Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Damn stupid. You are the most sophisticated piece of technology since the Internet. You can push yourself to superhuman levels, accomplish the impossible, move beyond the limitations of others…you can do these things without blinking. But you can't keep one tiny green kid from getting beaten to a pulp by some mystery psycho. So stupid. Vic Stone, Cyborg, you are a hunk of junk who can't even keep his best friend safe. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

God, let him forgive me. Someday.

The screens weren't changing. Soft, soothing, they kept beeping and whirring the same way, projecting the same figures and readings. Temperature: normal. Heart rate: normal. Blood protein levels: constant. Brain activity: dormant. Blood pressure: normal.

Beast Boy's internal workings weren't like other humans'. He shifted his molecules on a daily basis: their shape, their composition, their placement. Nothing in his body stayed the same for long. It was impossible for normal instruments to keep track of his bodily functions, but when he'd first gotten the Tower up and running, Cyborg had taken great care to make sure each Titan was compatible with the medical system. Starfire and her alien physiology; Raven's strange body chemistry that sometimes seemed to shoot up or flatline without cause and without effect; Robin's slightly over-trained and peak condition body; even his own half-metal structure, its delicate interactions with the organic and the mechanical always slipping out of balance in tiny ways. The machines knew how to track Beast Boy and how to keep him healthy. It knew how to take care of him—evidently much better than Cyborg did.

He sighed and laid a metal hand against his bare scalp. Why was it so much worse this time? They'd taken some knocks before, all of them. Robin had broken ribs and gotten a concussion from himself, when Slade's neurological agent had caused him to hallucinate an invisible enemy; Raven's run-in with the Beast that was Adonis had left in her a coma for the whole night, constantly healing herself. Cyborg remembered being broken by Brother Blood, overpowered by Atlas. Beast Boy himself had gotten knocked around a lot, as he always had to fight hand-to-hand, close up. With the Titans, with the Doom Patrol…and the rest of them, all from hard backgrounds. They were used to it. They could take a punch.

But this was different. The level of the injury was alarming, that was part of it. He'd almost died in front of their eyes. It's one thing to know a friend may die; it's another to be there, watching it happen. But it was also the situation: an unknown assailant, without even a mask like Slade's to identify him, had left Beast Boy for dead. There was a grudge here. There was intent. It wasn't about getting past the Teen Titan; it was about killing him. And there had been no sacrifice, no knowledge from Beast Boy: it was a surprise attack. Unexpected. Sudden.

And I let it happen!

That was what he couldn't forgive. Cyborg had been there, in the tunnel, with Beast Boy right beside him. And he'd let it happen. He didn't help. He couldn't.

The beeping was suddenly grating in his circuits, repetitive and intolerable. He stood and went quickly to the bed, pulling the curtain back a little. Beast Boy looked tiny now, surrounded by machines and wires. Cyborg reached down and laid a gentle hand on the wiry shoulder. Crazy and green…never far from a joke, never serious when he needed to be. But he cared. Beast Boy cared and cared and never let on to it, except when he had to. Cyborg saw it. He saw the caring, and the love, and the determination…and he also saw the ways Beast Boy made an effort not to be taken seriously by the rest of the team. It was that effort that would help him grow up, one of these days. That effort would change direction and become the driving force that made Beast Boy a man instead of a boy.

But for now…Cyborg closed his eye and momentarily switched off the electric one. For now, Beast Boy was hurt, and his friends had to be the driving force for him.