...And introducing Part II, the Final Fifty
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1. Love
Theirs wasn't the love of fairy tales, of dashing princes and happily-ever-afters, but it made them feel alive.
2. Dark
People always called the sorceress dark and uncaring, but Beast Boy knew the truth. The darkness was a facade to conceal the blinding light inside.
3. Heaven
At one point, Raven was depressed over the fact that Garfield would be going to Heaven without her after he died. After all, how would let a half-demon into Heaven? When he found out about these concerns, he slowly got onto one knee and pulled her chin up.
"You don't have to worry, Rae. Without you, it wouldn't be Heaven for me. Even if I have to leave those Pearly Gates to join you in Hell, I'll always be in Heaven as long as I'm with you."
4. Breathe Again
When he finally saw her in proper evening wear, Cyborg had to slam his elbow into Beast Boy's chest to help him recapture the breath she stole when she walked out wearing that slim black dress.
5. Smile
It had always been his goal in life to make her smile. As soon as he saw it, he knew that he never wanted it to end.
6. Silence
It was only when Raven started looking forwards to Beast Boy's interruptions of her rooftop meditations did she realise that she might be in trouble.
7. Vacation
Beast Boy and Raven agreed that only one good thing came of their 'vacation' to Tokyo – that it had gotten Robin and Starfire to stop dancing around each other and finally admit how they felt.
For the Titan's second 'vacation', this one to Canada where the Brotherhood of Evil had set up a new base near the Arctic circle, Cyborg discovered the shapeshifter and the demoness sharing 'body warmth' when he found them after a blizzard that had separated the team.
8. Cat
Even Raven had to admit, she couldn't resist the Face when it was on a kitten.
9. No Time
As she saw him departing for what was likely the Doom Patrol's final flight, she realised that she would never be able to tell him the truth.
10. Tears
There had only been three occasions in Raven's life where all of her emotions cried simultaneously. The first was when she was about to become the portal; the second when Beast Boy fell into a months long coma after saving her from a vengeful and clearly insane Dr. Light. The final time was when she was left standing over his grave after nearly a century of marriage.
11. Foreign
As she saw Beast Boy and Starfire arguing in some flowing, foreign language, she felt Affection cringe sharply.
There's only one way that Star could have learned to speak fluent Swahili that quickly...
12. Under the Rain
The common folk of Jump City whispered of inauspicious omens when it rained the entire week of Raven and Gar's wedding. But as he pulled out to dance in the rain, she realised that it was Gaia herself washing them both clean of their sins.
13. Night
Many were easier to admit with only the stars bearing witness.
An embrace, forging the friendship.
The long talks, often lasting through the night
A fleeting kiss, stolen from the dark bird's lips
A lover's touch, intimate yet fierce.
14. Expectations
He expected but a single thing from her; to not break his heart. Smilingly indulgently at his jokes was an unexpected bonus.
15. Hold My Hand
"You know Rae, if the movie's scaring you, you can hold my hand"
"Don't be ridiculous. It's merely a movie."
Nearly a half hour later, Beast Boy felt a cool hand slip into his own.
I knew that it was a good idea to make Rae watch Wicked Scary 2 with me...
16. Eyes
The first time that Beast Boy put on his holoring, she was quite surprised to see that Cyborg's calculations said that Beast Boy had blue eyes before his accident, not green.
17. Abandoned
Beast Boy had been abandoned by many people in his short life – his parents, in a way, then the two thieves. Following them was Nicholas Galtry, whom Gar had actually abandoned. After the Doom Guard had done the same, he resolved to never let himself get attached again. But when he saw his dark mirror in Raven, he knew that he had to risk it and try.
18. Dreams
The first time that they slept in the same bed, she subconsciously slipped into his dreams. Tears were pouring from her eyes when she saw how he truly saw her – not as a creepy witch, but as a bright ray of hope in the world.
19. Teamwork
Beast Boy and Raven had learned to compliment the others' powers to perfection – she drew back, a Tyrannosaurus Rex stepped in. He flew up in preparation for a ground-pound, she'd provide a distraction.
It was only natural, Cyborg mused, that their battlefield compatibility would carry over into their personal lives.
20. Dying
Raven felt like her heart was dying as she saw Terra return and watched Beast Boy jump straight back into her arms.
21. Illusion
To everybody else, it seemed like she barely tolerated him. The insults would fly (and so would he), and he'd keep smiling and taking it. It was only at night, with the stars as witnesses, that she would confess her love and apologise for everything she said.
22. Creation
As Beast Boy looked down on the small wrapped bundle in his wife's arms; he knew that this was undoubtedly the greatest thing that he could create.
23. Stripes
Raven saw only a flash of black on green stripes as she was rammed into a building. Inhaling a deep breath to unleash her fury upon that... sweet, sweet fool. She had finally noticed the smear that Plasmus's arm had left when it had taken a swing at her before her green teammate had gotten her out of the way.
24. Deep in Thought
Beast Boy hated dawn.
It was too early, and only a handful of crepuscular creatures were actually awake.
He would often find himself moving through the Tower, wandering aimlessly.
One morning, he wandered into the Commons room, and saw Raven levitating, deep in thought.
He abruptly realised how beautiful she looked with the dawn light shining through her hair.
Beast Boy started to realise that maybe dawn wasn't so bad after all.
25. Keeping a Secret
Once again, Beast Boy walked straight in Raven's room without knocking. He simply shifted straight into a spider and walked underneath the door. What he found, however, broke his concentration long enough for him to fall back into human form, startling Raven and making him scream.
"Rae? ...You wear thongs?"
Blushing furiously, Raven responded. "Well, the normal underwear doesn't fit with my leotard. ...You're not going to tell anyone, are you?"
"'Course not Rae... it'll be our ilittle/i secret"
26. Danger Ahead
"No way man, TELL me that you ain't going for it"
"I'm gonna do it, Cy. I'm going to ask her out tonight. It'll be good for me- HER. It'll me be good for her."
"Dude, the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
"I know man, but... she's something special"
"She's something, alright. If she was an island, it'd be one that was surrounded by bloodthirsty sharks and starving vultures. On the island itself there'd be every single venomous animal in existence, seventeen different tropical diseases, and that one fish that crawls into your... you know what. I mean, she's practically got "Despair, all ye who enter here" tattooed on her face for relationships, especially after the Malchior Incident."
"I don't care man, she totally worth it."
"You're totally head over heels for her, aren't you?"
27. Kick in the Head
Brave, as it turns out, was iquite/i adept at hand to hand combat, as Beast Boy found out.
28. No Way Out
As Raven and Beast Boy realised that the trap that Slade had sprung was quite inescapable, they held each other's hands in their last moments and whispered their final words to each other.
"I love you"
29. Fairy Tale
"Hey, you guys are like that one Disney movie!"
"What are you talking about, Speedy?"
"The one with the ugly hairy guy and the princess... you know the one, Raven."
"Beauty and the Beast?"
"Yeah that's the one! Thanks, BB!"
"...Why are you grinning, man? And why are you pointing behind me... Hey Ra-oh SHI-"
Garfield put his arm around his girlfriend and pulled her close as the ocean breeze caressed them through the broken window in the Tower.
30. Multitasking
Raven had been given the task of babysitting the still critically injured Beast Boy while Robin and the others when to take care of Cinderblock's latest jail break. To her unease, Raven discovered that she meditated better listening to the sound of the sleeping shapeshifter's breathing than to absolute silence.
31. Horror
"Here you go, Rae, one tofu breakfast surprise! ...Why's your eye twitching like that? Rae, wh-oh come on. I just made you breakfast, why did you have to 'port away?"
32. Playing the Melody
Beast Boy looked on his girlfriend in shock as he caught her singing quietly along with one of his African tribal songs.
33. Hero
Watching Beast Boy fight against unimaginable numbers of Sladebots, a random proverb came to Raven's mind;
i"Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, but rather the hero's heart."/i
34. Annoyance
Beast Boy annoyed Raven to no end.
His meat vs. tofu arguments with Cyborg that interrupted her meditation
His never-ending supply of bad, terrible, ihorrendous/i jokes
His seemingly endless optimism
But most of all, he annoyed her because he had managed to worm his way into her heart.
35. Mischief Managed
Starfire managed to avoid being tripped by the running green cheetah as it nearly flew down the corridor. As she looked at it strangely, she dropped Silky in surprise as she heard a thunderous voice bellow from Raven's Room.
"BEAST BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY!"
As Raven emerged from her room, Starfire couldn't help but giggle as she saw Raven completely drenched in water. Giving Star a glare worthy of any witch, Raven stomped down the hallway, leaving behind a trail of damp footprints.
36. I Can't
Looking at the monster that the one so dear to his heart had become; he tenderly stroked her crimson face before standing over her prone form, tears falling from his eyes. A single phrase tore itself from his throat as he began to shift into a monstrous furred Beast.
"I can't... and I won't let anybody else kill her!"
37. Mirror
Nobody realised that Beast Boy had never had a mirror in his room. Nobody realised that he'd go out of his way to avoid any reflective surface. It was only years later, nestled in his arms, that she found out the reason why.
38. Test
Robin was standing in his evidence room obsessing about Slade when he was gently tapped on the shoulder. Spinning around to confront the intruder in ihis/i room, he was absolutely terrified to see the unmistakeable combination of ublack and orange/u on a striped ultraraptor. It immediately roared in his face, and Robin felt the unmistakable feeling of a wetness running down his leg. The dinosaur immediately shifted into a painted Beast Boy, who fell onto his side laughing. As soon as he could breathe, Beast Boy shuffled to the corner, where Raven emerged from the shadows.
"Told you that I could get him to piss himself. I passed your test. What do I get as a reward?"
"This" And Raven leaned forwards and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Good job, Gar"
He was too shocked to respond when she then phased out through the shadows, of to feel fear at his leader, who's fury was literally rolling off of him in waves.
39. Drink
Whenever Raven succumbed to the temptation to drown her sorrows in alcohol, she remembered the first time that she got drunk. It resulted in Happy getting control of her body... and a completely traumatized Robin, an ecstatic Starfire, a frightened Cyborg and a deliriously happy Beast Boy. She had been too frightened to ask what had happened, until Starfire told her in excruciating detail.
She never drank again.
40. Pen and Paper
She'd never admit it, but she kept a diary. And her placeholder in that diary was a single green feather, plucked from Beast Boy's tail a day that Rude and Brave were expressing themselves more than usual.
41. Can You Hear Me?
...Were the words that Beast Boy sobbed into her chest, as she floated motionless above the med bay bed, her arm swaddled in bandages.
42. Out Cold
Raven's heart stopped cold as she saw the result of Mumbo's bookcase on Beast Boy. Picking up the books as one and completely disintegrating the bookshelf with a wave of her hands, Mumbo realised that trying to 'smack some sense into the boy crazy enough to date 'her' may not have exactly been his most brilliant of ideas...
43. Spiral
"I feel like we're going around in circles here!"
"I'm... I'm so sorry..."
"Nah, its okay, Timid. It's not your fault. Besides, I'm not even supposed to be in here anyways. Rae's going to kill me if she ever finds out I got sucked in here again."
The grey cloaked emotion blushed heavily as Beast Boy embraced her and followed her as she stepped around a corner, revealing the exit to the maze.
44. Seeing Red
Looking out over the ruined remains of what was once Jump City, she stroked Gar's massive furry back as he chewed on the remains of Cyborg's sonic cannon, his will, his very soul, bound to hers for eternity.
45. Pain
Beast Boy was surprised that Raven had never detected the residual pain from his shifts. The only ones she picked up were when he shifted into it.
46. All That I Have
Raven mused that the soul-binding spell was one that she'd never use again –it was far too intimate of a bond to be having with more than just her... pet.
47. Last Hope
What the Brotherhood of Evil was not aware of was the fact that Raven had been conscious the entire time that she had been frozen, hoping for her miracle to come through. When she learned that it was Beast Boy leading the assault, she knew that she had been answered.
48. Advertisement
"Hey Rae?"
"Yes, Beast Boy?"
"You know that I'm free right now, right?"
"Yes, I do. You've been saying that for the last thirty minutes."
"Just letting you know"
"Thank you, Beast Boy"
"You know I'm only telling you because I want to spend my time with you, right?"
49. Puzzle
Beast Boy was a... puzzle. She was willing to concede that much, at least. When she had first met him, she had thought that he had been a childish prankster (who was, admittedly, mildly funny). As she got to know him better, instead of being easier to understand, more pieces appeared. His veganism. His animal-influenced habits. Eventually, she got to the really complex pieces; he was part of the Doom Patrol for years, yet seemed to be the worst hand to hand fighter in the group. Or was he?
To her horror, she discovered that he was one puzzle that she didn't want to stop trying to figure out.
50. Solitude
Raven discovered that solitude was painfully stifling when there wasn't someone there to constantly threaten its existence.
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A/Ns: Regarding Tears, I decided to give both Rae and BB long life spans. I mean, she's half-demon, and he's a shapeshifter (so I doubt that he'd suffer the same kind of cellular degradation that everybody else suffers from). 46 is a pseudo-sequel to 44, in case it confused y'all. They were both pretty much inspired by Skidzz's pic "Good Boy" and Alassa's "Death Awaits in the Darkness" (both over on DA). And yes, I am enormously tempted to write an AU fic where this is the situation. That, or a mirror universe fic that crosses dimensional barriers.