Raven was headed out of Titans Tower that morning. Specifically, to the garden. The Teen Titans had morning combat practice coming up, so she completed her early morning wake-up routine as per usual and wanted extra fresh air for a fresher head start.
She had passed by Starfire, getting prepped up in her bedroom. She had also passed by Cyborg, still devouring his hearty breakfast. She assumed Robin was out on the course already, ensuring proper set-up. The day was shaping up to be the usual, her circadian rhythm so far unperturbed.
However, she didn't expect to find Beast Boy up already, and in the garden on a wooden bench, nonetheless. She hadn't taken him to be the garden type. Nobody in the team ever seemed to be the garden type. Raven caught Beast Boy staring wistfully at the distance - past the bed of sunflowers, coneflowers, and Bells-of-Ireland, at the shore yonder. Epiphany struck Raven. The garden owned a decent view of the very shore that stored dear memories for Beast Boy, with Terra.
"He's still sulking," she realised. Beast Boy had been slightly withdrawn from everyone for a while now. Ever since his last, heartbreaking talk with Terra, he'd been this way. He'd seemingly succeeded at hiding it from the others, but not from the resident empath. Suffice to say, the Terra talk could not have gone well. "I'm starting to understand people's frustration at my consistent grumpiness."
Beast Boy hadn't had a petty argument with Cyborg. He hadn't whined about one of Robin's rigid tower rules. He hadn't lodged a complaint against one of Starfire's Tamaranean recipes. Most alarmingly of all, he hadn't gotten on Raven's nerves. Except, he apparently just did, but not through his characteristic class clown schtick.
Raven couldn't believe she was admitting this, but she'd missed the happy-go-lucky Beast Boy. When she'd brought it up to the leader, Robin insisted he'd get over it. Eventually. Even his best friend Cyborg suggested to give him alone time, relating Beast Boy's loss to his experience with Sarasim. Raven didn't find that to be a valid excuse. Sarasim never broke his heart.
Raven, however, she could empathise with the saddened shapeshifter. Not because she's an empath, but because of her experience with Malchior. There was never a doubt Beast Boy was capable of getting over his feelings and move on like a champ. That didn't mean the solution was necessarily to leave him be.
Regardless, the empath could feel his waves of depression, oscillating against her soul like the tides against the shore, his gaze as distant as said shore was from them. They were reminiscent of the days after Terra betrayed him and the team for Slade. And what did he do after he finally left Terra's ex-room? He made humor his band-aid. His wall. And though he irritated her greatly, she hated even more seeing him hurt yet refuse to rip off that band-aid.
The same was about to happen again if everyone were to just allow him to convince himself that that was what he was supposed to do. Because, the more things seemed to change, the more they stayed the same.
"What are you doing out in the garden?" she asked him, approaching the lamenting changeling. She pulled her hood down. Until she spoke, the only thing not still about him was his hair moving with the wind. He'd had his arms on his side, palms on the bench, his body leaned and hunched slightly forward, toward the rocky shore ahead.
Beast Boy was startled by her entrance, already fumbling words. "Uh, hey, Raven. Morning. It's a... uh... good day today for some early training, eh? Spring's around the corner..."
Feeling a tinge of shame at staring at the shore for so long, he quickly looked around his nearby surroundings to distract himself from the fact, settling his gaze on a nearby leaf.
"Look! Pupating caterpillars!" he pointed at a couple of caterpillars dangling on said leaf, rocking and pumping beat by beat as their skins began to molt.
Raven was momentarily distracted by nature's course, taking a seat beside him.
Beast Boy continued, raising a finger, "Fun fact: I currently can't transform into a butterfly or a caterpillar. I used to be able to turn into a caterpillar, until I can only turn into a pupa. It's an age thing, I guess."
Raven blinked, quizzically staring at him. "That's actually a fascinating fact..."
For proof, the changeling quickly changed into a pupa and back. Inwardly, he was hoping it'd deflect attention away enough that Raven would just leave.
But of course, it was Raven he was talking to. If she couldn't be bothered, she wouldn't have come to him in the first place.
"Beast Boy, I'm not one to intrude, but we can tell there's been something on your mind lately," she spoke. He sighed.
She noticed his gesture becoming more closed.
"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," she assured him, about to make her leave.
Beast Boy watched Raven get up and walk away, before she turned her head around.
"But - and I'm only going to say this to you once - I care about your wellbeing and hate seeing you moping like this. You're more upset than you're letting on."
Beast Boy folded his arms, attempting to alter his gesture. "And what makes you so sure of that?"
"For one, I'm an empath," she explained. "But, most importantly, I'm your friend who happens to be an empath."
Beast Boy chuckled. Admittedly, Raven's heart fluttered a bit at that.
"Can I offer you a word of advice?" she asked.
Beast Boy nodded, arms down now, resting. That bit of quip dropped his guard slightly. "Your sage wisdom has helped me before."
Raven's pupils briefly drifted to the pupas-in-progress.
"Terra... She was like a caterpillar," she began, Beast Boy was taken aback by the seemingly random allegory, wondering where she was going with it. "She thought joining our team was her metamorphosis. She thought we would grant her the freedom. Bring about the change in her she desirously sought after.
"But, she didn't truly feel free and changed until she was released from her statue state. If I have to make a guess, Terra is through that chrysalis stage now, and she's chosen to spread her wings, by simply not flying, and living life as a schoolgirl."
The words she uttered poured out of her mouth, but as she spoke, Raven did find her metaphor poetic when she recalled the butterfly hair clip the former geomancer would keep so close to her, although she'd never seen her wear it.
Beast Boy sighed. It hurt having it said out loud by someone else. He never outright admitted that he had Terra on the brain. Guess he wasn't so good at masking his feelings after all. Go figure.
He mumbled, "And if I love her, I should let her go."
Raven returned closer to him so that she could place a comforting hand.
"You'll find someone," she assured him. "As many transformations as you can make, you were like a caterpillar too. But you got your whole life ahead of you, Beast Boy. You deserve to take flight. Take that from me.
"As annoying I may find your jokes to be at times, I see the value in your energy, especially now more than ever."
"More than ever?" Beast Boy repeated curiously.
It was now Raven whose gaze laid beyond the shore as she elaborated.
"With Trigon gone, I feel like I'm out of my chrysalis. I never saw myself as a butterfly, but that's the metaphor I'm apparently going for this morning. All my life, I felt cocooned with this terror inside me, waiting to unleash its wrath. My friends - you all - helped me realise that doesn't have to be the case."
Her gaze returned to Beast Boy, his own attentive gaze on her.
"That upbeat attitude of yours, it's often too much for my concentration, but the benefits it reaps when it's genuine, and the good it brings out in others... It's special. I truly believe that, when you spread your wings, the future in store for you far exceeds even your past or current feelings, including those for Terra."
Beast Boy's eyes shimmered with a gracious look of gratitude, taking in Raven's words. It touched him that she'd cared enough to try to snap him out of the rut he was in.
"Who knew we had a therapist in the house?" he asked rhetorically. "Thanks."
Raven allowed the softest smile to escape, the moment calling for it.
"You helped me get over Malchior, so call it even."
Her eyes now drifted to the pupas.
"Looks like they're in full chrysalis form now," she pointed out. The two heroes stared at the couple of cocoons, so still yet so full of life. It really was a great weather that day, light breezes sweeping against their hair and skin. She broke the silence by uttering, "Silkie could never."
"Starfire could never," Beast Boy quipped. "Speaking of chrysalises, she literally was one."
Raven stifled a snort. "True."
Beast Boy looked back at Raven. "Thanks for the food for thought, Raven. It was very... vegan. Get it? 'Cause I like vegan food and I also like your food for thought?"
Beast Boy winked and pointed finger guns at an eye-rolling Raven.
There he is, she thought gladly, but the word she replied to him with was a monotone, "Passable."
"You just gotta wait for me to spread my wings, Raven you butterfly you," Beast Boy added teasingly, lightly nudging her leg. "I may not be able to turn into a butterfly yet, but I at least have been a bee, and I know where the best flower spots are. I can show you around, metaphorically speaking... Or literally speaking? I'm lost in my own words."
He proceeded to pluck a sunflower off the flowerbed and gave it to Raven. Not wanting to be rude by rejecting it, she accepted it with her telekinesis. They both blushed, concealing as much as they could.
Quietly, Raven murmured, "Well... hurry up, then."
The crimsoned half-demon pulled her hood up and walked away to get that fresh air she needed, now more than ever. For a brief moment, Beast Boy wondered why Raven pulled her hood up if she was out for fresh air, but shrugged it off. They both continued their days as normal, but especially for Beast Boy, whose spirits had been lifted after that conversation, in more ways than one.
And she successfully refused to let him see it, but Raven had telekinetically brought the sunflower into her touch, dotingly intertwining her fingers with its stem, the sunflower facing her.
The more things stay the same, the more they seem to change.
(A/N: I hope your heart's aflutter with this cute springtime one-shot! I drew inspiration from Disney's Encanto's Dos Oruguitas, or Two Little Caterpillars. A heartfelt song to accompany this heartfelt story.)
