Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. This is a work of fanfiction that I am not making a profit off of.
A/N: OMG you guys! The love you've given me for this story is unreal. This was one of those stories I didn't write because I was too close to it... But you guys! Thank you so much for the love! Let's keep the train moving!
Flashback
"What are you looking at?"
"Orion's belt."
"Pervert."
Raven smiled, shaking her head in disappointment as his footsteps grew closer. His impish green face covered her view of the sky for a moment before turning his own head to the sky. "I refuse to laugh at that joke."
"So," Beast Boy's grin permeated. He crouched down next to her, laying back so they were shoulder to shoulder. "You're admitting I'm funny?"
"I would never," she sighed, looking at him briefly before turning her gaze back to the stars.
"You did." His head tilted toward her, frowning a little, "I believe that little sentence was an admission to my comical genius."
"No," she sighed, eyes wandering to find a dotted dipper. "I was refusing to let you think that you could lower your high standard comedy to-"
Beast Boy cackled. He was going to make sure he remembered her words the next time she complained about his jokes.
"Crotch jokes," Raven reasoned with a wobbling frown.
"Yep," he nodded, confidently grinning as he placed his hands behind his head. "You totally think I'm hilarious."
She didn't have to look at him to see the giant grin on his face. "Okay, Beast Boy."
"Yep," Beast Boy continued, flexing one his arms. "You think I'm awesome."
Raven laughed, "I don't remember giving you a compliment."
"But you did," he explained as serious as he could muster between his overdramatic antics. "Now you have to live with that."
Raven teasingly punched his shoulder as she continued to laugh loudly.
"Ow," he pouted, rubbing his shoulder. "It's good to hear you laugh, even though I'm going to have a bruise later." His eyes narrowed playfully as he glared at her.
"I didn't hit you that hard."
"No," he admitted, nodding his head. "You've got delicate little ineffectual fists."
"What?!" She cackled joyfully.
Beast Boy chuckled, "Did I mention how nice it is to see you be so open?"
"No," she told him, eyes drifting to him. "You said something about my laugh."
"Which is also nice."
She wasn't sure how to respond to that little compliment. "Thank you?"
His chuckle faded to a low rumbling in his chest. "Did you," Beast Boy paused his eyes were serious as he kept a smile on his face. "Did you think you'd get here?"
"The roof?"
"And you say my jokes are bad…"
"It wasn't a joke." A sheepish smile slowly curled on her lips as she set her eyes to downtown Jump City. "I don't know what you mean," Raven shrugged, looking at him. Her eyes were soft and wide with curiosity. "Where are we if we aren't on the roof looking out at the city?"
That was a fair question. "We're on the roof," he agreed. "But, I mean did you think you'd be sitting here post apocalypse?"
The question took her by surprise, and Raven was surprised that Beast Boy was the first one to ask her. "No," she told him softly. She'd confided in Robin about her lack of hope for the future, and her conversations with Starfire and Cyborg had been filled with nothing but optimism. "The prophecy said that I would bring about the end of the world, so…" She trailed off with a little shrug. "I didn't really think about anything past that."
"You never imagined what you wanted to be when you grew up?"
Raven shook her head, "No. What for?" She was destined to destroy the world before she'd be able to get her driver's license. There really wasn't much to think about.
"I don't know," Beast Boy shrugged. "I thought all kids sat around thinking about what their lives would be like when they were older."
"Not all children are destined to destroy the world."
He shrugged yielding to her truth. "Yes, but," Beast Boy paused turning to smirk at her. "Not all children are destined to save it either."
"No," she sighed heavily. "I was just fixing what I'd broken." She summoned her father to earth, and with the help of her friends she fixed the mistake she'd made.
"The important thing is," he told her placing a tender hand to her shoulder. "You're here now."
"Barely," she reminded him. Raven was honestly surprised she was still standing after the last year's events.
"But, you're here."
Raven rolled her eyes, trying to straighten the smile forming on her face, "I am here."
"So," Beast Boy gently squeezed her shoulder. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Violet eyes fluttered closed as she swallowed the honest answer creeping up her throat. Smiling at her friend, Raven put her eyes back to sky, "Do I have to decide?"
"They say you do," he chuckled, shrugging. "If I made the rules, we wouldn't have to but…" He sighed dramatically. "I don't."
"Well." Raven looked up at the particularly bright star. "I'd think I'd like to be free," she whispered softly.
"You are," Beast Boy told her looking at her seriously. "You defeated Trigon, remember?"
She nodded, "Yea."
She just had to deal with the other demons now.
Flash Forward
"Tell me about Lian."
Roy's eyebrows raised as he dropped his chicken pita to the plate on his lap. Confusion flooded his face as he messily wiped his face. "Huh?" He questioned with a full mouth, his hands rubbing over his face.
"Tell me about Lian," Raven stated again, picking at the bread on her plate. The photo sat between them, carefully tucked underneath her thigh while they ate. She stared at the image of the woman and child frozen in time. "She with your girlfriend?"
Roy pounded a fist against his chest as he choked, "Girlfriend?!"
"The woman in the picture? Your girlfriend?" Raven nodded toward the picture next between them. "Your wife, or whatever ?"
He doubled over, coughing loudly as he desperately pounded on his chest for air.
"I was kidding with the wife comment," Raven murmured, setting her plate aside and gingerly patting on his back. "Don't die because of your commitment issues."
"She is not my wife!" He wheezed, bracing his hands on his knees as he tried to collect himself. "Jade was barely my girlfriend."
Raven tilted her eye and raising her eyebrows.
You really want to know?" Roy inhaled with a little wince.
She carefully pictured picked the photo up, bringing it to her face to inspect it further, "How could I not?" On a logical level, she knew one of her colleagues were bound to take a running leap into adulthood. Sure, both Titans on the East and West were legally recognized as adults now, but she hadn't thought of any of them being parental figures in the near future. Especially not Roy.
"Long story short," Roy sighed, looking to the sky as he shook his head. "I mixed business with pleasure and partying, and yea." He shrugged, a little. "Along came a tiny human."
Raven nodded, "So what's the long story?"
"It's not that interesting."
She looked at him giving a little shrug as she handed him the photograph, "It's not like I can play solitaire on my phone."
He laughed. Feeling a bit uneasy, he leaned back a little taking a good look at the photo. This moment felt further away then it actually was.
"So," she scooted a little closer to him, eyes focused on the flames of their fire. "Tell me about Lian."
"Well," Roy breathed, hanging his head as his elbows came to rest against his knees. "I met Jade when I was trying to arrest her."
"What?"
"Yea…" He drawled with a little laugh. "You know her as Cheshire."
"Cheshire?!"
His mouth was tight as he smothered a chuckle to his chest. "Yea, I know." Bumblebee had the same reaction when he came back to the Tower ranting about that fateful positive pregnancy test.
Violet eyes shifted to him skeptically. "I don't understand..." Raven reminded herself that she was in no position to judge his actions. Years ago she'd fallen in 'love' with Malchior and it had nearly cause more destruction than a complicated relationship.
"I don't understand it either. One minute I was placing her in handcuffs, the next we were up against a wall in an alley and I was bal-"
"Oh you don't need to go into that much detail," she shook her head, her lips curled sourly. "I don't need those details."
Roy laughed loudly, awkwardly reaching his arm back to scratch the back of his head, "Fair enough. So, after that little-" What was the best way to describe that? "Incident she became someone I partied with. We'd get drunk, have some party favors-" Mostly him. "Dance, have sex," he shrugged. His eyes drifted out into the darkness. "It was easy. We didn't have an expectations or labels. Maybe play cat and mouse with her when she was out of a mark, but we just enjoyed something easy."
"Nothing wrong with that," Raven told him softly.
"Then after a couple months, she disappears," Roy sighed, shaking his head. "And I don't think much of it. I mean, we're not committed, so I don't take offense. At this point, I'm drinking about four days a week. I'm partying, socially smoking weed and a few other things. At this point," he paused as words failed him. "I didn't think I had a problem, but I was a functioning addict at that point."
Raven had known that Roy liked to party. It wasn't a secret. She couldn't help but feel guilty for not thinking more of it.
"So, one day Jade shows up with a red headed baby, and well," he laughed uneasily. "I was a father. I was shocked as hell, but what could I do? I had a kid." He shrugged, picking a little piece of food from his plate and chewing nervously. "I stopped partying. I mean, I'd drink a half dozen shots of vodka after a mission, but I wasn't out at clubs. Jade and I were coparenting and working on the relationship thing."
Her head tilted as her eyes stared at him expectantly.
"Until," he paused heavily, eyes narrowing for a moment as if he were trying to remember. "Until our professional lives blurred into our family life."
"What do you mean?"
"Jade was still breaking the law." Understatement of the century. "It was still my job to put her in jail. She wasn't willing to give up her criminal career. I wasn't willing to give up being a Titan, so she decided to take Lian," he shakily inhaled feeling a pang of sadness in his chest. "And I haven't seen them since."
"How long?" Raven whispered.
Roy looked to the sky, biting on his lower lip, 'It's been about a year and a half." He looked at the photo in his hands, smiling at the baby in the photo. "Lian turned two a couple months ago."
She looked at him, placing a hand on his shoulder, "I'm sorry." Those words were trivial, but she couldn't think of anything more profound to say.
"Me too."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Terra had trouble recalling the last time they'd had a disagreement.
Couples fought.
She and Changeling weren't above fighting. They were two human beings, with extraordinary jobs, trying to coexist as a unit. Of course there would be some discord.
She frowned, eyes fixed on the dark wall in front of her as she pulled the covers beneath her chin. Her eyes closed as she felt her boyfriend's weight dip down unto the mattress. "Are you mad at me?" Terra whispered, rolling to face him.
Changeling frowned, brows wrinkling deeply at the question, "No. Why would I be mad at you?"
"I don't know." She really didn't know. "Because I feel like you think I'm not being sympathetic, but I don't understand why this has you so angry and upset."
"You don't miss her?" His head snapped to face her.
"I didn't say that," she sighed. "She's my friend too."
He shook his head, running his hands over his face. Changeling was honestly a little bit too tired and angry to have this conversation right now. "But she wasn't your best friend."
Terra pushed her back off the bed, leaning up on her forearms, "Well obviously she thought enough of you to let you know she was leaving…"
"Can we not do this?" He pleased, pinching the bridge of his nose as he exhaled deeply. "I just found out that my best friend felt the urge to pick up her life and move across country without thinking I'd care, but she somehow had the courtesy to share with everyone else on this team."
"She didn't tell me."
"I didn't think she would."
What? "Why?"
Changeling shrugged, "I don't know. You guys have history-"
"Which we buried," Terra frowned angrily. "Yea, I fucked up when I was teenager-"
He suddenly wished he'd just camped out on the couch and dealt with her anger in the morning. "I didn't mean-"
"I don't remember betraying you all! I don't remember being Slade's girlfriend, but I'm not denying, nor have I ever denied, anything you all say that happened-"
"I never said you did!"
"So, why the hell would she have a problem with me? I've hung out more with her than you-"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I've never seen you hang out with her," she shook her head, eyes fierce and cutting through the darkness.
"That doesn't mean it didn't happen," he huffed, staring at the ceiling. He really wasn't going to let this go any further. "My point is I'm allowed me to be upset and angry that my best friend isn't talking to me. I'm allowed to have feelings about this."
"So is Raven."
"What does that mean?" He challenged.
Terra sighed, sliding out of bed, "It means you're being an ass. You're so absorbed in your feelings about 'your best friend' that you haven't stopped to consider how she feels about you. Maybe she's pissed at you. Maybe she never wants to see your face again. I don't know."
Changeling's jaw tightened as he kept his eyes on the ceiling. "How the hell would you know?"
"The only thing I know right now is that you're being a dick."
"What the hell am I supposed to do? She won't answer me! I've tried talking to her. I basically had to corner Cyborg for an answer." If Starfire was sworn to secrecy, then there was no way she'd break her promise. He figured he would try to corner Nightwing tomorrow morning before he has his coffee.
"Build a bridge and get the fuck over it," she told him simply, walking toward the door. "Think about what she wants."
Changeling could only stare at her, feeling his senses crumble.
"I'm getting a snack."
"Terra," he sighed sitting up. "I'm-"
"You don't understand what it's like to want to start over, but," she dismissed, exciting the room without looking back. "Whatever. It's fine because you're only thinking about yourself, Garfield. "
Changeling huffed, falling back against the bed, "Fuck…"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
She couldn't remember the last time her mind had been blank.
Sure, the antidepressants and anxiety medicine helped to to quiet the demons that danced in her head, but Raven had trouble remembering a moment like this. Her mind was quiet and calm even though she was surrounded by uncertainty, stress, and silence.
After their fireside dinner and conversation, Roy smothered the fire and headed into his own tipi after bidding her good night. Raven had assured him in she'd be fine with oil lamp burning a few feet away from her. A cigarette dangling from between her lips, she rested on a soft blanket spread out on the ground.
Her eyes traced the endless amount of stars glittering on what looked to be impossibly black silk.
The last time she stopped to memorize the sky was a few days before the world had ended. During that time her fate had appeared to be definite, so Raven figured it would be best to live out her last days enjoying her friends and the beauty of the planet she had called home.
So, she took time to dip her toes in the bay and walk through the shoreline. She stopped to look at fish, and study the blue of the water around the tower.
She laid in grass, trying to memorize the warmth of the sun and the soft light of the moon's many shapes. Her eyes traced the stars and studied the storied dots above her.
The last time she'd seen this many stars was on Azarath.
Her heart fluttered with the happy memory, almost forgetting that her birth dimension was gone.
Raven had already forgotten the weight of her current issues with Changeling, her cross country move, and her mental baggage ticking at the back of her mind.
Raven sighed, peacefully taking a drag of her cigarette.
She wasn't sure what she'd say to Changeling once she reached Chicago. Her sudden state of peace made her wonder if conversation was necessary at this point.
Maybe this was something better left unsaid?
"Oh well," Raven breathed quickly as she exhaled the smoke from her lungs. She tossed the cigarette butt to the side, digging in her pocket for the next. "What the…" She sat up as her fingertips fiddling with something in her pocket. The black string from her necklace wrapped around her fingers, the old verdigris penny barely shining in the dark light.
Her brow furrowed as she studied the necklace. Roy's words echoed in her head as she wiggled her fingers, fiddling with the piece.
Untangle yourself from whatever's keeping you from being whole.
Determined, she picked up the lantern next to her. Violet eyes focused on the penny as she stood. Her boots crunched in the dust dirt as she walked to the cliff Roy had thrown her phone over.
Raven slowly stretched her hand holding the necklace out over the cliff, fingers tightly clenching the string. The penny swung like a pendulum over the emptiness below.
Inhaling sharply, she closed her eyes feeling her chest sting for a moment.
So, he was the one who hurt you, right? Not me?
You may not like your birthday, but we're all glad you were born!
Thought you didn't like me.
No, I'm sorry he broke your heart.
Hmm. Maybe you should call me Beast Man from now on?
You think you're alone, Raven, but you're not.
For luck.
Raven couldn't help think she imagined those moments that made her heart flutter. His words were clear in her memories, but the emotion behind his eyes may have her imagination and wishful thinking. The little moments where he'd found himself standing a little closer to her than normal could have been coincidence. That cute little smirk he'd flash with an extra glint behind his eyes was nothing more than a playful look.
Objectively, she couldn't ignore his change in behavior once Terra had come back. She couldn't remember their last real conversation that moved beyond a casual greeting and work related business.
She sighed slowly opening her hand watching as the necklace slipped from her palm and into the darkness.
She didn't need the luck anymore.
No matter how fucked up we are, we're worthy of being whole. So what if we have cracks.
To be Continued…
