Number 28
Standing too close when the explosion went off. Held and tortured for information for three days. Thrown across several roofs before stopping. Accidents like these were so heartbreakingly common to Beast Boy it made the other four stop for a moment.
Robin knew better than most that the Doom Patrol didn't screw around. He knew that whatever people his friend's old team took care of were people who wouldn't hesitate to kill. Robin was introduced to that glaring problem as he got older with Batman; it was in Beast Boy's face from the moment he started to fight.
They all had scars. In their line of work, it was impossible not to have any. Instead of sharing tales of funny moments on how they got them, they told tales of how lucky they were to survive them and only gain the scar.
It had taken years before Beast Boy actually said anything about how he got the marks on his body. There were dozens of them, no doubt the bulk of them coming from his days with the Doom Patrol. However, they only knew about a handful of the scars.
That left all of them reeling and wondering.
It was one thing to be secretive about something…but Beast Boy was so open about everything. If he was keeping those tales a secret from them it was for a good reason.
They didn't force the stories out; if there was one thing they learned after living together was that it was better to let Beast Boy seek you out, forcing him would make him run and set you back months.
So they waited, patiently, and eventually they got the answers to some of their questions.
The scar spanning his left shoulder was from a blast that he hadn't been able to get away from in time. The two twisting ones on his right calf were from a lynching trap that had been set for Mento and he had found it instead. Beast Boy told them he and Negative Man had similar scars on their ribs from the Brotherhood of Evil.
Beast Boy never outright told them what the stories were, but when he did tell them, they were left with more questions than answers.
There was a reason Beast Boy only took off his gloves with them; his palms had been so scarred due to torture sessions when he and others had been captured. When swimming, he kept a shirt on so no one saw all the marks on his back and stomach.
They were slowly learning the stories to go with the old faded wounds, and they would be damned if they did nothing about it.
Which was why whenever the gloves came off Starfire would be holding his hand in some form. Robin and Cyborg rubbed the scars on his back. Raven though, not for many years, would be the only one to touch each one late at night.
The stories slowly came out easier years later.
There was a large patchy scar on the side of his knee from being thrown into a pile of rocks. He hadn't shifted it time to avoid it. There were several smaller ones on his arms from flying shrapnel, but those were so faded that a person couldn't spot them unless they were looking closely at them.
There were small incisions on his stomach, cut professionally, but the only physical signs of torture sessions when Doom Patrol missions went wrong. It made the others wonder what would drive the villains in Jump city to use torture methods. They couldn't answer.
They learned to stare down people who were prone to asking insensitive questions about the marks. Strangely enough if a kid asked Beast Boy didn't lie. Sometime ago Beast Boy had told them that kids were smart enough to know when they were being lied to.
There were still many stories, and many more questions, but they were patient. With time they were certain that Beast Boy would tell them everything, and until then they would have to be satisfied with the answers and stories they got.
Later at night, and if they were having one of their many sleepovers, they would look gently at the marks, wondering about the ones that hadn't had their tales told yet, and run their fingers over them. If Beast Boy figured they did this as he slept, he never said anything.
There were still untold horrors, still plenty of nightmares, and more than once they had seen him rubbing some long faded injury.
But they weren't going to let Beast Boy brush this off. Every story was carefully cataloged, and the scars after were sought after until their friend felt comfortable enough to bring them out into the open.
Every single unknown scar.
Author's Note: School is literally kicking my ass right now...but here's an update! Soon the next chapter of The Two Littlest Titans will be posted. Read and Review minions!
