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Among her many powers, Raven was aware that she possessed some latent empathetic abilities, but for some reason they were considerably harder to hone than the abilities she usually called upon. There had only been a few occasions where she was able to summon them at will, and a few more where they manifested on their own, and no matter how much she meditated over it, empathy never seemed to get any easier to control.
After a few years with the Teen Titans, Raven still didn't feel like she had a hold on the pesky power, but she could feel the extent of its range widening and growing stronger.
Her first indication of its expanding reaches was the emotions she sensed from her teammates. Raven had always felt the emotions of her friends in random bursts, but it had taken very concentrated emotions, and they were hazy—like a vague fog of feelings that she happened to pass through once in a while. And usually if the emotion was strong enough to manifest into an emotional cloud, the person emitting it tended to make their feelings obvious in other, less supernatural ways. Raven didn't need empathy to tell when Robin felt stumped because he clenched his jaw a certain way. When Starfire felt confused, she bit her bottom lip gingerly. When Cyborg felt frustrated, he started to breathe more heavily. When Beast Boy felt guilty, it mattered not if he retained his human form; he always looked like he had an invisible tail between his legs. Raven fancied herself to be a relatively attentive person, superpowers or not, and her weak bouts of empathy had been rather superfluous at the time.
But lately…
Lately the fogs had intensified and thickened, and there were days where Raven needed to dedicate a great deal of concentration towards switching her empathy off. Sometimes she felt like she was living vicariously through all four of her cohorts, and needless to say, the emotional stimulation was exhausting. It didn't take concentrated feelings anymore, and half of the time, she wasn't even sensing anything unusual. Just normal, everyday emotions.
Out of everyone, Beast Boy's mood was the steadiest, which didn't really surprise her. Robin and Cyborg were both generally even-tempered, but they tended to let bad moods hit them like a sack of bricks, and Starfire was naturally extreme in all of her emotions. It took something steep and serious for there to be a notable dip in Beast Boy's emotional aura. He was, perhaps, even more in control of his emotions than Raven was, and she found this thought to be only the slightest bit disconcerting.
Raven felt very guilty when she remembered Beast Boy's birthday, not of her own accord or by checking a calendar, but by the ginormous plummet in his emotional energies. She woke up that morning feeling intense secondhand depression and only realized after a long shower that the bad mood wasn't her own. She remembered, vaguely, waking up with this kind of devastating gloom before, and that's when she recalled that the cause was Beast Boy's birthday last year. Not even the Doom Patrol visiting to help with a surprise party had been able to completely erase the heavy aura that surrounded him that day.
Birthday. It was Beast Boy's birthday.
"Great."
She'd yet to purchase anything for the boy, and she wondered if anyone else forgot; no one had mentioned the date to her. But she decided a last minute shopping expedition with Starfire could wait until later. Right now, dealing with Beast Boy's overwhelming melancholy seemed more meaningful. Normally, she'd let him ride out his sour moods alone, but… well, it was the guy's birthday. The least she could do was make some kind of attempt at cheering him up.
She found herself in front of his room, hand hovering doubtfully over the door's surface, and suddenly she felt quite self-conscious. She couldn't even remember the last time she had actively sought Beast Boy's attention while he was still in his room. Any Titan being closed up in their room usually meant they were either sleeping, partaking in some sort of personal hobby, or brooding, all of which being activities to not interrupt. If Raven wanted anyone's attention, it waited until they left their room. She was incredibly familiar with the irritation that accompanied a shattered alone time, and she was certainly not going to be the one to inflict that irritation onto others.
She sighed at her own indecision and reminded herself that this was Beast Boy she was dealing with. If anything, he was probably just sleeping, and she could blame the wakeup call as being Robin's orders. Her knuckles finally rapped gently against the metal surface. But no sound or indication of activity met her ears, so she said, "I'm coming in," briefly before phasing through the obstruction.
To her surprise, Beast Boy was not asleep, but sitting on his bed with a pair of headphones and his back facing the door. That explained his lack of response, Raven thought as she invited herself to the edge of his mattress. The dip in weight at last alerted Beast Boy to her presence, and he responded with a girlish scream.
"AH! Dude! Where did you come from!" he hissed as the headphones flew off his head and his nostrils flared in fear.
"When a demon daddy and a human mommy love each other very much—well, they didn't really, but I digress—"
"Okay, very funny," he drawled, trying to look unimpressed, but there was still a tiny grin on his face. "Seriously though, that's not fair! You get mad if I even stand outside of your room, and you're allowed to just jump into my bed?"
Raven provided no response to that other than an arched brow. "Mm. Happy birthday, by the way."
Any traces of surprise or playfulness abruptly drained from his features, leaving an alarmingly neutral expression in their wake. "Ah, yeah. Thanks."
"Not in the birthday spirit, I take it," she stated more than asked.
"You could say that. I'll be honest, I just kinda want to be alone for now… I figure we're gonna do dinner or something like that with the others later, anyway, so I though i'd just… chill in here for a while."
The unfiltered heavy-heartedness emanating from Beast Boy's being was worrying Raven more than she cared to admit. She understood emotional warfare better than anyone, but when it came to actually setting those issues out on the table and discussing them with others, she was woefully unskilled. Usually she didn't have to wander too far out of her comfort zone during the rare occasions she and Beast Boy had feelings sessions because he offered elaborations without prompt. But now he was shutting her down and essentially asking her to go away without so much as a clue to what ailed him, and Raven couldn't decide what to say to that.
She opted to keep it simple. "Do you want to talk?"
Beast Boy stared dubiously, as if startled by the question. "Do you?"
"Well, I don't want force you to talk about anything you don't want to. But I also don't want you sulking on your own birthday," said Raven.
"Aww, good to know you care, Rae." A bit of his grin returned, though his expression remained contemplative. "I'm not sure if I want to talk about… well, what's got me 'sulking.' But I wouldn't mind talking normally… You wanna pick a topic?"
Raven shrugged with the words 'I'm not much of a conversationalist' at the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them and said instead, "Alright." She hummed for a moment before a topic came to mind. "On your birthday last year, you remember how we had the Doom Patrol over? Well, they helped us with decorations while you were out, and Mento and Elasti-Girl got to telling stories about you."
Beast Boy's eyes got wide. "Uh oh. Which ones? Nothing Cyborg has filed away for future black mail material, right? Oh man, tell me they didn't tell you guys the one about the waffle iron…"
A small smirk graced Raven's lips. "Waffle iron?"
"Huh?" He blinked. "Uh… who said anything about a waffle iron? Let's go back to you talking and me not talking."
"Indeed. Well, let me think… I recall one about you taking apart Robot Man—"
"Dude, he was livid about that one."
"—and one about some kind of freakish mineral-fruit-monster man thing—"
"Oh god, I don't even want to think about thinking about that guy again."
"—ah, and Elasti-Girl said you really liked The Frog Prince, apparently."
"Huh?" Beast Boy's eyebrows twisted together in contemplation. "I don't remember that."
Raven shifted into her usual lotus position and turned herself so that she was properly facing her companion. "Yeah, she said you'd turn into a frog before bed and she had to kiss you and call you Prince Charming, or something. Starfire thought that was cute."
"Oh! That!" he chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Yeah, heh, I only did that when Mento wasn't around. He always got kinda mad when he saw Rita—er, Elasti-Girl—babying me."
She would have missed it if she weren't already carefully monitoring the atmosphere, but Raven sensed the slightest dip in Beast Boy's mood and decided to seize the moment of weakness. "Beast Boy… do you blame yourself for Steve and Rita's divorce?"
The color faded from Beast Boy's face, his ears pressed back slightly, and Raven immediately wondered if maybe she shouldn't have said that. Steve and Rita's abrupt separation earlier in the year had come as a shock—though not entirely a surprise—to poor Beast Boy, and for the most part he had avoided talking about it. She didn't need to analyze his feelings to guess that she had just stabbed the bullseye of his emotional discomfort. Positive energy almost seemed to be draining from him like a punctured water balloon, and, desperate to stop the leak, Raven found herself reaching out and grabbing his left hand.
Beast Boy's spiraling depression did halt, though in favor of a startled confusion. His shoulders were tense, and his eyes were searching hers for an explanation, and he looked small and vulnerable. His gaze kept darting questioningly between their hands and Raven's face.
"I do… blame it on myself, a little," he exhaled, sounding defeated. "They had always bickered a lot, even after they got married, and I know it can't entirely be my fault… I mean, I haven't even been around the Doom Patrol much at all since I joined you guys…"
Raven nodded, silently urging him to continue.
"But it's hard for me not to think this way. After—" he paused to clear his cracking voice, "—after what happened… to my birth parents… and then that happened with Steve and Rita, and even Terra, it's hard for me to not think that maybe I'm just… bad luck or something. When my birthday comes around, it's hard for me to not wonder if my existence isn't just a curse on all the people I love."
The room was quiet as both waited to see if the other had more to say. Raven's hand remained, unmoving and reassuring, on top of Beast Boy's.
"You aren't bad luck," Raven finally said, somber. "Unfortunate things happen to everyone—some more than others. Your parents' line of work was a naturally risky one. Steve violated Rita's trust. Terra was an unsteady girl. None of those things were your choice."
The green boy shifted uncomfortably in his spot and sighed. "Maybe…"
"Not 'maybe.' If anything, you're a gift in other people's lives. Maybe you cross paths with those kinds of people for a reason. You give them something happy to remember, good memories to look back on when things look grim…"
With a flourish of her left hand, she produced a familiar copper item.
"Hey, isn't that…?"
"The lucky penny you gave me," she confirmed. "My life wasn't exactly conceived with rainbows and sunshine in mind. I spent the first sixteen years of my life thinking I was destined to die and kill everyone around me in the process, you know? Not exactly a cheerful thought."
They shared an uncertain chuckle.
"But in the midst of that, a…" She smiled wryly. "A Prince Charming squirmed his scrawny green being into my life and gave me hope."
"Huh," said Beast Boy, looking more like his usual self, to Raven's relief. "Thanks, Raven. I never thought of it all that way… I feel a lot better now."
And his aura did too. The air surrounding him had returned to the state of buoyancy that usually accompanied the changeling, though this time with waves of relief and gratitude lingering at the edges. Raven almost imagined that empathetic signals were pulsing from his hand into hers, and at the thought, she quickly retracted her hand. Her empathy was getting a little too intimate for comfort, and besides that, she didn't want to rely solely on superpowers to read and communicate with him. Beast Boy was more than a teammate who happened to be feeling grim on his birthday; he was a dear confidant who needed someone to understand him. And for as much effort as he put forth towards figuring out all of her oddities, she thought it was only fair to reciprocate the effort.
Raven didn't need empathy to smile sincerely at him and receive a toothy grin in return, to revert him to a state of levity and peace, to laugh with him and share this quiet moment in which they were beginning to comprehend new aspects of each other.
"So," said Beast Boy, practically glimmering with rekindled mischievousness, "you think I'm a Prince Charming, huh?"
Monotone coated Raven's response out of sheer habit. "I was being facetious with that bit. Don't look into it too much."
"Oh, boo you and your fuh-see-shus. You totally think I'm a dreamy prince." Beast Boy stood up and offered a hand to pull Raven up as well, even though she was perfectly capable of getting up on her own. Nevertheless she accepted his hand.
"Don't put words in my mouth. I even called you scrawny in the same sentence, you know."
"Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my princely charms! Unless, of course, you're a fair maiden in distress or something. Then maybe we can make an arrangement."
"You're a dork," she stated without an inch of malicious intent.
"But I'm your dork," he replied without a centimeter of frivolousness. "So hey, if I turned into a frog, wouldja kiss me?"
Raven looked him over appraisingly as if seriously considering it for a moment before snorting. "No, thanks. I'm not a fan of amphibians."
"Aww. fine, I see how it is," he complained, the tips of his ears drooping disappointedly.
"But," she continued, gently gripping his wrists in either hand, "I guess I'm okay with a human boy. Only because it's his birthday though."
Warm breath hung between them as he concluded with a smile, "Then you're in luck. One human boy, coming right up."