Speedy's Room

[Kenni]

Alright, they were on nodding terms. Maybe work would be pleasant after all.

Speedy nodded back to Robin, then got to work. He began with a couple of the heavier metal plates now, a little surprised to see Babs just hike one over her head and take off again. Before he could say something about taking things easy, he was back at his room, Iris, Beast Boy and Starfire present and accounted for.

Alright, almost the whole team was up and about to join the cleaning. Maybe things would get a little hairy.

"Hey, everyone. Thanks for getting here so fast..that..that storm coming, eh? Thanks for coming. Rob's said all that needs to be, so, uh. Go team!" They didn't know the whole story yet yet he already felt awkward talking to them all, especially with the daggers coming from Beast Boy's direction.
"Good thing I'm not on THIS baleful beaver's team. C'mon J.Beabst, put a smile on..my room's trashed but it isn't the end of the world." he said shakily, laughing nervously but not knowing they'd been spied on, causing Beast Boy's dishumour.
Speedy continued bring the metal panels into his room first. Hopefully the others would handle the wood ones too in the meantime. Starfire's amazing alien strength though would be saved for the harsh conditions in the stormy outerwork.
"Star, I'll work as fast as I can so you and Beabst can get in and out of that wretched weather sooner than later. And hey, don't pick up anything too heavy okay, Little Mouse? That's our job" he said, grinning weakly, motioning to Robin and himself and gaining a little more confidence speaking to everyone before they started asking what had truly happened. For now, these were his friends. He wanted that to stay the same at least.

[Deleted]

The pink-haired girl slowly sauntered into the diasaster area. She slowly brought her hands up, and rested them on her slender hips. Her fuschia cat-eyes focused on Robin.

"So, Captain, what do I do?" She asked, her voice containing both sincerity, and sarcasm. She snapped her fingers, causing a growing crack in the wall to cease it's trail, and the she took in the rest of the scenery. It looked like a bomb had gone off. But she knew what had really tricked outt he room... Raven's temper. She had heard everything, but never really bothered to find out what had happened.

[Aly]

While she was going to get another sheet of plywood from the elevator, Batgirl overheard Robin's commands. She was to be paired with Beast Boy. That wasn't horrible. At least she wasn't going to be paired with Starfire or Speedy. The latter probably would distract her into putting a nail through her own hand or something.

As she passed Speedy, she casually slipped the note into his hand, hoping that no one else would see the exchange. it probably would be best that no one knew they were passing notes like schoolchildren. When all of this was over and they could actually talk in Batgirl's room, she would be happy. Or less gloomy to say the least.

How could Speedy just leave them like this? Leave /her/ to the wrath of everyone in the tower. Surely they would eventually find out and hate her for hurting their precious Raven. Let alone Robin's own frostiness towards her. Jealousy wasn't really apparent with him. It was all just anger.

She picked up another board and heaved it over her head like before. These things were heavy, but everyone else had their own job to do. Her head probably wouldn't be an excuse for many anyways, since they didn't actually see it happen. They would also demand to know /why/ she had hit her head, and she didn't really want to tell that story. She was kind of relieved that Robin had told everyone to ask Speedy the questions because it wasn't her, but she felt sorry for Speedy. It wasn't really his fault.

[Deleted]

Iris just followed starfire picking up as much as she could. " ok then."

(gah so short sorry)

[Deleted]

Beast Boy pulled a small face when he learned he had to work alongside Batgirl. It was better than being paired with Speedy, which was probably why Robin had set them up this way. He would have still preferred Starfire or Iris as a working buddy, though. It seemed he would have to keep a lid on his temper until repairs were finished, or until tensions reached a boiling point. Perhaps there was a bit of silver lining as well; if he gave Babs a chance to explain herself, he could find out how innocent she really was in regards to what had happened.

He nodded tersely to the Boy Wonder and walked with the others to Speedy's room. As soon as he set his eyes on the archer he felt himself tense, body rigid, heart pounding furiously. He took a deep, calming breath, trying to keep himself from exploding and making the entire situation escalate even further. It seemed to work; his muscles gradually loosened, but it didn't stop the venomous glares streaming from his eyes.

Speedy must've caught on, or at least noticed Beast Boy's less-than-chipper behavior, for he soon began to point it out in front of the team and attempted to cheer the cranky changeling up.

/Do you /want/ your head bitten off?/ the green boy thought angrily to himself, a small, animalistic growl ripping from his throat. Cutting it off with a quick cough, he narrowed his eyes at Speedy and muttered, "Lets just get this over with."

He made to walk past Speedy so he could reach his side of the decimated room, but paused when he came up alongside the archer. Turning, he balefully added, "And quit calling me that stupid nickname. It's not funny." Part of him had actually never minded being called J.Beabst, as long as it was only Speedy who called him that. Right now though, he didn't want any reminders of how close he had grown to the amiable archer in the short amount of time he had lived at the Tower.

Beast Boy grabbed the necessary tools and began laying sheets of plywood against the gaps in the wall for either Batgirl to hammer in place or him to do so later.

[Kenni]

"A...lri...ght..I'll...I'll keep that in mind, Beast Boy."
Ahh, and just when he'd been acclimatizing to the presence of the others, too. Beast Boy's tone wasn't changing, and his joking seemed to have made it worse. It didn't make any sense! He's always complained about the nick, sure, but to react in this way was just so uncharacteristic of the archer's fellow easy-going trickster. Despite himself, the ginger's heart ached at his friend's behaviour towards him. They hadn't known each other for long or very well yet, but he thought they'd known each other at least long enough that he'd never experience this kind of attitude from the fun little guy. Perhaps he'd heard what had happened already..? Speedy tried not to let it bother him as he continued working.
Speedy finished loading the metallic panels and was now halfway done with the wooden. He'd almost fumbled up the heavy couple of metals when Babs had returned the balled-up note they were passing. Taking a scooper-broom and removing the rubble from the outskirts of the pile of debris in the middle of his room, out into the hallway to make it less of an impediment to the work, he wiped his brow and took a second to read the note.
'Take you...back to East?' he began scrawling in the hall, sticking out his tongue and scratching his head with his mechanical pencil. Well, it would be a lot easier on her if she was at Titans East, not having to deal with all these soon-to-be-disappointed-in-them-both Titans Main.
'If you really want to come along, you're welcome to my base. I said I'd take care of you, right? C:' He threw in a facey for good measure, but was having second thoughts about leaving at all. Was he making the right decision? But, that was no good! Shouldn't look wishy-washy in front of Robin. Sure, he'd been given a few days to think about this, but he was a big image-person.
Speedy passed Batgirl on his way to the elevator, grabbing the last of the wood panels and returning the note. He got to work helping Robin with the interior paneling.

[Bry]

Raven's room became a lot less comfortable once Beast Boy left. The eyes of the statues that had survived her anger stared down at her, cold and unloving and reminding her so blatantly of her loneliness. She glared right back at them, and it was hard to tell whose gaze was colder.

Giving a small huff, Raven pushed herself off the bed and began to pace. She was tired and worn out but still amped on adrenaline, worked up and somehow listless, angry with Speedy and angry with herself. She was a walking contradiction.

Coming up on her door, Raven stopped her pacing and gazed at the metal. Perhaps if she went for a walk. Perhaps if she saw the team, even without interacting. Perhaps if she just got out of this bloody room!

Without thinking too hard about it, Raven left her room and drifted down the hallway, hiding beneath her hood, not knowing exactly where to go.

She tried to pinpoint where everyone might be. Surely Speedy, Robin, and Babs would still be in the infirmary, right? The rest of the team.... They'd had a hard day of fighting.... They'd be sure to be resting in their own rooms, or in the common room.

Realizing where her feet had taken her, Raven abruptly stopped walking. She was down the hall from the scene of the crime; the sounds of work up ahead had shaken her out of her reverie.... Silently she gazed down the hall, hiding in the shadow, and watched her team, putting back the peices that she'd strewn across the floor, repairing the mess she'd made, patching the hole that she'd blasted through the wall.

A wave of guilt washed over her as she stood there watching, but she could hardly bring herself to enter the room....

/Hey, guys, need help cleaning up my mess?/

Yeah right.

/So you guys will never guess what happened, OMG!/

Eh. No.

Maybe she could just slip past, unnoticed....

The roof was sounding fantastic at the moment. Or outside. Anywhere outside. Maybe she'd take a walk around the city, go to the park.... If she got lucky, maybe some villain would try to jump her.

Yeah, that was certainly better than the Tower. At least at the moment.

Raven took a deep breath and a step, hoping to slip by the room completely unnoticed. Her footsteps became hushed, and she held her cloak closer, so as not to attract attention with a flare of fabric. So concentrated was she on being invisible, that she didn't realize there was a small pile of trash in front of her until she almost stepped on it. Some of his belongings, books and models strewn about and making her feel even worse about life. And.... Underneath the rubble.... Was that a black corner of something?

She knelt down silently, plucking the corner of his little black notebook, still mostly intact. Suddenly she felt devious. She'd only seen him with it maybe once or twice, as he was always tucking it away, hiding it from prying eyes. She couldn't help herself.... She had to know what it was he'd written all those times....

Why hadn't he wanted anyone to see it?

And why was it in the trash now?

Hiding it under her arm, under her cape, Raven straightened and tore away out of the hallway, hurrying for the stairs to the roof. She took them two at a time, quicker now that she had a destination in mind, and was soon pushing out the door into the storm-thickened air.

Finally!!

She walked around the roof, coming up to a stairwell and slipping behind it, settling herself there, alone and hidden.

Now, about this book....

[Silv]

As he set down a set of metal sheets Robin turned around to be confronted by Starfire asking where Raven was. He didn't like lying to her, but with the others coming into the room at all times he wasn't entirely sure how much he could really say to Starfire. The way the alien had been around Batgirl lately Robin was sure that the tensions between the two would be even worse. “Raven's not feeling well,” he replied quietly. “I'm sure once we're done here she'd like a visit.” he offered. He knew their mutual friend had been rattled by Speedy's betrayal and figure that she might prefer the company of other girls to the guys at the moment. Of course, he didn't know how much involvement Batgirl had actually had.

Now done talking to Starfire the Boy Wonder moved into the hallway but stopped abruptly when Jinx entered at the same time. He took a step back to let her pass into the room, watching as she shot a pink energy at the wall and repaired it some. “Thanks, Jinx.” he replied with a nod. “Starfire,” he turned to seek out the alien. “Change of plans, you and Jinx start in the middle and work either way, the other two teams will work towards you,” he turned back to the witch in front of him. “The plan is to set up the frame as quickly as possible and then get the protective metal sheeting on the outside.” he informed her. Pausing just long enough to get the okay and then moving to the elevator.

With everyone else helping the elevator was cleared very quickly. He grabbed the last of the items and released his lock on the door which slid closed with a whoosh once he was through. “Elevator’s empty.” he informed the group setting down what he held in his arms. Now that everything had been moved in, Robin gestured for the over-talkative archer to follow him as he grabbed a small stack of two by fours and headed for the opposite side of the wall as BB and Batgirl.

He noticed that Beast Boy had started putting up plywood on the frames like Babs had done earlier. Jumping the gun a bit, but maybe he'd get the idea when he saw him and Speedy work. “I'll hold it in place and you attach it to the wall,” Robin ordered Speedy in a voice that said even you can't screw this up. And so it began.

[Deleted]

Beast Boy quickly stopped what he was doing when he realized he had jumped the gun a bit. Embarrassed that he had allowed his emotions to get the best of him and muddle his work effort, he placed the plywood back on the floor. After helping the rest of the team move materials from the elevator to Speedy's room in moody silence, he took the materials needed for the frame and began setting them up with Batgirl.

Taking a two by four, he held it in place and gave a meaningful look to Babs, meaning for her to drill the two by four in place while he held it. He didn't trust himself to speak after nearly biting Speedy's head off, especially to the girl the archer had..."affaired" with.

[Aly]

On her way back with the last board, she picked up a drill and some screws, clipping them on her utility belt. At least it was good for something. She was not surprised when Speedy slipped the note into her hand. Sitting the plywood against the wall where no one could see her, she unfolded the piece of paper and leaned against the wall as she read it. She was glad that Speedy was okay with her going with him, but she didn't really want to intrude. Moving again would be hard, too. She had just gotten settled in Jump City, and she was going to move again? But... she wasn't exactly welcome here anymore. It seemed like the rest of the team were going to hate her once they found out, and she knew they would eventually.

Grabbing the pen she had stuck in her utility belt, she began scribbling. 'Thanks. I don't think I'd be welcome here much longer anyways. You're a lifesaver, Roy.' Folding the paper again, she stuck it into her utility belt (like everything else) and picked up the board again, making her way to the room.

She set down the plywood down on the pile with the rest of the boards before picking up a couple of two-by-fours and placing them on the floor near where she and BB would be working.

Like Beast Boy, she didn't say anything as she took his hint and started drilling the screws into the two-by-four near the top and then again by the bottom. She picked up another board and set it up, waiting for Beast Boy to hold it in place so she could do the same to this board that she had done with the last.

[Kenni]

Speedy complied, naturally. He wanted work to go as smoothly as possible too, and knew his penchant for goofing off wasn't going to be excused very easily tonight. Giving Robin a smart salute as his only offering of silliness for the moment, not uttering a word (look where that had gotten him with Beast Boy, after all), he got diligently to work on the guest room he'd been calling home for all this time, not knowing it was the last room he would be frequenting for a while on this hemisphere; Aqualad was due to inform him soon, whether by FaceTalk or maybe by a personal trip, that he'd be out of the country for a stretch.
"..--!?" Work was tedious, but at a brisk pace. Taking a break from the hammering after his fourth board with Robin and stretching a little, he froze, arms above his head, eyes widening. Speedy had looked back over his shoulder during his stretch just in time to catch a flash of a corner of dark blue cloth from the hallway flit past his bedroom door. A million excuses and lamentations raised in his head, his tongue dry while wanting to be mobile and allow them all to stream out at Raven, for Raven, oh, Raven. How are you? What were we? What have we become? What have I done? Naturally, the boy's heart took flight before his body could reject the idea, leaving him now standing stupidly in the hallway with three nails in his teeth and a hammer hanging limply in his left hand.
So much to say, yet no real courage to let them out. The ginger clutched his heart; he'd just gotten used to breathing at rest speed again, too. Had he seen an apparition? As soon as he'd thought he'd seen her form retreating down the hallway, she was gone.
Sheepishly, he returned to work, not a glance to Robin, but this time spared a word or two.
"I'm..sorry. I thought I...I just needed a second! Get the blood flowing again; been standing a while! Ahah. Hey, don't make that face~ Lemme get back to this, Rob-goblin."
He allowed his mind to wander during the tedious work.


'Queen of my heart, your
love alone makes me strut
thinking myself King.'
...
'Truly, I am poor.
Humility, honour, none.
She's my everything.
'
...
'Winter solitude's
cold knowledge thawed in Your smile:
Peasant learning Spring.
' Speedy's head spun with all the verse he'd ever written, one after another, page after page from his little black book's rather sizable 'R' section (the entry for Raven chock-full of his fondest material, all dedicated to her, the deepest of his feelings recorded in her's). He imagined some time apart from Raven would not only do Batgirl some good for her peace of mind, but would do him all the good in the world if he professed as of now to liking Babs so much, since he'd be able to go without the opportunities for the triggers. Perhaps it was for the best he hadn't been able to locate it in all this mess, amidst all his secret glancing about and kicking over rubble. It must be lost for good then. He smirked, imagining Aqualad going for a dip one day in the far future and coming back up quoting lines from it. That would be a shock, if it somehow survived a drop into the sea. If it wasn't in here, where could it be? It had been on his person as it usually was while he was out of his room, so it must have fallen on the floor if not...in...Raven's mind. On...that asteroid in...her mind?! Or just floating around in the cosmos of...her mind?! No! Anything but tha--AAACK!
"Maybe issh thyme to swissch, Bawbin." Speedy yelped, then spoke around his pounded thumb. Some time apart from his inner thoughts and with this time consuming monotonous work would also do him a world of good.

[Bry]

'Queen of my heart, your
love alone makes me strut
thinking myself King.'

Raven's heartbeat picked up such a furious pace, thudding in her ears, that she wondered if the thunder storm had come a mite earlier than she'd thought. She could feel the pounding in her chest as she read through the words....

His words....

His words about her.

How could he.... How could he?!

Had she really meant so much to him? There was no way, no way in the world he could've believed such things as he wrote, not if he'd thrown everything away without a second thought.... Like he'd thrown the book away.

Like he'd thrown her away.

'Truly, I am poor.
Humility, honour, none.
She's my everything.'

And yet she was nothing to him now. Perhaps a memory, if she was one of the lucky girls that stuck in his head. He'd made the obvious choice, he'd stayed with Babs. And who wouldn't? Who could blame a guy, especially Speedy who appreciated all things feminine and beautiful? Batgirl was certainly beautiful. And smart, outgoing, charismatic, brave....

Raven stared out at the night in disgust, taking silent note of how different she and Babs really were.

He hadn't even come to her room.... Hadn't apologized, hadn't explained.... Hadn't cared to try. Or was he afraid of her now? Her glowing eyes, her demonic soul, the legions of evil in her voice, the cold and desolate land that existed only in her mind. Her powers, running rampant like the rain that was beginning just outside the stairwell on the rooftop, like the lightning that threatened to tear the Tower apart if only it could catch hold.

'Winter solitude's
cold knowledge thawed in Your smile:
Peasant learning Spring.

She closed the book with a derisive thud, taking note of the nickname she'd called him by once at the dinner table, and leaned her head against the metal wall she sat beside, letting it too clunk with a hollow bang. It hurt, but so did everything.

/Breathe in, Raven.... Now breathe out. Good. Good job. Do it again.... In.... And out.... In.... Out.... Azarath Metrione Zinthos..../

Her heartbeat slowed, but a lot of good that did, because now tears had taken the place of her erratic heart. She brushed them away, irritated with herself at the feeling. Never did any good, did it.... To love, to feel. Never. Only tore things apart.

Like her control.

Like her relationships.

Like the blasted wall downstairs.

She looked down at the little black book, considered throwing it off the roof, considered leaving it here to die in the rain.

Somehow, she couldn't do it.

So then, was that it's fate? To join the rest of the dusty books amid her shelves, lonely and forgoten? Ah, the irony burned, didn't it? She'd figure out what to do with it later. For now, she clutched it to her chest, let her eyes slip closed, and listened to the rain until she fell into the peaceful dark of sleep.

[Deleted]

Beast Boy waited until Batgirl had drilled the two by four in place, then took another from her and held it still while she repeated the process. It wasn't long until they had a system going, working steadily towards the center of the room. For most of this process, the changeling was silent, brooding. He didn't have much to say at first; his mind was filled with a void of endless anger and a confusing jumble of other emotions.

However, the systematic work was doing its job. Soon the anger abated, was no longer endless. The betrayal lost some of its lethal sting. A new feeling was slowly replacing them--curiosity. Babs was perhaps the perfect person to ask when it came to unraveling the gritty details of what had occurred, to establish who was innocent and who was not. If he could get her to open up, that is.

"I talked to Raven," Beast Boy muttered under his breath, loud enough for Batgirl's ears only. Once again, he felt he shouldn't mention that he had also been a fly on the wall in Speedy's room. There were moments when some things were best left unsaid; Babs would understand what he meant from the simple, cryptic message.

"I don't know the whole story, though," he continued, moving another few feet towards the center and propping up another two by four for her to drill in place. "I don't want to hate you, Babs. But I don't know how...um, innocent you are in the matter." Beast Boy's thoughts were beginning to get jumbled again; he hoped Batgirl would understand what he was trying to ask.

[Aly]

Their system was making them faster than Speedy and Robin, and they were already near the meeting point. Batgirl had no idea that Raven had slunk by the room, and had missed the fact that Speedy had seen her. For once, she wasn't distracted by the archer.

When Beast Boy spoke to her, she almost dropped the drill out of surprise. She had figured that he had somehow found out about all that went down in this room, and that was why he had such an icy demeanor towards her. As they had worked though, she liked the chance to work in silence, to think about what she was going to do. She didn't know whether she was going to go with Speedy to East or not. If the rest of the team was going to be like Beast Boy, usually the happiest of them all, she knew what she was going to do.

Batgirl sighed and shook her head before speaking in a whisper, making sure no one else could overhear. "I figured you did." She still had no idea about the fly-on-the-wall escapade. He, like Raven herself, did only get one side of the story. She was saving the explanation for Raven, but sharing with Beast boy couldn't hurt. Especially if it would get Beast Boy to like her again.

"Speedy and I met shortly after Robin and I did. Batman and Green Arrow were going on a mission together, and the three of us were tagging along. Robin and Speedy had already been friends by that point. I was still new to the whole superhero thing." She took a deep breath as she drilled in a screw before picking up another board. Everything was coming easier to say as she went. "Robin and I... were really close before Batman basically kicked him out." She preferred not to go into details about that. That was Robin's story. "When I came here, I expected everything to go back to the way it was. Unfortunately, I could see that Robin was getting to that closeness we had with Starfire. I figured it was a lost cause. Speedy was comforting me when I finally realized that he had been there all along, and that I liked him. Maybe not as much as I had liked Robin, but definitely more than a friend." She took another deep breath as she screwed the board into place. "I had no idea that he and Raven were close. When he invited me to his room, I was exctatic. And then... Raven walked in while we were kissing. She flipped a lid and we ended up fighting in her mind. When that was over, I had a concussion and Raven was still crying." It was nice to get all of that off her chest. She still felt like it was her fault, but she needed others to see that it wansn't completely her to blame.

[Deleted]

Beast Boy froze in momentary surprise, a two by four under his arm. He resumed work after a pause, but kept an ear open to listen to Batgirl. He certainly hadn't expected much of an explanation, let alone a life story.

When Batgirl had finished her tale, however, Beast Boy was glad she had shared. The corner of his lip twitched in a small smile, a sign of his gratitude. Now that he knew her side of the story, a part of him sympathized for her sudden dilemma with the other Titans. If they didn't hear the story she had just told him, she was going to go through a lot more grief before things returned to a state of normalcy. The changeling wasn't going to free Babs of all the blame--she had still been a part of this--but at least it assuaged some of the bitter feelings he had been feeling towards her.

Unfortunately, no assuaging could be done for Speedy. In fact, it only hardened Beast Boy's current frustrations towards the archer. He had, to the changeling's knowledge, played with the heartstrings of both Batgirl and Raven, and only Batgirl had managed to scrape by without suffering any serious heartbreak from the debonair little lady's man. He soon found himself struggling not to send a venomous glare in Speedy's direction.

To distract himself, Beast Boy took a moment to look around at the carnage and be in awe of Raven's power. When the girl got angry, she certainly got angry.

After another stretch of silence, he muttered, "I guess no one is completely at fault, then. Nor is anyone blameless, either." As much as he empathized with Raven, he couldn't ignore the fact that she had lost control of her powers and placed both Speedy and Batgirl in serious danger. Of course, none of that would have happened had Speedy not invited Babs to his room behind Raven's back, but Beast Boy was trying not to think of that right now.

After a pause, he added, "Thanks for telling me that. I think I understand better now."