Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sky over Jump City was the color of a day-old bruise, a moody swirl of purple and grey that perfectly matched Kitten Walker’s disposition. She stood, hands planted firmly on her hips, on the rooftop of a ridiculously chic, ridiculously expensive boutique she’d just finished terrorizing. Not that she’d done much of the actual terrorizing. That was what her hired goons were for. Her job was to look impeccable while it happened, a task at which she excelled.

The only thing marring this otherwise flawless picture of villainous panache was Robin, the Boy Wonder, standing about twenty feet away, looking utterly unimpressed.

"It’s over, Kitten." he said, his voice as flat and boring as a concrete slab. He spun his bo staff with a casual flair that was meant to be intimidating but only served to fuel the inferno of her irritation.

"It’s not over until I say it’s over!" she shrieked, the sound a little more shrill than she’d intended. Her prize, a one-of-a-kind diamond-encrusted cat collar, lay discarded near the ledge. The whole point of the heist had been to get Robin’s attention. She had it, but it wasn’t the kind she wanted. She wanted adoration, obsession, perhaps a desperate plea for her to change her ways and join the side of justice, all for him. What she got was… boredom.

"Your dad’s on his way to pick up your hired help." Robin continued, yawning behind a gloved hand. A yawn. He dared to yawn at her? "I’d suggest you go home before your curfew."

That was it. The final, patronizing straw.

"You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you, Rob-in?" she spat, pronouncing his name in two distinct, venomous syllables. She stalked toward him, her platform boots making emphatic clicks on the rooftop gravel. "With your stupid, perfect hair and your angsty, mysterious backstory. You know, some people find that cliché."

"Okay, Kitten." He wasn't even looking at her anymore, his eyes scanning the city below, probably for a real crime to fight.

The rage inside her was a physical thing, a hot, bubbling geyser threatening to erupt. She had tried everything. She had orchestrated jewel heists, kidnapped irritating city officials, and even once tried to blow up the city’s supply of tofu just to get a rise out of his green teammate, all in the hopes of luring Robin into a dramatic confrontation that would end in a passionate, star-crossed kiss. She had read all the comics. That’s how these things were supposed to work. The brooding hero falls for the misunderstood bad girl.

But Robin wasn’t following the script.

"I could have any boy I want!" she yelled, her voice cracking with a frustration so profound it almost felt like despair. "Literally any of them! They would line up for a chance to date me!"

Robin finally turned his full attention back to her, and for a fleeting, hopeful second, she thought she saw a flicker of something in the lenses of his mask. Annoyance? Possibly. Interest? Unlikely.

"Then why don’t you?" he asked, his tone laced with a genuine, cutting curiosity. "Why don’t you go date one of them and leave me alone?"

The words hit her harder than any of his birdarangs ever could. They were simple, logical, and utterly dismissive. He wasn’t just rejecting her; he was writing her out of his story completely. He didn’t see her as a rival, a villainess, or even a mild nuisance. He saw her as a gnat to be swatted away.

Her fury solidified into something cold and sharp. A plan. A terrible, wonderful, exquisitely petty plan.

He wanted her to date someone else? Fine. She would. But she wouldn’t just date someone else. She would date one of his own. She would parade her new, adoring boyfriend in front of him at every opportunity. She would be so sickeningly happy, so disgustingly in love, that the sheer force of her bliss would make him realize what he’d thrown away. He would be consumed by a jealousy so potent it would drive him mad.

Her eyes scanned an imaginary roster of the Teen Titans.

Cyborg? No. Too loud, too much metal. He probably smelled of oil and motor grease. Not her style.

Aqualad? Been there, done that. He was cute, in a fishy sort of way, but far too earnest. And the wet dog smell was a dealbreaker.

Speedy? He was an option. Arrogant, a bit of a show-off. She could work with that. But he wasn't around enough. This needed to be a constant, in-your-face kind of torture.

Her gaze, both in her mind and in reality, drifted past Robin to where the rest of the Titans were wrapping things up below. Starfire was floating, a beacon of nauseating positivity. Raven was… being Raven, a gloomy little thundercloud in a cloak. And then there was him.

Beast Boy.

He was currently in the form of a bright green parrot, perched on Cyborg’s shoulder and squawking out a terrible rendition of a pop song. He was goofy, immature, and a vegetarian, for crying out loud. He was, in every conceivable way, the opposite of everything she found attractive. He was loud where Robin was quiet, silly where Robin was serious, green where Robin was… not green.

He was perfect.

Dating Beast Boy would be the ultimate insult. It was a choice so baffling, so utterly nonsensical, that it could only be interpreted as a grand, theatrical statement. It would show Robin that she was so over him, so completely and utterly moved on, that she had cast her romantic net into the most absurd corner of the pond and pulled out… this. This green, tofu-loving jester.

A slow, malicious smile spread across Kitten’s face. The anger didn’t vanish, but it transformed, crystallizing into a diamond-hard resolve. She looked back at Robin, her eyes glittering with a new, triumphant light.

He was still watching her, a slight frown on his lips, as if he was trying to figure out what was happening behind her suddenly serene expression.

"You know what, Robin?" she said, her voice now a purr of pure, weaponized sugar. "That is a fantastic idea. The best you’ve ever had."

She turned on her heel, her hair swinging like a pendulum marking the beginning of a new era. She didn’t bother to retrieve the diamond collar. It was a bauble, a relic of a failed strategy. Her new prize was much more valuable.

"Consider yourself left alone." she called back over her shoulder, not bothering to see his reaction.

As she descended the fire escape, her mind was already racing, plotting, and scheming. Phase one of Operation: Make Robin Rue the Day was complete. Now for phase two: the wooing of the Beast. This, she thought with a surge of vindictive glee, was going to be an absolute disaster. And she couldn’t wait. She would need a strategy. Flowers? No, too traditional. Candy? He probably only ate vegan, organic, fun-free candy. A love poem? She shuddered at the thought of putting that much effort into something so disingenuous.

No, this required a special touch. The Kitten Walker touch. It would have to be loud, expensive, and completely tone-deaf to the recipient's actual personality. It had to be a spectacle. The more public, the better. She wanted the whole city, and especially a certain Boy Wonder, to see her efforts.

Her phone was already in her hand, her thumb hovering over her assistant’s number.

"Celeste." she would say, "I need you to arrange for a flyover of Titans Tower. I want a banner. A very large, very pink banner. And it needs to say something… poetic."

A wicked grin touched her lips. This wasn't just about making Robin jealous anymore. This was about proving that she could have anything, and anyone, she wanted. Even the boy who was the living embodiment of a sentient broccoli floret. Beast Boy wouldn't know what hit him.

Chapter Text

Beast Boy’s morning was off to a pretty standard start. He’d woken up late, been yelled at by Cyborg for using all the soy milk, lost three consecutive rounds of "Mega Monkey Mayhem 4" to said half-robot, and was now contemplating the existential void of his breakfast plate, which contained a single, slightly sad-looking tofu scramble.

"Dude, are you gonna eat that?" Cyborg asked, gesturing with a fork. "Or are you just gonna have a staring contest with it? My money’s on the tofu."

"I’m thinking." Beast Boy said, poking the pale cube with his own fork. "I’m trying to decide if I can mentally will it into tasting like bacon. It’s not working."

Suddenly, a deafening roar filled the common room, rattling the windows in their frames. It sounded suspiciously like a jet engine, only much, much closer.

"What in the…" Cyborg started, heading toward the giant, T-shaped window.

"Incoming!" Starfire chirped, floating in from the hallway. "It appears to be a vehicle of the sky, but it is not of a design I recognize."

They all gathered at the window, peering out into the bright morning. Circling the Tower at a perilously close distance was a small, shockingly pink private jet. Trailing behind it was a banner, so long it almost brushed the waves of the bay. In huge, glittering gold letters, it read:

"MY HEART SHAPESHIFTS FOR YOU, BEAST BOY. BE MINE? - K."

There was a moment of stunned silence in the common room. Raven, who had been silently reading on the couch, slowly lowered her book, a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised in disbelief.

Beast Boy squinted. "Is… is that for me?"

Cyborg burst into a cacophony of laughter, a booming, mechanical guffaw that shook his entire body. "Heart shapeshifts! Oh, that’s rich! Who’s K? Do you have a secret admirer, grass stain?"

Beast Boy’s face cycled through several shades of green. Secret admirer? The only "K" he could think of who had access to a private pink jet and a penchant for terrible puns was… Oh no.

"Kitten?" Starfire gasped, her large green eyes wide with confusion. "But I was under the impression her affections were directed toward Robin."

As if on cue, Robin entered the room, looking tired from a night of patrol. He took one look out the window at the absurdly opulent display, and his mouth tightened into a thin, weary line. He looked directly at Beast Boy.

Beast Boy threw his hands up defensively. "Dude, I have no idea! I’ve never even talked to her! Except for when she’s, you know, being a villain and I’m, like, a bear or whatever!"

The jet made another pass, this time dropping a shower of what appeared to be pink and green rose petals all over the Tower’s solar-paneled roof.

Raven finally spoke, her voice dripping with its signature arid wit. "How romantic. Littering. I’m sure the EPA will be thrilled with this grand gesture of love."

Beast Boy groaned, burying his face in his hands. This was a nightmare. A bizarre, pastel-pink nightmare. Kitten Walker? The spoiled, shrieking princess of crime? Why on earth would she be interested in him? It made no sense. It was like a shark declaring its undying love for a unicycle.

His communicator buzzed. Hesitantly, he flipped it open. A video message. It was a close-up of Kitten’s face, perfectly made up and framed by her sharp blond hair. She blew a kiss at the camera.

"Did you see my little surprise, Beastie-boo?" her voice cooed from the tiny speaker. "Just a little something to let you know I’m thinking of you. I’ll be waiting for your answer. Meet me at the pier tonight? Eight o’clock. Don’t be late. Ciao!"

The message ended, leaving Beast Boy in the center of a circle of his staring, bewildered teammates.

"Beastie-boo?" Cyborg wheezed, wiping a tear of laughter from his human eye.

"She wishes to ‘meet at the pier’!" Starfire exclaimed. "That is a traditional Earth dating ritual, is it not?"

"It’s a trap." Robin stated, his arms crossed. "It has to be a trap. She’s probably working with Killer Moth on some new scheme."

"Or." Raven intoned dryly, "she’s finally realized the futility of chasing someone emotionally unavailable and has moved on to someone… emotionally available in overwhelming, chaotic quantities."

All eyes turned back to Beast Boy. He felt his stomach doing flips. A trap seemed likely. This was Kitten, after all. Her idea of a friendly hello was usually followed by a giant mutant moth trying to encase them in a cocoon. But the message… the banner… it was all so specifically, weirdly targeted at him.

"I’m not going." he said firmly, snapping the communicator shut. "No way. This is way too weird, even for me."

Robin nodded in approval. "Good. We’ll keep an eye on her. If she’s planning something, we’ll be ready."

Beast Boy felt a small sense of relief. The team leader had spoken. He was officially off the hook. He could go back to his life of video games, tofu, and not being the object of a supervillainess’s baffling affections.

That evening, he tried his best to forget the whole incident. He and Cyborg played twelve more rounds of "Mega Monkey Mayhem 4." He lost all of them. He tried to watch a movie, but he couldn’t focus. The image of the giant pink banner kept flashing in his mind. My heart shapeshifts for you. It was so cheesy, so over-the-top, but also… weirdly specific. No one ever referenced his powers like that.

Around eight-fifteen, his curiosity got the better of him. He told the others he was going out for a fly. As a pterodactyl, he soared over the city, his flight path taking him, completely by accident of course, over the Jump City Pier.

Down below, bathed in the garish lights of the Ferris wheel, a single figure stood at the end of the wooden planks. It was Kitten. She was wearing a ridiculously frilly pink dress and was tapping her foot impatiently. She looked… alone. There were no goons hiding behind the cotton candy stand, no giant moth monsters lurking in the water. It was just her.

He watched for a few minutes as she checked her diamond-studded watch, huffed in annoyance, and scanned the crowds. There was no trap. Just a girl in a pink dress waiting for a date who wasn't coming.

For a split second, a tiny, unfamiliar pang of something that felt suspiciously like guilt hit him. He quickly shook it off. This was Kitten Walker. She probably deserved to be stood up. She had tried to blast them with her laser-pointer cat toy just last month.

He turned and flew back toward the Tower, the wind whistling past his leathery wings. The first attempt to woo him had been a spectacular, public failure. He should have been relieved. And he was. Mostly. But as he landed on the roof of the Tower and morphed back into his human form, he couldn’t shake the image of her standing there, alone under the pier lights. It was a weirdly pathetic sight for someone who always seemed so aggressively in control. The whole situation was just getting stranger and stranger.

Chapter Text

Kitten Walker was not accustomed to being stood up. It was an experience so foreign to her that her brain didn't quite know how to process it. She had waited on that pier for a full hour, her initial annoyance simmering into a low boil, and finally exploding into a full-blown, foot-stomping tantrum that sent a family of tourists scurrying for cover.

She’d gone home, slammed her bedroom door hard enough to rattle the entire villainous lair, and spent the night plotting.

Clearly, the grand, romantic gesture had been too subtle. Or maybe too public. Beast Boy was, she reasoned, a simple creature. He was probably shy. A big public display might have scared him off. Like trying to catch a stray cat by setting off fireworks.

Her new approach needed to be more direct. More personal. It needed to appeal to his base instincts. And what was more instinctual than food?

The next afternoon, a special delivery drone, also pink, hovered outside the Titans Tower common room window. It had a small crane arm, which was currently holding a massive, silver-domed platter.

Cyborg was the first to spot it. "Uh, guys? We’ve got another pink problem."

The Titans assembled at the window once more. This was becoming an unnervingly regular occurrence. Beast Boy groaned, already knowing who was responsible.

The drone’s crane arm tapped on the glass. Raven, with a long-suffering sigh, used her powers to phase the enormous platter through the window. It landed on the central table with a heavy thud.

"What is it this time?" Robin asked, his hand already moving toward his utility belt. "A bomb?"

"I don’t know, but whatever it is, it smells…" Cyborg sniffed the air. "…expensive."

Beast Boy approached the platter cautiously. A small, pink, cat-shaped card was tucked under the dome. He plucked it out and read it aloud.

"‘Dearest Beast Boy,’" he began, his voice laced with dread. "‘I know the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I hope you enjoy this little feast I had prepared just for you. With love and anticipa—’"

Before he could finish, Cyborg, whose patience for mystery food was notoriously thin, lifted the dome.

Underneath was a mountain of meat.

It wasn't just any meat. It was a carnivore’s fever dream. There was a whole roasted turkey, glistening and brown. There were racks of barbecue ribs slathered in a dark, smoky sauce. There were piles of sausages, thick-cut steaks with perfect grill marks, and in the very center, a suckling pig with a comically oversized apple stuffed in its mouth. The aroma of roasted flesh, herbs, and smoky fat filled the room.

To anyone else, it would have been a feast. To Beast Boy, it was a horror show.

He stared at the carnivorous bounty, his green face turning a shade paler. His stomach churned. It was like looking at a pile of his friends after a terrible accident.

Starfire gasped, covering her mouth. "Oh, it is a buffet of the slaughtered beasts!"

"Yo, I don’t know who sent this, but they have my eternal gratitude." Cyborg said, his eyes wide with reverence. He reached for a rib, only to have his hand slapped away by Robin.

"Don’t touch it." Robin ordered. "It could be poisoned."

"Poisoned with flavor, maybe." Cyborg grumbled, but he retracted his hand.

Raven looked from the platter to Beast Boy’s horrified face. A tiny, almost imperceptible smirk played on her lips. "Her research seems to be lacking."

Beast Boy felt a wave of nausea. She knew he could turn into these animals. Did she think he’d enjoy eating them? Was this some kind of sick joke? A threat? "Eat your own kind or else?"

He backed away from the table. "I… I think I’m gonna be sick." He turned and ran from the room, his hand clamped over his mouth.

Robin’s expression hardened. He pulled a small scanner from his belt and began analyzing the food. "No obvious poisons. But the intent is clear. This is a psychological attack."

Cyborg looked crestfallen. "So I can’t eat it?"

"No, you can’t eat it!" Robin snapped. "We’re getting rid of all of it."

Up in his room, Beast Boy was splashing cold water on his face. This was worse than the banner. The banner was just cheesy and embarrassing. This was… monstrous. It was so profoundly misguided, so fundamentally wrong on every level, that it looped past offensive and landed squarely in the realm of the truly bizarre.

She couldn’t possibly be this clueless, could she? The whole world knew he was a vegetarian. It was, like, his whole thing. Tofu, grass, weird green smoothies—that was his brand. Sending him a pile of cooked animals was like sending Aquaman a gift certificate to a seafood restaurant.

He paced his messy room, stepping over piles of clothes and video game cases. This wasn’t wooing. This was harassment. Weird, expensive, meat-based harassment. He had to put a stop to it.

He stormed back out to the common room just as Cyborg was mournfully loading the last of the ribs into a disposal chute.

"That’s it!" Beast Boy declared, his fists clenched. "I’m calling her. I’m telling her to stop!"

He grabbed his communicator, found the number she’d used to send the video message, and hit call. It rang once before she picked up. Her face, once again perfectly framed, appeared on the small screen.

"Beastie-boo!" she chirped. "Did you get my little care package? I had it flown in from the best steakhouse in Metropolis. Only the best for my future boyfriend."

"It was a pile of dead animals!" Beast Boy yelled, forgetting his plan to be calm and assertive. "A mountain of corpses! I’m a vegetarian, you psycho!"

Kitten’s perfectly made-up face faltered for a second. A genuine look of confusion crossed her features. "A vege-what?"

"A VEGETARIAN! I don’t eat meat! I turn into those animals! It’s like sending you a purse made out of your cat!"

On the screen, Kitten glanced instinctively at a fluffy white cat who was lounging on a silk pillow behind her. She hugged the cat protectively. "You wouldn’t!"

"No! Because that would be insane! Just like sending me a pig with an apple in its mouth is insane!"

"Oh." Kitten said, the single syllable containing a universe of dawning, horrified realization. "The apple was a bit much, wasn’t it? I told the chef it was tacky, but he insisted it was tradition."

"The whole thing was the problem, Kitten!" Beast Boy shouted, his voice cracking. "All of it! Just… stop! Stop with the banners, and the meat, and the… whatever you’re planning next! I am not interested! Not now, not ever! Leave me alone!"

With a furious jab of his thumb, he ended the call. He stood there, breathing heavily, in the now meat-scent-free common room. His friends were staring at him.

"Well." Raven said, breaking the silence. "That was direct."

"You think she got the message?" Cyborg asked, looking hopefully at the now-empty disposal chute.

Robin shook his head. "I doubt it. Someone like Kitten doesn't respond to direct rejection. She sees it as a challenge."

Beast Boy sank onto the couch, the adrenaline leaving him feeling drained. "I just want to eat my tofu in peace. Is that too much to ask?"

He hoped Robin was wrong. He hoped that his outburst, his raw, unfiltered plea, had finally gotten through her thick, perfectly coiffed head. He hoped this was the end of it.

But deep down, in the part of his brain that had seen her level of stubbornness firsthand, he had a sinking feeling that this was only the beginning. The wooing attempts were just going to get weirder.

Chapter Text

Kitten’s strategic retreat lasted exactly twenty-four hours. Her call with Beast Boy had been… illuminating. Not only had she failed to woo him, she had actively disgusted him. A critical error. Her intel was bad. Vegetarian. The word sounded so drab. So… un-luxurious.

Her first instinct was to give up. The plan was a bust. Beast Boy was clearly an uncultured simpleton with bizarre dietary restrictions. Making Robin jealous with him would be more work than it was worth.

She was just about to trade in her revenge plot for a shopping spree when she saw it: a news report on the Jump City Jumbotron. It was a clip of the Teen Titans fighting Dr. Light. And there was Robin, executing a perfect spinning kick, his face a mask of intense concentration. He looked heroic. He looked handsome. He looked completely and utterly uninterested in her.

The fire of her vengeance was instantly re-stoked.

No. She would not give up. She would double down. The problem wasn’t the target; it was the ammunition. She had tried romance and she had tried catering to his physical needs (disastrously). Now, she had to appeal to his soul. His artistic side.

After a frantic, borderline-threatening phone call with a high-strung avant-garde artist in downtown Jump, Kitten had her new plan. It was bold. It was bizarre. It was, she felt, utterly foolproof.

The next day, the Titans were called to the Jump City Museum of Modern Art. The alert had been vague, something about a public disturbance. They arrived to find the street in front of the museum blocked off, not by police tape, but by velvet ropes. A small crowd had gathered.

"What’s going on?" Robin asked, as they pushed through the onlookers.

In the center of the museum’s stark white plaza, a small stage had been erected. On the stage was a single stool. And sitting on that stool, looking deeply uncomfortable, was Beast Boy’s archnemesis in the world of villainy: Control Freak. He was clutching a remote control, his eyes wide with fear.

Behind him, a large screen flickered to life, showing a close-up of Kitten’s face. She was wearing a black turtleneck and a French beret, perched at a jaunty, artistic angle.

"Greetings, citizens of Jump City!" her voice boomed from hidden speakers. "And a special hello to my one true love, Beast Boy!"

A collective groan went through the Titans.

"Oh, come on!" Beast Boy cried. "I yelled at her! I used the word ‘psycho’!"

"She probably took it as a compliment." Raven deadpanned.

On the screen, Kitten continued. "I have realized my previous attempts to capture your heart were too materialistic, my sweet. I failed to appreciate the depth of your soul. You are not just a hero; you are a performer. An artist whose medium is life itself! So, I have prepared a piece of performance art, just for you. A tribute to your transformative genius."

She gestured dramatically. "I call it… ‘Ode to a Green Boy.’"

On the stage, Control Freak whimpered. Two of Kitten’s goons, dressed inexplicably as French mimes, gave him a shove.

"Hit it, geek!" one of them grunted.

With a trembling finger, Control Freak pressed a button on his remote. The large screen behind him changed. It began to cycle through images of Beast Boy’s various animal forms: a T-Rex, a hummingbird, a skunk, an amoeba.

As the images flashed, a techno beat started pounding from the speakers, and Kitten’s voice returned, this time auto-tuned and layered over the music in a spoken-word poem.

"Oh, verdant boy, a spectrum of the wild." the auto-tuned voice chanted. "From roaring lion to gentle, green-hued child. You are the eagle, soaring in the blue. You are the kitty… meow, meow, meow for you."

Beast Boy’s jaw dropped. The crowd was staring, a mixture of confused and amused. A few people were filming on their phones.

Cyborg was trying, and failing, to suppress a fit of laughter. "Kitty… meow, meow, meow for you? Dude! That’s your new ringtone!"

"Your fur, your feathers, scales of emerald bright." the poem continued, growing more intense. "A shifting legend in the fading light. A monkey’s chatter, a whale’s majestic sound. True love for you is what I’ve truly found."

Beast Boy felt a heat crawl up his neck that had nothing to do with the afternoon sun. This was, without a doubt, the single most humiliating moment of his entire life. She had taken his power, his very identity, and turned it into a terrible, public, auto-tuned poetry slam.

"Make it stop." he whispered, his voice barely audible. "Somebody, please, make it stop."

The grand finale was the worst part. The music swelled, and the screen behind Control Freak exploded in a digital starburst of pink and green hearts. Kitten’s voice reached a fever pitch.

"So take my hand, my funny, grassy man! To be with you is my forever plan! BEAST BOY!"

The music cut out. Silence descended upon the plaza, broken only by Cyborg’s muffled snorts and the distant sound of a car alarm.

Robin, ever the professional, finally stepped forward. "Alright, show’s over. Control Freak, you’re under arrest. Kitten, this is your last warning."

But Kitten was already gone. The screen went blank. The mimes had vanished. All that was left was a deeply traumatized Control Freak, who dropped his remote and put his hands up in surrender.

"Take me away." he mumbled to Robin. "Just don’t make me listen to that again. The poetry was derivative and the use of auto-tune was a crutch for a lack of genuine melodic structure."

As the Titans led Control Freak away, Beast Boy just stood there, frozen in place. He felt like a statue in the plaza, a monument to public humiliation. People were pointing at him, whispering. "Funny, grassy man." The phrase echoed in his head.

Later, back at the Tower, the mood was less than sympathetic.

"I’ve gotta hand it to her." Cyborg said, scrolling through his phone. "It’s already got a thousand views online. Hashtag Grassy Man is trending."

"NO!" Beast Boy wailed, collapsing face-first onto the couch cushions.

"It was a strategically confusing display." Starfire offered, trying to be helpful. "Perhaps she believes public embarrassment is a form of courtship on her world?"

"Her world is a department store, Starfire." Raven said, not looking up from her book. "This was just poor taste."

"I can’t take this anymore." Beast Boy’s muffled voice came from the couch. "She’s ruined meat, poetry, and the entire concept of public art for me. There’s nowhere left to run."

Robin put a hand on his shoulder. It was meant to be comforting, but it felt heavy. "We’ll figure it out. We’ll get a restraining order."

But Beast Boy knew a restraining order wouldn’t stop her. She’d probably just find a way to make the legal document pink and have it delivered by a singing gorilla. She was relentless. A force of nature. A pink, frilly, terrifying hurricane of bad ideas.

He had yelled. He had been disgusted. He had been publicly mortified. Nothing worked. He was out of options. His life was now just a countdown to Kitten’s next bizarre, grand gesture. And he was starting to think there was only one way to make it stop. A way that involved sacrificing his dignity, his sanity, and possibly his lunch money.

Chapter Text

Three failed attempts. Three spectacular, backfiring, humiliating failures. Kitten Walker sat in her silk-and-velvet boudoir, staring at her reflection in a gold-leaf mirror. The French beret from her performance art piece lay discarded on the floor, a sad, felt reminder of her most recent disaster.

She had tried spectacle, sustenance, and soul. All had been rejected. Beast Boy hadn’t been wooed; he’d been horrified. Robin hadn’t been made jealous; he’d looked mildly annoyed, which was his default setting anyway. The only person she’d successfully tormented was herself.

Her phone buzzed with a notification. It was a link from one of her so-called friends. The headline read: "#GrassyMan: Jump City’s Weirdest Viral Video."

She hurled the phone across the room, where it smashed into a ridiculously oversized perfume bottle. This was a new low. She wasn’t just a villain; she was a meme.

"That’s it!" she shrieked to her empty room. "I’m done! I’m finished! He’s not worth it! No boy is worth this much… effort!"

She paced the room like a caged panther, her fury warring with her wounded pride. The original plan had been so simple: date Beast Boy, make Robin jealous. But the first step, "date Beast Boy." was proving to be an insurmountable obstacle. He was immune to her charms. He was impervious to her wealth. He was actively repulsed by her very existence.

It was infuriating. It was insulting. It was… a challenge she couldn't walk away from. She, Kitten Walker, did not fail. She did not lose.

Her pacing stopped. She stared at the shattered remains of her phone. Wealth. He was impervious to her wealth when it was used on him. But what if it was used for him?

A new idea began to form, shedding the flowery, misguided trappings of romance and getting right down to the cold, hard, beautiful core of her worldview: everything and everyone had a price.

Beast Boy was a simple creature. He liked video games, junk food, and… well, that seemed to be about it. Those things cost money. Money she had in obscene quantities.

The plan was crude. It was vulgar. It was deeply transactional and utterly devoid of any genuine sentiment.

It was perfect.

Beast Boy was hiding. For the past two days, he had basically lived in the Tower’s ventilation shafts, emerging only for emergency tofu runs when he was sure no one was looking. He had configured his communicator to automatically block any calls or texts from unknown numbers. He was a fugitive from affection.

"You can’t stay in there forever." Cyborg’s voice echoed through the metal ductwork. "It’s creepy. And you’re shedding all over the air filters."

"It’s the only place I’m safe!" Beast Boy’s voice echoed back. "There’s no room for banners or performance art stages in here!"

"Just come out, man. She hasn’t done anything in two days. Maybe she finally gave up."

Beast Boy considered it. Two whole days of silence. It was a new record. Maybe his public humiliation had been the final straw for her, too. Maybe she’d finally moved on to bother some other poor, unsuspecting hero. With a new sliver of hope, he morphed into a mouse and scurried out of a grate, resuming his human form in the hallway.

He was immediately cornered by Robin.

"There you are." the team leader said, his expression serious. "She wants to meet you."

Beast Boy’s blood ran cold. "No! Nononono. Tell her I’ve joined a monastery. Tell her I’ve moved to a different dimension. Tell her I spontaneously combusted!"

"She says it’s not a date." Robin continued, ignoring his panic. "She said to tell you it’s a… ‘business proposition.’" He held out a small, crisp, pink envelope. "She had it delivered. Legally. By a professional courier this time."

Beast Boy stared at the envelope as if it were a live grenade. A business proposition? What kind of business could he possibly have with Kitten Walker?

With trembling fingers, he took the envelope. Inside was a single, heavy-stock card. It read:

"The top of the Goth-Corp building. Sunset. Come alone. We need to talk terms."

"Terms?" Beast Boy read aloud. "What does that even mean?"

"It means it’s a trap." Robin said.

"Probably." Raven agreed, gliding past them down the hall. "But a slightly more intriguing one."

Against his better judgment, and with the rest of the Titans secretly monitoring him from a distance, Beast Boy went. As a falcon, he circled the Goth-Corp building, a sleek, black skyscraper that stabbed at the bruised evening sky. There she was, a tiny splash of pink on the dark, gothic rooftop. She was alone. Again.

He landed and morphed, keeping a healthy distance. "Okay, Kitten. What is this? If you’ve got another auto-tuned poem, I swear I’m just gonna fly away."

Kitten didn’t smile. She didn’t coo. Her expression was all business. "Don’t worry, Grassy Man. I’m done with the hearts and flowers. My methods were… flawed. I misjudged my audience."

"You think?"

She ignored the sarcasm. "I want you to be my boyfriend."

Beast Boy stared at her. "Did you not hear anything I yelled at you on the phone? Did the public shaming not get through to you? I. AM. NOT. INTERESTED."

"I know." she said calmly. "You’ve made that abundantly clear. You’re not interested in me. But I’m hoping you’ll be interested in… this."

She reached into her designer handbag and pulled out a briefcase. A sleek, silver, very expensive-looking briefcase. She snapped it open and turned it toward him.

It was full of money. Stacks upon stacks of crisp, hundred-dollar bills.

Beast Boy’s tirade died in his throat. He’d never seen that much cash in one place. It was more money than he’d probably earned in his entire life as a Titan (which was, to be fair, zero).

"What… is that?" he stammered.

"Your signing bonus." Kitten said, snapping the briefcase shut. "I want to hire you. To be my boyfriend. For one month."

Beast Boy’s brain felt like it was short-circuiting. "You want to… pay me? To go on dates with you?"

"Exactly." she said, a hint of her usual smirk returning. She was on solid ground now. This was a language she understood. "The terms are simple. You agree to be my official boyfriend. We go on a minimum of two dates per week. You will be seen with me in public. You will hold my hand. You will laugh at my jokes. You will act, for all intents and purposes, like you are completely smitten with me. In exchange, you get the signing bonus." she patted the briefcase, "and a weekly stipend."

She named a number that made Beast Boy’s eyes water. It was enough to buy a new moped every week. It was enough to buy every video game that would be released for the next five years. It was enough to build a personal, life-sized tofu factory in his bedroom.

He was stunned into silence. This was insane. It was unethical. It was… incredibly tempting.

"Why?" he finally managed to ask. "Why would you do this?"

Kitten’s eyes flickered for a moment, a flash of the rooftop fury he’d seen before. "Let’s just say I want to prove a point to a… mutual acquaintance. And you, my dear Beastie, are the perfect tool for the job." Her eyes glanced in the vague direction of downtown, where Titans Tower stood. She didn't have to say Robin's name.

So that was it. This was all about Robin. He was just a pawn. A green, shapeshifting pawn in her bizarre romantic chess game. The thought should have made him angry. And it did, a little. But the anger was being rapidly drowned out by the thought of a brand-new Zorpicon-10 gaming console and a lifetime supply of vegan pepperoni.

"You’d really pay me all that money… just to pretend to like you?" he asked, the absurdity of it all still not quite computing.

"Think of it as an acting job." she said, her voice smooth and persuasive. "You’re a performer, remember? You turn into animals. This is just turning into a doting boyfriend. It’s method acting. You should be good at it."

He looked at the briefcase. He thought about his perpetually broken-down moped. He thought about the new "Mega Monkey Mayhem 5" that was coming out next month, a special edition that cost a fortune. He thought about how tired he was of hiding in vents.

This was his out. It wasn’t a pleasant one, or a noble one, but it was a way to control the chaos. If he took the deal, at least he’d know what was coming. No more surprise poems. No more meat platters. Just a series of awkward, staged dates. He could handle that. For that kind of money, he could handle anything.

He took a deep breath. "One month?"

Kitten’s smile widened. It was a shark’s smile. A predator who had just cornered its prey. "One month."

"And I have to hold your hand?"

"And laugh at my jokes." she reminded him.

He pictured himself laughing on command. He pictured himself holding her hand, which was probably cold and covered in expensive rings. It seemed like a small price to pay for financial freedom.

"Fine." Beast Boy said, the word tasting like defeat and opportunity all at once. "I’ll do it. You’ve got yourself a boyfriend."

Chapter Text

The first official, contractually obligated date was to take place at "Le Fantôme Riche." a restaurant so exclusive that Beast Boy was pretty sure its name meant "The Rich Ghost." because only ghosts could afford to eat there.

Kitten had laid out the ground rules via a series of curt text messages:

1. BE ON TIME. 8 PM SHARP.
2. DRESS CODE IS STRICT. NO SPANDEX. NO BARE FEET. TRY TO FIND A COLLARED SHIRT. I'LL PAY FOR IT.
3. REMEMBER YOUR MOTIVATION: YOU ARE DEEPLY IN LOVE WITH ME. ALSO, YOUR WEEKLY STIPEND.

Beast Boy stood in front of his closet, which was more of a "clothes pile." in despair. A collared shirt? Did he even own one? After a frantic ten-minute search that unearthed a petrified slice of pizza and a single sock he’d lost three years ago, he found it: a wrinkled, slightly-too-small purple polo shirt he’d been forced to wear to a city function once. It would have to do. He paired it with his least-ripped pair of black jeans. He looked less like a doting boyfriend and more like a grocery store employee on his day off.

He met Kitten outside the restaurant. She was wearing a sleek, black dress that probably cost more than his moped (the new, imaginary one he was going to buy). She looked him up and down, her nose wrinkling in disdain.

"That’s the best you could do?" she asked, her voice a low hiss.

"You said collared shirt." he said defensively, tugging at the tight collar. "You didn’t specify that it had to be, you know, good."

"Fine." she sighed, a martyr accepting her fate. "We’ll work on your wardrobe later. For now, just try not to get any food on it. Or on me." She thrust her arm out. "Arm. Take it."

Hesitantly, Beast Boy looped his arm through hers. It felt stiff and unnatural, like he was escorting a mannequin to the prom. Her perfume was overwhelming, a cloud of flowers and chemicals that made his eyes water.

The moment they stepped inside, they were in a different world. It was hushed and dimly lit, with soft music playing from an unseen source. Everyone was dressed in black, and they all had the same bored, vaguely disappointed expression.

"Smile." Kitten whispered fiercely, plastering a brilliant, false smile on her own face. "We’re in love, remember?"

Beast Boy tried to smile. It felt more like a grimace. He felt every eye in the restaurant on them. The green-skinned boy in the wrinkled polo shirt and the pristine blond-haired princess of crime. They were a walking, talking category error.

The maître d', a man so tall and thin he looked like a walking exclamation point, glided over. "Mademoiselle Walker. Your table is ready." He gave Beast Boy a look that could have curdled milk.

As they were led to their table, Kitten squeezed his arm. "See that table over there?" she muttered, nodding toward a corner booth. "That’s Veronica Vreeland’s son. His father owns half of downtown. Wave like you know him."

Beast Boy gave a weak, confused wave. The boy at the table just stared back blankly.

The date, if it could be called that, was a masterclass in awkwardness. Kitten ordered for both of them in flawless French, which resulted in Beast Boy being presented with a plate of something small, green, and artistically smeared.

"What is this?" he whispered, poking at it with a fork that was far too small for his hand.

"It’s a deconstructed pea foam with a hint of mint essence." she said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. "It’s vegan. I checked."

The consideration would have been touching if it hadn’t felt so much like a zookeeper ensuring the animal had the correct dietary pellets. He took a bite. It tasted like disappointment.

For the next hour, Kitten kept up a running commentary on everyone else in the restaurant, delivered in a low, vicious whisper.

"See that woman in the red dress? That’s her third husband. The first two died… mysteriously." 

"That man just ordered the second-cheapest wine on the list. Positively scandalous."

"Her diamond necklace is a fake. You can tell by the way it reflects the light. So tragic."

Beast Boy just nodded along, making noncommittal grunts. He had nothing to contribute. His world was video games, comic books, and the ongoing philosophical debate about whether tofu could ever truly replicate the texture of scrambled eggs. He doubted anyone here would be interested in that.

"Now." Kitten said, snapping him back to attention. "Laugh. Like I just said something incredibly witty."

"But you didn't." he said, confused.

"Doesn’t matter. Just laugh. A little louder than is strictly necessary."

Beast Boy forced a laugh. It came out as a strangled "Ha. Haa." that sounded more like he was choking.

Kitten glared at him. "We need to work on that. You sound like a dying seal."

The lowest point of the evening came with dessert. Kitten had ordered them a "Sphere of Chocolate Passion." which was a large chocolate ball that the waiter set on fire with a tiny blowtorch, causing it to melt and reveal a pile of raspberries inside.

"Isn’t it romantic?" Kitten sighed, loud enough for the tables nearby to hear. She leaned across the table and placed her hand on his. Her skin was cool, and her rings dug into his knuckles. "Oh, Beastie, I’m so happy right now."

This was his cue. He was supposed to look smitten. He tried to channel every sappy romance movie he’d ever been forced to watch. He gazed into her eyes, which were a startling shade of blue, and tried to look adoring.

"Me too, uh… Kitten-kaboodle." he stammered, using the first terrible pet name that popped into his head.

Her eye twitched. A tiny, almost imperceptible muscle spasm. He had gone off-script.

"Just… eat your flaming chocolate." she whispered through clenched teeth.

The ride home was silent. Kitten had her driver, a large man named Gus who looked like he could bench-press the limo, drop Beast Boy off a block away from Titans Tower.

"We can’t have you seen getting out of my car." she explained. "It’s more mysterious this way."

As he got out, she rolled down the window. "Friday." she said. "Miniature golf. My sources tell me it’s a ‘fun’ and ‘casual’ activity. Wear something… casual. But not that casual."

She handed him a thick envelope. "Your first week’s payment. Don’t spend it all in one place."

The window rolled up, and the limo purred off into the night. Beast Boy stood on the street corner, holding the envelope. The first date was over. He had survived. He had been paid.

He opened the envelope and looked at the stack of bills inside. It was a ridiculous amount of money for two hours of work. He should have been ecstatic. He could finally fix his moped. He could buy Cyborg that new V-sync adapter he wanted.

But as he walked back to the Tower, all he felt was a strange, hollow emptiness. He felt… cheap. He had sold his time, his laughter, his feigned affection. He looked back in the direction the limo had gone. This whole thing was just a transaction. A cold, weird, business deal. And for some reason, that felt a lot londer than just being stood up on a pier.

Chapter Text

The news of their "relationship" spread through the Tower like a virus. Cyborg had seen them through the Tower’s long-range surveillance (he claimed it was for "security purposes." but everyone knew he was just being nosy). He had a grainy photo of Beast Boy holding Kitten’s arm outside the restaurant.

"I can’t believe it." Cyborg said, displaying the photo for the whole team to see. "You actually went through with it. You look so… uncomfortable."

"It’s a work in progress." Beast Boy mumbled, stuffing a handful of vegan cereal into his mouth. He hadn't told them about the money. He couldn't. It felt too sleazy. He let them believe he’d simply had a change of heart, a decision so baffling that no one even knew how to question it.

"Is she forcing you to do this?" Starfire asked, her brow furrowed with concern. "You can tell us. Is it a form of the black-mail?"

"Nope." Beast Boy said, chewing quickly. "All me. Just, you know, giving her a chance."

Raven watched him from across the room, her dark eyes narrowed. She didn’t say anything, but her silence was more unnerving than anyone else’s questions. She knew something was off.

The real test, however, came that afternoon. Beast Boy was lounging on the couch, trying to beat his high score in "Stench of the Zombie Sewer Rats." when the Tower’s main alarm blared.

"Trouble!" Robin yelled, sliding down the pole from the gym. "It’s Plasmus. He’s attacking the chemical plant."

The Titans sprang into action. Within minutes, they were at the scene. Plasmus, a giant, bubbling creature of purple goo, was tearing apart the facility, tossing vats of chemicals around like beach balls.

"Titans, go!" Robin commanded.

The fight was messy and chaotic. Cyborg blasted the creature with his sonic cannon, Starfire hurled starbolts, and Raven used her magic to create shields, blocking flying debris. Beast Boy morphed into a T-Rex, preparing to charge, when a familiar, high-pitched voice cut through the mayhem.

"Oh, Beastie-boo! Be careful!"

Beast Boy froze mid-roar. Standing on a nearby rooftop, a safe distance from the goo-splattered battle, was Kitten. She was holding a pair of pink, diamond-encrusted opera glasses to her eyes. With her was a man holding a professional-grade news camera.

"What is she doing here?" Robin grunted, deflecting a glob of purple sludge with his staff.

Kitten waved enthusiastically at Beast Boy. "My hero!" she shouted, her voice amplified by a small, pink megaphone. "Show that nasty slime monster who’s boss!"

Beast Boy’s T-Rex form deflated back into his human shape. He was mortified. She was turning a supervillain fight into a photo-op. This had to be part of the deal, something buried in the fine print he hadn’t bothered to read. He was not just her boyfriend; he was her performing monkey.

"Uh, guys?" he said into his communicator. "Little bit of a distraction over here."

"Just ignore her and fight!" Robin ordered, his voice tight with irritation. He had clearly noticed her, and the camera.

But ignoring Kitten was like trying to ignore a flash grenade.

"Kick him in the gooey butt, my love!" she shrieked through the megaphone. "For me!"

Plasmus, distracted by the noise, turned its single, malevolent eye toward her. It let out a gurgling roar and hurled a massive chunk of a chemical tank in her direction.

"Kitten!" Robin yelled.

Instinct took over. Before he even thought about it, Beast Boy morphed into a pterodactyl, shot into the air, and intercepted the chunk of metal, knocking it harmlessly into the bay. He landed on the rooftop next to her, morphing back to his human form.

"Are you crazy?" he hissed. "You can’t just show up to our fights! It’s dangerous!"

Kitten lowered her opera glasses, a triumphant smirk on her face. The cameraman was getting it all on film. "But you saved me." she purred, loud enough for the camera’s microphone. She threw her arms around his neck. "My brave, green knight."

She pulled him into a kiss.

It was not a gentle, romantic kiss. It was a press release. Her lips were firm and tasted of cherry lip gloss. It was awkward and stiff, and he was acutely aware of the camera capturing every second of it. He was also aware of five sets of eyes watching him from the battleground below. He could feel Robin’s glare burning a hole in the back of his head.

Kitten pulled away, her eyes glittering. "Perfect." she whispered, for his ears only. Then, back to her public voice, "Now go finish the fight, my darling! I’ll be waiting!"

Dazed and confused, Beast Boy flew back into the fray. The kiss had felt like… nothing. A weird, plasticky collision of faces. But the implications of it were enormous. It was public. It was on camera. It was aimed directly at Robin.

The Titans eventually subdued Plasmus, encasing him in a cryogenic prison. As they were cleaning up, Robin stalked over to Beast Boy.

"What was that?" he demanded, his voice low and angry.

"What was what?" Beast Boy asked, trying to play dumb.

"That. The… rooftop performance. You know she’s just using you, right? This is all a game to get to me."

"Maybe." Beast Boy said, shrugging with a casualness he didn’t feel. "Or maybe she just really likes me. You ever think of that?"

The lie tasted sour in his mouth. He was defending her, defending the ridiculous charade. And for what? A paycheck? He glanced at Robin, whose face was a thunderous mask of frustration. For the first time, he saw a flicker of something in the Boy Wonder’s expression. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't longing. It was pure, unadulterated jealousy.

It was working. Kitten’s insane, manipulative, expensive plan was actually working.

Robin just shook his head and walked away. From across the chemical plant, Beast Boy saw Raven watching them both, her expression unreadable. She held his gaze for a moment before turning and disappearing into the shadows.

He had won. Or rather, Kitten had won. He had played his part, saved the "damsel." and performed the kiss for the camera. He had successfully made Robin jealous.

So why did he feel like he had just lost something important?

Chapter Text

The miniature golf date was, against all odds, slightly less excruciating than the fancy dinner. The dress code was "golf chic." which for Kitten meant a crisp white tennis skirt and a pink polo shirt with a tiny, glittery "K" embroidered on it. For Beast Boy, it meant his cleanest band t-shirt and the same jeans. Kitten had despaired at his wardrobe but seemed to resigned to it, muttering something about a "project for later."

The course was called "Pirate's Peril." a tacky wonderland of plastic palm trees, creaky animatronic pirates, and water hazards dyed an unsettling shade of blue.

"This is where common people have ‘fun’?" Kitten asked, wrinkling her nose as she selected a pink golf ball and a matching pink putter.

"Hey, I like this place." Beast Boy said defensively. "It’s classic. See? You have to hit the ball through the windmill."

"How… rustic." she said, completely missing the point.

For the first few holes, they maintained their usual dynamic. Beast Boy would hit his ball, Kitten would critique his form ("You’re holding it like a caveman holding a club"), and then she would take her turn, executing a perfect, clean shot that sent the ball directly into the hole. She was, infuriatingly, a natural.

"Of course you’re good at this." he grumbled as she sank a hole-in-one on the challenging "Kraken’s Revenge" hole.

"Good posture and a singular focus on the objective." she said smugly. "It applies to everything in life, Beastie. You should try it sometime."

The purpose of the date, as always, was public visibility. Kitten had "casually" tipped off a gossip blogger, who was now hiding not-so-subtly behind a large plastic treasure chest, snapping photos. Every few minutes, Kitten would command Beast Boy to "look happy" or "put your arm around me, but not like I’m your hostage."

It was on the thirteenth hole, "Dead Man’s Plank." that something shifted. It was a tricky shot, requiring the ball to roll up a narrow ramp, cross a plank, and drop down near the hole. Beast Boy’s shot went wide, plopping into the bright blue water with a sad little splash.

"Ugh, of course." he groaned.

"Allow me to demonstrate." Kitten said, stepping up to the tee. She lined up her shot, her brow furrowed in concentration. She swung the putter with a smooth, practiced motion.

The ball rolled up the ramp, teetered on the edge of the plank, and then… fell off, landing in the water right next to his.

There was a moment of shocked silence. The great Kitten Walker had failed.

Beast Boy tried to stifle a laugh, but it burst out of him, a genuine, unforced snort of amusement. "You missed!"

Kitten’s face flushed a deep, angry pink. "The wind! There was a gust of wind!"

"There’s no wind in here, it’s an indoor course!" he shot back, grinning. "You just choked!"

"I did not choke!" she snapped, her voice rising. "It was a faulty plank! This entire establishment is a lawsuit waiting to happen!"

Her reaction was so over-the-top, so disproportionately furious over a game of mini-golf, that Beast Boy found it even funnier. He started laughing for real, not the stilted, paid-for laugh he’d been practicing, but a deep, rolling belly laugh.

"You should see your face!" he wheezed, clutching his stomach. "It’s just a game!"

Kitten stared at him, her mouth agape, ready to unleash a torrent of insults. But then she stopped. She looked at him, really looked at him, laughing his head off, and something in her expression changed. The hard, lacquered fury seemed to crack, just for a second. A small, involuntary smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"It’s not funny." she said, but there was no heat in it.

"It’s a little funny." he said, wiping a tear from his eye. "Your ball went ‘plop.’" He made a little splashing motion with his hand.

She rolled her eyes, but the smile lingered. "You’re an infant."

"A rich infant now, thanks to you." he retorted, and immediately regretted it. The easy, lighthearted moment vanished. The transaction was back, sitting between them like a brick wall.

Kitten’s smile faded. She looked away, toward the fake treasure chest where the blogger was still snapping photos. "Right." she said, her voice cool again. "Well. The photographer has enough shots. Let’s go."

She dropped the pink putter with a clatter and stalked toward the exit without looking back.

Beast Boy stood there for a moment, the echo of his own laughter feeling strange in the sudden silence. For a brief, shining second, it hadn't been a business deal. It had just been two people playing a stupid game. A boy and a girl. And the girl, for all her sharp edges and bratty demands, had smiled. A real smile.

He followed her out, the mood once again stilted and awkward. But something had changed. He had seen a tiny crack in her perfectly polished, impenetrable armor. He had seen the person underneath the performance. And weirdly, he found himself wanting to see her again. Not for the money, and not for the act. But just to see if he could make her smile that real smile one more time. It was a confusing, unsettling, and profoundly inconvenient thought.

Chapter Text

The call came a week later, an alert from a local bank. It wasn't a major villain. It was the Puppet King a C-list baddie with a flair for the dramatic and an army of creepy, life-sized puppets. It was usually an easy, if weird, cleanup for the Titans.

They arrived to find the bank’s lobby in chaos. Wooden puppets dressed as old-timey gangsters were menacing tellers, their movements jerky and unnatural. The Puppet King, stood on a counter, conducting his wooden army like a symphony orchestra.

"Your money is now the property of the Puppet People!" he cackled.

"Seriously, this guy again?" Cyborg sighed, charging his cannon. "Can’t we just automate this fight?"

The battle was more annoying than dangerous. The puppets were surprisingly sturdy, and for every one they smashed, two more would swing down from the ceiling. Beast Boy, in gorilla form, was swatting them away like flies, when he heard a familiar, unwelcome sound: the click-clack of expensive boots on marble.

"Do you need a hand, darling?"

Kitten stood in the doorway of the bank, flanked by two burly bodyguards. She was holding a large, complicated-looking blaster rifle that was, of course, painted hot pink.

"Kitten, what are you doing here?" Beast Boy grunted, ripping the arm off a puppet that was trying to hit him with a tiny violin case. "This is a crime scene!"

"And I’m a concerned citizen!" she declared, striking a pose. "Also, I was getting a facial nearby and heard the commotion. I couldn’t let my boyfriend fight all alone."

Before anyone could stop her, she leveled the pink rifle and fired. A beam of shimmering pink energy shot out, hitting a puppet square in the chest. The puppet didn’t explode or fall apart. Instead, it was instantly encased in a thick, glittering layer of what looked like hard candy.

"It’s a crystallized sugar-polymer compound." Kitten explained smugly. "Daddy had it developed for a rival candy maker he was trying to put out of business. It’s non-lethal, but incredibly sticky."

She fired again, zapping another puppet, turning it into a giant, immobile lollipop.

The other Titans stared, dumbfounded.

"Did… did she just candy-coat that guy?" Cyborg asked.

Robin, who was busy tying up the Puppet King, shot Kitten a look of pure exasperation. "This is an active combat zone! Civilians are not permitted!"

"Oh, relax, bird-brain." Kitten scoffed, zapping a third puppet that was trying to sneak up on Starfire. "I’m helping."

To everyone’s astonishment, she actually was. Her aim was good, and her weapon was bizarrely effective. While the Titans were focused on smashing and blasting, she was systematically disabling the puppet army, turning the bank lobby into a surreal sculpture garden of candied criminals.

Beast Boy found himself fighting back-to-back with her. He’d morph into a rhino, charge through a group of puppets, and she’d zap the ones he missed.

"On your left!" he’d yell.

ZAP!

"Behind you!" she’d shout back.

 He’d morph into a bear and swipe a puppet away.

They moved together with an unexpected, chaotic grace. His raw, instinctual transformations and her precise, high-tech blasts complemented each other in a way that made no sense but was undeniably working. In the middle of the fight, he caught her eye. She was grinning, a genuine, exhilarated grin, a world away from her usual practiced smirks. The adrenaline of the fight was a good look on her.

Within minutes, the last puppet was candy-coated and the Puppet King was dangling upside down from a net courtesy of Robin. The fight was over.

The bank lobby was a bizarre tableau of splintered wood and glittering pink statues.

Cyborg poked one of the candied puppets. "Huh. Smells like bubblegum."

Kitten stood in the middle of it all, blowing a wisp of smoke from the barrel of her rifle. "You’re welcome." she said to the room at large.

Beast Boy walked over to her, a wide, incredulous grin on his face. "Where did you even get that thing?"

"Oh, Daddy has a whole warehouse of these kinds of toys." she said with a casual shrug. "Most of them are much more lethal. This is the ‘warning shot’ model."

"That was… actually pretty cool." he admitted.

Her grin widened. "I know."

Their moment was interrupted by Robin, who looked like he had a massive headache. "Kitten, you can’t keep doing this."

"Doing what?" she asked innocently. "Helping my boyfriend? Supporting the local law enforcement? Is there a law against being a heroically proactive girlfriend?"

"You’re a civilian. And a person of interest in several ongoing investigations." he said, ticking the points off on his fingers. "You are not a Titan."

"Oh, I don’t want to be a Titan." she said, looking at the team’s mismatched, battle-worn uniforms with disdain. "Your outfits are atrocious. But if my Beastie-boo is in trouble, I’m going to be there." She looped her arm through Beast Boy’s, leaning her head on his shoulder. "We’re a package deal now. Isn’t that right, sweetie?"

Beast Boy looked at Robin’s frustrated face, then at Kitten’s triumphant one. He should have backed Robin up. He should have told her to stay out of it. But he remembered the thrill of fighting alongside her, the way she’d grinned at him.

"She’s right." he heard himself say. "We’re… a team."

The look Robin gave him was one of profound disappointment. He just shook his head and turned to direct the police who were now arriving on the scene.

Kitten squeezed Beast Boy’s arm. "Good boy." she whispered.

He had defended her again. He had publicly sided with her against his own team leader. This time, it wasn't just a lie to cover up the money. It felt different. He had enjoyed fighting with her. They were good together. The thought was both thrilling and terrifying. He was starting to believe his own performance.

Chapter Text

The common room of Titans Tower buzzed with a tense, uncomfortable energy that had nothing to do with Cyborg’s attempts to overclock the toaster again. The lingering scent of bubblegum and ozone from Kitten’s bizarre weapon had finally dissipated, but the memory of her intervention hung in the air, thick and cloying as her perfume. Splintered puppet parts had been swept away, the police had carted off the Puppet King, and all that remained was the quiet, simmering discord among the team.

Robin stood with his arms crossed, his back to the room, staring out the massive T-shaped window at the city below. His posture was as rigid as the steel beams of the Tower itself. He was radiating disapproval so intensely it was practically a sixth Titan.

Across the room, Cyborg was replaying a clip of the fight from his optical sensor, a huge, amused grin plastered on his face. "I’m telling you, I have never seen anything like it. Zap! A giant, sticky puppet-pop. It’s genius! It’s insane! It’s… insanius?"

"I do not believe ‘insanius’ is a real word, friend Cyborg." Starfire said, floating a few inches off the ground. She wrung her hands, her expression a mixture of bewilderment and concern. "But I am in agreement with the sentiment. The actions of Kitten were… unorthodox. Yet, she did assist in the subduing of the villain. Is that not a positive outcome?"

"Positive outcome, maybe. Positive precedent? No way." Robin finally bit out, turning from the window. His gaze, hidden behind the white lenses of his mask, was fixed squarely on Beast Boy, who was trying to become one with the couch cushions. "We can’t have civilians—especially her—interfering in active missions. It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it undermines everything we do."

Beast Boy squirmed. He felt like a bug under a microscope. "Dude, I didn’t ask her to show up. She just… did."

"She just ‘did’?" Robin’s voice was sharp. "And you just happened to fight perfectly in sync with her? You formed a ‘team’?" He practically spat the word out, making air quotes with his gloved fingers.

"Well, yeah, she was… surprisingly not terrible to have on my six." Beast Boy admitted, sinking lower into the sofa. "Her zappy thing was zapping the guys I wasn’t punching. It’s called tactical synergy, look it up." He had no idea if that was a real term, but it sounded impressive.

Cyborg snorted, muting his replay. "Tactical synergy? Man, you sound like you’ve been reading her instruction manuals. What’s next, you gonna start calling your fists ‘non-lethal percussive deterrents’?" He let out a booming laugh.

"The weapon was most effective." Raven’s voice cut through the room, dry and cool as a tombstone. She hadn’t moved from her spot in the corner, a thick book resting in her lap, but her attention was clearly not on the page. "Her methods were chaotic, her presence was inflammatory, and her motives are, as always, deeply suspect. But the result was a faster-than-average conflict resolution with minimal property damage. From a purely logical standpoint, her intervention was a net positive."

Robin turned his glare on Raven, but it had no effect. She met his gaze with a placid, unnerving calm. It was one thing for Cyborg to be amused or for Starfire to be confused, but for Raven, the team’s resident cynic, to offer even a sliver of logical defense for Kitten was like a vampire endorsing a garlic festival. It was deeply unsettling.

"This isn’t about logic, Raven, it’s about control." Robin insisted. "And about who we can trust. We can’t trust her. She’s using him." His head jerked toward Beast Boy again. "This whole… thing… is a game to her. And you’re letting her play you."

The accusation stung. Because it was true. Or, it had been true. Now, Beast Boy wasn’t so sure. He remembered the genuine, exhilarated grin on Kitten’s face in the middle of the bank lobby. That wasn’t the smirk of a manipulator pulling the strings. That was the face of someone having… fun. With him. The thought sent a jolt of something warm and confusing through his chest. He pushed it down.

"Maybe you’re wrong." Beast Boy said, sitting up, a new defensiveness in his tone. "Maybe you’re just mad because she’s not chasing you anymore. Maybe she actually likes me." He said the words, the official alibi for this whole mess, but they felt different this time. Less like a lie and more like a question he was asking himself.

The air in the room went still. It was the first time anyone had so bluntly vocalized the subtext of Robin’s anger.

Robin’s jaw tightened. For a moment, he looked like he was going to say something furious, something cutting. But he didn’t. He just held Beast Boy’s gaze, a complex storm of emotions swirling behind his mask—frustration, betrayal, and something that looked suspiciously like hurt.

"Fine." he said, his voice dropping to a low, cold monotone. "If that’s what you want to believe, fine. But when she shows her true colors, don’t come crying to me." He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, the hydraulic swoosh of the door sounding like a final verdict.

The remaining Titans sat in the awkward silence he left behind.

"Well." Cyborg said, clearing his throat. "That went well."

"I am worried." Starfire murmured, floating over to Beast Boy. "Robin’s anger is… formidable. And your involvement with Kitten seems to be its source. Are you truly certain of your course, friend Beast Boy?"

Beast Boy looked at her big, earnest green eyes, and for a second, he wanted to tell her everything. About the money, the contract, the sheer weirdness of it all. But he couldn’t. It was too humiliating. And somewhere, deep down, a stubborn part of him didn’t want to break the spell. He wanted to see where this led.

"I’m sure, Star." he said, trying for a confident smile. "It’s weird, I know. But… I think it’s gonna be okay."

Starfire still looked worried, but she nodded slowly and floated away. Cyborg gave him a look that was half-pity, half-morbid curiosity, before going back to his toaster project. Only Raven remained, her gaze fixed on him, analytical and piercing, as if she were reading the source code of his soul. He quickly looked away, unable to meet her stare.

Meanwhile, miles away in a ridiculously opulent penthouse apartment, Kitten Walker was also replaying the day’s events. She wasn’t using a high-tech optical sensor, but the state-of-the-art, wall-sized television that currently dominated her living room. The news report was on a loop.

"...an unusual end to the Puppet King’s latest caper." the news anchor was saying, "as the Teen Titans received unexpected, and surprisingly fashionable, assistance from villainess socialite Kitten Walker…"

The screen showed a high-quality shot of her, standing back-to-back with Beast Boy as he morphed into a gorilla. A freeze-frame captured the moment they exchanged that grin.

A strange flutter went through Kitten’s chest. It was the same feeling she’d had in the bank—a dizzying, exhilarating rush. She’d always gotten a thrill from her villainous escapades, the thrill of getting attention, of causing chaos. But this was different. This wasn’t the satisfaction of a plan going perfectly. Her plan hadn’t even involved going to the bank. It was an impulse, a spur-of-the-moment decision born of boredom and a desire to see her new… employee.

The thrill hadn’t come from the cameras, or the cowering bank tellers, or even from seeing the exasperated look on Robin’s face (though that was, as always, a delightful bonus). The thrill had come from the chaotic dance with Beast Boy. From the way he’d yelled "On your left!" and trusted her to cover him. The way he’d grinned at her, not with awe or fear, but like she was his partner. His equal.

Ugh. Stop it, she told herself, tossing a silk pillow at the screen. She stood up and began to pace the plush carpet, her mind racing.

This feeling was a complication. A messy, inconvenient, emotional variable in what was supposed to be a clean, simple equation. Boyfriend (fake) + Public Affection (staged) = Robin’s Jealousy (achieved). The math was supposed to work. But now there was this other element, this… synergy, as Beast Boy had so clumsily put it. This weird sense of camaraderie.

She paused in front of a mirror, examining her reflection. Her hair was perfect. Her makeup was flawless. Her expression was one of cool, calculated control. But her heart was still beating a little too fast.

"It was the adrenaline." she said aloud, her voice sounding small in the vast room. "That’s all it was. The thrill of the fight."

But she’d been in fights before. She’d ordered her goons into battle. She’d watched Killer Moth’s giant insects rampage through the city. It had never felt like this. It had never felt… fun.

She thought of Beast Boy’s stupid, goofy grin. The way he’d looked at her with genuine admiration when she’d candy-coated that last puppet. It was a look she’d been trying to get from Robin for years—a look of respect, of seeing her as more than just a spoiled brat. And here was this green, tofu-eating jester, giving it to her for free. Well, not for free. She was paying him a small fortune. But the look itself felt real.

The thought was terrifying.

She snatched her phone from a marble tabletop. She had to get this back on track. The goal was Robin. It had always been Robin. This whole Beast Boy experiment was a means to an end. She just needed to remind herself of that. And, more importantly, she needed to remind Robin of that.

Her fingers flew across the screen, pulling up Robin’s contact photo—a grainy, long-lens shot of him on a rooftop, looking broody and heroic. Her heart was supposed to flutter. It didn’t. Annoyed, she scrolled to the news clip on her phone and zoomed in on the picture of her and Beast Boy. Her heart did a stupid little flip-flop.

With a growl of frustration, she threw her phone onto the couch. This was fine. Everything was fine. She was in complete control. She just needed a new plan. A better plan. One that would put the focus squarely back on Robin and erase this… this gooey, green-tinged feeling that was currently messing up her entire worldview.

Chapter Text

The quiet of the Tower late at night was a unique entity. It was never truly silent; there was always the low hum of the servers in the basement, the gentle sigh of the ventilation system, the distant, rhythmic crash of waves against the island’s shore. To Beast Boy, it usually sounded like peace. Tonight, it sounded like judgment.

He couldn’t sleep. Robin’s words, "don’t come crying to me." echoed in his head, along with the memory of Kitten’s exhilarated grin and the confusing warmth it had sparked in his chest. He padded out of his messy room and into the common area, his bare feet silent on the cold metal floor. He was aiming for the refrigerator, hoping a midnight snack of leftover tofu chili might distract his spiraling thoughts.

As he opened the fridge door, bathing the dark room in a pale, clinical light, a voice emerged from the shadows.

"You’re troubled."

Beast Boy yelped, nearly dropping the container of chili. He spun around to see Raven, levitating in her usual cross-legged position near the couch, a faint purple aura barely outlining her form in the darkness. She looked less like a person and more like a manifestation of the gloomy night itself.

"Dude!" he whisper-yelled, clutching his chest. "Warning! You gotta give a warning! You almost made me waste perfectly good chili."

"My apologies." she said, her tone devoid of any actual apology. "Your emotional state is unusually loud. It’s interfering with my meditation."

Beast Boy sighed, abandoning his chili quest and slumping onto the couch opposite her. "Sorry. Lot on my mind."

"Kitten." Raven stated. It wasn’t a question.

He just nodded, running a hand through his messy green hair. "And Robin. And… I dunno, everything."

They sat in silence for a long moment, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator. Beast Boy expected a lecture, or a sarcastic quip, or just for her to disappear back into the shadows. Instead, she spoke again, her voice softer than usual, laced with something he couldn't quite identify.

"I remember after… after Terra." she began, and the name dropped into the quiet room with the weight of a stone. Beast Boy flinched. They didn’t talk about Terra. It was an unspoken rule, a wound they had all tacitly agreed to leave undisturbed. "I remember the silence that followed you. It was heavier than any noise. A void. You tried to fill it with jokes and video games, but the quiet was always there, underneath."

Beast Boy stared at his hands. He remembered that quiet. The feeling of being hollowed out, of his own laughter sounding fake and distant. He had loved Terra, with all the goofy, wholehearted sincerity he had. And her betrayal, followed by her sacrifice, had shattered him in a way he’d never admitted to anyone, not even himself.

"I don’t know what you’re doing with Kitten." Raven continued, her voice drawing him back to the present. "I don’t pretend to understand the logic. It seems, on the surface, to be a uniquely poor decision."

"Thanks, Rae, that helps a lot." he mumbled sarcastically.

"But." she went on, ignoring him, "the silence is gone. It’s been replaced by chaos, confusion, and what sounds like a constant, low-grade panic attack." She paused. "It’s an improvement."

Beast Boy looked up, surprised. He saw her face clearly now in the dim light. Her expression wasn’t mocking or judgmental. It was… empathetic. Her dark, purple eyes held a deep, ancient understanding that went far beyond her years.

"I’m not jealous, Beast Boy." she said, as if reading the flicker of insecurity that crossed his mind. "My concern for you is not born of a romantic rivalry. You and I… we are connected by our shared darkness. I know what it is to fight the monster within. And I know what it is to feel alone."

The honesty of her words disarmed him completely. He let out a long, shaky breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

"After Terra… I just… I didn’t want to feel like that again, you know?" he admitted, the words spilling out before he could stop them. "It was easier to just… not. Not feel. Not get close. Just be the funny guy, the mascot. No one gets hurt if no one gets invested."

"A logical defense mechanism." Raven nodded. "But an unsustainable one. Isolation is a slow poison."

"So I’m trading it for a fast poison?" he asked with a weak, humorless laugh. "Kitten is… she’s the opposite of isolation. She’s like, an invasion. A loud, pink, expensive invasion."

"And how does this invasion make you feel?" Raven asked, her voice a calm, steady probe.

He thought for a moment, really thought about it. He thought about the transactional coldness of their first date, the secondhand embarrassment of the performance art, the weird thrill of the mini-golf failure, and the electric energy of fighting beside her.

"Confused." he said honestly. "At first, it was just… a job. A stupid, crazy way to make some cash and get her to stop the insane public gestures. I was just playing a part. The smitten boyfriend."

"And now?"

"Now… I don’t know. The lines are getting blurry, Rae. Sometimes, when she’s not being a total rich-girl psycho, there’s this… other person under there. I saw her smile for real. And when we were fighting together… it felt… right. Which is crazy. And then I feel guilty, because I’m lying to everyone. And I’m making Robin mad. And I’m pretty sure I’m being used in some mega-weird 4D chess game for his attention. But then she does something like candy-coat a puppet army and I just think… ‘Wow, that was cool.’"

He buried his face in his hands. "I’m a mess."

"You are." Raven agreed, with a frankness that was somehow comforting. "But you are not a void. You’re feeling things again. Complicated, contradictory, messy things. That is the nature of being alive. It’s better than being numb."

She floated a little closer, her purple cloak settling around her like smoke. "I don’t trust Kitten. Her aura is a discordant symphony of arrogance, insecurity, and designer perfume. I believe she is manipulative and selfish. But…" she hesitated, choosing her words carefully, "I also believe that people can change. That they can be more than they appear. I have seen it."

He knew she was talking about herself. About the daughter of a demon lord who chose to be a hero.

"All I want is for you to be happy, Beast Boy." she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Truly happy. You deserve that. After everything. Just… be careful. Be honest with yourself, even if you can’t be honest with anyone else. Your heart is not a rental property. Don’t let someone occupy it if they have no intention of valuing it."

She reached out a pale, slender hand and rested it on his shoulder for a brief second. Her touch was cool, but it sent a wave of warmth and clarity through him. It was the simple, profound gesture of a friend. A real friend.

"Thanks, Rae." he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Really."

She simply nodded, her hand retreating into the folds of her cloak. "The chili is probably cold now." she stated, her voice returning to its usual deadpan. "I would advise against consumption. It congeals."

With that, she phased backward, melting into the shadows of the hallway and disappearing toward her room, leaving Beast Boy alone again in the dimly lit common room.

He didn’t feel alone anymore.

The conversation had been like a splash of cold water. Raven hadn’t given him answers, but she had given him perspective. She had seen through his flimsy excuses and right into the heart of his confusion, and she hadn’t judged him for it. She had reminded him of a part of himself he had tried to lock away.

Your heart is not a rental property.

The words echoed in his mind. For weeks, that’s exactly what it had been. He’d rented it out to Kitten for a briefcase full of cash and a weekly stipend. He’d let her stage her little performances there, redecorate with her manipulative schemes. But Raven was right. The lines were blurring because he was starting to feel like a resident, not just a landlord. He was starting to care about the crazy, chaotic, infuriating tenant.

He looked at the container of chili still sitting on the counter. He wasn't hungry anymore. He had a lot more to digest than tofu. He had to figure out what was real, what was fake, and what he actually wanted this… thing… with Kitten to be. And for the first time, he felt like he had the courage to face the answer, whatever it might be.

Chapter Text

Kitten was spiraling. The feeling of genuine camaraderie she’d experienced with Beast Boy during the puppet fight had been like a virus in her perfectly curated system. It was messy, unpredictable, and worst of all, it felt good. This was a critical deviation from the Master Plan. The entire Beast Boy Affair was a tool, a crowbar designed to pry open Robin’s tightly sealed heart and expose the gooey center of jealousy she was sure resided within. The crowbar was not supposed to feel warm and comfortable in her hand.

"This requires a course correction." she declared to her reflection in a full-length mirror made of Venetian glass. She was dressed in a silk robe, holding a diamond-encrusted hairbrush like a scepter. "We have drifted off-mission. The objective has been compromised by… unforeseen emotional variables."

She needed to prove it to everyone, but most importantly to herself, that Beast Boy meant nothing. He was a prop. A fuzzy green pawn. The best way to do that? Remind Robin that he was, and always had been, the king on the board.

Her new plan was exquisitely, deliciously dramatic. It was petty, it was public, and it was designed for an audience of one.

The next afternoon, Beast Boy’s communicator buzzed with a text from an unregistered number. He’d blocked Kitten’s known numbers after her last 50-message tirade about his fashion sense, but she was as persistent as she was wealthy.

OUTSIDE. NOW. WE NEED TO TALK.

Beast Boy sighed. He’d been feeling surprisingly good after his conversation with Raven, more centered and clear-headed. He had decided he needed to talk to Kitten, to try and navigate the tangled mess of their "relationship" honestly. Apparently, she’d had the same idea. Maybe this was a good thing.

He told the others he was going out for some air and headed down. He found Kitten standing on the shore of the island, a stone’s throw from the Tower’s entrance. She was wearing a dramatic black trench coat, sunglasses despite the overcast sky, and an expression of grim resolve. The wind whipped her blond hair around her face, making her look like the star of a tragic European film.

"Kitten?" he asked, approaching cautiously. "What’s up? You look like you’re about to break up with James Bond."

"Worse." she said, her voice tight and theatrical. "I’m breaking up with you, Beast Boy."

Beast Boy blinked. "What? Why? Did I miss a payment?" he joked weakly.

"This isn’t a joke!" she snapped, though her eyes flickered nervously toward the Tower’s main window, where she knew the Titans often gathered. "This isn’t working. I can’t do this anymore."

"Do what?" he asked, genuinely confused. The abruptness of it felt… fake. Even for her. "I thought things were going… okay? We were a pretty good team yesterday."

"That’s just it!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in a gesture of magnificent frustration. "Team! Fun! Mini-golf! This is not what I’m about, Beast Boy! I am about ambition! Passion! Grand, sweeping gestures of villainous intent! You… you’re about tofu and video games."

Ouch. That stung, even if it was mostly true. "Hey! I have ambitions! I’m gonna get the high score on Mega Monkey Mayhem 5 when it comes out!"

"You see!" she cried, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "That’s what I’m talking about! Your world is so… small. So green. I need more. I need… darkness. Brooding. A strategically mysterious backstory!"

Beast Boy’s brain finally caught up. Brooding. Mysterious backstory. She wasn’t talking to him. She was performing. And he knew exactly who her target audience was. He glanced up at the Tower window. He couldn’t see anyone, but he felt their eyes on him. On them. This was another one of her games. A play, staged for Robin’s benefit.

A wave of disappointment, sharp and cold, washed over him. After his talk with Raven, he had felt a glimmer of hope that something real could grow between them. But this… this proved he was still just a pawn. A prop to be used and discarded as the script demanded. The hurt was surprisingly real. He had been paid to act like her boyfriend, but she had never paid him to be the subject of a fake, public dumping.

Fine. If she wanted a performance, he’d give her one. He’d just been paid to be a doting boyfriend. Apparently, the role of the heartbroken dumpee was pro bono.

He let his shoulders slump. He dredged up the memory of how he’d felt when Terra had left, that hollow, aching emptiness, and let a fraction of it show on his face. He looked down at the ground, kicking at a loose stone.

"So that’s it?" he asked, his voice cracking just a little. He was a good actor. He’d had years of practice, acting like he was okay when he wasn’t. "You’re… you’re just throwing us away?"

Kitten was taken aback. She had expected him to argue, to get angry, to call her a psycho. She hadn’t expected… this. This quiet, wounded acceptance. He looked genuinely heartbroken. His green eyes were shadowed with a sadness that looked far too real to be part of an act. A pang of something uncomfortable, something that felt suspiciously like guilt, shot through her.

Stick to the script, she told herself fiercely.

"I have to." she said, her voice softening against her will before she caught herself and hardened it again. "We want different things. I’m looking for a leader. A king. Not… not the court jester."

The insult landed with the force of a physical blow. Jester. It was what he’d called himself in his own mind when this whole thing started. To hear it from her, after everything… it hurt. More than it should have. More than he was being paid for.

He looked up at her, and the hurt in his eyes was so raw, so palpable, that Kitten felt her own carefully constructed facade begin to crack. This was wrong. This felt cruel. She saw his lip tremble slightly.

Oh no. Don’t you dare cry, you stupid green idiot, she thought frantically. That’s not in the script!

But he didn’t cry. He just gave a small, sad, defeated nod. "I get it." he whispered, his voice hoarse. "It was always about him, wasn’t it?" He didn’t have to say Robin’s name.

He turned and started walking away, his shoulders slumped, the picture of dejection. He didn’t run. He didn’t shapeshift into something and fly away dramatically. He just… walked. Each step looked heavy, laden with a sorrow that felt far too authentic.

Kitten stood there, frozen. That was supposed to be her triumphant exit line. He had stolen her scene with his quiet heartbreak. The plan had been to have a huge, screaming match, throw a fake diamond bracelet at him, and storm off, leaving Robin to witness her fiery passion. Instead, she had just emotionally bulldozed the one person who had, in his own weird way, been genuinely kind to her.

She watched him go, a small, pathetic figure disappearing into the shadow of the Tower. The wind felt cold now. The dramatic setting just seemed cheap and empty. The victory she was supposed to feel was nowhere to be found. All she felt was a sick, churning feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Up in the Tower, the other Titans had indeed been watching.

"Whoa. Did… did Kitten just dump Beast Boy?" Cyborg asked, breaking the stunned silence.

"It would appear so." Starfire said, her hands clasped to her chest. "Her words were most… unkind. ‘Court jester’? That is a cruel thing to say."

Robin stood silently, his arms crossed. He had watched the entire exchange, his expression unreadable. Kitten’s plan had worked, in a way. He had heard every word. He had heard her declarations about wanting a "brooding leader." But he had also seen the look on Beast Boy’s face. He had seen his friend, who had already been through so much heartbreak, get crushed yet again. The satisfaction Kitten had hoped to ignite in him wasn't there. Instead, there was just a sour taste of anger—not at Beast Boy, but at her. At her casual, theatrical cruelty.

Raven watched Beast Boy’s retreating form through the window, her lips pressed into a thin, tight line. She had felt the spike of his pain, a sharp, jagged wound in the Tower’s emotional atmosphere. And she had felt something else, too. A flicker of genuine remorse and panic from Kitten, almost instantly smothered by her own arrogance.

The performance had been a success, Kitten thought, as she finally turned to walk away. Robin had seen it. The message had been delivered.

But as she walked back toward the spot where her limo was waiting, she couldn’t shake the image of Beast Boy’s heartbroken face. She had wanted to make Robin jealous. She hadn’t wanted to genuinely hurt anyone. Or so she had told herself. The sick feeling in her stomach suggested she had just failed, spectacularly, at telling the difference. The course correction had sent her crashing into an emotional reef she didn't even know was there.

Chapter Text

In the digital age, heartbreak, like everything else, travels at the speed of light. Especially when it’s captured by a high-powered telephoto lens from a hidden location. By the next morning, "The Dumping on the Shore." as the internet had already dubbed it, was everywhere.

But it wasn't just a grainy video. It was a masterpiece of emotional manipulation, a three-minute cinematic experience that would have made a soap opera director weep. The video, which had appeared on every major video-sharing platform simultaneously, was titled: A Titan’s Tears: The Tragic End of Beauty and the Beast Boy.

It opened with a slow-motion shot of Kitten’s dramatic arrival, her trench coat billowing in the wind, set to a mournful piano score. Her dialogue—"I’m breaking up with you, Beast Boy"—was subtitled in a flowing, romantic script. The video then cut to a montage of their "happiest moments." all culled from gossip blogs and news reports. There was Beast Boy, arm awkwardly around Kitten at the fancy restaurant. There they were, laughing at the mini-golf course (the music swelled triumphantly here). There was the on-camera kiss after the Plasmus fight, presented in glorious slow-motion with digital hearts exploding around them.

Then, the music screeched to a halt and the video cut back to the breakup. Beast Boy’s pained, confused face was given a dramatic zoom-and-hold. His quiet, heartbroken lines were amplified, the background noise of the waves filtered out to create a sense of stark, intimate agony. Kitten’s final, brutal line—"Not the court jester"—echoed, followed by a shot of Beast Boy’s defeated walk away. The video ended with a single, digital teardrop rolling down a still image of his face, before fading to black with a final title card: #JusticeForGrassyMan.

The video was the work of one man, a man whose obsessive knowledge of pop culture and narrative tropes was matched only by his complete lack of a social life: Control Freak.

In his darkened lair, surrounded by towers of comic books, action figures, and half-eaten bags of cheese puffs, he watched his view counter climb into the millions. He wasn't being malicious. In his mind, he was a storyteller, a documentarian of the heart.

"You see, Bartholomew." he said to a mint-condition action figure of a 1980s television detective, "this is the classic second-act crisis! The All Is Lost moment! The couple, so perfect for each other—the rich, misunderstood bad girl and the goofy, pure-hearted hero—are torn apart by her own internal conflict! She pushes him away because she's afraid of her own feelings! It's narrative genius!"

He took a long sip of his soda. "Now, they must find their way back to each other, stronger than ever, for the third-act reunion. I'm merely providing the emotional catalyst. And a killer soundtrack."

Back at Titans Tower, the emotional catalyst was having the effect of a bomb blast.

"HASHTAG JUSTICE FOR GRASSY MAN?!" Cyborg roared, half in laughter, half in outrage, as he watched the video on the main screen. "Man, that Control Freak is a menace! But you gotta admit, his editing skills are on point. Look at that dramatic zoom!"

"This is not a time for the appreciating of the cinematic techniques!" Starfire cried, her eyes welling with sympathetic tears. "Poor Beast Boy! His private moment of the deepest sorrow, exposed for all the world to see and to… hashtag!"

Beast Boy, who had been trying to lose himself in a video game, felt his stomach clench. He watched the dramatized version of his own humiliation. It was a thousand times worse than the real thing. Control Freak had turned his genuine pain into a meme. He could feel the pitying looks of his teammates on him. He felt small, exposed, and utterly pathetic. He morphed into a flea and hopped off the couch, hiding in the shag of the carpet.

Meanwhile, in her penthouse, Kitten saw the video and her reaction was far less sentimental. She let out a shriek of pure, unadulterated rage that shattered a nearby crystal vase.

"HE MADE ME THE VILLAIN!" she screamed at her terrified assistant, Celeste, who was trying to offer her a calming cup of herbal tea. "I'm the heartless monster who crushed the sad little puppy! Look at the comments! 'Kitten is a monster!' 'How could she do that to him?' 'He deserves better!' I'M KITTEN WALKER! I DESERVE BETTER!"

This was a disaster of catastrophic proportions. Her plan had been to look passionate and desirable to Robin, a woman who knew what she wanted. Instead, Control Freak had framed her as a cruel bully who broke the heart of the internet's new favorite sad-boy. Her carefully managed public image was in tatters.

"Celeste!" she barked, throwing the phone at the wall (it bounced off a tapestry this time). "Find him! Find that greasy, remote-control-humping troglodyte! I want his hard drives wiped, his internet connection severed, and his action figures melted down into a single, hideous lump!"

This required a two-pronged attack. She couldn’t just erase the video; that would look like an admission of guilt. She needed to get it taken down, and she needed to fix the narrative. And to do that, as much as it galled her, she needed the other half of the "tragic couple." She needed Beast Boy.

Her first dozen texts to him went unanswered. Finally, she resorted to an old-school, untraceable burner phone.

I saw the video. This is a disaster. That fat little fanboy has ruined everything. We have to fix this.

Beast Boy, currently in the form of a miserable-looking armadillo curled up under his bed, felt his communicator vibrate. He uncurled just enough to read the message. Fix this? She breaks his heart (even a fake-break), humiliates him, and now she wants his help cleaning up her mess? No way.

He texted back a single, eloquent word: No.

His communicator buzzed again instantly. This isn't a request. Your "grief" is now a viral sensation. #JusticeForGrassyMan is trending worldwide. Do you want to be the planet's official poster boy for pathetic dump-ees for the rest of your life? Or do you want to help me destroy the man responsible?

He hated that she had a point. Being a meme was his worst nightmare. Being a pity meme was somehow even worse. He could already imagine the sad violins playing every time he walked into a room.

He sighed, morphing back into his human form. What's the plan?

I'm tracking his digital signature now, Kitten's text shot back. He's bouncing his signal off three different satellites, but the source is sloppy. It's somewhere in the industrial district. I'll pick you up in ten. And for God's sake, wear something black. We're supposed to be in mourning for our love.

Beast Boy groaned. It seemed their breakup was going to be just as fake and complicated as their relationship had been. He pulled on a black hoodie, feeling less like a man on a mission of vengeance and more like an unwilling guest star in the world's most dysfunctional reality show.

He snuck out of the Tower, avoiding his well-meaning but suffocatingly sympathetic teammates. A sleek, black, completely inconspicuous sports car—a stark contrast to Kitten’s usual pink monstrosities—screeched to a halt in front of him. The tinted window rolled down.

Kitten was behind the wheel, wearing oversized black sunglasses and a black leather jacket. "Get in, loser." she snapped, her voice all business. "We're going hunting."

He slid into the passenger seat, which was surprisingly comfortable. The car smelled of new leather and Kitten's expensive, angry perfume.

"So, what's the plan when we find him?" Beast Boy asked as she peeled out, the tires screaming in protest.

"Simple." Kitten said, her eyes fixed on the road, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. "You'll distract him with your… tragic, relatable angst. While he's busy trying to get you to sign his 'ship' manifesto, I'm going to personally introduce his server farm to a thermite charge."

Beast Boy looked at her determined, furious profile. For the first time all day, he didn't feel pathetic. He felt like he was in a spy movie. A really weird, emotionally unstable spy movie. Teaming up to fix their public image after a fake breakup that was secretly a plot to make his team leader jealous… it was the most convoluted, insane thing he’d ever done. And a tiny, rebellious part of him was actually looking forward to it.

Chapter Text

The industrial district of Jump City was a maze of decaying brick warehouses, rusting fire escapes, and the faint, unpleasant smell of the nearby bay. It was the kind of place where supervillains either built their secret lairs or illegally dumped their giant-robot-making byproducts. Kitten, guided by a sophisticated tracking program on her car's dashboard, navigated the dark, empty streets with a terrifying, focused precision.

"Signal's strongest here." she announced, pulling the sports car into a dark alley between two massive, windowless buildings. "He's in one of these two. Probably the one with the suspiciously high-speed fiber optic cable running to it." She pointed to a thick black cable snaking up the side of the warehouse to their left.

"How are we getting in?" Beast Boy asked, looking at the solid steel door. "I could turn into a mouse and slip under, but you're not exactly mouse-sized."

"Please." Kitten scoffed, pulling a small, sleek device from her leather jacket. It looked like a high-tech makeup compact. "Amateurs kick down doors. Professionals bypass the security system." She pressed the device against the electronic lock. It whirred for a second, a series of lights blinked, and the heavy lock clicked open with a satisfying thunk.

"Daddy's R&D department has a lot of downtime." she explained with a shrug, pushing the door open.

They slipped inside, greeted by a wave of stale air, the hum of electronics, and the overwhelming scent of microwaved burritos. The warehouse was a vast, cavernous space, but most of it was empty. All the action was in the center, where a makeshift fortress had been constructed out of empty pizza boxes, DVD cases, and stacks of old tech magazines. Inside this fortress, bathed in the glow of a dozen monitors, sat Control Freak.

He was in his element, a frantic conductor orchestrating his viral symphony. He wore a stained bathrobe over his usual villain costume, and a pair of oversized headphones were clamped to his head. He was so engrossed in editing a new "Beast Boy's Saddest Faces" compilation that he didn't even notice them enter.

"Okay, this is it." Kitten whispered, her voice a low, dangerous purr. She held up a small, silver ball. "Thermite charge. You go talk to him. Keep him occupied. When you see me give the signal, get clear."

Beast Boy nodded, his heart pounding. This was it. Showtime. He took a deep breath, channeled all the pity-inducing energy he’d been marinating in all day, and stepped into the light of the monitors.

"Control Freak?" he said, his voice quiet and wounded.

Control Freak yelped, spinning around in his chair so fast he almost fell out of it. "Beast Boy! The hero of the hour! The tragic protagonist! To what do I owe this honor?" He scrambled to his feet, a wide, manic grin on his face.

"I… I saw your video." Beast Boy said, looking down at his feet. "Everyone saw it."

"A masterpiece, is it not?" Control Freak beamed, gesturing expansively at his screens. "I call it 'cinema verité with a superhero twist.' I've captured your raw, unfiltered pain! The audience connects with it! They feel for you! You're more popular now than you've ever been!"

While Control Freak was monologuing, Beast Boy saw Kitten, moving like a shadow along the perimeter of the fortress, her eyes scanning for the main server.

"I don't want to be popular for being miserable." Beast Boy said, and he was surprised to find he meant it. "You made my breakup a joke."

"A joke? No, no, no!" Control Freak objected, horrified. "It's not a joke, it's a TROPE! A vital narrative beat! Don't you see? You are the archetypal 'Beta Male Hero' who, through his earnestness and emotional vulnerability, proves himself more worthy than the emotionally-stunted 'Alpha.' Kitten's rejection is merely the catalyst for her eventual realization that you are the one she truly loves! She just has to go through the motions of wanting Robin—the Alpha—to realize he's not what she needs!"

Beast Boy stared at him. The tubby, bathrobe-clad villain had just perfectly, and terrifyingly, analyzed the entire situation. It was like he had a copy of Kitten's mental script.

"You… you think she'll come back to me?" Beast Boy asked, playing along, but also morbidly curious.

"Of course!" Control Freak declared. "It's basic three-act structure! I'm already storyboarding the reunion scene. It should take place in the rain, preferably. Or perhaps during another super-battle, where you save her, and she saves you, and they realize they can't live without each other! I haven't decided."

From across the room, Kitten froze. She had found the server rack, a tall, black monolith of humming machinery. She was about to give the signal, but she'd overheard Control Freak's last words. She stared at the villain, then at Beast Boy, a look of profound confusion on her face. This… this greasy little man understood her motivations better than she did herself. He saw a love story where she had only seen a scheme. And the most terrifying part was… he wasn't entirely wrong. The idea of a dramatic reunion, of realizing she couldn't live without… she violently shook the thought from her head.

"This is all just… a story to you?" Beast Boy asked, pushing the final button.

"Life is a story, my verdant friend!" Control Freak proclaimed, climbing onto his chair for added dramatic effect. "We are all just characters playing our parts! And yours is one of the most compelling arcs I've seen in years! Far better than Robin's stagnant 'brooding orphan' routine. That's been done to death."

Kitten saw her opening. Control Freak was on his metaphorical soapbox, completely distracted. She held up her hand, giving Beast Boy a sharp, almost imperceptible nod.

That was his cue. "Yeah, well… this is the part of the story where the writer gets a bad review." Beast Boy said.

"What?" Control Freak asked, confused.

Beast Boy morphed. In a flash of green light, he was a rhinoceros. With a furious snort, he charged, not at Control Freak, but at the fortress of pizza boxes and DVD cases. The flimsy structure collapsed in a glorious explosion of cardboard and plastic.

Control Freak shrieked as his geek sanctuary crumbled around him. "My limited edition director's cuts! My collector's edition pizza boxes!"

In the chaos, Kitten sprinted forward, slapped the thermite charge onto the side of the main server, and ran back, diving behind a stack of old tires just as Beast Boy, in rhino form, bulldozed his way to safety.

"Fire in the hole, fanboy!" she yelled.

The charge ignited with a blinding white flash and a deafening fwoosh. It didn't explode; it simply burned. It burned with a ferocious, silent intensity, melting through the server's metal casing like a hot knife through butter. Within seconds, a river of molten metal and silicon flowed onto the concrete floor. Control Freak’s entire digital empire—terabytes of pirated movies, bootleg concert recordings, and one very viral video—was reduced to a puddle of glowing slag.

Control Freak stared at the molten remains of his life's work, his jaw slack with horror. "My… my data…"

Beast Boy morphed back, standing beside Kitten. They looked at the scene of destruction, then at each other. A slow grin spread across Beast Boy's face. Kitten tried to maintain her cold, businesslike demeanor, but the corner of her mouth twitched upwards in a reluctant smile.

"That." Beast Boy said, "was awesome."

"Basic sanitation." Kitten replied, though her eyes were glittering with satisfaction. "Taking out the trash."

Their moment of triumph was interrupted by a pathetic wail from Control Freak, who had fallen to his knees before his ruined server. "You've erased my masterpiece! The third act… it'll never be realized!"

"Consider it a mercy killing." Kitten sneered. She pulled out her phone and hit a number on her speed dial. "Yes, Jump City Police? I have an anonymous tip. There's a man in a bathrobe having a psychotic episode in a warehouse on 14th street. Yes, he matches the description of Control Freak. You're welcome."

She snapped the phone shut. "Let's go. The authorities can clean up the rest."

As they walked out of the warehouse, leaving the sobbing villain to his fate, Beast Boy felt a strange sense of closure. They had done it. They had worked together, not as employer and employee, but as partners in crime. It had been exhilarating.

"You know." he said, as they got back into the car, "for a psycho rich girl, you're not a bad partner to have in a fight."

"And for a tofu-brained jester." Kitten shot back, starting the engine, "you're not a completely useless distraction."

It was the closest either of them could get to a compliment, but it was enough. The car sped off into the night, leaving the disaster of the viral video behind them. But the words of Control Freak lingered in the air between them, unspoken and unnerving: The couple, so perfect for each other… torn apart by her own internal conflict! The story wasn't over. It had just gotten a lot more complicated.

Chapter Text

Life in Titans Tower settled into a new, slightly awkward equilibrium. The viral video was gone, but the memory of it remained. The team treated Beast Boy with a gentle, kid-gloves approach, as if he might shatter into a million sad-boy pieces at any moment. Robin was civil but distant, the tension between them a low hum in the background of their daily lives. Beast Boy himself felt strangely… fine. The fake breakup and the subsequent mission with Kitten had been a bizarre rollercoaster, but it had also solidified something in his mind: his feelings for the volatile blonde were a lot more real than the contract they no longer had.

This fragile peace was, of course, destined to be shattered. And the disruption arrived, as it so often did, in a flash of purple light and a cloud of cosmic mischief.

It happened during breakfast. Cyborg was trying to defend his plate of synthetic bacon from a reformed T-Rex Beast Boy, and Starfire was explaining the joys of a Gordanian delicacy called "Gloorg-pudding" to a thoroughly uninterested Raven. Suddenly, the Tower's proximity alert blared.

"Unidentified spacecraft entering Earth's atmosphere." Robin announced, already at the main console. "Trajectory: Jump City. Estimated landing… on our roof."

Before they could even move into a defensive posture, a pillar of brilliant purple energy materialized in the center of the common room. It faded to reveal a tall, statuesque woman with flowing black hair, piercing green eyes, and a smirk that could curdle milk. She was dressed in a sleek, dark purple version of Tamaranean royal armor.

"Blackfire!" Starfire gasped, her joy at seeing her sibling warring with her immediate suspicion.

"Hey, little sis." Blackfire drawled, her voice a sultry purr. She sauntered into the room as if she owned the place, her eyes scanning the assembled Titans. "Long time no see. I was in the neighborhood—you know, evading a few bounty hunters, fomenting a little rebellion in the Omega Sector—and thought I'd drop in. You've redecorated. It's very… functional."

Her gaze lingered for a moment on Robin, a flicker of old amusement in her eyes, before sweeping across the room and landing, with predatory interest, on Beast Boy.

Beast Boy, who had just morphed back to his human form, took an involuntary step back. Blackfire's attention was like being targeted by a heat-seeking missile.

"Well, well." she said, circling him slowly like a shark. "What do we have here? I don't remember this one being so interesting. You've filled out, Green Bean. Less scrawny, more… angsty." She reached out and poked him in the chest with a long, manicured fingernail. "I saw the holo-vids. The whole tragic breakup thing. Very dramatic. Very juicy."

Beast Boy flushed from the tips of his pointed ears to the collar of his uniform. Of course Blackfire would have seen the video. She probably had a black market subscription to the Intergalactic Gossip Network.

"It was an invasion of the privacy." Starfire said hotly, floating between her sister and Beast Boy. "He was the victim of a mean-spirited prank!"

"Oh, I don't know." Blackfire purred, her eyes never leaving Beast Boy. "I thought he looked kinda cute when he was all heartbroken. There's an appeal to a project, you know? A fixer-upper." She winked at him. "So, the bratty blonde kicked you to the curb, huh? Her loss. I've always had a thing for the sensitive types. Especially when they can turn into a tiger. Rawr."

Cyborg choked on his synthetic bacon. Raven actually looked up from her book, a single eyebrow raised. Robin's mouth tightened into a razor-thin line.

"That is most inappropriate, Blackfire!" Starfire scolded. "Beast Boy is emotionally vulnerable!"

"Exactly!" Blackfire said with a wicked grin. "That's the best time to strike. So, Green Bean, what do you say? You, me, a tour of this boring little planet's nightlife. I'll help you get over… what's-her-name."

This was a nightmare. A full-blown, Tamaranian nightmare. Beast Boy felt like a piece of meat, and two of the universe's most formidable predators were circling. He opened his mouth to stammer out a polite 'no thanks, I'm good,' but a new voice cut through the tension.

"He's not available."

All heads turned. Standing in the doorway, having just bypassed the Tower's now-useless lockdown security, was Kitten. She was dressed in a shockingly pink pantsuit, her arms crossed, and her face a perfect mask of icy fury. She must have had a tracker on Blackfire's energy signature, or perhaps just a finely-tuned sense for when her territory was being threatened.

Blackfire looked Kitten up and down, a slow, condescending smirk spreading across her face. "Well, if it isn't what's-her-name. The 'Beauty' from the video. You're a lot smaller in person. And pinker."

"And you're a lot tackier than the Wanted posters suggest." Kitten shot back, not missing a beat. She strode into the room, planting herself firmly in front of Beast Boy, creating a physical barrier between him and the Tamaranean princess. "And for the record, we are not broken up. That was a… a tactical disagreement. We're working through it. So take your cheap hair extensions and your purple leather fetish and point them at someone else's man."

A low 'ooooh' went through the room, mostly from Cyborg.

Blackfire laughed, a deep, throaty sound. "My, my, she's got claws. I'm terrified." She leaned in, towering over Kitten. "Listen, little girl. I was conquering planets when you were still learning how to accessorize. When I want something, I take it. And right now, I think your little pet project looks like fun."

"He's not a project." Kitten snarled, her eyes blazing. "And he's not yours."

Beast Boy stood frozen between the two of them, a green-skinned tennis ball in a match between two cosmic champions of cattiness. On one side was Blackfire, an actual super-powered alien princess with a rap sheet as long as his arm. On the other was Kitten, a spoiled human heiress whose only real superpower was a limitless bank account. And yet, Kitten wasn't backing down an inch. She was standing up to Blackfire, for him. The realization sent a dizzying, stupidly heroic thrill through him.

"This is fascinating." Raven murmured to Cyborg, who was recording the whole thing.

"Is there a problem here?" Robin finally intervened, stepping forward. His posture was stiff, his tone authoritative. He was trying to de-escalate, but his presence only added fuel to the fire.

Blackfire immediately shifted her attention to him. "Robbie! I was wondering when you'd join the party." She slung an arm around his shoulders. "Don't worry about me. I'm just making a new friend." She gestured back to Beast Boy. "Unless… you have a problem with that? Feeling a little protective of the team mascot?"

Robin stiffened, shrugging off her arm. "My only problem is with you being on my planet, Blackfire. State your business or get out."

"My business." Blackfire said, her eyes glittering with mischief, "is having fun. And I've just had a brilliant idea." She clapped her hands together. "A double date! Me and Green Bean here. And you and little sis." She winked at Starfire, who looked horrified at the prospect. "We can see the sights! Compare and contrast our romantic techniques! It'll be educational."

It was a perfect Blackfire plan: it simultaneously tormented Starfire, annoyed Robin, staked a claim on Beast Boy, and put Kitten in an impossible position.

Kitten's face was a thundercloud. The idea of Beast Boy going on a "date" with this purple alien hussy was unacceptable. The idea of him going on a double date with Robin was even worse. It completely muddled the narrative of her grand plan.

"Absolutely not." Kitten and Robin said in perfect, angry unison. They glanced at each other, surprised and annoyed by their agreement.

"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, Robbie." Blackfire cooed. "And you." she said to Kitten, "if you're so sure he's your man, you shouldn't be afraid of a little competition, right? Unless you can't handle it."

It was a trap. A blatant, perfectly executed trap, and Kitten walked right into it. Her pride, the most powerful and dangerous weapon in her arsenal, flared to life.

"I can handle anything, you interstellar reject." Kitten hissed. She then did the last thing anyone expected. She grabbed Beast Boy's arm, a look of fierce determination on her face. "Fine. But you're not double-dating with her. You're double-dating with me. We'll show you what a real power couple looks like."

The room fell silent. Beast Boy stared at Kitten, his mind reeling. A double date? With Robin and Starfire? To compete with Blackfire? This had escalated from a nightmare to a full-blown surrealist apocalypse.

Blackfire's smirk widened. "Perfect. This is going to be even more fun than I thought." She clapped Beast Boy on the shoulder. "Don't be late, Green Bean. I'll be watching."

With a final, triumphant wink, Blackfire dissolved into another pillar of purple light and vanished, leaving a stunned silence and the faint smell of ozone in her wake.

Kitten immediately dropped Beast Boy's arm, her face pale. "What did I just agree to?" she whispered, horrified at her own competitive stupidity.

Beast Boy didn't have an answer. He just looked at Robin, whose expression was one of pure, unadulterated exasperation, and then at Starfire, who looked like she was about to faint. The double date from hell was officially on.

Chapter Text

The chosen venue for the most awkward double date in the history of the universe was "The Gilded Cage." a new rooftop restaurant that was trendy, overpriced, and had a stunning panoramic view of the Jump City skyline. It was Kitten's choice, of course. She'd reasoned that if she was going to endure this nightmare, she might as well do it in a setting with decent lighting and five-star appetizers.

The tension at the table was thick enough to be cut with a vibranium knife. On one side sat Robin and Starfire. Robin looked like he was mentally running tactical drills for an impending alien invasion, while Starfire was trying so hard to be positive that her smile was starting to look like a grimace.

On the other side sat Beast Boy and Kitten. Beast Boy had been forced into a new, dark green button-down shirt that Kitten had express-delivered to the Tower an hour earlier. It was surprisingly comfortable, but he felt like a soldier in enemy territory. Kitten herself was a vision of defiant glamour in a shimmering gold dress, her expression alternating between icy disdain for their surroundings and fiery glares at the empty chair at their table.

Blackfire, naturally, was late.

"Perhaps she has been detained by the authorities of the space sector?" Starfire suggested hopefully.

"Or maybe she just realized what a terrible idea this was and decided not to show up." Robin grumbled, tapping his fingers impatiently on the table.

"She'll show." Kitten muttered, taking a vicious sip of her sparkling water. "She's just making an entrance. It's a classic power play. So predictable."

As if on cue, a shadow fell over their table. It wasn't Blackfire. It was the waiter, a nervous young man with a prominent Adam's apple.

"Ahem. A message for… 'Green Bean'?" the waiter asked, reading from a small data-slate. He looked at Beast Boy, who sank lower in his chair.

"What is it?" Robin asked, his voice sharp.

"A 'Lady Blackfire' asked me to inform you that she has been… unavoidably detained." the waiter read, sweating under Robin's glare. "She says she's 'commandeering a more appropriate vehicle for a night on the town' and that you should 'start without her.' She also says to 'try the calamari, it's to die for.'"

It was the ultimate power move. Blackfire hadn't just stood them up; she had reduced the entire evening to a footnote in her own, more exciting adventure, and sent a waiter to deliver the punchline.

Kitten looked absolutely murderous. She had mentally prepared for a battle of wits, a glamorous showdown with her rival. Instead, she had been dismissed. Blackfire hadn't even deemed the competition worthy of her presence.

"Well." Robin said, a hint of relief in his voice. "I guess that's that. We can just—"

"No." Kitten interrupted, her voice dangerously calm. "We're not leaving. We're going to stay here and have the best date imaginable. We are going to be so deliriously happy and in love that pictures of it will be all over the internet by morning. She'll see it. She'll see what she missed."

Her eyes, glittering with a furious, competitive fire, locked onto Beast Boy's. "You." she commanded. "Be charming. Laugh at my jokes. Tell me I look beautiful. We are going to win this date."

Beast Boy stared at her. Win the date? Against a woman who wasn't even there? This was a new level of insanity, even for Kitten. But he also saw the raw humiliation in her eyes. Blackfire had wounded her pride, and Kitten was reacting the only way she knew how: by doubling down on the performance.

"Uh… you look beautiful, Kitten." he stammered, deciding it was safer to play along.

"Better." she sniffed, though a faint pink flush touched her cheeks. "Now, what were we talking about before we were so rudely interrupted by proxy?"

The "date" that followed was a masterclass in performative romance. Kitten would tell a story about some boring high-society gala, and then poke Beast Boy. "Wasn't that hilarious, darling?" she'd ask through a clenched smile. And he'd force a laugh, "Ha! Hilarious, Kitten-kaboodle!" Across the table, Robin would just stare, his expression unreadable, while Starfire would try to contribute with an anecdote about a similar festival on Tamaran that usually ended in ritual combat.

The whole thing was a cringeworthy train wreck, and Beast Boy was strapped to the front of the engine. Yet, something weird was happening. Beneath the layers of fake laughter and forced compliments, he and Kitten were… talking.

"The way Blackfire just dismissed you… that was a low blow." he muttered, when Robin and Starfire were distracted by a debate over whether calamari counted as a "beast of the sea."

"I don't need your pity." Kitten hissed, but there was no real venom in it. "I knew she was a classless thug."

"Still." he said. "It sucks. It's like… when you called me a court jester. It's the one thing that you know will hit a nerve."

Kitten froze, her fork hovering over her plate of ridiculously expensive salad. She looked at him, and for a second, the mask of the performer fell away. She saw that he wasn't pitying her; he was empathizing. He was connecting her humiliation to his own. The look in his eyes was one of pure, unadulterated understanding.

"I…" she started to say, something that might have been an apology, but she was interrupted by a sudden, deafening sonic boom that rattled the restaurant's windows.

Diners screamed and ducked for cover. The Titans were instantly on their feet.

Hovering outside the restaurant's panoramic window was a stolen police sky-speeder, painted with crude purple flame decals. Blackfire was at the controls, a wild grin on her face.

"Sorry I'm late!" she yelled through the speeder's external PA system, her voice echoing across the rooftop. "Traffic was a nightmare! But I brought party favors!"

She pressed a button. The back of the speeder opened, dropping a dozen small, metallic spheres onto the rooftop patio. The spheres immediately unfolded, transforming into sleek, aggressive-looking combat drones. They powered up, their red optical sensors locking onto the diners.

"What is the meaning of this, Blackfire?!" Starfire shouted, her hands already glowing with green energy.

"Just spicing things up!" Blackfire called back gleefully. "This date was looking a little dull. Let's see how our 'power couple' handles a real crisis!"

The drones advanced, firing low-intensity stun blasts into the crowd. It was chaos.

"Titans, go!" Robin commanded. He and Starfire leaped into action, Robin engaging the drones with his bo staff, Starfire blasting them with starbolts.

Beast Boy was about to morph when Kitten grabbed his arm. "Oh no you don't." she said, her eyes blazing with an idea. "This isn't a Titan's mission. This is our date."

"Kitten, people are in danger!"

"And we're going to save them." she said, a feral grin spreading across her face. "Our way."

She pulled him toward the kitchen, dodging a stun blast. "Do you trust me?" she yelled over the sound of explosions.

It was a crazy question. Trust Kitten? The girl who had hired him, humiliated him, and was the reason he was in this mess? He looked at her face, alive with a wild, chaotic energy, and thought of them fighting together in the bank.

"Yeah." he heard himself say. "I do."

"Good." She kicked open the kitchen door. The staff were cowering in a corner. Kitten ignored them and went straight for the pantry. "She wants a show? We'll give her a show."

A minute later, they emerged from the kitchen. Beast Boy was now a massive, angry-looking St. Bernard. Strapped to his back was a large, pressurized tank of cooking oil, connected to a hose that Kitten held like a fire hose.

"What's the plan?!" he barked, his voice a deep woof.

"You're the diversion, I'm the artillery!" she yelled. "Get 'em slippery!"

With a mighty roar, Beast Boy charged onto the patio. The drones, programmed for standard combatants, paused for a microsecond, trying to process the sight of a giant dog armed with a tank of cooking oil. That was all the time Kitten needed.

She opened the valve. A powerful jet of canola oil sprayed across the rooftop, coating the marble floor and several drones in a slick, greasy film. The drones tried to advance, but their legs just spun uselessly. One of them slipped and crashed into another, creating a domino effect of flailing metal.

"It is the slippery!" Starfire exclaimed, pausing her assault to watch the bizarre spectacle.

Blackfire, hovering in her stolen speeder, burst out laughing. "Oil! That's her plan? How pathetic!"

"Oh, I'm just getting started!" Kitten screamed back. She pulled a familiar-looking pink blaster from a hidden holster on her thigh. It wasn't the candy-coating gun. This one was smaller, sleeker. "Beastie, now!"

Beast Boy knew what she meant. He morphed from a St. Bernard into a huge bull, bucking and kicking the remaining oil-coated drones into a single, struggling pile.

Kitten took aim. "Let's heat things up." she purred. She fired the blaster. It didn't shoot a beam; it shot a tiny, concentrated burst of microwave energy. The beam hit the pile of oil-drenched drones.

The effect was instantaneous. The oil superheated, and with a deafening FWOOM, a massive fireball erupted on the rooftop patio. It wasn't a lethal explosion, more like the world's largest, most aggressive flambé. The drones were instantly fried, their circuits shorting out in a shower of sparks.

The patio fell silent, save for the crackling of the last few electronic fires. The remaining diners, Robin, and Starfire stared at the blackened, smoking pile of scrap metal.

Kitten stood there, the microwave gun resting on her hip, her gold dress fluttering in the heat-wash. Beast Boy morphed back to his human form beside her. They were both covered in a light sheen of oil and soot. They looked ridiculous. They looked triumphant.

From her sky-speeder, Blackfire was actually speechless for a moment. Then she let out a slow whistle of appreciation. "Okay." she said into the PA, a grudging respect in her voice. "Okay, Pinky. I'm impressed. That was unexpectedly creative."

"Don't call me Pinky." Kitten yelled back. "And stay away from my boyfriend!"

With a final, parting laugh, Blackfire gunned the engine of the stolen speeder and shot off into the night sky, leaving chaos, destruction, and one very confused restaurant manager in her wake.

As the police and fire departments began to arrive, the three Titans (and one technically-a-villain) stood on the ruined patio.

"Your methods continue to be… unconventional." Robin said to Kitten, his tone somewhere between disapproval and begrudging acknowledgment.

"And effective." Kitten replied smugly. She looked at Beast Boy, her eyes still bright with adrenaline. "See? I told you we'd win the date."

Beast Boy just grinned, shaking his head. It had been a disaster. It had been chaos. It had been the strangest, most dangerous, and most exhilarating date of his life. And as he stood there, smelling faintly of burnt metal and canola oil, he realized he wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Chapter Text

The week after the "Date-pocalypse." as Cyborg had gleefully named it, a new kind of excitement gripped Jump City: the annual Grand Prix. It was a city-sponsored charity go-kart race where local celebrities, business leaders, and the occasional superhero team competed for bragging rights and a giant, tacky trophy.

Normally, the Titans passed on the event. Robin found it frivolous, and Beast Boy’s attempts to enter with a moped he’d transformed into a cheetah had been met with a swift disqualification. This year, however, things were different. Kitten saw the Grand Prix not as a race, but as a stage.

"It's the perfect opportunity." she explained to Beast Boy over the phone. He was no longer on her payroll, but she still called him constantly, ostensibly to coordinate their "public image." "It's a high-profile, televised event. We enter as a team, we win, and we solidify our status as Jump City's ultimate power couple. It's a PR masterstroke."

"A power couple that almost set a restaurant on fire?" Beast Boy asked, doodling on a napkin.

"Details, details. The point is, we showed everyone we're a formidable duo. Blackfire is old news. This is about cementing our brand."

Beast Boy sighed. He should have said no. He should have told her he was done with the stunts and the public performances. But the memory of the thrill of their chaotic teamwork was still fresh. And, if he was being honest with himself, the idea of driving a super-fast go-kart was pretty appealing.

"Fine." he said. "But I get to help design the kart."

"Of course, darling." Kitten purred. "It's a partnership."

The result of their "partnership" was a go-kart that was a perfect, monstrous fusion of their two personalities. The chassis was a sleek, aerodynamic machine built by Kitten's father's top engineers, painted in a shimmering, pearlescent black. But Beast Boy had insisted on additions. The wheels were bright green, there was a tofu-powered auxiliary engine ("for eco-friendly boost!"), and the horn, instead of a beep, let out a mighty T-Rex roar. Kitten had hated it, but after three days of arguing, she had relented, calling it "ironically charming."

Race day was a spectacle. The downtown streets were lined with cheering crowds. In the pits, the atmosphere was a mix of friendly competition and thinly veiled rivalry. The Titans were there, not as racers, but as celebrity referees. Robin was in charge of safety inspections, a job he took with grim seriousness.

As Beast Boy and Kitten, now decked out in matching black and green racing suits, rolled their monstrous kart to the starting line, they drew more than a few stares. One of those stares belonged to Jinx, the pink-haired, bad-luck-wielding former villain from the H.I.V.E. Academy. She was leaning against her own kart, a sleek, magenta number, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

"Well, well." Jinx said with a smirk, sauntering over. Her boyfriend, the speedster Kid Flash, zoomed up beside her a second later, a goofy grin on his face. "Look what the cat dragged in. And what it dragged in is green."

"Jinx." Kitten said, her voice dripping with disdain. "I should have known I'd smell cheap hair dye and misfortune."

"Funny." Jinx shot back. "I smelled desperation and a bizarre interspecies romance. Seriously? Him?" she hooked a thumb at Beast Boy. "I always figured you for a 'brooding billionaire' type, not the 'might shed on the furniture' type."

Kid Flash, ever the diplomat, stuck his hand out to Beast Boy. "Hey man, Wally West. Don't mind her, she's just mad our kart doesn't have a dinosaur horn."

"It's a T-Rex." Beast Boy corrected him, shaking his hand. "And it's awesome."

"So, you two are a thing now?" Wally asked, looking back and forth between them. "For real? Because the internet is, like, super confused."

"We're a thing." Kitten stated firmly, looping her arm through Beast Boy's. "Got a problem with that?"

"Nope! Just surprising." Wally said cheerfully. "But hey, love is weird, right? One day you're trying to zap me into oblivion, the next you're arguing about who gets to drive the first lap. Right, babe?" He nudged Jinx, who just rolled her eyes.

"The race is starting." Jinx said, turning away. "Try not to crash on the first turn. It would be a shame if one of your wheels just... fell off." She wiggled her fingers, a faint pink aura of bad luck glowing around them.

"Is that a threat?" Kitten snarled.

"It's a possibility." Jinx said with a sweet, venomous smile, before sauntering back to her kart.

The tension was palpable as the racers took their positions. Beast Boy was in the driver's seat for the first leg of the relay race. Kitten stood in their designated pit area, a headset on, ready to act as his strategist.

The starting pistol fired. The race began in a roar of tiny engines and a cloud of exhaust. Beast Boy was a surprisingly good driver, his shapeshifter reflexes giving him an edge. He weaved through the pack, the T-Rex horn blaring as he overtook a kart driven by the city's mayor.

"You're doing well." Kitten's voice crackled in his headset. "You're in fifth place. Jinx and Kid Flash are in third. The leader is… oh, for pity's sake. It's Gizmo."

Far ahead of the pack, a tiny, ridiculously over-engineered kart that looked more like a miniature tank was leading the race. In the driver's seat was Gizmo, the diminutive tech genius, also from the H.I.V.E.

"Eat my dust, you diaper babies!" Gizmo's electronically amplified voice squeaked over the track's PA system.

"He's cheating." Kitten stated flatly. "His engine specs are way outside regulation. Robin!" she yelled into her mic, "Do your job! Inspect the tiny tyrant!"

"I'm aware of the situation, Kitten." Robin's voice cut in on their channel, sounding annoyed. "We'll handle it."

Beast Boy pushed their kart to its limit, the little engine screaming. He managed to close the gap on Jinx, and for a full lap, they were neck and neck. Jinx would try to cut him off, and he'd swerve at the last second. He'd try to pass, and she'd hex a patch of asphalt in front of him, causing his tires to momentarily lose traction. It was a high-speed, go-kart ballet.

"She's playing dirty!" Beast Boy yelled.

"Of course she is." Kitten replied. "She's Jinx. On the next turn, there's a sharp chicane. Go wide, then cut in hard. She'll overcompensate to block you, but the G-force will throw her off balance. Her center of gravity is too high in that kart."

"How do you know that?"

"I designed a better one in my head five minutes ago." she said simply.

Beast Boy followed her instructions. He swung wide on the approach to the turn, making it look like he was going to try a pass on the outside. Jinx, as predicted, moved to block. At the last second, Beast Boy cranked the wheel, cutting sharply to the inside. Jinx's kart, thrown off balance by the sudden shift, skidded for a moment. It was all the opening he needed. He shot past her, the T-Rex horn roaring in triumph.

"YES!" he and Kitten shouted in unison over the headset. It was a perfect moment of synergy, a fusion of his driving skill and her cold, analytical strategy.

He held the lead for two more laps before it was time to switch drivers. He screeched into the pit lane, leaping out as Kitten jumped in.

"Not bad, Grassy Man." she said, pulling her helmet on. "You didn't scratch the paint."

"Just bring it home." he grinned, slapping the back of the kart.

Kitten peeled out of the pit lane with a ferocity that made Beast Boy's driving look timid. She was ruthless, taking turns with terrifying precision, forcing other racers out of her way. She quickly regained the position they'd lost in the pit stop and was soon on Gizmo's tail.

But Gizmo wasn't going to be beaten that easily. As Kitten tried to pass, a mechanical arm shot out from the back of his kart, dropping a series of oil slicks onto the track behind him.

"Whoa, Kitten, watch out!" Beast Boy yelled into the mic.

Kitten swerved, her tires screeching, but the kart behind her, driven by a local news anchor, wasn't so lucky. It spun out and crashed into the barrier.

"That's it!" Kitten snarled. "The gloves are off." Her hand moved toward a large, unlabeled red button on the dashboard that Beast Boy had been explicitly told not to touch. "Time for a little illegal modification of my own."

"Kitten, no!" Beast Boy shouted. "We can win this without cheating!"

"Winning is all that matters!" she shot back.

"No, it's not! We can do it together, the right way! Just trust me!"

His words, desperate and sincere, seemed to get through to her. Her hand hesitated over the button. The trust he was offering was more valuable, and more terrifying, than any secret boost button. She growled in frustration but pulled her hand back.

"Fine!" she snapped. "But if we lose, I'm blaming you. What's your brilliant plan, genius?"

Beast Boy looked at the track, at Gizmo's kart spewing oil and other hazards. He looked at their own kart, with its weird, hybrid design. And then he smiled.

"I have an idea." he said into the mic. "It's time to go green."

"Activate the tofu-boost." Beast Boy said into the headset, a confident grin on his face.

Kitten stared at the ridiculously oversized, very green button on the dash labeled 'VEGAN POWER.' "You cannot be serious. You want me to engage the emergency vegetable protocol? We'll be a laughingstock!"

"Gizmo's using oil slicks, right?" Beast Boy pressed. "What's the main ingredient in the fuel for that thing?"

Kitten's eyes widened in sudden understanding. The auxiliary engine wasn't powered by tofu itself, but by a highly combustible bio-fuel distilled from soy products. And what was the key property of that fuel?

"It's a degreaser." she breathed, a slow, wicked smile spreading across her face. "Daddy's chemical labs tried to weaponize it as a solvent once. It dissolves petrochemicals on contact."

"Exactly!" Beast Boy cheered. "His weapon is our fuel!"

"Beast Boy… that's… that's actually brilliant." Kitten admitted, the words feeling foreign and strange on her tongue. She didn't waste another second. She slammed her hand down on the 'VEGAN POWER' button.

The go-kart shuddered as the auxiliary engine roared to life. It didn't provide a massive speed boost, but it did something far more important. A secondary exhaust system, which Beast Boy had installed under the chassis, began spraying a fine, misty plume of the soy-based biofuel onto the track behind them.

Kitten floored it, catching up to Gizmo. As she drove directly through the oil slick he had just deployed, her tires momentarily slipped, but the mist from her own exhaust instantly dissolved the oil on the track, creating a clean, grippy path for her. She was erasing his weapon as she drove.

"What is this foul-smelling hippie garbage?!" Gizmo shrieked as he saw her gaining on him, his oil slicks vanishing in her wake. He activated another one of his illegal gadgets: a series of small caltrops that scattered across the road.

"Tires are going to be an issue!" Kitten yelled as she swerved to avoid the sharp spikes.

"No, they're not! I planned for this!" Beast Boy's voice came back, full of pride.

Before Kitten could ask what he meant, she hit one of the caltrops. There was a loud pop, but the kart didn't swerve. The tire didn't go flat.

"What the—?"

"Self-healing tires!" Beast Boy explained. "I swapped the air with a semi-sentient, non-toxic slime mold I've been cultivating in my room. It plugs any holes instantly! Cyborg helped me with the valve stems!"

Kitten was speechless. A tofu-powered degreaser and slime-mold-filled tires. His ridiculous, absurd, goofy ideas were actually working. They were beating Gizmo's high-tech gadgetry with pure, unadulterated Beast Boy logic.

She was so caught up in the moment that she almost missed the final turn. It was a sharp hairpin, the last major obstacle before the final straightaway. Gizmo, in a panic, deployed his final weapon: a small robotic arm that extended and tried to physically push her kart into the wall.

"I don't think so, short-stuff!" Kitten snarled. She slammed on the brakes, letting Gizmo's kart pull slightly ahead. Then, she cranked the wheel hard, executing a perfect drift. The back end of her kart swung out, smacking the robotic arm and shattering it into a dozen pieces. Using the momentum from the spin, she straightened out and shot forward, now on the inside track, side-by-side with the tiny terror.

They were neck and neck down the final straightaway. The finish line was just a hundred yards ahead.

"It's too close!" Kitten grunted, her hands gripping the steering wheel. "I need more speed!"

"I've got an idea, but you're not going to like it!" Beast Boy yelled.

"I don't care! Just do it!"

"Okay! Open the passenger side door!"

"Go-karts don't have doors!"

"Just lean out then! Give me some room!"

Trusting him, Kitten pressed herself as far against her side of the kart as she could. In a flash of green light, a cheetah—sleek, muscular, and very confused-looking—appeared in the passenger seat. It was crammed in, its tail flicking wildly.

"You turned into a cheetah?!" Kitten shrieked. "That's illegal! That's outside assistance!"

"Am I outside the kart?" the cheetah growled back in Beast Boy's voice. "No! I'm a passenger! It's a loophole!"

Before she could argue, he did something utterly insane. He began to run. While still sitting in the passenger seat. His powerful cheetah legs became pistons, pushing against the floor of the kart and the ground blurring beneath them, Fred Flintstone-style. It was ludicrous. It was impossible. And it was giving them an extra few miles per hour.

The crowd roared, a wave of confused, delighted noise. The announcers were screaming in disbelief.

Their kart surged forward, inch by inch, pulling ahead of Gizmo's. They crossed the finish line less than half a car-length in the lead.

They had won.

Kitten slammed on the brakes, the kart screeching to a halt in a cloud of smoke and the faint smell of burnt soy. The cheetah in the passenger seat morphed back into a grinning, sweat-soaked Beast Boy.

The silence in the cockpit was deafening. They just sat there for a second, hearts pounding, adrenaline singing in their veins.

"We did it." Beast Boy breathed, a huge, incredulous grin on his face. "We actually did it!"

Kitten just stared at the finish line. She should have been ecstatic. She should have been leaping from the kart, demanding her trophy, and searching for the nearest camera to gloat into. A win was a win. The Master Plan—the new one, about becoming a Power Couple—was a success.

But the feeling in her chest wasn't the cold, sharp satisfaction of victory. It was a warm, messy, bubbly feeling. It wasn't about the win. It was about the how. It was about the insane, brilliant, chaotic teamwork. It was the soy-fuel degreaser. The slime-mold tires. The sheer, unadulterated absurdity of a cheetah running inside a go-kart. It was him. His stupid, wonderful brain had won the race, not her money or her ruthlessness.

She slowly turned to look at him. He was beaming, his green eyes sparkling, his face smudged with grease. He looked ridiculous. He looked heroic.

"Your ideas." she said, her voice quiet. "They were… not terrible."

For Beast Boy, that was the highest praise imaginable. "See? I told you! Tofu is the future!"

He let out a whoop of joy and, on pure impulse, threw his arms around her in a tight, sweaty, triumphant hug.

Kitten froze. It was the first time they had touched without it being a command, a performance, or a transaction. His arms were strong around her, his chin was resting on top of her helmet, and she could feel the thumping of his heart against her back. It felt… real. It felt safe.

Her own arms, almost against her will, came up and hugged him back, just for a second.

The moment was broken by the flash of cameras and the roar of the crowd as their friends swarmed the kart.

"You won! You actually won!" Cyborg bellowed, lifting Beast Boy out of the kart and onto his shoulders.

"It was a most unorthodox strategy!" Starfire cheered.

Jinx and Kid Flash walked over, looking impressed despite themselves. "Okay." Jinx admitted, crossing her arms. "The cheetah thing? That was a new one. Not bad, Grassy."

Kitten got out of the kart, her legs a little shaky. She watched as Cyborg paraded a cheering Beast Boy around. She had her victory. She had the trophy, the headlines, the proof that they were a "power couple." But as she looked at Beast Boy, laughing on Cyborg's shoulders, she realized with a sickening lurch that the PR angle felt cheap and unimportant now. She hadn't just won a race for a fake relationship. She'd won it with a real partner. And that feeling was a thousand times more terrifying, and a thousand times more wonderful, than any trophy.

Chapter Text

Jump City had a particular kind of quiet that only settled in the hours just before dawn. It was a time when the city held its breath, the traffic silenced and the neon signs casting long, lonely shadows. It was a time for secrets and silhouettes. On a gargoyle overlooking the financial district, one such silhouette watched the slumbering metropolis.

Her name was Rose Wilson, though the city's underworld knew her better as Ravager. Dressed in dark and orange, functional armor, with her striking white hair pulled back from her face, she was a stark and dangerous figure. One eye, a sharp, intelligent blue, scanned the streets below. The other was gone, lost long ago, a permanent reminder of the darkness she had been born into. She was Slade's daughter. A fact that was both a legacy and a curse.

Her father was dead. Really, truly dead this time, she thought. The finality of it still felt strange, a weight that had been lifted only to be replaced by an unnerving emptiness. For years, her life had been defined by him—by his training, his expectations, his manipulations, his absence. Now, she was adrift, an anti-hero without her primary antagonist.

She was in Jump City for her own reasons. A loose end to tie up, a debt to collect. But she was also drawn here by a kind of morbid curiosity. This was his city, the place where his grandest obsession, the Teen Titans, and specifically their leader, resided.

She had been watching them for two days. From the rooftops, she observed their patrols, their battles, their dynamics. They were good. Annoyingly so. Coordinated, powerful, and driven by a cloying sense of justice that made her teeth ache. And at their center was Robin.

He was just as she remembered: intense, driven, a whirlwind of acrobatic fury. A mirror image of the boy her father had tried, and failed, to break. There was a connection between them, a shared history forged in trauma and betrayal that Rose could feel even from a distance. It was a bond she resented, and, in a secret, shameful part of her heart, envied.

A soft sound behind her, the barest scrape of a boot on stone, made her tense. She didn't turn. She just relaxed her posture, her hand resting casually on the hilt of one of her katanas.

"You've gotten better at sneaking up on people." she said, her voice a low, gravelly murmur. "But you still breathe too loud when you're trying to be quiet."

Robin stepped out of the shadows, his own bo staff held loosely in his hands. "Ravager." he said, his voice flat and devoid of surprise. "Or is it Rose now? I can never keep track."

"Depends on the day." she replied with a humorless smirk, finally turning to face him. "Today, I'm feeling more like Rose. You're less likely to arrest 'Rose' on sight."

"What are you doing in Jump City?" he asked, skipping the pleasantries.

"Just visiting." she said airily, walking along the edge of the rooftop. "Seeing the sights. Taking in the architecture. Wondering why a city with so many heroes still has such a high crime rate. You guys must be slacking."

"We're managing." he said, his eyes narrowed, tracking her every move. They began to circle each other, a slow, familiar dance they had performed many times before. It was part conversation, part prelude to a fight. "That doesn't answer my question. The last I heard, you were working with the Defiance. Taking on real villains."

"Got bored." she said with a shrug. "Teamwork isn't really my thing. Too many people, too many opinions. Besides, I had some unfinished business here." She paused, her single blue eye locking onto his masked ones. "And I wanted to see how the Boy Wonder was holding up. See if you've finally shaken off my father's ghost."

The air crackled with tension. "Slade is gone." Robin stated, his voice cold.

"Is he?" Rose challenged, her voice soft and mocking. "You still stand like him when you think no one's looking. That same rigid posture. You carry his shadow around like a cape."

In a blur of motion, he lunged, his staff a sweeping arc aimed at her legs. She met it with her own blade, the clash of metal on metal ringing out in the pre-dawn quiet. The dance had begun.

They sparred, a flurry of strikes, blocks, and parries. It wasn't a fight to the death, not like their encounters in the past. This was different. It was a form of communication, each movement a sentence, each impact a question. Robin fought with controlled, precise anger. Rose fought with a wild, unpredictable grace, her movements fluid and deadly.

She disarmed him with a deft twist of her sword, sending his bo staff clattering across the rooftop. He responded by using the momentum to close the distance, sweeping her legs out from under her. She landed in a crouch, one of her katanas pressed against his throat an instant before his birdarang was at hers. They were at a stalemate, breathing heavily, inches apart.

"Still got it, Boy Wonder." Rose panted, a genuine smile touching her lips for the first time. "You're no fun if you don't put up a fight."

"Get out of my city, Rose." he said, his voice a low growl, though there was no real heat behind it.

She pulled her blade back, and he lowered his birdarang. The fight was over.

She stood up, brushing dust from her armor. "Relax. I'm not here to burn down your little clubhouse. My business is my own. It doesn't involve you or your colorful friends." Her eye flickered past him, toward the distant T-shaped tower on its island. "Speaking of which." she said, her tone shifting to one of casual, cutting gossip, "I have to say, I'm impressed."

"With what?" Robin asked, wary.

"Your little fan club. I saw the news feeds. The blonde one, the one who used to follow you around like a lovesick poodle. Kitten, was it?"

Robin’s posture stiffened almost imperceptibly. "What about her?"

"She seems to have finally gotten a new chew toy." Rose said with a cruel little laugh. "And a green one, at that. Must be a relief for you. Not having to deal with her shrieking and her terrible, obsessive attempts at courtship anymore. I have to admit, it's an improvement for the city's general peace and quiet."

She was fishing, trying to get a reaction, to find a weak spot in his armor. But Robin gave her nothing. His face remained a blank, impassive mask.

Rose watched him, disappointed by his lack of response. Her goal had been to needle him, but an unexpected and unwelcome feeling surfaced within her: a tiny spark of satisfaction. She was glad that shrieking, entitled blonde wasn't bothering Robin anymore. The thought was immediately infuriating. She wasn't supposed to care.

She backtracked immediately, covering the flicker of emotion with a thick layer of her signature cynicism. "Then again." she said, her voice turning hard and dismissive, "I guess one annoying blonde is as good as another. I just have a personal aversion to the whiny, high-maintenance type. Reminds me of too many of my father's business associates."

She turned her back on him, preparing to leave. She had gotten what she came for. She had tested his strength, probed his mind, and found a new, interesting crack in his emotional armor.

"This was fun, Robin." she called over her shoulder. "We should do it again sometime. But next time, try to keep up."

She leaped from the edge of the rooftop, firing a grappling hook that caught on a nearby building, and swung away into the deepening shadows, disappearing as silently as she had arrived.

Robin stood alone on the rooftop as the first rays of dawn began to paint the sky in shades of orange and pink. He watched the spot where she had disappeared, his thoughts a tangled mess. Rose's words echoed in his mind. She seems to have finally gotten a new chew toy. He should have been relieved. For years, Kitten's obsession had been a constant, irritating distraction. Her "relationship" with Beast Boy should have been a solution.

So why did it feel like a problem? Why did seeing them together—at the race, in the fight at the bank—spark a feeling of intense, proprietary anger in him? And why did Rose Wilson, his enemy, his rival, the daughter of his greatest foe, see it so clearly? He clenched his fists again. He wasn't jealous. He was… concerned. Concerned for his friend. That's what it was. It had to be.

He picked up his bo staff, the cold metal a familiar weight in his hand. The sun was rising, and with it came a new day. And a new, unwelcome clarity. The situation with Beast Boy and Kitten was more complicated than he had allowed himself to believe, and his own feelings about it were the most complicated part of all.

Chapter Text

The air in the Titans Tower training room was thick with the scent of ozone and exertion. Robin moved through his acrobatic routine with a fierce, almost punishing precision. A triple backflip off the high bar, a perfect landing, a seamless transition into a series of lightning-fast strikes against a holographic opponent. Each movement was flawless, economical, and utterly devoid of joy. He was working something out, exorcising a demon through sheer physical exhaustion. The demon, he knew, had a name, and it was Rose Wilson. Her words from the rooftop encounter had been like a burr under his suit, an irritating truth he couldn’t ignore. You carry his shadow around like a cape. And worse, the casual, cutting way she’d spoken of Kitten and Beast Boy had illuminated a corner of his own mind he had refused to inspect.

He wasn’t jealous. He was… concerned. But the line between the two had become blurry, and Rose’s probing had made him realize he couldn't leave it that way. He needed to know, for the team’s stability, and for his own peace of mind.

He finished his routine by shattering the hologram with a final, explosive spinning kick. Breathing heavily, he wiped the sweat from his brow. It was time.

He found Beast Boy in the common room, sprawled upside down on the couch, his feet dangling over the back, completely engrossed in a handheld video game. The tinny sounds of 8-bit laser fire filled the otherwise quiet space. This was the 'court jester' Kitten had so cruelly mocked, the 'chew toy' Rose had so dismissively mentioned. This was his friend.

"Beast Boy." Robin said, his voice calmer than he felt. "We need to talk."

Beast Boy didn’t look up from his game. "Can it wait? I’m about to beat the Slime Lord of Glornak 7. This dude’s been trash-talking me in the forums for weeks."

"No." Robin said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He walked over and stood in front of the couch, blocking the view of the TV. "It can’t."

With a long, put-upon groan, Beast Boy paused his game and swung himself into a sitting position, blinking up at his team leader. Robin’s expression was intense, his arms crossed over his chest, his shadow falling over the couch. It was his ‘we have a serious problem’ look.

"Whoa, what’s up?" Beast Boy asked, his casual attitude evaporating. "Did I forget to clean the T-Rex prints out of the garage again? Because I swear I did it this time."

"This is about Kitten." Robin stated, cutting straight to the point.

Beast Boy’s posture tensed. He ran a hand nervously through his hair. "Oh. Look, man, if this is about the Grand Prix, her cheating button wasn’t even connected to anything! It was a dummy, I swear. Just for show."

"It’s not about the race. It’s about… everything. The dates, the fights, the breakup, the reunion… all of it. I need to know what’s going on, Beast Boy. And I need the truth." He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping. "Is she blackmailing you? Is Killer Moth involved? Is this some elaborate, long-con revenge scheme on her father’s part? Give me something I can understand." He was offering an out, a list of logical, villainous reasons that would make sense in their world. Anything was better than the alternative he was refusing to consider.

Beast Boy looked at Robin’s face, at the genuine concern warring with deep-seated suspicion in his leader’s eyes. He could have taken the easy way out. He could have lied, created a story about some scheme he was trying to foil from the inside. It would have smoothed things over, put him back in Robin’s good graces. But his conversation with Raven echoed in his mind. Be honest with yourself, even if you can’t be honest with anyone else. He was tired of the lies. He was tired of the performance.

He took a deep breath. "No. It’s none of that."

"Then what is it?" Robin pressed, his frustration growing. "You can’t honestly be telling me this is real. You, and Kitten Walker? It makes no sense. You’re polar opposites. She’s selfish, manipulative, and materialistic. You’re… you."

"And what’s that supposed to mean?" Beast Boy asked, a defensive edge to his voice.

"It means you’re a good person!" Robin said, his voice rising with exasperation. "You’re goofy and annoying and you leave soy milk cartons empty in the fridge, but you’re decent. You’re kind. She… she eats people like you for breakfast."

"Maybe." Beast Boy said quietly, looking down at his hands. "Or maybe she’s more than you think she is." He looked back up, his green eyes meeting Robin’s masked ones with a newfound seriousness. "Look, I know how it started. It was a stupid deal. She paid me to be her fake boyfriend to make you jealous."

Robin flinched, the direct hit landing with more force than he’d expected. He hadn’t thought Beast Boy knew the full extent of the motive.

"I knew it was about you from the beginning." Beast Boy continued, seeing the reaction. "She wasn’t exactly subtle. And at first, that’s all it was. A really weird, high-paying acting gig. I just had to hold her hand and laugh at her terrible jokes about poor people. But then… things got complicated."

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his voice earnest. "I started to see… her. Not the spoiled princess, but the person underneath. When we were playing mini-golf, she missed a shot and got so mad, and for a second, she looked less like a villain and more like a little kid who lost a game. And I made her laugh. A real laugh, not one she paid for."

He recounted the events of the past few weeks, not as a series of crazy adventures, but as a sequence of revelations. "When we fought together, against those puppets, and then against Blackfire’s drones… we just clicked. It was like my chaos and her crazy logic fit together perfectly. And at the race… dude, she listened to me. She trusted my stupid ideas over her own instincts. She let me use the tofu-boost! Do you know how hard that must have been for her?"

He was pleading, trying to make Robin see the person he was seeing. "She’s not just one thing, Robin. Yeah, she’s bossy and spoiled and her taste in music is awful. But she’s also smart, and brave, and surprisingly funny when she’s not trying to be. And… she’s lonely. I think she’s been playing a part for so long, being the villain’s daughter, the rich girl, that she forgot how to just be a person. Maybe she’s just… trying to figure it out."

Robin listened, his arms still crossed, his expression unreadable. Every word Beast Boy said chipped away at the simple narrative he had constructed. The narrative where Kitten was a villain and Beast Boy was a victim. The truth, as it so often was, was messier.

"She’s still using you, Beast Boy." Robin finally said, his voice softer now. "She might be letting you see a different side of her, but the game is the same. It’s always about control."

"Is it?" Beast Boy challenged. "Or is it that you can’t stand the idea that she might have actually moved on? That she might genuinely like someone else? Someone who isn’t you?"

The question hung in the air between them, sharp and uncomfortable. It was the same accusation he’d hurled in the heat of the moment after the puppet fight, but now it was delivered with a quiet, analytical force.

Robin’s silence was his answer. He looked away, his gaze falling on the city outside the window. He thought of his own obsessive history with Slade, the way it had consumed him, defined him. He had seen Kitten’s obsession with him as a shallow, irritating reflection of that. But what if it was just… a crush? A misguided, ridiculously dramatic, but ultimately normal teenage crush that she was finally, clumsily, growing out of? What if he had been so focused on seeing her as an antagonist, a problem to be managed, that he had missed her becoming a person?

He finally looked back at Beast Boy. He saw the earnestness in his friend’s eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw. This wasn't a cry for help. It was a declaration.

He let out a long, slow sigh, the tension finally leaving his shoulders. He uncrossed his arms. "So you’re serious about this." he said. It wasn’t a question. It was an acceptance of fact.

Beast Boy nodded. "Yeah. I am." He braced himself for another argument, for a lecture, for an order to stand down.

Instead, Robin gave a small, tired nod. "Okay."

"Okay?" Beast Boy repeated, surprised by the simple, anticlimactic surrender. "Just… okay?"

"Okay." Robin confirmed. He ran a hand over his face, looking exhausted. "I don’t get it. I don’t think I’ll ever get it. But… you’re my friend. You’re a Titan. If you say this is what you want… if you’re happy… then I’m not going to stand in your way." He offered a small, weary smile. "Just… be careful. She’s still Kitten. Don’t expect her to start volunteering at the animal shelter."

A massive wave of relief washed over Beast Boy. He broke into a wide, goofy grin. "Dude! Thank you!" He jumped up from the couch. "And don’t worry, I know what I’m getting into. It’s a work in progress. But it’s our work in progress."

The heavy atmosphere in the room lifted, replaced by the easy camaraderie they had been missing for weeks.

Beast Boy, feeling bold, clapped a hand on Robin’s shoulder. "You know, I was worried there for a second. Thought I was gonna have to deal with two jealous teammates."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "Two?"

"Yeah! You, and Starfire. She’s gonna be super jealous when she finds out about your little rooftop rendezvous with Rose Wilson." Beast Boy teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

Robin’s face, which had just started to relax, instantly tensed up again. "It wasn’t a rendezvous. It was a… tactical assessment. And Starfire has nothing to be jealous about. There is absolutely nothing between me and Rose."

"Oh, really?" came a dry voice from the doorway.

They both turned to see Raven floating into the room, a book in her hand, her expression as placid and unreadable as ever. She had, as usual, been there the whole time, a silent observer in the shadows.

"Raven, tell him." Robin said, gesturing towards Beast Boy. "There’s nothing going on with me and Ravager."

"You are correct." Raven intoned, her gaze not leaving her book. "You do not have any romantic interest in Rose Wilson. Your denial is truthful." She turned a page. "However, your assessment of her feelings for you is, as usual, completely oblivious."

Robin stared at her. "What?"

"She likes you, dude." Beast Boy chimed in, grinning. "It’s so obvious. The sparring, the witty banter, the ‘I’m only here to annoy you but secretly I’m intrigued by your darkness’ routine? It’s classic."

"That’s ridiculous." Robin scoffed, though a faint flush crept up his neck. "She’s Slade’s daughter. She’s my enemy."

"The line between love and hate is often blurred, especially when acrobatic fights on rooftops are involved." Raven stated matter-of-factly. "Her aura spikes with a fascinating combination of resentment, competitive drive, and frustrated attraction whenever she is near you. It is… noisy."

"See? Noisy aura! That’s, like, scientific proof!" Beast Boy declared triumphantly.

Robin just stared at them, his mind struggling to process this new, unwelcome data point. Rose? It was impossible. He was the hero. She was the anti-hero. They were oil and water. Fire and ice. It didn’t compute. He opened his mouth to argue further, but then just shook his head, a gesture of complete and utter surrender to the romantic chaos that had apparently consumed his entire team.

"I’m going to go recalibrate the security sensors." he muttered, turning and making a swift exit before they could analyze his aura.

Beast Boy and Raven watched him go.

"He so doesn’t see it." Beast Boy said, shaking his head with a chuckle.

"He rarely does." Raven agreed, a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk touching her lips. She finally looked up from her book, her dark eyes meeting Beast Boy’s. "Your own path seems clearer now. The ambient noise of your anxiety has decreased by forty-seven percent."

Beast Boy grinned. "Yeah. I guess it has." He felt lighter than he had in months. The lies were gone, the conflict with his friend was resolved. All that was left was the terrifying, exciting, and very real prospect of figuring out what came next. And for that, he needed to talk to Kitten.

Chapter Text

Victory should have tasted sweet. For Kitten Walker, it should have tasted like champagne, diamonds, and the tears of her enemies. She had won the Jump City Grand Prix. She and Beast Boy were on the cover of Jump City Style magazine, a full-page photo of them in their racing suits, grinning beside their monstrous go-kart. The headline read: "THE ODD COUPLE: HOW GREEN POWER AND GIRL POWER TOOK THE CHECKERED FLAG." Her plan to rebrand them as a "power couple" had been a resounding, sickening success.

So why did she feel so empty?

She stood in the center of her enormous walk-in closet, a space larger than most people’s apartments. Racks of designer clothes stretched in every direction. Shelves of immaculate shoes stood at attention. A glass case displayed a fortune in handbags. It was her kingdom, a temple dedicated to the art of being Kitten Walker. And for the first time in her life, it felt like a prison of her own making.

She had spent the day after the race doing all the things she normally loved. She went on a shopping spree that would have funded a small country for a year. She bought a new sports car, a ridiculously expensive piece of jewelry, and had a gourmet lunch flown in from Paris. Each purchase, each moment of extravagant consumption, gave her a fleeting, hollow flicker of satisfaction that vanished the moment the credit card was swiped.

Nothing was working. The thrill was gone.

She picked up a silk dress, the fabric cool and lifeless in her hands. She remembered the feeling of the cheap, fire-retardant racing suit she had worn. The way it smelled of exhaust and victory. The way Beast Boy had looked at her, his eyes shining with pride, not in her wealth or her looks, but in her skill, in their shared success. She had felt more alive in that ugly, functional jumpsuit than she did now, surrounded by a king’s ransom in haute couture.

With a growl of frustration, she threw the dress on the floor.

This was his fault. The green idiot, with his slime-mold tires and his tofu-powered engines. He had broken her. He had infected her with… feelings. Sincerity. A taste for things that couldn’t be bought. It was disgusting.

She paced her closet, her expensive heels clicking angrily on the marble floor. The original plan had been so simple, so clean. Use Beast Boy, make Robin jealous, discard the pawn, claim the king. She had even executed a flawless mid-game pivot: the "Power Couple" rebrand after the Blackfire incident. Everything was going according to her brilliant, manipulative design.

But the design had a flaw. It hadn’t accounted for the pawn having a personality. It hadn’t accounted for the pawn being clever, and funny, and surprisingly brave. It hadn’t accounted for the pawn worming his way into her cold, calculating heart.

Her phone buzzed. It was a text from her father, Killer Moth.
 

Saw you in the paper. Good PR. Have you considered monetizing this ‘power couple’ brand? Perhaps a reality show? Let’s discuss synergy.

Kitten wanted to scream. Synergy. Brand. Monetize. That was her language. That was the world she was supposed to navigate with ruthless, inherited skill. But the words felt alien now, corporate buzzwords describing something that had become terrifyingly personal.

She thought back to the race. The moment she had reached for the illegal boost button, her default setting for any problem: cheat, win at all costs. And Beast Boy’s voice in her ear: No! We can do it together, the right way! Just trust me!

And she had. For no logical reason, she had trusted him. She had trusted his absurd plan. And it had worked. That trust, that leap of faith, had felt more powerful than any secret weapon her father’s labs could invent. It was a partnership. A real one.

Then there was the hug. The spontaneous, sweaty, triumphant hug after they had won. Her programming had screamed at her to push him away, to re-establish her personal space, to remind him of her superior status. But she had hugged him back. For just a second, she had allowed herself to feel the simple, uncomplicated warmth of being held by someone who was happy with her, not because of what she could give them, but because of what they had accomplished together.

The memory made her stomach twist into a complicated knot of pleasure and panic.

This had to stop. She had to get back in control. She needed to re-establish the old dynamic. She would plan a heist. A classic Kitten Walker job. Loud, expensive, and utterly pointless. Something that would remind her of who she was: a villain. A stylish, superior criminal, not… not half of a cute couple.

She pulled out her phone, her thumb hovering over the number for her head goon. She would rob the Jump City Museum of Modern Art. Again. She would steal a painting, something abstract and ugly that was worth a fortune. The Titans would show up. She would sneer at them. She would trade barbs with Robin. She would zap Beast Boy with a harmless but humiliating weapon—maybe something that covered him in glitter. It would be a reset. A return to glorious, predictable antagonism.

But the idea felt… exhausting. The thought of putting on a villainess costume, of practicing her sneer in the mirror, of orchestrating the whole tired performance… it held no appeal. What would be the point? To get Robin’s attention? She found, to her profound shock, that she didn’t really care about Robin’s attention anymore. His brooding intensity seemed bland and one-dimensional compared to Beast Boy’s vibrant, chaotic energy.

And the thought of zapping Beast Boy, of seeing that hurt, confused look on his face again… the one he’d had on the beach… it made her feel physically ill. She couldn’t do it.

She sank down onto a velvet ottoman, the fight draining out of her. The truth was bearing down on her with the force of a freight train.

She liked him.

Genuinely, truly, against her better judgment and in complete violation of her life’s plan, she liked Beast Boy.

She liked his stupid jokes. She liked the way his ears drooped when he was sad. She liked that he was unabashedly, unapologetically himself, whether he was turning into a T-Rex or arguing the merits of different soy cheeses. She liked that he saw something in her that wasn’t just a price tag or a famous villain’s daughter. He saw her, and he wasn’t intimidated. He challenged her, he made her laugh, and he made her feel… real.

The admission, even in the privacy of her own mind, was terrifying. To like someone was to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable was to lose control. And losing control was Kitten Walker’s greatest fear. Her entire life was a carefully constructed fortress of money, fashion, and attitude, all designed to protect the insecure girl at its core. Beast Boy hadn’t stormed the fortress; he’d just sort of stumbled through the front gate with a goofy grin and a bag of tofu puffs and made himself at home.

What was she supposed to do now? Continue the charade? Pretend this was all still part of the game? She could probably keep it up for a while. But the idea of faking it, of treating him like a pawn when he felt like a partner, was suddenly unbearable. It felt like the worst kind of lie.

There was only one other option, and it was the most terrifying of all.

The truth.

She would have to tell him. She would have to strip away the layers of performance and manipulation and present him with the raw, unvarnished, horrifying truth: her feelings were real. The thought made her want to crawl out of her own skin. It was a complete surrender. She would be handing him all the power. He could laugh at her. He could reject her. After the way she had treated him, he would be well within his rights.

She stood up and walked to her vanity mirror, staring at her reflection. The face that stared back was flawless, the makeup perfect, the expression a carefully crafted mask of indifference. It was a stranger’s face.

Slowly, deliberately, she picked up a makeup remover wipe. With a trembling hand, she began to clean her face. The eyeliner came off, then the mascara, then the foundation. With each swipe, the mask crumbled, revealing the pale, wide-eyed, frightened young woman beneath. Her blue eyes, now free of their artificial frame, looked huge and uncertain.

This was her. This was Kathryn Walker. This was the girl who was about to perform the single most terrifying act of her life. Not a heist, not a battle, but an honest conversation.

She took a deep, shaky breath. She pulled out her phone, her fingers flying across the screen, not to her goons, not to her father, but to him.

We need to talk. For real this time. No cameras, no tricks, no audience. Meet me at the place where we had our first ‘date’.

She sent the message before she could lose her nerve. Le Fantôme Riche. The Rich Ghost. It was a fitting place to kill the ghost of their fake relationship and see if something real could live in its place. She had no idea what she would wear. Something simple. Something honest. It was a category of clothing she wasn’t sure she even owned.

Chapter Text

The air inside Le Fantôme Riche was exactly as Beast Boy remembered: hushed, judgmental, and smelling faintly of money. This time, however, he wasn’t wearing a wrinkled polo shirt. After Kitten’s cryptic text, he had panicked about the dress code. Cyborg, in an act of true friendship, had taken pity on him and unearthed a decent black long-sleeved shirt and non-ripped pants from the depths of his own closet, using his laser eye to steam out the wrinkles. Beast Boy still felt wildly out of place, but at least he looked like he belonged in the same building as the furniture.

Kitten was already there, seated at the same corner table. But it was a different Kitten than the one he had met here before. Her dress was simple, a dark blue fabric that fell without any frills or sparkles. Her blonde hair was down, falling naturally around her shoulders. And her face… her face was naked. No perfect eyeliner, no cherry-red lipstick, no flawless foundation. It was just her. Seeing her like this, without her usual armor, made her look younger, softer, and incredibly nervous. The sight made Beast Boy’s own anxiety spike. This was serious.

He slid into the chair opposite her. "Hey." he said softly.

"Hey." she replied, her voice barely a whisper. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, choosing instead to meticulously rearrange the silverware on her side of the table.

A waiter glided over, the same tall, thin exclamation point of a man. "Mademoiselle Walker. Good evening. May I get you—?"

"Go away." Kitten said, not looking up.

The waiter blinked. "Pardon, Mademoiselle?"

"You heard me." she snapped, her voice regaining a sliver of its old fire. "We need the table. We don’t need you. Disappear."

The waiter, looking deeply offended, simply vanished.

Kitten took a shaky breath, then finally forced herself to look at Beast Boy. "Sorry." she mumbled. "Old habits."

"It’s okay." he said, though it really wasn’t. "So… you said we needed to talk. For real." He braced himself. Was she ending it for good this time? Was the power couple PR blitz over? Was she finally going to fire him?

"I have to tell you something." she began, her hands twisting a cloth napkin in her lap. "And I need you to just listen until I’m done, because if you interrupt me, I will lose my nerve and probably end up buying this restaurant and having it demolished just to create a distraction."

Beast Boy just nodded, his mouth suddenly dry.

"Okay." She took another deep breath. "The plan… the original plan… was exactly what you thought it was. It was a transaction. I was furious with Robin for dismissing me, for not seeing me. I wanted to make him jealous, to make him hurt, to make him realize what he’d thrown away. You were just… the most effective tool for the job. You were loud, and green, and everything he wasn’t. You were a prop. I hired you to play a part."

She was confessing to what he already knew, but hearing it laid out so clinically, so coldly, still stung. He just listened, his expression carefully neutral.

"I wrote the script." she continued, her voice gaining a frantic, rambling quality as the words tumbled out. "I was the director. It was all supposed to be a performance. The dates, the hand-holding, the public fights, the dramatic breakup… it was all for an audience of one. For him. I was using you, every step of the way. I treated you like an employee, an accessory, a thing I had bought. And it was cruel, and it was manipulative, and it was… it was the only way I knew how to be."

Her gaze dropped back to the mangled napkin in her lap. "But the prop started talking back. The prop had stupid ideas about tofu fuel and slime-mold tires. The prop made me laugh when I was supposed to be angry. The prop trusted me when I was about to do something stupid. The prop… made me feel like a partner instead of a boss."

She looked up again, and he saw a glimmer of moisture in her impossibly blue eyes. "I kept trying to get back to the script. The breakup on the shore… that was supposed to be my big scene. The final push to make Robin see. But when I saw your face… you looked so… hurt. And it wasn’t an act. And I felt… awful. I felt like the villain of the story for real, not just for fun. And then that greasy little nerd Control Freak made that stupid video, and we had to team up to fix it, and it was fun. And then Blackfire showed up, and I hated her, not because she was messing up my plan, but because she was looking at you."

She was picking at a loose thread on the napkin now, unraveling it. "And the race… I should have just cared about the trophy. About the win. About the PR. That’s all that should have mattered. But it didn’t. What mattered was the feeling when we were in that kart, when your crazy ideas were actually working, when we were in perfect sync. What mattered was that we won it together."

She finally stopped, her confession hanging in the silent, expensive air between them. Beast Boy’s mind was reeling. He had suspected some of this, felt it in bits and pieces, but hearing it all laid bare, hearing her admit her own confusion and vulnerability, was overwhelming.

"So… what are you saying, Kitten?" he asked gently.

She took one last, shuddering breath and finally said the words, forcing them out as if they were poison. "I’m saying the transaction is over. The performance is done." She finally met his gaze, her eyes wide with a terrifying, raw honesty. "I’m saying… I think I really, genuinely like you, Beast Boy. Not as a prop, or a pawn, or a partner in a PR stunt. Just… you. And it terrifies me. And I don’t know what to do with it."

There it was. The truth. It was more powerful than any of her father’s weapons, more valuable than all the money in her bank account.

Beast Boy just stared at her for a long moment, processing. He saw the fear in her eyes, the desperate plea for him not to laugh, not to run. He saw the immense courage it had taken for her, Kitten Walker, to strip herself bare like this.

And he started to smile. Not a small, polite smile. A huge, goofy, brilliant grin that spread across his entire face.

Kitten’s face fell. "You’re smiling. Oh god, you’re going to laugh at me. I knew this was a mistake. I—"

"No!" he said quickly, reaching across the table and, for the first time, taking her hand. Her hand was cold, but it warmed instantly in his. "I’m not laughing at you. I’m smiling because I’ve been waiting for you to say that. Because I really, genuinely like you too, Kitten."

Her name was Kathryn. He should probably try to remember that.

"You… you do?" she whispered, her voice tiny.

"Yeah. I have for a while now." he admitted. "Probably since you missed that shot at mini-golf. Or maybe since you candy-coated that puppet army. The timeline’s a little blurry. But yeah. You’re infuriating, and bossy, and you have the worst taste in pretty much everything. But you’re also brilliant, and strong, and when you let yourself, you’re actually a good person. And I think… I think I’m kind of falling for you."

The unshed tears in her eyes finally spilled over, tracing clean paths down her makeup-free cheeks. They weren’t tears of sadness, but of overwhelming, terrifying relief.

She let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "You’re an idiot."

"Yeah, but I’m your idiot." he grinned.

She squeezed his hand, a real smile—that rare, beautiful thing—spreading across her face. "Okay." she said. "Okay. So… what now?"

"Well." Beast Boy said, looking around the stuffy, silent restaurant. "I think we get out of here. This place is kinda depressing. And I’m hungry. And I’m pretty sure you just got us banned for life."

Kitten looked at the waiter, who was glaring at them from across the room. She laughed, a real, free, joyful sound that echoed in the quiet space, turning every head. "Probably."

"I know a place that has the best veggie dogs in the city." Beast Boy offered. "It’s a cart. On the pier."

The pier where she had waited for him, furious and alone, at the very beginning of their charade. It was poetic.

"Veggie dogs?" she asked, wrinkling her nose, but there was no malice in it. "That sounds… disgusting. I’ll have two."

He grinned and stood up, pulling her to her feet. For the first time, they walked out of a room together not as a performance, but as a beginning. The rich ghost of their fake relationship had been exorcised, and in its place was something living, breathing, and terrifyingly real. And it smelled vaguely of veggie dogs.

Chapter Text

The transition from a fake, transactional relationship to a real, actual one was, for Beast Boy and Kitten, less like a smooth glide and more like a car shifting gears without using the clutch. It was clunky, it made a lot of grinding noises, but somehow, it was moving forward.

Their first real date, post-confession, was at the veggie dog cart on the pier. Kitten, true to her word, had ordered two. She’d stared at the first one for a full minute, poking the soy-based sausage with a skeptical finger before taking a tiny, tentative bite.

"Well?" Beast Boy asked, midway through his own chili-cheese-covered creation.

"It’s… surprisingly not vile." she conceded, which was, from her, a rave review. "The texture is all wrong, and it needs a truffle aioli instead of this… yellow paste… but it’s edible." She took another, larger bite.

They sat on a bench overlooking the water, the garish lights of the amusement park reflecting in their eyes. It was a world away from the hushed elegance of Le Fantôme Riche. People were laughing, kids were screaming, and the air smelled of salt, popcorn, and questionable sanitation. It was Beast Boy’s world. And Kitten was in it, eating a veggie dog, and not complaining. Well, not much.

"This is where I waited for you, you know." she said quietly, gesturing with her half-eaten hot dog. "After the banner plane. I stood right there for an hour, getting angrier and angrier."

"I know." Beast Boy admitted. "I flew over as a pterodactyl. I saw you."

She turned to stare at him. "You spied on me?"

"It was for reconnaissance!" he said defensively. "Robin thought it was a trap!"

"It wasn't a trap." she said, her voice soft. "It was just… pathetic." She looked back at the water. "I’m glad you stood me up. If you had shown up then, we’d have never gotten… here."

He smiled and bumped his shoulder against hers. "Yeah. Here is pretty good."

In return, for their second date, Kitten insisted on introducing him to her world, but with a twist. She didn’t take him to a stuffy gala or a boring charity auction. She took him to the grand reopening of the Jump City Museum of Modern Art, which had recently repaired the damage from her last "performance art" piece.

"Are you sure we’re even allowed in here?" Beast Boy whispered as they walked through the grand entrance. He was wearing the green button-down again. Kitten had declared his wardrobe a "disaster zone under federal investigation" and had taken him on a shopping trip that he’d found more terrifying than any supervillain fight. He now owned several shirts with collars.

"Darling, I’m a patron of the arts." Kitten said, waving a dismissive hand. "My father donated the west wing. They can’t kick me out. It’s named after my mother."

They wandered through stark white rooms filled with art that Beast Boy found completely baffling. There was a canvas that was just painted solid black. There was a pile of broken televisions all playing static. There was a single, solitary chair in the middle of a room.

"I don’t get it." he said, staring at the chair. "Is it just a chair? Are we supposed to sit in it?"

"No, you are not supposed to sit in it." Kitten explained, a hint of amusement in her voice. "It’s not a chair. It’s a statement about the concept of a chair. The inherent loneliness of function in a post-industrial society."

"It’s a statement that a chair is lonely?"

"Essentially."

"That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard." he declared.

Kitten laughed, a real, honest laugh that made a nearby museum guard glare at them. "I know." she whispered. "It’s ridiculous. But you have to pretend you get it, or they think you’re uncultured."

Later, they stood in front of a massive, chaotic painting of clashing colors and angry-looking shapes. "Okay, what about this one?" he asked. "What’s this a statement about?"

Kitten studied the painting for a moment. "It’s about rage." she said, her voice surprisingly soft. "And feeling trapped. All those sharp lines are like a cage, and the colors are all the screaming you’re doing on the inside where no one can hear you."

Beast Boy looked from the painting to her. He had been about to make a joke, to say it looked like Cyborg’s room after he lost at video games. But her analysis felt too personal, too real. He realized she wasn’t just explaining the art; she was explaining herself.

He gently took her hand. "Well, I can hear you." he said.

She looked at him, surprised, then gave his hand a squeeze. "I know." she said. "It’s… new."

Their relationship became a strange and wonderful fusion of their two worlds. He would drag her to loud, crowded comic book conventions, where she would complain about the smells and the terrible costumes while secretly buying up rare, vintage copies of comics she thought he might like. She, in turn, would take him to the opera, where he would fall asleep and snore during the slow parts, but then wake up and morph into a perfect songbird to mimic the lead soprano’s aria, earning them a torrent of shushed rebukes and a few impressed smiles.

He taught her how to play Mega Monkey Mayhem 5. She was terrible at it, her instincts for ruthless efficiency completely at odds with the game’s chaotic, button-mashing logic. But she was a surprisingly sore loser, and her tantrums when he beat her were so epic and hilarious that he sometimes let her win just to see her gloat.

She, in turn, tried to teach him about finance. She opened a portfolio for him, investing the "signing bonus" she had given him. He didn’t understand any of it, but he would sit and listen as she explained stock options and acquisitions, fascinated by the way her eyes lit up when she talked about a hostile takeover, the same way his did when he talked about a new season of his favorite show.

The other Titans watched this development with a mixture of awe and disbelief.

"I still don’t get it." Cyborg said one afternoon, watching through the Tower window as Kitten and Beast Boy had a water-gun fight on the lawn below (Kitten’s water gun, naturally, was diamond-encrusted and shot Evian). "It’s like watching a mongoose date a cobra. A really rich, fashion-conscious cobra."

"They appear to have found a state of mutual happiness." Starfire chirped, clapping her hands delightedly. "Kitten has not orchestrated a single jewel heist in three weeks! It is a city-wide record!"

Robin just watched, a small, thoughtful smile on his face. He had been wrong. And for once, he was glad about it. The anger and tension that had defined his interactions with Beast Boy were gone, replaced by the easy friendship they’d had before. He’d even found himself in a conversation with Kitten that hadn’t devolved into threats or insults. She had asked for his opinion on a new security system for her penthouse. It was a small step, but it was a step away from antagonism and toward… something like respect.

Only Raven seemed completely unsurprised by the whole affair. She would often observe them, a book resting in her lap, a placid expression on her face. One evening, Beast Boy found her on the roof, meditating.

"Hey, Rae." he said, sitting down nearby.

"Your aura is less chaotic." she observed without opening her eyes. "The predominant color has shifted from panicked grey to a sort of… contented green. It is less distracting."

"Thanks, I think." he laughed. "I wanted to thank you. For what you said that night. About my heart not being a rental property. You were right."

"My observations are rarely incorrect." she stated. She opened her eyes, her gaze fixing on the distant lights of the city. "She is still a discordant symphony. But there are new notes in her song. Less arrogance, more affection. It’s… almost melodic."

Beast Boy smiled, looking out at the same city lights. "Yeah. It is." He knew their relationship was weird and complicated. He knew there would still be fights, and misunderstandings, and moments where their two worlds clashed spectacularly. But for the first time, he was sure it was worth it. He had a partner. A real one. And her song, however discordant, was the most beautiful music he had ever heard.

Chapter Text

A month into their real relationship, Jump City was preparing for its annual Founder’s Day Gala, a stuffy, self-congratulatory event that Kitten usually attended, criticized, and left early. This year, however, she saw it as something else entirely: an opportunity.

"It’s perfect." she declared to Beast Boy. He was sitting on the floor of her penthouse, surrounded by fabric swatches. She had decided his gala attire was a project of vital global importance. "It’s the biggest high-society event of the year. Every important person in the city will be there. The press, the politicians, the philanthropists…"

"And the free appetizers, right?" Beast Boy asked, holding up a swatch of dark green velvet. "Ooh, this one feels nice."

"Focus, Beastie." she said, snapping the swatch out of his hand. "This isn’t about appetizers. This is about a statement. A final, definitive statement."

"What kind of statement?" he asked, wary. Her ‘statements’ often involved jetpacks, giant banners, or property damage.

"A romantic one." she said, a dangerous glint in her eye. "All of our big moments have been… chaotic. Fights, races, weird alien interventions. We need a proper, grand, romantic moment. Something to erase the memory of the #JusticeForGrassyMan video forever. I want to show the whole world that this is real. That I choose you. Not for a scheme, not for a joke, but for real."

Beast Boy was touched. Genuinely. The sentiment was sweet, a testament to how far she had come. However, he also knew Kitten’s definition of ‘grand’ and ‘romantic’ tended to be several degrees of magnitude beyond what any normal human would consider sane.

"Kitten…" he said slowly. "That’s really sweet. But we don’t need to prove anything to anyone. I know it’s real. That’s all that matters, right?"

"Of course, darling." she said, patting his cheek. "But a little public adoration never hurt anyone. Don’t worry. It will be tasteful, elegant, and refined. You won’t even know it’s happening until it happens. Now, let’s talk tuxedos. I’m thinking a classic cut, but with a subtle, emerald green lining…"

Beast Boy let her fuss over him, a sense of deep foreboding settling in his stomach. ‘Tasteful, elegant, and refined’ were words that meant very different things to Kitten Walker than they did to the rest of the human race.

The night of the gala arrived. Beast Boy stood awkwardly in his new tuxedo, which was, he had to admit, the nicest thing he had ever worn. Kitten was breathtaking in a deep emerald gown that shimmered with every movement, a perfect complement to his suit lining. They looked, for all intents and purposes, like a normal, ridiculously attractive couple. The normalcy was unsettling.

The gala was held in the grand ballroom of a historic hotel. Chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, a string quartet played softly in the corner, and the city’s elite mingled, sipping champagne and making boring small talk.

"I feel like I’m in a museum exhibit titled ‘Rich People in Their Natural Habitat’." Beast Boy whispered to Kitten as they accepted glasses of sparkling cider.

"Just smile, nod, and don’t mention tofu." she whispered back, steering him through the crowd and expertly greeting people whose names sounded like investment firms.

For the first hour, everything was shockingly normal. They chatted, they nibbled on tiny, unidentifiable appetizers, and they successfully avoided talking to Kitten’s father, who was holding court near the ice sculpture. The other Titans were also there, acting as celebrity security. Cyborg was enjoying the buffet a little too much, Starfire was marveling at the chandeliers, and Robin was scanning the crowd with a professional, paranoid intensity.

Beast Boy was just starting to relax. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe her idea of a grand gesture was just… showing up and looking happy together. Maybe she had finally learned the meaning of the word ‘subtle.’

He had not.

It happened just after the mayor’s speech. The lights dimmed, and a single spotlight hit the main stage. A man in a glittering tuxedo walked out, holding a microphone.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen." the man announced, his voice booming through the ballroom, "a very special performance! A tribute to Jump City’s newest, and most exciting, power couple! Put your hands together for the world premiere of… ‘My Heart’s a Beast (For You)’!"

Beast Boy froze, a tiny crab puff halfway to his mouth. Oh no.

The string quartet, now joined by a drummer and an electric guitarist who seemed to appear out of nowhere, launched into a dramatic, soaring power ballad. Then, the singer opened his mouth.

"He came into her life, a flash of verdant green." the man crooned, his voice dripping with syrupy emotion. "A shapeshifting jester, a wild and crazy scene! She was a princess, trapped in a tower of gold… a lonely story, waiting to unfold!"

The entire ballroom had gone silent, every eye turning to stare at Beast Boy and Kitten. Beast Boy felt the blood drain from his face. He looked at Kitten, who was beaming, her eyes shining with pride. This was it. This was her grand, romantic, "tasteful" gesture.

He could feel the vibrations of Cyborg’s barely suppressed laughter from across the room. Starfire was clapping along, completely unironically. Robin had his face in his hand. Raven, standing in a dim corner, simply looked resigned to the universe’s embrace of cosmic cringe.

The song got worse. There was a rhyming dictionary’s worth of terrible animal puns.

"Her heart was a fortress, locked up with a key… then he turned into a monkey, and climbed up her tree! Meeeow, meeeow, you’re the cat’s meow! Woo-oof, woo-oof, I’m howling for you now!"

Behind the singer, a large screen descended, playing a slideshow. It was a highlight reel of their relationship, lovingly edited by a team Kitten had no doubt paid a fortune. There was the mini-golf date. The Grand Prix victory. There was even a still from Control Freak’s video—the dramatic zoom on Beast Boy’s "heartbroken" face, but now with a pink heart photoshopped over it.

Beast Boy wanted the floor to swallow him whole. He wanted to turn into an amoeba and cease to exist. This was a million times more embarrassing than the "Ode to a Green Boy." This was a public execution by power ballad.

The song reached its grand finale, the singer holding a note for an impossibly long time.

"So let the world just stare, let them all just see… that my heart’s a beast… my heart’s a beast… MY HEART’S A BEAST… FOR YOUUUUUUUUU!"

The song ended with a final, crashing chord and a flash of pink and green confetti that erupted from cannons on either side of the stage.

Silence. A deep, profound, mortified silence filled the ballroom. No one knew how to react.

Then Kitten, oblivious to the nuclear levels of secondhand embarrassment she had just unleashed, turned to Beast Boy. Her face was earnest, her eyes full of love.

"So?" she whispered, her voice trembling with hopeful anticipation. "Wasn’t it romantic?"

Beast Boy looked at her hopeful, happy face. He looked at the confetti settling in her perfect hair. He looked at the singer on stage, who was striking a triumphant, jazz-hands pose. He should have been horrified. He should have been furious. He should have morphed into a mole and dug his way to the Earth’s core.

But as he looked at her, at the incredible, over-the-top, ridiculously expensive effort she had gone to, just to show him—and the world—that she loved him, he couldn’t be mad. Because this was her. This was Kitten. It was loud, and tone-deaf, and completely insane. And it was born from a place of pure, genuine affection. This was her love language. And he was finally fluent.

And so, in the dead-silent ballroom, in front of the entire Jump City elite, Beast Boy started to laugh.

It started as a chuckle, then grew into a full-blown, rolling belly laugh. He laughed until tears streamed down his face. He leaned on her for support, laughing so hard he could barely stand.

Kitten’s face fell, a flicker of her old insecurity returning. "You’re laughing. You hate it. It’s terrible, isn’t it? It’s too much."

"No." he finally wheezed, wiping a tear from his eye. "No, it’s not too much. It’s… it’s perfect." He pulled her into a hug, right there in the middle of the ballroom. "It’s the most ridiculous, embarrassing, wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me."

He pulled back, grinning at her. "My heart’s a beast for you too, you psycho."

And he kissed her. Not a staged, press-release kiss, but a real, deep, loving kiss, surrounded by confetti and the lingering echo of a truly terrible song.

The stunned crowd, taking their cue, finally broke into hesitant, then enthusiastic applause.

Across the room, Cyborg finally let his laughter erupt, leaning against a pillar for support. Starfire was weeping with joy. Robin just shook his head, a long-suffering, but undeniably fond, smile on his face. This was his life now. This was his team. And it was, against all logic, perfectly, beautifully, a complete and utter mess. The way it was always meant to be.