A/N: This oneshot is 1) based on the phrase 'to call a spade a spade' which means to call something what it is instead of pretending it is something else and 2) is a sort-of deleted scene from the episode Spellbound. Let's pretend there was a little time before Raven showed off her new white clothes to the other Titans and Malchoir proved what a great, big asshole he was, because that is where this oneshot would fit. In case you haven't seen the episode, Raven uses some of the dark magic Malchoir taught her to change Beast Boy's form as a way of letting him know she did not appreciate him sneaking around her room. I agree that she should have been annoyed—but using her powers to manipulate his was completely uncalled for. It's a little dramatic but in BB's shoes, I think I'd be pretty upset, too.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Titans.

050. Spade

He was shaking, which would have surprised him had he been able to focus clearly on anything except the retreating white cloak before him. Or maybe it wouldn't have surprised him—after all, Beast Boy couldn't remember feeling like this about any of his teammates before.

Actually, he couldn't remember ever being this…he didn't know a word to describe this feeling but it was somewhere beyond anger and fury, and it made him feel sick with its intensity and heat. Knowing he was on the edge of exploding, he was dimly aware of the fact that he would probably regret this later but at the moment, later didn't matter much to Beast Boy. No one had ever pushed him this far before, which was kind of ironic as he was usually the one pushing her. She was typically the one who was mad at him, and even when she did do something he didn't like, the most he could do was be frustrated. She never did anything to produce the kind of rage he was feeling right now.

Of course, she had never done anything like this to him either.

"RAVEN!" The ferocity in his voice made the small lucid part of him quiver.

"I'm busy, Beast Boy," Raven said. She didn't turn around when she spoke and even though her tone was pleasant, it carried a warning not to disturb her.

Beast Boy didn't care, and the fact that the way he sounded—because he knew he had never spoken to her like that before—did not even make her pause only made the inferno in his veins burn hotter. She was only a few steps ahead of him so he caught up easily and grabbed her wrist to turn her around. "Don't you ever do that again!"

"Do what again?" she asked in genuine confusion. With a frown, she pulled her wrist away from him. "And don't touch me."

"Change me!" Beast Boy growled, ignoring her comment. Raven stared at him in surprise, and that only infuriated him more. How dare she act like she had not expected this reaction? How dare she act like she had not known this would upset him, like it was a perfectly acceptable thing for her to do? "Those are my powers, Raven! What gives you the right to mess around with them?"

The shock faded from her gaze, and violet eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "What gives you the right to snoop around in my room?"

"That's a completely different thing! I was worried about you! I wanted to make sure you were okay!"

"So you violate my privacy?" Raven asked coldly. "How chivalrous of you."

"I violated your privacy?" the changeling repeated incredulously. His face twisted into a snarl. "You took control of my body and manipulated my powers without my consent—that's the worst kind of violation, Raven! I'm not your frigging toy, and I'm not something to experiment with! I'm a person!"

"I know you're a person!"

"Then treat me like one, dammit! For once, treat me like you care about what happens to me! Treat me like we're actually friends instead of—" He stopped, and even though she gave him a moment to continue, he could not finish his statement. He finally wanted to call their relationship what it was, and he realized he didn't know any words to describe it. Or rather, he did—but he had never thought any of those words would ever describe them.

A flicker of confusion showed on the Azarathian's stoic expression, and when she spoke again, her voice carried a hint of uncertainty that she tried to hide through defensiveness. "Don't play the victim here, Beast Boy. You've toyed with my powers before. Remember the first time you broke into my room?"

"That was an accident, and you know I wasn't trying to hurt you or use you. I would never do that to you." The heat was fading away from him but the feeling replacing it was much hollower, albeit just as nameless. He almost would have preferred the intensity of the last emotion to the raw emptiness filling him now. "And…I didn't think you'd ever do it to me."

There was a pause after that, as if neither of them were completely sure of what to do next. From Raven's wide-eyed expression, Beast Boy was sure she didn't know what to say to him.

And he was finding that he didn't really want to hear anything she had to say.

It was after a full minute of waiting for Beast Boy to break the chilling silence that Raven realized he wasn't going to. This time when she spoke to him, there was no mistaking the insecurity in her voice. "I…was just trying to teach you a lesson. I didn't know it would upset you."

Beast Boy stared at her, thinking that he should have felt better. That was the closest Raven had ever come to apologizing to him for anything.

He did not feel better.

"You should have," the changeling told her, and when it grew quiet between them again, Beast Boy was certain he did not want to hear anything else from her, which was funny in a kind of painful way, because she seemed to be searching for something else to tell him. Instead of waiting, though, Beast Boy simply turned and went back toward the common room. She wasn't going to follow him, he knew.

And, oddly enough, that was the hardest part about it all—knowing that when he walked away, she would not run after him.

Later, he would probably blame himself for everything but at the moment, the changeling thought that it had all been doomed from the beginning. Their first few months of knowing each other had not turned out well—he had been too eager to please and she hadn't been ready for the attention—and that was probably why everything that followed went wrong, too. Their fights, and the way those fights usually stemmed from his immaturity and her holier-than-thou complex. How she wanted to be left alone and how he could never do that to her. All the times she couldn't take a joke and he couldn't stop making them. The fact that she was never the first to apologize after an argument and he was always willing to do anything to gain her forgiveness, the fact that he was certain she meant every insult she'd ever thrown at him and he'd never wanted to hurt her.

He would have run after her. He would apologize to her. He would have tried to make her laugh. He would have been and had always been there for her no matter what. He would do just about anything for her.

Beast Boy knew Raven wouldn't do the same for him.

And he was tired of pretending that was someday going to change.