Categories > Cartoons > Teen Titans > You Idiot...
Author’s Note: Thought or Emphasis; Flashback; Thought or Emphasis in Flashback
I do not own Teen Titans, but I wish I owned a gift for all of you who read and gave me feedback, bearing with me through those annoying chapter interims; between the laziness, the computer screw-ups, college work, all of that.
Oh wait, I just realized: this is that gift!
If you haven’t realized by the line with which I started, this chapter starts partway into the original version of Part VII, after BB’s revival, and alters from there. Read and review.
--------------------------
Teen Titans: You Idiot…
Part VII-B: An Alternate Path
The young woman waited, closing her eyes and chanting her phrase as the black sky lightened to a navy-blue. The calm breeze lightly skated across her now uncovered violet hair.
Azarath Metrion Zinthos…
Azarath Metrion Zinthos…
The light shaking in her hands soon subsided. Her resolve returned. She would ask him and then she could end this.
Azarath Metrion Zinthos...
Azarath Metrion Zin-
She halted as the elevator door to the roof whooshed open.
“Um, hey,” a sheepish, slightly cracking voice slipped out.
Her eyes snapped open, but she continued to look into the distance.
“Cyborg told me to come up. I told him I figured you wanted to be alone.”
“It’s fine,” she said with a remembering sigh. The boy was never one to read between the lines. Now she actually wanted him around (if only for this), and he was not even sure if he should have come. She nearly chuckled at the irony.
Though she still did not turn her head, Raven heard the soft stumbling footsteps of the ex-Doom Patroller as he made his way over. At the end of his journey, Beast Boy lightly sat near the edge of the roof, making sure not to jostle any sore spots.
“Cyborg says I’ve been out for a while, for—what did he say?”
“Twenty-four days,” Raven muttered without hesitation.
“Wow.” Beast Boy’s jaw slacked a bit before giving a chuckle. “I’ve got a lot of TV to catch up on.” The shape-shifter let off his trademark fanged smile, even though his teammate could not see it.
Just then, he noticed a sound he had not heard since he had gone into Raven’s mind, this time barely audible, brief, and therefore from the real Raven. “Did you just… laugh?”
“I suppose it had to happen sometime.” Truthfully, it had been so long since she heard a joke from the changeling that she did not remember how to prepare herself. There was also the fact that she almost… missed it.
Before she could continue with that, the empath forced her mind to focus on the matter at hand. “Beast Boy…” She finally said his name after so long. Her magic did not seem to slip away from her mental grasp. At least, not yet. “I need to know something.”
She truly looked at him for the first time since his reawakening in the infirmary. He wore the same old suit as always, black with purple straight down the middle. The suit hid the scars from various battles, most nearly invisible due to his advanced healing. His face was surprisingly clear and the green of his hair and skin was just as strong as the morning before the incident, again because of his “beast blood.”
Considered with his face were, of course, Beast Boy’s eyes. The light in them returned since his revival. In the light were the happy memories of his families, both biological and super heroic. It was the same light he had when he was with the team on movie night or after a victory against one of their foes—or when, after an unexpected journey into her mindscape, he actually convinced Raven to leave her room.
She knew that just under the shirt, however, were bandages covering the aftermath of what he did to keep her alive today. She kept that in mind as he turned to her and his face slightly grimaced from the pain. Violet orbs staring into verdant ones, she asked the question.
“Why did you save me?”
His eyebrows raised in surprise. Sure, the question made sense, but he was still not ready to answer. Indeed, he had only been awake for a few hours; he was still trying to walk straight, let alone think about something like this. “Well…” He looked out to sea, focused on the horizon in contemplation. “I don’t know exactly. The battle’s a little fuzzy in my head, but I do remember seeing you. All I know is when that thing pointed at you, I just moved. I also remember that I was… you know… before I blacked out.”
She definitely remembered that; it was the last thing she remembered about the incident. “Yes, yes, I know. You used it to save me… again.” The cloaked Titan’s urge to know grew stronger as she slightly rushed through her words. “But what I want to know is, why?”
“Um, I think it’s because… uh, because…” Again, the ex-comatose teen tried to think back, focusing his brainpower more than he ever did before. He knew that his Man-Beast form was the strongest in his arsenal, and he knew that he never usually intended to tap into it since the first time he transformed. It was almost as if something guided him, telling him when to use it, maybe his conscience, maybe instinct or the primal side itself. That only happened once before…
--------------------------
Beast Boy’s mouth gaped in shock and fear. Slade’s army of demons, each nearly formless and seeming to be made of the Earth’s own lava, swarmed about the now-foursome as the Titans launched a last stand against Trigon and the prophecy. The foreboding sky was black with a crimson haze, a reflection of the intergalactic monster’s power as well as the flames left behind by Slade’s warpath.
He really wished he did not ask, “You and what army?”
Yet he recognized that this was not the time to be afraid. Any fear, any doubt, he would let loose on these creatures in front of him. Just behind him was his home—as well as his friend.
He saw her tears just a few hours before, when she witnessed the end begin. He heard her messages of hopelessness. Yes, her father was the incarnation of evil, the source of all darkness. Yes, he conquered multiple worlds before his imprisonment. Yes, he chose Raven as the one to help him annihilate the universe. But when that door closed to her security room, as her face hung in sadness and she clutched onto that penny, he made a decision.
He felt the beast within spike in power just a bit. It wanted out. Maybe it would get its use after all. His body’s flesh began to shift, claws and fangs growing with his conviction.
If they want her, they’re gonna have to go through me.
------------------------
Then everything clicked. He did not need to use his brain to answer this one; the answer lied somewhere else. It was the same reason he used the Beast then, and less than a month ago. It was the same reason that it did not hurt her in the first place, and the same reason he never would. It was because…
“Because I care about you.”
The spell-caster could only let her jaw slack as his words hit her. A weak “You…” managed to slip out. He… cares about me?
She looked into his eyes again; the spark was still there. This time, though, there was something else. It was strong and true. The emotion she felt coming from him carried unfamiliar warmth. His face held no impish grin, no poorly hidden prank. He was dead serious.
“You… care about me.” She repeated, this time aloud, just to make sure it was true.
“Yeah, I do.” Beast Boy did not know how close he sat by his teammate, so his hand’s contact with hers went unnoticed—strangely, by the both of them. Though their conscious minds were unaware, that touch was a trigger for something else entirely.
Neither knew when their bodies moved closer. “If… if you were gone, I’d be destroyed.” His hand unconsciously tightened around hers.
“You’re my friend, Rae.”
She did not even react to the name. The empath’s voice was a whisper as the green glow in his eyes entranced her, pulled her in towards him. “You’re mine, too.”
He was barely an inch away. His voice disappeared.
“Yeah… friends…”
-----------------------
Cyborg flicked the switch to the infirmary off, a symbol of the end of this worrying ordeal. The technological Titan again let out a good sigh, this one of relief. All this time and it’s finally over… huh? He looked up to a peculiar sight, though not quite as much one in his home.
The lights in the hallway crackled with black lightning for the next six seconds.
----------------------
Lightning, no, fire…some kind of energy ran through his veins. He could run across Jump City and back; he could fight the Brotherhood of Evil solo! So much assaulted his senses: the scent of old ink and jasmine, the warmth of her body near his, the contact of his lips against—
Wait.
I’m…
“AH!” His scream accompanied, despite the tender spots on his body, an eight-inch backward leap. “R-r-Rae!” –he remembered she did not like the nickname, at least not when he said it— “I mean, Raven, um, I’m so sorry… it-it was an accident! It was th-the moment and… and…”
He ceased his stuttering apology to see the girl he—he did not dare to think the word, her body stock-still, her eyes unblinking. “Uh, Raven?”
Suddenly the Azarathean’s form went slack. Beast Boy could barely react to the sudden weight that fell onto his shoulders. A closer look revealed that Raven’s amethyst irises replaced themselves with a white glow; she was not here right now. He lightly shook her, thinking something was wrong. “Raven?”
-----------------------------
“Raven, look out!” The menacing red glow fell into her vision. She handled the robots that had her in a lock, but the laser was too close. She closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. No…
The next sight she witnessed was the Man-Beast, its bloody chest barely rising and falling, the body slowly morphing back into the team’s most lively member.
Now here he was, still and silent.
Beast Boy… No…
Raven’s mind fell into a haze as something within began to take over. Her eyes, now starting to glow white, saw the two-toned machine barely three yards away, its energy nearly gone, a hand disfigured, and its body sparking with loose and frayed wires.
“You.” A voice colder than ice echoed from the half-demoness. “You hurt him.” Her right arm reached out, her palm wide, and a raven’s talon made of black magic, lashed forward to smother the minion.
A pale hand sharply closed, and the dismembered robot was now a compact ball of circuits and scrap metal.
She turned her head again to the rest of the battlefield, seeing Cyborg fight his last few dozen enemies. The ghostly white glow darkened to ominous red. A black aura surrounded the empath, complete with talons covering her normal hands. Raven, now with anger in control, made a resolution: anything sharing the face of that robot would die.
------------------------------
“Raven? Raven, wake up!”
Her mind slowly moved back into the present. “I… I see…”
“Raven, are you okay? Speak to me!”
Beast Boy’s attempts to shake her awake began to irritate her. “I’m fine, I’m fine, just let go.” She harshly pushed him away.
He sighed in relief, though he admitted to himself, he did not exactly wish to break away from her that abruptly. “Whew. You were gone for quite a few seconds there. I thought I’d have to call Cyborg to take you to the infirmary.” Whether that was a joke or not, neither Titan knew.
“Like I said, I’m fine. It’s nothing. I’ve just… had a question answered.” She looked at the horizon, the skies changing yet again, now with an orange tint beginning to form.
Beast Boy wondered what exactly the question was, whether it was the one before or entirely new, but he let it slide. “Hmm, okay.” Then a thought came to him, and a light smile graced his visage.
“So,” If she wanted to ask something, it was only fair that he get to ask a query of his own. “Did you miss me?”
A moment of hesitation surfaced. Should she tell him about the recurring dream since the start of his coma? Should she tell him about the buried memory that just now arose, showing her retaliation for the near-loss of her—well, she had to admit now—her friend? Should she tell him about the tears she shed after seeing him in the infirmary? There had to have been something she could say.
“It was… quiet while you were away.”
A smug smile made its presence on the changeling’s lips. “Yep, I knew it. You can’t live without me.”
Raven saw it and her eyes rolled at his remark. Beast Boy’s back, alright. That stupid grin of his. She was pleased, though, that she did not have to try that scenario.
Inevitably, though, it had to come up, and Raven’s eyebrows rose in realization. “You just ki—”
The smug countenance fell apart; she could have felt the wash of anxiety from a meter away. “I know, I know, and I’m really, really sorry! I don’t even know what came over me—”
“Stop.” Again, she canceled the green changeling’s blubbering explanation. “It’s… it’s okay. I’m sure it was just the… the heat of the moment. We reacted to it and… ahem…” Truthfully, she did not know what happened to her either. She just came to terms with merely missing the boy, but the two of them… that was not just friendly. This called for a correspondence with her emotions very soon. “Um, maybe we should keep what happened here to ourselves?”
“Yeah, right… okay.” They both knew that if a certain half-robot had ever caught wind of this, he would never leave the “lovebirds” alone. The two simply sat in silence after that, avoiding eye contact and barely suppressing the heat that rose to their faces.
The quiet was broken with a cry of “Hey, the sun’s coming up!” Indeed, it was. After a troublesome afternoon and an eventful night, Raven finally saw a new morning. The sun’s presence painted the sky in calm reds and yellows. Unlike the dark sadness that once seemed to hang over the Tower for almost a month, this dawn displayed hope for the future. Because of Beast Boy’s selfless act, she was able to see it.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“And Beast Boy?”
“Yeah?”
“Just so you know: we care about you too.”
“Thanks, Rae.”
“My name’s not…” she began, but she switched gears instead. “No, I should be thanking you… Garfield.”
“Well, I did say that I—” He realized something and quickly turned his head to her. “Hey!”
The “hey” was for two reasons: one was that she used that name (Raven did once say that she would get a lot of mileage out of that), and the other was that she had already phased through the roof, the only evidence of her presence a book titled Memories of BB.
In that gift was a load of pictures of him throughout the team’s career. Some featured himself or the team in Egypt (when the Titans came to help Hotspot, and Beast Boy wanted to take pictures), some with him and honorary Titans (there were five, such as his meeting with Wonder Girl, around whom he was surprisingly calm), and still others with him and Terra (the green teen quickly flipped past these pages). One or two early photos even had him in that often-ridiculed mask. Of course, the book held some blank pages for any future memories he would end up making.
The shape-shifter decided not to look through every page, though, in order to get to something he noticed fell out of the album. What was once wedged within the last pages was a note:
Beast Boy,
In case I don’t say it, thanks for what you did. It was Starfire’s idea, but all of us have been working on this for a while.
He almost had a funny thought, but the next words beat him to it.
Yes, that’s right, I’ve been outside of my room, working with the team. It must be so shocking to you.
It’s not that game you’ve been crying about, which I’m sure is something about ninja monkeys or whatever, but you had better appreciate this.
Please don’t be so stupid and get hurt like that again, especially for me. I really wouldn’t want to work on one of these all over again.
Raven
Though he was not the brightest Titan on the team, and he did not catch what she meant before he went to the roof, he could understand the message clearly this time.
If not, the postscript summed it up, and Beast Boy read it with a smile:
PS
Welcome back, you idiot.
END
I do not own Teen Titans, but I wish I owned a gift for all of you who read and gave me feedback, bearing with me through those annoying chapter interims; between the laziness, the computer screw-ups, college work, all of that.
Oh wait, I just realized: this is that gift!
If you haven’t realized by the line with which I started, this chapter starts partway into the original version of Part VII, after BB’s revival, and alters from there. Read and review.
--------------------------
Teen Titans: You Idiot…
Part VII-B: An Alternate Path
The young woman waited, closing her eyes and chanting her phrase as the black sky lightened to a navy-blue. The calm breeze lightly skated across her now uncovered violet hair.
Azarath Metrion Zinthos…
Azarath Metrion Zinthos…
The light shaking in her hands soon subsided. Her resolve returned. She would ask him and then she could end this.
Azarath Metrion Zinthos...
Azarath Metrion Zin-
She halted as the elevator door to the roof whooshed open.
“Um, hey,” a sheepish, slightly cracking voice slipped out.
Her eyes snapped open, but she continued to look into the distance.
“Cyborg told me to come up. I told him I figured you wanted to be alone.”
“It’s fine,” she said with a remembering sigh. The boy was never one to read between the lines. Now she actually wanted him around (if only for this), and he was not even sure if he should have come. She nearly chuckled at the irony.
Though she still did not turn her head, Raven heard the soft stumbling footsteps of the ex-Doom Patroller as he made his way over. At the end of his journey, Beast Boy lightly sat near the edge of the roof, making sure not to jostle any sore spots.
“Cyborg says I’ve been out for a while, for—what did he say?”
“Twenty-four days,” Raven muttered without hesitation.
“Wow.” Beast Boy’s jaw slacked a bit before giving a chuckle. “I’ve got a lot of TV to catch up on.” The shape-shifter let off his trademark fanged smile, even though his teammate could not see it.
Just then, he noticed a sound he had not heard since he had gone into Raven’s mind, this time barely audible, brief, and therefore from the real Raven. “Did you just… laugh?”
“I suppose it had to happen sometime.” Truthfully, it had been so long since she heard a joke from the changeling that she did not remember how to prepare herself. There was also the fact that she almost… missed it.
Before she could continue with that, the empath forced her mind to focus on the matter at hand. “Beast Boy…” She finally said his name after so long. Her magic did not seem to slip away from her mental grasp. At least, not yet. “I need to know something.”
She truly looked at him for the first time since his reawakening in the infirmary. He wore the same old suit as always, black with purple straight down the middle. The suit hid the scars from various battles, most nearly invisible due to his advanced healing. His face was surprisingly clear and the green of his hair and skin was just as strong as the morning before the incident, again because of his “beast blood.”
Considered with his face were, of course, Beast Boy’s eyes. The light in them returned since his revival. In the light were the happy memories of his families, both biological and super heroic. It was the same light he had when he was with the team on movie night or after a victory against one of their foes—or when, after an unexpected journey into her mindscape, he actually convinced Raven to leave her room.
She knew that just under the shirt, however, were bandages covering the aftermath of what he did to keep her alive today. She kept that in mind as he turned to her and his face slightly grimaced from the pain. Violet orbs staring into verdant ones, she asked the question.
“Why did you save me?”
His eyebrows raised in surprise. Sure, the question made sense, but he was still not ready to answer. Indeed, he had only been awake for a few hours; he was still trying to walk straight, let alone think about something like this. “Well…” He looked out to sea, focused on the horizon in contemplation. “I don’t know exactly. The battle’s a little fuzzy in my head, but I do remember seeing you. All I know is when that thing pointed at you, I just moved. I also remember that I was… you know… before I blacked out.”
She definitely remembered that; it was the last thing she remembered about the incident. “Yes, yes, I know. You used it to save me… again.” The cloaked Titan’s urge to know grew stronger as she slightly rushed through her words. “But what I want to know is, why?”
“Um, I think it’s because… uh, because…” Again, the ex-comatose teen tried to think back, focusing his brainpower more than he ever did before. He knew that his Man-Beast form was the strongest in his arsenal, and he knew that he never usually intended to tap into it since the first time he transformed. It was almost as if something guided him, telling him when to use it, maybe his conscience, maybe instinct or the primal side itself. That only happened once before…
--------------------------
Beast Boy’s mouth gaped in shock and fear. Slade’s army of demons, each nearly formless and seeming to be made of the Earth’s own lava, swarmed about the now-foursome as the Titans launched a last stand against Trigon and the prophecy. The foreboding sky was black with a crimson haze, a reflection of the intergalactic monster’s power as well as the flames left behind by Slade’s warpath.
He really wished he did not ask, “You and what army?”
Yet he recognized that this was not the time to be afraid. Any fear, any doubt, he would let loose on these creatures in front of him. Just behind him was his home—as well as his friend.
He saw her tears just a few hours before, when she witnessed the end begin. He heard her messages of hopelessness. Yes, her father was the incarnation of evil, the source of all darkness. Yes, he conquered multiple worlds before his imprisonment. Yes, he chose Raven as the one to help him annihilate the universe. But when that door closed to her security room, as her face hung in sadness and she clutched onto that penny, he made a decision.
He felt the beast within spike in power just a bit. It wanted out. Maybe it would get its use after all. His body’s flesh began to shift, claws and fangs growing with his conviction.
If they want her, they’re gonna have to go through me.
------------------------
Then everything clicked. He did not need to use his brain to answer this one; the answer lied somewhere else. It was the same reason he used the Beast then, and less than a month ago. It was the same reason that it did not hurt her in the first place, and the same reason he never would. It was because…
“Because I care about you.”
The spell-caster could only let her jaw slack as his words hit her. A weak “You…” managed to slip out. He… cares about me?
She looked into his eyes again; the spark was still there. This time, though, there was something else. It was strong and true. The emotion she felt coming from him carried unfamiliar warmth. His face held no impish grin, no poorly hidden prank. He was dead serious.
“You… care about me.” She repeated, this time aloud, just to make sure it was true.
“Yeah, I do.” Beast Boy did not know how close he sat by his teammate, so his hand’s contact with hers went unnoticed—strangely, by the both of them. Though their conscious minds were unaware, that touch was a trigger for something else entirely.
Neither knew when their bodies moved closer. “If… if you were gone, I’d be destroyed.” His hand unconsciously tightened around hers.
“You’re my friend, Rae.”
She did not even react to the name. The empath’s voice was a whisper as the green glow in his eyes entranced her, pulled her in towards him. “You’re mine, too.”
He was barely an inch away. His voice disappeared.
“Yeah… friends…”
-----------------------
Cyborg flicked the switch to the infirmary off, a symbol of the end of this worrying ordeal. The technological Titan again let out a good sigh, this one of relief. All this time and it’s finally over… huh? He looked up to a peculiar sight, though not quite as much one in his home.
The lights in the hallway crackled with black lightning for the next six seconds.
----------------------
Lightning, no, fire…some kind of energy ran through his veins. He could run across Jump City and back; he could fight the Brotherhood of Evil solo! So much assaulted his senses: the scent of old ink and jasmine, the warmth of her body near his, the contact of his lips against—
Wait.
I’m…
“AH!” His scream accompanied, despite the tender spots on his body, an eight-inch backward leap. “R-r-Rae!” –he remembered she did not like the nickname, at least not when he said it— “I mean, Raven, um, I’m so sorry… it-it was an accident! It was th-the moment and… and…”
He ceased his stuttering apology to see the girl he—he did not dare to think the word, her body stock-still, her eyes unblinking. “Uh, Raven?”
Suddenly the Azarathean’s form went slack. Beast Boy could barely react to the sudden weight that fell onto his shoulders. A closer look revealed that Raven’s amethyst irises replaced themselves with a white glow; she was not here right now. He lightly shook her, thinking something was wrong. “Raven?”
-----------------------------
“Raven, look out!” The menacing red glow fell into her vision. She handled the robots that had her in a lock, but the laser was too close. She closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. No…
The next sight she witnessed was the Man-Beast, its bloody chest barely rising and falling, the body slowly morphing back into the team’s most lively member.
Now here he was, still and silent.
Beast Boy… No…
Raven’s mind fell into a haze as something within began to take over. Her eyes, now starting to glow white, saw the two-toned machine barely three yards away, its energy nearly gone, a hand disfigured, and its body sparking with loose and frayed wires.
“You.” A voice colder than ice echoed from the half-demoness. “You hurt him.” Her right arm reached out, her palm wide, and a raven’s talon made of black magic, lashed forward to smother the minion.
A pale hand sharply closed, and the dismembered robot was now a compact ball of circuits and scrap metal.
She turned her head again to the rest of the battlefield, seeing Cyborg fight his last few dozen enemies. The ghostly white glow darkened to ominous red. A black aura surrounded the empath, complete with talons covering her normal hands. Raven, now with anger in control, made a resolution: anything sharing the face of that robot would die.
------------------------------
“Raven? Raven, wake up!”
Her mind slowly moved back into the present. “I… I see…”
“Raven, are you okay? Speak to me!”
Beast Boy’s attempts to shake her awake began to irritate her. “I’m fine, I’m fine, just let go.” She harshly pushed him away.
He sighed in relief, though he admitted to himself, he did not exactly wish to break away from her that abruptly. “Whew. You were gone for quite a few seconds there. I thought I’d have to call Cyborg to take you to the infirmary.” Whether that was a joke or not, neither Titan knew.
“Like I said, I’m fine. It’s nothing. I’ve just… had a question answered.” She looked at the horizon, the skies changing yet again, now with an orange tint beginning to form.
Beast Boy wondered what exactly the question was, whether it was the one before or entirely new, but he let it slide. “Hmm, okay.” Then a thought came to him, and a light smile graced his visage.
“So,” If she wanted to ask something, it was only fair that he get to ask a query of his own. “Did you miss me?”
A moment of hesitation surfaced. Should she tell him about the recurring dream since the start of his coma? Should she tell him about the buried memory that just now arose, showing her retaliation for the near-loss of her—well, she had to admit now—her friend? Should she tell him about the tears she shed after seeing him in the infirmary? There had to have been something she could say.
“It was… quiet while you were away.”
A smug smile made its presence on the changeling’s lips. “Yep, I knew it. You can’t live without me.”
Raven saw it and her eyes rolled at his remark. Beast Boy’s back, alright. That stupid grin of his. She was pleased, though, that she did not have to try that scenario.
Inevitably, though, it had to come up, and Raven’s eyebrows rose in realization. “You just ki—”
The smug countenance fell apart; she could have felt the wash of anxiety from a meter away. “I know, I know, and I’m really, really sorry! I don’t even know what came over me—”
“Stop.” Again, she canceled the green changeling’s blubbering explanation. “It’s… it’s okay. I’m sure it was just the… the heat of the moment. We reacted to it and… ahem…” Truthfully, she did not know what happened to her either. She just came to terms with merely missing the boy, but the two of them… that was not just friendly. This called for a correspondence with her emotions very soon. “Um, maybe we should keep what happened here to ourselves?”
“Yeah, right… okay.” They both knew that if a certain half-robot had ever caught wind of this, he would never leave the “lovebirds” alone. The two simply sat in silence after that, avoiding eye contact and barely suppressing the heat that rose to their faces.
The quiet was broken with a cry of “Hey, the sun’s coming up!” Indeed, it was. After a troublesome afternoon and an eventful night, Raven finally saw a new morning. The sun’s presence painted the sky in calm reds and yellows. Unlike the dark sadness that once seemed to hang over the Tower for almost a month, this dawn displayed hope for the future. Because of Beast Boy’s selfless act, she was able to see it.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“And Beast Boy?”
“Yeah?”
“Just so you know: we care about you too.”
“Thanks, Rae.”
“My name’s not…” she began, but she switched gears instead. “No, I should be thanking you… Garfield.”
“Well, I did say that I—” He realized something and quickly turned his head to her. “Hey!”
The “hey” was for two reasons: one was that she used that name (Raven did once say that she would get a lot of mileage out of that), and the other was that she had already phased through the roof, the only evidence of her presence a book titled Memories of BB.
In that gift was a load of pictures of him throughout the team’s career. Some featured himself or the team in Egypt (when the Titans came to help Hotspot, and Beast Boy wanted to take pictures), some with him and honorary Titans (there were five, such as his meeting with Wonder Girl, around whom he was surprisingly calm), and still others with him and Terra (the green teen quickly flipped past these pages). One or two early photos even had him in that often-ridiculed mask. Of course, the book held some blank pages for any future memories he would end up making.
The shape-shifter decided not to look through every page, though, in order to get to something he noticed fell out of the album. What was once wedged within the last pages was a note:
Beast Boy,
In case I don’t say it, thanks for what you did. It was Starfire’s idea, but all of us have been working on this for a while.
He almost had a funny thought, but the next words beat him to it.
Yes, that’s right, I’ve been outside of my room, working with the team. It must be so shocking to you.
It’s not that game you’ve been crying about, which I’m sure is something about ninja monkeys or whatever, but you had better appreciate this.
Please don’t be so stupid and get hurt like that again, especially for me. I really wouldn’t want to work on one of these all over again.
Raven
Though he was not the brightest Titan on the team, and he did not catch what she meant before he went to the roof, he could understand the message clearly this time.
If not, the postscript summed it up, and Beast Boy read it with a smile:
PS
Welcome back, you idiot.
END
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