I don't own the Teen Titans. Or a house. Just saying

Beast Boy growled in irritation as he picked himself off of the pavement. The H.I.V.E. Five were at it again, though it was a bit of a relief to see the absence of Jinx. She was still on the fence of becoming a fully fledged hero, but her days as a villain were in the past. At least, that's what Kid Flash had said.

Regardless, Beast Boy was grateful that the pink-haired girl was no longer calling the shots with the pack of criminals. Gizmo had apparently claimed the title of leader as his shrill voice barked out commands. And sadly, it seemed as though the others were listening, since Beast Boy found himself embedded in a pile of rubble - courtesy of Mammoth, who had thrown him into a building.

As he tried to calm his spinning head and shake off the dust, he surveyed the battle before him.

The large, auburn-haired meta-human was now preoccupied with throwing cars at Starfire, who was too busy blasting several of Billy Numerous's clones to notice. But before the changeling could yell out a warning, a blast of blue energy quickly knocked the car away from the alien.

Letting out a relieved sigh, Beast Boy morphed into a cheetah and rejoined the fray. With speed on his side, he charged towards a freshly teleported Kyd Wykkyd, who failed to notice the green feline in time.

Shifting into a gorilla, the green titan promptly graced the mysterious villain with a blow to his head, effectively knocking him out. As he regained his human form, Beast Boy looked around in confusion. He wasn't sure what to do with the unconscious criminal at his feet, since the guy's powers were still a bit of a mystery to the team.

Shrugging lightly, he gave the cloaked villain one more bang on the head for good measure, before charging back to the action.

His eyes automatically zeroed in on the empath, who was holding her own in a fight with the technology-reliant toddler. Well, he knew Gizmo most likely wasn't that young, but the twerp still had a lot of growing to do.

Beast Boy's instincts were screaming at him to help the pale girl, but he knew that she could take care of herself. Instead, he decided that taking down Mammoth was a bigger priority, since the dude was a huge liability, and apparently very fond of destruction of property. Morphing into a hummingbird, the green titan positioned himself directly over the super-strong villain, before shifting into hippopotamus. With a strangely satisfying squish, Beast Boy returned to his human form and surveyed the damage.

Mammoth was successfully subdued, lying unconscious on the road.

With two of the five down -

Suddenly a loud blast, followed by the surprised shriek of See-More, sounded from behind the changeling.

Make that three down, Beast Boy laughed to himself, before his focus returned to the half-demon, who was still quarreling with the twerp.

Again, his instincts begged him to intervene, but Beast Boy resisted. It was weird enough that they wanted to help Raven at all - and it'd be even weirder trying to explain that to the empath when she'd grill him for "interrupting" her.

In an attempt to distract himself from helping the pale girl, Beast Boy morphed into a leopard and took a hold of Mammoth's foot. Dragging the large dude was a bit of a challenge, and in all honesty, kind of disgusting, but the changeling successfully piled him onto a still-unconscious Kyd Wykkyd.

In what he was sure to be a hilarious way, Beast Boy began gagging - still in leopard form - from the foul taste the villain left in his mouth.

"Hairball?"

Sending what he hoped was a successful death-glare to his leader, Beast Boy shifted back into a human.

"The dude tastes like bacon grease," he groaned, wiping his mouth clean of any excess spit. "Or, at least what I imagine that stuff would taste like."

Robin let out a refined chuckle as he tossed an apprehended See-More onto the growing pile of criminals, before slipping his serious façade back on.

"Go help Raven with Gizmo - he has some weird device that keeps dissolving her blasts, and I don't want Cyborg short-circuiting or anything."

Beast Boy was about to ask why Starfire couldn't help her instead, but knew that it would only cause the boy wonder to question him. Sighing in defeat, he morphed back into a hummingbird and flew towards the empath.

Robin hadn't been exaggerating - every blast of dark energy emitted towards the pint-sized villain disappeared as it neared him. He was continuously pressing a small red button on his wrist beforehand, so using commonsense, Beast Boy deducted that that was the cause. Deciding to take down the little dude in a similar fashion to how he handled Mammoth, Beast Boy hovered a few yards over him, before morphing into a seal.

But in the few seconds it took to descend towards the earth, Raven had suddenly appeared in the place of Gizmo, who was apparently not anticipating the roundhouse kick to his little head. Thankfully, Beast Boy had noticed the change of his target at the last minute and quickly reverted back to his human form.

Though something lighter would probably have been better appreciated.

He landed on top of the unsuspecting half-demon, and the two fell to the ground in an ungraceful heap.

"Shit shit shit shit," he began frantically as he tried to untangle himself from her. "I'm so, so sorry, Rae!"

Raven merely glared at him from her pinned position, obviously resigning herself and allowing him the honors of prying himself off of her.

"You're an idiot," she deadpanned, not even blinking as she continued to stare at him with hostility.

"I said I was sorry!" he exclaimed, finally managing to untangle his fingers from her hair. He had somehow gotten the digits stuck in her violet locks - probably from his reflex of using his hand to soften the blow to her head when they landed on the ground.

She replied with a slight growl as they both stared at the stray hairs newly detached from her scalp.

Beast Boy gave her a sheepish smile as he successfully pulled himself off of her, before offering her his hand.

He could see the slight reluctance in her otherwise blank expression, but she surprisingly took his hand, and he pulled her to her feet as well.

At least, he attempted to.

The sound of fabric ripping notified both titans that Raven's sweater had snagged on a piece of cracked pavement.

At the noise, Raven had automatically released her hold and landed on her butt, a look of horror etched across her face as her hands flew to the accused material behind her.

"Help me," she hissed, looking over her shoulder.

Beast Boy gulped in nervousness as he knelt down beside her. He could see that the sweater was now a lost-cause; it was basically torn in half. The back of her collar was the only thing keeping the garment from becoming a backwards cardigan.

But as his eyes continued to survey the damage, he realized one incriminating little detailed that brought a furious blush to his face.

He had been staring at Raven's back for the last minute. Her bare back.

There was an alarming absence of bra-straps, or anything of the like. Realistically, he knew the empath would never go completely bra-less, since she was a few turtle-necks shy of a total prude, but whatever she had on underneath the flimsy fabric of her sweater, it wasn't the traditional, two-strap bra.

Thankfully, his mortification was blocking out any enjoyment he might have found in the situation, and judging by the suddenly stiff posture of his teammate, she was picking up on it.

"I can't walk around with my shirt torn in half!" Her sudden outburst caught the changeling by surprise as he stumbled onto his own behind. But as he was trying to save himself, he had grabbed onto her sweater and successfully turned it into a cardigan.

Thankfully, Raven hugged her arms to her chest as the garment flitted in the slight breeze. In all honesty, if she kept her arms in the same position, the sweater would still keep her... more personal bits concealed. But Beast Boy knew she'd refuse to walk around in a back-less sweater.

Thinking quickly, he began to unbutton his flannel shirt, beyond grateful he was wearing a shirt under it. Though even if he wasn't, he'd rather himself go shirtless than risk anybody seeing Raven half-naked.

But apparently Raven didn't realize this as she gave him a look of horror.

"What the hell are you doing?!" she screeched incredulously.

Another fierce blush consumed Beast Boy's face as he could only imagine what she must have been thinking.

"You said yourself that you can't walk around like this," he explained shakily, feeling as if he'd die of embarrassment, "and I'm wearing two shirts, so it's the most logical solution."

He saw from the corner of his eye as Raven's pale face flushed.

"O-oh. Right."

With the embarrassment of the situation with Raven still fresh in his mind, Beast Boy did everything to avoid her for the rest of the day. Instead of sticking around in the common room to debrief with Robin, the changeling had convinced Cyborg to take him to the med-bay and help with a few of his more serious wounds.

In all honesty, his injuries were nothing more than a few scrapes and cuts, but Cyborg seemed just as eager to get out of debriefing as he was. Though for different reasons, obviously.

"So where'd you and Rae run off to?"

Beast Boy knew that Cyborg was only making small talk, since his job of giving him the right antiseptics was done. Now the half-robot was just awkwardly standing there killing time as Beast Boy applied the medicine to a rather deep cut on his forearm.

"Lunch," he replied curtly, not wanting Cyborg to tease him - after all, lunch was the least sexy of all dates.

Not that they had been on a date.

"Oh, a lunch... date?"

The green teen didn't even have to look at his best friend to know he was grinning deviously.

"N-no," Beast Boy stammered as he begun treating his other arm. "Just lunch, dude. I, uh, owed her for something, and was just p-paying up."

"Uh huh..."

Again, Beast Boy felt his cheeks flushing. He had barely come to terms with his crush on the half-demon, and he was in no way ready to let anyone else know. Except maybe Raven.

His mind suddenly began replaying his day with her, starting from their bantering in the elevator, all the way to her shyly slipping on his shirt. His primal side had finally decided to make an appearance as Beast Boy's senses picked up on the strangely inviting aroma of his scent mixing with hers. He literally had to restrain himself from pouncing on her by lodging his foot into a crack on the street. It was uncomfortable, but the awkward position his ankle was in kept himself from lunging towards the empath.

"...we didn't lie to each other, but whatever."

Cyborg's voice jerked Beast Boy out of his thoughts as his eyes darted up from his wounds.

"Huh?"

The half-robot shook his head in amusement, before repeating himself. "I said, I thought we didn't lie to each other, but apparently you don't trust me."

Beast Boy scoffed at his best friend's accusation. "I do trust you, Cy!" he replied incredulously. "I'm sorry if I don't feel like having girl-talk with you and pouring out my soul like a chick, but I do trust you. And me and Rae weren't on a date!"

Cyborg merely shrugged his shoulders as he held his hands up in defense. "Hey, hey - calm down, BB! No need to get all worked up," he smirked.

Beast Boy felt his eyes narrow as he sent his best friend a fierce glare. "Then can you stop pestering me about Raven, for once in your life!"

The robotic titan let out a confused laugh at the changeling's sudden hostility. "Sorry, man. I didn't realize it upsets you so much."

With a labored sigh, Beast Boy quickly went back to patching himself up - and not thinking about Raven. Or how good she managed to look while practically drowning in his shirt. Or how enticing she had smelt. Or how the green had brought out the purple in her eyes and -

Shit, he thought bitterly, as he caught himself thinking about her again. Obviously his willpower alone wasn't enough to keep his mind from wandering, so he sent a pleading look to his robotic teammate, who was staring into space in thought.

"What's got you all distracted?" he asked hesitantly, hoping Cyborg wasn't offended by his earlier outburst.

The half-robot redirected his sights on the changeling, before shrugging noncommittally. "Awe, nothing, man. Just, I was talking to Bee earlier, and she was going on and on about dresses and stuff, and... Do you know if the Titans East were invited to the ball, too?"

Beast Boy felt the color drain from his face as he stared wide-eyed at his best friend.

Shit.

Hopefully BB can survive until the ball - because I'm pretty sure once both of Cyborg's dates show up, our favorite little changeling will become roadkill. And hopefully he can confess his feelings to Raven beforehand - otherwise all of our little hearts might break. Or you all would just get really frustrated with me and tell me mean things. Lol

Anywhoo, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! And in case any of you were confused (guys, especially lol), there actually are these little backless strapless bras (they're sticky and more supportive than just tape) that you can buy for shirts that are also backless/strapless. They're actually really good to use for dresses, since nothing looks worse than wearing a pretty gown and having your bra peeking through lol

You're welcome for that little tidbit of needed-to-know info. Leave a review? ;)