Chapter Text
She did it.
Raven actually found a spell that could work. That would work.
She had to read it over four more times before she allowed herself to believe it. For an almost comical amount of time, she had stood in her room, clutching that notebook as she manually forced air in and out of her lungs. She waited for the words to rearrange themselves, to find a flaw in the spell. But everything she needed to bring Beast Boy back was right in front of her.
Raven had found the spell two days after the fight with the H.I.V.E Five, since she stayed up all night to flip through books. The book had been plain and leather bound with no indication of what it contained. When she picked it up, she hadn’t expected much from the handwritten notebook… but this, this was something.
The spell was simple enough, needing only a few ingredients she already owned, including red summoning salts, candles, and a prick of blood. It promised her the ability to guide his soul back from the edge of death.
Beware, all lives come at a cost.
The warning at the bottom of the page had rattled something in her bones. The sentence was vague… How much would Beast Boy’s life cost to save? But the question didn’t matter, not really. Because she would give anything - anything - to save him.
Raven was still shell-shocked as she carried the book out of her bedroom, down the hall to the Ops room. The rest of the team was already waiting there; clustered around the kitchen island. They were leaning over, talking quietly amongst each other. Robin was the first to notice Raven enter, eyes widening as he slid whatever was on the counter behind his back.
“Raven…” He was acting strangely, but the half-demon was still wrapping her mind around the book in her hand to bother wondering what he was hiding.
Cyborg seemed to pale upon seeing her, sharing a nervous glance with their leader. “Hey Rae, why don’t you sit down. We need to talk to you about something…”
Raven opened her mouth but found she was unable to make the words come out. How was she supposed to say it? How could she simply tell her friends that this entire nightmare was about to come to a close? Instead, she let Starfire guide her to the barstool, sitting her down like she was a child being set down for dinner.
Cyborg released a breath, as Robin pulled the mysterious item behind his back. He set it down - a few pages of paper - in front of Raven. “We found it, Rae.”
She felt the air leave her lungs. She didn’t want to know what the letter said, not since she found the way to save him. Still, when she looked at her friends, she knew from the grief on their faces that they believed the worst: Beast Boy had chosen to let go.
Rae looked at each member of the team, one by one. If they had told her this even one hour prior, her reaction would have been so different. She would have refused to hear them, would have stormed out of the room before they had the chance to explain. Instead, she picked up the note with delicate fingers.
“Third paragraph,” Robin said. His voice broke, as if he couldn’t hold himself together any longer. She wondered how often Robin had read those words, searching for a different meaning.
Raven scanned the page, counting the paragraphs to get to the one. She could understand the gist of the letter to Cyborg: Beast Boy was recounting the latest battle with Plasmus. It must have been when Cyborg was helping out with Titan’s East, and Beast Boy felt a letter was somehow a better mode of communication than a telephone.
Raven remembered the moment actually. Beast Boy figured he’d deliver the letter via messenger pigeon - himself being the pigeon obviously - and it would be a great excuse to visit his best friend and the other Titans. In the end, he decided it was simply too far to fly and the letter must have ended up in his closet.
Dude, Plasmus is gross! Every time we fight him I’m washing gunk out of my hair for a week. We beat him again (obviously) but at what cost? I feel kinda bad for the guy; I mean he’s basically just sleeping all the time, and when he does wake up, he’s just a raging ooze monster. That’d be a crummy way to live. I don’t think I could do it, you know? I’d just hate that my only options would be: sleeping forever or being a monster whenever I’m awake. If I ever ingest too much Plasmus gunk one day and turn into that guy, I give you full permission to just take me out.
The letter changed topics from there, detailing Beast Boy’s plan to drink far too many energy drinks and stay up all night defeating Cyborg’s high score on whatever game they were hooked on at the time. Raven couldn’t bring herself to read more, stunned by what she had just read.
She had known what they were looking for when they started reading the letters. She knew from her friend’s faces what she would be reading when she sat down. But to have the proof in her hands felt almost impossible. She had briefly forgotten about the spell laying in her lap, overcome by the shock of what she’d just read.
“He’s given up,” Raven said finally.
At her words, Starfire turned, her throat choking. Her hands tightened into fists, before loosening once more. She was caught between anger and sadness. Beast Boy is too important for us to lose. Raven had thought the words were a way to comfort her, but she realized it was also Starfire’s own denial in the possibility of losing him.
“He’s not giving up,” Robin said, his words careful. “He just knew what he’d want. Beast Boy loved life… he wouldn’t want to live like this.”
Despite knowing she still had a way of saving him, Raven couldn’t help her eyes squeeze shut. Robin was right. She’d known it all this time that the guy who gained so much joy from laughing and joking and living, would hate the thought of spending his final years in that bed.
But it wasn’t over - not yet.
Raven forced herself to exhale and open her eyes. She folded up the letter, setting it to the side. She picked up the book that lay in her lap, still open to the page. She set the book on the counter, pushing it to where Cyborg and Robin stood. “I found a way to bring him back.”
Raven expected a different reaction. The team wasn’t past cheering or aggressively asking questions in a normal situation - but this was so far from normal. The past few weeks had sapped the energy from the Tower, and had drained any hope the Titans had for bringing Beast Boy back. Instead, they just stared at her.
“I found a spell,” Raven explained, “That could guide him from the edge. Now that I’ve healed his wounds, this could- no, it will work. I can bring him back.”
Cyborg’s grip tightened on the edge of the countertop. “Raven, you’re sure about this? We know what his final wishes are… I don’t want to put him through more pain.”
Raven kept her gaze even. “I can do this, Cyborg. I promise.”
Robin didn’t bother to ask questions; he was too busy already reading over the spell.
“What does this mean, ‘all lives come at a cost?’ What price do we have to pay to save him?” Robin asked. He looked unsure; the Titans had already gone through so much. There was only so much more they could risk.
Still, Raven didn’t react outwardly. She didn’t show the fear she felt, the thought forming in her head of what the warning meant. “The spell asks for a prick of blood. Depending on who is using the spell, that’s a greater cost than others.”
Her voice was confident, sure enough that it seemed to ease the tension in Robin’s shoulders. His eyes stayed narrowed, but he seemed to accept the answer - barely. Slowly, he nodded, letting out a breath. “Then, there’s no other option. We have to try.”
TT
The set up was simple enough. Raven let the other Titans in the dark Med Bay room, on the one condition that they sat along the wall and didn’t speak or move or interfere in even the slightest way. Raven would let nothing come between her and Beast Boy. She realized she'd never forgive the others if they interfered - an irony she was all too aware of, considering Raven had been the one to injure Beast Boy in the first place, and they had all but forgiven her.
The room itself was dark, with the lights turned off and tarps covering the new holes in the walls. Raven used her finest summoning salts to pour a circle around her and the entire hospital bed. She set the seven candles around the circles, setting the book on a podium in the middle. She had practiced the words over the past five hours, making sure she enunciated them perfectly. If she stuttered, she made herself repeat them another five times. By now, Raven knew the spell by heart.
She had made a single change to the set up, one that she was certain wouldn’t impact the successfulness of the spell. Raven slipped a familiar copper penny in Beast Boy’s hand, closing it gently so it wouldn’t slip.
For luck.
She didn’t dare glance back at her friends; she didn’t want to be influenced by the look on their faces. If they looked scared, would Raven bring that into the spell with her? If they looked hopeful, would she feel too much pressure? All she could do was focus… one word at a time.
Raven crossed her legs, levitating herself so she was equal with Beast Boy’s motionless body. She knew she should be focused, but she couldn’t stop the ache in her chest when looking at him… his muscles had atrophied since he was injured, his face caving in at certain points that had once been full. He looked empty… deflated.
Raven closed her eyes, forcing herself to clear her mind. As she levitated, she allowed the familiar words to slip from her mouth.
“Azarath, Metreon, Zinthos,” she chanted. As she did, her magic sliced slowly across Beast Boy’s finger, pulling just a drop of blood from his body and dripping it into the centre of the circle. She moved her arms from her sides, fluidly crossing them in front of her as black magic followed, before pushing the energy towards Beast Boy. “Revertere ad me”
The candles flashed, going out at once as Raven fell into darkness. It was darker than the Med Bay room without the flames. It was like she was in a place where light had never existed… It was more than just seeing darkness, but she felt it too. A cold shadow creeped through her flesh, settling into her bones.
She looked around, trying to find any sign of Beast Boy. There was nothing, just that harrowing darkness that surrounded her. Raven stepped forward, finding a floor underneath her, but no visible signs of it. She was in some sort of endless room with no light and no guidance.
Wait.
There was something ahead of her… Barely visible in the darkness. She flew, her magic carrying her faster than her legs ever could. As the object came into focus, she realized at once that it was a door - heavy duty double doors. It would have kept anyone else out, but to Raven, it may as well have been paper.
Once the doors were laying on the ground, Raven stepped through. She had expectations, of course. She’d thought she’d step through and see Beast Boy in an empty room. He’d be sitting there, waiting to be brought back with her. She knew it wouldn’t be, but Raven was hoping it’d all be simple.
What she wasn’t expecting was to be in a familiar laboratory.
As she stepped into the light, she could make out the six people near the centre of the room. First, her eyes caught Doctor Light - in his bulky suit, he was hard to miss. A sharp stab of guilt hit her deep in her stomach; he may have been a villain but he never deserved to die. This version looked exactly how she remembered him, down to the sneer on his face.
Cyborg stood closer, his cannon-arm directed at Doctor Light. Raven couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she remembered. Funny we keep meeting this way. Robin stood in the centre of the team, with the past version of Raven and Starfire hovering overhead.
When Raven’s eyes moved, her breath caught in her throat. “Beast Boy.”
He looked just as he had on the day he was injured. Not the shell of himself wasting away in the bed, but the person asking if they could grab pizza after. He wore the same purple and black outfit, filling it out with lean muscle. Same green tousled hair, as if even in the afterlife he didn’t have time to do his hair. His back was turned to her, but she needed to see his face, needed to know it was real.
She stepped forward again, but before she could make it any further, the scene in front of her started to move. The Titans lunged, hitting Doctor Light with nearly everything they had. She remembered the smugness on his face as he released powerful blasts from his suit. Raven briefly wondered if he'd wear that same expression if he knew what was about to happen.
Raven moved closer, an idea forming in her mind. To bring Beast Boy back, she had to somehow stop what was about to happen. If she saved him before he got hurt, maybe she could save him in real life too. Raven knew she wouldn’t be able to convince Doctor Light to stop. Couldn’t convince Beast Boy not to try and save him. But she knew one person who would listen.
Raven flew to the familiar girl in the blue cloak. Her past self was already using her magic to unhook Doctor Light from the machine. Raven felt herself grow nauseous - she knew what was about to come and she wasn’t sure she could stomach seeing it again.
“We have to end this now!” Robin called.
She didn’t have much time.
Raven glided in front of her past self, praying that this version of herself would believe her. “You have to stop.”
A single word should have been enough to halt past-Raven in her tracks. Her magic would have dissolved into the air, as she tried to figure out if she was truly seeing herself or this was some sort of trick that Doctor Light cooked up. Raven knew herself enough to know that she would have at least hesitated.
Only none of that happened. The Raven from the past stared through her, eyes narrowed in concentration. “I’m ready. Just keep him distracted,” she called back to Robin.
She can’t see me. Raven’s face paled as the realization settled in, just seconds too late. She had naively thought it would be simple. All she needed to do was convince this version of herself to not set off the blast, and both Doctor Light and Beast Boy would be saved. She hadn’t realized that the events would move on without her.
Raven whirled around, horror coiling in her stomach as she understood what was about to happen. She watched as a green cheetah darted around Doctor Light, attempting to distract him. It was only as she watched the scene unfold for the second time that she understood how fast it had all happened.
She didn’t even feel as the magic passed through her, a vortex of black energy directed at Doctor Light. She summoned her own energy - a shield - in a final attempt to stop her own attack, but it did nothing. The original attack simply passed right through. This was a memory - Raven couldn’t stop the events from happening.
Raven threw her body forward, hurtling through the air as she watched the black force hit Doctor Light’s suit.
“No! What have you done?” This time, Raven understood the terror in his voice for what it was. Doctor Light, as he scrambled to take off the suit, knew that he was about to die. He’d strapped a bomb to his chest, but was the only one who knew it was about to detonate.
Raven heard Cyborg’s warning, saw the sparks coming from the suit. She knew what was about to happen, had lived it once before. She saw Beast Boy turn his head, hands still gripping the edge of the suit as he looked for the girl in the blue cloak, still hovering in the back of the room. Raven threw herself in between Beast Boy and Doctor Light just as the room was bathed in a white blast.
Beast Boy landed roughly on the ground, Raven’s chest pressed into his as she used her cloak to form a shield around them. She couldn’t stop the blast, but she couldn’t step back and watch Beast Boy get hurt either. Not again.
When it happened the first time, Raven had turned away from the light, the sounds of the blast nearly deafening her. This time, with her head pressed against Beast Boy’s temple, she heard the raw scream that tore from his throat. She heard the fear that shook his voice.
She thought she could protect Beast Boy this time… thought she could save him. But the heat passed through her as if she were a ghost, and Beast Boy’s body burned under hers. Flesh melted, charred.
Even once the explosion was over, Raven squeezed her eyes shut, too terrified to look at him once more. She knew what she’d see when she opened them. She could hear her teammates moving towards her, towards Beast Boy.
It was happening all over again. Beast Boy was dying again. Despite everything, Raven had failed again.