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“Did you love him?”
The question hit her like a ton of bricks.
She whipped her head around to glare at him, but he was staring straight ahead, feet dangling over the edge of the tower, overlooking the water as it slowly turned dark, mirroring the now-inky sky as the sun fell below the horizon.
She didn’t respond, she was too busy scowling at him, trying to figure out if he was joking or not. But for once the changeling didn’t have his characteristic grin, and when she remained silent and he turned to look at her, she couldn’t detect any laughter in his eyes.
He was entirely serious, and so her anger dispelled, replacing with it a less violent but heavier feeling, and so she turned away and mimicked his earlier position overlooking the bay; although by now the sun was completely gone and all that remained was darkness.
“He was evil, Garfield. Truly evil. He may have been my father, but all I’d ever known him to be was a monster.”
Garfield seemed to think about this for a moment before he spoke, looking at his hands.
“I think you can still love someone and know they’re evil. I loved Terra even though I realize now that she wasn’t a good person, that she was using us. Was using me.”
He looked up.
“She caused everyone I care about pain, and yet, despite it all, I loved her, and parts of me still do, probably always will.”
Raven listened in silence, this was the first time Beast Boy had brought her up since that fateful day almost two years ago now, and she was shocked.
She felt him looking at her, and when she brought her eyes up to meet his green ones she was once again shocked by the sincerity in them.
“I can’t even pretend to know what it was like, what Trigon did to you, what he made you do. But I do know I couldn’t blame you if somewhere inside yourself you still loved him. I’d be a hypocrite if I told you you were wrong for that”.
“I want you to know that I'll never forgive him. And I’m happy he’s dead,” she said softly.
Gar nodded. “I think you can also acknowledge that the world is better off without certain people, that you’re better off without certain people. That for you to grow and live your life certain people need to be dead. That you’re glad they’re dead, that you’ll never forgive them for what they’ve done. I think you can think all this, and still love them. Because what is love, if not contradiction”.
He gave a small, humourless, laugh. “We can’t choose who we’re related to and we can’t choose who we love. I’d like to think we both would’ve chosen better if we’d been given the chance”.
He wasn’t looking at her now. He was staring into the dark with a sad smile on his face.
Raven didn't know what to say. This was a side of him she’d never seen. A serious, an insightful, a downright poetic side. A side as different to his usual joking persona as she had previously thought the two of them to be. And it made her wonder what had caused this change, what had caused this maturation into the solemn young man seated beside her, and for some reason, her heart broke at the thought of it.
His liveliness was always a constant, one she had come to accept, one she had come to rely on, one she had maybe even come to love. And the realization that it maybe wasn’t a constant, that he may be just as broken as she is, made her want to scream at the unfairness of it all.
Because if not even Garfield Logan could manage to find happiness in everything, if he couldn’t see enough good in the world to bring him cheer, to bring him peace, how could he ever see enough good in her?
She had been quiet for too long now, and she knew she needed to speak, but she physically couldn’t. There was too much resting on the words that would break the silence between them. Too much she wanted to say, knew she should say, but was unable to bring herself to. Never before had Raven hated herself for being so quiet.
But before she got the chance to say something, anything, Garfield beat her to it.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have brought him up. I know how much you hate talking about it.” He moved to leave and Raven was filled with an urgent need to speak before he left her. She felt panicked, felt as if she needed to see him smile, needed him to be back to his joking self. If he left now, with that empty look, that, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be a deep sadness, she felt she might die.
“I didn’t...love him, necessarily, but I did...” here she paused, searching for the right word, and Garfield suddenly stopped and made no further move to leave as he listened to her in silence.
“...but I did care for him. To a certain extent. More than I had any right to and certainly more than he deserved.” She was avoiding his eye, and looking at the dark ground far below her feet; but when she felt him settle beside her once again, she was oddly comforted, and started speaking again.
“I think you’re right. Love is a confusing paradox. I hated him for putting me through what he did, for molding my life to his own wishes and trying to control every aspect of me. For using me as a pawn. But at the same time a part of me that was far larger than it had any right to be, desperately wanted him to be proud of me. And more than once I thought that if he wouldn’t be proud of me for my good work, for my work with the Titans, then at least he would be proud of me after I committed those horrors in his name.”
She felt a single tear fall onto her clasped hands and she threw up her head to look at the starless sky as she willed the other tears not to spill.
“I was a fool. I knew all along that the only thing he cared about was destruction. Power. I knew he didn’t even care if I survived. But what could I do?” she said in a small voice. “He was my father.”
She took a deep and shuddering breath.
“I think it’s because I saw myself in him. Saw him in myself. I could relate to his anger. And a part of me thought that if I couldn’t separate myself from him, I might as well join him, show him exactly how I was like him in every terrible way.”
She suddenly realized she was fully crying now. The warm tears cooling on her face in the crisp midnight air.
Suddenly, she gasped softly. Looking next to her in shock, she saw Garfield’s hand on hers. It wasn’t fully holding hers quite yet, just tentatively resting on top, but it was nonetheless providing a reassurance, and a warmth she never knew she would enjoy feeling so much.
“But you’re not ” he said softly but firmly. “You may have that same rage deep inside you, and you may be his flesh and blood but you are not like him” He said, emphasizing his point with a gentle squeeze of her hand.
She looked down at their hands and then slowly up to meet the serious look in his eyes, once again wondering just when he had grown up into the solemn man sitting beside her.
“You once told me that having something scary inside me doesn't make me an animal, but knowing when to let it out is what makes me a man. You were right. It isn’t those parts of us that we’re scared of that define us. It’s how we actively try to fight them that proves that we’re more. That we never want to be reduced to the horrors, the violence, that we’re capable of committing. That we want to be better, will do everything we can to make sure we’re never defined by our darkness. And Raven...”
Here he leaned in closer and cupped her face with his hand, turning her head so she would look him straight in the eye. “You are good. It’s just like Robin said, I’ve never met a more hopeful person in my life. You are determined to prove that you’re not like your father, you refused to be dismissed as a force of evil, you’ve fought to be a force of good. That alone makes you nothing like your father and…” here he trailed off, noticing how close they were as he felt her warm breath on his face.
“...and makes you the best person I know.” He gently removed his hand, and moved to scooch away when he was stopped by a smaller, slightly colder hand cupping his cheek, and he turned to look deep into the calm amethyst eyes before him.
“Thank you.” She said softly. And she tilted her head up and pressed a ghost of a kiss to his temple, before looking back out over the water, and holding his hand more firmly than she’d ever held anything before.