Raven groaned unsure what woke her up. She had been sleeping soundly, so much so that she hadn't noticed when Cyborg left the room, or when Starfire entered. It disturbed her that she had been so deeply asleep that she hadn't noticed these events because she never usually slept that deeply. Granted Starfire entering could easily have been missed as she could fly, it was Cyborg exiting without rousing her that surprised her.

Then she thought about it she usually didn't take much medication either, so she chalked it up to the medication Felicity had given her. Though it didn't deter her enough that she wouldn't accept another dose should she need it, especially if the worst side effect was drowsiness.

Starfire awoke to the sound of Raven moving around.

"When did you get here?" she asked groggily.

"I have not been here long." Starfire replied, "perhaps an hour or so".

"What about the others, I saw Cyborg but…"

"Nightwing arrived before I did…" Starfire hesitated; she didn't want to be the one to inform Raven that Mockingbird was still unaccounted for.

"Starfire… what about Mockingbird and Beast Boy." She didn't want to show that both had her equally worried, but she somehow failed spectacularly. She had forgotten how well Starfire knew her.

Starfire looked away, hesitated again, then spoke.

"As far as I know they have not located either of them." Starfire replied, her voice meek and somehow smaller than normal.

"No…"

Starfire didn't know how she realized Raven was as worried about Beast Boy as she was Mockingbird, but she did. She had barely recognized her own voice as she informed Raven of the fact that Mockingbird and Beast Boy were still unaccounted for. She went to embrace the other girl mindful of her own strength and Raven's condition.

Raven wasn't surprised when Starfire embraced her, Starfire always loved hugging people, but what surprised Raven was the way she went about it. Starfire was usually all in when she hugged someone almost to a painful extent, but this one was gentle and Raven, for once, returned it.

"We will find them" Starfire assured her not revealing she had caught onto what Raven so desperately wanted to hide. If Raven wanted her to know she would tell her in her own time.

Few who met the two girls would guess by their personalities the exuberant Tamaranean was older than Raven by over an entire year. Starfire was already eighteen whereas Raven lacked a few days of seventeen. Raven always presented herself as more mature and Nightwing had concluded that was due to the horrors her powers posed forcing her to suppress emotion from an early age which essentially robbed her of her childhood.

Raven got up grabbing the sweatshirt and pulling it on over her head, shocked when, without being asked, Starfire helped her.

"Come, we will find out if they have found our friends." Starfire suggested not reacting when Raven put the hood up on her sweatshirt.

Everyone would notice this behavior, but she was sure by this time Nightwing or Cyborg would have informed the Arrow team not to say anything about the hood if she chose to put it up, she had reasons for that. They might not go into detail what those reasons were, but they would inform them that there were reasons.

They walked into the main room and Cyborg knew without asking that Raven had found out they hadn't found Mockingbird yet. He could tell by her body language and the fact that she had her hood up.

"Rae…" he muttered but didn't bother to try to get her to put the hood down. Other times he'd do it to pick on her, but that moment wasn't the time for it. He knew when he could poke at her and when the hood up was something he needed to observe and allow her to subvert the emotion. This was that time when messing with her wasn't advisable especially since Nightwing was on his way back with Mockingbird.

Felicity looked up at the sound of Cyborg's voice and her heart shattered in her chest. She wasn't sure why Raven had the hood up but something in her heart told her that was a bad sign. Cyborg had told her about how it wasn't always a good sign when Raven had the hood up. In battle it was just normal but outside of combat it meant she was feeling insecure or any slew of other emotions that she didn't want them to see or feared releasing for fear of losing control.

"She knows…" she heard Cyborg mutter.

"Knows what?" Felicity asked, coming closer so Cyborg wouldn't have to speak above a whisper for her to hear.

"Mockingbird is her little cousin… she's been training her to use her powers and they've bonded tightly over the past few months." He sighed "That's huge for Raven to bond with someone as tightly as she has Mockingbird. She must know we haven't found the kid yet."

He didn't elaborate, but he didn't have to, Felicity got the message anyway, Raven was the kind that had a hard time letting people in, so it was a big deal that she let this girl, Mockingbird, in. Apparently even her family had trouble getting to her for reasons Felicity found too heartbreaking to even think about.

Nightwing had been caught off guard when Beast Boy reacted worse than Mockingbird when he learned Raven was so far out of sorts. If Nightwing hadn't known any better he would have said there was something going on between Beast Boy and Raven, but that was impossible, wasn't it? The more he thought about it the more he realized not only was it possible it was true. Beast Boy was in a rush to get to Raven and Robin couldn't place a reason other than the obvious. and shocking, idea they were involved romantically with each other.

They arrived at the foundry and Nightwing stopped Beast Boy before he could rush through the door.

"We'll be along in a minute, Arrow, I need to talk with Beast Boy alone." He said looking calm enough that neither Arrow nor Mockingbird would worry about leaving the changeling with him.

"Okay…" he replied.

Mockingbird hesitated the followed Arrow inside knowing her cousin was waiting for her.

Nightwing waited until the door closed and he was sure they were out of earshot before he began. He stood with his back to Beast boy and began to speak.

"How long?" he demanded in his best Batman-esq voice.

"How long, what?" Beast Boy replied playing dumb and failing.

"How long have you and Raven been romantically involved?" He continued knowing fully well Beast Boy knew what he meant.

Beast Boy's expression hardened into a glare, this wasn't the time for the third degree, Raven needed him.

"Why… are you going to forbid it?!" he demanded sharply, turning things back on Nightwing "Are you and Star the only ones allowed to be romantically involved with a teammate?" He asked as he walked around Nightwing until he could look him in the face.

Nightwing was taken aback for a second. He hadn't expected Beast Boy to turn things back on him so hard core. He also hadn't expected the anger in Beast Boy's expression, but he should have. He also hadn't realized the changeling knew about him and Starfire to be able to throw it back in his face.

"How… No… I'm not trying to say that… I'm not that big of a hypocrite. How did you know…"

"C'mon Nightwing… its worst kept secret in the tower! Every time we turn around the two of you are doing something together or making some kind of excuse to be together!"

Nightwing sighed "You're right… I just… especially after Malchior I want to make sure she isn't going to be hurt again."

"Dude, look at me… look who you're talking to, I'd die before I hurt her… I was hurt too, or did you forget how Terra ripped my heart out and stopped it into the ground. I'd never do that, never hurt Raven… I was there, I remember how Malchior seduced and used her, no history lesson needed. I saw her regress from that I fought to get her back from that same as you did!" He replied in a cold monotone that echoed Raven so well "Excuse me… if you don't have anything else to say, I need to get to Raven."

The door opened and Beast Boy stalked away leaving Nightwing to rethink the way he looked at the youngest male of his team. He was more mature than Nightwing had given the changeling credit for, and he really would be good for Raven.

Nightwing stood there for a moment watching Beast Boy's retreating form. What stung the most was that the changeling was right on every point down to the fact that Nightwing would be a massive hypocrite if he said anything about their keeping the team in the dark about their relationship as he and Starfire had done the same thing. Only somehow, Beast Boy and Raven had been better at hiding it.

Beast Boy found Raven questioning Mockingbird and was unsurprised when the young telepath bowed out of the way to let him in. He couldn't do it, couldn't continue the charade when he felt like his heart was shattered and all he wanted to do was hold Raven in his arms and he knew she needed the same.

Cyborg watched in shock as Mockingbird stepped back, a knowing smile on her face. Then Beast Boy went to Raven and before the cybernetic teen, or Raven herself, could process what he was doing, Beast Boy was holding Raven in his arms. What made that even more shocking was the fact that she had hugged him back with only milliseconds of hesitation and hid her face in the hollow where his neck and shoulder met. The action knocked her hood off, but it seemed that was the last thing either of them were thinking about.

Felicity looked up in time to see Cyborg's jaw practically hit the floor. She then followed his sight line to see what was happening.

"I take it that isn't normal."

It took Cyborg several seconds to respond.

"No…" he replied "Not at all… I…" Cyborg was clearly at a loss for words.

He was watching the way Beast Boy held Raven, his arms around her shoulders so as not to put pressure on her injury, hers were around his chest, her face still hidden. He had recently hit a late growth spurt and was well on his way to being taller than her. He could look her directly in the eye now, but they were certain the spurt wasn't finished, and he was going to gain a few more inches finally rendering him no longer the shortest member in the tower. She'd have the misfortune of inheriting that honor as they didn't count Mockingbird in this as she was only thirteen and had a lot of growing to do as she was a petite 4' 8" (approx. 1.42 m) tall.

Beast Boy had expected her to protest as he hugged her in the open after so long of working so hard to keep their team in the dark. She had no way of knowing he'd all but confirmed it already to Nightwing. He just didn't give him a time frame on how long they had been hiding it and Nightwing hadn't pressed the issue after Beast Boy started telling him off about being a hypocrite.

Starfire gasped in surprise, she had been pretty sure she had read this in the way Raven reacted to the fact that Beast Boy and Mockingbird were MIA, but this just confirmed her.

"Are you happy for our friends?" she asked Cyborg.

"I'm still tryin to figure out what just happened." he admitted.

Nightwing watched as Beast Boy went to Raven, he wasn't running but he didn't dawdle either. He could see the need there and when Raven didn't hesitate to return his embrace, he knew he read the situation correctly. He also realized they were both doing something that, for the two of them seemed like a dangerous risk, trusting their hearts to the care of another person. He'd brought up what Malchior had done to Raven, but he had forgotten that Beast Boy's heart hadn't gone unscathed when Terra betrayed them all to Slade. She might have redeemed herself, but the wounds were still there on Beast Boy's heart, so the fact that he could give it to Raven was almost as impressive as the fact that she could trust hers to him.

He then noticed something else that clued him in more on Raven's mental state than he expected. Her hands were clutching the back of Beast Boy's shirt. She was clinging to him in a manner he would have said in any other circumstance was out of character for her. The problem was the past four hours had thrown her into a situation where she was so far into uncharted waters it was unimaginable. Raven was normally a force to be reckoned with, a supernatural powerhouse that was the very definition of the adage "beware the quiet ones" as she was quiet until it was time for her not to be then she was arguably the most powerful of them all.

The parasite had rendered her powerless and she didn't know what to do with herself with no magic, no empathic powers telling her about the world around her. She was lost exhausted beyond all measure and likely frightened. She was lost, exhausted beyond all measure and likely extremely frightened. He had been informed that she had spent more time asleep than awake since Cyborg arrived close to three hours earlier. He figured, if he interpreted her body language right, once Beast Boy could convince her back into the bed it wouldn't take much time at all for her to fall asleep again. Mockingbird looked that exhausted as well and he could only assume the parasite was to blame. That it hadn't been just their powers they had been robbed of but their own energy as well, leaving them unnaturally run down.

If she'd had her powers, she could have easily brought the foundry down around their ears, but with her empathy working she would have known they didn't mean her harm and likely wouldn't have reacted so badly.

He shook his head as he tried to mentally justify getting her to leave where she obviously really wanted to be so he could check out the damage he'd done to her. No, he couldn't, not while she was in his arms. Beast Boy wouldn't allow it knowing handling her injury would be painful for her.

"Nightwing…" it was Arrow.

"Yeah…" he said turning to the older archer.

"I see that look and you can't beat yourself up over this… it was an accident," Arrow said sternly.

"If I hadn't…"

"Nightwing, damn it, listen to yourself… you know Starfire was right, any of you could have let loose that attack that hurt her it was just your misfortune that you did it. Think about it, what would have been worse, what happened or what could have happened if Cyborg or Starfire had been the one that landed that hit her instead of you?"

Nightwing came up short, the archer was right, yes, a gash like that hurt like hell but it was a clean cut, a few stitches and something for pain and she was fine. Starfire's star bolts or Cyborg's sonic cannon could have resulted in far worse damage to Raven. If either had hit full force it could have been fatal to Raven. So, while it was far from ideal, it had been the best of the 3 evils. He had been hit with a low powered star bolt, and that had hurt like hell. He didn't want to imagine what it was like when she cut loose with full power.

"I know but… still, Arrow, we've never had that happen before. We've been a team for almost three years, and we have never had an accident like this before… not this bad. Usually, Raven would be able to heal anyone that is hurt, even herself, but that damn parasite…" Nightwing growled punching the wall for emphasis "… or we could have had Mockingbird heal her but same thing, damn parasite got her too!"

"Exactly, this wasn't your fault, Nightwing, you have to believe that." Arrow urged him "… Give the blame to that parasite monster, he deserves it." Then finally after several minutes of wracking his brain he decided the best way to distract Nightwing was a sparring match. Arrow challenged him and was unsurprised when the younger man accepted.

To Be Continued…