I don't have own Teen Titans,
This is a series of one-shots that are slightly connected sometimes, about Beast Boy and Raven. I've realized my utter obsession with this couple and can't help wanting to write something about them.
Enjoy.
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1-. Discoveries
The first time Raven realizes, she's sitting on the couch, drinking a new batch of tea she snatched from a mystery shop about a week ago.
Robin and Beast Boy are talking loudly nearby, in the kitchen, and even though she doesn't want to, she can't help but hear what they say. About a mission, long term. Would they go somewhere? She wasn't ready to travel much, but if it's an emergency, she'd oblige.
Then a few minutes later Robin summons an impromptu meeting, and delivers the news.
Beast Boy is leaving.
It's scary and dangerous, something about infiltration and data retrieval. She convinces herself it's nothing, but Robin mentions how long he's leaving and her world crumbles.
One year.
A whole year without Beast Boy.
Worst part of it all, it wasn't Robin who sent him there. Two months into the mission, she barged into the control room and cornered Wonder Boy, her face showing a level of concern and worry so strong it's a miracle the whole room hadn't exploded yet.
She asks his reasoning in sending their changeling to such a stupidly reckless mission, and he only gives one single excuse before he comes out clean.
"It was Beast Boy's idea…the Doom Patrol offered the job, saying it was something special for Beast Boy. Sorry, I could not convince him otherwise" He doesn't say it, but Raven is aware of how much this bothers Robin as well.
On his desk, there's files everywhere. About the Congo (Beast Boy's most recently updated location), about the enemy he's facing, about everything, and even his most recently updated health state.
She leaves barely satisfied and angrier.
Then, a month later, Beast Boy's communicator goes out without a warning, and they're left with zero ways to contact him.
Her heart freezes and cracks, and she dies momentarily that day. Just in the inside. A slow death, a numb one.
The months go by and Starfire is a wreck, she flies everywhere with anxiety and doesn't talk except for mundane words that don't mean anything. She takes off once against Robin's wishes and searches for a whole week around the Congo, but comes back empty handed. Robin tries his best to explain that Beast Boy must be undercover, and that the fact that the Doom patrol haven't told them any bad news yet should be enough to calm the Titan's worry.
It isn't enough. The next month it's Robin who leaves, surprising even Raven.
He leaves for two weeks and stays in contact, checking in every single night. Congo is big…and dangerous, in all the wrong places. The first week he hears something about a freak that has green skin, and his hope rises.
Then the second is useless and by the third Star is demanding he comes back before anything happens to him, and he comes back with nothing but a rumor.
Raven barely sleeps in between all those events, and doesn't eat more than extremely necessary. She's back to that type of behavior, retreating and locking herself in her room. It was always Beast Boy who managed to bring her out and socialize, live her life. Without him…
Most of the time, she spends it in Nevermore, where time flies faster. It's her only way to cope, and her feelings are just as affected.
Happy isn't as happy, Timid will not ever stop crying, and Bravery puts in a new request to search for Beast Boy every two hours. Anger is so deep into her own emotion, she doesn't even answer questions.
She goes to visit affection only once to ask why is the inner turmoil so strong for Beast Boy, but not for Cyborg when he left to be undercover for a few weeks.
Affection reveals a small place within her realm filled with pictures of Beast Boy, presents and notes. It's his jokes and his attempts to make her smile and laugh, it's the first package of empty books he bought for her birthday, saying that if he were ever to read, he wanted to read something she wrote.
It's the penny he gives her before almost sacrificing himself to face Trigon, her father. It's the pancakes he made for her a week before he left.
"You love Garfield" It's all Affection says before Raven bolts away from Nevermore in clear fear and confusion. She's never loved anyone, and those she tried too were mistakes. Betraying mistakes.
She couldn't possibly love Beast Boy. Not in the way Affection proposed it. Not in a hundred million years.
But a year and two months go by before there's a knock on the door. They are all huddled in the couch, watching a movie in silence, because everything was silent without their changeling, and Cyborg offers to get that door for them.
The scream and sobs of a grown man force them all to rush towards the door, and there he is. Cyborg is crying, and it's the ugly type. Starfire follows through, and cries so hard she hurts her throat for a whole week. Robin doesn't stay behind and joins in on it, but he's far quieter about it.
He's taller. His arms filled his uniform quite well. His canine smile is wider and more powerful than ever before and his body is filled with scars, both healing or about to open up again.
Raven realizes that he's missing an eye and he's wearing a patch, and that's the last drop. The last bit of rationality leaves her.
She silently promises Cyborg she'd pay for and fix everything, and then she drops to her knees and cries for hours, breaking every single item near her, popping all the lightbulbs and cracking every window in the tower.
Beast Boy is back and she loves him. Loves him like nothing she's ever loved before.
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I always thought that Raven's love is the granted kind. She takes things for granted, in this one shot, it's Beast Boy's presence.