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Au: I'm hella late in posting this, I make deadlines for myself and then never follow through. But I am still writing so a plus, just lazy lol. And writer's block I get pretty banged up trying to make my writing flow.

When he found her his eyes could not comprehend that it was, in fact, her, but his nose confirmed what his eyes could not. The frail being that lay curled up on their side inside of a cramped iron cage was Raven. Her skin was pale, and there was too much of it exposed that he barley took any of her in, his eyes never straying from the inky colored fuzz on her skull. The smatterings of bruises colored her body and the shame he felt in the pit of his stomach quickly bubbled into anger. Uncontrollable heat, no train of thought, no morals, no sight. Everything was black until it suddenly wasn't.

Red covered the walls in angry strokes, the floors were slick like oil and his hands looked as if he'd dipped them into red paint. Everything was so, so red. With a frantic spin, he realized that the building was empty save for the lifeless forms that lay scattered around, like a trail. The rancid scent of dead flesh and sterilized chemicals flooded his senses, and no matter how hard he tried to shake it he couldn't focus on her scent. Panicked and suddenly all alone, Garfield had no idea what to do with himself. He couldn't remember the actions that took place, what had led to it, only that it was terrible and he couldn't find her.

All those cages were empty. The slick sound of someone moving behind him made his ears swivel in the direction of the noise, his body crouched and ready to spring on instinct. Focusing his gaze onto the form in front of him, he could see that the intruder wasn't an enemy but Robin. his stance leery and his hands held in front of him in a placating position. But it was Robin's expression that made him pause, his face was twisted into something like worry, or perhaps disgust. Why would he be looking at him like that? robin never looked at him like that. not even when things were tense between them.

He'd only ever saw that kind of expression once but it was never directed towards himself as such. Robin had stared at Raven, like so, once upon a time, back when she had been sixteen and about to end the world, due to the influence of Trigon.

"Beastboy...she's safe now, but we need to leave now," Robin spoke lowly and slow like he wasn't sure just how to talk to him. furrowing his brows, Garfield felt his claws, that he hadn't been aware were extended, retract as his hands lowered.

"They hurt her Robin...and you just let that happen? How could you let one of your teammates fall into this kind of position? Your family? How Robin?" His voice shook and cracked with emotion, the thickness at the base of his throat growing tighter with every word. he just couldn't understand how any of this was ok.

"This wasn't supposed to ever happen, I was only trying to take precautions to keep the majority of the team safe. But nothing was ever meant to get this bad, it was just a worst possible scenario." The hurt was clear on Robin's face as he edged closer towards his green teammate.

"Does this look like a scenario? Does any of this look like something that you couldn't have stopped? " Beastboy snarled as he snapped his teeth at their leader, emotions still running high.

"All of this could've been stopped if we had known what we were walking into in the first place. instead, you left us in the dark, you expected us to be able to prevent this while we tried to navigate this mission in the dark? " The anger he felt towards Robin was foreign but not unwarranted.

"I understand what you're saying Beastboy but we need to leave, now, before the authorities get here. we'll talk when we get back to headquarters." Robin glanced behind him towards a slightly ajar door before turning back towards Beastboy.

Straightening up, Beastboy shook his head and shoved past his leader towards the door. "I have nothing else to say to you."

There was too much anger rolling around inside of him to be able to even stand near robin. But it was the overwhelming amount of shame that he had that kept him from seeing her. He hadn't been there to save her, to stop what those tossers had done to her. Jason had filled him in on the damages and alteration that had been made to her body, and all it did was fuel him to want to stay away. He couldn't wash the blood off of his hands so easily, he had scrubbed them raw but it didn't take away the fact he had broken their one rule. Being a hero was about saving lives not taking them, even the bad ones.

Raven occupied a large number of his thoughts but he couldn't be near her when all he wanted to was hurt someone, anyone to make the pain inside his head go away. His resignment to be near any of his teammates especially his leader leads him to the decision of leaving the titans. His idea of goodbye had been a mass text, saying it in person would've made him stay. He felt the need to atone and ready himself before he could be in her presence. It wasn't meant to be a long reprieve but as the months went by, it became harder to come home.

Before he knew it a year had passed, and when the idea came to him to return, the news that the majority of the titans had broken apart in absence made him rethink his idea of returning. Because what was there to return to at that point? His family had branched off to go their own way. Robin went by the alias of Nightwing now and days and seemed to stray between Gotham and Jump city. Cyborg had transferred down to titans east where their team seemed to be holding up better than the titans had. From what he'd heard Starfire was making routine trips back to tameran, and Raven was in Bloodhaven and had been for the duration of her recovery.

He had made it a point to at the very least keep up with what they were up to even if he hadn't been there himself. He'd spent the majority of the past year in Africa. The anger he'd felt had left him, while he still felt that Nightwing had been in the wrong, he realized that he had his best intentions for them in mind when he did what he'd done. But it didn't excuse the fact that hed executed it all wrong and in result put the life of one of his teammates in danger. The damage and alterations that had been done to Raven couldn't be reversed, the mental and emotional damage alone was bound to leave lifelong scars. Especially with a mind as fractured as Ravens.

While hed managed to come to terms with his anger towards Nightwing, it didn't change how he felt about seeing Raven. He wanted to see her so bad, but every time he envisioned seeing her again he never knew quite what to say. But that all had to stop now, Cyborg had sent him an invitation to come to a get-together, and as far as he knew all prior titans were to be in attendance. It didn't matter if he didn't know how to handle the shame he felt for not being there, he still wanted to be in her presence. He was still working through the guilt of the murder spree he had gone on inside of that god forbbiden company. But he placated himself with thoughts of how they deserved it. He couldn't afford to think about the possibility of there having been innocents mixed in with the bunch. The idea alone threatened to break him.

His only hope was that she didn't turn him away for disappearing on her in her time of need. Raven needed the support of her friends and hed left all of them. That was one of his biggest regrets. Leaving her when all he wanted was for her to be back in his arms. not that shed ever belonged to him, but it didn't matter to him anymore, whether or not his feelings were returned he just wanted to be with her, any way he could.

AU: yes I did a time jump and yes I broke up the titans. this chapter was dedicated solely to Beastboy, and how he handled everything. I like to think that he'd be incredibly sensitive to the idea of killing someone even if its the bad guy, but I wanted to use this chapter to evolve his idea of it from being wrong to the natural order of things. While I normally would never write beast boy as leaving raven during such a traumatic time, it was necessary for my story to progress this way. I needed there to be a break in time for the titans to go there separate ways before I could bring them back in, besides, how can there be a love triangle when the main love interest is so near ;p. anyway ill be working on chapter 19: Redemption tomorrow.