LOOK

It started months ago, according to Starfire. At least, as far as she knew. She hardly thinks she could have missed the signs for very long.

They were standing around the holograph table in the ops room, going over the details before heading out.

"Raven, you'll be our diversion-"

"Bait?"

"Diversion," Robin stressed. "You are to divert the course of action from the street down this alley. Got it?"

Starfire turned her head to see Raven nod and that's the first time she saw it. Beast Boy looking at her. Beast Boy using the look on her. The look that launched a thousand ships, the look behind the greatest stories every told, the look that started affairs and ended in scandals, the look of longing, of wanting. Quite simply, the look of love. And Starfire knew in an instant it was love. She had been on that lonely side of love before.

Starfire, like all Tamaranians, were open and honest about their feelings and emotions. She did not understand how Earth humans lived so differently, but she had learned over time that it could not be helped, she could not change their ways. Although it involved far too many secrets and 'non truths' for her liking.

Beast Boy however, was a fountainhead of feelings. He was boisterous and energetic, he would always tell you how he felt. Which was why it surprised Starfire when he never acted on it (at least there was never any perceived action). There were looks and glances and even wistful gazes for months on end. Starfire was sure that they would have stopped if anything had changed. And so, she waited, for her silly human friends to realize the obvious.

Cyborg didn't know when it started because he almost couldn't believe it. In fact he would have flat out refused to believe it if he didn't have hard evidence at hand: the security feeds.

When Starfire brought it up he had been skeptical, disbelieving even. He had seen no such 'looks' recently. Star must have been misinterpreting the murderous glares and exasperated eye rolls that were often exchanged between the two, but she was insistent.

Her conviction moved him. She never entertained a thought she wasn't prepared to back with her everything, there had to at least be something that caught her eye. It was this that had him awake one night, going over the footage his robotic eye automatically recorded.

And hot damn, Starfire was right. Occurring after the usual glares was a softer look, something that most definitely stood out.

Cyborg spent the rest of the night under his monitors' glow, going over the other days, other conversations, seeing how much more he had missed.

Robin didn't care when it started. The important thing was how it was affecting the team. Of course he had noticed. They were being quiet but they weren't being subtle.

Beast Boy would use headphones instead of speakers, let 'ladies first' in line for the bathroom, put his dishes away when it was Ravens day for chores, turn her kettle on in the morning, look to her first when he finished a joke. Which was all fine and dandy, but the other things he did for her were becoming a problem. If they sparred he would pull his punches, when they planned a fight he would protest her placement, and in battle his attention was, first and foremost, focused on her: where was she, was she hurt, was something behind her, was something headed her way? It was good that he was more protective of a team mate, but it was throwing off the balance that he was more protective of one team mate.

Robin was mulling over his options after a particularly unpredictable and drawn out fight. There is an option, he thought, as police and fireman swarmed the area around him, to install a rule against in-team relations. He dismissed the thought after he caught sight of Starfire. That would never work; rules were for misbehaving children. Passions ran as high as anything else in their line of work, and besides the league had plenty of couples that worked... right? Green Arrow and Black Canary for example … and … Question and Huntress? (Although Robin had heard about Green Lantern's current and ex-girlfriend butting heads).

Robin sighed as he watched Beast Boy frog march a paramedic past him over to inspect Raven's bloodied knees. He couldn't install any kind of rule, Beast Boy was as wild and impulsive as his powers, his only hope was to talk to the guy and hope he would at least acknowledge his feelings to someone. Robin looked up to find the changeling in question hovering around the side of an ambulance, where he thought Raven couldn't see him.

On the other hand, Robin thought, maybe I'll give it a week and see if it comes to a head.

And then it stopped.

The end, discontinued, out of stock, ceased to be, shows over, no encore.

Robin was baffled- they were all baffled (even some extended Titans family who had been filled in were confused). There was no confrontation, no major blowout, no record on any security cameras. Beast boy, the obvious open book that he was, had not complained to Cyborg or Robin. Raven, who had never had a problem giving noticeable and public cold shoulders to anyone who had crossed her, was acting no different. Things were weirdly enough back to normal, but normal had been away so long everyone had almost forgotten what it felt like.

Cyborg, who always had a weakness for unsolved mysteries couldn't let it go. It hadn't tapered off, it had just stopped. Something must have happened to cause this. If she hadn't rejected him his behavior would make it fairly obvious. It might be said that he had gotten over her, but there had been looks (and feelings) coming from her side as well, those would not have disappeared. If he had rejected her she would be heartbroken, as withdrawn and emotionally distant as she had been after Malchior.

Starfire mentioned to Cyborg one day in the kitchen, "Maybe they are hiding it. Maybe they are having an affair."

He laughed at that. Beast Boy could barely wait to tell a punchline, he couldn't keep something this big a secret. "Besides," he said, " why would they need to keep it a secret."

"I do not know," she responded, mixing a lethal amount of baking powder into her concoction. "But humans are an irrational race if I have ever seen one. From my time here it seems you will usually take a course of action that hinders more than helps you."

Cyborg squinted at her through his human eye. He didn't know if she was still talking about Raven and Beast Boy, or if she was alluding to the fact that Cyborg chose to return home with them instead of continuing to lead Titans East. She knew about his romantic feelings for Bumblebee, and in her mind there was nothing to consider other than if he wanted to be with her or not (she had no comeback when he had said 'Easy for you to say. The person you want to be with already lives with you.').

"Look at it this way. It didn't move forward, it didn't move back, it just dissolved. Now unless our dear friend Gar just decided he doesn't have feelings anymore, the only thing I can think of to cause this would be some kind of memory wipe... " Cyborg suddenly became very still. "Raven has mind powers … hat if Raven decided he shouldn't have feelings anymore?!" Starfire became wide-eyed and slowed her stirring. "Oh my god it's just like that episode of Space Trek we watched last week! O'Hulu and Mr. Lock were having an affair and he decided it was becoming too complicated, so he used an alien mind wipe on her!" he stared, horrified, at Starfire. She stared right back at him, now worrying the wooden spoon between her teeth. "BUT," he roared, "Mr. Lock got caught! HE erased too much and she forgot some of ship procedure and had all these gaps in her memory!" Cyborg scrambled to his feet, knocking the surrounding chairs over. "We need to find Beast Boy RIGHT NOW and see if he's missing any time AND THEN we need to make him play stankball immediately because if Raven was in there erasing things THAT WOULD BE THE FIRST TO GO!"

The two of them ran out of the room, grim determination on their faces. In their hurry they had forgotten what Starfire had been cooking and the now fluorescent batter began to hiss and bubble in a very concerning manner.

Raven heard it first.

Raven heard it, but part of sharing a building with four others involved constant noise, not to mention Beast Boy and Cyborg always ran wild. Besides, she was busy.

"Beast Booooooooooooooooooooy!"

As someone who meditated often Raven needed to deal with distraction. When something came up you were supposed to acknowledge it and then let it go. It was there, but it wasn't important.

"Beeeeast Boooooooooooooooooooooooy!"

"I think Cyborg's looking for you."

Beast boy detached his mouth from where it had been on her neck and blinked up at her. "What?"

"Can you not hear that?" Raven watched his ears twitch as he finally picked up the repetitive thudding that was Cyborgs enormous heavy feet running down the hall.

"Honestly? I didn't notice. My hands are a little full here." He wiggled his eyebrows and squeezed his hands where they rested on her hips.

"BEEEEEEEEAAAAST BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY!"

"It sounds like he's hunting you down. Shouldn't you be worried?"

"The only thing I'm worried about right now is how to get your clothes off, because honestly? I've never seen a zipper on it." He ran his hands up her body until they rested on her ribs and he felt a little hitch in her breathing. "I mean, I could get it off, believe me I could," he said, running his nose along the underside of her jaw. Raven leaned her head back and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, locking him into place again. Gar brought his hand up to her neck and, placing one long, clawed finger at the top of her collar, dragged it very slowly down the front of her uniform. Without his gloves on he snagged some threads out on his way down. He stopped just after he ran out of fabric. "But I don't think you'd like my methods. You might run out of things to wear."

Raven rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh. "Fine, I'll show you," she said. "But you better pay attention. I'm only going to do this once, and after that I won't be doing your work for you."

Gar smiled wide, wide enough for his tooth to poke up above his lip. "I think," he said, "I can learn to live with that."

Spelling mistakes? DEAL WITH IT.

The process to get this story online was so long and convoluted because I just bought a fancy new computer that has Windows Fucking 8 on it, and as competent as I am there is only so much i can do SINCE I APPARENTLY DON'T HAVE A BASIC WORD PROCESSOR. I'm fine, I'm fine. By the way, any guesses how many years it took me to write this story since I moved out and got a mortgage and two jobs and a significant other? Multiple, that's all I know, I'm fuzzy on the details.