.

. . .

In Which Everyone Knows

. . .

Everyone knows.

Okay, in reality Raven is fairly certain that no one has the slightest inkling. Already struggling enough coming to terms with the situation on her own without the added anxieties and other unpleasant emotions which will come along with three extra meddling parties, she knows it's best if it stays between just the two of them for now. It's for her sanity. (Which he already threatens enough by himself.)

And yet, despite all her efforts (and his non-efforts) to keep it quiet (on the down low, he loves to amend), despite her ability to physically feel what the others are feeling, she still worries that everyone knows.

"Nobody knows, Rae. Besides, why would you care if they did? Don't I meet your standards?"

In the glass of her handheld mirror she can see the source of all her worldly troubles shifting on her bed, assaulting her with the saddest face he can muster. His lip quivers and when he meets her gaze in the reflection shallow lines form under his eyes. But the actual emotions she feels radiating from him are far warmer. Emotions tend to surround people like suspended lakes—like personal snow globes. Right now Garfield's is a shake-up of contentment snowflakes. A little bit of sleepiness, undertoned with comfort. The dark quilt on her mattress all but consumes his long, lanky limbs in its folds, except his feet, which stick out the bottom. (Your bed is too freaking small, he loves to whine.)

Raven catches a smile tugging at her mouth in the mirror and dutifully tucks it away again before resuming the steady brush strokes through her tangled hair.

"You know why," she says with the tired air of anyone who's said something a hundred times. "They'd get all worked up, they'd make it into this big thing, they'd never shut up about—"

"Yeah yeah, I know, I know." Suddenly he's there, slipping the mirror from her grasp and laying it on the polished wooden surface of the vanity. "They'd never shut up about it and your powers would go nuts, you'd probably never get a moments peace, blah blah blah..."

"My peace isn't important to you?" Her face is in his hands now, and though she tries to glare he squishes her cheeks and laughs.

"If your peace is so important then why the hell are you dating me?"

Her eyebrows plunge into battle mode and she opens her mouth to spit out the first heated retort she can think of. "I don't—"

"Wait!"

That snow globe of emotion that surrounds him heaves suddenly, morphing from a calm glassy surface into a whirlpool; Raven realizes the two of them are once again teetering from flirting back over that indiscernible fine line into arguing. She realizes he's treading water, from comfortable back to nervous. But then—and a fierce fluttery blush tears from her chest upward, emerging as if out from a silken cocoon—a look of manic confidence overtakes his face and he pushes forward. Recklessly drags her face up toward his own.

"Before you answer," he rushes, his words blending together as he churns them out in haste, lips brushing lightly against hers. Tantalizingly. Her hairbrush clatters on the wood, staccato, sharp, like the space between them. The whirlpool changes—rises upward into a cyclone. But even if she couldn't feel his emotions as loudly as if they were her own then she'd still see that cyclone churning deep in his eyes, the way they look past hers into her, unphased, unrelenting. Unstoppable. There's only one emotion in his snow globe now, and it's a wall of white. Desire. "Let me remind you," he finishes.

Their lips are pressed so close that when he speaks it's as if she's speaking in tandem. Unseen objects scatter across the surface of the vanity as she reaches back to steady herself against Garfield's insistent advance, and before she knows it papers are fluttering to the floor. His deep exhale becomes a guttural sound in the back of his throat that sets her heart racing.

She decides to let him remind her.

.

.

"Pardon my intrusion, but may I ask you a question, Raven?"

The fridge falls shut with a soft squick and behind it is Starfire, waiting with bated breath. Raven raises one eyebrow, paused with an apple halfway to her mouth. Star takes the pause as a gilded invitation.

"Is there something amiss to which I could offer my services of rectifying? Anything troubling you? For... you have been acting quite strange for an extended period of time and—" Starfire waits as Raven rips a small chunk out of the apple with her canines. Her hovering friend plows on, her concern far more obvious. "—we have begun to have the worries about you."

Raven takes a second bite out of the juicy fruit and mulls over her answer. She knows full well that the others are curious, and that they're concerned. About her. (About Beast Boy.) But it's her own business. (Their business.) Just when she's about to tell Starfire that, a second assailant appears from the side of the fridge.

"What Star means," Cyborg cuts in with that 'damage-control' tone of his, "is that we're here. You know," he goes on, one hand scratching at the bristles on his chin, "if there's anything wrong. We got you."

"You've been spending an awful lot of time alone, Raven."

She pulls the much-desired apple away from her mouth yet again, wondering if Eve also got this much shit for partaking.

"Morning, Robin. You too, huh?"

The accused rises from the couch still in his pajamas, coming into view for the first time. "We're just worried, that's all." When he joins Star and Cy by the fridge Raven phases through to the other side of the counter. This is beginning to feel like an ambush and she doesn't like it. Not one bit. Their worry is heady and thick and it smothers her, clouding her empathic senses. Robin, forever on the same page, immediately notices she's begun to plan her escape route and holds up his hands as if to calm a startled animal. "Don't take it the wrong way, okay? But this is unlike you. Ever since the Trigon thing ended you've been so much more open... But recently—"

Starfire lets out a pitiful whimper and clasps her hands beneath her chin. "Please do not shut yourself away, friend Raven! We wish to assist with whatever is ailing you!"

Cyborg shoots Raven a deadpan hardass look which says plainly we both know Star and Rob are heaping on the overkill, but we also know they ain't wrong—so spill. Instead, Raven takes another bite and chews, slowly, taking her time. The other three grow increasingly uneasy as she puts off her answer.

Finally, she sighs. "Nothing is wrong. I've just... had a lot of stuff to do lately."

"Stuff to do?" Cyborg has one eyebrow quirked.

"Raven." She retreats further from the counter as Robin leans heavily onto the marble countertop. She can always feel the intensity of his gaze even through the veil of his mask, and it hacks away at her nerves. "I need to know. Is this about Bea—"

The metallic grating sound of the door to the common room sliding open causes them all to jump, and sets a quiet on the room like foam from a fire extinguisher. Raven's apple rolls across the floor and bumps against Beast Boy's bare foot, and before she can retrieve it with her powers he bends down and snatches it up.

After an unapologetic yawn he takes one massive bite out of it, sheering a solid quarter of the apple down to the core.

A wave of irritation laced with affection goes coursing from her cheeks down to her toes, and just like that her inner balance tilts dangerously askew. Energy splashes over her well and out into the world with the crack of a whip; the teacup on the table cracks down the center and the apple in Beast Boy's hands explodes into a pulpy mess.

"Hey, I was eating that!"

She glares at him, steaming, fists clenched, barely controlling her powers.

She hates the way her heart reacts to him. The way he picked up her apple and ate it as simply as though it were already his, it was so... familiar of him. So—domestic. Something aches in her chest. And then, how stupid of him! It was so familiar! So domestic! So wildly innappropriate, so not a thing a friend would do, so not a thing he can just do in front of their other friends without raising Cyborg's eyebrows right into the stratosphere. Amusement radiates off him as languidly as the summer sun, burning her just the same.

"Can you not do that?" she hisses through her teeth.

"Let's see," he replies, flicking bits of apple pulp off his biceps, "I find an apple, I pick it up. I don't write the rules, Rae."

"Uh, guys..."

"Beast Boy, you are really pushing your luck right now."

"Friends...?"

"I wouldn't have to if you'd push it for me." He winks at her suggestively. The amusement is rolling off him in tidal waves.

Her eyes flare red and she starts toward him (to do god only knows what) when she's interrupted by a booming "YO!" which returns her to her senses with a crash. She stops, hands still outstretched as if to strangle the idiot she loves. Starfire is worried. Cyborg exasperated. Robin has taken on the scowl of a testy schoolteacher.

"Whatever has been going on between you two, this has got to stop." Robin shoves his way in between them, grossly misinterpreting the electrifying tension that sparks between Raven and Beast Boy as something hostile.

Beast Boy's bright eyes dart toward Raven (they always make her think of afternoon light shining through leaves) and he backtracks when he sees her heart stop. "Rob, there's nothing going—"

But Robin jabs a finger in Beast Boy's direction, eyes narrowing. "Really, nothing? B, you've been antagonizing her almost twice as often as usual for the past couple months—" ("Which is honestly just impressive," Cyborg mutters from the other side of the kitchen counter) "—and you guys have been at each other's throats nonstop."

"And let us not forget the locking away in the respective bedrooms," Starfire puts in, forcing further space between her two friends as she descends down between the two of the from above to rest one hand on Robin's shoulder supportively, like a mother come to toss her two cents in on a lecture for their misbehaving kids. "This is the part which most concerns me."

"I don't get it." Everyone turns as one to look at Cy, who is the only one left by the fridge and is currently rifling through it, stacking various items in his bulky arms. "You guys had been getting on so well. And now this. I really thought you had started to..." he trails off, and accidentally drops a frozen waffle onto the tile as he shrugs. "I dunno. Become friends or something."

"Hey," Beast Boy protests weakly. He clutches at his wrinkly white t-shirt over the space where his heart is. "We are friends."

"So this weirdness, this 'avoiding everyone' thing, this shutting yourselves in your rooms—that has nothing to do with all these crazy arguments you've been having?"

"Rae and I are good," Beast Boy insists, throwing on a very genuine bubbly grin. "And I've just been playing a lot of solo games recently, no biggie. It's not my fault they released a bunch of classics for the 3DS."

Everyone turns to Raven now, and she instantly wishes she is as good as pulling excuses out of her ass as he is. He knows it too; that he has her beat. His grin turns sly as he peers around their teammate's shoulders, waiting for her to give own excuse.

"I told you," Raven says. This is spiraling out of control. "Everything's fine. It's very simple and you guys are blowing it out of proportion." If they're doing that to something as simple as this she can't imagine what they'd say if they really knew, and so she's more determined than ever to keep discreet about it. "I've had stuff to do. That's all."

"Stuff to do." Cyborg sounds as skeptical as ever and for some reason it rubs her the wrong way. He pops his waffles in the toaster, scratching his bristles yet again.

"Yes."

She takes a step back from them all, letting her cloak fall about her body and cover her almost completely.

Starfire, still unclear on social cues even after all these years, is the one to innocently challenge her. "What manner of stuff?"

Raven blinks. Everyone's snow globes bristle with the probing fingers of curiosity, all except Beast Boy's, whose churns with amusement yet again (and something like pride).

"Oh," she says dumbly. She wasn't expecting that. "...Stuff," she repeats. She's always been a terrible liar. She can only ever hope to lie through selective omission. "Reading. Lots of studying. Meditating."

"And you could not engage in these activities in the common area, as you have done in the past?" Hurt and confusion flits around Starfire's head like trailing fireflies and guilt climbs its way into Raven's heart. She pushes it back down.

"Yeah Rae, couldn't you engage in those activities in the common—" Beast Boy is quieted by one of Cyborg's half-frozen waffles, surrounded by her aura, colliding with his face.

"I could not," she says through clenched teeth. Beast Boy snickers. That little...

"Raven," Robin resumes carefully. His tone tiptoes and his emotions reek of caution. "What you're doing, I don't think it's healthy—"

"I'm not doing anything bad," she snaps, and for some reason Beast Boy snorts, a short bark of laughter. He quickly covers his mouth. Everyone ignores him.

"We don't think that," Robin amends hastily, "we just think it would be good for you to spend more time with us. With people."

"What about him?" Raven demands, irritated beyond belief, and points an accusing finger at Beast Boy, all stringy limbs and boxers and dumb wrinkly shirt, who's currently sneaking away from them into the kitchen. She throws him under the bus, knowing full well that he'd do them same to her. "How come you're not subjecting him to this lecture?"

Cyborg throws his remaining waffle onto a plate and crosses to the waffle that's on the floor by Rob and Star's feet. "He's just addicted to a couple games, that's all. It's happened before." He brushes the waffle off and inspects it for germs with his mechanical eye. "But you..."

"I what?" She wheels away from Beast Boy who has now begun rummaging through a kitchen drawer and pulling out different markers to inspect them, testing them each by scribbling on the hem of his shirt. He has obviously checked out of the conversation and will not be rescuing her. She stares down her other three teammates, fury building. This has gone far enough. "I what, Cyborg?"

Robin is the only one who doesn't quail at her seething tone. "I'll be the one to say it," he says with that team leader confidence of his. "It's just that there's obviously something else going on. You've always studied, you've always meditated. This is different. You're different." His face goes soft, and a sudden wave of empathy rolls off him, sending her back another step, until her back is pressed against the counter. "Just tell us and we'll—"

"I told you!" Her patience is finally gone. "It's nothing. No big deal. Leave it alone. I've just had stuff to do!" She can feel her energy well threatening to spill over again; the barstools on either side of her shake against the tile. "Why is that so hard to understand?" In her flustered state she doesn't realize that everyone has gone silent—that they're not staring at her, they're staring raptly at the space next to her. She punctuates her words, throwing them like daggers, driving the point home. "Stuff. To. Do."

She waits.

Her breathing finally slows. Heartbeat returns to a healthy pace.

No one says anything.

"Uhm, guys?"

Belatedly, she notices that their stunned expressions are not in fact focused on her at all. Tentatively she probes their emotions and gets only only thing, presiding over the room in balloons of static. Surprise. Curiosity consumes her, followed quickly with dread as she follows their line of sight, past her left shoulder, and she slowly wheels around.

There he is, the source of all her worldly troubles, capping a black sharpie and slapping it down on the table. He wears the slap-happiest grin she has ever seen. Her mouth falls into a startled little 'o' and someone finally speaks.

"Oh," Cyborg says. "Stuff to do."

Beast Boy leans on the counter and begins to pick at his teeth as if he has no idea he's the object of everyone's rapt attention, and Raven just stares at his shirt, where in fresh black marker, in terrible uneven handwriting, the word "STUFF" has been spelled out in all caps.

Then, all at once, Raven loses her shit.

"Gar, you fucking moron!" And she launches herself across the counter at him, so beside herself she completely forgets she has powers at all, simply slapping him on every part of his body she can reach while he belts out a chorus of laughter. He's so pleased with himself he can't even bring himself to deflect her attacks. The joy pours out of him so freely that it's all she can do to hold into her anger. It's like trying to stay hot under the cascade of a waterfall.

("I am confused,") she can hear Starfire protesting somewhere in the background.

("We're all lost, Star.")

The two of them collapse to the floor, Raven now whacking him upside the head with the empty Eggo box. "I hope this was worth it you idiot!"

("I feel I have again missed a subtlety of English phrasing.")

("Uh... Wanna weigh in, Cyborg?")

"It was so worth it," he cackles. "I was trying to help you out, Rae! You were floundering! Ow, hey, not in the ribs!"

("I ain't explaining to your girlfriend what "do" means, Rob.)

("I do not understand. Beast Boy is the 'stuff' which Raven speaks of doing?")

"Guys, help?" He's almost unintelligible in his state of laughter and no one hears him anyway. Raven hits him again with the box for good measure.

("Yo, back up, did Raven call BB Gar just now?")

("I think this dispute must be worked out on its own. Perhaps we should return later?")

"Yeah, return later," Beast Boy cackles, shoving Raven away with his enormous hand for moment, leaving her whacking helplessly at the air with her too-short arms. "Raven has stuff to do."

"Gar, I swear on every earthly religion I will make you regret this."

"Oh no."

But contrary to his words, his snow globe is all sparkling joy. No regret. That ache bubbles up into her chest again and she finds it suddenly impossible to be angry with him. Not when he's so genuine. Not when her body is so close to his that his snow globe intersects with hers completely; they are more a circle now than a venn diagram. If she's honest with herself, sometimes she can't tell which emotions are his and which are her own. It scares her... and yet it thrills her. Exhilaration lights up between them and suddenly her hands are on his chest.

"I'm so scared," he lies, gracing her with that fangy impish grin. "Guys wait, don't leave me here—"

But they're already retreating from the common room with haste, and Raven hears Cyborg whisper to Robin with incredulity as they leave, "Okay, I'm not crazy, right? She definitely called him Gar."

"Hey, so..." he takes her hand, sitting up and pushing her off him with a sudden look of urgency in his eyes. "Don't freak out, but I think everyone knows about us."

She rolls her eyes and hits him with the Eggo box, but this time with the tiniest mote of affection.