Robin shivered as he propped himself up, still holding his stomach. Raven had healed his wounds but his sorrow was just palpable, paralyzing him to this point.

Raven called out, "Robin!"

She hovered over and lowered herself to his level, placing a hand gently behind his back. His suit and cape and mask had been torn apart considerably, much worse than the time when he was haunted by Slade.

The ripped parts of the fabric hung like loose tongues. His cape was like a ragged and weathered piece of cloth. His mask was hanging loose, a humiliating white flag of surrender.

With contempt, he tore it off. He covered his face with his hands, crying softly again.

She rubbed his back comforting him. This only made him cry more.

"Robin..."

He shook his head. He wiped his face, looking away for a moment. He swallowed audibly. It felt like a spiked ball was running down his throat.

He then turned to look at Raven. She was shocked at his intense blue eyes piercing right through her. They have been darkened with sadness and anger.

"I can't believe he just... Raven, he almost killed us."

Raven only snaked her arm around his waist and helped him up on his feet. As he slowly stood up, he looked around cautiously. He glanced at the rest of his teammates who are laying across the ground. He then turned to Raven.

"You... healed us?"

She nodded. His eyes squinted at her.

"How did you..."

"I went through his mind."

While they talked she led him to Cyborg. Beast boy had messed with his systems and had even clawed at the wires. She hoped Cyborg wasn't too far gone.

"The same way you did with me when..."

He didn't even want to mention his arch-nemesis right now.

Raven said, "Um... not exactly..."

"What do you mean?" He said as he bent over to check on Cyborg's back.

"I... I gave... Robin, I gave my soul to him."

Robin stared at her, evidently awed.

"You... you can do that?"

She nodded again. She then bent down as well inspecting Cyborg's robotized back.

"Raven, did he hurt you?"

She shook her head and said flatly, "He didn't even have a chance."

As Robin grabbed a wire and retwisted it, he asked, "What do you mean?"

"I built a shield around myself and then, I went into his mind. The Joker's voice..."

Robin looked up at her this time, his eyes widening, his face wan.

"He was inside Beast boy's head. He was in complete control. So... I begged him not to hurt us, to remember who he is, that there's still hope for him, for all of us, and then, the Joker kept talking over me..."

She managed to find another wire, a red one and connected it to its proper circuitry. After villains like Gizmo kept messing with Cyborg's systems, he taught the Titans how to revitalize him if ever something like this happened in the future.

Robin found a black wire and connected to another circuit.

"Did Beast boy... did he pull through?"

Raven froze for a moment. She slowly raised her head to look at Robin, and said sorrowfully, quietly,

"He was hearing two voices at once. That, along with what he'd done, almost drove him to the edge."

"What do you mean by 'drove him to the edge'?"

Dread filled up in his heart.

Raven found another wire, a purple one and a green one. She retwisted the two together and connected it to another circuit.

"He almost killed himself, Robin," her voice was almost quiet. "He felt so much guilt for what he'd done that he thought death was his only option. Thank Azar, thank God I stopped him. He was so close, Robin, too close but I..."

A buzz and a small spark ignited the metal inside. Robin and Raven backed away. A loud hum emitted out of Cyborg. His systems turned back on.

But his human side was still unconscious.

Raven used her power of sensing to feel if there were any injuries. There were none, besides dents on his metal parts. That could only be fixed back at the Tower where there were tools he could use to repair himself.

"Raven, what did you tell him?"

She only looked down, refusing to face Robin. The sun was blocked by storm clouds.

She muttered, "I told him not to... not to do this to himself. That if he dies, we all die with him."

She hoped that was enough at least to let the question drop but Robin was persistent.

"But... you've never given up your soul to someone. Not even me. Have you... did you ever do that before?"

She shook her head. She really didn't want to tell him more about the encounter, about how she had to reaffirm her love to Beast boy, how she couldn't hide it anymore.

Then, an epiphany:

'If I keep hiding the way he'd done, it won't end well for me. For us.'

She took a deep breath and said in a slow, even voice,

"I love him, Robin. I fell in love with him. And I told him... he is the heart of this team, the glue that keeps us all together and that if he breaks apart, then we all follow. And if he dies, I—"

She felt her voice break. It still haunted her, how deathly close he was to making a desperate choice.

"I won't live with myself, Robin."

The whole time Robin looked on, compassionately. Ever since he and Starfire became a couple, his own level of empathy and understanding had grown considerably. He understood completely what Raven said.

But he needed to bury his feelings of sympathy for a bit to find out more. He gently placed a hand in Raven's shoulder, and said,

"I understand. But you have to tell me, Raven: anything else that happened?"

She nodded covering her face with her hands. She said her hands muffling her voice,

"He was captured. His last word to me was 'Help,' and then I couldn't communicate through his mind anymore."

This caused Robin to stiffen. He dropped his hand from Raven's shoulder and clenched his fists. If he despised the Joker before, he was now hell-bent on murdering the bastard.

He stood up, quickly, and went to Starfire. He gently shook her awake. She slowly opened her eyes. Robin lifted her head carefully.

"Star..." He tucked a strand of orange-reddish hair behind her ear.

This small act of kindness seemed to break something within the Tamaranian as her eyes watered and she started remembering the events that unfolded just an hour or so before. She buried her face into Robin's shoulder, crying audibly. He only held her tightly, whispering words of comfort, knowing full well with what had just happened there really was no comfort to give.

Raven, meanwhile, levitated over to Batman and shook him awake. The Dark Knight slowly opened his eyes and looked around. As she kept calling his name gently, he lifted himself up to his knees, and in spite of being healed, could still remember the fulll force of the blast from Cyborg's cannon.

"Batman..."

"Where's Robin?"

She pointed and Batman followed her line of sight. He saw Robin comforting Starfire as she cried. He shook his head, draping his black cape over himself.

"Such a shame."

"What is?" Raven was confused.

"I thought Beast boy... I thought he'd never—"

"The Joker was in his head."

Batman looked down at her.

"What?"

She nodded as she hovered over to Cyborg. Batman followed along.

"I don't know how the Joker did it. Maybe the probes still inside Beast boy. Maybe the collar. I don't know. But that lunatic has the power now to creep inside his mind."

"To tell him what to do?"

"No..." Raven said almost gasping it out. "It's worse than that."

Batman suddenly understood. His fights with the Joker always led to this spar between two different ways of viewing the world.

"He wants the boy to accept his philosophy."

Raven nodded, "He kept telling him the only way to be free was to—"

"Kill the self. I know. I hear it all the time. It's a pile of crap if you ask me."

As they spoke, Cyborg suddenly jolted to life. His left arm mechanized immediately into a cannon and he started aiming randomly. His face was a grimace, full of fear and sorrow.

"Cyborg!" Shouted Robin. "Wait!"

He and Starfire rushed to his side.

Raven and Batman tried to stop him but he shot at the trees in front of him, letting out a blood-curdling yell.

He had bended down to his knees at this point, sobbing violently, his fists beating the earth beneath him. Raven kindly placed her hands in his broad shoulders, his turmoil transferring through her.

"Man..."

He managed to blurt out.

"All I said was "little grass stain" and he just... he blew up on me. He could've—"

"We know," Robin said. The bionic teen looked up, his sadness disappearing into shock. For a moment his sorrow passed as he saw the Boy Wonder without his mask on.

"Uhh... Robin..."

He mimicked a mask on to help him get the message. Batman looked at Robin, a little angry he allowed his identity to be blown, but decided to stifle it.

Robin only held his hand up.

"It's ok. I know. I mean... I trust you guys won't—"

Cyborg nodded. He stood up, shaking Raven's hands gently off of him.

"I just can't believe out of all the people we fought, it was BB who almost—"

"Raven stopped him before he could continue."

Besides Robin, everybody turned to look at Raven in awe. Needless to say, she felt awkward about being gawked at by her own teammates about this. She lifted her hood up, hiding a blush crossing her face.

"You did? How?"

Cyborg couldn't help but feel indebted to her for this. Raven was hesitant about talking but Robin, thankfully, spoke up for her.

"The Joker's inside Beast boy's head. He keeps him under his power by claiming if he wants to be liberated, then he has to—"

"Embrace him."

Batman by this point was bending down, glaring at boot prints. Prankster's boot prints. They were leading off into the woods. Batman continued.

"I believe Beast boy was just broken , mentally and emotionally, by the Joker, so badly, it got to the point of where even his mind was out of bounds."

Raven nodded, and said,

"I went into his mind. I had to talk over the Joker just to help him realize he can stop this, he can redeem himself."

"Did that not prove too much for him?" Starfire asked. "Hearing you and this Joker speaking all at once?"

"Yeah! I think I'd go insane if somethin' like that happened!"

"He almost did," Robin said. "He almost—"

"Killed himself."

This caused all of them, expect Robin, to perk up, shocked at what Raven has just said.

"No... not our BB..."

Cyborg hung his head in his hands. Starfire only looked on, her grief as tangible as the storm clouds above.

Raven shook her head and said, "I stopped him from doing so."

"How?" Batman's said gravely.

"I..."

Robin answered for her again,

"She used her soul-self to get through him."

"The same way she did when you saw Slade?"

Even though it's been a while, hearing his name said from Cyborg still made Robin's heart beat furiously and his rage broil over. But he kept his feelings subdued.

"No. She only went through my mind. Raven said she—"

"I gave my soul to him."

They all looked quizzically at her while Robin and Batman remained stoic.

"I told him he means so much to us and that if he were gone, we'd never recover from his loss. I—"

Starfire suddenly understood what this was about somehow. She recalled the conversation she had with Raven, how she confessed her love for Beast boy. She blurted out, her excitement too much for her to contain,

"Please! Tell us!"

Raven could hear her thoughts say, 'It is time. Confess, friend! Tell all!'

Bombshells are incomparable to what Raven was about to say,

"I gave up my soul to him because I love him. I reminded him of my love to him and that if he died, I'd die along with him."

Robin and Batman couldn't help but smile a little. Starfire and Cyborg were cheering.

"Boo-ya!!! About time, girl!"

"Yes! Yes!" She has flown over to Raven and have her one of her spine-wrecking hugs. "Love truly does conquer all!"

"Thanks, Star..." Raven croaked out. Thankfully Starfire let go, giggling a little. But the joy receded once Batman asked,

"Is he coming back?"

Robin immediately said,

"He's been recaptured."

Their faces full of elation fell and they all turned to Robin, concern over their eyes.

"Raven spent her time healing all of us. You were communicating with him when—"

"It was interrupted and then... I heard his last words. He said he was being taken and was begging for help."

"Then we gotta get movin' man! We can't waste anymore time! We—"

"Have to fix you up."

Robin pointed at the dents caused by Beast boy's fists. Cyborg looked down at the damage. That lash of sadness struck him again. He only nodded, his hope seeming to deflate once more.

"We need to get back at the Tower. Fix ourselves up. Restructure our plans. Start looking underground. I swear we will find Beast boy."

He ran pass them shouting,

"Titans, MOVE!"

As they did so, drops of rain fell down amongst them. They raced to their cars, which thankfully, haven't been damaged from the collapse. As they drive back to the Tower, a shower fell upon the city, thunder rolled and the sky, just recently painted red and yellow and pink, had receded to dark gray.