A new day shined on the Tower. Robin woke up, put on his sweat pants and hoody and went for his usual 6:00AM run through the city. All seemed normal until he ran past a newspaper stand that forced him to stop in his tracks. He picked up the paper with his eyes wide in panic.
The headline read: Are we safe?
To Robin's horror he saw his worst nightmare. The front page had an image of Beastboy in the form of a bull caught in the action of charging the students from the school.
He dropped the paper and threw himself into a dead sprint towards the Tower.
When he arrived at the Tower he found news-trucks and reporters camped outside. This was not good. He slowed down and started approaching them carefully.
"Is that Robin?!" A reporter yelled turning around to see Robin. All the other reporters also turned and immediately began rushing towards him. Robin was furious. This was the worst thing that could be happening while Beastboy was still at war with himself.
"Robin! Robin! What can you tell us about your teammate's attack on the kids?!" One reporter asked.
Robin continued to walk past them. Though cameras were flashing in his face every step of the way.
"Do you plan on turning him in to the authorities?!" Another asked.
"What is state of your team?! Do you still plan to fight crime?!" Said another.
"What do you have to say to the families of the kids who are in the hospital?!" another asked.
They were all asking questions so fast that Robin couldn't focus. He knew better than to entertain them. He ignored them and kept a serious look on his face until he finally got to the front door of the Tower. The reporters started desperately tossing questions at him rapid fire. They wanted something, anything, from him to make a story out of it. All the questions blurred together into an incoherent mess of words.
He placed his hand on the scanner at the door and it flew open with a woosh. He entered, and without turning around he pressed a button just inside the giant door that sent it flying shut as if slamming it in the reporter's faces.
He walked to his room, showered, changed into his uniform, and made his way back the living area where Cyborg was sitting on the couch flipping through channels on tv.
Each channel landed on the same news coverage each with the same headline as the paper.
Are we safe?
Cyborg saw Robin over his shoulder and looked back at the tv.
"It's on every channel," he said worried, "they all think BB's a crazed animal."
He continued flipping. But only found more of the same. A short 5 second video that had been altered to show only Beastboy plowing through a bunch of students.
"They don't even show what really happened!" Cyborg said raising his voice angrily.
"How did they even get this footage?" Robin asked frustrated, "we put Mad Mod in jail. Everything on him was confiscated. There's no way he could have released this to the public."
"I don't know man," Cyborg said still worried, "but if BB sees-"
Just as he said Beastboy's name the doors to the living area opened and Beastboy walked in.
"If I see what?" Beastboy said with a loud yawn. He clearly had just woken up and was rubbing his eyes with his right hand.
Cyborg quickly turned the tv off before he could focus on it. Robin and Cyborg looked at each other in a frenzy, trying to think of their next move.
"If-if-if-if BB sees... Uh..." He looked towards the kitchen, "that I didn't cook him an all you can eat tofu breakfast buffet... then... uh... then I failed him as his best friend!" Cyborg said not very convincing.
Beastboy looked at Cyborg with a puzzled look and an eyebrow raised. He was beyond confused.
"But you hate tofu..." He said back to him.
"Whhhaaaa?! Pfffft!" Cyborg exclaimed, trying to stall for a few seconds to sound more convincing, "maybe old Cyborg didn't like it but new improved Cyborg 2.0 loves It!" Cyborg said trying to make it sound more believable.
"We just wanted... to make you feel better after everything thats happened," Robin played along slightly chuckling to cover up his nervousness.
Cyborg and Robin dashed into the kitchen and started preparing a 5 course breakfast with all the tofu they could find in the fridge. Even though they had no idea how to cook tofu...
Beastboy was more confused now and he wanted answers. He started moving towards the couch to turn on the tv.
Robin saw this and his eyes went wide with worry. In an instant, he sprint over to the couch and snatched the remote from Beastboy's hand.
"Say!" He yelled putting the remote behind his back, "who wants to watch tv on a day like this? We should just jump in the T-Ship and fly somewhere out of town for a little get-away!" It was blatantly obvious that Robin was hiding something.
Beastboy looked at Robin as if he was absolutely insane.
"Ok... Now I know somethings up," Beastboy said to the both of them.
Cyborg and Robin looked at each other like they were out of ideas. Before they could speak Starfire and Raven walked into the living room after hearing the whole thing. Raven held a paper she picked up after flying into town with Starfire for some morning tea and coffee. Starfire had a worried look on her face and saw the boys trying to hide the truth from Beastboy. She knew they had good intentions but she couldn't allow it to continue.
"Friends stop!" She yelled, "we can not hide from our troubles. We must face them together." She looked at Raven and nudged her with her elbow.
Raven sighed. She knew this was going to hurt Beastboy but he was going to find out sooner or later. And from her experience, she learned that sooner was always better than later. She elevated the paper with dark energy and let it float over to Beastboy.
"We can't lie to each other," She said in a serious tone, "especially now when we need to be able to trust each other with anything and everything."
Beastboy took the floating paper and opened it up. He read the headline and saw his picture. His pointed ears dropped.
"Oh," he said as his guilt rushed back to him, "I guess I was kidding myself if I thought this would just blow over."
Back at the hospital Terra was finally completely awake and the doctors were checking on her. They ran multiple tests to check for any serious brain damage. Terra was relieved when she heard the doctors tell her nothing seemed to be too serious. She just needed to keep her head bandages on and stay in bed for a few weeks before she could resume going to school. However, she would need a cast on her right arm for about three months and her ribs would have to heal on their own which could take even longer. Luckily, no surgery was necessary.
The doctor left the recovery room and asked to speak to her parents outside about at-home treatment options. Terra picked up the remote on the small table to the left of her bed and flipped on the tv to kill time.
Every channel was a news reel of a green bull along with a half metal man and a woman in a dark blue robe in the principals office of her school. They were standing in front of a doorway filled with students trying to force their way in. The angle of the video was in an elevated position right behind where the three individuals were. The camera was lined up with the door that looked out into the hallway. The video was playing over and over as the anchors discussed it. The video showed the angry green bull charging through a crowd of students just as they began to push through the doorway. The bull stood with a wide stance for a moment before the video looped back to the beginning and played again.
Terra looked at the video again and again focusing on what she thought she just imagined in the last loop of the video. She seemed to know exactly what she was looking for... She looked closer to see that she didn't imagine anything. She really did see a pair of feet lying on the ground right outside the door where tons of students could be seen bobbing up and down as they shifted back and forth across the doorway. It was clear they were stepping on something or rather... they were stepping on someone.
Terra looked away from the tv and thought back to the images of the accident that flashed through her mind after she woke up and realized where she was. The first was an image of the green boy with pointy ears who spoke to her once at school. She's come to realize, this is the same boy she has been seeing and hearing in her dreams. Thanks to those dreams she remembered his name. Beastboy.
Terra! You have to wake up!
Another imaged flashed and she remembered she felt like she was starting to fall backwards just before her eyes closed.
She gazed back up to the tv. She looked even closer to see the pair of feet sitting right below the green bull as it plowed through students. But this time she paid close attention to the widened stance it took at the end of the video before replaying. As it played over and over she noticed something. The bull was avoiding the feet on the gound completely, along with the body connected to it.
Terra gasped as she began to realize what had really happened. The feet on the ground were hers. The green bull was Beastboy. And he had saved her life.
Back at the Tower the team gathered around the tv and Robin turned it on to see the news playing the video of Beastboy while an anchor spoke over it. Beastboy's spirit was crushed. It was hard enough to live with the memory of doing this, but now he was re-living it from a different angle.
"So what do we do?" Cyborg said with concern.
"We need to find out who released this footage," Robin said, "who ever took this video clearly edit it to make Beastboy look bad."
Beastboy's ears perked up. Maybe there was hope for him. If they captured the guy who edit the video maybe they could clear his name.
"But who could've done it?" Cyborg asked, "the only person responsible is already in jail."
Robin already knew this. But it was their only lead and seemed like they were out of options. He looked at his team and spoke with intensity...
"Then maybe we should pay him a visit."