Chapter 2: Blown Composure
I'm supposed to be the soldier who never blows his composure; Even though I hold the weight of the whole world on my shoulders.
The attending nurse stood stunned as Cyborg recounted the story of how Changeling got injured. She was certain she had seen a tear in the human eye of the teen hero. She wanted so bad to come to his side, tell him something that would help him get through it. Unfortunately, she didn't know what to say. After all, what do you tell someone who may lose their best friend, who literally went to hell and back with him? She decided to remain silent, unsure of what to say next. She checked the various fluids and tubes that went into Changeling's body, and left the half-robotic superhero to his thoughts.
He knew it was for the best. He couldn't handle the sympathy he knew she would have tried to give him. There was nothing she could have said that would have made him feel better. Nothing anyone could have said really, other than words from a certain green man that lay in the bed next to him. He had to laugh at that. To think about how much all of them had changed, him changing the least, however. He was the oldest, being 22 now. Though physically he hardly changed at all, due to his "condition," he certainly considered himself the "big brother" of their little family. He was probably the most protective and mature of the 5, or at least that's how he saw it.
Robin, or Nightwing now, had changed a fair amount. He certainly grew into that massive ego of his, standing at 6'1". Cyborg couldn't say for Nightwing's physical build, having never seen him without a costume on, but he is still a martial arts expert. Starfire, everyone assumed anyway, was the same age as Rob, (only the Titans still called him that.) at 21. It was hard to say for sure since Tamaranian years are longer than Earth years. She also grew significantly, now being the tallest, and skinniest Titan. Raven changed fairly drastically as well. Still the shortest of the 5, standing at 5'7", she was by far the most beautiful, fitting her 19 year old age. Though Cyborg wouldn't openly admit it, she could even turn HIS head when she wanted to. He couldn't believe that, while Star had always been good looking, Raven had turned into a knock out.
The one who ended up changing the most, however, was Changeling. He, much like Nightwing, had taken to the new name at 18, just last year. In 4 years, Garfield Logan finally grew up, physically anyway. He was toned, but not buff, tall, but not gigantic, now at 6'3". Even though he had grown significantly, he was still the same Garfield Logan. He still cracked bad jokes, he still spent HOURS on the GameStation, and he still ate that disgusting tofu. He wasn't doing any of that right now, obviously, which threw Cyborg right back into his funk. He couldn't quit beating himself up about this. No matter how many times the computer half of his brain ran through the event, the human half kept berating him, telling him that there had to be something different he could have done. Something. ANYTHING.
Raven was just as bad. If she wasn't at the hospital trying to heal him with her powers (even though she knows her powers don't work as well with deep tissue injuries), she sits in her room, doing only God knows what. Nightwing told Cyborg once he thought he heard crying coming from her room, but both didn't know how to handle the situation, knowing what an emotional Raven can do.
His thoughts were broken, as the subject of the last thought entered the room. "Time to head home," she informed him. He nodded. He absolutely hated leaving his best friend, but every time he thought that, his brain reminded him that if there was anyone on the Titans that could keep Changeling safe better than him, it was Raven. So he got out of his seat, gave his sister a big hug, and walked out of the room to check out. He was nearly to the T-Car when his communicator rung. He opened it and Nightwing's face appeared on the screen. "What's up, Rob?" Cyborg asked.
"We got trouble downtown, Cyborg," Nightwing informed him. "Cinderblock is tearing things up and me and Star could really use some-" He was interrupted as a loud crash could be heard through the speaker. Nightwing looked up from the communicator and his eyes grew wide with worry. "STARFIRE!" He screamed as the screen went black.
"NIGHTWING!" Cyborg screamed at the blank screen. He immediately jumped into the driver's seat of the T-Car. I'll be damned if I let this happen again, Cyborg thought to himself. I'm not going to lose another friend damnit. He punched a few keys into the communicator, turning on the siren they had built into the T-Car. The communicator screen came alive with directions to the fray his family was involved in. Just hold out a little longer, Rob. I'll be there soon.
*SCENE TRANSITION*
"STARFIRE!" Nightwing screamed, turning off the communicator. He looked up just in time to see Cinderblock standing over his beloved, whom he just shoulder drove into a yellow Hummer H3, successfully bending the hood at a 90 degree angle. Starfire wasn't moving, which threw Nightwing into a full blown rage. He rushed the stone behemoth, throwing 2 explosive disks at him. They hit Cinderblock square on from the side, forcing him to stumble away from the fallen heroine. Pulling out his trusty bo staff, Nightwing closed the gap, leaped into the air, and smacked Cinderblock right in the face with a powerful blow. Cinderblock stumbled back 2 more steps, but recovered enough to grab Robin by his foot as he tried a flying head kick.
Turning swiftly, Cinderblock threw Nightwing down the street into the windshield of a Prius. Trying to shake the blurriness out of his vision, Nightwing looked up in time to see Cinderblock preparing to deliver the final blow. He drew back his massive stone fist, when the largest sonic blast Nightwing had ever seen, hit the stone behemoth square in the chest. A second one followed it, though not as large as the first, forcing the monster back several steps. With a loud cry, Cyborg leapt through the air, throwing a massive right into the concrete creature's jaw. Cinderblock continued his retreat under a flurry of blows from the half metal half man.
Then, with strength that Cyborg didn't even know he had, he threw the granite colossus into a brick wall. There was no time to recover for Cinderblock, however, because Cyborg continued his blitzkrieg. Eventually, Cinderblock quit even trying to defend, letting blow after blow hit him in the face. He slumped to the concrete, hoping the metal man would take it as a sign of defeat. Cyborg wouldn't quit. Even as the mobile statue fell to the sidewalk, Cyborg continued the relentless assault, raining down blow after blow to Cinderblock's face. So fast and so hard were the blows, they were actually forcing chips off of Cinderblock. Nightwing watched, shocked at this display of pure blind rage shown by his friend and teammate. He couldn't do anything except watch as Cyborg clapped his hands together, lifting them up in preparation for one, final blow. As he thrust to deliver it, it was caught by something. SomeONE, Cyborg realized when he opened the eye he didn't know he closed. Standing directly between him and his prey, was an orange-hued, battered and bruised, clothes torn to shreds, Starfire.
"Please, the Cinderblock has conceded, end this senseless violence," she pleaded to her friend. Cyborg could have continued. He could have beat the concrete colossus into nothing but rubble, but the dirt and bruises that covered Starfire's body, the ragged clothes that barely clung to her, and the tears that continued to stream down her face forced him to stop. He couldn't handle it anymore, the rage finally subsiding. Unfortunately, the rage was being replaced by a new emotion, a new level of depression. He did it again. He let his family get hurt. Why couldn't I be faster? He belittled himself. I could have stopped Cinderblock from hurting Star. He nearly killed Rob. I could have kept him from being in that position in the first place.
The mental reaming continued the whole ride home. It continued while he examined Star and Rob in the med bay. It even continued after he cleared them (some deep bruising is not nearly enough to stop our Titans!). Nightwing, however, decided to attempt to comfort his depressed friend. "Cy. I know you must feel like this is your fault, me and Star getting hurt, but it's not," he began. "If anything, it's my fault. I easily could have called you or Raven sooner, but I didn't. Star and I both knew the dangers of going in short-handed, and accepted them. We wanted to make sure we had someone at BB's side the whole time, so we waited. Bottom line Vic, the blame goes to me on this one, not you."
With that, Nightwing left the med bay. Cyborg stayed behind, putting his hands in his face. The horrible truth that he nearly lost 3 of his best friends in 2 days finally hit him, and he cried himself to sleep that night.
A/N: Good God, it's finally done! Chapter 2 of the drama is over! This chapter was pretty intense I must say. Hopefully everyone enjoyed it. Sorry it took so long to update. Life has gotten pretty hectic recently. I'm failing my classes, again. I'm also looking for an apartment. I'm trying to write in my spare time but I'm lucky if I get a paragraph a day in! Bottom line, I have no intention of stopping, but the updates will probably be few and far between, just a heads up. Now, on a less depressing note, time for the mailbag!
The Cretan- "First off, I finished Sonfic, GO. Good story. Sorry, it took awhile. I'm a
rabid BB fan and there's lots of stories about him. Now, thank you for writing
this. Cy never gets enough credit. I'm DEFINITELY gonna be keepin an eye on
this. It'd be cool if Cy has to kick some ** at the hospital should someone
come lookin for BB. At times Vic and Gar are more brothers than friends. Keep
rockin."
Once again my first reviewer! Thank you for the kind words once again, and I'm more than proud with how both stories have come out. I had to write this though because I also noticed how Cy almost never gets love on this site. Hopefully people will read this and pick up on it!
crazynerd- "Love it. Very insightful on cys feelings. Love it. Incredible work
Did I mention that I loved it?"
Once or twice XD. As was with most of the situations in Songfic, GO!, I know a fair amount of what the main character (Cyborg in this case) is going through. Losing, or being close to losing, a best friend like this, has been a nightmare of mine for a really long time, so stuff like that makes me pretty knowledgeable about the topic.
KOnders1044- "ahhh! I love eminem... so that just makes it even better!... I swear I read
this story four times over with Like Toy Soldiers playing over and over while
I read it... please continue! :)"
Same here! :D Eminem is by far one of my favorite rappers, and even if it technically isn't a songfic, I still got all my inspiration from his song. I try to listen to the song at least once a day if I'm writing. It sets the tone so well!
Well, that's all for me sports fans! Now, before I forget, I would like to point out now that, NOWHERE in this story do I claim to own the Teen Titans, or any characters related to them, because I don't. I would really rather not have the big wigs coming after me if I can avoid it. So, until next time, it's ya boy Shamis signing off! As always, Stay classy, !
