Beast Boy exited from the shower and put on a fresh jumpsuit. That was another area in life in which he improved. The teenager now actually attempted to do his laundry. He realized that smelling like two-week old B.O. doesn't exactly help to attract the ladies. He grabbed his old costume and tossed it into his room, where it landed among the steadily growing pile of clothes. What? It's not like he completely changed.
He walked into the living room to see Raven sitting at the couch reading. The boy rolled his eyes, of course she was reading, what else does Raven do?
She looked up from her book at him and decided that it wasn't worth it to engage him in conversation. She continued to read while Beast Boy prepared himself a glass of orange juice. He sat at the table and drank it, trying to think of something to say to Raven.
Unable to stand the silence, he decided to do the thing that he believed he did best. "Hey Rae," she glared at him. "-ven. You want to hear a joke?"
She sighed; she had to give him points for trying, "Alright Beast Boy, one joke."
"O.k." Beast Boy cracked up at his own joke, "What did the ocean say to the boat?"
Raven looked at him. "What?"
"Nothing, it waved!" At this Beast Boy started to laugh, quite loudly, and fell onto the sofa. When he finally looked up, he saw Raven reading her book. He could practically hear the crickets chirping. "Oh, come on! You could at least pretend to laugh."
She looked up at him, " .Ha."
Sighing in defeat, Beast Boy turned on the T.V. and switched it to the Gamebox. He started the game Combo-Fighter 4. The gamer was about to hit the start button when he realized that he really didn't feel like playing against the computer. But Cyborg was still fixing the T-car and Robin was in his office trying to find a lead on the Red X case.
Who else would play? Unless… He looked at the second player controller and then at Raven. He shook his head and looked back at the start screen. He then looked at Raven again. Feeling courageous, he opened his mouth-
"No."
"Seriously?! You don't even know what I am about to ask!"
"I am not going to play one of your childish games."
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty Please?"
"Beast Boy, I already told you no."
"Can't you just do anything fun?"
"I do things that are fun for me. It is the same with everyone else, we all have our own likes and dislikes. You play video games, I play board games; Robin likes to train, Starfire likes to watch Robin train; and Cyborg likes to work on his car."
Beast Boy scratched his head, then he had an idea. "Ok, how about we play a board game!"
Raven cocked her eyebrow at the suggestion, "You? Play a board game? I am surprised pigs haven't started flying." After being on the receiving end of the blank stare, she realized that her green teammate was serious.
She entertained the idea and decided that it would be interesting to watch. "Fine, what do you want to play?"
"Hhhhmmm… How about chess?" he said enthusiastically.
"Are you sure? That is a pretty challenging game."
"Sure, I got to start somewhere right? I'll go find it." Beast Boy ran off to find the game in one of the storage closets.
Raven sat at the kitchen table and waited for the changeling to return. He has changed a lot since Tokyo, she thought to herself, he is taller than me now and I think Robin's workout routine has made him more muscular… She blushed and stopped the trail of thought. She was a teenage girl after all, not even the "unemotional Raven" could keep her mind in check all the time.
The doors opened and the boy she was thinking about walked through with a chess box in his arms. Beast Boy laid the box on the table and pulled out all of the pieces.
"So, uhhh what does the horsey thing do again?"
AAA
Robin paced in his room. He was getting nowhere! There were too many possibilities as to why Red X stole the chemicals and who would be interested in them. The boy wonder decided that stressing himself out wouldn't help and he decided to turn on the small, flat screen T.V. in his room.
Indecently, the news channel was what the T.V. was turned to, "Another shocking incident involving two Jump City delivery drivers just came in. Max Darvy and James Cameron where found in the street today, reportedly displaying symptoms similar to that of Paul Wes. Both are suspected in being involved in several cases of trafficking illegal fire arms, drugs, and other items to known criminals. Police are looking for a connection in between the two cases, but it is so far unclear as to whether the cases are related."
Robin's eyes narrowed as he reached for his communicator and contacted the police. "Hello... Yes, I need the files on the two cases involving Paul Wes, Max Darvy, and James Cameron. I will also need blood samples of each victim. I believe they may have information that will help me with a case I am currently working on… Thank you, I'll come by to pick it up."
He grabbed his motor cycle helmet and headed for the Police Station.
AAA
Raven finished explaining how each piece moves and began the game. "Alright Beast Boy, do you want to go first or second?"
"I'll let you go first," Beast Boy said.
Raven shrugged and moved the pawn in front of her king two places forwards. Beast Boy narrowed his eyes in concentration. He held his hand over the Left Knight and then drew it back. Raven smirked at how hard Beast Boy was trying. Her opponent finally decided to move the pawn in front of the king two places forward; mirroring the empath's movements. Raven quickly responded by moving her bishop diagonally. Not realizing what Raven was doing, Beast Boy moved the pawn in front of his rook two places up. Raven then moved her queen into position. Beast Boy squinted trying to see what Raven was doing. He then moved his free rook forward.
Raven smiled and moved the queen all the way forward to take out the pawn diagonal to Beast Boy's king, "Checkmate."
"What?! How?" The changeling yelled in surprise.
"My queen has checkmated your king. You can't take my queen because my bishop is protecting it. This is a common sequence known by most chess players."
"What? There are sequences in chess? No fair! I didn't know that. I demand a rematch!"
Raven rolled her eyes, of course Beast Boy wouldn't be able to accept defeat. She was about to say no and that she had other things to do; which would have been her usual response. This time though she felt like she actually wanted to play again against Beast Boy and try to teach him some better moves. She passed off the feeling of warmth in her stomach as simply being happy to have an opponent to play against in chess.
"Alright we can go again. I'll even give you a few pointers."
AAA
Robin stopped the R-cycle and removed his helmet. He walked up the steps of the police station and pushed the door open. He walked up to one of the officers and asked where he could find the files on the Paul Wes, James Cameron, and Max Darvy. The officer told him that Detective Lawrence was leading the case and that his office was down the hall to the left. Robin thanked the cop and went to speak to Detective Lawrence. He knocked on the door.
"Come in." a rather gruff voice called.
A man who looked to be in his early fifties sat behind a desk, writing paperwork for an unknown case.
"Hello Detective, I believe that you have the case files that I requested."
The policeman looked up from his notes, "Oh, yeah. Uh…hmm…" He looked around his desk, "Well I left the darn things around here somewhere. Aha, here they are." Lawrence pulled out three thin manila folders from a stack of papers. "There's not much on the case. The three victims have no past mental illnesses and no detectable drugs in there system. Do you have any idea what it is?"
Robin took the files and looked over them, "I have a few hunches, but nothing concrete. Do you have the blood samples?"
The detective pulled out another folder with three petri-dishes inside. "Yep, here you go."
"Thanks, if I need anything I'll be in touch."
The policeman nodded and returned to filling out paperwork as Robin exited the police station.
AAA
Well, well little bird, trying to play detective are we? Don't worry, I will visit you soon enough. Two yellow eyes watched from afar at the boy wonder. Robin hopped onto his bike and rode off, unaware of what troubles were coming. The figure vanished into the shadows.
AAA
Sorry for being super late on this one. I was planning on writing this earlier but couldn't when I realized that I need to work on a speech. Also, I realized that I had done very little BBRae moments in the story and decided to devote this chapter mainly to bonding time between the two.