"Ok," Beast Boy replied curiously. He waited a second and said, "Um... was that merely to inform me of the fact, or.."
"I'm going to go ahead and say it," Raven said. Her eyes focused on the wall over his right shoulder and her eyes became distant, "because you seem to be taking this all very seriously." Beast Boy grinned. "What?" she asked, sounding a little put out that he was amused.
"Robin asked me how serious I thought this was," he explained. "It was just kind of funny that all my friends, even you, seem surprised that I can do that." He also cleared his throat, "Is it that I'm being too serious?"
She shook her head. "No, I was just going to ask what your ideal outcome would be?" Her voice had become completely distant and unemotional.
As he had learned recently, this was a clear sign that she was struggling with her feelings, so Beast Boy said, "Sex."
Raven gave a start and glared directly at him,"What!"
"Sex," he said, struggling to keep his face open, honest and direct. "Lots and lots of sex."
"Beast Boy!" she yelled, "if you think that I am going to be involved in some kind of tawdry..." He had broken at the word "tawdry", laughing deeply. Raven colored quickly and threw the first thing that came to hand at him, which happened to be a spoon. It bounced off his quickly upraised arms. She crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her chair. Much to Beast Boy's amazement, Raven was pouting. "That was a terrible thing to say, even as a joke."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I don't think you are," she said. "Why did I think you could be reasonable about..."
"Being reasonable doesn't always mean being serious or doing what Raven would do," he said, "and you know I didn't mean that."
"Then why did you say it?"
He leaned across the table so he could lower his voice. He was afraid that after her outburst they might have eavesdroppers. "Because you were closing up, which is fine. I know that's you and sometimes you have to do it. I know it means you're forcing yourself to deal with feelings that you aren't entirely ready for, so I sidetracked you."
"You sidetracked me?"
He gestured with both hands to his left. "I diverted you."
"By being an ass and making me angry at you?" she asked.
He nodded and grinned rougishly. "Yep. I stepped in front of that bullet and I did it for us, baby."
"Okay, first," she said, "never call me 'baby' again. Ever. Second, I do not need you trying to manage me, understand?" He nodded again. "Finally, I think you just didn't want to hear what I had to say."
"No," he said, holding up a hand, "I do want to hear it. I just want you to say it when you're comfortable enough to actually look at me."
"All right," she said grudgingly, "that's not completely stupid." She gave him a glare. "It's only mostly stupid."
"I'll grant you that," he said.
"But I suppose your intentions were good," she said, relenting a bit. "Which they always are."
"Thank you," he said.
"Your method sucks," she added.
"Look," he said, "like I told Robin, I want to take an honest swing at this," he made a circular gesture that indicated both of them, "but I think maybe we're being too serious and too reasonable. Dating someone is supposed to be fun." He began talking faster. "I mean, really, everyone is all freaking out and we're both being all careful and thoughtful and junk. How about this? Lets hang out and do stuff and tell each other about ourselves and, and... do what feels right at the time. Lets just have fun! I want to do that with you. The rest will take care of itself!"
"Your method is improving," she said quietly. Standing quickly, she walked to where he sat. He was breathing a little heavily from his outburst. Carefully, deliberately, she leaned down and put her arms around him. She hugged him and he automatically responded. She turned her head slightly and kissed him on the cheek. "That was what felt right at the moment," she whispered. Blushing, she turned quickly and all but ran out of the kitchen.
Beast Boy didn't beath for almost half a minute. His face was a charicature of surprise. Finally, he breathed in sharply and looked around the now empty room. "Dude!" he said, touching his cheek, "I rock."
The door to the kitchen was suddenly filled. Starfire stood there, her eyes blazing and her hand on her hips. "What did you do?" she demanded. "Raven just ran upstairs without even saying hello and before I could hear her shouting at you!"
"Chill, Star," Beast Boy said. "Raven and I are cool."
"You are?" Star asked a bit dubiously.
"Yeah, and you know why?"
"Why?"
"Because I totally rock," Beast Boy said, sitting back in his chair putting both hands behind his head.
-----
"What if they do get serious?" Cyborg asked.
"I'm working," Robin said, typing furiously, frowning at the screen, and not looking at Cyborg.
"I thought that was just an excuse to vacate the area," Cyborg said, pulling up the extra chair and sprawling confortably in it. Robin spared him a quick, annoyed glance.
"It wasn't,"he said.
"But what if they do get serious?" Cyborg persisted.
Robin shrugged. "We'll deal with it," he said. Quirking a small smile he went on. "It could free up a bedroom and we could get a new member."
Cyborg grabbed Robin by the shoulder and turned him, chair and all. "There's a side to this you don't know about. I've been thinking about it and I did a little checking in my records, and, well..." He stopped and cleared his throat. "You know I'm not just a techie, right?"
"You have to have a lot of biological and medical expertise to keep your artifical parts working with your remaining..." Robin paused, unsure how to go on.
Cyborg waved it away. "Yeah, right. That's why I run the medical equipment. So, anyway, I've done some work on all of us. It's fascinating, really. You're the only really normal human we got. Tamaranian girl, Azarathian extra-dimensional half breed girl, and Beast Boy... who's the wierdest of all."
"Really?" Robin said, interested. "Why?"
"His DNA, his genetic structure, is incredibly mutable. It adapts instantly and can make massive changes. That's just one of the things that lets him transform, but it's probably the most basic." Robin nodded and gestured for him to go on. "OK, jumping subjects, Starfire isn't human, right?"
"Of course," Robin said. "So?"
"So, if you ever get over yourself," Cyborg said with a hint of humor, "and let her catch you... let's just say you won't have to worry about protection."
Robin looked annoyed at the reference to he and Starfire, but he kept to the subject at hand. "So? Not like I didn't know that. She's a different species."
"Beast Boy could probably get her pregnant," Cyborg said.
"His genetic material would adapt and... work?" Robin said, struggling for words.
Cyborg nodded. "Very possibly. Now we turn to Raven. We know her history. In addition to not being human, she's a succesful cross-breed, like a mule."
"Meaning she's likely sterile," Robin said. "Is that what you're telling me?" Cyborg nodded again. "All right. Why are you telling me all this?"
"Raven's smart. She probably knows what I just told you." Now it was Robin's turn to nod. "But she probably isn't aware that Beast Boy is maybe the only person in the world with a chance of slipping one past the goalie."
"Oh, dear God," Robin said, resting his head in his hands.
"Yep," Cyborg said, smiling for the first time in the conversation.
"You're telling me that I have to give Raven and Beast Boy 'The Talk'."
"Yep."
"I hate you so very, very much."
-----
After confronting him in the Kitchen and being only partly satisfied by the answer she was given, Starfire and Beast Boy went into the common room and got comfortable on the couch. He was so distracted by recent events that he didn't even think of playing a game and he let Star have control of the remote with no argument. He just sat at one end of the couch, distractadly watching whatever Star happened to land on and smiling.
"I guess from your demeanor and your claim that you totally rock that you and Raven had a nice talk?"
Shaking himself a bit, Beast Boy said, "Yeah, it was good."
"So things are looking promising for the dating?"
He glanced at her in slight annoyance. "Isn't there anything else to talk about around here?" he asked.
"No, not right now," Star said honestly.
Beast Boy rolled his eyes. "We're getting along nicely, Star."
She bounced in her seat. "Wonderful!"
"What's wonderful?" Cyborg asked as he entered the room.
"Beast Boy and Raven are getting along nicely!" Starfire answered.
Cyborg chuckled. "Like that will last."
"It will if they do the dating regularly," Star protested. "It will have to."
"No," Cyborg said, "it especially won't last if that happens."
"Why not?" Star asked. "That makes no sense. If they embark on a more intimate relationship, must they not get along and stop fighting?"
Cyborg laughed a little. "No, Star, they'll probably fight more often. The making up will just happen faster."
"Hopefully," Beast Boy muttered.
Starfire was completely bewildered and looked back and forth between her two friends. "Really? You are not joking?"
"Nope," Cyborg said. Beast Boy nodded.
"Humans are weird," she muttered darkly.
-----
With a deep sense of trepidation and embarrasment, Robin knocked on
Raven's door. He found it odd, given that he could have told either of
them what he had to, that he felt more comfortable talking to Raven. It
should have been easier with another guy, but somehow it wasn't. The
door opened and she told him to come in. With a deep, cleansing breath, he
stepped in. He was surprisd to see that the room was brighter then he could ever remember it.
He noticed that the curtains were open, which he had never seen before.
She was settling from her hovering meditation pose to the floor as he came in. "Robin," she said in greeting.
"Raven," he replied. "I have something to tell you and I'm going to be honest, I'm nervous."
"So I guess I'm not going to like it," she said calmly.
He shrugged. "Well, it's actually not bad. In a way, I suppose, it be a good thing. I just... well, it's very private and I don't like to intrude."
She smiled a tiny bit. "You've intrigued me. Please go on."
He took another deep breath. "This may be a bit premature, really."
"You're stalling," she said.
"I damn sure am," he replied.
"Now I'm getting nervous too," she said, her voice as flat as ever. "Could you get on with it?"
"Ok, Cyborg told me..." he went on with a brief and, he hoped, dispassionate retelling of the information Cyborg gave him.
"Oh. My. God," Raven said. "He actually used the phrase 'slip one past the goalie'?" Robin nodded. She shook her head in disbelief. "So you're telling me that for my very first real date, I've picked just about the only guy in the world that can impregnate me?"
"Possibly... do what you said," Robin replied, balking at the word "impregnate".
She shrugged and her voice became distant. "It doesn't matter," she said. "I had never thought about it, really. I guess I never intended to have children. My heritage is to... questionable."
Robin nodded. This was almost exactly the conversation he had been dreading. "I know you probably won't be engaging in such activities soon, not that it would be bad if you did."
She turned and looked out her window, the curtains uncharachteristically open. "It would be better if I never could have children, I think."
"I disagree," he said seriously. "You should have the choice." She didn't reply. "You didn't know, did you?"
"That I'm probably barren?" she asked bitterly. "No, I didn't know."
Robin was speechless for a moment. Raven didn't look at him. "I assumed that you knew."
"I didn't," she said.
"I'm sorry. I approached this badly. Do you want to talk or do you want to be left alone?"
"Please leave me alone," she said softly.
"OK," he said, "but if you need anything..."
"I know," she interrupted, "and thank you, both for the offer and for telling me. I did need to know." Robin didn't speak again as he turned and left her room. The door shut and she reached up, pulling the heavy curtains over the window again, blocking out the evening light. She assumed her meditation posture and began chanting her mantra, her expression never changing.
-----
Robin went immediately to the gym and began exercising furiously, wanting the empty, feeling he could get only from extreme exhaustion. How could he have been so flip? When Cyborg had told him, he had been concerned only for his own feelings. He tried to imagine what Raven was feeling and simply couldn't. He quickly gave up trying and simply worked himself as hard as he could.
Why had he assumed she would know? Stupid, stupid, stupid. He snapped a kick into the heavy bag, making it swing wildly, and caught it as it came back with a straight right, stinging his knuckles. He swung a wild backfist that completely missed. It had so much force that it spun him part way around and he fell to the ground.
He was never that awkward. He didn't fall down. It made him terribly angry, an anger that he knew really had nothing to do with missing a punching bag. "Damn it!" he yelled, and hit the floor with both fists.
-----
It was quite late when Raven left her room. She had tried, futiley, to absord what Robin had told her. She was, in spite of all else, seventeen years old. Having children was something she simply had never thought about, due both to her age and her circumstances. The few random thoughts she had on the matter had been what she had told Robin, that she probably shouldn't but it had been only "probably". To have the option suddenly taken away was surprisingly upsetting.
She had considered that Cyborg was really just speculating. She should be tested somehow, but she knew how smart Cyborg was. If he felt sure enough to see that she was told, he must be pretty confident in his conclusions and was probably right.
Raven slowed her pace. She had left her room on a whim but now she found that she had a destination. Beast Boy's room was just ahead.
The fact that she had choosen Beast Boy to reach out to may have surprised their friends but to her it made perfect sense. Robin was off limits, both because of Starfire's obvious affection for him and more importantly, because they shared a friendship based entirely on mutual respect. Cyborg was more a big brother type. That left only Beast Boy as a male close to her. It was almost inevitable, really.
No, that wasn't fair to him. Beast Boy was a good person. He cared about people. True, he could be self-centered and thoughtless sometimes, but he never meant to hurt anyone and no one was perfect. She was certainly no prize, she thought. She had suspected, and it had been confirmed, that he would understand her enough to let her be herself. It couldn't be easy, she thought, to take a chance on someone with all her problems, yet he ahd seemed happy to try.
Also, God help her, she did think he was cute.
It was ironic that she had ended up attracted to the one male most likely to overcome her reproductive issues. She shook her head ruefully. That was a real kick in the head, to just be at the bare begginings of a maybe-could be something and to have this load dropped on her. "Typical," she muttered.
Her first reaction was to not say anything to him. They hadn't even been out yet. It was true that the situation was unusual with them living together and knowing each other so well. They had a head start in a way. The fact that they knew each other so well and both were willing to explore possibilities seemed to her to indicate that they did have reason to be more serious about things. Still, his comments about easing off a bit and just trying to have fun together had been right. She took a deep breath and stopped in front of Beast Boy's door.
In spite of her first reaction, here she was and she had no clear idea why. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the moment. She knocked.
A very sleepy looking Beast Boy opened the door after a few minutes. He looked at her in surprise. "Hey," he said, "what's up?"
"Can I talk to you?" she asked.
He stood aside and let her enter. "If you can stand the place."
She shrugged and stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. "It doesn't matter."
"So," he said, sitting on hid bed, "what can I do for you?"
She sat in the chair at the desk. "I just got some news."
"What news?"
"I really don't know whay I'm here," she said.
"Look," Beast Boy said, "whatever else is going on, we're at least friends. Hit me."
"It seems that our plans made Cyborg curious and he started looking into some biological issues."
"Biological?"
Raven nodded. "Yes. Were you aware of how your adaptable DNA affects your... reproductive process."
"Actually, yes," he said. "I found out while I was with the Doom Patrol." He grinned ruefully. "It was part of my Birds and Bees talk. Apparently, if there's any possible way, my swimmers will find it."
"You knew?" She ignored his choice of words.
"I would have said something if it ever became an issue," he said quickly, "and unless you have plans for tomorrow I don't know about..."
"No," she said. "That wasn't it. Cyborg told me, via Robin which was annoying. He should have come straight to me. The reason he told me was that... and he assumed I knew this."
"Raven," he said, "I've never heard you beat around the bush before."
"I'm getting to it," she said. "He assumed that I knew since I'm a succesful cross-breed, it was likely that I'm sterile. I needed to know, according to him, because if we ever... you know, I still had to be careful."
"Raven," he said, slowly, "you just found out that you can't ever have kids?"
"It's not certain," she said, "but how often is Cyborg wrong about something scientific?"
"Hardly ever," Beast Boy said. "Still, you should find out for sure."
"Maybe," she said, "it would be best to just never take the chance. I mean, look at what my parentage has done to me. Why should I pass that down? Maybe it's for the best."
"But to suddenly have the choice taken away like this," he said, "that's gotta be... man, that has to just suck."
She looked at him in surprise. "That's right," she said. "I hadn't really considered it, but now that the chance is it can't happen. It's harder to deal with then I would have thought."
"Look, if it helps," he said diffidently, "you know, no matter what happens, no matter when it is, you just have to call and I'll be there for you, full test tube in hand."
"Nice image," she said. "I didn't come here trying to get you to say that, even though it is a fairly obvious thing for you to say given everything."
He grinned, "And if you wanted to try the old-fashioned all-natural method..."
"You'd be there for me then, too, right?" He nodded happily. "You're a true friend," she said acerbically. "Don't hold your breath."
"You sure?" he asked. "Because if there was a chance it would work..." He took a deep breath and held it, puffing out his cheeks.
"Stop it," she said, coloring a bit. Then, she looked hard at him. "You're distracting me again, aren't you?"
"I diverted you," he said, exhaling heavily and making the same two-handed gesture he had earlier.
"I don't know if I care for this habit you're developing."
He shrugged. "What ya gonna do about it, tough girl?"
Raven thought for a moment of demonstrating what she could do about it. Then she reconsidered. There was nothing they could do about the whole damned mess tonight. Brooding about it wouldn't help and maybe Beast Boy was smart enough to realize that and deal with it in his own particular way. Being reasonable, she thought, doesn't always mean being serious. "You know that kiss goodnight you were hoping for?"
"Dude!" Beast Boy said, "Not even the first date and you're threatening to cut me off. Uncool!"
"That's me," she said, "uncool."
"And mean."
"I am not!" she protested.
"Totally mean," he said, pretending to pout.
She couldn't stop the small smile that appeared. Maybe his way did kind of work for her. The smile faded quickly. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "You made me feel better."
"That's all I ever wanted to do," he said. "I know this really is terrible and I'll do anything to help that I can."
Raven nodded. "I know. Thank you."
"So," he said carefully, "with everything going on, do you want to reschedule tomorrow?"
"Absolutely not."