Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I claim to own the Teen Titans franchise, its characters, or its various forms of entertainment.
"Power Point ready?"
"Check."
"Cue cards?"
"Check."
"Laugh track?"
"Check."
"Scripts memorized?"
A pregnant pause filled the common room before a sheepish voice replied, "Mostly."
"Gabrielle!"
Below a pacing boy with messy black hair and a clip board in his shaky hands sat a small, thin jade skinned girl on an obsidian sofa. The green girl, Gabrielle, flinched and laughed as she played with the tips of her shoulder-length violet hair, her wide emerald eyes glinting mischievously.
"You know, John," a fanged grin graced full green lips, a dimple playing on the side of her smile, "if this all works out in our favor, you're gonna have to call me Beast Babe."
Her confident flame was snuffed out as a deeper, gravelly beside her retorted, "I doubt anyone in their right mind will call you that."
Gabrielle stood up and faced the grey-ish skinned, grassy-haired boy that sat at her side, whose thin nose and sharp features were all but buried in a boring looking novel. Her viridescent eyes glinted with anger as she gave him an offended scoff, her round face tinted red, "What'd you say, bird for brains?"
"You heard me." The violet eyes of the teen met hers and narrowed with his croaky response, defiance laced in his monotone.
"Shut up you little – " Gabrielle yelled, lunging at him.
"Enough! Gabrielle, Gabriel! We have to get this in order!" The clip board wielding boy, John, drug his hands through his already disheveled hair, clearly at his wits end.
The grey skinned boy, Gabriel, gently plucked his green attacker off of him with a bout of obsidian energy and tossed her further to his left. Gabrielle huffed as she landed ungracefully on the edge of the long sofa, blowing wispy amethyst bangs from her eyes.
"Yeah! We have to show them that we mean business!" A softer, much more feminine voice interjected from her place next to Gabriel, pounding a delicate fist into her hand. She had wide green eyes and a smile that looked like it could power Jump City. Her emerald orbs shifted from each member of the odd gang of teens around her, seeming to be willfully oblivious to the case of sibling rivalry beside her.
"Thanks, Mar'i," John sighed tiredly. Mar'i's full pink lips turned up in a small smile as she smoothed down her long black locks.
From his other side, a silvery, quiet voice asked, "John, do you really think Dad will be okay with … all of this?"
John looked nervous for a moment before he turned to the face the tall, red headed brick house beside him. Suddenly, he gathered himself, sporting a confident grin and an air of nonchalance as he playfully punched his brother's shoulder, "Of course, Ry."
The red-headed boy, Ryan, slowly nodded, shoving his hands deep into his jean pockets and turning away.
John let out a breath and looked back towards the two arguing siblings, slipping hold of the ease he'd feigned only a moment before. He felt himself lose it as they were separated by a dark skinned girl with a bionic arm and an annoyed expression on her face.
"Guys!" He shouted, having lost any ounce of cool he'd obtained before, "C'mon! Quit it! Isn't this something we all want? Dad, mom, none of them'll ever take us serious if we don't – "
"What won't we take serious, John?"
The frazzled boy's head shot up, the color immediately draining from his face, "Dad."
There stood Nightwing, in all his famed glory. The legend, the hero, the man, his father. Time had been quite kind to him, still looking near the same as his days as Robin, only without the traffic light get up and at least a foot taller.
Beside him stood the great warrior princess Starfire, whose face and features had been handled gently by time. True, she looked not a day over thirty, as evidenced by her still somehow youthful face and ample curves. Nearly nothing about her except the length of her hair and her once less voluptuous figure changed; as if to validate that statement, her digits were still laced in Nightwing's, even after all the years that had passed.
"Yo, what's all the fuss in here about?" a booming voice called out.
Behind them came Cyborg, whose only evidence of aging was the row of crow's feet aligning his single human eye, and the smile lines that seemed to be permanently carved on the corners of his mouth.
"Yeah little dudes, what's going on? Why'd you call us in here?"
Beside Cyborg stood Changeling, holding Raven's hand in his. He certainly wasn't the lanky, little teen he'd been so many years ago, when he had still gone by Beast Boy. He'd since then grown, standing a foot and a few inches taller than he was before and with quite the muscles to match.
Raven rolled her eyes beside him, holding a little green toddler with a mop of violet curls to her shapely hips. She had certainly filled out in her years since the near apocalypse, Mother Nature gracing her with the sex appeal curves brought, and letting her hair grow out down to nearly the middle of her back. Though, she still retained her short stature, much to the changeling's amusement.
It was obvious that they'd dropped the "Teen" in their name long ago. They were a band of full grown, adult heroes; that much was for certain.
Suddenly, John found himself feeling small, and almost intimidated, in front of the heroes that had all taken a hand in raising them.
He cleared his throat, struggling to remember the lines he had practiced methodically as the five other teens stood up and next to him, "We have called you all, our parents, and our family, here today in order to discuss with you our, uh … ideas. Please, take a seat."
The adult heroes did so on their old leather couch, amusement twinkling in all of their eyes.
He looked to the teens beside him, receiving anywhere from nervous glances to encouraging gestures to bored sighs in reply. He turned around, the projector on the coffee table coming alive and displaying on the blank TV a plain slide reading "The New Teen Titans."
Cyborg furrowed his brows in confusion, "Did y'all make a power point about us? What's this Star, did you give them some kind of project?"
"No," Starfire said, as equally confused as the metal man, "I did not."
"Nor did I," Raven added, bouncing the tiny green toddler on her leg.
John laughed sheepishly, his sharp cheek bones dusted in red. He rubbed the back of his neck as he slowly replied, "No, it's not exactly about you guys …
"We gathered you all in here in order to, uh, share, with you an idea we've had, something that all of us have wanted for a really, really long time now. Given the fact that we were, uh, born to such heroic lineage," he gestured fondly to the suspicious adults in front of him, hitting a button on the remote in his hand and watching the screen display an old picture of the Titans in their youth, and continued to a slide with photos of the heroes demonstrating their powers, "and obtain the powers, skills, and relationships required … And given that we've reached the age you all were when you first founded the Titans, we've decided that we want to take up your mantle and become our own team. We want to be the next generation of heroism. The New Teen Titans."
He hit the next button, a laughably stiff and serious photo of the teenagers posed on the screen. As he finished, Gabrielle turned to the laugh track on the coffee table, awkwardly fumbling against the laugh switch as she finally hit the button that resonated applause. The adults remained unimpressed.
Nightwing's eyebrows knit together in bewilderment, "What?"
John, feeling a lump rise in his throat, avoided the question and nodded profusely, "We've already formed aliases, and our suits should be here sometime this week."
"Mine has a crop top!" Mar'i gushed excitedly, clapping her hands together as she jumped up and down in excitement.
Nightwing's entire face flushed a dangerous shade of crimson as Changeling and Cyborg howled with laughter.
"What?! No, no, no, no!" The red-faced man seethed, "There will be no crime fighting, no Teen Titans and no crop tops!"
"But Daddy!" Mar'i whined, tears nearly welling up in her big green eyes.
"No buts Mar'i!" he turned to John, "How can you even get this idea in your little sister's head?! Crop tops?! Where'd you even order these suits?!"
"The internet," John almost squeaked.
"C'mon Uncle Dick, everybody's wearing crop tops! Do you want your daughter to be even more of a social outcast?" Gabrielle questioned as she batted her green lashes, squeezing Mari's shoulders while Tori snorted with laughter.
Nightwing's face twisted in horror as he shook his head wildly, "No! No! No crop tops! There will be no half-dressed crime fighting; there will be no crime fighting period! Are we understood?"
John felt his heart pounding in his ears and his control slip through his fingers. His voice was filled with frustration and anger as he cried out, "No Dad! You can't just do that!"
"Yes I can, you all live under my roof! You will obey my rules!"
"But our skill set! Mar'i has all of Mom's starbolt stuff, and Ryan has mom's strength and starbolt stuff! Gabby can change into anything! Gabriel makes stuff float! Tori's got a bionic arm and we're getting her an awesome suit! She'll be Iron Lady – "
"I am not gonna be called Iron Lady!" Tori interrupted indignantly.
" – We have so much potential!" Desperation and exasperation laced his voice and took their place in his blue eyes as he tried to argue his point, becoming even less professional and articulate than he had been when he'd began. Nightwing snorted.
"You can't be serious. You don't have the experience. What, I take you to patrol the city on a few slow days and teach you a couple moves and – and that makes you qualified to create a team – and without my consent! None of you have enough experience for this. You don't understand what it takes to be a superhero; it isn't all fun and games, John. Your lives are at stake!"
"But you guys did it! You learned along the way! We've already got something under our belt, at least. We can learn too – "
"John."
"We have so much potential – "
"John!"
"We can help!"
"Enough!"
The entirety of the teens, and even the adults, looked taken aback by his roar. Nightwing breathed heavily, taking a step back and pointing a finger at his eldest son before declaring in a detached voice, "This discussion is over."
Nightwing turned, stalking out of the room with his wife following after him.
John watched his parents leave the room, his shoulders sagging as he sat down on the coffee table and put his head into his hands.
A small, warm hand settled on his shoulder. He looked up to meet the violet eyes of a weary Raven.
"Just … give him some time." She advised, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze before turning and taking the toddler out of the room.
Cyborg and Changeling looked to each other, before looking at the youths before them.
"Just give it time." Changeling agreed with his wife. The metal man nodded solemnly.
"It just isn't fair!"
For perhaps the fortieth time that night, the rest of the teens silently sighed at John's frustration.
"I don't understand why he reacted about this the way he did..." he paused, a look of recognition dawning on his face, "Maybe it was the power point! It should've been better executed! More slides, more pictures!"
Mar'i looked with doubt at her friends, before leaning down to put a hand on her brother's shoulder, "You did a great job on the power point! Everyone loved it."
"Obviously not great enough," John grumpily retorted, blowing his black hair off of his forehead.
Tori sighed, chewing on the inside of her lip.
"Like they said, we should give him some time to cool down and warm up to the idea," she suggested from behind the coffee table. John snorted in reply.
"Yeah right, Tori. They're never going to warm up to it."
"I don't know about that." Tori argued, crossing her flesh arm over its mechanical pair, "Letting us go on patrol with them was the first step, I think. We just have to work our way up!"
John rolled his eyes at her optimism, resisting the urge to make a sarcastic quip.
"Try to see things from their perspective," Gabriel quietly suggested, fiddling with the drawstrings of his black sweatshirt, "We're their kids. Their work can be dangerous … and after what happened to Lian, I think they're afraid. And rightfully so."
The atmosphere of the room instantly shifted, a sudden tension emerging. John's eyes lit up with enmity as he looked at the grassy haired boy.
"We're not kids, Gabriel. I just turned sixteen, and Tori's sixteen in a month. Ryan's fifteen. You and Gabrielle just turned fifteen two weeks ago. Mar'i's fourteen. We're young. But we're not kids," he seethed through clenched teeth, bending down to look the gray skinned sorcerer in the eyes, "If we can go on patrol, where we at least have a chance to encounter some criminals, and we know how to control and use our powers, why can't we fight, too?"
Gabriel's eyes narrowed as he slowly replied, "Look, all I'm saying is that I understand where they're – "
"Understand what, Gabriel? Are you on their side now?"
Gabriel scoffed, a scowl flitting over his angular face. He opened his mouth but was promptly cut off.
"Nobody's taking any sides, John," Mar'i quickly interjected, standing up to put herself between the bickering boys. Gabriel's stare softened as he looked at her, his jaw unclenching and eyes lightening. Mar'i looked at him graciously as he took a step back.
"And getting angry at each other won't solve anything." Ryan added kindly, but firmly, taking a stance at his sister's side. John stared at him, at the united front his siblings made, angry for a moment. Though the anger quickly passed, leaving him to slump his shoulders, face fallen. He sat down, resigning to a couch cushion.
A tense, awkward silence loomed over the bitter teenagers.
Gabby looked down at her hands as she picked at their leather sofa, uncharacteristically quiet as she asked, "Well. What do we do now?"
With persistence shining in his eyes, John looked up at her and answered, "We prove ourselves. We show them exactly what we can do."
"It is not kind of you to embarrass our son in such a way, Richard!"
Nightwing scoffed as he sat on the edge of their bed, clenching and unclenching his fists in his lap, shocked that his wife was actually scolding him. Him, of all people!
"Kori, they're kids. They have no idea what they're talking about and no idea what they want to get into. Letting them out to patrol on a slow Sunday every now and again is one thing. But to let them do what we do?" He countered, his bottom lip caught in a pout.
Kori's eyes softened as she climbed over to the other side of the bed, where her husband sat facing the wall. She wrapped her arms around his frame, resting her chin on one of his broad shoulders.
"I understand that you are worrying because of what happened to friend Roy's daughter … because of what happened to Lian. But our children, and the children of our dear friends, they are not weak, my love. They know of their strengths and weaknesses, they have great control of their powers, and I have faith in them. You should, as well." Kori said, before gently offering, "You were very young when you started the crime fighting, much younger than our children, Richard. Do you not think that you are being a hypocrite?"
Richard stood up, pulling himself out of her embrace and ripping his mask off as he took on an accusing tone, "Don't call me a hypocrite, Kori. I saw awful things in Gotham, things kids shouldn't see. You know that. Jump City isn't as clean as it used be. It's like Blüdhaven out there. These criminals are ruthless. They're despicable. You know that, too. You've seen what some of these nutcases to do people, do to kids, even. They rape them, they dismember them, they kill them. And you want to willingly let our children get exposed to that, too? The bloodshed and the torture? The evil? You think that we should just let them parade around in the city in some costumes and – and what? Watch them pretend to play hero? Watch them get hurt? Watch them die? "
Kori stood up to face him, gently took his face in her hands and spoke softly, "You know that is not what I was saying, Richard."
The anger melted away from his face, replaced by an expression of defeat. Richard looked at her tiredly, the absolute exhaustion clear in his baby blues, "They're our kids, Kor. I just want to keep them safe, and now I'm the bad guy for trying to protect them. I just want to do what's best for them, and I don't even know what that is."
Kori shushed him, bringing his head down onto her shoulder as she embraced him and cooed, "You are not the bad man, Richard. You are the most sweet and loving man I have ever known. You are the most wonderful of fathers and they will come to understand that. Come, my love. You are tired. Let us rest."
He lifted his head from the crook of her neck, pressing his lips against her jaw.
"I love you, Kori." He said, completely earnest. She smiled, grasped his chin and tilted his head up for a kiss.
"I love you too, Richard. Now come. It is time for bed."
A/N: And there goes the intro to my first TT multichapter! Hope it was enjoyed.
Comments and reviews would be vastly appreciated.