The secrecy allowed to the Teen Titans when using their access code to enter their Tower did not help Starfire and Beast Boy's attempt to come back without their teammates knowing. Despite their shopping bags, they had displayed prowesses of stealth and Beast Boy had even bribed Silkie with lumps of sugar to keep him silent, but it was of little avail. When the door they stood in front of opened, it did not reveal the empty living room they hoped but the Boy Wonder himself. The bags under his mask let them presume that he stayed up since the duo left, but he still looked as alert as usual. He glared at them, his arms crossed and his foot tapping on the floor.
"Where have you been?" He asked, authority clear in his tired voice.
"Err, we were at, hm..." Beast Boy anxiously uttered while Starfire was nervously chuckling. Silkie just gazed at Robin, unperturbed.
Robin simply raised an eyebrow. "And where, exactly, is 'errwewearathm', Beast Boy?" He would have found the situation amusing if it was not for the fact that they had needed to leave the tower before everyone else was awake to go shopping. He knew that Starfire was most likely the most peculiar creature within the city, but her behaviour was suspicious. Probably Beast Boy's fault, he mentally noted.
"Well, you see... Star and I went to..." The changeling's sentence then dissolved into muffled words.
"Oh." Robin replied, nodding. "I see."
"Really?"
"Yeah. That's between 'I'm talking nonsense' and 'I'm getting extra training', isn't it?" He retorted, a smirk replacing the facade of realisation he used seconds earlier. Beast Boy just uneasily laughed and looked away. Thankfullly, Starfire decided to speak, anticipating Robin's next question.
"We wanted to be the first of the row at the mall of shopping, yes?"
"I guess you mean 'line', Starfire... And that must have been a really long line, a whole day!" He replied, finally uncrossed his arms and lifting them skyward in an exaggerated fashion. He thend stepped aside, motioning them to enter the room instead of staying in the doorframe. "I hope it was worth the wait." He said, suspiciously eyeing the shopping bags she was carrying.
The idea of debating fashions with Robin made her instantly forget the hazardous predicament she and Beast Boy were in, and she produced one of her purchase. The Boy Wonder soon saw what looked like the blasphemous result of an ungodly experiment aiming at merging a pink flamingo with a golem of jewels emerge from her shopping bag.
"Yes it was! Is it not the most adorable coat you have ever seen?" Starfire exclaimed, proving once again that her taste in clothes was fundamentally different from her friends' ones.
"Hm... Yes?" Robin ventured, both not to hurt her feelings and because his brain was struggling to register the horror in front of him. "You will look, err, wonderful with this."
Starfire giggled. "It is not for me, it is for friend Beast Boy!"
"You bought it?!" Beast Boy shrieked, then paused. "Excuse me a second."
He walked out of the room and closed the door, ignoring the confused looks of his friends. Seconds later, a high-pitched and blaring scream echoed all through the tower.
"So... How about you go to your room to put away those... clothes?" Robin proposed.
"Put away? You want me to abandon the pieces of clothes?"
'Yes.' Robin shook his head. "I meant you should put them in your closet before we get breakfast."
Starfire muttered a 'oh' and nodded, before exiting the room with her shopping bags and Silkie. She noticed Beast Boy on his knees and with his hands thrown skywards and just assumed he was as tired as she was. After she disappeared on the way to her bedroom, Robin walked into the corridor and crouched down beside Beast Boy.
"Considering what you have been through..." He glanced at the direction Starfire went to. "...and what you will get through, consider your extra training cancelled."
"Thanks." Beast Boy whispered. A few silent minutes ticked by. "Robin, can you do me a favor?"
"Yeah?"
"If I ever accept again to shop with Star, please tie me up and lock me up in my room."
Robin gave a quiet laugh. "With pleasure." Silence reigned once more before Robin broke it. "You think the shop you went to has an after-sales service?"
----
Raven promised herself to choke Beast Boy a few times for waking her up one of the very rare times she decided to have a long lie. She was even wearing her favourite pyjamas instead of her usual night leotard to savour what could be unique in her lifetime, a peaceful night and a quiet morning at the same time due to the absence of the changeling, but he wasted that occasion.
She grumpily undressed, then slipped her day leotard on, summoned her cape to herself and put it on. Raven did not bother to open the dor and simply phased through it. And stepped violently into Starfire who was going to her own room. They both lost their balance and everything the alien was carrying was sent flying around.
"Sorry Raven, I did not see you!"
"Unless you can see through matter, I doubt you can predict when I phase, you know." Raven deadpanned. Then she heard a gargling noise above her.
"Silkie apologizes as well."
"Yeaaaaah." Then she spotted some of the clothes Starfire bought. "Spoils of war from wrestling with Kitten's wardrobe?" She pointed her index at her bags. The comment naturally reminded Starfire that they had made a deal with Kitten's father. Raven took her sudden stutter as a 'yes' and cocked an eyebrow. "You did? I knew monarchy was going hand in hand with pillage."
"I did not!" She replied in a hurry, oblivious of the empath's not so subtle sarcasm.
'Don't they know sarcasm on Tamaran? Aliens.' Raven noticed the dreaded, petite coat that was bound to haunt Beast Boy's nights forever. "This is too small for you..." She commented as she got up, Silkie still very comfortable on her head, and compared the... thing's size with her own. She almost twitched. "Don't tell me you bought it for me..."
"Do not worry, Raven." Starfire had no idea how 'worry' was a judicious choice of word. "This is for Beast Boy. He was very cute wearing this."
Raven's eyes darted from the coat to Starfire's smiling face. Sometimes, she wished she shared her sister's fashion - or at least her ability to realise what could be considered clothes and what could not. Beast Boy's scream suddenly felt very understandable. In some way, it was the team's fault, not Starfire's, since they had let her have the first step on the route of 'everything vaguely looking textile is wearable' and now Starfire was building this route farther than it had been at the beginning.
"However." Starfire's interruption snapped her from her thoughts. "I did buy something for you." She stood up and emptied one of her bags. A purple, fluffy and unidentified object and a red dress eerily resembling Madame Rouge's one fell on the floor.
'Does she have an obsession about villainess' clothing?' Raven pondered as she threw the offending coat aside and held the dress in front of her, vaguely interested. Thankfully, the madwoman had a much more acceptable fashion than Kitten, let alone Starfire. And she could use it to scare Beast Boy by cosplaying as Madame Rouge. All in all, she was pleasantly surprised by the relative good taste of her gift.
"Do you like it?"
"It is wearable." Raven's answer was enough to please Starfire. She glanced at the purple snake that was beside the dress. "Isn't it a little early to buy a tinsel garland?"
"This is not an ornament. Not for a tree, at least. "She giggled. "It is a scarf."
Raven shoved her dress on her shoulder and took the item, observing the label. Starfire was right, it was a scarf. One that seemed to have met a very violent, spin-drying end, but a scarf nonetheless. She also remarked that the price was not in dollars - as Beast Boy's letter would have let suppose - but in euros. If Robin was left to read some labels, the following discussion promised to be interesting...
She bore a strained smile. "For me? Why, thank you Starfire..."
Starfire just smiled.
"Star?"
"Yes?"
"Please remind Silkie that my head is not a nest." She ordered sharply. Silkie found himself in his owner's arms in matter of seconds. "Good."
Raven then helped her to gather her purchases and when they were done, she gestured to her friend to continue toward her own room. Only when she had disappeared from her view did she really evaluate her last gift. The scarf seemed to stare back at her.
'If at least it wasn't so fluffy, I could have cut it into napkins...' She regretted. "You're not recyclable, are you?"
----
"Aaaah. Finally alone and able to rest." Killer Moth, now in his very dusty bedroom, yawned. Exhausted, he planned to sleep all day, which was not new to him; he was more of a night creature, or rather night scientist, than a diurnal one. And fortunately for her 'social life', his daughter's biological clock was not affected by his own. And it also meant he had to spent less time with the spoilt brat. Err, the child.
He dropped on his large bed, ready to enjoy long hours of sleep when the termite-eaten bed frame split into sawdust. The mattress collapsed down on the floor, a few springs sprouting out of the mattress under the combined shock of the fall and the man's weight. Killer Moth laid there, too resigned to even sigh. "I will have to persuade those two Titans to repair my house..."
But that would be after he slept. Thankfully, he could still sleep on his mattress in spite of its bad and dusty condition. Besides, he would need his brain to function fully for his plans of revenge...
----
"So..."
"So?"
Robin and Beast Boy had not left the corridor and were still pondering over what to speak about when the sun had still to fully appear in the sky.
"Shouldn't we go and prepare breakfast before Starfire does it herself?" Robin suddenly remembered who he was talking to. A vehement vegetarian. Vegan, even. "Err, shouldn't I go? You must be tired..."
"And you're not? You have enough bags under your eyes to travel the whole world three times over."
"You're exaggerating..."
"Yeah. True." Beast Boy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "More like twice."
"Anyway. You stayed up longer than I did. I'm less tired, I should go..." Cyborg was better as breakfast arguments than he ever was...
"I took a nap, you know." Beast Boy pointed out. "And it's not like poptofu takes long to prepare. Just a minute in the microwave!"
Robin quirked one confused eyebrow at him. "Pop...tofu?" There is no god.
"Yep!" He replied, flashing a commercial smile. "And at least you don't have to kill animals to get it!"
"Corn doesn't come from animals. If anything, it feeds them."
Beast Boy's ears dropped. "My life has been a lie!" He shrieked overdramatically, causing Robin to roll his eyes. He hoped he would not influence Starfire too much... Or the other way round. "But I still get to cook breakfast!" With that, he switched the nearby door open and rushed in the living room. Robin quickly followed after.
"We're getting tofu this morning Robin!"
"Oh no, we don't." Beast Boy and Robin stopped running, Cyborg was already behind the kitchen counter, next to towers of waffles, and was roasting steaks on a frying pan.
"How did you get here?" Beast Boy inquired. "We didn't see you..." His eyes widened in realisation. "I know! You're an alien who can turn invisible!" He jumped on Cyborg, vainly attempting to get him into a headlock. "Who are you and what did you do to Cy?!"
Cyborg just rolled his eyes. "There are other doors, you know." Beast Boy and Robin did not need to know that he just stepped out of his hideout after being awaken by Beast Boy's screech. This had not been very comfortable anyway. "Now get off my head, grass stain. I don't want to smell like tofu for hours." The green teen swiftly obeyed.
Still, Beast Boy had not finished to argue, except that this time the dispute would be about food. He was about to say something when the kettle whistled. "Raven?" He stuttered. So much for a furtive entrance...
"Nope, I made tea." Cyborg poured the hot liquid in Raven's usual teacup.
Robin, who had ignored the argument and sat down at the table, looked at the robotic teen. "You drink tea?"
"It's for Raven." Both his interlocutors raised an eyebrow. "Figured it would distract her from beating BB into a pulp for waking her up... She's gonna show up soon."
"Hm, thanks, I guess." The changeling muttered. To think he expected his friends to flood him with uneasy questions...
"So, how about we all eat waffles and you zoom off to bed after? You need sleep and you might escape her wrath for a while." Beast Boy did not look as tired as Robin, but it was still visible. Robin, for his part, was already digging into waffles.
"Good idea, but I think we should have breakfast together."
"I'm sure Starfire will have many things to say about her mannequin." Robin commented between two bites. Beast Boy shuddered.
"All things considered..." He put some waffles on a plate and dashed to his room.
Cyborg eventually finished cooking his steaks and seated at the table, smelling his meal. "Operation 'No Tofu' complete. Victory!"
----
Back in the shrine to pinkness that served her as a bedroom, Starfire was debating whether or not to wear the new attire she had bought for herself. She wanted to show it to the team the earlier she could, but there was no point if Robin was too drained to discern the difference. She did not even know if he was still awake.
Silkie, for his part, was unaffected by his mistress' pacing back and forth. Neither was he affected by the smooth fabric of the bed she had cautiously put him on. Truth be told, the little silk worm was infuriated. His other master, Beast Boy had promised him sugar. And he had not been given sugar. Silkie always was impatient.
And, much more importantly, hungry.
Ignored by the Robin-concerned alien, Silkie crawled down the bed and vanished into the corridor, as Starfire luckily forgot to close her door. As for her, she continued to pirouette around with her ensemble, still contemplating her dilemma.
----
"Hey guys." Raven said monotonously as she entered the main room. She was answered by more energetic 'hey' from the others. Cyborg was baking bacon, as if his towers of waffles were not enough while Robin was searching for a drink in the fridge. She moved toward the kettle when she noticed her teacup already full. She raised one expectant eyebrow at her teammates.
"Cyborg." Robin simply declared.
"Should I consider this bribery?"
"Maybe." He replied, more concerned about the fridge than Raven's pleasantry. Strangely, it lacked the blue substance he usually had to fight with to get anything. Not that he complained.
Cyborg's attention finally left from what was in his frying pan. "Why would I bribe you, Rae?"
"To be given the permission to call me Rae, perhaps?"
Cyborg stroked his chin. "Why didn't I think of that before?" He asked to himself before remembering the situation. "Err, because?" His sense of improvisation never ceased to amaze him.
"I see." She walked over to the couch and sat down, taking her teacup as she went by. "I was wondering." She took Cyborg's nodding as an authorization to go on. "What did Starfire buy you?"
Cyborg and Robin froze at the comment - Robin's hand a little more literally as it was still within the refrigerator - and barely found enough strength to stare at the empath. Starfire had bought Beast Boy something, she could have perfectly bought them the sickingly sweet gifts she alone had the secret.
Robin shuddered and shrieked at the same time. "I don't want to look like a Barbie doll!"
Cyborg, however, regained his composure. "Chill down, Rob. And remove your hand from the fridge." Robin did so, his hand grasped around a soda. "Knowing her, what she bought for you will make you look like her knight in shining armor." Robin visibly relaxed. "What she bought for me, I dunno..."
Afterward, Cyborg put out the fire and very delicately laid the frying pan on the table, making sure that the bacon inside was left intact. He moved to a more spacious part of the room and only then did he panic about what Starfire could have possibly chosen for him. It was already bad enough, he did not need his bacon to be thrown into the air and land on something horrible like tofu or Robin's gel-flooded hair. The said leader just smacked his forehead at Cyborg's reaction.
Raven simply sipped her tea. It was most certainly her demon half speaking, but tea always tasted better with zest of someone else's distress...
----
During those events, a phone conversation was about to start somewhere in Jump City. In one of the several rooms of a relatively modern building, a man was seated on a luxurious office chair, holding a phone receiver. He looked around, occasionally checking his impeccable black suit, as the phone beeped until a male voice answered.
"Yes?" The voice crackled.
"I've seen something interesting a few hours ago." He could imagine his interlocutor looking at his watch. "Yes, I know, very early. Which makes the event even more out of the ordinary."
"Who?" The voice straightforwardly asked.
"Beast Boy and Starfire."
"Where?"
The man chuckled. "You know, sentences are supposed to be longer than one word." He soon regained his serious tone. "Anyhow, this could prove to be useful. I can't intend this myself, so I want you to know the why most importantly, and the rest after."
"So that you know whether or not your suspicions are right... Not that you really need it to act." The mysterious voice continued.
"See? Verbs are not that overrated." He chuckled again. "But you're right, that's the point."
"I suppose you want me to stalk them when they're alone and out of the tower. Hopefully Robin won't be around."
The suited man was silent for a few seconds. "Exactly."
"I like challenges." The unknown interlocutor commented. "When do I start?"
"Now."
"Understood... mister Wilson." And he hung up.
The man put down the receiver and interlaced his fingers under his chin. Beast Boy and Starfire's strange partnership could already be used to his advantage with only one event, but more evidence - be it real or conveniently orchestrated - meant a better and possibly more lasting advantage...