(RAVEN'S PERSPECTIVE)
'Skipping a mission, acting distant, and having a panic attack isn't nothing.'
I blankly flipped the pages of my novel. I wasn't absorbing any words. My mind kept wandering to the whir of electricity and the buzz of light bulbs.
Pop.
I wish I was able to explain to Beastboy the sound in my head. It wasn't the exciting pop of popcorn in a microwave. It wasn't the short lived pop of a balloon. It certainly wasn't the popping of corks or bubble wrapper. Or the joyful pop of 'Pop goes the weasel'.
It was a lethal pop.
It watered me down to someone I only knew in private. Someone who was afraid to live and afraid to die. Now that person was becoming public and visible to my friends and to the world.
The sound echoed and lingered in my ears, getting louder with every day.
Just three letters.
Now it's been about month after the attack and those three letters dominated me. They knew what triggered my growing anxiety. They knew how to put me at a halt when I finally found confidence. They knew how to turn my appetite down and increase my sleepless nights.
I was now a hero living in fear.
A hero living in fear.
I thought of how excited the server at Swirl and Scoop was to see all of us.
Excited for a coward.
I blinked and peeked at my hands. The book was trembling in them. My fingertips, back, and neck were damp with sweat.
My tongue felt heavy and my muscles hardened.
Come on Raven.
Hold it together.
Look at yourself now.
Useless.
Anxious.
Stuck.
My lungs and throat began to work against me.
I'm suffocating.
Why can't I breathe?
Make it stop.
Air became my enemy.
Pressure crushed on my airways and confined me into a box of helplessness.
My heartbeat picked up speed as if it were a car on a highway. Zipping through the road and breaking the speed limit.
Am I going to make it?
Am I going to survive this one?
I barely survived the last one, and I had a whole crowd of people with me.
I'm not going to make it.
It's not going to stop.
I shut my eyes and let out a choked wheeze.
A dizzy spell struck me out of nowhere and my stomach began to crunch.
Pop.
Pop.
That's all you can think of.
There's people that actually get shot or even die and here you are crying over a sound.
You're lucky you even have superpowers to give you a chance to live.
"Stop, st-stop, stop, please... " I began to cry.
I can't think properly.
I'm losing my mind.
The objects in my room blurred and distorted.
I'm losing control.
My internal battle vacuumed me into a deeper pool of thought.
I'm losing myself.
"I... have to get out of h-ere." I kept my hand close to my chest and stumbled out of my bed.
Stay here.
You don't want to ruin something else because of a panic attack, do you?
Nobody wants to see you crying or deal with your crap.
Nobody wants to sit here and baby an emotional wreck.
Pop.
My eyes were fixed on the door but I saw a metal gun instead.
Pop.
The finger on the trigger.
The silver bullet.
The smoke.
Me.
I trudged out of my room.
I could hear video games in the Common Room, Robin punching bags in the Combat Room, and Starfire cooing with Silkie in her room.
I needed to go somewhere quiet.
Not too far from the Tower but close enough to it.
I let out several more huffs and wiped away my tears.
Within a short two minutes I was sitting at the riverbank. The water surrounding the Tower moved in peaceful undulations of waves. The breeze ruffled through my violet tresses. I could hear the city in the distance, but that seemed to calm me too.
"I was looking for ya." Beastboy said softly.
"Why?"
He sat down next to me.
"Just to see how you were feelin'." Beastboy picked up a stone tossed it on the water.
It skipped about nine splashes and then sank.
"I'm fine." I curled my legs up to my chest.
"We both know that's not true." He threw another stone.
It did seven skips then sank.
The splashes translated into pops in my head.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Hot tears bubbled in my eyes.
He flung another stone.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
"Please, stop." I said through clenched teeth.
"Oh. Okay then." Beastboy ceased his activity.
"Am I bothering you?"
"Yes." I answered.
"Alright. I'll give you some space." he began to get up.
"Can you stay with me?"
"What? Why do you want me to stay if I bother you?"
You wouldn't understand.
I want to be alone, but alone with you.
"Please, Beastboy." I shuddered in the face of a fresh draft.
He quietly sat down next to me again.
"I had a panic attack today." I admitted faintly, staring out into the distance.
"Really? How many of them have you had so far?"
"Too many and counting." I rasped.
"Mm. What do you do to cope?"
"Uh... nothing really. It comes and it goes. I know when it's coming. It's scary. It felt like it had no end. I feel like I can't breathe. I sweat, I shake, my heart races. It's unbearable. I feel like I'm losing control of everything. I hate that. Usually I have my emotions under control. I condition them to be like that so I can function better. But whatever this is... it's really messing me up and I don't know how to handle it. When it stops, all that's on my mind is to avoid having a panic attack over a panic attack. I try to read, meditate... do things that calm me. Nothing seems to work." I shrugged.
"Oof. Sometimes when trauma or tragedy happens, things we do change. Because our lives change. Something that would have worked before an incident may not work after. The task may need a little more energy and time put into it. Some refinement. At times... you may even lose that thing that keeps you grounded, and need help rediscovering it. When you find your stronghold again, it comes back in a new light. It has been beat up in the dark. It comes out wiser, bigger, better, and stronger. Just like you will." Beastboy's unkempt hair danced in the wind.
"You're always here when I need you most.
Thank you for that." I muttered timidly.
"No problem. I'm your friend and that's what friends do, right?"
"Mhm..."
"Rae— I mean... Raven?" Beastboy stammered.
"It's okay, you can call me that."
"Good 'cuz I like it better."
"What are you trying to say? You don't like my real name?" I shot him a glare.
"NO! No, no, noooooo, you've got it all wrong. I do. I just like nicknames, yah know? Like how Starfire is 'Star' and Cyborg is 'Cy'. And Robin's just... 'Robin'." he rambled defensively.
"Shut up, Beastboy." I smiled and looked back out at the water.
"Aha, that's the Raven I know." he laughed elatedly.
"Beastboy..."
"Yeah, Rae?" I felt him gaze on me.
"Please don't tell anyone about any of this. The thing with the gun. Please. This is our secret."
The shapeshifter held out his pinkie finger.
"I won't, I promise." he gave a cheesy smile.
"We still do this? We are teenagers, Beastboy." I rolled my eyes.
"Hurry up or else the pinkie swear will fade." the changeling rushed youthfully.
"Ughhh, for the love of Azarath." I wrapped my silver pinky around Beastboy's gloved one.
"You promise?"
"I promise. You can trust me with anything."
A blush rushed through my cheeks as his stricken green eyes laid on mine.
"Thank you." I let go and shyly tucked my hair behind my ears.
"See. Even the sun has to wrestle its way through the clouds." Beastboy said as a cloud moved over the sun.
"But there's one day that will come and there won't be a cloud in the sky. We just have to fight for it." my mouth turned upwards.
"One day." he beamed back at me.
And that was the moment where I realized, Beastboy was my sun on a cloudy day.