While Robin and the girls were at the prison Beastboy and Cyborg remained at Titan's Tower. Cyborg was on his laptop at the dinner table across from the kitchen. He was agressively going over the footage that was making Beastboy look worse and worse by the minute. He considered every single possibility he could think of to find some kind of answer as to who was filming them. But there was nothing. No reflections. No possible suspects. Nothing. Cyborg was getting to the point of giving up. He could only hope that Robin and the others had better luck. The only thing that seemed to perk him up was seeing Beastboy distracted from all the madness while he played one of his favorite video games.
Across the room Beastboy sat on the couch with a Game Station controller in hand. He was really into the racing game that him, Robin, and Cyborg would always compete against each other in.
"Come on, come on..." Beastboy said, trying to encourage himself. He was nearly about to catch Cyborgs record for the fastest time on the track.
Cyborg smiled seeing his friend almost back to normal. Even if it was only for a moment. But something wasn't sitting right with him. Terra reappearing, the creature that attacked them, then Mad Mod at the school? All this couldn't just be coincidental. He looked back down at his computer and remembered what he was going to research after he left the hospital in a hurry.
He was typing on the computer looking up dates and times from six months ago. The time Terra was found by her new parents. Just as he thought, the events lined up. Around that time was when Trigon's reign that had been stopped by the Titans.
Shortly after Trigon was defeated Beastboy received the message from the Doom Patrol and the four month fight against the Brotherhood of Evil began. They've been home for two months after defeating the brain and for the most part everything has been quiet... Until just over a week ago when they ran into that strange creature and Beastboy had found Terra.
Everything seemed to line up. He started to get an idea of how Terra was brought back but he couldn't know for sure. Cyborg was getting lost in thought with all the theories starting to build in his mind.
"YEAHHH!" Beastboy screamed. Cyborg nearly jumped out of his circuits, "read it and weep, Cy!" Beastboy said proudly, turning around to face Cyborg with the screen behind him that read: New High Score! "Beastboy is the new king of the road!" He was smiling and laughing doing a small victory dance.
Beastboy seemed to have forgotten all about the problems he was facing at the moment. He really needed some kind of positive distraction and winning in one of his favorite video games seemed to do the trick.
"Is that so?" Cyborg replied, taking that comment as a challenge, "not for long!" He left his computer to join Beastboy on the couch for a quick game.
He threw himself down on the couch next to Beastboy and picked up a second game station controller and the next race started loading.
3... 2... 1... GO!
Beastboy and Cyborg took off in their virtual world. As the race played on, they were both so focused on the game that the outside world faded away and nothing else mattered. One game lead to two. Two lead to three. The day started to disappear and after an endless amount of rematches declared by both of them. Eventually, they decided to settle the score with one last race.
It was a close race. They'd exchange moves that would place them in the lead before losing the lead to another move shortly after. They would laugh and shout and get excited throughout the entire race until finally the finish line approached. It was neck and neck but only one could win...
Just as they were about to cross the finish line the doors behind them opened as Robin and the girls had returned from their interrogation of Mad Mod. Robin stood at the door with an eyebrow raised looking down at Cyborg and Beastboy on the couch.
They both let out a small yelp of terror and jumped out of their seats knowing fully well they were supposed to be finding information on who was smearing the Titan name.
Cyborg looked at Robin with a guilty look on his face. He looked like a child who stole from his mothers cookie jar.
"Heeeeeyyyyy, Robin!" Cyborg said trying to play it off, "we were just... uh..."
Robin was about to speak angrily but then he saw Beastboy's face. He looked like he wasn't dying inside. Like the war in him had declared a short cease-fire.
"Well... I got the new highscore..." Beastboy chuckled nervously, raising a hand to the back of his head.
Robin saw how Beastboy's attitude had changed for the better. It made him relax a bit and he felt a little better about everything.
He looked down and shook his head with a smile. He understood that Cyborg needed a break from everything just as much as Beastboy did. And after everything that just happened at the prison... so did he.
"It's ok," Robin said cheerfully, "so who won?" Robin started walking towards the couch as if he wanted to play the winner.
Raven and Starfire looked at each other confused and started to follow Robin to the couch but stopped just behind it as Robin walked around to sit next to the boys.
With all the panic they didn't even see who won the race before the screen returned to the main menu.
"Uhhh..." Beastboy and Cyborg said together. They both looked at each other with the biggest look of surprise on their faces. They both had no idea who won. But what shocked them even more was the fact that Robin wasn't angry.
He was usually the over-obsessed detective who wouldn't rest until the bad guy was behind bars. But right now he seemed almost defeated and just wanted to relax. Seeing this... the boys could only assume the interrogation didn't go well.
"I call next game," Robin said smiling.
Starfire and Raven still stood behind the couch. Seeing Robin like this wasn't normal but they both understood. It had been a long day and there was no point in making it worse.
Starfire wanted to comfort Raven after her outburst at the prison but she didn't know what to do. Looking at the boys all on the couch discussing the winner and who was playing next, she figured she'd try asking Raven to do something she would enjoy.
"Raven... might you wish to meditate with me?" Starfire asked. It was the first thing that came to her mind.
"No thanks, Starfire," Raven respond in her usual grim tone.
She looked at Beastboy who seemed to be doing much better and grew a small smile. It didn't last though as she reminded herself of what just happened at the prison.
"I think... I just need some time alone to figure some things out." She looked up at Starfire and saw the hurt in her eyes, "thank you though," she said trying to ease Starfire's mind, "I appreciate you trying to help. But this is my problem. I'll handle it."
Starfire looked at her with sad eyes and nod slowly, accepting Ravens decision to decline her help. Starfire floated over the couch to where the boys were sitting and sat next to them quietly as they settled on a decision for who played next.
Raven sighed and turned to start walking to her room. On her way, she walked past Cyborgs laptop that was still open on the kitchen table.
It had search engines open, filled with images and news articles on the day Trigon was defeated. She looked back at the others on the couch who had just started a new game then back down at the computer.
Why was Cyborg looking at this? She thought to herself. She turned from the computer and began walking to her room again. Does it have anything to do with what's happening now? Her mind ran wild with questions as she continued to walk to her room.
When raven reached her room she lit some candles along with some incense and burned a clove of sage to purify the air around her. Breathing deeply and slowly, she sat in the middle of her room and levitated slightly off the ground and began meditating.
She had so many conflicting emotions and it forced her to ask herself some serious questions.
"Is this really what love feels like? Is this what it does to you? Is it safe for me to feel it? How am I going to deal with it?"
They were questions that needed to be answered. But they also stung a little as she asked them. On one hand, these new emotions made her feel amazing. It was a brand new feeling of euphoria whenever she looked at Beastboy. But on the other hand it was also heart breaking seeing as how these emotions weren't being reciprocated back to her. But what bothered her most was the possibility that her new found emotions could be causing her to lose control of other emotions that desperately needed to be kept in check. This was a dilemma that Raven was not looking forward to dealing with. She continued to meditate on these questions for hours into the night. However, she never found any answers for herself.
Ravens meditation was suddenly disrupted by subtle footsteps outside her door. She float to her door and cracked it open slightly to see Robin had just passed her room and took a left turn at the end of the hall that lead towards Cyborg's room. She didn't know why but something told her to follow him.
Robin was focused and back to business now. He was glad the team got to go back to normal, even if it was just for a few hours but he needed to talk to Cyborg about everything. Hopefully he had better luck with his research of the video than Robin did with interrogating Mod. Robin knocked on the door to Cyborg's room. Cyborg answered shortly after. He oped the door wide and invited Robin into his room. Robin followed him in as Cyborg returned to his desk where his computer was lighting up his dimly lit room.
After the door shut behind them, Raven appeared from a shadow of dark energy on the other side of the door so she could eavesdrop on the conversation.
"Did you find anything in the video?" Robin asked leaning against the wall of Cyborgs room.
"Nothing." Cyborg respond unhappily sitting at his desk, "there were no trace of anyone else at the school. Not even a reflection of the person holding the camera." Cyborg sound like he was exhausted from looking for answers.
"Then we're right back where we started," Robin respond disappointed. He then continued to fill Cyborg in on what happened at the prison, "Mad Mod wasn't behind the attack at the school. He was working with someone... Or more likely... Working for someone."
Cyborg took in the information and tried to process it, asking himself who else might be behind the attack. After a long moment of silence, no solid ideas came to mind. But then Cyborg remembered what he had also decided to look into earlier that day.
"There's something else..." Cyborg looked at Robin to make sure he had his attention. Robin looked back at him, waiting for him to continue, "I think I have an idea of how Terra came back."