This is my first try at comic Titans. I hope I did a good job with everything. I make two nods here. One is to a great Titan fanfic writer named KTHunter from the story Deeper. Anyone that frequents Titan comic fandom knows who she is and if you don't you obivously have not come here often. Go read her stories than come back and read mine. She defintly desrves precedence over my little oneshot here. Also the end is from Titans number 38, I think that's the number. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it.
"No, no Marvin the power generator doesn't go where his spleen would be, it would go where his prostate would go," Wendy chastised her brother.
"I think I would know where a power generator on a cybernetic hybrid would go Wendy," Marvin shot back. His sister always got on his nerves. Lousy goody two shoes.
"Obviously you wouldn't, otherwise the wiring from his digestive system, would get in the way," Wendy argued back. God, just because her IQ was one point higher than his, he always got so defensive. She guessed that it didn't help that she would rub that fact in his face all of the time.
"You know what Wendy, you can just shut up. I think I know what I'm doing here. You know I graduated from MIT too. You weren't the only sixteen year old that day."
"Awww, you're just upset because I have a higher IQ than you do." Wendy cooed ruffling her twin brother's hair. She did think he was adorable when he got all upset about the higher IQ.
"By one point Wendy, you do know that is within the margin of error," Marvin growled. He didn't think that one point was that big of a deal, it was just one point.
"Yeah but that was just the average of all of the IQ tests you made us take. I think Mom and Dad always knew I was smarter, they just wanted to appease you," Wendy grinned.
"You know what, you can just shut up," he pouted. Lousy know it all busy body.
"All right, all right chill. Maybe we should get back to work on ole Cyborg here, he definitely has seen better days in his time."
"You're right; I think that we should work on his neroprocessor. I think that's it's all out of whack still even after all the work that we put in it," Marvin frowned. The poor guy probably shouldn't have gone into space with Troia, or was she Wonder Woman now? Wonder Girl? Oh well, it didn't matter now.
"Yeah, you're right. All that wiring is just screwed up. I still don't know how he's still salvageable after all that he went through. It was pretty much an act of God," Wendy muttered. She was just as sadden by what had come over the half-robot hybrid as her brother. Though they were excited to be able to put their skills to such a huge challenge as rebuilding him, and they were making progress, though Gar didn't think that they were going fast enough. She didn't fault him for that though, if her brother were in a similar state she didn't think that she would be much more patient. That's how Gar saw Vic, as the older brother that he never had.
"Wendy! Watch it, you nearly connected his respatory brain wiring to his endocrine wiring. Now every time he breathes he's going to pee on himself," Marvin exclaimed.
"Hey, who has the higher IQ here," Wendy bragged.
"That's it!" Marvin yelled as he tackled his sister. They were rolling around all over the lab, causing a mess that would take a while to clean up. Gar wasn't going to be too happy about this.
"HEY!" and he defiantly wasn't. "Will you two cut it out in here. No wonder Vic hasn't been put back together with you two always fighting. You're worse than some of the people on this team."
The twins looked up and saw a very angry looking changeling. Gar was furious at the two, and they knew that they were in deep trouble.
"You two just get out of here right now. I can't stand to even look at you right now," Gar fumed. Didn't these two understand that putting Vic back together was more important than who was smarter than whom. As the twins walked out not even bothering to look him in the eye Gar thought he heard Marvin grumble, "I wonder why Raven even puts up with him still."
Gar sighed. Things just weren't going good around the tower lately. Bette had just quit as well as Offspring. Both saying that it just wasn't working out for either of them. Offspring wasn't too much of a big deal, yes it sucked, but he could tell that the kid was just in the superhero business for fun. At least he was helping people instead of hurting them. Bette's quitting hurt though, was he such a bad leader that he couldn't even get one of his best friends to stay on.
"Oh you think I was being too hard on them huh?" Gar asked looking at his best friend. "Well, maybe you're right I could have gone a little easier on them, and they are working to repair you. When they started you were nothing more than a pile of scraps, even more so than you are after a fight," Gar chuckled. Vic did have a tendency to fall apart during a battle. It was amusing hearing him cussing up a storm while he was putting himself back together after a fight.
"It's just gotten pretty hard around here Vic. My first real mission leading this group led to some kid with super speed getting killed and three of the members of the team quitting. It doesn't really help that Zat keeps hitting on Raven all of the time. At first it was kinda cute, and I could tell that Rave was flattered. After a while though enough is enough you know. I know that Raven wouldn't stray, she's just not that kind of girl, but I do wish that he would just back off every once in a while." Gar sighed, it had been a while since he had come down to talk to his best friend, and he did feel a little guilty about that. He had just been so busy keeping the team together that he never really had a chance to talk to him.
"It's hard Vic, even just keeping the team together. It's all I can do to have the city funding the tower and just keeping it open. I don't want to have to ask Dad for funding, that's just embarrassing. And I haven't really been there for Raven like I want to. She tells me not to worry about it but I can tell that this has been as hard on her as it has been on me. That is one of the good things of having an empath as a girlfriend though; you don't have to explain yourself too much." Gar sighed. Raven had been one of the better things to happen to him in his life. He just wished that they had gotten together at a less strenuous time than hell and demons coming onto the earth. She was a good girlfriend though, despite never really having been in a real relationship before. He didn't count that asshole Forrester, he was just a jerk.
"I just wish I could be there for her as often as she is there for me, but I gotta keep this team together, for you Vic. This was your brain child, having a place for young kids that are different than their regular peers. To come here and meet friends and just be a family. Raven, Dick, and Donna did that for us, and it's only fair that we do try and do that for the new generation." Gar was so grateful for the original Titans. Him, Raven, Wally, Kori, Dick, Donna, and Vic. If it weren't for them he would have never met his best friend.
"Kori still hasn't come back; we have no idea where she is. Cassie refuses to come back and I can tell that really hurts Raven. Raven really doesn't have many girlfriends as it is and she just needs a girl to sometimes talk to. I thought she and Bette might have gotten along, but it's hard to make friends in this kind of environment. It doesn't help that Tim just took off without really telling anybody. Not sure if he's going to come back. God Vic it's just so hard," Gar sighed why did it have to be this hard. Why did Conner have to go and get himself killed, why did Kori have to be jettisoned clear across the galaxy, that's the only logical place she could be? Gar could feel the anger at his situation boiling in him. It wasn't fair, he did everything in his power to keep this team together and it just wasn't working. He stared at Vic, anger building within him.
"DAMN YOU VIC!" Gar yelled throwing a tray of equipment across the room. "How could you do this to me? Huh? I wasn't ready for any of this shit. I wasn't ready for almost all of my team to just not be here. I wasn't ready to go and try and recruit new members. After Conner died it was just me and Raven, that was it. Cassie decided that she didn't have any friends for her, I guess me and Raven didn't fit into that category. Bart apparently lost all of his powers. Tim decided to just up and disappear, don't have any idea where the hell she is. Kori apparently is making the real life version of Lost in Space. And what do you do Vic, you're not with Kori, you're here with me, with some semblance of hoping to repair you. But you're in such a mess that it could take forever before they finally fix you. I hate you Vic! I hate you for going on that mission, when I wanted to go with you to watch your back! I hate you for leaving me in this kind of situation! I hate you for not being here with me and just joking around like I know we should be doing now!" Gar broke down after that last statement. He cried for all of the frustration that he was feeling for the situation he was in. He cried for a dead friend, who died too young. He cried for friends that deserted him. He cried for a friend who grew up too fast and lost all of his powers, apparently. He cried for a friend that was on the other end of the galaxy. And most importantly he cried for a best friend and brother that was just in such a state of disrepair he had no idea when that would he would come out of it.
"Garfield?" a quiet, timid, but concerned voice called out to him. Gar turned and looked at the one thing that he was keeping him sane throughout this whole ordeal, Raven. She walked from the stairwell and he could tell that she was concerned even though she tried to hide it. He knew her way too well though to see through that.
"Oh hey Rave, sorry did I wake you?" He berated himself for not keeping his anger in check. He should have known to keep his anger in check, especially when she was in the tower. She was always concerned about him and would come to make sure that he was ok.
"No, I wasn't asleep," she lied but he didn't have to know that, he was already under a lot of pressure. "I was upstairs and was going to make a snack and wanted to see if you wanted any of it."
"I'm not that hungry right now. Thanks though."
"Ok, why don't you go upstairs and put on a movie and I will be upstairs. It's been a while since we have done any of my humor assimilation," she smiled. Her humor assimilation used to be one of his favorite things to do.
"All right," he said. He started to walk up the stairs but when he noticed that she wasn't coming he turned around. "You coming?"
"You go on ahead; I'll be up there in a little bit. I'm just going to tidy up around here."
"Ahh, Rave I'm sorry," he apologized.
"It's ok. Don't worry about it now go," she shooed. He didn't need to feel bad anymore than he already was. He nodded and headed up the stairs. He thought about putting on Airplane, she did learn why "Don't call me Shirley." was funny. Raven looked around the room surveying the mess. She stopped on Vic and looked at him long and hard.
"Gar's been under a lot of stress lately. He's starting to act more and more like Nightwing and that's just not Gar."