The Roles we Play
Forgiveness
Big thanks to all those who have supported my story in one way or another.
***Still don't own the Teen Titans, still sad about that. ***
"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." – Lewis B Smedes
***TRwP***
Despite the slight tension between Raven and Beast Boy life at the Tower had returned to a fairly normal pace since the changeling had returned.
The petty arguments and disagreements had dissolved, even without the green hero taking additional punishment, allowing for a far more relaxed and stable atmosphere throughout for the team.
The only noticeable issue was with Raven and Beast Boy, who had yet to reconcile from their argument which lead to a few silent dinners while the two avoided each other.
Speaking of which, it had been another awkward silence so far with the Titan's morning breakfast. Just as Starfire was about to comment about it the alarm rang out.
***TRwP***
The armor clad man kicked a car out of his path, laughing as it skidded across the street and flipped onto its side. This was one of the reasons Adonis loved being… well him, the feeling of raw power that came from his awesomeness was like sheer adrenaline mixed with Vodka and oral sex all rolled into one.
As he tossed aside another car, completely unnecessarily but doing it rather to prove his strength, he came upon his target, the Jump City Branch of the first U.S. National Bank.
A growing boy needed his 'greens' after all.
Glancing around, he spotted a nearby dumpster and with a sadistic smile, grabbed the sides and heaved it through the air towards the glass doors.
Just as object was about to slam through the entrance it was encased in a dark energy and moved to the side.
Adonis frowned, his fun spoiled at the last minute by a bunch of prissy little heroes.
As he turned the large man spotted the group of teenagers, taking up their usual team positions as their leader began rambling about how he was going to jail, how they would take him down, yadda yadda yadda.
The villain spotted a conveniently placed fire hydrant and smirked before running forward and kicking it at the masked boy, much like a football.
Robin was able to dodge out of the way easily though, and let loose a handful of explosive pellets which impacted harmlessly on the man's upraised arm. As he lowered it though the realization hit him that it had only been a distraction, as a powerful cybernetic fist smashed into his face plate and launched him backwards a dozen or more feet.
The over testosteroned man glared, before ripping a nearby street lamp from the ground and began swinging it around like a baseball bat.
***TRwP***
Raven was not in a good mood she had overslept and missed her morning shower. Then she had forgotten her book after making her tea, only to find it much later and return to a now cold cup of liquid. Then there was the fact that Beast Boy was still avoiding her as much as humanely possible, which further aggravated her and increased the loneliness she had been feeling lately.
Of course now she was painfully aware of what Beast Boy must have been feeling when he was the 'fifth wheel' over a year ago. With Starfire and Robin getting back together, shocking, and Cyborg making amends with Jinx, she was one of the only two members of the Titans not to be in some sort of relationship, which made it rather difficult for her not to sigh in frustration every time one of them couples returned from an intimate encounter.
Now they were fighting an overcompensating moron whose entire plan for his future was "act cool, break stuff, and get laid."
Worst of all he was putting up a decent fight against the six heroes.
Deciding to end this battle here and now, and then return to a long hot bath and maybe an afternoon nap, Raven called out her famous enchantment and surrounded the man in her dark energy, only for it to dissipate immediately.
Her shock was short lived, however, as the villain caught sight of her and charged forward, throwing her into a nearby building with a powerful backhanded slap.
Looking up she had just enough time to catch sight of the minivan hurtling towards her, and brace herself for the inevitable impact.
The pain never came though, as she found herself several feet away, in the muscled arms of her green teammate. Apparently he had seen the attack coming and had pulled her up and out of the way just in time to avoid catastrophe.
"B-Beast Boy?" She breathed out, still a bit shaky from the attack.
"Are you okay Raven?"
She nodded dumbly, looking up at him from this angle was…. entrancing to say the least. He kept his gaze at their opponent, who was busy flailing around angrily at the other Titans. The way that the sun seemed to illuminate the boy's features, along with the obvious improvement of musculature, which was only heightened now that she was being held against his chest bridal style, was forcing her heart to beat faster and faster.
"We need to get you out of the immediate area, at least until you can recover."
"Uh…."
'Nice comeback genius, the boy er man saves your life and the best you can come up with is uh'. The empathy berated herself as the changeling finally found what he was looking for, Robin had noticed the situation and thrown a gas pellet on the ground next to the rampaging man, cloaking the team and allowing the green hero to hide the sorceress in a nearby alley way.
After checking over her wounds Beast Boy gave her a nod and charged back into the fray, intent on dealing back some bruises to the man who had harmed his teammate.
And pay back the bruises he did.
Thanks to a distraction from Jinx, the three strongest members of the Titans engaged in a three on one physical beat down of the man, culminating in the tearing apart of his armor, and more than a few broken bones.
***TRwP***
As Raven reentered the area she noticed the Titans off doing their various after combat activities. Robin was coordinating with the police, Starfire and Jinx were checking on the nearby civilians, Cyborg was inspecting collateral damage to the area, and Beast Boy…. was strangely enough rummaging through pieces of the man's armor.
As she approached the green boy, hoping to properly thank him for saving her life, she saw him pause on a piece of metal that had been ripped from their adversary. Then he began inspecting it with a much greater intensity, his eyes narrowed as he turned it various ways in order to look at whatever had caught his interest from a different perspective.
"Hey BB, what you got there man?" The cybernetic teen inquired, as he jogged over to his friend.
Raven scowled a bit, she had been hoping to be the one to start the conversation and try to ease back into some sense of a relationship with the hero.
"Not sure, hey Raven could you come take a look at this?"
The empathy immediately perked up and hurried over, while trying to look less excited than she felt at being called on by her teammate.
At this point the other three Titans made their way over as well, curious about the new development.
"What is it Beast Boy?" the grey sorceress inquired, as she was handed the material.
"You might want to take a look at that, it could explain why your powers weren't working on him."
Raven glanced down, and her eyes widened in shock. Beast Boy was right, the metal was inscribed with arcane runes, dozens of them just on this piece alone.
"Robin, we are going to need the rest of his armor." The girl clarified, earning a suspicious nod from the leader who motioned for Cyborg to help him load the weapon onto the T-Car.
***TRwP***
The Titans had decided to skip their post victory pizza and travel back to the tower instead, wanting to inspect the suspicious object, and avoid the crowds that had long since realized where the heroes gathered to eat lunch and had begun making stake outs around the eateries, hoping to grab an autograph or picture with the teenagers.
Back at the tower the team made a quick lunch before proceeding to the inspection area, which had more than enough instruments and gadgets for going over the retrieved armor.
"Well the metal is reinforced, but overall it's nothing too special or high end. Neither are the circuitry or engine components of it. The only thing out of place seems to be the runes." Cyborg announced, after the machine had produced a few pages of results.
"So, what do we know about them?" Robin inquired, earning a gesture from the mechanical man as the computer put a complete digital copy on the wide screen monitor. Seconds later the runes were combined to form an intricate pattern.
"The computer analyzed them and put them back together with where they would be on the armor, this is the complete picture."
Raven's eyes narrowed, she had seen inscriptions like this before in some of her books, but this was way too advanced for someone like Adonis to have figured out alone.
"It looks like a magical resistance seal, designed to make whatever is carved on it resistant to magic of any kind."
Surprisingly it was Beast Boy who spoke out, earning curious glances from the other Titans.
"Okay, who are you and what have you done with Beast Boy? There is no way you know what kind of magic runes those are. Hell you still thought magic was pulling a rabbit out of a hat a few years ago." The dark skinned male responded.
"Hey that was a really cool trick I mean the rabbit was larger than the guy's hat!"
"Focus Beast Boy…."
"Right sorry Robin, anyway I don't know very much about magic itself but we have used those suppression runes before."
"We?" Raven inquired
"The Doom Patrol"
"Pardon but I thought that The Patrol of the Dooms was only for hunting down humans?" Starfire questioned, earning a shake of his head as Beast Boy continued staring at the monitor in thought.
"Nope, besides I have dealt with enough Succubi to know how to spot something like this."
The room became deathly quiet, some from curiosity, some from sheer astonishment.
"Wait what the heck is a Succubi?" It was Cyborg who broke the silence first.
"They are demons of lust, what I want to know is what exactly do you mean 'dealt with enough'." Raven practically growled out, though she was going to have to talk to her emoticlones later about why she was so upset about this.
"Exactly as it sounds, The Doom Patrol has had to deal with demons before, usually Succubi or Incubi since they are the most common of the ones that visit earth. Usually they just visit a small town or village, eat their fill, and then move on. But sometimes they do far higher targets and mess with politics or military personnel, and then we have to stop in to prevent any kinds of damage."
"Wait you are saying that they eat the towns?"
"No Star I think he means they eat people." Robin responded.
"Sorry bird boy but your both wrong, Incubi and Succubi are called 'lust demons' for a reason. They feed on life and sexual energy of humans, usually through intercourse." Jinx replied, causing Robin and Cyborg's eyes to shoot wide open.
"Wh-what?"
The pinkette let out a deep sigh, sometimes her boyfriend really was a bit dull. "Yes Vic there are demons who want to sleep with you and feed on energy like that."
"Are they at least…. You know…. hot?"
The glares that the mechanical man received quickly told him that it had been the wrong choice of words
"I-I mean not that it matters of course! I was just wondering how we could identify them if we ever encountered one right Rob?"
"Uh yeah, strictly for tactical reasons of course, but if you could describe what they look like maybe we could be better prepared."
"They usually take the form of beautiful men or women. They have a look of confidence and sexuality that seems to radiate off of them. When they go after specific targets they will actually research them ahead of time and pick out the 'ideal image' that their victim is attracted to. Once you engage them in sexual activities though you will feel drained afterwards and begin falling under a type of hypnosis that they create, making your far more susceptible towards them if they wish to continue." Beast Boy's voice rang out the answer.
"That does not sound all too awful, I can imagine quite the sweaty and high heat valued man" Starfire fantasized happily, getting the other two women to drool a bit in fantasy as well.
"Ah hem… if you three are done, so how would one uh…. deal with them?" Robin asked, focusing his attention on the changeling, who seemed to have the most experience dealing with them.
"The best course of action is to get rid of them from afar the closer you are the more you will pick up on their aura. If you have to engage in close quarters I suggest ripping their throats out."
Again the room became silent as the Titans stared at the green teammate.
He turned around and quirked an eyebrow, as if confused at why everyone had grown silent.
"Isn't that a bit… harsh?" Jinx mumbled out.
"Not when their victims are slowly drained of their life force and left to rot. The reason you go for the throat is because most of their magic and charms are focused through their voice. If you take this away then you will be considerably better off."
Raven's eyes widened as her mind flashed back to their argument.
***Flashback***
Raven found herself pinned against the wall. Her wrists were being held above her head by the man's forearm, while his other hand was resting on her throat, not hard enough to actually cause any damage but enough to let her know how easily he could.
***End Flashback***
He had employed the same anti-demonic tactics back then by instinct. Clearly the boy had more than just one encounter with demons of that type if he had reacted so quickly.
"We are getting a bit off topic, so somehow Adonis put anti magic runes all over his armor?" Robin called out, gaining everyone's attention once more.
"I doubt it Robin, Adonis is pretty dull when it comes to anything more than robotics and breaking things, heck I am not even sure he builds the suits himself. This is definitely not something you can just look up online and do. This is professional work." Raven snapped herself out of the memories and back to the task at hand, resolving to speak with the green teenager later.
"Alright, well let's do a search and see if we can come up with anything. I will go through crime files and see if I can locate any of his former cell mates that might be more magically inclined, Cyborg will back me up. Raven you and Jinx see if you can figure out anything using the runes themselves. I don't know about magic but most bomb manufacturers have a signature that they put into their devices, maybe it's the same with runes. Starfire and Beast Boy, you two see if you can track down where Adonis got the suit from, even if we can find the original manufacturer it might give us a general lead to where he was staying and where he might have come into contact with his mysterious friend.
The Titans nodded before splitting off, Raven's eyes lingering just a tad longer on the changeling before she joined Jinx in the library.
***TRwP***
Hours later the team returned to gather in their briefing room to report the various findings, or lack thereof.
"Alright Titans," Robin began, rubbing his temples as he felt a headache starting, "I guess Cyborg and I will begin first."
"Right well after going through all of Adonis' files we found absolute crap. Zilch, zero, nadda, nothing, empty…"
"We get it Cyborg… Raven and Jinx, did you two have any luck?"
"A bit Robin, it seems as though this would have required a very high level of magical competency like we had originally assumed. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any solid database containing magical 'signatures'. Most of Raven's books are merely on the occult and the spells themselves, they are certainly not up to date enough to actually pin point or lead to anyone."
Robin nodded he figured as much but had hoped for some kind of luck on their part.
"Starfire and Beast Boy, any progress?"
"A bit of the luck Robin, we found where Adonis appears to have paid for the robot suit to be built, unfortunately there was no longer anyone there. We did find some of the clues though so perhaps you can do the snooping and discover who the builder was?"
"Nice work you two, alright I will go over whatever you guys have tonight. I do have a bad feeling that I already know who might have been partially behind it though."
'Please don't say Slade' the other Titans mentally chanted in unison
"I think it was that group of mercenaries that attacked us in the bank. So far they are the only ones who showed any type of specialized training on dealing with magic or demonic powers. We haven't been able to get any information on them since the attack though so…"
"It wasn't them."
The Titans turned to Beast Boy, who was going through the information that Starfire had presented.
"Uh BB, what do you mean?"
"It wasn't them, they aren't a threat anymore."
"And you know this how Beast Boy?" Robin inquired, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
The changeling seemed to ignore the implication though and answered with no change in tone, "Do you really want to know?"
The room fell silent again as the various heroes and heroines pondered what the boy had just implied.
"Normally Beast Boy I would be reluctant but okay with you keeping business to yourself, especially if your other team was involved, but since this does affect us…" The boy wonder began.
"They are dead."
Robin's eyes widened in shock that was something he hadn't been expecting to be said so bluntly, despite knowing what it was The Doom Patrol did.
"BB did you guys…"
"You know I can't answer that, I'll just say this, they have been dead for months now, which happened before our info says Adonis bought the suit."
Robin reluctantly nodded, not wanting to press the issue in front of the others.
"Alright well then at least we can rule them out as potential suspects. For now let's just take some time to wind down from the day we have been through. We can pick this up tomorrow when everyone is fresh and recovered." Robin had long since learned to tone down on the obsessive nature of his investigations. He found that all it did was cause tension in the team, and poor performance when instead by just putting in a few hours of free time it would improve the Titans effectiveness by leaps and bounds.
The Titans nodded in agreement before heading off to their own activities, with Raven following after Beast Boy.
***TRwP***
"Beast Boy could you wait up a second?"
The green teenager in question paused in his journey to turn back towards the empathy, surprisingly there wasn't any tension or animosity in his eyes, just curiosity.
"I know there has been some tension and awkwardness between us lately and I just want to apologize for my actions the other day. I'm not very good at this whole apologizing thing."
"It's okay Raven, I know you didn't mean anything by it, I was stressed out too from all the moving around and being with my old team again so I was to blame as well. Sorry if I hurt you."
The sorceress shook her head. "You didn't, I do have a question for you though."
The boy nodded, before turning his complete attention to the girl, waiting patiently as she thought about the wording.
"You mentioned dealing with Demons before, with The Doom Patrol. Did you know what I was when you first joined the Titans?"
The changeling closed his eyes, thinking back all those years ago to their first encounter.
"I had my suspicions sure, I knew you were using some form of magic and that the origin of it was something darker than what it normally is, but I also knew you weren't a demon."
"How?"
"You didn't smell like it."
"How do demons smell exactly?"
"Like sulfur, as silly as it sounds. Also they usually have a faint odor of burning flesh and smoke."
"Ah well that is interesting. So uh… how do I smell exactly?" The girl averted her eyes after muttering out her question, hoping to hide the faint blush that now adorned her face.
"Like old books and tea leaves. Of course that tends to change a bit depending on the day and your activities though…"
"Yeah…. I don't… participate in those anymore. I don't think I am welcome in them after we had our eye opening moment."
"Sorry to hear that, I know it helped to make you happy."
"I don't think it was necessarily happiness. More like just stress relief, Azar knows I have needed it, I mean used to need it back then."
If Beast Boy caught the slight slip, he didn't say anything but just nodded in agreement to her statement.
***TRwP***
Later that day Bumblebee and her team stopped by on their way back to the (Titan East?) headquarters. Robin had immediately invited them to stay for dinner.
"So Starfire, I heard you and Robin had a bit of a falling out? Any chance you are staying on the market?" Speedy inquired, waggling his eyebrows in an attempt to be seductive.
"Could you explain please? What market am I on? If it is the International Mustard Market then I am still interested yes."
The other Titans gagged silently at the thought of an entire market just designed for different kinds of mustard.
After recovering Robin glared at his counterpart, already regretting inviting them to spend time in the Tower.
Meanwhile Jinx and Bumblebee had started a slight competition on who could get more attention from their joint love interest.
"So Cyborg, have you decided when you are going to come out our way to do some upgrades?" the dark skinned female inquired, earning a slight "humph" from the pinkette.
"I'm sure you can handle upgrading your own systems by yourself, after all I can imagine you are very skilled with all kinds of electronics, especially the vibrating variety." Jinx responded to the question, as she examined her fingernails in nonchalance.
"Oh? Did you say something Jinx? I am surprised they even let you into the tower with your habit of breaking everything around you."
"Something you want to say to my face?"
"Yeah Cyborg downgraded with you, he should have stuck with the obviously superior model."
"You know what Bit…"
"LADIES! Let's not fight we are all civilized people here and heroes on top of that."
"Cyborg is right you two. You shouldn't be fighting over some guy, especially him." Aqualad chimed in, earning more glares than intended.
"What exactly is that supposed to me fish boy?" Jinx growled out, before being joined by her former adversary.
"Yeah Aqualad… what exactly are you implying, that Jinx and I don't have good taste in men?"
'How the heck did everyone turn against me so quickly…' the Atlantean nervously pondered.
"N-no of course not I was just…"
"Just what exactly?" The pinkette pressed, her face turning redder in anger every second.
"Uhh….. nothing?"
"Damn straight 'nothing'." The leader of Titans East declared before standing up and walking over to the mechanical man in question, before smashing her lips into his, earning gasps from the others in the room.
"Comeon big boy, I think I need a reminder of how amazing you are." She reached out and grabbed his hand before walking towards the door.
She almost made it to before Jinx jumped in front of her.
"EXCUSE ME!? Where the hell do you think you are taking MY boyfriend?"
"I was planning on taking him to his room before I rock his world."
"Oh you think you are so much better than me huh? That you can just waltz in here and take him back like nothing ever happened? Well I got news for you bitch it aint happenin, the only one seducing my love machine is me."
"Oh yeah? I bet you I can make him moan louder than you ever could."
"We will see about that!"
The pale girl grabbed Cyborg's free hand before helping Bumblebee drag the wide eyed, and thoroughly confused, man from the room and down the hall.
"Uh…. Did anyone else just see that or have I finally gone insane?" Speedy inquired.
"Well I guess you are staying here for the next couple of hours at least." Robin replied, before a slight chuckle interrupted him.
"Sorry Robin but unlike you my bro actually has the moves and stamina to back his attitude up. You guys will at least be here overnight, maybe even into tomorrow evening if the two girls don't kill each other." The changeling called out, before returning to the last bit of food on his plate.
The detective just grumbled out a response before continuing his own meal, ignoring the smirks he was receiving from Speedy and Aqualad.
***TRwP***
"Hey Beast Boy, do you have a minute?" Raven interrupted the teen as he was about to step into his room for the night.
"Sure Raven whatsup?"
"That thing you said earlier today about Cyborg… how are you so aware of his…."
"Natural talents? My ears aren't pointy just for show, I can hear just about everything that goes on in the Tower at any given moment. So I know exactly how both of my teammates perform. Before you say anything, as gross as that sounds it is a hundred times worse experiencing it. I basically lived in a porno for a couple of those weeks."
"Sorry…. I wouldn't say Robin was bad though…"
The laughter that Beast Boy replied with brought a small smile to the empath's face.
"Oh believe me Raven… Robin has nothing on Cyborg in the terms of physical ability. Robin is what we call 'quick on the draw'. Also most of those moans that you or Starfire made were pathetic, even as attempts to 'fake it'."
This comment brought a bright blush onto the heroines face, as she tried to hide herself into her cloak.
"A pity too, I bet I could have made you into a screamer. Oh well such is life right?"
The green toned boy took time to glance over his teammate one more time, his eyes roaming over her form, before a smile appeared on his face and he said his goodnights.
***TRwP***
Beast Boy and Robin were the first two up the next morning, with the boy wonder appearing to be in a rather sour mood for once.
The two men did a formal grunt to greet each other they sat down for some breakfast, only to be interrupted by the door opening a few minutes later.
Cyborg strolled in, a bit of 'pep' in his step as he hummed a soft tune and made his way to the fridge.
After opening it he let out a loud satisfied sigh before scanning the contents of the fridge.
The remaining boys just ignored him and kept eating.
As the mechanical began cooking a large skillet full of bacon he let out another, even louder, sigh of contentment.
Again he was ignored.
A few minutes passed when the food had finally cooked and the dark skinned man sat down, he took a large breath, preparing to let out an even bigger sigh before he was interrupted.
"We get it Cyborg you had a threesome, get over it."
But the largest man merely took on a shocked, innocent expression.
"I have no idea what you are talking about Robin. To accuse me of such a vulgar act is as unbecoming of you as a leader… I did not have a threesome… However I did make two super powered females very tired and very content over the course of three hours."
Robin just gaped like a fish.
"Wow three hours Cy? Those two must have tag teamed you if you only managed that long."
"Yeah they were a bit… insatiable. Are we sure that Jinx isn't a succubus?"
"Yeah Cy I am sure she isn't."
The larger man merely shrugged, before smirking in superiority towards his team leader and beginning his own food.
Minutes passed.
"THREE HOURS!?" Robin finally shouted in confusion.
***TRwP***
True to his guess The Titans East had not departed until much later in the afternoon, with their leader walking with a noticeable limp the entire time, along with the pinkette who took the time to see her off with far more respect than the two had shown each other the previous day.
An hour later Robin called a team meeting, "Thanks to a bit of additional research and the information that both Starfire and Beast Boy provided we were able to locate the man who constructed the armor that Adonis used. From what Raven and Jinx have said the transcriptions most likely occurred when it was being built so that means this guy either knows enough about magic to do it, or he had help."
The others nodded in understanding before he continued, "I finally managed to track him down, he is currently laying low in a town outside of Jump City, the plan is to arrest him and bring him in for interrogation, we need to get to the bottom of this and prevent any further misuse of magic."
"This could be worse than we think Robin. If this man has as much knowledge as we believe he could use magical runes to do far worse than simply shield others from my spells."
"How much worse are we talking about?"
"If he has the correct knowledge or access to it, he could potentially work towards summoning demonic creatures into our world."
The name went through everyone's mind at the same time.
'Trigon'
***A/N***
So yeah BB and Raven made up, I didn't want it turning into a dozen chapter long argument or anything and I feel that despite his change in personality Beast Boy is of the "forgive and forget" philosophy.
As for Cyborg's threesome…. Well what can I say? The poor guy doesn't get enough love in Fanfictions generally so think of this as a gift to him for what he normally doesn't get, also Robin has not suffered enough yet for my taste…. Suffer Robin suffer!
This chapter also starts the beginning of the next main 'saga' of the story. I hope it turns out as awesome as I am planning.
As always I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter, I had a hell of a lot of fun writing it.