I do NOT own Teen Titans
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Stories never end the way I plan them (so I never plan them), but this will be BBxR. Though in the storyline it certainly won't happen anytime soon.
The updates should be reasonably fast, but not every day.
Why would Raven take up such an offer? Why not? From the series we see her giving and receiving hugs. She lets Malchior hold her in a romantic way. She certainly is capable of romantic feelings without blowing every light bulb in Jump City. The act itself is an entirely different question, but I would think anger that would allow Rage to escape would be the last thing she would feel during such an event. When Trigon is defeated Robin is the one she hugs. Who else would she decide to have a relationship with? Cyborg who's involved with Jinx? I doubt the hex casting girl would be willing to share. Beast Boy she believes to be immature. Okay as a friend, but not boyfriend material. If she wants someone who knows her and accepts her, then her only option, in her mind, would be Robin. For now at least. That will change.
I certainly agree that 'at this point' Beast Boy shouldn't go back. But I wonder what could happen to change that. Something that could change the whole picture around. Not just make it so that he would tolerate going back, but actually reinforce his trust in his (ex-)friends.
Robin won't remain crippled. Raven will heal him. And he and Starfire will remain a couple. He isn't exactly my favorite character either, but he isn't a bad guy. Just so obsessed at times that it borders on the psychotic.
As a little spoiler: I wonder in their guilt, what will they miss?
Time: Four hours later.
Another Meeting,... Nevermore No-more,... Searching,... Life as an Amoeba,... Trying to Sleep,...
Dead tired, with her eyes closed, sleep refused to come to the violet-haired girl. Cyborg and Starfire didn't need her healing touch while her own injuries could wait. Robin's near fatal contact with a steel wall, on the other hand, had taken everything she'd had. Or almost. She'd left some in reserve just in case they found Beast Boy. According to Cyborg the first thing he'd done after dragging them to the clinic was to order the individual modules of the T-ship to do an automatic search for the shape shifter. So far there'd been no word. She sighed, and turned, being sure to keep her eyes closed. The venom had been washed out, but the damage had been done. Until they healed it hurt to open them. Not as much as he's hurting right now. She though harshly, wondering what'd gone so wrong. If only I'd listened to that premonition. If only I'd went to Nevermore. She turned again, condemning herself.
"There's a meeting in five." Cyborg's voice came from the doorway.
"Okay." Raven intoned, recalling how well the last one had went. She forced her aching body up, and headed for the meeting. Painfully she looked around. The table that should've been in the center of the room had been smashed flat. Despite being steel, it'd easily crumpled beneath the seven ton weight of a bull elephant. The walls, also made of steel, were half gone. The one facing outside had been destroyed by a sonic cannon blast set to max, while the others had been bent and buckled during Beast Boy's fight with Starfire. Every bit of the original equipment and furniture in the room was lying shattered on the floor. Cyborg had set up some chairs and a screen with a computer attached for the meeting. Seeing there were six chairs, the girl cringed. With Jinx present there should've been six Titans, but of course there were only five. What were we thinking. She wondered, taking a seat to the left of Robin. Starfire was to his right.
"Ahem." Cyborg cleared his throat to get their attention. "Since I'm the one with the most information I'll be chairing this meeting." He needlessly stated. There was a long pause as he stared at the floor, flexing his hands. "First of all, Raven, I'm sorry." He took a book and handed it to her.
She looked at it puzzled. When she'd last seen it it'd been destroyed with its pages glued together. Peering at it closely she made sure it was the right tome. It was. It even had her bookmark marking the page she'd last read. She looked up.
"It was meant to be a joke." The cybernetic teen answered her unspoken question. "The shop had two copies. I gave you the better one, and ..." He shrugged. "I'm sure you can figure the rest out. I hadn't played a joke in such a long time and it was too good an opportunity to pass up." He looked away.
"How did you know I would blame Beast Bo..." She let her voice fade. She could've found the real culprit easily. It would've taken seconds to ask Beast Boy if he'd been the one to destroy the book. To touch him and listen with her empathic senses. Instead she'd just lashed out, assuming. She was that predictable. Her black magic coated the tome, and she deliberately shredded it, letting the remains fall to the floor. No one asked her why she'd done it; it was obvious. "Continue." She intoned.
Cyborg returned to the front of the room. "First of all, a summary of how our security system works. The main areas are covered twenty-four/seven with cameras that keep a forty-eight hour record of what they see. After that the old data is overwritten. It allows us to expect privacy even outside of our rooms while maintaining evidence should we need it. Unless something happens, no one sees it. A glitch in the system caused me to check one of the cameras. It had this footage." He hit a button.
They all paid close attention as a video showed Beast Boy entering Starfire's room, and then leaving. There was what appeared to be a camera in his hands. A second video played after the first, showing the same activity outside of Raven's room. A third one showed the same for Jinx's room.
Blushing, Cyborg turned back to the group. "What we assumed is pretty obvious. A teenage boy with a camera sneaking around the rooms of the female members of the team." He shrugged. "We were wrong. I've analyzed the images, and checked the other cameras. Beast Boy was in the gym at the time the cameras recorded that. Someone hacked our system and placed false images on the tapes." There was silence in the room.
"You sure?" Robin asked.
Cyborg nodded. "The ones outside of the girls' rooms weren't real. The cameras records infrared energy, along with other wavelengths humans can't normally see. When I checked those only the video of the gym showed body heat. The rest were faked."
Boy Wondered closed his eyes. "A year ago we would've given him the benefit of the doubt." He sighed. "But given recent changes I guess we were all too embarrassed by what he might have seen."
"The T-ship find anything yet?" Raven asked, cringing as she considered just how little effort it would've taken to find out the truth. Five seconds to ask the question, one to listen to his response. Six seconds. Robin was right. She'd been embarrassed, and scared, of what he might've seen. That he'd spotted them in the commons room was bad enough. That was probably a misunderstanding too. She admitted to herself. And we shouldn't have been there in the first place.
"No trace." Cyborg replied.
"Is he still alive?" She intoned the question, wondering what she would do if she'd killed him. And it was her fault. If only she'd ... The violet-haired girl sighed.
There was a long pause before the cybernetic teen answered. "I'm not sure."
"But he beat us." Robin interjected, speaking as if he still didn't believe it. "Why would he be ..." His voice trailed off.
"He beat us." Cyborg replied. "But he crawled away from the fight. The cameras show him taking ten minutes just to get as far as the ocean, leaving a trail of blood the whole way. Then he just disappeared. If he was normal I would say he was ..." The teen halted for a second, and then shrugged. "But he's not so he's probably alive. There was no sign of a body." There was fake confidence in the voice.
"What about my discs?" Boy Wonder asked.
Cyborg played more footage, showing the fight between Robin and the Beast Boy. He highlighted two points of the video. One showed Robin's belt in its proper place, the other with it twisted around a bit. "If you'd thought there was going to be a fight it wouldn't have happened. As it was you must've hurried getting dressed for the meeting. The fight was enough to cause the belt, and the satchel, to move a little. As far as I can tell it was just bad luck and lack of preparation that caused you to grab the wrong disc."
"Not quite." The boy replied with his eyes closed. "There's a different symbol engraved on each one. It lets me make sure I'm using the right disc. But I was so angry. Angry at what I believed he'd done, angry that he was beating me." He paused. "I was especially angry that he was beating me. I didn't feel the symbol, and threw anyway."
"I know what went wrong with my powers." Raven intoned, staring ahead expressionlessly. "Emotions. If I'd acted before the fight started, I could've prevented it. Then when I did I lost control. So when do I go to jail?"
"Jail?" Robin asked.
"When you thought he'd hurt me when he became the beast, you were quite willing to put him in jail. The same logic applies. I failed to stop the fight, and I hurt you in the process. Beast Boy may be dead. It's worse than anything he did as the beast. When do I go to jail?"
Silence reigned in the room as everyone but Jinx realized the same applied to them. Cyborg had attacked without giving the shape shifter a chance to explain. And when he had, it'd been with deadly force. Starfire had also attacked immediately with intent to seriously maim, if not kill. That both of them had been shocked at what they'd seen didn't excuse it.
"What now?" Raven asked, breaking the silence.
"We continue to search for him." Robin said. "When we find him we'll..." He sighed. "There's no way he'll believe it was a misunderstanding, or that we didn't mean to kill him. But we'll know he's okay, and if he ever needs help we'll provide it somehow."
They each looked around, knowing the Teen Titans would never be the same. There would always be one of them missing, and they would always know it was their fault.
She sat on her bed, preparing for a long overdue trip to Nevermore. A minute later she was in Happy's forest. Stunned, she could only stare. Things, she knew, were going to be bad here too. Very bad. The trees were weathered skeletons, the bright yellow sky was a putrid gross yellow, and the floating strawberries were gone. Holding her cloak over her mouth, she tried not to gag. Reaching out with her senses, she could detect no signs of Knowledge within the decaying forest.
Taking to the air, she surveyed the land around her. Timid's labyrinth had shrunk in on itself. As far as she could see there was no entrance or exit. Even the top was covered in stone. That was where she found the yellow-clad emoticlone.
"What do you want?" Came the abrasive greeting.
"The premonition?" Raven started.
"Too late." Knowledge replied. "Perhaps he's still alive, perhaps he isn't. Either way he's not a part of your life anymore, so forget him."
The violet-haired girl took a step back, shocked at the tone of voice her emoticlone was using. "What happened to Happy and Timid?" She asked.
"What do you expect? Timid, among her other traits, embodies your sadness. Happy embodies your happiness. This event has had a drastic affect on both of them. Forget them too. They're gone, or might as well be."
"Happy gone?" Raven sat down hard on the cold stone.
"Happiness isn't infinite. It can be broken down and cast aside. She liked Beast Boy, and now he's most likely dead. It will take a long time for her to recover, assuming she ever does."
"And Timid."
"The same. She liked Beast Boy. He was kind and gentle, the sort of person who wouldn't hate her for being weak. Now he's dead. She doesn't care to even try to overcome her nature anymore. She's retreated within her labyrinth."
"Oh." Raven frowned and looked around. "I thought I was doing so good but ..."
"You were." The yellow-clad emoticlone finally turned to face her. "During the years with the Titans you learned to live. Sex was a really good way to help you control your dark magic. It created a lot of positive feelings, and then spent them in a harmless way. It strengthen Happy, even if it wasn't the person she truly desired. The connections you formed during the act eased Timid's loneliness. I was curious, and it satisfied that need as well. It helped ground any dark impulses that might've run out of control, alleviating Rage's darker nature. And when you needed it, there was the titanium post Cyborg built for you to release minor frustrations on. It was working, and would've kept working if you'd kept meditating, if you'd heeded our advice. But it's too late now."
"He might not be dead." Raven stated, knowing the hope was slim. She'd watched the video of Beast Boy crawling to the water.
"To you he is. If he's still alive you can never be more than enemies."
"He was one of my first friends ..."
"Precisely, 'was' one of your first friends. As you've already noted, it would only have taken six seconds to confirm or deny his guilt. Apparently that was too much effort for you. How much of a friend were you to him then?"
"Not very." The trembling girl admitted, crying.
The emoticlone sighed. "What's done is done. My last bit of advice to you is to just keep marching forward. If he's still alive then who knows?" She shrugged. "He's certainly forgiven you a lot before. Now leave."
Raven rose and left, cast aside by that which was a part of her very being.
"Any sign?" She asked Cyborg.
"Sorry Raven." The cybernetic teen replied. "We've called in Titans East and we've got hundreds of volunteers from Jump City. Still, nothing."
She nodded. "I'm going to search too. Where should I go?"
He turned to looked at her haggard appearance. "You sure you're up to it?"
"I am. Just point me to an area." Her voice dared him to contradict her.
"Okay. Hrm." He looked at a map. "Actually, according to the tides, if he was an amoeba he would've been carried around there." He pointed at a spot just four miles away. "It's been checked several times, but if he's still in that shape and trying to heal no one would detect him. Your empathic senses might. Starfire's searching the area just north of it."
"Okay." Outside the tower she levitated and headed to the area. Flying close to the surface, she reached out with her mind. Her blurred vision was useless, and she'd decided it would remain that way until he was found safe. Several hours later, drained, she practically crash landed on one of the boats that was searching.
Not paying attention as an amoeba is pretty dangerous. Beast Boy mused. The currents had pushed him close to several large mussels which saw his kind as food. Frantically he tried to resist the current, and ended up having to become a small goldfish that could swim against it. Unfortunately the bleeding goldfish drew the attention of another small predator, and he ended up having to shift to a larger form to remain safe. Or at least sort of safe, since it meant he was now bleeding rapidly. Finding a secure spot on a nice rock, he returned to being an amoeba. Crisis averted. He thought.
The shape shifter took stock of his situation. That he would live wasn't guaranteed, but he now thought it probably. A few more hours and his cell membrane would be repaired. His internals were a different matter, but so long as nothing ate him it was just a matter of time. The ocean was filled with food, and provided everything he could possibly need.
The events that'd led up to his current situation was thrust violently aside. If he dwelled on that he would die; something would make him a snack of him as he was obsessing, and it would be game over. Still, he wondered what he would do. Those he'd thought were his friends had turned against him. Why? That was puzzling. That he could trust them with his life had been an absolute.
The future? He forced himself to think about that, and not the past. Briefly he considered returning to Jump City as a villain. That would be interesting. But jail didn't really appeal to him. Then again ... He let a few plots roll through his mind; what he could do if he recruited a few allies like Billy Numerous. It would be easy to make the Titan's sweat a little. He would've sighed if he could. Doing that would gain him nothing. What he wanted was some place far away. Somewhere where he could forget them, especially a certain violet-eyed girl.
Another one of the many holes in his cell membrane closed, and he was that closer to full health. With nothing but his own thoughts to pass the time with, he decided he would kill for a video game to play. The though led to memories of Cyborg and he would've cringed if he could.
Strangely enough, through it all, the driving force that kept him going was something he'd learned from a violet-eyed half-demon who'd been destined to destroy the world. From the day he'd met her he'd known she was courageous. He'd smelt her fear, the despair she'd carried, and had seen her face each day despite it. It was one of the many things that'd attracted him to her. Reaching out, he grabbed a small algae and engulfed the poor creature. He would heal and then decide his future. The world was vast and he was certain he would find his place in it.
The violet-eyed girl tried to sleep again, and failed. They'd searched for Beast Boy the whole day without seeing a single sign of him. That wasn't surprising given he was a shape shifter. How could you find something when it could be invisibly hidden right under your nose? For all they knew he could be in the exact same spot where he'd disappeared. Either alive and healing, or dead and decaying. She shuddered at the thought. He has to be alive. She told herself. And I need to rest so I can search again. He can hide from everyone else, but my senses can find him. She turned in the bed, needing to rest to regain her energy. The image of how he'd hugged her when they'd defeated Trigon came to her. It hurt to recall that. His sheer joy at seeing her alive and okay had been so ... She would've called it overwhelming, but it hadn't been. It'd been comforting. She wept, the tearing causing agony in her damaged eyes.
The next chapter.
Nevermore has certainly changed. Wonder where Beast Boy will end up.
Many thanks to those who read and review.
