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The thought entered her mind like a bullet, shocking her entire system. If anyone was to look at the two of them, it wouldn’t be hard for them to come to the wrong conclusion. The park was peaceful, save for a group of young boys playing football, and here they were sitting on a bench tucked just out of the way from most prying eyes.
The sun was subtle yet warming, dancing behind his head as he enjoyed his sandwich. Some vegetarian option, mostly peppers and cheese as far as she could remember. Her cloak was down for once, as she basked in the sunlight.
Just the two of them, alone, enjoying lunch together. If she was to panic about technicalities, he had asked her out, technically. Beast Boy wasn’t the technical type, she was probably being over dramatic. He had only asked if she wanted to go get lunch, he hadn’t asked her out explicitly. He had not uttered the exact words of ‘would you go on a date with me’, but then again, would he?
He was the casual, go-with-the-flow kind of guy, who could probably consider ‘let’s get lunch’ being along the same lines as ‘lets date’. He better not, he’s not that stupid. Was he?
“This isn’t a date,” Raven blurted out, shocking herself at her lack of tact.
Oh Azar, what if he had thought it was and then she just offended him by being offensive. What if he thought she was disgusted, she wasn’t, not anymore than she usually was by him. The bit of tomato sauce on the corner of his lip wasn’t exactly helping her in trying not to cringe.
If she had a napkin, she’d wipe it off herself, to avoid the way her body coiled at how messy he ate. It wasn’t as if he would do it himself.
Beast Boy froze for a millisecond at her words but before Raven had the chance to analyse his face, he let out a small laugh. A surprisingly happy laugh, a giggly, nice and soft laugh.
“Ok” he shrugged, before continuing to eat his sandwich.
Raven squinted her eyes, now she was offended. He had laughed at her, the audacity. She was serious. This was not a date. When he had asked her if she wanted to grab lunch earlier on, she hadn’t even thought about it like this.
The rest of their team had gone to visit Titan’s East, the two of them had stayed behind. Raven had insisted she would rather stay at their tower, hoping to read and meditate in peace for a week.
Beast Boy had chosen to stay as well. He had loudly joked that he wouldn’t have survived an entire week with fish face, over exaggerating his one-sided rivalry with the Atlantean. He always had to make some sort of joke.
The others had left three days ago. Three long days. Robin had joked that the two of them might end up killing each other when left all alone but instead Raven and Beast Boy had found a common enemy.
Cooking.
Raven was notoriously a bad cook; it wasn’t her fault. Azarathians had appointed monks who cooked each day, large grand spreads of food that everyone gathered three times a day to enjoy together. It was a habitual and well respected custom utilised to further encourage their unity and harmony.
Of course, Raven was never welcome to these feasts, rather they sent a plate up to her room which she always ate alone. Although, sometimes Azar would eat with her, if her studies ran a little later than usual.
Raven had never liked eating alone, eating with Azar was an occasion she looked forward to.
And now, she eats dinner every evening with all her friends. Sharing a meal has become synonymous with friendship. Thanks to the Titans, she now understood how truly important the Azarathian custom was to unifying people, and even more importantly, she now knew what it was like to be a part of that.
Still, no matter how many times Cyborg tried to teach her, she couldn’t quite understand cooking. It seemed like common sense to her that if you increased the heat, the food would cook quicker. Apparently, that was very wrong and always resulted in her burning whatever she had attempted to make.
Beast Boy, however, was a better cook than her, a much better cook. He often had to make his own food, being the only vegetarian in the house meant there weren't often many leftovers or extras being left around to heat up for lunch.
Whilst dinner was a shared meal and whoever cooked that night was required to make sure everyone had something to eat, breakfast and lunch were not. That didn’t mean Cyborg didn’t often make the whole team breakfast or Robin didn’t make extra helpings of his lunch for them, just that Beast Boy’s dietary restrictions were not always factored in.
But without the rest of the Titan’s to split the chore of cooking this week, Beast Boy had been forced to play private chef to his half demon teammate. He was growing very tired of being the sole chef, especially when Raven had point-blank refused to eat anything with tofu.
By the fourth day of their week alone, Beast Boy had declared rather loudly that he had enough of cooking and had asked her if she wanted to go grab lunch outside of the tower for a change.
She was kind of regretting it now.
“I'm serious, Beast Boy, this” Raven insisted, gesturing between the two of them “is not a date.”
A small smirk played on the shapeshifter’s face. Raven didn’t like it one bit, it meant trouble. He placed his sandwich on the bench, the wrapping separated his bread from the wood, and he leaned back on his chair with an air of mock agreement.
“Ok Rae, this isn’t a date, I’m actually kind of offended you think this is how I date” he started, waving his hand, “anyway, if this was-”
“It’s not”
He shot her a playful glare, opting to ignore her.
“If it was,” he continued, “I would not be wearing my uniform, it’s not exactly the most flattering thing I own”.
Raven looked down at his uniform, she didn’t mind it, that’s not to say that it was flattering on him, just that it wasn’t un-flattering. It was his regular uniform; he wore it every day. It was purple and black, two colours she quite liked. He had thrown a hoodie over it for their lunch, which was a pity, she thought.
It hid his shoulders, which she also didn’t mind, the shoulders that is. The material of his uniform stretched nicely along his broad shoulders, when they had gotten broad, she did not know but she could admit they were objectively nice, if you cared about that kind of thing.
“I also wouldn’t have taken you to Subway” he snickered, looking down at their sandwich.
That was true, if this was a date, Raven would have been incredibly offended at the location, but it wasn’t a date, so it was fine. She had only agreed to go because she could make her own sub, and they had a vegetarian sub that Beast Boy liked. Also, the cookies definitely swayed her. He had insisted on holding on to them, they were in his rucksack, as not to ruin her lunch. As if she were the one who would spoil her lunch by having dessert first and not him.
“Third, I probably would’ve tried to hold your hand on the way here”.
Raven pondered his statement, there was a moment earlier where she could have sworn his hand had brushed off hers with just that intent. It was disappointing to hear that she was wrong, Raven hated to be wrong.
Not that she wanted to hold his hand, his freakishly large hands, his freakishly large and very stupid hands. She had never even considered how small her hand would look in his or how it would feel. She had most definitely never thought about whether his hands would be rough, from all the years of harsh superhero work, or whether they would be soft, protected by his gloves.
If he did ever try to hold her hand, he had better take off his gloves, she had no interest in being separated by fabric if she was finally going to hold a boy's hand. How silly would it be to hold hands with him and not even actually hold his hand, just the fabric covering it.
“And if all went well on our date, Rae-Rae, which this has arguably not been because we argued all the way here.”
Raven flushed at that. It was true, they had argued this whole time, from the moment he asked if she wanted to grab lunch. They argued over where they were going to go eat, Beast Boy had won that round.
They argued about their mode of transport, Raven had won, they teleported instead of her riding on the back of his stupid moped.
They had even argued over where they should sit to eat, Beast Boy had wanted to sit on the grass of the park and Raven had insisted on the bench. Technically they both won, Raven had initially wanted to eat at home and Beast Boy had managed to convince her of the park. She had only agreed to go with him if she could at least have the civility of a chair and table, even if it was a rickety old bench.
And it was kind of nice, the cool April air and the midday sun made it feel like a picnic, as Beast Boy had argued. It was relatively relaxing too, they had managed to sit in a comfortable silence before Raven’s outburst.
Beast Boy’s unnatural silence had given her too much time to think.
“And if this was a date, I would definitely have kissed you when we got home” He finally finished, winking at her, “you must be so disappointed now, knowing you aren't getting a BB kiss.”
Raven shot him another glare, he was mocking her.
“If this was a date, it’s not, but if it was…” she smirked, “Who said I’d even let you kiss me? This has been a bad first date.”
Beast Boy clicked his tongue, considering her words momentarily before replying “it only sucked because this wasn’t a date, if this was a date, I would have wooed the shit out of you.”
“I doubt it.” She smirked, taking a bite of her food.
“You would have been begging for a kiss, Rae” he continued, ignoring her comment, “you’d be like, ‘oh, Garfield’-”
“Why would I call you by your real name?”
“Because it’s more intimate, Raven, keep up” he quipped, wiggling his fingers in her face “anyway, as I was saying, ‘oh, Garfield, you’re so tall and handsome and I totally dig the ears-”
“I do not” Raven snapped, heat rushing to her face. She silently prayed he was too caught up in his own dramatics to notice.
“Shhh, Rae, I’m talking, ‘I, Raven, totally dig the ears, please kiss me, you devilishly handsome man’ and I’d be all like ‘how could I deny you the amazing experience of kissing me as you are so clearly desperate for me’ and then I’d dazzle you with my superior kissing abilities”.
“That sounds rather unlike me” Raven argued, his high-pitched imitation of her voice sounded nothing like her, “and in what world would I be desperate to kiss you”
“A date with me would change your life, baby, you’d be a whole new person” Beast Boy argued back, smirking at the red tint on her face.
He must be really riling her up if she was literally hot with anger, red face and all. It had been happening a lot more lately, he must be really getting to her, every time he bugged her, her little ears would turn red. It was cute if she wasn’t an all-powerful badass who could kick his ass if he pushed it too far.
Oh, how he loved to walk the tightrope that was annoying Raven.
“It might scar me for life, maybe” Raven grumbled, “and don’t call me baby, dork”
“One date with this dork and I would blow your mind”
“I doubt a date with you would change anything in my life, besides prove just how much of a dork you really are”.
“Go on a date with me then Rae-Rae” he clicked his fingers and pointed at her, “unless you're scared, I’m right”.
“I’m not scared-”
“You’re scared you might like it,” he said in a sing-song voice, “Oooh, who knew big bad Raven would be scared to go on a date with widdle ol’ me?”
“Fine, let’s go on a date” Raven declared, slamming her fist on the table.
“Fine”
“Fine”
“This Friday, 8 o’clock” Beast Boy smiled, “and I’ll have the perfect date planned and you’ll be blown away and begging me to kiss you”
Raven ignored the end of his sentence, “If you take me to Subway again, I’ll kill you”.
“Oh Ravey-baby, I am going to amaze you with my dating skills” he laughed before going back to eating his food.
“It’s Raven” She spluttered, both outraged and shocked at the new nickname.
Beast Boy looked up at her red face once more, it was oddly endearing to see her all worked up over his joke. He really did enjoy riling her up, he hoped he was as good at dating her as he was at annoying her.
He shrugged once more, he’d find out on Friday.