CHAPTER FOUR
Beast Boy took a good long nap and woke up at sunset, but he was still feeling miserable, and he was now up on the roof, sulking to himself.
He couldn’t believe how inconsiderate his friends were acting towards him instead of being sympathetic or at least trying to understand that he was grieving.
“Then again, how could they understand.” he thought to himself “All they care about is moving on, and letting go.”
“Hey…” Raven called softly to him.
He turned and looked at her grimly as she came and sat down beside him. “I thought you were mad at me.”
“Not really… just disappointed.”
He sighed, “Oh that makes it better.” he grumbled “Look, I know I screwed up, but I didn’t mean to.”
“Beast Boy, it’s not just that... we’re all worried about you. You’re starting to fall apart. You’re not acting like your usual self.”
He shrugged his shoulders, “Guess you and Terra were right… Things do Change in life. Guess I was long overdue, besides, you hardly like the way I acted before anyway. You always said my jokes weren’t funny, you gave me a lot of attitude, and you insulted me a lot.”
She couldn’t deny this, not at all. “No one’s perfect.” She said, using his own words against him, but he seemed unfazed.
Her fingers gave a small twitch as if she wanted to reach over to him. “Beast Boy, I also said that change can be good, and what you’re doing right now isn’t good; not to yourself, and not to the team, but you won’t even tell us what’s really bothering you.”
“I already told you guys this…” he said to her “I don’t want to talk about it because you can’t help me. No one can.”
“How do you know we can’t?”
“I just do.” He didn’t want to tell her the real reason why he wouldn’t tell, feeling she wouldn’t understand and it would make things worse, and he only thought to himself, "Because you and the others are only part of the problem... not the solution. There's no way you can help."
She could see this, not what he was really thinking, but knew it was disturbing him. She didn’t like this, and felt her insides starting to quiver.
“Beast Boy…” she paused “What if it was possible that you could move on?”
As expected, he didn’t react too well, and just slumped. “Why do you keep telling me that?”
She hesitated, “Beast Boy, I’m just asking you what if… what if there was someone out there who liked you… as much as Terra did?”
“Huh?” he said turning to face her “What are you saying?” but he could see the blushing in her cheeks, and the way she was looking at him, and he was virtually speechless!
“Beast Boy… I… I…” she slowly reached her hand to his face, slowly moving her own face closer intent to kiss him…
Freaking out, Beast Boy wretched himself away from her. She looked up at him, now with a hint of sadness in her eyes, a side of her he didn’t see very often.
“Sorry, Raven… I can’t.”
She continued to gawk at him, almost unable to believe this.
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re an amazing girl... but you’re just not my type, and frankly I don’t see how you could even like me that way after all the other things you’ve done.”
He referred to all the times she insulted him, hit him, and gave him attitude. Very little were of good loving moments.
Raven’s sadness began to mix with a slight hint of outrage “Is that all you see me as… just… creepy?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that we’re far too different. We’re not compatible.”
“How do you know? You haven’t even tried.” her voice sounding angrier and her features hardening.
“Look, I may not be very bright at times, but I do know this much… Love is not something that two people can try to make happen. They either have something very special, or they don’t. And we don’t, Raven. I’m sorry, I just don’t feel it.”
Raven got up, and left in a huff.
“Raven… I’m really sorry.”
All she did was look back at him a stern expression, as if she were mad enough to kill, and then she walked off.
Beast Boy smacked his own forehead. He hated to hurt her like that, but he had to be truthful, and right now he needed to get out of the tower, again.
Another one of the few places left he had unaffected by the changes was Ben’s Café, the place he and Terra went to on their first and only ever date.
It was a little slow that evening, but still upon his arrival, people took one look at him and their features hardened with scorn. All of them were people who had been affected by the loss of money from the bank.
Some even whispered bad things.
“Look, it’s the super zero.”
“I bet he enjoyed his little nap.”
“While I have to work two shifts to make up for the money he lost.”
Despite the facts, Beast Boy’s patience wearing out, but he didn’t wish to make any more issues. All he wanted to do was drown some of his sorrows away in milkshakes.
At least the staff didn’t act mean to him, as he was a paying customer, but it wasn’t like they were nice to him either.
After five milkshakes, Beast Boy asked for another.
“Haven’t you had enough yet?” the old lady asked.
“Just fork it over!” he grumbled as he slammed his money down on counter.
Heeding his demands, she gave him another milkshake.
“I can’t take this anymore!” he groaned in thought “If I hear one more person say “Things Change” or “Move on” or even “Let it go.” …I think I’m going to blow!”
He suddenly felt his bowels gurgling from all those milkshakes, “Actually, I think I’m really going to blow!” and with that he dashed to the little Beast Boy’s room in back of the café.
That’s when Terra, looking a bit droopy, came into the café, and sat herself at the bar… right next to Beast Boy’s seat.
“Usual please…” she asked as she paid her money.
“Seems there’s a lot of gloomy faces around here these days.” the old lady said as she served Terra her usual order, Apple Pie Ala mode.
As she looked down at it, she was again reminded of Beast Boy, and the good times they had causing the guilt and shame of what she did back at school to eat away at her.
“Why can’t I forget him?!” she groaned softly to herself, “I just want things to be okay, is that so much to ask?”
That’s when Beast Boy returned from the washroom, and was about to sit at his stool again, when he spotted her, and she turned and saw him.
“Oh, not again!” he groaned. He decided to leave and headed straight for the doors, but Terra, though part of her didn’t really want to, she got up and chased after him.
“Beast Boy…!” she called to him as she jogged up the street.
He stopped where he was and turned and saw her catching up to him. “What do you want?” he asked deeply.
“Look, I really can’t figure this out myself, but… I actually think I need to talk to you again about all this.”
He shook his head at her, “Why?” he asked “What could you possibly want to talk with me about, Terra?”
“Please, don’t call me that!” she cried.
“Why shouldn’t I? It’s who you are… or at least who you used to be!”
She didn’t like the tone in his voice, “What’s happening to you? You’re not the Beast Boy I remember.”
“Ha!” he scoffed at her “I thought you DIDN’T remember me. Oh, wait… you didn’t WANT to remember me. You wanted to forget it all, everything, including the good times we had, and what good times we could have had.”
She stood where she was taking every single one of his words right to her heart. Part of her knew she deserved it, but part of her was growing annoyed. “Look, I know you’re hurting… and I’m sorry. It’s just… well, I…
…I couldn’t take it anymore. I did so many horrible things, and I hurt you many times before. I put the whole city in danger, and it wasn’t the first I did it.”
She reflected on all the dangers she caused when her powers unstable, and her involvement with Slade and everything that lead up to her turning to stone to save the city from destruction.
“…I’m just not cut out for all this stuff anymore. I can’t handle it. Why can’t you understand that I just want to put it all behind me? And I wanted to give us both a better future.”
He remained silent for a moment, and then he finally said “…I do understand. You think I don’t wish the same things?”
She gawked at him deeply.
“But it doesn’t matter… your attitude… the way you handled it… totally inexcusable.”
Now she felt shocked, and slightly offended, but when she thought back on it…
The fact that she tried to lie to him about having amnesia, brushing him off, not wanting anything to do with him…
Especially two clashing memories, from when she was about to turn to stone and embracing Beast Boy one last time.
“You were the best friend I ever had.”
Right up to that day in the school hall…
“You’re my friend! You’re a Teen Titan.”
“You’re wrong.”
He stopped it there, not having to go on with the other parts.
“You wanted the future to be better for us both?” he mocked “No, Terra… the way I see it you were only thinking about yourself.”
She seemed very offended by what he had just said, and he turned to walk away. “At least I’m not letting one little thing get me down all the time.” she called to him.
He stopped and turned his head to face her, “This isn’t just about us, Terra. It’s about a whole lot more than you know of…” he paused, still not wanting to come clean about what was really bothering him. “Then again, what difference would it make to you?
I’ve given you your space. I’ve respected your wishes… So, just leave me alone, like you wanted too.”
She remembered how she said that to him…
“Things were never the way you remember. Now just leave me alone!”
She watched him walk down the street. She was speechless, offended, but most of all she was confused. He really had taken her rejecting him a lot worse than she expected, and now he claimed there was more to it than just what they shared.
“If only he could see that moving on isn’t such a bad thing.” she said to herself.
Suddenly, she heard a loud crash, followed by a garbage can lid rolling out from an alley, and then followed by the sounds of a fist fight, and Beast Boy shouting “DUDE!!”
“Beast Boy!” she cried and dashed up the street.
She peered down the alley to see three huge, muscular, street punks badly beating Beast Boy to a pulp. “Dude, what’s your problem!” Beast Boy shouted.
“Nothing personal, kid…”
“We were hired to do this.”
“Yeah, we’re going to beat you until you’re all red!”
Then the three punks picked him up and slammed him hard into the wall, much to Terra’s horror, and then she heard the sound of snickering, and she could see Jackie and Jillian watching from on the roof of the very building.
“That’ll teach you to mess with us!” Jackie hollered.
“Yeah, take that, Booger Boy!” added Jillian.
“IT’S BEAST BOY!!” he shouted up to them, but then he got punched hard in the face by one of the punks.
Finally taking enough of their abuse, Beast Boy transformed into a T-Rex and roared at the punks, frightening all the tough guy attitude right out of them.
The punks started to run, but Beast Boy grabbed them, one in each hand, the last one in his huge jaws by the jacket.
The Js saw this and quivered under behind the edge of the building.
Beast Boy strung one of the punks up over a traffic light by a hook of his pants. He stuffed another one into a garbage dumpster, and as for the last punk, he simply placed him down on the street, but then ROARED at him really loud, sending the punk in an airwave hurdling backwards and landing, SPLASH, in a fountain.
Terra was horrified by what she had seen, but not as horrified as the Js were.
“Did you see that?” cried Jackie.
“He totally wiped the floor with them. I want my money back!” groaned Jillian.
Just then, they heard a whistling sound above them and looked up. Beast Boy, as a seagull was circling around the two bad girls… and he defecated all over them!
The girls screamed in disgust, and Beast Boy landed on the roof threatening them, “You two mess with me ever again, and I’ll deck ya!!”
Then he flew off leaving the girls sticky, smelly, outraged, and in disgrace.
Terra saw him fly away, and though she felt her friends somewhat deserved what they got for what they did, she was still very concerned about Beast Boy.
…Not as much as someone else was-- that same hooded stranger whom took the money from Beast Boy had seen everything. “It's time I made my move.” he said to himself.