This is supposed to be funny, above all, so pls don't take it too seriously. Lightly shippy but what else is new. Haha. Robstar. BBRae. Kinda... ;) You'll see.

Independent Study

It was still raining from the night before. A persistent wave of raindrops thrummed the sides of the tower like fingers pattering on a drum. Jagged clouds roiled in the east, and the water that thrashed the arched windows in the training room gave everyone that eerie ship-in-a-storm feeling, except Beast Boy, who felt more like he was just outside a washing machine and had to look away from the windows before he could get dizzy. Having been last to wake Beast Boy also arrived last, and made a show of stretching and protracting a yawn as he joined everyone on the sparring mat in the middle of the vaulted room. He mumbled something about beauty sleep. Everyone ignored him.

"Alright, now that everyone's here," Robin began ("Only physically," Beast Boy complained), "we can start the day's training."

"I am most excited to learn of the day's activities," Starfire bubbled, hovering several feet over the rest of the team. Indeed, everyone betrayed curiosity in their eager stances; Robin had been hinting at the intensity of this week's Saturday morning training since Monday. Even Raven seemed particularly attentive and lowered her hood for the news.

"About that, Rob." Cyborg's limbs creaked (he must not have oiled his joints yet today) as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "I don't think the system is ready for full immersion yet. I thought I had it squeaky clean, but I found a new bug this morning that I have to weed out before we can use it for training."

Robin's face fell. Clearly he'd been just as eager as everyone else for the day's surprises. "Could you work it into usability if I gave you the morning? Maybe we could just have a late training day." (Beast Boy almost drooled in excitement at the thought of an extra hour of sleep.)

Cyborg shook his head. "No can do. It's a doozy—I'm gonna need the whole day to work on it."

"So it's the regular Saturday regimen, then?" Raven asked plaintively. Only the most observant of people would have been able to pick out the disappointment in her even tone.

There were murmurings of dissent from Beast Boy and Starfire at this idea, and both looked to Robin to smack it down. The leader rested his thumb on his chin thoughtfully, furrowing his eyebrows. "No, I don't think so. Cyborg," he addressed the oldest with a grin, "you do what you have to do to get the system up and running. As for the rest of us, I'm calling a free day."

Beast Boy's eyes bugged out of his head. "Alright!" he celebrated. "Free day! Up top, Raven!" But Raven left him hanging, hand raised in the air for a high five that would never come. His ears drooped as Robin amended his statement.

"It's not a 'do whatever you want' day, Beast Boy." Robin rolled his eyes beneath his mask, which of course no one saw. "It means I'm giving you each time to work on your own skills. Each of us have a very unique skillset, and group training only goes so far. This is actually a great opportunity. You can train however you like, but I'd prefer if you focused on a nonviolent skill, since most of our group training is hands-on. Try to pick something you don't get to work on when we're all together."

"So… you're giving us homework?" Beast Boy gathered, and then dejection spread like lightning across his face. "On a Saturday?!"

"Don't think of it as homework." Robin pondered for a moment, then added, "Think of it as Independent Study."

"This will be… interesting," Raven said carefully. "May I be excused to begin?"

"In a sec," Robin went on. "Feel free to focus on whichever skills you like, but know that you all need to have something to show me by the end of the day. Cy, for you that's the program. We'll meet in the common room at five to show our results. Everyone on the same page?"

After some nods of assent (some more reluctant than others) Robin extended his hand to the center of the circle. Starfire threw her hand on top with such enthusiasm that Robin's arm buckled, and he almost grimaced but didn't show it. Then came Cyborg's massive metal hand and Raven's arm heavy with a layer of black magic, and Robin was almost fine until Beast Boy's elephant trunk flopped heavily onto the pile. "Titans—" he barely managed to lift everyone's limbs to break the circle, "—break."

Everyone ambled toward the exit, Beast Boy pestering Cyborg about the mysterious program he would be fixing all day. Starfire hung back, threading her fingers through her hair. When the other three had vanished into the hall, she doubled back and landed in front of Robin.

"What's up, Star?" he wondered immediately.

"Well," she began, fretting and tapping her two pointer fingers together. "It is just that I'm unsure what you mean by 'nonviolent skills.' Surely all of my skills are, um… violent?" A forlorn look washed over her as she conjured up a swirling orb of electric green plasma and then shook her hand to dissipate it.

Robin looked stricken and began to backpedal furiously. "That's not what I meant, Starfire. At all!"

She shifted her weight back and forth, deciding on her words. "I do not take offense, Robin." Beaming at him, she said, "I am not ashamed of my power. It is only that my powers are by nature destructive—or, as you say, violent." (Robin cringed guiltily.) "I do not think there is any type of training I can pursue independently which I do not already do when we train together as a team."

Robin considered this. "I understand what you mean, but I disagree. You're a Tamaranean," he coaxed. "Your people are amazing, and so are you, and it isn't just your powers that make you that way. I'm positive there's a skill you could hone that has nothing to do with your stronger powers."

Starfire, blushing furiously, switched tactics to avoid answering that. "What will you be doing today, then?"

Robin shrugged. "There are lots of things I can only do on my own." A sly grin came over him and he whispered behind his hand, "Don't tell the others, but sometimes I do sudoku while doing a handstand."

Perplexed, she had to ask, "What for?"

"It hones my ability to accurately solve complex problems while under extreme physical duress. It sounds crazy, but hey, sometimes you have to get creative."

Starfire lit up at this new revelation. "If I must get creative, then creative I will get. Thank you for the leadership Robin!" Before swooping toward the door she crushed him in a quick hug, leaving him slack-jawed even after she'd already left.

In the kitchen Starfire lingered at the fridge, debating between leftover mustard or leftover French toast for breakfast, and deciding on both. She ate her food at the table and hoped someone would enter the common room and join her, but no one ever came. They must all have been studying already. That thought troubled her, for though she was enthusiastic about the possibilities presented by this independent work, she had yet to figure out exactly what she would be doing. In the end she abandoned her breakfast to go in search of the metaphorical "lightbulb."

All morning she paced the tower, stopping at every other window to gaze out at the fog rolling in off the sea, and she had gone through all the main rooms a dozen times by the time the clock ticked past noon. Realizing she was getting nowhere, she decided to visit another teammate. Perhaps seeing what someone else had chosen to study would provide the inspiration she needed.

Knocking on Raven's door was a fruitless venture even before it began, and try as she might she couldn't seem to locate Beast Boy anywhere in the Tower. So she would be visiting Cyborg, then.

Descending down to the basement level garage, Starfire left the lights on as she went. Cyborg always preferred to work in near-darkness and it befuddled her to no end. By the time she had arrived at the bottom of the long staircase Cyborg had pushed his chair back from the messy desk and was waiting for her with a knowing smile. "Heya, Starfire."

"Hello, friend Cyborg." The rhythms of the storm outside were dulled down here, drowned by the various gears, clicks, and whirrings of machinery. Hands clasped behind her back (she'd been reprimanded many times for getting too excited and accidentally breaking his delicate half-built mechanisms) she eagerly approached him. "May I ask how you are faring with the day's assignment? I myself have yet to decide what to work on and am hoping your work will provide the inspiring."

"Yeah, you may ask," Cyborg laughed. "But don't tell B I told you, okay? He's been hammering me for info all morning and it's supposed to be a surprise. C'mere." He beckoned with one hand and she came closer, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the computer screen as he cleared away some of the piles of wires that partially obscured the monitor.

He pulled up a group of files and began clicking through them one by one. "This is the program I've been working on. Through Robin, who apparently knows someone who owns a lot of stock in Nintendo—don't ask me who, he was pretty tight-lipped about it—I convinced them to let me get my hands on their virtual reality prototype." Starfire blinked uncomprehendingly at the screen full of lines and lines of letters and numbers and seemingly random syllables. Sensing her disconnect, Cyborg reached past the pile of cords and pulled out a clunky pair of enormous glasses that looked almost like a helmet. "This here," he announced with pride, "is the world's first fully immersive virtual reality helmet! BOOYAH!"

That, she got. "That is most amazing! This will certainly make for an interesting training experience." Starfire reached out for it but he pulled it away.

"You don't wanna try it yet," he apologized. "There's something wrong with the equilibrium that makes it terribly disorienting. Gotta fix the inner ear on this thing before I let any of y'all wear it, or else we'll all be getting sick."

"So you are doing the fixing here?" She pointed at the computer screen, where he resumed his clicking through the tabs to different pages, each more mysterious than the last.

"Yeah. Gotta find the bug in the code. Wherever the little monster is hiding, he's messing with the rest of the code big time. Once I find it, though, we'll be golden."

"This computer code you humans use," Starfire said wistfully, "it looks most fascinating. I wish I could understand it."

After minimizing the last tab Cyborg hastily hid the game of minesweeper that had been revealed on the computer's desktop. "It's not hard to learn," he explained. "Computer codes are like languages. There's quite a few of them—this one's C++, which is pretty easy as far as they go."

"Computer code is language?" Something sparkled in Starfire's eyes that Cyborg wasn't quite sure he liked.

"Basically…"

Her entire aura brightened and she hovered subconsciously higher into the air, leaning over him in untetherable excitement. "Cyborg, you have just provided me with the inspiring which I required!"

"Uh… you're welcome?" Cyborg quailed under her gaze, sinking into his desk chair. He did not like where this was going at all.

"I am in need of the smallest favor."

"What?" he groaned, though he knew what she was gonna say.

"Might I kiss you, to learn the computer language?"

Cyborg sank so far in his chair that he almost fell out onto the floor. His eyes flew to the empty stairs, as if the very idea of that happening had summoned Robin like a homing beacon. "Star, I don't think that's such a good—"

"Oh but it is the best idea!" she chattered. "I have been searching for a nonviolent skill of mine to hone and I almost neglected to remember my natural ability to absorb language through the physical contact! Think, the skill of programming would be most invaluable, and if I'm correct you are fluent in many types of code. I could assist you in times such as this where you are having the struggles with system repair, and on the potential chance that you yourself require quick repair in battle, is it not wise to ensure someone besides yourself is capable of making those repairs?"

Cyborg balked, thrown by her inescapable logic. "Well when you put it that way…"

"So I may?" she beamed.

Cyborg groaned, looking again toward the staircase. He really hadn't planned on dying today. "Fine," he relented as she leaned in way too close for comfort. "Just a quick one. That's all you need, right?"

"Yes, all I require is a quick—" she pressed her hands to both sides of his face and connected with his lips for a chaste kiss before pulling away and patting his cheek amiably "—I believe you would call it—a peck."

"Uh," Cyborg said hoarsely. "Yeah, that's what we'd call it." Sitting up in his desk chair, he threw one more guilty look at the stairs, convinced any moment he was going to feel the sting of a birdarang at the back of his head. "So you understand this now, or...?" He trailed off, remembering the instantaneousness of Starfire's brush with English, after she'd smacked lips with Robin and thrown him to the ground, going from shouting at them in Tamaranean to shouting at them in English in the span of one angry kiss.

"Yes!" she gasped. "Oh, this was such a marvelous idea!" she gushed, pushing aside Cyborg's hand to click from tab to tab herself, relishing her newfound understanding of code. "I must do the thanking by making you the best dessert tonight for the Saturday night movie marathon!"

"No thanks," he replied, almost inaudibly, and she was so excited she didn't hear him.

"I must go continue my Independent Study!" she announced suddenly, straightening with an air of profound determination. "I will leave you to your work now. I wish you all the luck on the removal of the insect!"

Cyborg nodded absentmindedly, still so distracted from the weird turn of events that he didn't take issue with what she'd said until she'd already flown away up the stairs. "Wait!" he called after her frantically. "What the hell do you mean by 'continue'?"

.

.

After departing from the basement Starfire went by Raven's room again, eager to further pursue her newfound goal, but was still unable to elicit any response from the other side of the drab gray door no matter how she knocked. "I am in need of your assistance with my independent studies," she resorted to calling out.

The door abruptly slid open, revealing Raven's carefully hidden annoyance. "Can't you ask someone else for help?" she asked, one eyebrow twitching slightly under the pressure of remaining stoic.

Starfire pondered that for a moment, then hit Raven with her surest of smiles. "I believe you are right. I could use someone else's assistance."

"Great," Raven deadpanned, and the door clicked shut.

Up in the kitchen, Starfire's stomach growled hungrily. She thought about finishing her half-eaten French toast breakfast, but thought better on it. Beast Boy was not partial to mustard, and if she wanted to lure him into the common room then she would have to pull out all the stops with a late lunch extravaganza.

Extracting everything she could from the fridge that didn't have meat in it, Starfire fired up a frying pan and began to throw the veggies in there one by one. She wasn't sure what half of them were called but she was pretty positive Beast Boy had been the one to throw them in the cart during the weekly shopping trip, so they would do. After that she chopped up a block of tofu and threw that in as well, though she wasn't sure why he liked it since it was utterly bland and tasteless. What this concoction really needed was some apple cider vinegar, or mustard, or wasabi, or ghost peppers, or calamari, or mustard. But she restrained herself, and only put in some soy sauce, which she knew for sure he liked.

While it sizzled on the stove top and filled the room with sweet-smelling smoke, Starfire flew around and opened all the air vents in the room to maximum. It only took three more minutes for him to burst through the door from the hallway.

"YOOO, Cy! My pal, my buddy, my best friend! What sweet sweetness are you coo—" he stopped dead when he finally saw Starfire, covered in splatters of soy sauce and hair frazzled from the kitchen's humidity. "Uhm… please tell me you didn't make that."

"You will enjoy this!" she insisted, unphased by his lack of enthusiasm. "I have made it with all your favorite ingredients and with none of the mustard."

She beamed, and Beast Boy grew even more suspicious. Approaching the frying pan, he gave it a tentative shake and poked through all the ingredients with the spatula. "It checks out," he finally concluded. "Star, did you make this just for me? I'm so confused."

She sat down at the table, leaving him to finish the process of sautéing the assortment of vegetables and tofu. "Well I was hoping to seek your assistance with my training, but was unable to find you..."

"Wait, you lured me like a dog with the smell of food?" He chuckled and turned off the burner, shaking his head in disbelief. "I totally fell for it, too. Dang."

"I looked very hard before resorting to such measures," she blushed, very guilty over the cheap trick she had employed.

"I'm not offended, Star," Beast Boy laughed, "don't feel bad. Anyway, it's no wonder you couldn't find me, cause I was in Raven's room."

Starfire looked at him blankly as he set a bowl full of food in front of her and took a seat opposite her across the dining room table. "You were... in Raven's room?" Stabbing her fork mercilessly into the veggies, she turned cross. "I think I remember Robin saying the free day was to be used for studying, Beast Boy, not for doing whatever we wanted."

Beast Boy spat out his first mouthful of stir fry onto the table, choking on the implication behind Starfire's words. "We were studying," he wheezed, coughing up a chunk of tofu he'd accidentally inhaled. "Raven was helping me with something." He hid behind the act of chugging his entire glass of water so Starfire wouldn't see how furiously he was blushing.

If she even noticed how her accusation had flustered him, she didn't let on. "And Raven agreed to this? In her room?" she added, even more caught off guard by that than by the rest.

"Well, after I begged."

"Can I ask what skill you've chosen to work on today?"

Beast Boy shoveled some more food down, mulling over her question. "It's kind of hard to explain…"

"I excel at the listening," she assured him. She gave him another minute to barrel through the rest of his stir fry, waiting eagerly to hear what it was.

Letting his fork clatter on the table, Beast Boy leaned back with his hands behind his head. "Okay, so you know how I can get really small? I mean transform into bugs and stuff." Starfire nodded, considering adding some wasabi to her bowl after all. "Well, bugs are really fragile, you know? One smack or misplaced shoe and BAM! They're done for." Starfire nodded again patiently, still not getting his meaning. "But I have to transform into bugs pretty often…" Beast Boy continued, arching an eyebrow at her. "Are you seeing where this is going?" She clearly wasn't. "So," he went on with an air of pride, "back when I was in Doom Patrol, Mento had an idea to make me a little less breakable when I transform into small things."

"What was this idea?" She was now intrigued and had forgotten about her own food entirely.

"Okay, how much do you know about physics?" Without waiting for her to answer he stood, excited to relay the novel idea. "The idea is that I'm made up of a certain amount of matter—a specific number of atoms." First he gestured in general to his body, then threw one finger up to add, "A bug is also made up of atoms. A significantly smaller number of atoms. When I transform, I'm losing almost all my atoms on the process, making me very small and very crushable." Starfire was beginning to catch on and he could see that so he was even more excited when he went on. "So imagine if I was able to somehow retain all my original atoms when I changed into something smaller. Imagine what an indestructible bug I would be!"

"That would certainly be nice," Starfire smiled.

He deflated, wishing she was more enthusiastic about it. "You just don't get it cause you're already indestructible," he pouted. "I've been working on it for ten years and I still only have it half-mastered."

"Apologies! I suppose I find it hard to do the relating. But please tell me, for I am now quite curious, how is friend Raven assisting you with this process?"

Beast Boy broke into an infectious smile. "Raven's helped so much more than I thought anyone could. Her powers can control matter, right? So I thought I could enlist her help and wow. When she throws her magic stuff on me before I transform it doesn't let any of the matter escape. She had me doing in thirty minutes what I've been trying to do for years!"

"You have full-mastered it now, then?"

"Uhm, kinda," he relented. "I mean I can kinda do it, cause I've been kinda-doing it for years. But I dunno if I'll ever be able to do it as well as I did with Raven's help. Hey, I know, let's try it out!"

At that moment the doors slid open, letting in Cyborg. "Something smells good," he shouted, "and it better not be tofu or I'm gonna cry."

"It's only a little tofu," Beast Boy grumbled.

Cyborg, hovering over the pan, breathed in the delicious aroma with skepticism. "I don't know which is harder to believe," he said, pointing at each of them in turn, "if you made this, or if you made this."

"Please Cyborg," Starfire hushed, "Beast Boy was about to do the displaying of his special ability!"

"What ability?"

"The density thing!" Beast Boy clarified.

Cyborg dropped the spatula back into the pan. "Oh. You finally iron the kinks out?"

"Raven's been helping me work on it. Let's see if it paid off, yeah?" He leapt into a standing position on his chair and prepared to transform. "Okay Star, I'm gonna do the densest I can. Try and crush me," he challenged.

"Um, I do not feel comfortable with the crushing you part," she worried.

Beast Boy puffed out his chest. "I'll be fine!" He oozed confidence and glanced at Cyborg. "Mind keeping a reading on me to see how well I do?"

Cyborg flipped open a compartment on his arm to press a sequence of buttons, then pointed a swath of bright yellow light Beast Boy's way. "Ready when you are."

Concentration replaced all the other emotions on Beast Boy's face, and this time when he transformed it seemed to take twice as long as the normal blink-of-an-eye transformations his team was used to. By the time he had turned into a small praying mantis, several seconds had gone by.

Disbelieving the readout on his arm, Cyborg let out a low whistle. "Nice! New record, buddy!"

The praying mantis waggled its arm segments in the air, and it was tough to say whether he had heard Cyborg and meant it in a celebratory way, or if he was still challenging Starfire to crush him. Starfire interpreted the latter and tentatively placed her hand above him. Squeezing her eyes shut and turning away, she reluctantly slammed her hand down.

Abruptly he transformed back and fell off the chair, groaning loudly as he connected with the hardwood floor. "Fuck," he slurred. "I mean—ow. Ow. O-o-oww. Fuck."

"I have succeeded in crushing you?" Starfire gasped in alarm.

Beast Boy pushed himself up on one elbow, looking faint. "Nope. I'm fine."

Back in the kitchen, Cyborg crossed his arms. "Maybe you're getting better at density control, but I think you neglected to remember that Star could crush you like a bug at any density."

Thinking about Starfire's lethal hugs, Beast Boy had to admit Cyborg was right. "You couldn't have reminded me beforehand?" Beast Boy growled at him, unamused.

Cyborg shrugged. "My bad."

Beast Boy flinched as Cy helped him up, and rolled his shoulder gingerly in its socket. "So what are you studying then, Starfire?" Beast Boy asked, intentionally ignoring Cyborg.

"I'm glad you ask," she replied, still looking worried about Beast Boy's health but plowing on in her quest nonetheless. "That is why I was looking for you in the first place. I believe you can help me."

Cyborg pulled a face. "Uh-uh, Star, you are not about to ask what I think you're gonna ask!"

Beast Boy eyed Cyborg amusedly, wondering what was getting him so concerned. "With what?"

"Animals on earth have their own languages, do they not?"

Beast Boy scratched his cheek, cocking his head to the side. "Not really. Well, some come very close, but no animals have developed a fully functional language like humans. Why do you ask?"

He jumped when Cyborg scream-whispered in his ear, "Run away, man!"

"Imagine how useful it would be if, during battle, someone on the team could understand what you were saying whilst in animal form," she pressed, mischief twinkling in her eyes.

Beast Boy tapped his cheek, his gaze far-off and dreamy. "Hey, yeah, that'd be hella useful… Cyborg, quit whispering in my ear, I'm trying to pay attention here! What were you saying, Star?"

"I was saying that I am wondering if you recall my ability to quickly learn languages."

At first nonplussed, realization quickly dawned and he stepped back so suddenly he almost knocked over Cyborg, who was still trying to convince him to run away. Now he knew why. "Now I remember," he squeaked.

"So, might we try it?"

"L-like I said," he stammered, tugging at his collar and glancing guiltily at the door, "I don't think what animals have qualifies as language. I don't think it'd work…"

"Oh." She looked so crestfallen that for a moment he was tempted to turn into a bird and let her kiss his beak just to pacify her and show her that even with the most advanced of animals it probably wouldn't work. But then she brightened again. "Forget the animals. What about you?" she switched gears. "You grew up in Africa, did you not?"

("Run away!" Cyborg resumed in his ear.)

"Yeah…" He did not like where this was going at all.

"Well, what language did you speak there?"

Beast Boy paled. "Swahili," he admitted, and quickly added, "but I don't remember it very well."

"Nonsense," she insisted, her laugh like the tinkling of bells. "One does not simply forget how to speak a language. I'm sure you are merely out of the practice. Wouldn't you enjoy having a friend to speak your native language with?"

"I don't know," he trailed off, looking at the door again, as if the very idea she was suggesting would summon Robin to devour him, like carrion to the smell of a dying rabbit. Dang, she sure drove a hard point, though. He couldn't even remember that last time he'd met someone who spoke Swahili. "Fine," he whispered, as if he was conspiring to commit a federal crime, "just do it."

"Thank you!" she rejoiced, and kissed him flush on the lips so suddenly he almost fell over. When she pulled away he felt like he very much had committed a federal crime. He'd never be able to look Robin in the eyes again, he'd never be able to look Raven in the eyes again, hell, he'd never be able to look Cyborg in the eyes again.

He was about to officially freak out when she flipped her hair behind her shoulder and said, "Unaweza kuelewa mimi?"*

.

.

Everything went hazy as the words plucked at Beast Boy's heart. He could no longer hear Cyborg laughing about the kiss, or the hum of the fridge, or anything. His jaw dropped. "Ndiyo…" he replied incredulously, amazed at how quickly the words to respond surfaced from a depth of years, "kufanya."*

"Ona?" Starfire cried happily. "Nilokuambia!"*

The door to the common room slid open again, and this time it was Raven who walked in, arching her eyebrow at the curiously close circle the three in the dining room had knit. Seeing her, Starfire waved ecstatically, and then told Beast Boy in a mischievous tone, "Ijayo msichana-majadiliano, i atakuambia Raven wewe kutoa bora ishara ya upendo."*

Beast Boy reddened and frantically gestured for Starfire to shut up. "That's not necessary!" he pleaded. "Seriously, you don't have to do that!"

Cyborg pushed BB aside to badger her. "What'd you say, Star?"

Starfire only elbowed Beast Boy conspiratorially, causing him to grow even more flustered.

"Starfire, did I just walk in on you speaking Swahili?" Raven wondered as she meandered over to poke skeptically through the remainder of the stir fry. She eyed Beast Boy with a hint of amusement, and for some reason it set him on edge.

Cyborg hastily leapt in to steer the conversation away from disaster. "What have you been working on today, Raven?"

"Helping Beast Boy, mostly," she admitted, deciding to turn her nose up at the pan instead of helping herself.

"What about your own studies, though?"

Raven leaned against the counter, eyeing them all with further barely disguised amusement. "I've been waiting for one of you to inevitably injure yourselves so I could work on my healing powers."

Cyborg patted Beast Boy on the back, who cringed hard at the contact. "Perfect timing then," he said, "cause Star's just broken BB's arm."

"What?" Starfire gasped. "I thought you had said you were not hurt!"

"How'd you know?" Beast Boy accused, shoving Cyborg away with his good arm.

"The way you're holding it," Cyborg shrugged. "I can just tell."

"Yeah, yeah," Beast Boy admitted, his pride wounded worse than his arm, "so it's broken. Wanna help me out, Rae?"

Raven stepped away from the counter with a sigh, like she hadn't actually been planning on doing any real work at all today. "I'll be right back."

Starfire hovered over Beast Boy as he made his way toward the curved couch, apologizing all the way. He waved her off. "It's my own fault for forgetting how strong you are. Anyway, Raven can heal me, so no harm done."

Cyborg felt around his right forearm, taking stock of which parts made Beast Boy flinch when touched. "Looks like it's broken in three different places. She really did a number on you, green bean."

"Perhaps we should do the breaking of my arm in three places as well, to make the atonement," Starfire suggested sadly.

"What?" Beast Boy shrieked. "No way! Relax, Star, Raven will be back any—"

She rose up through the floor on queue, and dropped a stack of fat textbooks onto the coffee table. "Let's get started."

"What are the books for?" Starfire wondered.

"They're medical texts."

"You uh.. wanna become a doctor?" Beast Boy guessed as she tentatively pulled his arm from Cyborg's grasp.

"Ha ha."

Cyborg tried next. "No seriously, Rave, what are they for?"

Using her powers she sifted through the books and summoned one toward the couch, where she began flipping pages until she found a highly detailed cross-section of a human hand. A few pages later, she found an arm. "When I use my powers to heal it takes a lot out of me."

"You mean it hurts you?" Beast Boy yanked his arm away, looking offended. "Why haven't you ever said anything before?"

Raven, with incredible patience, grabbed his arm again (though maybe with more force than was necessary) and restated. "It doesn't hurt, it's just very tiring. I think it's because there's so much guesswork involved for my powers. Where the bones connect, which tissue goes where, which veins are more important, etcetera."

"Ah, so you think studying a bit of anatomy is gonna help it go smoother?" Cyborg sounded impressed with her solution.

"Essentially, yes." She surveyed the page for a minute, moving her hands up and down Beast Boy's forearm.

"Is it working?" he wondered, when the silence started getting to him.

Her eyebrow twitched, and her eyes slid up to meet his. "I haven't started yet."

"Oh. Ow!"

"Now I've started."

Clenching his eyes shut, he sunk into the couch as Raven did her thing. Knowing the difference between the radius and the ulna and understanding the muscle that surrounded them was actually helping her significantly, and she found the process going much quicker than the last time she'd healed someone's broken bone. (It had been Robin, after an unfortunate incident with his motorcycle and a pigeon.) The bone tissue reconnected faster than normal and she found by the end that she was nowhere near as exhausted as when she'd mended Robin's femur.

When she was sure all the fractures had been healed and the swelling had receded she pulled her hands away to let him flex his arm. "Whew!" he sighed. "Much better! Thanks, doll."

Raven bristled. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. Cyborg," she deflected, "how's the training program coming?"

"Oh, you know…" he also deflected, as he'd nearly forgotten about it amidst all this craziness. "I've been a bit distracted, between these two."

Raven eyed 'these two,' who were both trying to look so nonchalant and innocent that Raven immediately grew suspicious. "That reminds me," she directed at Starfire, "when did you start learning Swahili?"

"Hey did you guys notice the rain's starting to let up a bit?" Beast Boy intercepted.

If Raven noticed Beast Boy sweating she said nothing. Starfire, averting her eyes, replied, "Today."

That launched Raven's eyebrows right into orbit.

Beast Boy floundered. "Really, I think we might even get some sun before it sets...!"

"Is that so?" Raven went on, answering Starfire but directing it at Beast Boy, who had sunk so low on his seat it looked like he was trying to become one with the couch cushion. "You seemed nearly fluent. Care to explain?"

"Oh it is very simple," Starfire answered, ignorant to Beast Boy's plight, "I simply ki—"

"Raven knows like twenty languages!" Beast Boy blurted, lunging forward to block the girls' view of each other.

"Uh…" For once Raven was not carefully withholding harsh words, but was instead struck genuinely speechless by the abrupt turn of the conversation. Funny enough, Beast Boy also seemed surprised by the words he'd chosen to interrupt with. Unfortunately for them both, Starfire was not.

Beast Boy buckled under the weight of Starfire's arms as she pushed his head down to ogle Raven. "Twenty languages?" she gasped. "I knew you spoke the deceased earth language—" ("Latin?" Cyborg interjected) "—and English, of course, but I did not know of these eighteen others!"

"Six," Raven corrected, glaring at Beast Boy as he finally escaped the trap between Starfire and the couch cushion. "I speak six languages."

This did not seem to quell any of Starfire's enthusiasm. "How wonderful!" she beamed. "Do tell me which languages?"

Cyborg leaned over the back of the couch to interfere once again, seeing in 20/20 where this was heading. "I wouldn't answer that, Raven."

"I hardly see why it's important," Raven droned, "or why it was brought up in the first place." (Beast Boy tapped his hands together a bit manically.) "But if you really must know—"

"I must!" Suddenly Star was hovering over her, suffocating her with proximity. "It is of vital importance for my training!"

"I'm really not following." Raven phased through the back of the couch, reappearing on the other side of Cyborg, and hit them all with a critical eye. "I thought we were talking about you learning Swahili," she accused, pointing at the Tamaranean girl who was almost jittery with anticipation. "What do my languages have to do with—" Her mouth fell open into a startled O and her accusing finger drooped. "Oh no. No no no. No way." Realization of what Starfire wanted dawned like a tidal wave, and Raven paled, backing subconsciously toward the automatic door to the hall.

Just as quickly she realized what Starfire must have already done, and she turned her accusatory finger toward Beast Boy, who immediately pointed back with double the vigor. "On top of Latin she can read Nordic," he shouted, "two more sets of ancient runes, plus whatever demon language her fa—she was born with!"

Starfire, unaware of the intensity of Raven and Beast Boy's finger gun standoff, soared higher into the air and twirled. "That is amazing, Raven! I don't believe I have ever had the pleasure of meeting someone who spoke six languages."

"Meeting? On earth I think they call it making out, Star," Raven deadpanned.

"Hey, we didn't make out!" Beast Boy snapped, and immediately pointed his other hand at Cyborg, who looked desperate to be left out of this. "Besides, he did it first!"

"You too?" Raven turned her finger at Cyborg, who threw his hands up in defense.

"She's very persuasive!"

"Raven, suppose you were to fall ill," Starfire goaded, in a sudden switch of topic, "and the answer to your sickness was somewhere in one of your ancient texts, yet you were unable to translate for us. Will it not be useful to have someone on the team who can also decipher your runes?"

Raven's finger drooped again. She did not like where this was going at all. "I suppose. But I don't—"

"Or," Starfire interrupted, flying down to Raven's level and hitting her with her most sparkling of smiles, "imagine I want to learn more about your culture through your literature, for the fostering of our friendship."

Raven fidgeted. Now she couldn't argue with her without sounding rude. She was trapped and she knew it. "Still, I—"

"Or, if you wish," Starfire said sneakily, going in for the kill, "envision a world where you and I are able to converse freely in front of the boys without them having the understanding our conversation."

Raven paused at that suggestion, which had never occurred to her. One glance over Starfire's shoulder at the two gobsmacked boys behind her told her that they hated that idea more than they'd ever hated anything. This sealed it.

"Fine." Quickly, before she could change her mind, she levitated up a few inches and gently kissed Starfire. After a long moment (how long did she need for the effects to take place anyway?) Raven pulled away, tucking her hair self-consciously behind her ear. Starfire was glassy-eyed and vacant, not seeming to have registered what just happened. Raven waved a tentative hand in front of her face but elicited no response.

"Right then," she hummed, and stepped away quietly. "I think I should go continue studying, so Robin doesn't…" She trailed off, embarrassed when she caught Cyborg's baffled frozen stare. Then she saw Beast Boy, who had escaped her notice at first because he was on the floor, having evidently passed right the hell out.

"Right," she said again. "Uh… Bye." Abandoning the physical plane entirely, she opened a portal to her bedroom and stepped into it.

After a good solid minute Cyborg was finally the one to speak. "Starfire? You okay, girl?"

Starfire turned with an odd look on her face, and heat still flaming her cheeks. "I believe it is I who has been crushed this time," she giggled.

"Okay well get it out of your system before B comes to," he warned. "I think y'all just about fried his circuits." Speaking of systems! "Yo!" he cried, slapping both hands to his forehead. "It's three o'clock and I still haven't fixed the training program!

.

.

When Robin entered the common room at 4:55pm, his other four teammates were already there. The rain had started up again, a soft patter against the exterior wall. Fondly, he noticed Starfire at the window. She still seemed to be enraptured with the concept of rain. If he recalled correctly, they didn't get much of it on Tameran. It struck him as odd that none of them seemed to be speaking or even acknowledging each other's presence. No one noticed his entry, even when he cleared his throat, so finally he said, "Everyone assemble over here, please."

While everyone had gathered around him he had to wonder why everyone was acting so… weird. "Did everyone accomplish something? There was a round of serious nods, though Starfire's was almost giddy. Robin tapped his chin as he wondered what Starfire was so excited about, but decided to save her for last. She loved going last. "Cyborg?" he asked instead. "Did you get the bug worked out?"

"Mostly," he said slowly. "I was a bit distracted between these three but I think the training program is at least functional now."

Robin folded his arms testily. "You guys were supposed to leave Cyborg alone and train on your own."

"Why're you looking at me?" Beast Boy protested. "I didn't do anything." Cyborg nudged him warningly and Robin hmmed. "What?" Beast Boy continued. "I did what I was supposed to. Worked on that density thing all day and I'm not hearing any congratulations on my new record."

"Really?" Robin was genuinely impressed. "You hit a new record? How?"

"Cause I'm awesome."

"With my help," Raven immediately corrected in annoyance.

"Good job," Robin told her, still amazed. He'd thought Beast Boy had hit a plateau with that years ago. "Was that all you did today?"

"No, I did my own studying as well. Healing practice."

Robin's immediate curiosity for what exactly she'd healed drew Cyborg's intervention. "It's not important!" he said. "Anyway, I think that about wraps it up, folks. Who wants to test out the new training program?!"

There was a chorus of hurried agreement from Beast Boy and Raven as they caught on, but Robin quickly shushed them. "Hang on, we still need to hear from—"

"Virtual reality!"

"Starfire still needs to—"

"Virtual training?" Beast Boy piped in loudly, "No way!"

"Guys, shut up!" That did it. Severely ticked, Robin gestured to Starfire that she at last had the floor.

"Thank you, Robin." Clasping her hands together, she announced, "I'm very excited to share that I have learned many new languages today!"

About to praise her, Robin faltered instead. "Hang on, what? Did you say new languages? Did you say many new languages?"

Nodding gleefully, Starfire turned to the other three, who had all become extremely fascinated with the patterns on the hardwood floor. "To be specific, I learned…" Becoming contemplative, she pointed first at Beast Boy (who turned bright red and fought a coughing fit), then at Raven, who stared back with almost a challenging determination (Starfire turned red this time and had to look away), then last at Cyborg, where she paused in confusion. Finally, exasperated, Cyborg held up four fingers. Starfire brightened and nodded, turning back to face the team leader. "Eleven languages," she finished.

Robin's jaw went slack and he struggled to wrap his mind around what he was saying. "You learned… Today?"

"Yes! Isn't it wonderful? Thank you for the advice on the creativity because I'd never have thought of this training exercise on my own."

Finally, it clicked. Robin wheeled on the other three. Cyborg threw his arms up in instantaneous surrender, Beast Boy shrieked and turned into a beetle and crawled behind Cyborg's leg, and Raven crossed her arms to mirror Robin's defiance.

"It was a marvelous idea, yes? Starfire asked uncertainly, put off by Robin's silence.

"Yeah," he supposed grudgingly. "Points for creativity, Starfire." He narrowed his eyes at the other three and even Raven stepped back from the ferocity in his glare. "That's it for the day then, team. Unless there's an emergency you can have the night off." With one last growl at the others he turned and stalked out of the room and was never to be heard suggesting that the team practice independently ever again.

.

.

But the next Saturday when they were all trying out the virtual training system, Cyborg came up behind him and pulled the plug unceremoniously.

"What gives?" Robin grumbled, looking around at the other three who were still plugged in. "What's wrong?"

"Oh nothing," Cyborg smirked. "It's just that I've been peeking at your user history and it looks like instead of using this thing to train you've been using it to learn Spanish."

"So what?" he defended, his face lighting up like a Christmas tree.

Cyborg grinned manically. "Come on man, you know what."

Robin snatched the VR helmet back from him, fighting the urge to flip him off. "Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, "I know what," and he went back inside the Rosetta Stone program he'd uploaded last Sunday.

End

Apologies to anyone who speaks Swahili because I definitely don't, so I used google translate and it's probably butchered. A rough translation:

*Do you understand me?

*Yes... I do.

*See? I told you!

*At the next girl-talk, I will tell Raven you give the best kiss.

Hope you guys enjoyed this rollercoaster lol.