A wholesome card game up ahead
Enjoy!
After the incident, Danny withdrew slightly from the Titans, partly because of embarrassment, and partly out of fear of having another incident. Even Beast Boy was at the receiving end of the silence and shrugging others off. Not that it stopped him from trying to talk to Danny.
Danny kept his eyes glued to a page of a book he'd already reread in hopes of getting Beast Boy to leave him alone. Either Beast Boy didn't notice or didn't care because he kept talking. At this point Beast Boy was talking about a time he'd thrown a paper ball and it ended up falling in Raven's tea.
Danny thought to himself. He turned the page and pretended to read some more.
"What's the most boring game you've ever played?" Beast Boy asked. Danny stopped his pretend-reading to make up an answer.
"Go Fish." After a few moments, he added "you?"
"Scrabble." Danny couldn't help himself; he chuckled.
"Go Fish is more fun to you than Scrabble." Beast Boy huffed and dramatically clasped his chest. "I'm not judging," Danny said, and Beast Boy gave him a disbelieving look. "Okay, so I might be judging a little."
"Go Fish doesn't need you to think of all these big words," Beast Boy said finally." Danny nodded.
"It's also really slow."
"And Scrabble isn't?"
"You have a point." Danny put the book down and Beast Boy smiled widely. Danny gave his own small smile back. As much as he hated to admit it, Beast Boy's smile was contagious. Beast Boy looked on in deep thought.
"We're playing Uno tonight," he said finally. "You wanna join? You can be my 'plus-one' or whatever it's called." Danny twiddled his hands uneasily.
"I don't really…" Danny began, but upon seeing Beast Boy's face fall, added "want to play. Can I just watch?" Beat Boy's smile returned.
"Absolutely!" Danny flinched and Beast Boy apologized. "Right, you don't like yelling. Sorry about that, dude." Danny waved off the apology with a small "it's okay". "So, at around six you can come or a little later if you want to. We could go together." Danny nodded.
"I'd like that." And with that, Beast Boy left the room humming happily to himself. Danny processed the conversation. "He's like a salesman," he muttered to himself. "Persuasive."
A little after six, Danny zipped up his hoodie and grabbed the book he needed to return to Raven and crept out into the Titan's living room. They had already dealt cards, and a feeling of dread and embarrassment rose in Danny's chest. He pushed it aside to lean over the couch and look at the team playing on the floor.
Raven was off to the side somewhat, taking sips of tea between turns and giving him a glance before looking back at the game. Not a single look or comment, which relaxed Danny.
He slowly moved to sit on the couch, and a small muscle shift from Robin told him Robin noticed him.
"Pick two, Beast Boy," Cyborg announced victoriously as he laid a "plus two" card onto the pile. Beast Boy pouted and Danny leaned forward to look at Beast Boy's cards. Everyone else had the seven, but Beast Boy was unfortunate to have twelve cards. Starfire looked at Beast Boy, and then past Beast Boy and onto Danny. A deep inhale marked she was about to speak really excitedly, and Danny tensed.
"Friend! Have you come to join our game of cards?" Starfire's voice dripped with excitement, and Danny smiled nervously.
"N-no, just w-watching," he said. Or at least he thought he did. He couldn't hear much over his heart racing.
"Danny," Beast Boy whined, "I need help." Danny rolled his eyes good-naturedly before shrugging.
"I can't help you, buddy."
"But I need backup." Danny sighed and slipped down to join the team on the floor. A ghost of a smile passed Raven's face for a split second before returning to her stoic expression.
"Well," Danny began, taking Beast Boy's cards and rearranging them by color, "you can lay this card down," he pointed to the "cancel turn" card, "and then save these" the wild cards "for when you need to use some of those cards." Beast Boy placed down the cancel card and Robin shuffled his cards in his hand. He and Danny glanced at each other, an unspoken challenge on who was a better strategist in this Uno game.
The game lasted a while, and at some point Beast Boy left to get some water and then sat down without playing, letting Danny take over. Raven had taken the book from Danny and put it back in her room before cominc back, never picking her cards back up. She sat at the table watching the game. At this point, Cyborg had four cards, Starfire had two, Robin had three, and Danny had two. Starfire laid down her card.
"You didn't say 'uno,'" Cyborg said. "You need to pick up a card." He looked at his cards. "Pass," he said, looking at his cards and frowning. Danny laid down a "plus two" card.
"Uno," he said and watched Rabin put down a "cancel turn". Starfire pouted. Cyborg looked at his cards hopelessly again.
"Pass," he said again.
Danny laid his last card down. Beast Boy cheered.
"We won! We did it, Danny!" Danny covered his ear and smiled nervously. Beast Boy held a fist in the air and smiled back. At the lack of movement from Danny, he said "fist bump?" And Danny bemusedly put his fist to Beast Boy's. They laughed.
"We won!" Danny echoed. Robin tapped his shoulded and shook his hand.
"Good job. Can we talk tomorrow?" Danny swallowed back the unease in his chest and nodded. "Nothing bad," Robin added, and Danny relaxed visibly. Beast Boy went in for another fist bump and the a high five and Danny smiled wide.
"I'll get us some chips to celebrate," he said, and Danny glanced at Cyborg, who nodded. Danny stood up and stretched, joyfully following the Titans to the kitchen and Beast Boy to the chips.
He was having fun.
Thank you ChaoticMinds for the suggestions, and ShiraYukiShadow for your suggestion from several chapters ago. It's thanks to you that the chapter is what it is.
I hope the story is going well so far, feel free to review/follow/favorite and tell me your opinions so far!
Love y'all!