One Hundred Ways Robin's Like A Banana
I.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. This chapter revised.
It was January 2nd. Normally, this would mean that wild revelry had taken place and that the Teen Titans were now recovering from it—but today, Robin had called a meeting. It was unusual, Raven thought, and so instead of listening to the annoyed cries of her various emotions, she decided to go. She descended the staircase, fell up, cursed, got to the ops room five minutes late, and finally got into the door.
Everyone else was already there. Robin looked up and nodded at her. "You're late," he said.
"Is that the exact tone that Batman used?" she snarked.
"Yes," he said, not laughing. Raven grumbled. "Figures."
"All right," Cyborg said. "What's goin' on?"
"Well, it's Sla…" Robin shook himself. "I mean, the city's asked us to participate in an education awareness activity for the Jump City Fine Arts School, and take one class there each, starting tomorrow. I know it's short notice, and we're still recovering from the New Year's party, but it's just six weeks, three days a week. They'll advertise all over the place, and apparently we're cool enough that people will want to take classes there too. He handed catalogs to everyone. "Here's the course selection for this semester."
"What kind of a selection is this?" asked Cyborg. "Art courses? Sculpture? Writing? There's not a single mechanical thing there!"
"That would be why it's called Jump City Fine Arts," Raven said.
"Auto maintenance is a fine art," Cyborg shot back. Raven rolled her eyes. There were a few minutes of silence as the Titans looked through the booklets.
"I will choose this one," Starfire said. "Still Life: Cornucopia of Nature." She gave the booklet back, reading it aloud.
"Students will be able to depict formulations of landscapes, flora, and still life effectively, efficiently, skillfully, artistically, sublimely, majestically, aesthetically…"
"Got it, Star," Robin said hastily, taking the booklet from her. She clapped her hands together.
"The adverbs are most appealing to me," she said. "May I be excused? Silkie is in need of food."
"Sure," Robin said. Starfire left. Next, Cyborg stood and handed his booklet to Robin.
"I'll try 'Mural Painting: The King's Art,' whatever that means," he said.
Robin snickered. "Nice class description. 'What a glorious morning to be alive, prospective students! In my class you'll learn all about the royal art of…'"
"I thought you liked people who overused the word 'glorious'," Raven said. Robin was caught a little flat-footed, blushing. Cyborg gave an appreciative glance to Raven, who shrugged.
Beast Boy was flipping through pages and getting increasingly overwhelmed. "This is the worst! I don't know how to do any of these things!"
"What exactly do you know how to do?" Raven said.
"Lots of stuff!" Beast Boy said. "I can dish out a wide array of gourmet tofu products, I can pick up all…" Raven tuned him out and perused the pages of her catalog. She was, at least by stereotype, seemingly the most artsy of the Titans, but she didn't exactly want to take up crochet, or dance, or anything else, for that matter. Unfortunately, this was just part of the duties of an official superhero team—the public relations.
Beast Boy yelped, drawing her attention again. "I got it!" he said, holding up his listing and pointing to "Animal Art: Level II."
"Students will be able to intelligently represent animal anatomy, convincingly draw real-world and mythological animals, including…" He read a long list of animals. "Now that's a class!" he said. "Mark me down for that one."
"Narcissist," Raven muttered. Well, time to bite the bullet. Everyone else had. "I suppose I'll take this one. Focus in Writing Nonfiction."
She handed her catalog back to Robin.
"Interesting," he said. "Students will be able to learn about focus in writing and expand clarity of expression to facilitate clear communication…" He broke off.
"This description doesn't really facilitate clear communication for me," he said. "Anyway… Clear communication with ideas, comparisons, and words to maximize brevity…"
He shook his head. Raven looked at Robin's catalog.
"You've picked three. Forgery and Relative Superlative Recognition, Technical Paper Comprehension, and The Art of Disguise," she said.
"Yeah, I know," he replied. "I thought they were interesting. You sure about that writing class? It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in me."
"It'll be fine," said Raven.
"Okay," he said, circling the class. "I don't suppose it could hurt."
January 3rd.
"So, actually… this hurts," Raven said. Said? Well, whined, she privately admitted. "I don't do long-term projects."
"Can't handle a community college writing class?" Robin said, smirking in that way that truly invited a telekinetic slapping. "What do you do all that reading for, anyway?"
Raven admitted that she had it easier than the other Titans. At least this was an Internet class and she didn't have to leave the Tower almost every day like the other Titans. And they had long-term projects, too.
Robin was in a ludicrous costume consisting of a bowler hat, a striped shirt, and pants that were a bright banana yellow. In fact, on closer inspection, they were covered in drawings of bananas.
Still, at least the color scheme was better than what she usually had to put up with. He was admiring himself in the mirror, and apparently wasn't even being blinded. Cyborg was the only other person in the Tower at the moment, and he was on the fourth floor painting the walls for his class.
Groaning, Raven read the assignment description.
"Students will write a comparative list of one hundred items, analyzing the shared characteristics of two seemingly unrelated persons, places, or things. Brief descriptions of each similarity are required. Note that points will be taken off if the objects are readily found to be similar. This project is worth…"
She blinked.
"Azar's bazaars. I'm going to kill something."
Robin looked up at her. The last few words had been said much louder than the rest of the description.
He smiled. She frowned.
"Go away," she said calmly. He turned back to his disguise. She turned back to her project.
"Two hundred points," she mumbled. "Well, put a dunce cap on me and call me Touchstone."
She regretted saying this as soon as the words came out of her mouth. Robin's hearing was unbelievably acute for a human, and he happened to have a dunce cap sitting right in front of him.
"If you say so," he said. Raven inwardly cursed. He had heard it. Robin got up holding the dunce cap. She quickly grabbed it away from him in a black energy grip and tossed it out the window telekinetically.
Robin looked up at her reproachfully. "Give it back," he said.
"Fine. Don't try that again," she replied.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said. Raven tossed the cap back to him and thought about more important matters.
Well, what would she pick as her subject for her 'comparative list'? She looked around for any two random things. Her eye fell on Robin again-how could it not, with his current attire? All right, fine. She looked at his banana-covered pants and smirked.
"One hundred ways Robin is like a banana," she said aloud. Robin looked at her curiously.
"What?" he asked.
"My assignment," she said. "That's what I'll write about."
He gave her a pitying look and turned away.
January 9th.
Six days later, Raven had finally gotten over her procrastinating tendencies and gone to the darkened, rarely-used computer lab in the Tower. A few high-tech but dust-covered computers stood at odd angles. It was late and no one else seemed to be around.
One Hundred Ways Robin's like a Banana
January 9, 2006
by Raven
It was a start.
She sighed and shifted in her chair. She took her hands off the keyboard. Then she put them on again. She twirled around in the spinning chair.
What could possibly come to mind as similarities between Robin and a banana? She seemed to have compounded her troubles with bad ideas.
Actually, a few things, at least, came to mind immediately. She typed them in.
1. They're both colored yellow.
"Analysis," she murmured. "Hm…"
Quite simple. Robin's costume has yellow segments and a banana is yellow all over.
2. This makes them both fruity.
Though even without it, they're clearly both fruits. The banana is, obviously, a fruit. As for Robin—ever seen the shorts he used to wear? It was even worse than his current outfit. Given all of that, I rest my case. And if you knew his real name…
3. Neither one seems entirely straight.
Well, bananas have that little curve tendency. Robin, on the other hand… see points one and two. At least it's a possibility that can't be ruled out. Though…
4. They're both rather mushy.
Again, this is not quite literal, as a banana is physically mushy and squishy. Robin, on the other hand, is simply obnoxiously obsequious to Starfire. I swear on Azar's corpse, he babies the girl. "Star-fyarrrrr!" He never shouts like that about any of the other team members. Then again…
5. Apparently, nothing like them has ever been seen on Tamaran.
Because Starfire gobbles up anything yellow—ever seen her drink mustard? She also likes bananas quite a lot, and says there's nothing quite like them on Tamaran. Judging by the starry-eyed frequency with which she eyes Bird Boy over there, there's nothing quite like him on Tamaran either. Too bad points two and three might make her out of luck.
Raven stopped. That would have to do for now. Hopefully the teacher wouldn't take the assignment too seriously. Otherwise it could be problematic. She stood up and left.
January 10th.
The next morning, Raven walked down to breakfast, her mind on the project. She looked at her watch and found she was about three minutes early; usually, she came in at the point in the Tower's routine where either Cyborg or Beast Boy dared each other to do something obscenely biological.
However, today wasn't exactly normal. For one thing, Robin was in the kitchen as well, having a tussle with the other two.
"Boys," she muttered, and stepped over the writhing pile of bodies.
"Aw, come on in, Raven, the water's great!" shouted Beast Boy from underneath Cyborg.
Raven shuddered.
"Sure that's water?" she asked. "Or did one of you get a little too excited?"
Robin's head popped out of the pile.
"Um, Raven, eww. The views and opinions expressed just now are strictly those of Beast Boy. The contents have not been reviewed or approved by me or Cyborg."
"I see you're putting that Technical Paper Comprehension class to good use," Raven muttered.
"Oh yeah, it's great," Robin said. Cyborg's hand reached out and pummeled his head into the ground.
A muffled "oww" came from underneath. Raven rolled her eyes and made herself herbal tea.
She addressed the still-fighting male Titans. "You know, I find it funny how they call technical paper comprehension a 'fine art.'"
Robin popped up again. "Yeah, I," he started, and then was dragged down again.
Raven shook her head silently and drank her tea. Today looked like a good day for outdoor meditation. Then she'd work on her project again. Six weeks, thirty working days… she only needed to come up with three or four a day.
Raven slid into her chair. She'd decided to just take one of the computers from the lab into her room to make things easier on her—specifically just in case Beast Boy decided to read her stuff. The computer was … surprisingly fun to use, especially the Internet. She was already getting spam mail on her email account, though.
Raven logged on to check her email quickly for her teacher's latest message. Ooh, three new messages.
From: LCD Giveaway
To: Raven
Subject: , claim your brand spanking new Jump-shiba LCD TV
Please attend this matter as soon as you can!
Raven read no further and deleted it.
"I've had this account for two days," she muttered. "How can I already be getting spam?"
She opened up the next message.
From: TitansFans Admin
To: Raven
Subject: Activation – Titanfans
Welcome to the most rapidly-growing site on the Internet about the Teen Titans, Titansfans! We hope you'll enjoy your stay on our discussion boards, Raven. To activate your account, press this link now.
Thanks,
The Admins
Raven faintly smiled. She was probably going to have a lark descending among the team's admirers in this Titansfans website or whatever. At the very least, she could correct some annoying misperceptions.
The third email was the lesson from the Fine Arts school, and she opened it up and decided to deal with the rest of the stuff later.
A bit later, Raven opened up her comparison list.
"All right," she said, and cast her mind back to that day.
She typed:
6. If you push them into the ground, they come up. Eventually.
Eventually, bananas, which are fruits, after all (see point two), when planted into the ground, will come up into, I don't know, banana trees. Robin on the other hand… Cyborg plants him into the ground whenever they're training together. Robin usually gets off more hits, but every time Cyborg connects, ouch. Robin goes flying into the ground. But he comes up. Eventually.
7. Monkeys seem to like them.
Well, Beast Boy can transform into monkeys, and usually he likes Robin, except when Robin does something stupid, or more likely, when Beast Boy does something stupid. Monkeys, classically speaking, also like bananas. This is, I think, common knowledge.
8. They're rather slippery.
Banana peels have been made famous for their slippery status. You step on one, next thing you know, you're flat on your back like Starfir…
"Well, that's not fair," Raven said. She deleted it.
You step on one, next thing you know, you're flat on your back like a Las Vegas h…
She sighed and deleted it again.
Step on them and you'll slip. Robin's slippery qualities are rather different. He's elusive, shadowy, and generally unpleasant to think about at night.
(She briefly considered putting "in the shower" but decided against it.)
And he can get out of any headlock, grasp, rope, bonds, or similar things. It's a useful talent for a superhero.
9. They both (reputedly) have long shafts.
Raven considered the propriety of this remark and decided that it would have to do. With ninety-one more things to do, she could hardly back out now.
The entire surface of a banana can be considered its shaft. This shaft comprises anywhere from eight to twelve inches, perhaps; I've never checked exact statistics. From what I've heard from the Jump City grapevine, this measurement holds true for Robin; however, I haven't actually verified this myself, so this information is disputable.
I of course refer to his non-extended bo staff's shaft.
10. You can peel off both of their 'skins.'
Well, Robin's skin isn't exactly pliable, but nevertheless it can be peeled if you put enough effort into it (this, of course, holds true for most humans, humanoids, or animals). Trust me, I've tried… he doesn't make it easy but it works nevertheless. A banana's skin is its peel, in this case. And yes, you can peel off the banana peel.
Raven nodded and saved. That would do for the moment. She got up and left the room.