Upon returning to the tower, Raven made a decision. And then she realised that she probably was about to have a lot of work to do.
"Cyborg," she said, as the rest of the team trailed into the rec. room. Beast Boy headed for the kitchen, she idly noted.
The older teen turned around. "Yeah?" He said, sounding a little surprised.
"We need to talk about training." Straight to the point, as always. Raven hung back by the elevator door as she waited, and absently wondered if she'd ever master the business of small talk.
Cyborg swivelled completely. "Training?" He said.
"Yes," said Raven. "I require your knowledge and assistance in devising a training routine that will make, me, at least, slightly more useful…" and only because Cyborg had known her so long did he catch, what counted for Raven as, her screwing up her face, "… than this."
He eyed her for a moment, and seemed to be considering. Raven waited somewhat patiently.
"You're serious?" He asked, after a moment.
Raven wondered whether he'd meant that to sound more rhetorical than it had.
"Yes," she said, in a flat tone.
"How serious?"
The reply annoyed her briefly. Automatically, she worked out the route of the annoyance, and told herself that other people couldn't be expected to always catch on to what should be obvious, to make the dangerous feeling go away. It also annoyed her that she wasn't going to be able to answer his question properly anyway, because she didn't know what kind of answer he wanted that would get her level of seriousness across. She sighed mentally, and told herself not to wish for specifics, and to learn more about human psychology, and to go meditate later. Then she remembered again about her powers not even being there to meditate on, and… did not feel like kicking something, because she was winding herself up pointlessly, and it was just a useless feeling that was escalating and…
"How serious do you think?" Deadpan. Good save.
Cyborg, for some reason, looked suddenly pleased.
"Serious about what?" Beast Boy had come back from the kitchen, and had a diet soda in hand.
"I think we should call a meeting," Cyborg said.
TTTTTTTTT
"So, Raven, this was your idea?" Asked Robin.
The Titans were all sat around the small table that sat in the centre of the meeting room.
"Yes," she said.
"Well, it's a good idea," said Robin, scratching at his neck absently, "but are you sure you want to do this? Unless you're naturally gifted or something, you're not going to get the fast results I think you're expecting."
Raven didn't speak. She wasn't expecting fast results, actually. She was doing this to make herself at least more useful. And, if she was honest, she was doing this because she couldn't meditate, she didn't have powers to exercise, and she wasn't going to be saving the city or doing the obstacle course anytime soon. She wanted something productive to do. She was not going to leave Robin and Cyborg as the two most useful of the five.
Was that a competitive streak?
Ha. Maybe. Raven smirked to herself.
"So wait," said Beast Boy. "Is this just Raven, or are all of us supposed to be doing this?"
"Well, I for one am gonna be spending a lot more time in the gym," said Cyborg, stretching his arms out in front of himself in a leisurely fashion. "And it might not be such a bad idea for you and Star to get a bit more…" he searched for the word.
"Able-bodied?" Robin supplied, helpfully.
"Yeah," said Cyborg, nodding.
"What is able bodied?" Asked Starfire, speaking for the first time. She looked around from underneath her red bangs. Raven wanted to frown at it, because it looked wrong. But she didn't.
"Being fit enough to run three blocks after a villain, and still have the energy to take 'em down with your bare fists at the end of it," said Cyborg. Robin raised a masked eyebrow at the explanation. Starfire looked as though she was having some difficulty thinking about that. Cyborg elaborated. "Robin is the most able bodied human in this room," he said, trying to use the example. Star usually got Robin related explanations.
The ex-alien pondered a second more, and then beamed. "Oh, I see!" she said. "Yes, I agree with you Cyborg. It would not be a bad idea for myself and Beast Boy to become more able bodied."
"But guys," piped up Beast Boy, suddenly. "We probably won't be… like this, for long enough for training that much to have any real point in the end."
"I disagree," interjected Raven. "We have no idea how long these effects will continue for, nor do we know when they will reverse. So, it would be a good idea if we made the most of what we've got, and prepare for the worst."
Beast Boy blinked. "What's the worst?" He said.
Raven studied his face for a second. "The worst," she said, "is where we remain human indefinitely, never getting our powers back."
Beast Boy looked ferociously angry, and then appeared to be about to jump out of his chair, and then fleetingly, Raven wondered if he was going to run out of the room or do something spontaneous and equally as… well, daft.
"That's not gonna happen," he actually said, with a little more force than necessary.
"You don't know that," she pointed out, smoothly.
She had expected her comment to end the mini discussion, but Beast Boy surprised her by leaning forwards on his hands and glowering at her.
"Yes I do," he said, loudly.
"Beast Boy," said Robin, suddenly. "Calm down, okay? We'll fix this. But for now, Raven's right, we have to prepare for anything. That includes the reversal of your… powers, and stuff, in the next five minutes, as well as staying human for any length of time."
Raven wondered what was going through the ex-changelings head right then. She didn't want to look as though she was looking at him, so she observed his body language out of the corner of her eye. This proved surprisingly difficult to her, and then it occurred to her that maybe, she'd just discovered another aspect her half demonic heritage had granted her. Eyesight, huh. She decided to abandon deciphering Beast Boy for the moment, concentrate on the meeting, and then maybe pick up later.
Annoying as he could be… she didn't like him like this, and didn't plan to allow it to carry on much longer. It made her worry. Worry was an emotion that could easily get out of hand, and was irrational if she couldn't do anything about it. In this case, she could do something about it, and therefore, Beast Boy appeared to be in mental distress, and she was going to find out what was wrong and do her best to set it right. Right.
"So I vote we start this as soon as possible," said Cyborg, changing the subject slightly. "If we're gonna get the most use out of these bodies…"
"Right," said Robin. "Okay, how are we going to do this?"
"I can write up a training schedule," said Cyborg. He eyed Robin for a moment. "And you can help," he added, "since you do all this anyway."
"Technically, you were the athlete," said Robin, grinning. "But it will be fun to draw up a routine for all of us."
Raven ground her teeth. This wasn't for fun. Even if endorphins should come in bottles… or did they? She thought of her jaw line, and stopped grinding her teeth. Just because I can't have fun…
Self-pitying thoughts never got anyone anywhere.
"Are we done?" Said Beast Boy, somewhat unexpectedly. Raven took the excuse to look at him. He was a little hunched, and his face was set. He had been clenching his jaw, maybe. The fixedness of the skin around his eyes betrayed that he was less than pleased with something. The fact that he had spoken so abruptly, and was seeking to leave, was also betraying that he was certainly not pleased with something.
It was either that, or he had somewhere better to be.
Raven mentally checked off. Kitchen, sofa, his room. Nope, he was probably annoyed at something in here.
"Uh… yeah," said Robin, sounding a bit surprised. "If you have somewhere else to be…"
Beast Boy stood up. Raven watched him leave the meeting room. Then she stood up, and decided to follow him.
"You off too?" Said Cyborg, not sounding half as surprised. Raven found herself giving him an explanation.
"I'm going to see what's up with him," she said, him obviously a reference to Beast Boy.
"'Kay." He somehow made the one syllable mean "Good luck with that… catch you later." Hmm.
She could hear him grinning at her as she left the room. She didn't know how, because she couldn't hear Robin or Starfires facial expressions. She decided that she was making things up, and amusedly slapped her mental self.
She found herself facing an empty corridor as she shut the door, and as she could (once again to her annoyance) no longer… sense where he was… for lack of a better word, she was going to have to take her best guess, and then take the elevator.
Raven blinked. The elevator. She hurried over to it and pressed the button. The doors slid open smoothly, and she stepped in, and racked her brains trying to remember how to do this.
Running a hand down the side of the panel you would expect the emergency phone to be on, she waited until her fingers found a slight bump in the metal. She poked it, hard, and it clicked open. She let the miniature door swing open, and then eyed the small computer screen and keypad beneath.
'72836'. She keyed in her personal key code, that worked on most things in the tower, and the screen lit up a dull green, and displayed a box. She thought for a moment, mentally separating the numbers into groups of three, and the last group, of four. Then she typed '527835667'.
The computer screen fuzzed for a second, and then went back to its empty box display. However, the –2- on the button panel above lit up, and the doors slid closed.
Raven blinked, and was momentarily proud of herself. Then she gently pushed the miniature door shut again, and heard it click as the doors slid open again. Raven stepped out of the elevator, and looked around.
She was in the hallway that made up the entrance to the tower. She padded along the stone floor, passing a couple of benches, and looking around for anything that resembled a Beast Boy.
…No, actually, she only needed to look for Beast Boy, as he wouldn't be turning into any animals right now.
She breathed heavily through her nose, and refreshed her lungs. Then she reached the end of the hall.
That meant he was outside. But that was okay, because he couldn't fly. He couldn't have gone anywhere. Raven was rather chuffed at herself. Not only because she now knew where Beast Boy was, but also because she'd used entirely human methods to locate him, and because that meant that she was not entirely helpless without her extra, non-human… senses.
She pushed the front door open, and was assaulted with the dying evening light, reflected triple off the seas surface. Briefly, she considered how nice the sea looked in the red and yellow and orange colours, and idly thought about swimming. She missed the thought though, and didn't get around to telling herself off for it.
She saw Beast Boy sat on a large rock, just around the corner, his legs hanging off the edge. He was looking at her.
Oh.
"You're not as quiet anymore," commented the green haired boy. "I heard you coming a mile off. And I can't even hear any good," he finished, turning to look back at the sea.
Raven thought for a moment, and then walked up to him. She lowered herself onto the rock, and sat cross-legged, so that she was facing the same way she was. She went through a few ways she could start the conversation in her head, and then decided that the best approach would not be very subtle, but it wouldn't be overly emotional or anxious. Not that anything she ended up saying would ever come across as overly emotional or anxious.
"What's up with you?" Asked Beast Boy, taking her trail of thought off balance. He picked up a stone, and threw it at the sea. For a second, he looked a little wistful, but then it passed, and he went back to looking moody.
"…What?" Raven replied, managing to make the word sound eloquent all the same.
"I said, what's up with you," He repeated, picking up another, bigger stone to throw.
Raven smacked herself mentally for the second time in five minutes, this time for not being capable enough to converse at a level of minor intelligence.
"I was going to ask you the same thing," she replied, her eyes following the stone as it bounced over the calm water, and then sank.
"…Oh." He said. "I should've figured that was all you came out here for."
Raven blinked at him. That comment, she really didn't understand.
"And by that you mean…?" She said, putting some of her weight on her hands at her sides.
Beast Boy was quiet for a minute, and then he picked up a rock that was what Raven considered about three times the size of something likely to bounce. "Forget it," he said, at length. He threw the rock at the water, and it dropped with a 'plop' sound.
He looked moody. Raven felt like rolling her eyes. She decided that that would probably not get out of him what was wrong.
"Is something wrong?" She tried a different tack.
Beast Boy gave up throwing rocks, and started kicking his feet against the rock they were sat on.
"Why would something be wrong," he asked, though it sounded more like a retort.
Be patient, Raven told herself. If you get this out of him, it'll be an achievement. Treat it like… an animal that you're trying to coax into doing something. Maybe like a cat. Cats are hard to keep up with, and they like to do what they want.
"Well for a start, you've been moody ever since I told you that the worst case scenario would involve us staying human indefinitely." Yes, that would've worked on a cat. Raven rolled her eyes, at herself. In her head, of course.
"I have not been moody," was the response she got.
She sighed, outwardly, hoping it would help. "Beast Boy…" she started, looking at him. He was still kicking his feet against the rock, staring at the sea. "Something is obviously bugging you."
The rock received an extra hard kick. Had that been a bad thing to say?
"What do you care?" Exclaimed the younger titan, suddenly. "Seriously Raven, if I'm in trouble or something? Then get it over with and tell me. But quit acting like you actually care whether something's freaking me out or not, because you very obviously don't."
Raven didn't speak for a second. She blinked out at the sea, and watched the colours flicker as the sun began to speed in it's journey to the bottom of the water.
"If that's what you think," she said, hoping that it hadn't come out as toneless as she'd heard it. And then she told herself off, because hope was pointless and irrational for situations like this.
"… It's not," said Beast Boy, considerably quieter. The kicking stopped. "I'm sorry," he said looking at his knees.
Raven blinked. Mood swings much?
Looking at him, she thought that he looked younger that he usually managed. It was the skin tone, she decided. Or possibly the approaching twilight playing tricks.
"It's okay," she told him. "So do you feel like telling me what's going on with you?"
"Umm… no," he said, "not really."
Raven pulled a certain face at him. He blinked at her.
"I mean," he said, "yes, that sounds like fun." He narrowed his eyes and wrinkled his nose at her in pretend annoyance, and Raven was marginally pleased to see that she appeared to be about to get somewhere.
As per usual, non-beta read, so sorry for any spelling/grammar/otherstuff mistakes that I missed. Brains reading what they think they wrote, and all :)
BIG THANKYOUS to everyone who's reviewed so far :D