Disclaimer- I don't own Teen Titans. But there are two presents under the tree with my name on them. Hehe...
A/N-Hi! Yup I made this into a seperate fic along with the other one "Black Widow" (another story you should check out) This one ismostly humor and romance, and not to shabby I think, considering some of the horrific literature I have managed to produce overthe years. So please read and review! If you're not too sure you like the story please reada few more chapters, because personally I think the later chapters are better than this one. Let me know what you think!
I was completely and utterly exhausted. No, that didn't really describe how I felt. It was more like a truck had run over me, stopped, reversed, and ran over me again. That was more like it, but figuring out how I felt didn't really make any of the pain go away. In fact if anything it made it worse.
As I limped down the dim hallway in my favorite green striped boxers and black shirt, every fiber of my body screamed in agony. There was no way a day of training was worth any of this. Exercising, according to what I had heard on TV, was supposed to make you feel better. Not make you applicable for a full body cast. I made mental note to talk to Robin about that, of course the word over-exertion probably didn't exist in his dictionary. Neither did the word mercy.
Either way, by then I was almost to my room and on the verge of collapsing. A door down the hall suddenly slid open with that familiar little 'whoosh' that all hydraulic doors make and out of a seemingly pitch black room stepped a girl.
Now had my brain been functioning properly and had my common sense been with me, I might have just passed her by with a quick nod but of course I tried to engage her some highly intellectual conversation that would sweep her off her feet.
"Sup?"
She turned to look at me with those piercing violet eyes. The same ones that had haunted my dreams for many years and that I still, in the back of my mind, associated with that one painful incident when the owner of those marvelous eyes decided to chuck me from the top floor of the tower.
'Ouch.' My brain reminded me.
'Why thank you brain.' I responded, remembering the feeling of hitting the cold water headfirst. Well those violet eyes still glared at me. I had yet to figure out if that was the way they always looked, or if they looked extra tweaked just for me.
"What do you want?" She snapped. Question answered. It was me.
"Long day of training wasn't it?" Her eyes narrowed and a little warning light went off in my head.
"This conversation is pointless."
"Have you ever heard of polite conversation?"
"Since when have you ever worried about being polite?"
"Well at least I try unlike some people." Another argument. Just what I needed right about now.
"Oh yes. I'm sure burping contests must be listed somewhere in the big book of manners."
"And I'm sure snapping at your teammates for nothing must be in there too." I countered.
"If you can call pestering someone at 2 in the morning nothing."
"Oh so I am "pestering" you huh?" I said making little quotes around the word with my fingers. "Well in the future I'll remember not to try and talk to you."
"Good, I'm glad you've finally wrapped your mind around that concept, or whatever you have that classifies itself as a brain."
"Well maybe I don't need to have a brain to actually try and be nice to people."
"I am nice to people."
"Oh so now I'm less than human to you?"
"I never said that." She said. There was a glint of maliciousness in her eye. Yup, degrading me was definitely Raven's ultimate pastime. Er, current time.
"Of course. How could I ever assume such a thing?" I said acting sarcastically apologetic. "You've always treated me so well Raven."
"Well maybe I would if you actually used your common sense."
"Do you ever think, that maybe just for once, you're the one at fault?"
"Do you ever think at all?" Replied Raven with a smug expression. Only the comfort of knowing she had got the upper hand of an argument could make her show anything resembling smile.
"Oh ya, go ahead and insult my intelligence again."
"It's hard not to. Face it Beastboy when it comes to gray matter, you're on short supply." Ha ha. Good one Raven.
Not.
"Well uh you're…." I was running out of ideas. "You're a… a… meanie!" I yelled. That had to the most pathetic insult I have ever heard. And by the amused look on Raven's face, I guessed that she agreed.
"Ouch Beastboy that really cut me deep." She said making her voice even flatter than normal. I didn't know that was possible. It seemed Raven had succeeded in giving a new meaning to the word monotone. I crossed my arms and glared at her with as much intensity as I could muster. Of course a guy standing in green boxers would be more comical than intimidating. Raven seemed to thankfully over look this fact and accept my challenge.
A stare off soon followed.
"…."
"…."
After a few minutes of this I became horribly aware that my legs were about to give out on me. A perfect ending to a perfect day. Raven wouldn't even have to lift a finger to bring me to my knees. I would be my own undoing.
'Think fast!' I urged my brain. No answer, I was alone. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face and I saw a triumphant smile in Raven's eyes. Suddenly something snapped, and it wasn't my legs.
"You win." I said deadpanned. She blinked and pulled back, having leaned forward over the course of our staring contest.
"What?" She asked giving me a quizzical look that was only identifiable by the small arch in her left brow. For some reason she could only raise her left eyebrow alone. 'Dumb thing to notice really…' I thought.
"I said you win. I'm tired, I want to go to bed, and if you're just going to talk to me like I'm beneath you I don't want any of it. Good night."
Personally I was pleased with myself and the shocked look on Raven's face as I marched away. Although the whole effect would have been much neater if I hadn't tripped over myself and fallen flat on my face.
'This is just wonderful…' I thought as I lay there breathing in the scent of the carpet (lemon scented in case were wondering). Although falling had taken no effort whatsoever, I found getting up was quite a different matter. Not only did my body refuse to budge, but I found my mind shutting down and preparing for sleep now that I was in horizontal position.
The fact that Raven was staring at my limp body only a few feet away, faded from my mind and next thing I knew, I drifted off, my dreams filled with lemon scented punching bags shaped like Robin.
Next Morning...
Consciousness. Losing it takes a matter of seconds, gaining it can take a good hour. The first thing I became aware of was pain, a dull ache that spread from the tip of my toes to the end of each hair on my head. Whoever said hair didn't have nerve endings obviously never met Robin and his 'self-improvement exercises'. My eye twitched at the mere thought of the torture I had undergone yesterday.
I lifted a finger out of curiosity to see how badly I was damaged. On a scale of one to ten, I'd say the scream I let out from that movement would range somewhere around the 20's. Now a scream in Titans tower will not go unnoticed for very long and yup, 5 seconds later, I heard a knocking.
"Beastboy?" Then came the banging.
POW
POW
POW
Ugh, that racket was making my head throb. Opening my eyes, I found my vision filled with the familiar green of my room. Somehow I had managed to get from the hallway floor to my bed between last night and now.
"Beastboy if you don't open this door now it's coming down!" A threat. Ha, it would take more than that to get these legs to walk.
Maybe she had read my mind, but the next moment, I heard a noise that could definitely pass for a door being blown clear off its hinges. That is if hydraulic doors had hinges… There wasn't much time for me to think this over as I realized that the incoherent sounds being made by the girl standing over my head, were directed at me.
"Beastboy are you even listening to me?" She snapped.
"Not really." I responded examining her facial features. She didn't have her cloak so there was no hood covering that porcelain face framed with a curtain of violet which happened to match oh so perfectly with her eyes. She had that tiny nose, those perfect lips, and a beauty that was simple yet stunning. I sighed. She was gorgeous, deadly, and forever out of my league. Like Tantalus I was tortured by something that seemed just within my reach but that I always failed to grasp.
"Beastboy I know this is really hard for you, but I need you to focus and tell me what's wrong and why you screamed."
'What's wrong? Hmm… let's see. I've just undergone 12 hours of severe training that has left me little to no feeling anywhere past my waistline. I got into an argument with you that further confirmed my suspicion that you despise every fiber of my being more than Starfire's pudding of joy. Oh and to top it all off I passed out on the floor in my boxers right in front of the girl of my dreams which happens to be you Raven.
"Pain." I said simply. Raven sighed, pursed her lips like an angry mother would and plopped down at the foot of my bed, an annoyed look painted over the features I had been admiring just a few moments ago.
"Show me where." She said curtly, holding out her hands surrounded in a blue glow.
"Everywhere." She raised her left brow again, but silently went to work sliding her cool hands over my arms. Muscles loosened and the pain faded as she passed her magic along my shoulders. The feeling of her hands gliding along my chest brought a shiver down my spine. Maybe training sessions weren't that bad. Especially if I could look forward to this afterwards.
"Thanks." I said interrupting our silence. She kept her eyes on her work but responded.
"Don't thank me yet. Cyborg's going to have your head for what I did to your door." I chuckled then winced. Raven noticed and worked on loosening my abdominals. If she had any discomfort about what she was doing, her face didn't show it. I closed my eyes and let the feeling of her magic overwhelm me.
"I'm sorry about last night."
"Huh?" I said opening my eyes. I hadn't expected an apology; in fact for some reason I felt that I should have been the one apologizing. Still I made an attempt to comfort her, being the hopeless person that I was.
"No sweat. We were both tired and things just got a little heated up. No injuries so I guess that's a plus." I forced a laugh. She shrugged and focused now on loosening the muscles in my neck but I could tell her mind was elsewhere.
"Is that how you think I treat you?" She asked suddenly making eye contact with me for the first time. I blinked; confused for moment, but then my words came flooding back.
"Less than human…"
"Like I'm beneath you…"
I wanted to tell her that I had just been angry and that what I said wasn't true. But that was a lie.
"It feels like it." I responded softly. I noticed now her hands had stopped glowing and were just lightly resting on each side of my shoulders.
She sighed, almost sadly and it made me wonder what she was hiding beneath all those harsh words and cold stares. She looked away towards my window where I could see the sun peeking above the horizon.
Clouds seem float lazily about in the red-orange sky. I envied them. How nice would it be just to drift along, witness to all that happened but never really apart of it. And if anybody pissed you off you could just go rain on them too. I giggled to myself but it faded into a frown as I realized I was like Raven's little raincloud. Always following her around, trying to make her happy but in the end just making her miserable. Great. Now I was the misunderstood little raincloud.
'Sounds like a messed up book title.' I thought sourly.
"You're healed enough." She announced standing up. I followed suit, testing out my legs. Amazingly they held. Ah the joy of magic.
"Thanks." I said doing a toe touch just for good measure. Raven waved off my gratitude.
"It's what friends do." She said.
"Of course. Don't all people magically heal their friends?" I smiled and she shrugged; her way of saying 'Aw shucks Beastboy….' Since Raven, as everyone knows, would never say the word shucks let alone acknowledge the fact that I had given her a complement.
Well by then my stomach had decided it was time to be tended to, seeing as the rest of my body was no longer in any serious disrepair. 'Food!' It demanded with a growl. Hmph… what ever happened to 'please'?
"I'm starved, wanna go eat?"
"Depends. Are you going to spend the first 30 minutes arguing with Cyborg about his eating habits?" Ah yes. The daily 'How can you eat that crap?' argument. The classic morning entertainment of the Titan's residence.
"Suppose I said yes. Would you still come down to breakfast?"
"Suppose I said no. Would you still supposedly say yes?"
"Uh, you supposedly lost me…." Raven sighed, gave me a friendly whack on the head and turned to leave.
"See you at breakfast." She said as she stepped out the door, or more like the gaping hole in the wall. Running a hand through my hair I bent over to pick up a uniform. 'Sniff sniff…' Smelled decent. I was about to slip it on when the doorless opening caught my attention again.
"I think I'll change in the bathroom today." I stated thoughtfully to the empty room. None of the furniture or articles of clothing spread around the floor protested, so I made my way out into the hall.
Breakfast
The smell of breakfast greeted me as the common room door swished open. Bacon, eggs, sausage… The rich aroma wafted through the air. It was enough to make a normal person salivate on the spot, and enough to make me hurl.
"Murderer!" I announced throwing out my finger to point accusingly at the tall, half robotic, half human figure in a chef hat standing behind a skillet which was currently cooking the remains of some poor animal. The guy whipped around a grin painted on his face.
"Morning my vegan friend." He called cheerfully. "Should I be saving any of this for you?" He asked poking at the contents of the skillet with his spatula. It hissed angrily and the smell of cooked meat strengthened.
'Urp…'
"Friend, I know green is your natural pigmentation, but your face looks somewhat ill in color." Said Starfire as she floating over to rest a comforting hand on my shoulder. Raven looked up from a book she was reading by the counter.
"Hm, I must say you give a new meaning to the phrase green around the gills." She commented before closing her book and setting it on the counter top. I gave a small smile but it faded as I felt the contents of my stomach shift dangerously.
I walked over and collapsed onto the sofa, burying my nose into a pillow in hopes of diminishing the smell. Couldn't that barbarian at least have the decency to open the window while he was frying one of his victims? There was a soft tap on my shoulder and I rolled onto my back so I was looking up into Raven's face. The sight was very familiar from this morning only this time she looked more concerned than angry.
"Drink this. It'll sooth your stomach." She said shoving a steaming mug into my face. I accepted it quickly before she got the urge to dump it onto my lap. Sitting up I sniffed the concoction in the cup warily. Was Raven actually acting…. motherly?
"Of for Azar's sake… It's not poison. Now drink it before I change my mind and shove it down your throat instead."
'Ha so much for motherly.' I thought as I brought the cup to my lips. It tasted decent. A little bitter and nothing compared to a nice ice cold coke but it went down easy enough.
"Pretty good." I said, eager to please the girl who was now looking at me expectantly. Hopefully it wasn't a 'I wonder when he's going to drop dead from that arsenic I slipped in his tea' expectancy. Satisfied with this answer, she laid back on the sofa and stared at the mute TV screen while I forced another mouthful of tea down into the raging depths of my stomach.
"You know I could get used to this." I said setting down the cup on our coffee table. Raven looked over.
"The tea's not as bad as you expected?" She prompted. I shook my head and gave her a small smile.
"No, I mean you being nice to me." Her face took on an irritated look at my words.
"Well don't get used to it. I only made you tea to keep you from puking all over the living room." She snapped but I could only chuckle.
"Sure Raven."
"It's the truth."
"Uh huh I know."
"Quit it."
"I'm not doing anything, just agreeing with you."
"Do you want me to 'accidentally' lose control of my powers and end up ejecting you from the vicinity?"
"Depends. Would you volunteer to heal me afterwards?" I asked giving her a sly smile. "I really enjoyed that massage you gave me this morning." Her lips formed a scowl and a dark look came into her eyes at my suggestion. That last comment had gone a little too far. Stupid stupid…. How come the words 'think before you speak' never seemed to stick in my memory? It always went- 'thought to mouth' vs. 'thought to brain to mouth'. That glitch in my mental circuitry would surely be the death of me.
"There won't be anything left to heal once I'm through with you." She hissed.
Now let's pause right here. If I'm correct, by 10:30 in the morning I had already received four threats; three of them involving my permanent removal from this world. Unfortunately for me, in approximately 5 seconds that last threat would become a reality.
It makes one wonder if I would actually be safer living out on the streets with criminals versus here in the tower with a walking time bomb that called herself my friend. But that question would best be left for another time, for as I sat there frozen like a deer in headlights, my impending doom grew closer.
There was a blood curling war cry and something came in painful contact with my chest sending me flying off the sofa like a ragdoll. As I open my eyes I realized that the 'something' had been Raven herself. I heard a shriek in the background that registered in my mind as Starfire's shout of surprise. Obviously one of the last things our friends had been expecting at their breakfast table was a full frontal assault between two of their fellow teammates.
"How's this for a massage!" yelled Raven as she flipped me over and pushed my head face first into the carpet. Strange… the carpet here smelled more like peanut butter. She held my face down into the floor as if one would hold a person's head underneath a lake with the intention of drowning them. Luckily for me, worst case scenario was I passed out from the toxic peanut butter fumes that our carpet had somehow managed to absorb.
"Mmpph!" I protested trying to reach up and pry her fingers from the grip they had on my hair. Her response was to promptly send me flying back into the sofa. I pulled my head out of the cushions and stared at her with genuine awe.
"You tackled me." I stated dumbly. Raven glared at me for a brief moment before raising her hand which I noticed was glowing with black energy. Suddenly my arms were pinned to my sides as she placed a telekinetic grip on my body. I hovered a few feet into the air, which was actually kind of exciting for a brief moment, but my whole resolve crumbled as I saw she was levitating me towards the window.
'Oh crap…'
"Hehe, come on Raven can't you take a joke? I was just, you know, pushing your buttons a bit. No harm done right?" Her face remained stoic as ever. I looked over to the kitchen where Star and Cyborg were watching the whole spectacle from the table. Star's expression showed slight concern whereas Cyborg wore an expression recognizable as interest and did I detect possibly…. amusement?
"Uh hey guys… a little help here?" I squeaked. I was nearing that window fast; ten seconds and counting. Cyborg being the great friend that he was did his part to save me from this awful fate.
"Have a nice swim BB." He said smiling. That was definitely going to be filed away in my memory for later. As for Star, yes helpful, caring, compassionate Starfire. Princess of Tamaran and one the best people on the Titans force. Surely she would help me.
"On my planet such activity would merely be considered playful banter. It is nice to see my friends getting along so well." She said giving me a grin. Oh great, so now she was interpreting my trip out the window as a form of cultural bonding.
It occurred to me that my only possible savoir was no where in the room. 'Robin where the hell are you when I actually need you?' I thought bitterly. As if he had heard my mental plea, the hydraulic door swished open to reveal the boy wonder himself, calming sipping a glass of water.
"Hey guys! What's-" At this point he dropped the glass in shock.
"CHRIST! RAVEN PUT BEASTBOY DOWN!" Raven turned to look at Robin somewhat peeved that her fun had been interrupted. She sighed as if bored and leaned onto the back of the sofa.
"Oh well if you insist…" She shrugged and with that the powers of levitation left me and I was reintroduced to gravity.
"Ouch." I muttered from the floor. "Was that nessassary?"
"More than you know." She replied. I stood up, glad that I still had all my limbs intact, and proceeded to give her a dirty look. Raven rolled her eyes before becoming completely absorbed in her fingernail.
Then being the mature person I was, I stuck my tongue out at her. Robin sighed in exasperation and shook his head. It was as if he was saying 'What am I going to do with these two…?' Placing my tongue back into my mouth I stared down at my feet guiltily.
I felt like a child who had just gone and made his mother upset, and I wondered then if Robin really did look at me as nothing more than a child, an annoyance… More alarmingly, did Raven look at me that way?
How in Azar's name (adopting Raven's expression) was I suppose to charm a girl who thought of me as kid rather than a guy who might have feelings for her? To me, the answer to that question would be my answer to the meaning of life.
'Hey, what is the meaning of life?' I pondered silently. 'I'll have to look that up on the interent sometime…' I decided and dismissed the matter.
Having truly disturbed myself at the depth of my thoughts, I returned to present time and stole a quick glance at Raven. Or at least the place where she had been standing a few moments ago.
"Hey! Where'd Raven go?" I exclaimed a little too loudly in the silent room. Cyborg looked up from his half-eaten sausage, wearing a look of confusion.
"Dude, are you deaf? She just said she was going to her room like 5 seconds ago."
Wow. Those deep thoughts must have taken longer than I thought... Amazed by this new revelation, and feeling wiser than ever, I stalked off towards Raven's room with hopes of apologizing. However, I would learn this definitely wasn't one of my wiser descisions.
Well? WHATCHA THINK: )
Tis the season! So don't be a grinch,
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