Rated for language, violence, and mature themes.

Set post-series, I guess, for the maturity involved. You can assume everyone is roughly 19-23yo.

Chapter one of seven (tentatively).

Birds in the Rain

part i ㅡ fireflies

The incessant alarm was still flashing and blaring and Raven was getting royally pissed. "Would somebody shut that thing off?" she lashed out at no one in particular.

"Little busy!" Cyborg shouted back, ducking behind a marble pillar as a projectile hurtled his way. "Star, on your left!"

Star turned just in time to see Red X's grappling hook as it caught the chandelier above her and rent it from its chain with a metallic grinding sound. Glass rained and she shielded her eyes, but became tangled in the hanging prism strings and fell victim to gravity. Fortunately, the vaulted ceiling of the bank was expansive and lofty and Raven's reaction time was swift enough to stop the chandelier with her powers before it met the marble floor already littered with debris. As she watched the green bird swoop up from below to disentangle Starfire's long hair from the chandelier's lights, Raven could hear Robin snarling from somewhere behind her as he doubled the offense on Red X.

"Don't you have bigger fish to fry?" Robin growled, his words punctuated with heavy metal clangs.

"Agreed," Raven chimed. "I thought you only crawled out of your hole when someone was dangling the real Grade A worms. Isn't robbing banks for the part-time criminals?"

"Ouch," Red X laughed. "Crawled out of my hole? You wound me, sweetheart." Raven smiled sadistically as he ended the sentence with a muffled grunt that meant one of Robin's hits had finally landed.

"Tell you what." Raven jumped; Red X's voice was to her immediate left. In her surprise she lost her hold on the chandelier, leaving Starfire and Beast Boy clattering to the floor in a complicated heap of limbs and glass and gold. Robin's hand-to-hand combat training kicked in like it was conditioning and Raven's fist shot toward his nose. But Red X was quick, remarkably so, and he dodged a broken nose with a light chuckle. "I turn off the bank's alarm for you and you take back that thing you said about me crawling." He crossed his arms to deflect her next punch. "Yes or yes?"

Raven gave him a curled upper lip and a resounding "NO" just as Cyborg's arm came flying out of nowhere.

Red X flipped over backward to avoid the hit and almost lost his balanceㅡbut on the way down sent his grappling hook behind him and hit the flashing red bulb that was emitting the high pitched keening alert. It quieted with a final shrill whine, and Raven immediately felt ten shades calmer.

"How's that, sweetheart?" he called out, deflecting Robin's staff with yet another prideful, over the top backflip.

"Yeah, yeah, we know you can do backflips!" Beast Boy lauded with saccharine venom, having finally disentangled himself from Starfire and the chandelier. "Can we just skip to the part where we arrest you?"

"Sorry," Red X answered, "afraid there's been a change in plans. Scheduling conflict," he shrugged, though he was rather breathless for such nonchalant words. He successfully pulled back from Robin and Cyborg and landed on a nearby teller's desk, appraising them all from above. "I'll have my people call your people about rescheduling." He was forced to leap again to safety as Raven's powers surrounded the desk and lurched it forward toward the Titans. "Or you could just have Raven call me," Red X amended as Robin came at him again, wielding the staff with renewed vigor. "I could use the company, and plus I bet she comes cheap."

"Dude, low," Cyborg muttered as he hastily checked to see if his system had rebooted yet. He was still recovering from whatever Red X had infected him with at the start of the battle.

Raven was also no help to Robin's continued onslaught against Red X, because she was busy trying to get her tidal wave of anger under control. Did he just imply what she thought he implied? He must have because Beast Boy made a strangled choking sound and shouted from across the room. "Wow, you are such an asshole!"

Red X caught Robin's staff and held his other hand up to shield his mouth conspiratorially, though he made no effort to lower his voice. "Sorry, is she spoken for?" A green rhinoceros plowed into Red X's side as an answer, sending him flying painfully into the wall. "So old-fashioned," the thief grunted as he managed to slip away again. "Don't you know how to share?"

Beast Boy transformed back to human just to point angrily at Red X's back and snarl, "Fuck you!"

"Beast Boy, not helping!" Raven finally intervened, brought back from her temporary shockwave of hate by the far less awful emotion of mild annoyance.

Red X fought with Robin like it was a choreographed dance. "Want to weigh in, Boy Wonder?"

"Nothing to say," Robin seethed, focused only on trying to get close enough to knock Red X off balance. Dialogue was nothing but a distraction for himㅡa distraction Red X obviously knew all too well how to utilize, given that all the other Titans were temporarily out of action.

"Great," Beast Boy shouted, advancing on the fighting pair with every step, "cause I'm not done yet. Fuck you, you smarmy, maggot-infested toilet seat. Raven was right. You must have crawled out of a hole and it was probably your own asshole. Oh, and I don't know if I mentioned this already but fuck you!"

Starfire gasped comically from beneath the chandelier and whispered something scalding in Tamaranean.

"Sheesh, touchy subject I guess," Red X prattled at Robin, who was still coming at him full force with his staff. "Why don't they just bang already and have done with it?"

It happened fast. Losing his cool, Robin burst out with, "Would you shut it?" and swung his staff toward Red X's side with what could have been deadly force if it had landed. But at that moment Beast Boy had lost his cool with far bigger fanfare and was lunging at Red X's back as a mountain lion, fangs bared, eyes bright like a predator in the dark. Red X heard the stomach-dropping cry of a mountain cat and instinctively turned, which on a fluke left him open to catch Robin's staff with both hands and yank it free as he turned to defend from Beast Boy's attack. From her position twenty feet away Raven saw it happen almost in slow motion, though not slowly enough to stop it. Beast Boy fell on Red X from above and Red X turned, staff in hand, bringing it up between them. A spike of horror ran Raven through and though she'd seen the worst happen she wasn't sure it was realㅡthat is, until Starfire began to scream.

Beast Boy changed back abruptly and fell to his knees in front of Red X, clutching the pole sticking out of his stomach. He looked up at the man in front of him, whose lax stance suggested shock. Like he hadn't meant to do that at all. Yeah, well, you couldn't cash intent at the bank.

"Seriously," Beast Boy groaned, "fuck you."

"NO!" Robin's voice seemed throttled, and used Red X's temporary surprise to get him in a headlock. "What have you done?"

Red X seemed to have finally lost his voice. He elbowed Robin in the ribs in sudden desperation and put his foot up on Beast Boy's shoulder for leverage as he yanked the staff out with sickening cold speed. Beast Boy fell and reality came crashing down.

Raven was there first, teleporting the short distance to catch him before he hit the ground. "Don't let him get away," she choked, knowing Robin wouldn't anyway. Not after this. Beast Boy's eyes fell on her and he tried to say sorry but she couldn't hear anything over her panic. Squeezing her eyes shut she attempted to quiet the continuing sounds of battle; she had to reign in her emotions if she was going to save him.

ㅡget him to the tower, she heard, and her eyes flew open to see Cyborg leaning over them. "Don't touch him!"

"Raven, we need to act fast ifㅡ"

"Don't touch him!" she repeated, and uprooted the patch of marble beneath Cyborg's feet, sending him flat on his back as he tried to pull Beast Boy off her lap. "He's in critical condition," she explained manically, "I need toㅡ"

"He needs a hospital," Cyborg shouted.

"No time for that." It was terrifyingly true. For stomach wounds the first few minutes could mean the difference between life and death.

"This is beyond what your powers canㅡ!" Cyborg's voice was cut off as Raven broke free the rest of the floor and rose a wall of jagged marble high around her in a tight circle to block everything else out.

"He's right," Beast Boy mumbled as Raven brought her hands to his stomach, fear surging through her as she got her first real look at the gruesome wound. There was so much blood and already it was pooling beneath him, wetting her knees. "'s pretty bad this time. Lucky shot..."

Right. Lucky. "It's not beyond me," she argued, channeling all her power into the process of healing. But as soon as she got a sense for the depth of the wound she knew she was wrong, and could tell with cold certainty that she did not have enough strength left over from the battle to mend this. "I can fix this."

To her surprise Beast Boy laughed. It was a rattly, wet laugh, and Raven tore her eyes from his stomach to find that he actually was smiling. "You're a terrible liar."

"Shut up," she scolded, then caught her mistake when his mouth snapped shut. She clarified. "You're making it worse by talking."

"I don't think it gets worse than this." His tone had grown solemn and Raven's attention was once again snapped from her work. He was looking up, past her toward the faraway ceiling, the white circle of light at the top of the deep marble well Raven had erected around them, blinking with unfocused eyes. His lips twitched downward as he told her, "I think… I think I'm dying, Rae."

"You're not dying." Raven switched tactics, abandoning the true healing process and moving toward closing up the wound first before he lost any more precious blood. He gasped and clutched at the edge of her cloak, his back arching away from the ground. "I know it hurts," she soothed. Her powers were probably making him feel even worse as they clumsily attempted to reattach muscle fibers and close the tear; Raven had to struggle to stay upright as he pulled on the fabric, blinded by pain.

Finally she realized he wasn't just clinging to her blindly, he was tugging insistently at her cloak like a lost child. Focus broken again, she tore her eyes from his wound. Having gotten her attention, he relaxed somewhat, collapsing back to the floor. "I have to tell you something," he blurted.

"I'm trying to heal you." Raven's voice cracked under the pressure. She was having difficulty even closing up his wound with all this talking. "Please… please stop."

"It's important," he pressed. "I'm sorry. For... I dunno. Everything. Bothering you. All the time. I just..."

"Forㅡ" Raven paused. It seemed such a trivial thing given the circumstances. "For what?"

"I want to make you happy," he whispered. "I just... don't know how."

Raven's stomach dropped as his hand went slack and fell from her cloak, and she blurted out "Don't go!" before she realized he was only too tired to hold his arm up. A small part of her was embarrassed at how poorly she was handling this, but in the forefront was her fear. Fear was definitely at the reigns right now. "I am happy," she followed quickly, hoping to keep him interested and awake as she redoubled her efforts. The wound had mostly clotted but he'd lost far too much blood. Two fingers to his neck told her his heart was pumping fast, which only meant he'd lose more. "I might not show it well but I'm happier these days than I've been in my whole life."

Beast Boy coughed, and Raven blanched as she realized his mouth had filled with blood. "Could you do me a favor?"

"Does it involve healing you? Because I'm trying."

Beast Boy started to laugh, but it changed to a whimper. "Don't make me laugh," he complained. "It hurts. I meant… Would you tell Cyborg he can have all my stuff?"

"Beast Boyㅡ"

"And make sure Robin gets over the chip on his shoulder," he spluttered. "If he doesn't give it a go with Starfire I'm gonna haunt him so much."

"I don't think I canㅡ"

"Tell Starfire… Be nice to her. Tell her not to cry. I hate making her cry."

"Beast Boy, don't do this," she begged.

"I have one for you too," he went on softly, ignoring her. "Only I don't know how to say it. Not very good with words…"

Tears pricked her eyes and the marble wall around them shook as she struggled to keep ahold of herself. "What?"

"Could you.. um…"

"What?"

Beast Boy averted his eyes, each breath shallower than the last. It took a long moment for her to realize he was embarrassed. "Can you just read my emotions? It'll be quicker, anyway. It'll be enough."

"You want me to do that?" It was a power Raven mostly used on villains because she didn't believe in using it without consent unless absolutely necessary. And here he was, asking. Never before had anyone asked her to look into their emotions.

"Yeah," he encouraged. "Only… hang on."

He fought an internal battle for a moment until he could force himself to meet her eyes again and then slowly, painstakingly, removed one blood-covered glove from his hand and brought it up to the side of her face. Tentatively, like he was reaching toward a live wire, he brushed away her hair and placed his hand there. Despite everything it was warm. She was in no state of mind to do anything about this development other than to freeze, becoming as still as immovable bedrock beneath a current. Assured he wasn't going to be flung away, Beast Boy spread his fingers out more and brushed his thumb across a stray tear which Raven had no memory of shedding.

"Okay," he said evenly. "Go."

Unable to deny him what was essentially his dying wish, Raven diverted the smallest bit of energy away from his wound and toward his head. She brushed on the outside of his psyche and felt virtually no resistance as she plunged into the pool there and was submerged instantly in the froth of emotion.

First there was warmth. Sunrays and lamplight and laughter andㅡthe random memory swirls blossomed into emotions Raven could finally recognize: affection, mischief, happiness. Beast Boy breathed heavily under her hands, but she could barely see him beneath the barrage of mental images that poured from him. The pool swiftly morphed from coals into a raging fire and Raven no longer had names for all of the feelings, for they were too multifaceted. Affection exploded into something fiercer, some kind of neutron star she had to look away from for fear of going blind. Mischief plunged down into a dark cavern where it became something that set Raven's heart hammering with strange anticipation. Happiness split, becoming both unbridled elation and crippling sorrow.

Raven gasped as the sorrow consumed her and all she could feel was the harrowing pangs of deepest regret; how much of it was his and how much was her own she would never know. She pulled back sharply and found herself in the bank again, gasping for air.

The makeshift wall of marble was gone, churning around them instead in a black tornado of rubble. As she came to her senses the whirling marble fell, each broken piece echoing up to the ceiling and back. Raven was so overcome that she didn't notice any of their friends closing in around them, offering guidance, offering assistance. They were far beyond assistance. Raven placed both her hands back on Beast Boy's stomach and resorted to muttering her mantra under her breath.

Beast Boy's hand left her face, searching, his fingers angling as if to touch something that wasn't there. "Umeme mende," he told her, rapt with wonder. "There's fireflies here." A smile touched his lips. "Haven't seen these since the forest in Congo…" He trailed off and coughed, a spray of blood dripping off his stray fang onto his lip. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and then looked at his hand like he'd never seen the color red before.

Raven caught his hand before he could deduce what he was looking at and squeezed it hard. "Look at me," she commanded, and he did, though she wasn't sure he was really seeing her. "Tell me more about the rainforest. What else was there?"

"You have... flowers," he mumbled incomprehensibly, "in your eyes."

His eyelids fluttered shut and Raven's entire body hitched forward. "Focus, Garfield!"

Hearing his real name jarred him awake, enough to gaze at her glassily and mumble some more. "My parents had them too. I told them I'd be right back…" Beast Boy's hand was now dead weight in hers but she held onto it nonetheless.

"Maybe you should say it with me," she despaired. "Azarath.. metrion.. zinthos."

On Raven's next iteration he started to speak with her but she paused when she realized he wasn't repeating her mantra at all. "Kupendwa," he said again, slower, as if by speaking more slowly he could make her understand, stumbling over his words in an almost sing-song way, taking short shallow breaths. "Aliruka kupitia mvua... kumwambia... kupendwa."

"Garfield!" she goaded. "Azarath, metrion, zinthos!"

Beast Boy's fingers curled around hers as he tried to repeat the right syllables, his voice barely audible. "Azuka.. metrion.. zinthos."

A wild thought occurred to her then. An idea. A desperate idea.

"Azarath.. metrion.. zinthos," she encouraged him, clutching his hand like she was hanging onto a kite string in a hurricane. He might be on the brink but he wasn't down for the count, not if she had one crazy trick left up her sleeve. "Azarath.. metrion.. zinthos." Clear your mind, she urged herself, and closed her eyes to help the process. She only hoped Beast Boy could manage to clear his as well. "Azarath.. metrion.. zinthos." His voice was slurred and subdued, like he was sleep-talking. The sound of this was the last thing on Raven's mind as she descended deep toward a meditative trance, and the sound of hers was the last thing on his as he was pulled down after her. He was fully prepared for her familiar sacred mantra to be the last thing he ever heard as he mumbled along with one final "zinthos" before following Raven headfirst into the yawning jaws of darkness.

continue in part ii . . .

I would normally include a translation here of the Swahili used but it's actually very relevant to the plot like so I won't translate it until later. Of course I can't stop you from looking it up but let's just say it won't make any sense till later anyway.

(And no, the entire story won't be as horrifying as this chapter, don't worry!)