Their first fight as a couple happened two weeks after Raven and Beast Boy started dating. Up until that point, things had been good. Very good. There had been no fighting or sniping between them. When she requested that she be left alone, he acquiesced, and when he asked that she try something new, she did it, even if she hadn't been particularly interested in it before. These experiences had helped open a few new interests for both of them, but most of the time, the onslaught of new things left her tired. When that happened, they would simply sit together, occasionally kissing. It had all been very calm and comfortable. It had been good.
Too good.
Too good to the point of stilted.
Too good to the point of boring.
Raven couldn't remember what had sparked their first fight, but now that she was thinking about it, she was certain that the surprising blandness of the past two weeks had been what provided the kindling. They'd both been denying their natures to try and please the other, so neither of them were happy.
And now it might be over, Raven thought, and despite her attempt to remain calm, she felt a harsh pain deep in her chest at the thought.
The fight had actually been refreshing when it started that morning. It felt...like it had been before. After all, fighting was what they did. It was play for them. But it had quickly escalated, and after a time, Beast Boy had walked out. Raven thought that he'd just needed to calm down, but when she'd finished her hour of cooling off, he was nowhere to be seen.
That had been hours ago, and their friends had started to worry. When it got dark, and there was still no Beast Boy, Cyborg had activated the tracker in Beast Boy's communicator and went after him. Starfire and Robin had tried to "be there" for Raven, whatever that meant, but they'd eventually left her alone at her request. As far as she knew, they were sitting in the ops center actually enjoying being a couple. She was perched on the roof, looking at the stars and feeling numb.
It was just after midnight when she heard a sound. It sounded kind of familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. Curious, she left the roof in search of the noise. She flew through the dark halls of the tower, and when she got close to the ops center, she realized the sound was singing.
"I'm invisibleh shaken! Quietly breakin,' desperately takin' one step AT A TIIIME!"
Loud, slurred, and horrendously off-key singing, but singing nonetheless. A second voice interrupted the first's attempt at some power ballad.
"Man, if you don't shut up with that shit, I'm makin' you sleep in the garage!" Cyborg snapped. The other voice, which Raven now knew to be Beast Boy, continued to loudly.
"Beneath this composure... I know it's over...BABY, I'M DYIN' 'CAUSE YOU CAN'T BE MIIIIINE!"
"You sound like a human basset hound! Shut up! Since when did you even start listening to country anyway?"
"Since I realized it's the only music that truly understands my pain!" Beast Boy practically sobbed.
"That does it," Cyborg said. "I'm gettin' Raven."
"Why bother?" Beast Boy asked belligerently. "She won't care."
That was what did it for Raven. She opened the door to the ops center and immediately flew in to find Cyborg and a very drunk Beast Boy sitting in the kitchen. Cyborg was holding one of Beast Boy's shoulders. When he caught sight of Raven, he stood and stalked over to her, not noticing that without his support, Beast Boy flopped over and slid from his chair.
"Do you know the kinda hell I went through chasing down your jackass of a boyfriend?!" Cyborg demanded.
Raven opened her mouth to answer, but he just plowed on.
"He was in some dive country western bar in Fish Springs, Nevada! You ever heard of that place?! Neither have my systems! This place is so podunk my tech didn't even pick it up. I had to actually get out, in the middle of the desert, and ask around! Imagine how well that went, a damn robot asking if anybody'd seen a little green dude! Some old lady thought I was a martian and followed me for hours, yelling at people not to talk to me in between hitting me with her cane!"
Raven tried to interrupt, but Cyborg wasn't having it.
"Then! And then, I find your little green idiot in a bar straight out of some cheesy Western where everybody in it is side-eying me not because I'm half-robot, but BECAUSE I'M BLACK. A freaking cyborg walks into his bar, and the first thing they do is check the color of the three patches of skin I got left!"
"WHAT?!" Beast Boy screeched from his spot on the floor. He sat up, using a chair leg for support. "THEY WERE RACIST?!"
Cyborg looked like he was about to explode. He took a deep breath and then answered with forced calm. "Yes, Beast Boy. That's usually what it means when a dude says he doesn't like 'coloreds' in his bar."
"Oh." Beast Boy said thoughtfully. "I thought he was talking about me."
At that, Cyborg's face went totally blank.
"Cyborg?" Raven asked, concerned.
"I'm goin' to bed. Fix whatever problems you got with him, because if I have to hear him sing any more country music, I'm gonna lose my mind." With that, he left the room, leaving Raven alone with Beast Boy.
She walked to the kitchen and took a seat next to him on the floor. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Beast Boy?"
With apparent reluctance, Beast Boy let go of the chair leg he held and turned to face her, leaning against the counter for support. "Hey, Rae." He sounded so dejected that the pain from earlier returned to her chest.
"Hey." she whispered through the tightness in her chest.
"We can still be friends, right?"
This was it. He was breaking up with her, and they'd lasted barely two weeks.
"Do you really want to break up?" she sighed.
Beast Boy shook his head. "No."
"I don't either." she replied.
Now, Beast Boy looked confused. She felt the same.
"So... why all this?" he asked, gesturing between them.
Raven assumed 'this' was the unnecessary angst they were currently suffering from.
"I don't know. You just left." she said.
"You left first!"
"To meditate. Like I normally do when we fight."
"This was our first fight though." Beast Boy pointed out, confused.
Raven rolled her eyes. "It was not, and you know it. Before we got together, we fought all the time, and when we did, I had to go to my room and meditate after. Now, you. Why did you leave?"
"I honestly thought you were gonna dump me," he admitted. "I made you angry, maybe hurt your feelings. You're not supposed to do that stuff to your girlfriend. You're supposed to try and make her happy. I wanted to make you happy."
"Did you ever think that maybe you were trying a little too hard with that though?" Raven asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I've been thinking about it since you left. I can't even remember what we were fighting about, but I have thought about us over the last couple of weeks. We've been together all the time, and we haven't disagreed about anything, which is strange for us, and it feels like everything is forced. I think we've both been trying so hard to make the other happy that we're making ourselves unhappy. Now it's week two, and we're both miserable and fighting."
Beast Boy closed his eyes and sighed. "Does this mean that, even though we don't want to break up, we probably should?"
"No." Raven said firmly. Now that she was sure they weren't going to break up, she was going to think of ways to try and fix their issues.
"I think we need to stop trying to grant each other's every wish," she explained. "I think we should act like we did before we dated, except we kiss more often, and once in a while we do something that's just us. I don't really know or care what. Do you believe we can do that?"
Beast Boy opened his eyes and gave Raven a small smile. "You think it's gonna be that easy?"
"Probably not." she said bluntly. "But it's an idea."
"Well, I think it's worth a shot."
Beast Boy was quiet for a moment. "So...does this mean we survived our first fight?"
"I believe it does." Raven replied.
"Does that mean I can kiss you now?"
"Brush your teeth first."
Beast Boy laughed. "Getting right on the 'not granting each other's every wish thing,' aren't you?"
"No," Raven replied. "It's a compromise. Like we did just now."
Beast Boy smiled and laid his head on Raven's shoulder. "Compromise is good."
"Compromise is good." Raven confirmed, leaning in to him.