I never knew you to be such a dare devil," Beast Boy said in a teasing voice.
"What? About my order?" She scoffed lightly. "I had no idea what I wanted. I like fish though, I guess, and I'll try whatever she brings."
He peered at her wide-eyed. "What have you been doing for food since we got here?"
"Mostly pointing at stuff that smells good and throwing money at the street vendors until they give it to me."
"And how's that been working out for ya?" Beast Boy laughed.
"I think I may have eaten something's eggs yesterday."
"Was it roe?"
"I don't know. It was a bowl of small pink balls. Not bad, all things considered."
"Ha ha, nice."
"You seem pretty comfortable in this place," Raven observed.
Beast Boy brightened. "Next to my favorite manga shop in Jump is a great Japanese restaurant. It's owned by a couple from Okinawa, so their stuff's pretty legit. I was real scared at first to go in, but they've been awesome about finding me stuff to eat, what everything's called and how to do their etiquette."
"'Do their etiquette,'" Raven silently repeated to herself. "And what was the 'dash' ingredient you mentioned earlier?"
"Dashi is, like, dried tuna, and it's in most 'vegetarian' food in Japan," he explained. "Like Cyborg, the Japanese seem to think every meal has to have meat in it, so they cheat and put dashi in everything."
Raven rolled her eyes and picked up the menu, flipping leisurely through the pages. "What's this?" she asked, pointing to a photo of raw fish lined with some kind of garnish.
"Sashimi."
"And my breakfast this morning. And this?" She pointed to a pouch made of a beige substance filled with rice."
"Inarizushi," he grinned. "Please tell me you tried it and loved it."
"Lunch," she answered hesitantly. "And it tasted decent."
"Yes!" he said victoriously. "You tried tofu!"
Raven flung her napkin at him. "Shut up."
Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans Teen Titans
Once Beast Boy and Raven had thoroughly explored the menu, conversation started to lag and Beast Boy's aura changed as they slipped into silence. His earlier disappointment returned and rolled off of him in waves, which in turn disturbed Raven's peace.
"I'm going to regret this," Raven sighed to herself. "What are you thinking about?"
"What?"
"You're pensive; it scares me."
Beast Boy continued to leaf through his menu. "Just thinking," he said calmly without looking up.
"Care to share?"
"Just funny is all," he grumbled.
"What?" Raven asked.
He flashed her a sour smile and glanced up with sad eyes. "I practiced my signature for a half hour this afternoon and you're the one who got to show off your chicken scratch."
"Chicken scratch?" Raven asked in a flat voice.
He smirked. "Yeah. Who taught you how to write-the family dog?"
"I didn't have pets in Azarath; Mother didn't let me. She did, however, try to teach me calligraphy. She failed."
Beast Boy let out a genuine laugh before his expression saddened.
"Stop pouting," Raven ordered.
His smile wavered. "Pouting?" he repeated, incredulous. "Who's pouting? Not me-I'm in Tokyo, where tofu is a beloved staple food, sitting across from a beautiful gal mere hours after becoming one of Japan's newest celebrities. What's there to pout about?"
"You tell me. You're the one leaking self-pity and insecurity."
The smile collapsed. "Could we not do this?" he asked in a flat voice. "I'm pretending to have fun, you're pretending to have fun-I think we've got a good thing going on here."
She set her menu flat on the table. "What makes you think I'm pretending?" she asked, careful to keep the defensiveness out of her voice.
He dropped his chin to his crossed arms and looked out the window, "'Cause you wanted to stay in tonight, reading your books and hiding from your fans. You're only doing this to cheer me up."
"That's not true," Raven denied. Beast Boy looked up at her with skeptical eyes. "Not completely. Yes, I had intended to stay in tonight, and you're right that I wanted to avoid people gawking at me, but really I wanted to avoid having to explore the city by myself again; it wasn't enjoyable the last time."
Beast Boy's chin rose a few inches. "You didn't like being by yourself?"
"I didn't say that," Raven corrected him quickly. She considered her next words carefully. "I speak six languages, so foreign tongues don't usually present problems for me. Here, there was an unmistakable language barrier which made everything more difficult. I couldn't order food, ask questions, make conversation or read anything except for a bubble gum wrapper. Everyone else had plans tonight so I knew if I went out I'd be alone. And that didn't appeal to me."
Beat Boy sat up straighter, and a cautious grin crept into place. "But since my thing didn't work out you figured you'd take advantage of the unexpected company?"
The return of their waitress saved Raven from having to answer.
"Ready for your tea?" Minako asked. Without waiting for an answer, she set two steaming cups of a pea green liquid onto the food trays.
"Thanks," Beast Boy told her.
"I will return shortly with your food," she promised, and strode away.
"If it's any consolation, I don't think you were stood up tonight," Raven offered when the waitress walked out of earshot.
"Hmm?" Beast Boy hummed, sipping at the fresh green tea.
"Your...fan girls seemed quite reluctant to let you go earlier. I'm sure they would have jumped at the chance to meet you again." She tried to make the words sound confident, but they came out lackluster.
"You think?"
"Definitely. Um. And that was before you jazzed up your appearance for tonight. If they could see you now they'd go crazy."
He regarded her with half-lidded eyes and slumped against an arm propped up on the table at his elbow. "Please continue, the enthusiasm in your voice is incredibly convincing," he said sarcastically.
"And people say I'm the snarky one." "No, really," she tried again. "I'm sure you'd be irresistible to them."
"Drawing from personal experience, Rae?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows.
"More like my limited reserves of compassion," she deadpanned. "Careful you don't use it all at once."
He became serious again with his next breath. "Why do you think no one showed up?"
Raven shrugged. "Translation error? Japanese is a hard language to learn for native English speakers, and you tried to translate using a cheap phrasebook in the middle of a screaming crowd."
He turned wistful. "So somewhere there's a huge group of fan girls chanting my name and waiting for me to show up. They'll be devastated once they figure out I'm not coming."
"Don't worry about them. They'll probably convince themselves you're out saving them from Godzilla or something."
He snorted.
"You laugh, but the whole thing will make you mysterious to them. You'll be unattainable, and thus, more desirable."
"'Zat the angle you're going for, Rae?" he asked cheekily.
"You know it. Speaking of your jazzed up appearance, I like your new gloves."
He glanced at the pleather racing gloves with disinterest and smiled at her. "Thanks. The other ones didn't match my outfit. Gotta accessorize, right?"
"Aren't you going to take them off to eat?"
He shrugged and unwrapped his chopsticks. "I don't usually."
"I guess not," Raven conceded. "I guess I never paid attention before." The other ones were so commonplace she'd long since dismissed them as a part of him-like his skin color or bad jokes. Having finally noticed the new ones, they stuck out in her vision. And why did it occur to her now that she'd never seen his hands before? Beast Boy's gloves stayed on like Robin's mask-swimming, sleeping-he never removed them. Why?
Some OCD complex where he didn't like to dirty his hands? She scoffed inwardly. The chronic disaster zone where he slept disproved that notion.
Maybe he wished to conceal one of his animalistic traits? But that didn't make sense-he prided his fang and pointy ears.
"Raven, you're staring."
"Am I?" She was, and Beast Boy had casually tucked his hands into his armpits to hide them. "Sorry, dazing, I guess."
He smiled without joy. "I'm sure you'll get used to them. Hey look, food's here."
"That was fast," Raven commented.
"I'm sure heroes always get the best customer service."
Makoto and the hostess approached the table with their arms full of food. The hostess set up a tray to lay the food down, and from there Makoto transferred everything to the mats. She began by laying down steaming hot towels, followed by bowls of rice set on the left of each mat, and soup filled with brown broth and bits of vegetable matter on the right. In front of Beast Boy, she set down a dish of a dark brown liquid and a plate of eel-fake eel, Raven reminded herself-with black skin and garnishes she'd seen on other local dishes but never learned the name of.
Makoto turned her attention to Raven next. Between the soup and rice, she set down a bowl of thick, tan-colored noodles steeped in broth and topped with finely chopped scallions. Makoto added a rectangular dish of pea green sauce and backed away with a bow. The hostess refilled their tea and took away the tray while Beast Boy examined his food, a smile lighting up his features.
"Wow it looks like real eel," Beast Boy commented. "Super impressive. Pass my compliments onto the chef, will you?"
"It would be my pleasure," she said, and returned Beast Boy's grin. She looked at Raven expectantly.
"Er-smells great," she offered.
"And I'm sure it tastes even better," Beast Boy included. "I mean, look at it!" He laid his hands demurely in his lap. "Itadakimasu," he said to Makoto.
Makoto smiled warmly at him. "Thank you," she said, and departed.
"Did I miss something?" Raven asked Beast Boy, one puzzled eyebrow raised.
"Etiquette, Rae," he chided her teasingly. "To the Japanese, appearance is as important as the taste, and they want to know if they made their stuff look good enough."
Raven looked down at the noodles steaming in their bowl, like a knot of tangled, skinless snakes. "Look good?" she questioned skeptically.
"Yup. Like my dinner: it's pretty enough to eat." He indicated the tar black skin on his plate.
"I think you might've been tricked," Raven told him. "That looks like real eel to me."
"Seaweed," he corrected, poking the black film with his chopstick. He lifted it up to show the interior: "Strained tofu with grated gobo roots." Finally, he pointed at the garnish surrounding the eel. "And tsuma."
"And what am I eating?"
"Udon noodles, broth, scallops." Again he used his chopstick to point to each item in turn. "Soy sauce," he said of the dark brown liquid in the small serving dish. "Wasabi," he indicated the green paste. "Miso soup with tofu, and white rice."
"Hmm." She lifted up the soy sauce dish with the intention of pouring it onto the rice.
"No!"
"What?" she asked exasperatedly.
"Etiquette. Follow me." He unrolled the damp towel Makoto had given him and wiped his hands. When finished, he rolled it back up and laid it back on the table. Raven reluctantly mimicked him.
Next, he picked up his chopsticks, pinched a sticky clump of rice between them, and dipped it into the soy sauce. Raven didn't do so well for her turn. The chopsticks felt foreign in her fingers, and she clumsily angled them to the rice bowl. Where Beast Boy had successfully transferred an entire bite full to the soy sauce, Raven could barely hold together two grains before the rest of the clump fell apart and back into the bowl.
"This is pointlessly tedious," she said monotonously. She dumped the contents of the soy dish into her rice bowl and stirred vigorously.
Beast Boy slapped his palm to his forehead. "We have work to do."
Beast Boy attempted to guide the reluctant sorceress through the rest of dinner, and as she practiced with her chopsticks, she slowly improved. She even tried a bite of the strange snake-noodle meal. "Decent," she allowed herself to say aloud, though privately she approved wholeheartedly.
Conversation turned to lighter topics of how they had occupied their time in town. Raven didn't say much except to elaborate on her disastrous tour of Tokyo, but Beast Boy had enough to talk about for the two of them, mostly focused on the local ladies.
"Then this hot girl who I've been chasing around all over town turns out to be one of Brushogun's minions! She like, rips off her top layer of clothes and suddenly she's covered in all this color, like she'd wandered into a paintball park with a target on her back."
Raven giggled at that.
They both froze.
Beast By gazed at her wide-eyed. "Did you-"
"Quit it."
"Was that-?"
"Don't ask."
"It was!" Beast Boy declared. "You laughed! At one of my jokes!"
She waved his enthusiasm away. "We've known each other for how long, now? I suppose you were bound to say something funny sooner or later."
"Three years, in answer of your first question," he gathered one of her hands into his, and her chopsticks stuck up menacingly between them. "I want you to know I'll treasure this moment forever."
Raven wrenched her hand away. "Keep talking about it and you won't live to see tomorrow."
"Pft. You threaten me too much, Rae. I know you'd never hurt me."
At Raven's scowl he leisurely added: "Unless your dad took over your body or something crazy like that." He nodded to himself, then looked back at her, suspicious. "That wouldn't happen, would it?"
"Not likely," she assured him. "But I wouldn't push it. More importantly, what makes you so sure I wouldn't go through with one off my threats?"
"Take this afternoon. When Rob and Star left, you yelled at Cy and chucked something at his head. But you haven't so much as dumped food on me in months and I annoy you way worse than him."
"I threw you out a window last week," she reminded him. "And pulverized you for taking unflattering pictures of me on the way here in the T-ship."
"Touché on the pulverization-I totally deserved it-but as for the window thing, that was a month ago," he conceded cheerfully. "Plus, it was an open window and I can fly, so I wasn't in any danger."
She ignored him. "Well, in my defense, I was in the middle of a nap when I snapped at Cyborg. But he's made of metal, so it's not like I hurt him."
"Hmph," Beast Boy shrugged.
"I'm sure he's fine." She decided to change the topic. "So why are you obsessed with girls all of a sudden?"
"You telling me the fact I'm a red-blooded young male isn't a good enough reason?"
Raven gave him a deadpan stare. "Robin and Cyborg are, too, but you don't see them fawning over fan girls."
Beast Boy twirled his chopstick between his fingers like a baton, and jabbed it into the air at the end of each phrase. "Robin's been chasing after his own personal fan girl for years, now, and Cyborg's-" he and the chopstick froze for a long moment. He laid it down on the table and regarded her seriously. "-Shy. But he's fine the way he is," he insisted.
Raven appreciated the protective tone he used, the defensive position he held as he waited for Raven to challenge him with another scathing remark. She didn't. "I agree."
Beast Boy nodded sharply before snatching up a chopstick and impaling an unsuspecting piece of tofu.
"My point is," Raven continued as he continued eating. "I'm not convinced it has anything to do with gender or age." She twirled an elongated noodle on her chopsticks like spaghetti on a fork.
"Would you believe my animal instincts are to blame?"
"Not for second," she said, and silently slurped up the noodle.
He gave a half-exasperated chuckle. "I haven't given it much thought, Rae. It's not like I sit in my bedroom analyzing what every single emotion or action means. I go with the flow." He traded in nonchalance for wistfulness. "These girls are the first ones to show interest in me since Terra. I guess that's meaningful if you choose to look for something in it."
"You aren't over her yet, are you?" she asked, curious.
He looked down at his plate and pushed his food around with his chopstick. "You're gonna think I'm stupid."
Raven blinked. "Usually, but not this time. You can tell me," she said sincerely.
He looked back at her, hesitated, and glanced back down. "I thought I was over her. She put us through enough that I should be, even if she helped us out at the end. But then she showed up after all of this time and it was like I was meeting her for the first time again-new opportunities, new hope. Or something stupid like that."
Raven nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Beast Boy had told them all about the Terra look-alike. They'd all been ready to dismiss his claims as a case of mistaken identity until he showed them the cave where Terra's body should have been, then produced the robot though which Slade allegedly used to speak of Terra as though she still lived.
There was also a video feed that showed Beast Boy leading "Terra" into the Tower and around the grounds. They had all been angry with him-even Starfire had exhibited quiet disappointment-but Robin's fury exceeded them all.
Beast Boy had brought someone who was at best a complete stranger and at worse a powerful enemy into their home without regard for security or his teammates. And he'd done it while the rest of them chased a mysterious monster around the city, which was a different set of problems entirely.
They hadn't beaten the monster either, which made everything worse. Eventually they'd lost track of it. Somehow, a twelve foot-tall monstrosity evaded a team of superhero tracker-detective-warriors, leaving no trace for a trail.
Robin only stopped punishing the changeling when Sykotech arrived and forced him to put his resentment behind him for the sake of the mission.
"Rejection sucks, Raven, and Terra's done it to me twice now. Plus she died. But she's the only one who's ever looked twice my way-until these fan girls. I like the attention is all."
"I can see why losing yourself in this is tempting, Beast Boy, but you have to understand that it isn't real. These girls don't know you-they know an image, and they will never appreciate you the way our friends appreciate and care about you."
He graced her with a half-smile she thought was more for her benefit than his.
She tried again. "I can empathize with what you're describing," she stated. She placed her suddenly clammy hands in her lap and continued. "Malchior deceived me into believing he desired me-and I realized afterward that his apparent feelings for me played into my attraction toward him. But then he betrayed me and suddenly I could see everything I was blind to. He didn't care about me, he used me. He complimented me not because there was truth to his words, but because he knew I wanted to hear it." Her thoughts turned to the crowds earlier and the liberties the people had taken. As if they had a right to touch her clothing, her hair, her skin. "I think about those people all vying for their chance at us and I'm not interested in the least. They think I'm heroic and beautiful because other people told them that first. I represent an ideal I would surely fail if they took the time to compare me to it objectively."
He frowned, as if about to argue with her, but she continued before he could speak, turning her head toward the exit so she didn't have to watch him watching her. "You speak as if we should be grateful for this kind of attention, but it's so fake it's repulsive to me. Yes, waiting for someone to care for who you truly are is difficult and hopeless at times, but you will be happier waiting for someone whose attraction is genuine, because settling for anything less would be a disservice to yourself." She turned to see Beast Boy staring raptly at her, waiting for her to continue.
When she didn't he spoke up again. "Is that what you're waiting for?"
She forced a smirk to cover the blush that warmed her cheeks. "I'm not waiting for anything or anyone. In fact, if it never happened I'd probably be fine because I doubt I'd be able to give up my personal space for long."
He blinked, and the look of concentration was replaced with one of mischief. "Yeah, you don't really strike me as the cuddly type. Maybe you could try online dating. It would definitely lower the chances of you immolating your dates when they try something." He cracked up at his own joke, and Raven rolled her eyes to keep from scowling.
"Makoto," she called out. "Check, please."
A/N: As in the last chapter, I will add a disclaimer that everything I wrote related to Japanese culture is based on internet research on sites such as Wikipedia. Please let me know if I made an error and will fix it.
1.) I am not aware whether or not Beast Boy (in any medium) has a special affection for Japanese food or culture, but I have read so many stories that depict him as an uncultured idiot I thought it would be nice to let him be the know-it-all for once. Granted, it's funny to let Beast Boy embarrass himself and learn from the others, but alternatives are entertaining as well. Beast Boy grew up in Africa, was adopted by an indigenous tribe after his parents died, yet manages to maintain an optimistic, out-going demeanor, and is respectful of other people's cultures. I didn't think it'd be a stretch to suggest he'd be interested in Japanese culture if the opportunity came to him to learn about it (especially since Trouble in Tokyo established his love of mangas).
2.) According to Wikipedia (take it or leave it), it is customary to tell your host "Itadakimasu" after complimenting the food's appearance but before tasting it. Translated, it means "I humbly receive."
3.) I mean no offense by my rant about excited fans. Please keep in mind I wrote it from Raven's perspective. She sees herself as a hero, not a celebrity, and so the attention is unwanted not just because it threatens her self image but also her privacy; the celebrity lifestyle is not a gig she signed up for.
Next chapter: Starfire reveals one of the secrets of her past and Bumblebee tries to contact the Titans about something going on back home.
