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Cyborg didn’t like the way this was turning out.
Oh no.
He didn’t like it at all.
He completely understood that the subtle back and forth of flirting was a natural part of the teenage years. From the light touching on the hand to the sly smiles and doe-eyes; his sensors could detect the elevation of a person’s heart rate, and it often amused him to see the artful gestures people would use to convey their innermost desires.
But it completely depended on who was flirting with whom, and right now, he was not thrilled with the situation.
The guy seemed to ooze charm with his good looks and long flowing hair, and Cyborg could see why girls would flock to him. This man was no stranger to the opposite sex- he knew what he wanted and also knew the mannerisms and the pretty words to get it.
Which was why Cyborg was trying hard not to leap over to the other end of the common room and tear Aqualad away from Raven.
Cyborg was initially shocked at such a display. His little sister was incredibly naive about such things and probably didn't understand that the coquettish way she flicked her hair gave off “come hither” vibes.
He didn’t even try to hide his frown when Raven giggled- actually giggled- at something the Atlantean had said. Angered, he took a sip of his pop and very loudly crushed the metal with his hand- hoping Raven would hear its explosive sound and walk away from the dark-eyed Titan.
No such luck. She seemed even more enraptured by the conversation as evident by the way she angled her body closer to his and the tilting of her head as she intently listened to whatever it was he was saying.
Cyborg was now tempted to throw the crushed can. Let’s see her ignore that.
He wiped an exasperated hand down his face.
It was hormones- it had to be.
That’s what it was, he mused.
What else could it possibly be? Stick a group of good-looking teenagers into the same home, take away any parental guidance, add in some adrenaline-filled action once in a while, stir it up and get a hormone-laden soup that everyone seemed to be taking a sip of. Even (as much as he loathed to admit it), his sister-like friend was drinking it all in.
The Titans East member had only been here a couple of days, helping with an issue in the bay, and already the equilibrium of the tower seemed off—all that extra testosterone and only one available girl to direct it to.
She had been cautious about his attentions at first. Still, a sort-of friendship had blossomed overnight and Cyborg had noticed how the guy's slick charisma was slowly moving them from friendly chatter to flirtatious interludes.
And dear lord he hated it.
He had just resigned himself to walking over there and interrupting the exchange when a flash of green came into his periphery and stood next to him.
Cyborg turned to his best friend, fully expecting him to make a playful jab at the pair's expense but was surprised to see Beast Boy in the opposite of his usual blithesome mood. His arms were crossed, muscles tense, and a scowl was etched across his features as he stared daggers at the chatting couple.
“What is he doing?” The acidity in his tone reminded Cyborg of a muddy, fetid sludge.
Cyborg warily eyed the changeling. He could recall hundreds, if not thousands of times Beast Boy had unwittingly flirted with the spell caster. He had always chalked up those moments to Beast Boy just being the friendly, encouraging, teasing guy he was. Sure, he flirted with Raven, but he also flirted with the pizza delivery guy, the mailman and every other girl who happened to walk in his vicinity. It was just in his nature.
Cyborg was just about to make this comment when Raven finally spied their obvious glare. Cheeks turning crimson, she quickly excused herself and hurried to get out of the common room; no doubt to spend the next hour in quiet meditation in her room.
Aqualad didn’t seem too perturbed about this interruption, as evident by the smirk he wore on his face as he sauntered over to Cyborg and Beast Boy. As Raven slipped out the door, Aqualad made a show of looking appreciatively at her ass.
Cyborg schooled his face and squared his shoulders- ready to reprimand the marine telepath. He felt Beast Boy do the same beside him except that… was Beast Boy cracking his knuckles? Cyborg peered through his mechanical eye to get a better view of the shapeshifter and was surprised to see his friend was still showing obvious signs of outrage toward their fellow Titan. If Cyborg was irritated with how careless Aqualad was being with Raven’s heart, Beast Boy seemed downright incised. Cyborg’s curiosity was piqued.
“Too bad the cape hides her best feature,” Aqualad said, his lip curled into a wicked grin.
“Aqualad,” Beast Boy spat in reply. His voice was low and full of loathing and Cyborg felt a pang as he remembered the squeaky voice of Beast Boy’s youth. At times, he missed that boy, missed his cheerful, trusting, immature friend. Although recent years had made Beast Boy harder, and made him a little less trustworthy of others, he still held a relentless optimism that Cyborg cherished with every human and bionic part of him. But right now, there was no colourful brightness towards Aqualad. If anything, his buddy was practically red with anger and hissing heat toward the fellow Titan.
“Beast Boy,” Aqualad nodded at the changeling, an impish gleam in his eye.
Cyborg opened his mouth, ready to berate the Atlantean for trying to make the moves on his friend but was surprised when Beast Boy beat him to the punch.
“I don’t know what kind of girl you think Raven is, but if you think for one second you can make her some kind of notch on that waterbed of yours, you’ve got another thing coming,” Beast Boy said through clenched teeth.
Aqualad chuckled at Beast Boy like he was a busboy at a fancy country club and the Atlantean was a wealthy CEO. “I know you see her as just your teammate, Beast Boy, but Raven is a beautiful woman with certain needs and desires. She might not understand those needs just yet but once she does, I want to be the one she thinks about when she wants them fulfilled.”
Beast Boy was quick, but Cyborg’s sensors had already given him plenty of warning and he was able to hold the green shifter back from flinging the fist he had hurtling towards Aqualad’s face.
Aqualad’s laugh was dark, “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Beast Boy.” The emphasis on the boy made Beast Boy flinch and Cyborg squeezed his shoulder in solidarity.
“All is fair in love and war,” Aqualad called over his shoulder as he left the room, thankfully taking a different exit than Raven had only a minute before.
Cyborg raised his eyebrows and gave Beast Boy a questioning look before stepping away from the shifter. He knew he didn’t need to speak; lord knows the boy did enough of it on his own, and if he gave him a moment, Beast Boy would explain.
The tactic worked as he watched Beast Boy internally struggle before he sighed. “Sorry, Cy. I got a little carried away there.”
Cyborg gave a silent nod in agreement.
“It’s just that…” Beast Boy nervously rubbed the back of his neck, “I dunno. I guess I don’t like the way he talks about her.” His last words were mumbled, and Cyborg was certain that he wouldn’t have heard it if he didn’t have his digital hearing.
Glad he was recording this -as he did with just about everything behind his bionic eye- Cyborg gave him a friendly pat on the back. “I know, man. I’m protective of my little sister too.” He had chosen his words carefully and keenly waited for Beast Boy’s reaction.
As he suspected, Beast Boy’s eyes went wide with horror. “Sister?” Beast Boy asked with hints of panic in his voice.
Cyborg pushed down a grin. “Yep! Hardly anyone is good enough for our sister, eh?”
Cyborg watched with hidden glee as Beast Boy stuttered out something vaguely intelligible and quickly excused himself from the common room.
Cyborg chuckled to himself as he re-played the encounter over his systems. So, the Green bean had a thing for the dark empath, eh? This was a fascinating turn of events.
Cyborg watched his green friend closer after that encounter but took extra care in watching the changeling around Raven.
He seemed the same as always; he was the brunt of all the jokes, the flirt who pushed her buttons too far.
And yet… He seemed almost softer with Raven. His looks seemed to linger a little too long and his eyes shimmered when she walked into a room. It was subtle but there, nonetheless.
As much as he was ecstatic for his friend, the unfortunate reality was that he didn’t think Raven felt the same. She was sarcastic- bordering on rude, she snubbed him at almost every opportunity and was the first to berate him for almost anything he did.
His best friend was going to get his heart broken and he didn’t even know it.
So, Cyborg did what every other friend would do when their bro needed to shift their focus: distract him with other girls.
It had started small with him casually mentioning how pretty the barista was, or how the brunette from the club seemed into him. Inflating the guy’s ego was not difficult when behind the bravado, lay an insecure, sensitive soul that wanted nothing more than another individual to love and accept him.
“Did you see the way she batted her eyes at you, dude?” He asked as the newest waitress from the pizza restaurant walked to the kitchen after taking their order. “You should go talk with her, man.” His encouragement was not missed by Robin or Starfire who wanted to make their friend happy. With them also cheering him on, Beast Boy left the booth to talk to the girl.
Cyborg noted Raven’s silence but didn’t think to question it.
After only a few minutes Beast Boy came back from the encounter with his ears pink and his grin infectious.
“Got her number,” he said, slamming a piece of paper onto the table. Cyborg thought the little hearts the girl- Heather- had put around it was a little much, but he was proud of his friend for making the effort.
“So, B, now that you have the digits, where are you gonna take her for your date?” Cyborg asked as he crunched down on the free breadsticks.
Beast Boy shrugged, “I was thinking about a ball game.”
Thinking this was strange as Beast Boy was not really one for watching sports, Cyborg eyed his friend warily. “A baseball game, B?”
Beast Boy gave a sly grin, “You know so that she can show me all the bases.”
He groaned, Robin nearly spilled his drink and Starfire had to be assured that it would be explained to her later. Cyborg saw that Raven was unusually quiet for such a terrible and ridiculous joke but again, he chalked it up to her regular annoyance at the changeling.
Beast Boy spent the rest of the evening nauseatingly cataloguing Heather’s many physical assets. While he never was as outright misogynistic and creepy about it as Aqualad had been about Raven, it was still downright annoying, and Cyborg could only stand to hear about “dem legs” so many times.
Yet silently, Cyborg patted himself on the back. He saw a problem, was able to fix it logically, and the tower would soon be free of those pesky hormones. Hearts will now not be broken, and his buddy will get over his little crush in no time.
Two days later, he was still riding high on this knowledge and mentally patting himself on the back while he was cleaning the T-car in the garage with Raven. The girl’s silence in these two days had not gone unnoticed, and he was hoping she might open up to him under their usual bonding ritual.
But although they had been there quite a few hours and despite both his duplicitous and cheerful questioning, Raven remained aloof.
He had just finished the oil change on the T-car and had decided to attribute her silence to nothing more than her own contemplative demeanour when the quiet little bird chirped a question.
“Did Beast Boy ever call Heather?” she asked, her usual monotone holding only a hint of questioning.
Cyborg looked at her strangely, and it took him a moment to remember who Heather was.
“Oh, the girl from the pizza place? Dunno,” he shrugged. He should probably get onto asking Beast Boy about it- considering he practically staged the whole thing, after all.
“Oh,” was all Raven replied.
A whole 72 seconds of silence went by (Cyborg had counted) when curiosity got the better of him. “Why’d you ask, Rae?”
Cyborg watched with interest as she shook her thin shoulders and kept hooded eyes on the tool she was cleaning in her hands.
“I dunno. I guess I don’t like the way he talks about her,” she admitted, her voice barely a whisper.
Uh oh.
The same words that Beast Boy had used about Aqualad.
The mental pats on the back were now turning into slaps across the face.
Cyborg didn’t like the way this was turning out.
Oh no.
He didn’t like it at all.
Now it was Raven he kept an eye on, watching her when she was around Beast Boy.
He had been so stupid; how did he not see it before?
Of course, she was better at hiding it than Beast Boy, but it was there. It was her posture when he was around, the way she seemed to mark him and keep him in her periphery in a room. It was the way she always stood a little closer to him and most telling of all, it was the way she seemed to stare longingly into the shifter's eyes. It was never for very long, but it was enough for Cyborg to notice.
It was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. The empath and the shapeshifter? They were the complete opposite. They would bicker all day and be impossible on the battlefield. It would be a disaster for them, for the team and the citizens of Jump City.
And yet…
When they were on the front line, chasing bad guys and putting them away, there was a harmonious fluidity to their actions. It was more than anticipating the other’s moves, they were the first to help the other up, the first to encourage and the first to commiserate in those rare times it was needed.
And although they put up a good front, neither one of them would ever win an Oscar for their performances. They cared about each other. It was a simple truth that even Cyborg was sure they wouldn’t outright deny.
In the days that followed, and as he watched his friends in their small interactions, Cyborg came to a rather startling conclusion: They would be good together.
His lust for life could draw her away from her constant solemnity and yet that earnestness of hers could ground him. A middle, solid ground that could subtly alter them both for the better.
This was more than just hormones; this was something else. Cyborg recognized that it had the potential to be something fantastic and life-altering for two of his favourite people.
And the fools had no clue.
Cyborg never really thought of himself as a matchmaker. While the image of himself dressed as a mischievous Cupid - little wings and a comical bow and arrow - gave him endless delight, the reality was that this would need meticulous planning.
Stage one of Operation Fifth Wheel was a simple one: eliminate the competition.
They were in the common room, Gar and Cyborg sitting down to a game on their Gamestation with Raven on the other end of the couch, a nose in her book, when Cyborg decided to make his first move.
“So Green bean, ever call that pretty waitress?” he asked, eyes glued to the electronic car he was racing around the track.
Quite predictably, Beast Boy let his car slide off the cliff while his panicked eyes quickly glanced at the enchantress.
“Ummm… Actually, I lost her number,” he said as he tried to get his car back into the game.
Cyborg had to remind himself not to grin. The boy was his banjo, and Cyborg was pulling all the strings to this knee-slapping, hillbilly-approved melody.
“That’s too bad, man. She was pretty.”
Beast Boy shrugged his shoulders, “Sure. But I’ve seen prettier,” he said, unmistakably looking towards the other occupant on the couch.
Beast Boy's face turned pink at the implication of his words and this time Cyborg couldn’t contain his smile as he covertly peeked at Raven, whose own cheeks were dusted with a ruddy glow.
How the hell did he not see this before?
As much as he wished he could just force their faces together, Cyborg knew that this was a delicate and precarious tightrope he was walking his metal butt over, and so he had to wait a few days to enact the second part of his plan.
The perfect opportunity fell into his lap right after a rather gruesome fight with Cinderblock. As the resident doctor, he was in the infirmary, checking up on Beast Boy’s cuts that the shifter had earned after pushing Raven out of the way of falling debris.
Seriously, how have I not seen this before? He wondered as he bandaged up Beast Boy’s arm.
A soft cough from the doorway interrupted his thoughts and he turned to see the blue-cloaked mistress of magic standing on the threshold, eyes anchored to Beast Boy whose own yearning was written all over his features.
A Cheshire-like grin slowly inched its way along Cyborg’s face. There was no need to hide such an obvious look as the two were so engrossed with each other that Cyborg might’ve well been in Siberia for all they knew.
Cyborg pretended to jot down some notes on the computer as Raven slowly approached Beast Boy. Neither spoke a word but after a full minute of gazing into the other’s eyes, Raven encased her hands in her dark magic and the hum of her healing echoed throughout the sterile room.
“Well,” Cyborg said loud enough to make both Titans startle at the noise. “Another day, another battle won, eh Rave?”
Raven nodded, “Another day of Beast Boy being an idiot. I was perfectly capable of moving away from the rubble before it got to me.”
Cyborg chuckled, “How about throwing him into the ocean after you heal him up, Rae.”
“I intend to,” she sniffed, although Cyborg could tell it was with none of her usual haughtiness.
Sensing his opening, Cyborg licked his lips and started his well-rehearsed script. “Speaking of oceans, you’ll never guess the latest with Aqualad.”
The silence was loud for only seconds until Beast Boy, who had been quiet until this point spat out, “What about fish guts?”
Cyborg knew he could rely on Beast Boy to play his part. The guy hadn’t even read the screenplay and was still able to perform to perfection. “Rumour has it he’s been seen out and about with a civilian. Guess he got tired of waiting for you, Raven.” Cyborg flashed her a grin.
Raven, equally understanding her role, huffed. “Aqualad is nice, but I am not, nor will I ever be interested in him.”
Cyborg made a show of gathering his things together. “Well, looks like you missed your chance, Rae. And you’ll never guess who it is he’s seeing...” He waited the appropriate number of seconds for both the infirmary’s occupants to have their interest thoroughly piqued. It wasn’t until both finally looked at him with expectant eyes that he decided to usher them into the final act. “It’s that girl from the Pizza Parlour- Heather I think her name is. Didn’t you lose her number, Beastie?”
Well, he didn’t lose it as much as Cyborg took it (from the trash- Cyborg wouldn’t take it if his buddy had wanted to date the girl) and sent it to a certain Atlantean in Titans East.
“Umm… yeah,” Beast Boy nodded, seemingly perplexed.
“Yep. Pretty crazy, right?” Cyborg had planned to say more but the atmosphere in the room was getting heavy with anticipation, and he knew he needed to make an exit and make it quickly.
“Anyway, Robin asked if I could stop by the evidence room. I think he wants to brainstorm ways to keep Cinderblock securely locked up. I don’t know how that guy keeps breaking out of jail. You all good to finish up with Beast Boy, Raven?” Cyborg had started walking as he talked and was almost by the door. He glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Raven who was staring so intensely into Beast Boy’s eyes, that she hadn’t noticed that Beast Boy’s arm had completely healed.
Cyborg’s chest heaved with a hidden laugh, but he pushed down his glee.
“Rae?” he asked and this time it got her attention.
“Yes,” she squeaked out, in the most un-Raven-like way that Cyborg nearly bowled over then and there.
“See ya,” he called as he quickly walked out of the room. The doors behind him had only just slid shut when he promptly used his internal systems to bring up the surveillance in the infirmary.
Cyborg was quite convinced that spying didn’t count when you were playing Cupid.
As he had hoped, Beast Boy was already saying how Aqualad wasn’t good enough for her while she uttered the same thing about Heather.
Maybe, just maybe, these clueless idiots won’t need him to pull out phase three of his plan.
With a satisfied grin, he switched off the feed just as the pair were shyly smiling at each other.
Cyborg did not like the way this was turning out.
Oh no.
He didn’t like it at all.
In fact…
He loved it.