Good day! Here's another one! More Cyborg/ BB friendship, but I decided to add a little bit of Cyborg's past into the picture because I find that a lot of people ignore him a bit. I think you could classify this as being a tad angst-y, but hey, even half-robotic teens have their off days right?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and as always I would love to hear what you think about the stories

-Kat

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Beast boy knew what it was like to lose everything: after all, that's what had happened to him. Yes, he knew how it felt to watch helplessly as everything you once knew and cared for washed down the drain, but even his 'everything' could never compare to Cyborg's 'everything'.

It had taken him a long time to understand Cyborg's hatred toward his new, metallically enhanced body parts. To him, the ability to calculate the exact temperature of a room and be granted access to a full blown sonic canon at any moment seemed pretty amazing, and he wasn't hesitant to point it out. That had been why he was so confused when regarding the disdain that the cybernetic teen felt towards the subject. He never understood why Cyborg always felt so angry and violent when they talked about his enhanced limbs. How could someone hate body parts that offered superb strength and near immortality? Bullets wouldn't hurt Cyborg like they would a regular human, that in itself made him unbelievably cool to Beast boy.

The reason he hadn't understood was because he hadn't known that few people had ever appreciated the mechanical teen's… 'enhancements', the same way he had. He hadn't seeen all the pain that came with the 'glory'. He hadn't realised that those mechanical limbs had cost Cyborg his 'everything'… and he could never get it back.

All these realisations had come from one conversation… one conversation that changed everything.

"I'm a freak," Cyborg had whispered quietly one lazy, summer afternoon. It was the one day that week when they had actually been allowed to do whatever they wished and yet for the first time ever, they couldn't think of anything to do, so they had simply collapsed on the couch, lounging lazily as the day wore on.

When his older friend had spoken, Beast boy hadn't thought anything of it, since it had kind of become a sort of bittersweet joke between the two of them.

"No more a freak than me, dude," he had said light heartedly; his usual reply. He hadn't been expecting the serious look in his friend's eyes.

"But I wasn't always a freak BB, not like you" At this, Beast boy had tensed. It seemed as though people always made the mistake of assuming he had been born green, fanged and gifted in the arts of shape shifting. Most of the time, he would simply ignore the ignorant comment and let it slide, but he couldn't help wishing that someone knew the truth. He couldn't help wishing to say, "Actually, I wasn't born this way…" but the logical part of his brain knew that doing so would only lead to more questions revolving around his early life; questions he really didn't want to answer… So, instead of setting his older friend straight, he simply remained silent and allowed him to continue.

"Before my… err… Accident… I had it all," he couldn't help but notice the older teens nostalgic smile, "I could go to school, I got good grades, my mom was proud and even my dad cared a little… I could play sports and I was even good at them. I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life, too,"

"What were you going to do?" Beast boy couldn't help but ask, his regular curiosity bubbling up. Cyborg grinned slightly.

"I was going to take one of the hundreds of athletic scholarships I was offered and go to college… you know, become the next super star athlete," Beast boy let loose a low whistle at that, and Cyborg chuckled lightly, before his amusement faded away.

"My accident ruined everything," he dead-panned. Beast boy could barely recognise the emotions coming from his older companion, "I had just been driving my mom to the store, nothing unusual. I was being careful and everything, like always… but then, all of a sudden, we were out of control… we crashed" he sighed, as a tear ran from his human eye, "They pulled us out of the wreckage after a while, but there wasn't much they could do. They thought we were going to die. I thought so too… but then, suddenly my dad came up and started working on me, and I ended up… like this," he stopped to gesture to his metal body and his robotic limbs. Beast boy stared silently, struggling to not ask the hundreds of questions that flooded his mind, knowing that it was not the time to ask. Cyborg sighed again, "When I woke up, everything was weird. I wasn't really in pain or anything… I just kind of felt… funny. My dad explained everything to me, told me what happened. Told me that he couldn't save my mom…" another tear slid from his eye. He hesitated for a moment, before continuing, "After that, every one looked at me differently… Even my dad- who made me this way- wanted nothing to do with me anymore. Every one thought I was a monster, like from a sci-fi horror movie. I couldn't play sports anymore, because of my "advantages", so I couldn't become an athlete. My friends left me behind; they stopped talking to me. Eventually, I just… got fed up. I ran away, bought my own apartment and spent my time hiding… then I met you guys, and the rest is history." And with that, the conversation had ended.

The rest of the afternoon had been spent in silence, with Beast boy trying to swallow what his friend had just spoken, and Cyborg pulling himself back together.

Beast boy had always known that Cyborg had had the privilege of living a relatively normal life, but, having never really experienced a normal life, he hadn't understood how much it might have hurt to lose it. Beast boy could hardly remember what it was like to be normal, since his life hadn't been typical from the get-go, always moving from place to place alongside parents he had lost before he should have and never getting to experience what most children had, like school. His time as 'normal' had ended by the time he was six years old at the hands of an infinitely rare disease and a makeshift cure. From there, the rest had fallen like dominos; crumbled like ruins.

Yes, Beast boy had lost everything… but he hadn't had much to start with, whereas Cyborg had. He'd had a life, a family, a home, a bright future… everything anyone could ever want… everything Beast boy had ever wanted.

Sure it had hurt to lose everything, and sure he sometimes wished to have back what had been taken from him, but Cyborg had made him realise something…

Losing everything must hurt a lot more when you actually have an 'everything' worth losing.