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Beast Boy lay sprawled upside-down on the couch of the common room, head hanging off the edge of the cushion, controller balanced on his chest, legs kicked up and over the back, eyes glazed from the marathon gaming session. A half-eaten box of cereal teetered on the coffee table next to a stack of napkins folded into increasingly ornate animal shapes.
This lazy Sunday was really shaping up for him!
He’d slept in late, gluttonously mowed through a family-sized box of cereal, and with Cyborg out in town picking up some stuff for the garage, he’d managed to get ahead of him in their newest game and had some pretty serious story spoilers to hold over his head.
He was mid-yawn, one gloved hand lazily sifting through the cereal box for some more crunchy artificial-fruity goodness, when it happened.
Thunk!
A sharp, feathery thwack against the window caused Beast Boy’s head to snap up. He blinked the glaze from his eyes just in time to see something peel off the window and begin spiraling haphazardly upward.
..Huh. Things didn’t usually fall up . Wait. He was lounging upside-down. Which meant--
“ Dude! ” Beast Boy immediately twisted himself up and off the cushions, ignoring the changeling-shaped indent he’d left from hours of inaction. He rushed to the window, pressing his face flush to the glass as he watched a small winged shape steer down and away from a smear on the glass-- a smear that looked suspiciously like a bird’s imprint.
“Little dude down!” he cried out to the empty Ops room, scrambling and tripping over his own two legs in the process before shifting into a cheetah and pelting for the elevator.
Beast Boy sped from the Tower’s lobby and rushed across the sun-warmed earth of the island, awkwardly trying to determine the trajectory he’d seen the bird fall from. If the window of the common room was up there… account for wind, add on a… scratch that, multiply that by two… then the bird must have fallen… . there!
Nestled in the shadow of the Tower’s outer wall, a small bird lay motionless, mottled feathers askew. Its eyes were shut.
Beast Boy knelt beside the bird as if it were a wounded soldier, his eyes wide with worry. It didn’t even try to flap its wings or twitch or anything, even a big cat rapidly approached, which wasn’t a good sign in bird body language. Was it even breathing? Oh, dude, it definitely didn’t look like it was breathing!
“Don’t worry, little dude,” he whispered, shifting back to human form to curl his hands gently around the stunned bird. “BB’s gonna get’cha all sorted out and back up in the sky in no time!”
He could totally do that. He knew what the deal with birds was, he was a bird sometimes! So this should be a piece of cake.
Right?
As it turns out, while Beast Boy could sprout wings and a beak and warble like a songbird all the same, he didn’t know where to begin in nursing one back to health. To no one’s surprise but his own.
The only real lead he had on rehabilitation was make a nest. Because, obviously, birds had nests.
He scrambled back into the common room, the bird tucked up to his chest. Beast Boy cleared off the coffee table and yanked the bag out of the cereal box, ripping the box itself open into a shallow rectangular shape. Perfect for a temporary nest! Well.. actually, nests were usually pretty soft though. But the Tower was woefully devoid of natural things like that… twigs and wool and stuff. Paper towels were pretty soft, right?
He yanked some paper towels from the kitchen counter and fluffed them down into the box before nestling the stunned bird right down in the middle of it. He’d realized it was a chickadee after sorting through his mental repertoire of local wildlife. Not his usual style of bird, but hey, songbirds weren’t exactly known for their fighting capabilities!
Beast Boy stepped back, admiring his craftsmanship with a toothy grin. For good measure, he plopped one of the origami napkins shaped vaguely like a bird (he’d had a certain corvid in mind…) he’d made earlier down next to it so it had a friend. Yeah! This was totally bird rehab central.
“Okay,” he mused to himself. “Step one: nest, check! Step two…. uhm…”
Beast Boy glanced about the room, nibbling his lip with uncertainty, like something would stand out to him and tell him what to do next. Maybe it was hungry? Thirsty?
He grabbed a fistful of cereal from the discarded bag and dropped it in the makeshift nest then scrambled to the kitchen for a water dish of some kind. He snagged a small shallow bowl and filled it with water and very carefully navigated back to the coffee table and tucked into the corner of the box.
“Step two: food and water, check!” the changeling beamed. “Alright, little guy, if you can hear me, blink! Or… peep? Chirp? Or just.. move a little bit?”
Beast Boy watched with wide eyes, hoping to glean just the slightest bit of movement from the bird. It had a nest, food, water, and the greatest company it could keep in the Tower! But it remained motionless, the gentle rise and fall of its breast the only signs of life. But hey, at least it was still breathing! No little birds dying on his watch today, no sir!
He wrapped a finger thoughtfully around his chin before a thought struck him. “Oh, duh! ”
In an instant a green chickadee had replaced the boy, and it landed on the edge of the table beside the cereal box and warbled encouragingly at its winged companion. I just gotta speak his language!
He hopped up onto the edge of the box, dipping his beak into the water bowl and making a show of drinking with a satisfied trill. When that didn’t work he snatched up a piece of cereal, biting it in half and tossing a piece towards the chickadee-- and was relieved when its feathers ruffled for a moment in response.
Beast Boy hopped closer to it. A much more up-close assessment of the bird told Beast Boy it was still kinda young. It still had some of its down feathers. How it had flown all the way from the mainland, he had no clue. That flight could even tire him out. And it was breathing - just slowly. Phew! He’d begun to worry he’d need to kneel down and give it some kind of birdie CPR which he was only partly qualified in.
He did see it was trembling a little though-- so he shifted back to unlatch one of his boots and without a single moment’s hesitation yanked off his sock. He’d washed it.. what, two weeks ago? So it was pretty much fresh out the dryer.
He’d just finished tucking his sock around the chickadee when the sound of the pneumatic doors swishing open surprised him. Beast Boy glanced up to see Starfire floating in. She hummed a happy tune as she took quick notice of the mess by the couch but she was also one of the few Tower residents largely unbothered by Beast Boy’s natural state of disorder. “Good afternoon, friend Beast Boy! Is this not the most joyous day of sun?”
Beast Boy grinned, excited to show someone the good he’d done. “Hey, Star! Come check this out-- we’ve got a houseguest! Err, nest-guest?”
A proud smile curled onto his face as the alien warrior flitted over, eyes brimming with curiosity, before gasping in delight and rushing so quickly to the coffee table some of the scattered cereal flew off in her wake. “A tiny bird! Oh, Beast Boy, how did you come to find such a small creature? Was it one of the toys hidden in your cereal?”
Beast Boy laughed. “No-- that’d be cool, though. …If a little unethical. I saved him, Star! He flew into the window and took a pretty nasty fall -- he’s kinda dazed out of his mind right now...”
Starfire gasped with elation. “Please may I assist in this endeavor? I can fetch some of Silkie’s favourite treats! Or perhaps give him lessons in the flying when he is feeling ready!”
Beast Boy frowned thoughtfully, glancing from Starfire back to his feathery patient. “He’s still in shock. I think. I gave him a nest, water, a snack, a blanket, even a little napkin buddy!” Beast Boy frowned, hands perching impatiently on his waist. “I dunno what I’m missing.”
“The birds of your planet feed their young through regurgitation of nutrients, no?” Starfire innocently inquired, green eyes glittering with thought as Beast Boy’s own lit up.
“Star, you’re a genius!”
Compressed air hissed through the hidden seals in the common room door as another Tower resident stepped inside.
…Before she froze at the sight that greeted her. Across the room Starfire was sat on the couch, holding a tiny, fluffed-up bird in her hands. Hovering on one of her curled fingertips a slightly larger bird -- notably, a green one -- was harking up discolored mush as the alien princess cooed her encouragement. “Come now, little bumgorf! You must eat the regurgitated food if you are to grow strong and take wing once more!”
Raven blinked. “...What is happening.”
Starfire spun her head around, grinning wide at her friend as the door swung shut behind her. “Raven! Beast Boy is nursing his young! ”
“What?”
The green chickadee that had been in Starfire’s palms promptly lifted up into the air before shifting into Beast Boy. He wiped his mouth with the back of his glove with a sheepish grin. “Hi Raven! This little guy smacked into the window earlier,” he gestured to the normal bird cupped in Starfire’s palms, who was looking a lot more wakeful than he had before. “We’re nursing him back to health so he can fly again!”
“And you were… throwing up on it?”
“Regurgitating!” Beast Boy quickly amended, jabbing a finger at the empath who’d - against her better judgment - closed the distance between herself and the couch to get a better look. Regurgitation sounded way more noble than throwing up . Plus it made him feel like he had an intellectual one-up on the Tower’s booksmartiest patron. “He’s probably too young to eat cereal so it was the next best thing!”
“We have named him Cheepy!” Starfire added, raising her hands to present the chickadee to Raven, who stared at it with a slightly bemused look. “For he has begun to make the small cheepy noises!” To prove its namesake, the chickadee gave a weak trill, earning a fawning sigh from Starfire. “He has warmed my heart.”
Beast Boy smiled a bashful smile, scratching the back of his neck. “Gotta give us points for originality there,” he chuckled, crouching back next to Starfire and sticking his face up next to Cheepy’s. “He’s gotten a lot more lively in the last few minutes! He hasn’t eaten any of the Fruit Hoops I chewed up for him though…”
Raven grimaced. “I can’t imagine why. …And why does it smell?”
Beast Boy blinked. “What’dya mean?”
“I believe Beast Boy has been keeping our little friend warm by wrapping him up in his discarded undergarme-!”
“Sock!” Beast Boy cried, diving towards the nest to show her the grey sock they’d abandoned when they’d tried feeding Cheepy via bird-slop. Which, he guessed after some minutes of separation, did have a bit of an odor. Only a little , though. “I- uh, gave it my sock! ‘Cuz it was cold! It was like a little birdie sleeping bag for a bit ‘til he stopped shivering.”
“...Uh huh.” Raven leaned away as he shook the sock in her direction. Her attention seemed to shift back onto Starfire and the chickadee, and a lightbulb popped up over Beast Boy’s head. “Say, uh, would you wanna help? Maybe you can see if he’s all good! He fell pretty far--”
“I’m not a veterinarian.”
“But you have taken care of Beast Boy’s injuries many times after battle!”
“That’s different.”
“ Yeah! Wait, hey- -” Beast Boy shot Starfire a look that she only giggled at, floating up nearer to Raven. “Simply look at him, Raven! Does he not pluck at the strings of your heart? He is in need of just a little of the help!”
Starfire lifted Cheepy up even closer to Raven’s face and Raven wrinkled her nose at the sudden proximity to a ruffled songbird that reeked of Beast Boy-sock-smell and stale cereal-- but felt pinned down between the stares of all three of them: Beast Boy’s pleading, Starfire’s glimmering, and this little chickadee’s whose beady black eyes seemed to have opened wide just to stare up at her.
“He needs a better…. tweetment plan , you could say.”
Nail in the coffin, straw breaking the camel’s back, coup de grâce, and all that.
A world-weary sigh tumbled out of Raven. “ Fine, ” Raven snipped, ignoring the triumphant hoops from her friends. Then she noticed something and her brow dangerously furrowed.
“...Is that my incense bowl?”
Sunset coloured the sky as Beast Boy, Starfire, and Raven took to the outdoors. Beast Boy held Cheepy close to him, but held out his arms once the three of them reached the crop of boulders hugging the western edge of the island.
After Beast Boy had rushed to scrub her incense bowl clean (he had no idea, Raven, he swore , he thought it was just some random dish on the counter!), Raven had determined with no more than a second’s scrutiny that the chickadee wasn’t injured at all - maybe a little shocked and a little sore, but didn’t have anything that would stop it from flying once it had rested and recovered. And that Beast Boy had been doing entirely too much, but she had to given him credit for his earnest.
They had spent the last two hours in the common room with Cheepy, watching as the bird got more and more lively. Lively enough to begin flying from the coffee table to the couch, then to the kitchen and one of the grids along the wall by the ceiling that Starfire had to fly up and fetch him, which had turned into she, Beast Boy, and Cheepy racing one another along the ceiling of the common room. Then Cheepy had made a nosedive and landed on Raven’s head, cheeping up a storm, much to the empath’s chagrin and the others’ amusement as they dropped back to the floor.
It was safe to say Beast Boy had gotten pretty attached to Cheepy. Who could blame him? Something, something, birds of a feather… but Raven was right when she’d said he was ready to get back in the air. He knew a thing or two about feeling all cramped up somewhere foreign.
“All right, little dude,” sighed Beast Boy, voice thick with restrained emotion. “It’s time for you to… to…” A wet sniffle. “To leave the nest.”
Raven barely restrained the roll her eyes behind him.
“Yes, little Cheepy,” Starfire crooned on the boy’s other side, gesturing broadly at the great expanse of the sea and sky. “You are now most prepared to reclaim the sky as yours!”
“Yeah-- um, u-unless you wanna stick around?” Beast Boy interjected, watching with a mix of delight and dismay as Cheepy began shuffling his wings. “I’ll ditch the Fruit Hoops nest for a real one! I can even convince Robin to add straw and birdseed to the grocery list! There’s tons of spots you can fly around and--”
“I think Robin draws the line of Tower pets at Silkie,” Raven shrugged.
“You don’t know that-- ah! ” Beast Boy froze when Cheepy’s wings hesitantly began to outstretch, shaking out his flight feathers as it fidgeted up to the tips of his gloves. He gave a tiny little cheep! of conviction and unfurled his wings.
Beast Boy had hardly more than a second to register what was about to happen before the chickadee flapped up and out of his palms.
“ Wait-! ” He lurched forward, not entirely sure if he was trying to catch Cheepy or transform into something to fly up after him, but was stopped regardless by a light but firm hand on his shoulder. “Let him go.”
Beast Boy looked back at Raven with wide, rheumy eyes, but hers were angled up, tracing Cheepy’s flight as he -- clumsily at first, but slowly regaining stability -- fluttered skyward. She seemed to sense his gaze on her, like always (must be some psychic powery thing…), and briefly flicked hers down to him. “He’ll be fine, Beast Boy.”
“Oh, be free, Cheepy! Let the winds carry you far and wide!” cried Starfire, throwing enthusiastic arms up and over her head to wave her farewells. “May you come back and visit us sometime, please!”
Feeling slightly more revitalized by the words of both his friends, Beast Boy’s fang poked out in a watery smile. Cheepy was already a tiny thing in the sky by now. He’d made some headway out over the water, winging it confidently towards the Jump City skyline. And to think, only a few hours ago he’d been all crumpled up at the foot of Titans Tower, waiting for his mighty savior in green.
“Geez. Is this what empty nest syndrome feels like?” Beast Boy gave a long and dramatic sigh, wiping his eyes free from his tears of pride, thank you very much. “They grow up so fast…”
Raven glanced sideways at him, arms loosely crossed. “You fed him cereal mush and let him nap in a dirty sock for an afternoon.”
Beast Boy scoffed and clutched his chest in mock offense. “One beautiful, life-changing afternoon. Parenting is a really thankless job, you know.” He closed his eyes in playful solemness, hand curling over his heart. “May Cheepy never forget the warm, regurgitated taste of home.”
Raven didn’t resist the roll of her eyes this time, cloak billowing as she spun back towards the Tower. “Aaaand that’s my cue to leave. Bye.”
Beast Boy watched her go with a lingering grin, swearing he saw her lip quirk just the slightest bit, so he’d basically just accomplished one of his primary goals in life. No biggie.
He remained with Starfire on the shore, watching until Cheepy was just a speck in the sky -- and then he was gone.
“Fly free, little dude,” Beast Boy murmured, giving the horizon a small salute that Starfire giggled and mirrored. “And don’t fly into any more windows!”
A beep from their communicators startled them both, and Starfire was the first to whip hers open to reveal the very unimpressed face of Robin glowering back at them. “Would someone please care to tell me why there’s a crime scene made of half-digested cereal all over the couch?”
Even though Robin was looking up at Starfire through the video feed, Beast Boy felt the leader’s stare dive right through her and straight into him. He twittered a nervous laugh, already feeling sore from the extra half-hour of agility training that would undoubtedly hammer down on him in the morning.
“The joys of parenthood, amirite?”