Chapter 2

.

.

.

"You freak her out," Cyborg said, poking him in the back of the head. Gar swatted his hand away with a monkey wrench.

"I do not."

"You totally do," his friend countered, snatching the wrench away. "You're awkward, you're obvious, and you do creepy things like eavesdrop on her conversations."

"Shut up."

"Why, because I'm right?"

"Because you're being insensitive," Beast Boy growled, slumping over the engine of the T-car. He yelled incoherently into the motor, his voice echoing around the garage. Cyborg stared at him, tolerantly annoyed with the vent of frustration.

"I'm trying to be helpful," he corrected, tossing the wrench onto his tool table. "You're not going to help anything if you're this emotionally constipated."

"Are we talking about you or me?" Gar snipped, his head still lost in the engine. "Because you're the one dragging around the ten tons of sorrow, robot boy."

"What is that even supposed to mean?"

"It means you're just as awkward with this situation as I am." He emerged from the T-car, his face smudged with oil and his green eyes narrowed. "You're practically on the verge of tears every time you talk to her."

"Oh right. This from the guy who's living out a Nicholas Sparks novel."

Gar frowned. "Low blow, man."

"Whatever. Tighten that valve, will you?"

"Are you really going to act like you're not a complete mess like me?"

"Of course I'm a complete mess," Cyborg groaned, tossing aside the cylinders he had picked up. "Because it's Rae's face and Rae's voice and all of Rae's lack of personality, but when I look at her I don't see…" He trailed off, scowling at his worktable. Garfield leaned heavily over the edge of the car, his task completely forgotten. "I don't recognize her. She looks the same, but she doesn't look the same." He stared blankly at the car's wheels. "Does that make me a bad friend?"

"That you don't recognize her?"

"That I want to. That..." He hesitated. "That I keep wishing none of this had happened."

Gar didn't trust himself to speak.

.

.

.

He walked into the main room hours later, engine grease smeared along his cheek and his stomach begging for food. Speedy was already in the kitchen, trying to eat everything in the fridge while simultaneously working on Robin's laptop. He nodded to Beast Boy as they skirted around each other, dragging everything onto the counter and devouring it all.

"You guys are going to clean us out," Gar joked, plucking the chips out of the archer's hands. "Are you and Garth starved over in the east or something?"

"Well you know, growing boys," he said, grinning as he squinted at the computer screen. "Hey, I need the password for your quarterly reports." He spun the laptop towards Beast Boy and reached for a box of cookies. "Just within the last month or so."

"What for?"

"Looking up that stolen S.T.A.R. tech you guys ran into a while back*," he said, shrugging. "Garth noticed something similar in our reports and he wanted me to double check them."

"So if Garth noticed, why are you doing the checking?" Beast Boy asked, his fingers flying over the keys before he spun the comp back around.

"He's with Raven right now," Speedy said, and Gar stiffened at the nonchalance of his words.

"With Raven?"

"Yeah. I think they went into the city or something."

"Oh." He wondered if he sounded normal, because he was pretty sure his neck was getting hot. "For business?"

"I think they went out to eat or something. Raven said something about a sandwich shop."

"Oh." His neck was definitely hot. Speedy glanced up from the computer for half a second, biting into a cookie and raising an eyebrow.

"Hm."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Gar frowned. "What is it?"

"I didn't say anything."

"You gave me a Robin 'hm'."

"What the heck is a Robin 'hm'?"

"It's that passive aggressive thing you both do when you know everything and you want everyone to know that you know, but you're too proud to just come out and say it so you stand there with that cheeky looking grin and wait for the rest of us to just cave and bombard you with questions."

Speedy's eyes never left the computer, but he did burst out laughing. "Wow. Thought about this a lot, eh?"

"Curse of the half mask," Gar muttered, stealing the cookies away. "You both think you're so cool because we can't see your eyes."

"Sheesh, if I'd known talking about Raven made you this heated I would have gabbed about Starfire instead." The archer grinned, shaking his head just the slightest bit. "The irony of the green-eyed hero."

"I'm not heated," Beast Boy lied.

"Oh, really? So you're biting my head off for the fun of it?"

"I'm not-…" He faltered on his words before quickly falling silent. He frowned at the countertop, unhappy with his actions. "I suck at this, don't I?" he muttered. Speedy just raised an eyebrow.

"At what? Pretending you're not in love with Raven or pretending you're not in love with Raven?" He fought a knowing grin as Gar bore his eyes into the archer.

"I wasn't kidding about that half mask thing," he grumbled, making a face. His friend just chuckled.

"You act like the rest of us don't have eyes or something. Seriously? I think Garth and I knew two years ago."

"Yeah right, " Beast Boy scoffed, although he felt himself blush all over again. "Not two years ago."

"Oh, my mistake. I meant to say five." He paused in his work, glanced at Gar again, and then went back to his vigorous typing. "This situation isn't easy for everyone. Hell, Rae and I weren't even really close, and even I get creepy chills from her blank stare. So it's no surprise that this whole thing has got to be the worst-case scenario for someone in your position." He shrugged. "I get it, Garth gets it, everyone gets it. Feelings are messy as is, so no one's trying to throw more onto the pile."

"Meaning?"

Speedy sighed and picked up the laptop, trudging over to the sofa. "Meaning it's just a sandwich shop, man." He offered a sympathetic smile and settled in front of the television, leaving Garfield to feel not only embarrassed but foolish as well.

.

.

.

He tried to act normal during the meeting that night, but his stupid jealousy continued to gnaw at his psyche. She sat across from him at the long table, with Starfire to her right and Aqualad to her left. Garth wasn't acting overly familiar with Raven in the slightest, but every time he spoke to her it sent a spike of envy through Beast Boy's chest. He ended up staring so fixedly at the pair that Raven caught his eyes more than once, forcing him to blush horribly and avert his gaze in a less-than-stealthy manner.

.

.

.

"Are you upset with me?" she asked him.

The meeting had finally ended, the seven Titans were dispersing to do their own things, and Raven had walked quietly around the table to stand next to Gar's chair. She stared down at him, not too close that it was uncomfortable, but much closer than he would have imagined her to. It toyed with his emotions, even though he knew there was absolutely nothing behind the action.

"No," he said dumbly, focusing on his hands. She crossed her arms and the edge of her cardigan brushed against his shoulder.

"Then what is it? Because I would like to work in a non-hostile environment."

"I'm not being hostile."

"Your aura," she said plainly. "It's making me cold."

Gar rolled his eyes. "Okay, I get it. I go Bobby Drake when I'm upset. Sue me."

"You glare."

"That's not glaring, it's staring," he defended, and then realized his excuse made him sound less like a jerk a more like a creep. "I mean, I wasn't just staring at you like an idiot, I was watching…"

"Watching what?"

"Um, nothing. Don't worry about it."

She leaned against the table, putting herself more into his view. Her tone changed, attempted to be softer, warmer. "You watch me a lot," she told him, but she didn't seem annoyed with her own observation.

"I'm weird like that. Staring blankly into space and all."

"You don't stare blankly."

Around them Cyborg was talking with Speedy, and Aqualad had already left the conference room. Starfire paused to look at them from the other side of the table, but then quickly left when their conversation shifted towards the more intimate.

"Sometimes," he tried to joke, leaning back in his chair as casually as he could fake. "Head in the clouds. Mind all a blunder."

"I want to know the real reason," she said, and he turned to look up at her, his half-hearted smile gone. "Why you watch me, and why I don't seem to mind."

Were they still there? The feelings from before? The ones she wanted to save for a time when they would be an asset and not a poison?

"I'm sorry," he ended up saying, dropping his gaze and forcing out words he didn't want to say. "I ca-…there's no special reason why." The intimacy of their conversation was gone in an instant, and without looking at her Gar knew Raven's features had gone back to their stone facade.

"The past again," she said. He sighed.

"The past is in the past," he repeated, sounding like a broken record. Raven took a step back from him, and when he glanced at her face he was surprised at the vehemence that was there.

"Then you need to stop looking at me that way," she said, her words clipped, her tone so much darker than he had expected. He was surprised by how angry she seemed, and when she turned to leave the room he stayed rooted to his seat, thinking.

.

.

.

It was a day or two later, and he had been on his way to the training room to meet with Aqualad and Speedy. He was passing by the infirmary when the doors swung open and Raven came marching out. She stopped, stared at him, and then turned the other way and headed down the hallway without a word. Her steps were deliberate, and her expression had been extremely stern. Gar watched her leave, too stunned to call out to her. When he glanced into the infirmary he saw Cyborg sitting at the computer, his eyes staring at the screen.

.

.

.

"It was just a dumb fight," he explained, although the way he was rubbing his forehead indicated much more than a dumb fight. "I was being depressing again. You were right, grass stain. I should look into emotional laxatives." No laugh came with his empty humor.

"What happened?" Gar pressed, hovering just inside the infirmary doors. Cy leaned back in his seat and sighed an incredibly morose sigh.

"I was…" he started say, and then paused. He frowned at the ceiling. "I was being a really bad friend," he said simply. Beast Boy rolled his eyes.

"Okay yeah, you're always a bad friend, especially to me," he huffed sarcastically. "But Raven rarely ever gets angry with you."

"And that's exactly it. The old Raven used to never get angry with me, but this girl isn't the old Raven and she's getting tired of being treated like she is. And I'm starting to understand why." He groaned. "I mean, why else did Robin start the Titans? Or why you left the Doom Patrol? Or why Star chose Earth as her new home?" Gar waited patiently for Cyborg's answer even though he was sure he already knew it. "Because you were all sick of being stuck in the shadows. You and Robin were done with being sidekicks, and Star had her psychotic older sister. Everyone came to this Tower to be whoever the hell they wanted to be, and we're not giving that to her."

"We're just missing a friend," Gar defended feebly. Cyborg laughed dryly.

"Yeah, but that gets real old real quick."

Empty silence filled the infirmary, and eventually Garfield left feeling much guiltier than he thought was really fair.

.

.

.

He saw her again later that evening.

He had been standing at the large windows in the main room, a book open in his hands even though he hadn't been reading it for some time. The lights on the pier were glistening in the early hours of night, and Gar had been staring at them in a mesmerized stupor for nearly half an hour. His mind had been filled with so much, yet he couldn't even remember thinking about anything in particular.

A movement in his peripherals caught his attention, and when he blinked into a barn owl's eyes he saw Raven standing on the shoreline far below. She was still in her civilian clothes, but she had donned her cloak and it was snapping behind her in the ocean's evening wind. Garfield watched as she sat on the edge of one of the boulders, pulled off her boots, and dipped her bare feet into the cold water. She glanced over her shoulder, looked around as if to make sure she was alone, and then leaned back on her hands. She swished her legs and breathed deeply, and when her long hair blew into her face she gently tucked it beneath her hood. She looked up and down the shoreline, glanced towards the quarter moon, and then smiled fully to no one in particular.

An astonishingly happy smile.

A content smile.

A smile meant for being alone with no one to bother her about anything at all.

A smile that so rarely ever graced her face, yet a smile that looked like it had been there all along.

Gar ended up tearing his eyes away and marching off to his room, a deep blush heating his ears.

.

.

.

He accidentally overheard her fight with Robin.

It hadn't been his intention in the slightest, (how was he supposed to know they'd be having a lesson on the roof?), but once he heard the raised voices and heated subject matter he couldn't bring himself to ignore it.

They had been sitting in one of the cabanas near the pool, the ever-present breeze wafting through their fabric walls. Robin had set up a table for her, and there were blueprints spread out in layers across its surface. Both of them had been too absorbed in their argument to notice Gar awkwardly walk in on the scene, making it pointless for him to attempt his stealthy retreat behind a lawn chair. He ended up crouching low and watching them through the legs of the furniture, amazed to see two of the most collected people in the world practically breathe fire in one another's faces.

Robin was on his feet, pacing back and forth in his black button-up and sunglasses, and Raven was planted firmly in her chair, arms crossed over her blouse and her hair getting in her eyes as she spoke. Their casual appearance only added to the oddity of the scene, and Gar felt like he was watching two complete strangers rather than age-old friends.

"I'm just trying to help you-," Robin was saying, but Raven's cold tone broke through his words.

"You're trying to fix me," she countered. "And that's a very different matter all together. I am not the Raven from before, and you need to stop treating me like I'll become her later on."

"I'm not trying to fix you, I'm trying to prepare you for the League's test."

"A test that determines my fate, which is subjective to my mood at the moment."

"You know there's more to it than that-,"

"Yes Robin, I am aware of the more important matters that are at stake during my assessment," Raven practically spat, and Gar frowned in confusion. What other things were they talking about?

"That's not…I'm trying to help you as a friend, but as the leader of the Titans I have to look out for everyone's best interest-"

"So if it were in everyone's best interest for me to go back to the same person I was, then why did I dispose of her?"

"I'm not trying to put you back to the way you were."

"Yes, you are."

"Raven-,"

She slammed her hand on the table, rattling its contents along with Robin's resolve. He jumped the slightest bit. "You offered me a scenario, I told you my response, and then you said it was wrong on the basis that it wasn't what I did before." She gestured to the blueprint in front of her. "As I am now, I have not been caught in Mad Mod's illusions, so the actions I would take wouldn't be dictated by memories I no longer have." One of the pens on the table jetted away like a bullet, flying across the rooftop and right over the side. Robin's shoulders stiffened.

"You're being surprisingly lenient with your anger today," he murmured, and the remark only made Raven's eyes smolder.

"Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?" she hissed, leaning back and crossing her arms again. "Exercise emotional liberation or some such other?"

"Is that what that is?"

"Does it matter either way?"

"I don't know why you're fighting me on this," he breathed, his agitation clearly visible. "I'm on your side, Raven. I'm helping you in the only way I know how-,"

"Then help me," she said, leaning forward on the table, her hands gripping the edge. Another pen darted away, tearing through the fabric wall. She blinked at that one and inhaled deeply. "Stop trying to help the old Raven and help the one that's sitting right in front of you." She pushed her chair back and got to her feet. "Every time you pity me you mourn for her, for her death. And that's fine. It is because you cared for her. You all…. Everyone here loved her." Did she sound jealous? "But she is gone, I am here, and we are not the same person." She pointed at the blueprints, her tone cold and solid. "Had you been pinned down in this room then I stand by my decision to move forward and pursue the enemy. To stay behind would be to lose sight of the target altogether."

She took a step back from the table, her aura distant and unwavering. "I am not allowed to know about my past. All right, I consent. I won't ask about it anymore. But if I am not allowed to ask, then you should not be allowed to refer. Do not bring it up to me anymore. Do not make me wish I knew. Do not feel sorry for me. Do not try to fix me. Do not compare me. Right now I have no reasons to be loyal to you, so together we must create them." She turned her back on Robin. "But at the moment I feel unmotivated. And unwilling." Her dark shadows filled the cabana with black, the heavy air was displaced, and she was gone within seconds.

Robin stared at the empty space for a while, his hand raking aggressively through his hair. He growled, paced around aimlessly, and then slumped over the table, hands splayed over the blueprints. Gar contemplated slipping away unnoticed, but his curiosity got the better of him. Instead he stood up and walked straight to his leader.

"What other important matters?" he asked, vying for candor rather than his usual joking elusiveness. Robin didn't even flinch when he spoke, although it took a while for him to answer.

"It's complicated, Beast Boy."

"Then explain it to me."

"It's confidential information. I can't just-,"

"Rob." He grabbed his shoulder, turning him around so that they were face to face. "She needs a break," he said, quieter than he had intentioned. "Just one, lousy break."

"I know." He sat back on the table, throwing out his hands. Gar just waited, and his patience was rewarded. "They're holding me responsible for what happened, and that means that I'm on probation as much as she is." He rubbed at his temple and sighed a heavy sigh. Gar's face was a torrent of thoughts and emotions.

"Wait, what? Probation? Can they even do that? I mean, what would probation for you even mean?" He felt his stomach drop. "Hold on, you're not saying—..."

"It means if Raven fails her test then I fail too, and we're both out of the Tower."

"But if you leave the Tower—,"

"Yeah."

"Then that means—,"

"Yeah."

"Everyone?"

Robin raised his gaze and Gar saw the same weariness from when he first returned from meeting with the League. "If Raven fails then I get relieved of my leadership, and all operating Towers get disbanded." He breathed out slowly. "It would be the end of the Titans."

.

.

.

*stolen S.T.A.R. tech – referenced from Breaker; Dr. Light was reported to have a similar converted sonic canon as Cyborg, and the investigation as been a secondary plot point since.