A Strange Friendship

Today was a hot day in Jump city. A very, very hot day. It might have something to do with a villain threatening to flood the entire city by teleporting an iceberg above it and melting it mid flight... don't ask, please.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that the "hottines was great", as Star wisely put, and that was a villain that not even the Teen Titans, the most unpredictable and probably crazy group of superheroes this side of the galaxy, could hope to defeat.

Well, that's just a little heat wave! That's not so bad, is it?

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

No. It was worse.

"Soooo HOT!"

You could say it was a typical morning in the Titans Tower. Starfire was out shopping for an incoming party (at least, that was what the Titans presumed. Did she even need a reason to go to the "mall of shopping"?), Cyborg was calibrating the miniguns in the training ground, Robin was watching TV, zapping through the channels to find anything interesting, Raven was reading a book on the couch, trying (and failing) to shut out the rest of the world, and Beast Boy was complaining and whining and groaning about the heat, and trying (and unlike Raven, succeeding) to be the loudest possible about it. Right next to the half demon, of course.

"Why it's so much HOT!" he practically shouted in her ear. She turned her head, glaring murderously at him. "You know why. After all, this is your fault."

That made Robin, who was sitting a bit farther the two, sigh. He knew it wasn't Beast Boy fault. In truth, it was the empath the responsable for this heat wave. She DID throw Dr. Hurlof at the "Ultimate Great Climate Controlling Machine Device"'s console, after all. But neither of them really cared. Really, any reason was good reason to start bickering, and oh boy if they bickered.

"MY fault!? How was that my fault? You throwed that maniac into all that mechanical stuff, not me!"

She didn't even stop reading to reply. "Only because you didn't stop the robot dog from eating Cyborg's impulse neutralizer." He looked at her almost incredulously. "How could I know it was a remote? I mean, he's Cyborg, he has an arm that can become a freaking cannon, and he still uses remotes? I thought it was, I dunno, integrated, or something..." She returned her glare on him

"You are a Titan, you should always..."

She didn't get to finish, as Robin suddenly got up, startling the fussing duo.

"That's enough. I'm out of here." He gave the couple a disapproving glare, and then exited the room to who knows where.

The two silently looked at each other, small smiles on their faces. Sometimes they forgot that not everyone get some kind of twisted, sick pleasure from playful insults, friendly bickering and innocent physical trauma. Beast Boy grabbed the TV remote, previously under Robin's domain, and started quietly zapping for about two minutes. The time he needed to remember that the temperature was still far too hot.

"Urgh! Soooooo hot..." Raven rolled her eyes, but he somehow heard that. The green teen looked at her for a couple of seconds, and then spoke. "Hey, Ravy..." She immediately gave him a deadly look, her eyes white, full with power and far too empty of mercy. "Call me that one more time, and I will hurt you." He snorted, almost rolling his own eyes, and raised his hands in a surrending gesture.

"Ok. Ok. Geez, you're always so mean..."

She returned to her book, now curious at what he had wanted to say. "So? What did you want?"

He stared at her for a second, his face pensive. It almost looked like he was going to ask a serious question.

"How's that you're not hot?" Her shoulders dropped, and she found herself looking at the roof. Still, she decided to humor him. "I do not complain."

He took a while to process that answer, trying to figure out what she meant, until it hit him. He gave her an incredulous look, his eyes open wide. "What?! That's it? You mean, I stop complaining and I won't suffer like this anymore?"

The half demon smiled at that. "I don't know about that, but I would definitely stop suffering like this anymore."

The changeling dropped at that. "Aww, come on Ravv...en. I thought we were friends! Shouldn't we help each other out!" He stared at her with his puppy eyes, begging her to share her secrets. Too bad she didn't have any, as she was actually very heated herself. Still, the power of the puppy eyes is not so easily bested, and she found herself groaning, before she gave him an answer.

"Fine. I'll think of something. No promises, however."

That was more than enough for him, and with a big smile returned to his unhealthy zapping.

You can guess how much he lasted. Five minutes later he was still suffering from the claws of heat, but could no longer complain, since Raven already agreed to help him.

Glancing around to find anything that could help him in his desperate fight for survival, he finally got an extremely crazy and dangerous idea when his eyes passed by the window.

This might just be the bestest idea I ever had.

He got up from the couch, and moved behind the sorceress, an enormous grin plastered on his face the whole time.

Raven almost voiced her curiosity on his strange behavior, when he suddenly embraced her from behind the sofa, his head right beside hers, whispering softly.

"So, Ravy... Thought of anything yet?"

Usually, she would have been utterly confused by this. And mad. In truth, Beast Boy would be long dead by now, had this happened any other time.

But this wasn't any other time. For, you see, she actually had caught him looking at the window just a second before.

A big and sadistic grin grow on her face, and she even laughed softly, before she eventually answered him.

"Ooh yes."

Robin exited the main room, leaving behind him two now very quiet Titans. Without really knowing what to do, he simply decided to take a walk, letting his brain storm for a while.

He had long since overgrow his worries about the team. The last fight they had, the "Dr. Hurlof case", as he called it, only served as a reminder of how wrong he had been to ever doubt his team. Quite simply, intel had been total crap, and they found themself against a villain much more dangerous and resourceful than they had thought. Still they defeated him almost too easily. Sure, now Jump was stuck with hellish temperatures in February, but it could have gone so much worse that none of them saw it even as collateral damage. Really, only the intel was to blame. Intel given by the Justice League itself...

Bah, arrogant pri... yeah. Sometimes it seemed as if the big shots purposely faulted their missions, even though he didn't have any evidence... or they any reason to...

Anyway, that's beside the point. The point is that his team totally rocks, as Beast Boy once told, and that he, as a leader, couldn't be more proud of them.

Good, now that the leader-side of him had been sated, it was time for the friend-part of him to freak out.

What the hell is wrong with those two?!

He really had no idea of where Beast Boy and Raven stood with each other. They proved times and times again to be a perfect pair in combat, but whenever put in a casual situation they started to bicker and argue and yell and sometimes maim each other...

If he hadn't know better, he might just assume they get some kind of twisted, sick pleasure from playful insults, friendly bickering and innocent physical trauma.

His wandering mind found a possible answer when he entered the training camp, where Cyborg had just finished installing a shiny new cryolator on the main minigun. Freezing bullets oh ho yeah.

At the sight of their leader, the half robot wasted no time and, as he usually did every time he felt too proud of himself, raised up a challenge for his boss.

"Hey, bird-boy, feelin' lucky? You shouldn't, because these babies will sure as hell make a stew outta you! Wanna see who can get the best time?"

Robin however didn't reply. He stopped suddenly, an inquisitive look on his face.

At that Cyborg dropped his cocky smile. Robin didn't back down from a challenge. Ever. Unless Slade or some other problem was on his mind, at least. "Somethin' wrong? You just gotta blow off some steam?" Still nothing. Something had to be wrong. "Robin? What happened? Is it Slade? Trigon? The end of the universe? Starfire?"

Suddenly, the acrobat turned his head to look at him.

"Cyborg, can I ask you something?"

Huh? "Yeah... sure, why not." He was confused. Robin asking to ask? So it really was the end of the universe. Or Starfire. He shuddered internally.

"What do you think of Beast Boy and Raven?"

Ok, now he was totally lost. "BB and Rae? What about them? They didn't kill each other, did they?"

The leader quickly clarified. "No no, nothing happened. Just... what's your opinion on their relationship?"

This was all very hard for Robin. He was Batman's protegee, dammit! He was supposed to be one of the best detective world wise! But despite all of his intuition, his skills and training, he simply couldn't figure those two out. Asking for Cyborg's help had been an hard blow for him, and they both knew it.

Cyborg, on the other hand, couldn't in a hundred years have seen this coming. He had always wondered what kind of bond Beast Boy and Raven shared, but had never been able to really figure it out. In truth, he hoped Robin would one day be the one to enlight him, but his last question crushed that hope with the same monstrous and utterly unnecessary strength of one of Starfire's hug.

What could he say to help the poor detective?

He settled for the little he knew.

"Well, I think they're friends, despite how they seem to hate each other. Sure, they keep arguing, but they never really hurt-hurt each other, if you know what I ..."

CRASH!

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

SPLASH!

...

Ok, maaaybe he knew less than he thought.

"BEAST BOY!" They both shouted, running to draw out the bay they're little, green friend.

The leader jumped into the water, while Cyborg stood on shore, preparing any medical devices they might need. After a couple of seconds, the detective emerged from below the water, dragging with him a... laughing Beast Boy?

Fearing for mental damage, the half robot scanned his best friend from head to toes, but found absolutely nothing wrong with the now lying and... smiling... green teen.

Robin quickly activated his serious mode, giving the changeling a stern face.

"Beast Boy, what happened? What have you done this time? And why are you still laughing?"

"Musta've been one hell of a prank..." Muttered Cyborg, but neither of them got any direct answers.

Instead, Beast Boy spread his arms and legs open, and said to himself "Gotta thanks Rae later..."

The other two boys' eyes went wide open at that, but they said nothing, as the changeling continued.

"Ahhhh... sooo fresh..."

Still not believing what they had just witnessed, Robin and Cyborg slowly got up, and looked at each other. Then at Beast Boy. The now broken window. And finally each otehr again.

"Yeah... well I.. uh..gotta go. Go. Bye." And with that, the half robot was gone.

Robin stood there for a while longer, impassive to the green boy's sighs of relief.

Eventually he snapped out of it, and, with a quick apology, left the crime scene.

What could he say? He supposed that, in the end, Beast Boy and Raven truly were great friends.

...after all, true friends will do anything for you, right?

Hey there! Just wanted to thank everyone. You have no idea of much that means.