"He Doesn't Like Sunsets"
Author: Saturn Girl
Rating: PG
Warning: Spoilers for Teen Titans 20 and Identity Crisis
The emerald green eagle perched on the edge of the T-shaped tower's roof and watched the sun slowly melt into the San Francisco bay. Dusky oranges, reds, and pinks splashed across the sky, the canvas pitted here and there with ever shifting flocks of seagulls.
His keen eyesight allowed him to appreciate the colorful nuances more than normal humans ever could, but Gar Logan didn't particularly like sunsets. To him they always symbolized the end of something; precious moments slipping away that would soon disappear forever. No matter how beautiful the sunset, the memory always faded over time and no matter how may times he tried to recall it.
As the light receded a chill permeated the air, so he shifted to a panther. Agile, higher body temperature and the sleek form was one of the most effortless changes in his repertoire, so easy he almost didn't have to think of it anymore. His tail twitched anxiously as he settled back down onto the tarmac roof.
A moment later he heard footsteps and picked up the faint scent of hydraulic fluid. Gar didn't turn around, but from the sound of it he could tell Vic hadn't yet worked out the kink in his left ankle joint because it was still clunking more heavily than his right.
"Hey, you doin' okay Green-genes?" Vic parked himself next to Gar on the ledge, his internal gizmos and gyros whirring softly as he adjusted his prosthetic limbs.
Gar sighed, lowering his chin onto his outstretched paws after giving his friend a cursory glance. "Just needed some air. I didn't think anyone saw me come up here."
"Raven figured you, ah, could probably use some company right about now. So here I am. Spill it. What's got you so down tonight?"
Gar smiled sadly and shook his head. "Man, she's really changed a lot, isn't she? Couple of years ago Rave would have minded her own beeswax. Maybe she's getting back at me for teasing her today." With another brief flash of light, Gar shifted back to human form. "Hey, did you see that smokin' dress she -"
Vic narrowed his eye at his friend. "Don't change the subject or I'll shove you off the roof. I didn't drag my ass all the way up here to talk about Raven. C'mon, something is obviously really bothering you. Is it 'cause Kory decided to take off?"
Gar looked away and self-consciously folded his arm over his chest. "Naw. I'm cool with that. Dick's been really messed up for awhile now, so maybe she can help him. It's not like he'd ever ask anyone for help on his own."
"Guess it runs in the Titans family, huh?" asked Vic. Apparently he had no intention of letting his friend worm his way off the hook.
"Please, it's not like that. I'm fine. I've just been…thinkin' about stuff, that's all. It's all really stupid, I promise. Let's just get back inside and –" Gar started to stand up but was stopped by Vic's hand on his arm.
"Not so fast. Tell me what's bugging you. Does this have anything to do with Tim's father?"
Gar's cheeks turned a deeper green in response.
"Maybe. Look, Vic…I know you're trying to be a good pal and all, but I'm not sure I can talk about this. I don't really understand what's up with me myself. 'Sides, you should be giving Tim your shoulder. He's the one going through hell today."
"Tim already has his best friend looking out for him. I gotta look out for mine."
Gar smiled gratefully at that and the two old friends stared quietly up at the emerging stars for several minutes before anyone spoke again. With everyone else, Gar always felt the need to fill up the silence with words, but he never felt that kind of pressure with Vic anymore.
"I saw him," Gar said finally, his voice so soft it could barely be heard.
Puzzled, Vic turned his head to look at Gar directly. "Who?"
Gar looked down in his lap, his eyes shining with the first hint of tears. "Dad."
"Huh? Your father? I don't understand…"
"Last month, when I was cured - for the first time in years, I saw his face…on me. Every time I looked in the mirror, all I saw was him. Like a ghost or something, it was so…" Gar stopped himself and wiped his moist eyes with the back of his hand.
"Sorry. I told you it was stupid." Gar tried to take a deep breath but it came out shakier than he would have liked.
"Don't say that. It's not stupid at all." Vic reached over and gently rustled Gar's hair before lying back on the roof with his arms crossed behind his head. "Much as we didn't get along, I still miss my Pops like crazy, too. I'm not saying I see him every time I shave or nuthin' – we didn't look all that much alike. Even less so now," he said with a light chuckle as he ran a hand over his chrome cranial plate.
"But I catch myself sayin' stuff to the younger Titans, and it's the exact same things he used to say to me when I was a kid. I sound so much like him it's scary. Used to be I would have hated that, but now…now it's nice to have something to remember him by."
Gar hugged his knees close to his chest and stared out at the bay. "That's just it. I don't have a lot to remember my Mom and Dad. Mark found some old pictures from Dad's childhood and a few of when Dad met Mom at Stanford, but I don't have anything of us together as a family. Like none of it ever existed, 'cept in my head. They died so long ago and I was so little, I couldn't always tell if my memories were real or just stuff I made up. But when I saw my Dad's face looking back at me in the mirror, and when Tim told us about his father, it all seemed so clear. Africa, the accident, seeing them go down the falls…it all came rushing back." His brow furrowed as he shook his head.
"God, how selfish am I? Tim's going through the worst time in his life and all I can think about is how it all affects me. Forget I said anything, okay?"
"Listen, you have nothing to feel guilty about. I'd be a liar if I said I never thought of my own folks when Tim gave us the news. Hell, almost everyone I know in the hero biz can relate. Doesn't matter how long ago it happened. They were your parents, for chrissakes. Don't feel bad about grieving for them."
"I thought I'd dealt with everything already. But after what happened with Dr. Register, I started thinking about how things could have been. Like, if they were still alive, would they want me to be Beast Boy? Or would they have tried to cure me so I'd be a normal kid? Would we be a big ol' happy family, or contestants on Dysfunctional Family Feud?" Gar picked absently at the sole of his shoe, gathering a little bit of courage before he could continue.
"But I guess what I really want to know is…would they be, you know…proud of me?" Gar asked as if afraid to hear the real answer.
Vic let out an incredulous grunt. "Oh, please. You don't ever have to ask yourself that. Of course they'd be proud of you. Look at everything you've accomplished."
"Which would be what? What have I ever done? Mom wanted me to be an actor, and as you've probably noticed, that ain't going too well. And Dad, well…all I know is he felt really guilty about what happened when they tried to cure my sakutia. I keep wondering…was he ashamed to have a green-skinned freak for a son?"
Vic sat straight up again and shook his head at Gar. "Stop talking crazy. You're a hero. As a doctor, I think your father would be damned proud of you for saving people's lives day after day."
"Some hero," Gar snorted. "Vic, face it. The only reason I joined the Spandex set is because I didn't have anything better to do. If they ever do a Surreal Life with second rate superheroes, I'll be the first guy the producers call. They can put me on with Vibe and Gypsy. I'll talk about my failed TV career andPlastic Mancan horrify America with his best Ron Jeremy impression."
"Where the hell is all this coming from? Are you kidding? Logan, for crying out loud, you are not second rate."
"But –"
"No buts. Lemme tell you about all those big name superheroes. The whole freaking Justice League and a boatload of Titans couldn't stop me when I went nuts, remember? So guess who saved the world without throwing a single punch?" Vic cupped his hand up to his ear. "Huh? What's that? It wasn't Superman? It wasn't Wonder Woman? Who was it then?"
Gar raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, point taken. I'll stop being hard on myself, you big lugnut. Sheesh, spoil a guy's whole inferiority complex, why dontcha. But be straight with me – do you ever wonder if you're doing all this for the right reasons? I mean, if neither of us got turned into meta-humans, do you really think we'd be in this line of work?"
Vic thought about that for a moment. "I don't know," he answered thoughtfully. "Doesn't matter what happened in our lives to put us on this path. What matters is that we stick it out."
"But that's the thing that worries me. I didn't. The future me, I mean. Animal Man was a hateful monster, not a good guy. Could I really turn my back on my ideals so easily?"
"In case you didn't notice, you weren't the only Titan to lose perspective. We don't know everything that happened to those guys, but obviously something really nasty went down to make them all so cold-blooded."
Gar shifted into the form of a cobra. "Didn't happen to you, apparently. You were still one of the white hats." His tongue flicked in and out of his mouth while he weaved slowly back and forth.
"Yeah, but I wasn't too thrilled with the older Cyborg, either. For one thing, I find it really hard to believe that I'd ever let Terra or anything else get in the way of our friendship. As far as I'm concerned, that wasn't the real future, it was some kind of alternate mirror universe. So quit worrying. You'll never become that man, and no matter what I will always have your back."
Cobra-Gar morphed into a rhesus monkey as he jumped on Vic's chest with a joyful chitter. "I'm glad to hear that when it comes to psychotic ex-girlfriends who miraculously return from the dead and claim to be a new person." He tweaked Vic's nose.
Vic laughed and pushed him off his chest. "I still have no freaking idea what's up with that chick."
Monkey-Gar changed back to his human form and laid down next to Vic so he could stare up at the stars. "I can't figure it out either. I saw Tara's body. I know in my heart that she died. But then this new girl shows up, and she could be Tara's identical twin they look so much alike. She claims she's not my Tara, but her scent is the same. You can't fake that. I-I don't know what to believe. Except that I don't think I'll ever trust her…and I think I'm better off never knowing the truth."
"I don't blame you for being weirded out. Is it true what Bart says? She had a thing for you?"
Gar's cheeks flushed dark green again. "I keep forgetting you weren't around back then. Yes, Terra was a bit on the obsessive side. Which given what happened in my first go around with a rock slinging meta-girl was more than a mite uncomfortable. I'm still screening all my calls and hoping I don't find any boiled bunny rabbits on my stove."
"Gotcha. So now isn't the right time to say I invited her to take Kory's place on the team, huh?
Gar wagged his finger at Vic. "Very funny. As soon as you fall asleep, I am so going to upload every virus on the Net into your computer matrix."
"Bring it on, boy. Bring it on. C'mon, I'm starving. Let's get back inside." Vic stood up and lent Gar his hand. Gar took it and pulled himself up.
"Thanks for listening to me bitch about all my problems. I gotta tell you, buddy, you're starting to scare me a little with all this sensitive man talk. If you lean over and try to kiss me I'm gonna totally flip out."
"That's it!" In an instant, Vic extended his prosthetic arm a few feet and used it to scrape Gar off the ledge. Beast Boy yelped and plummeted a few yards before morphing into a pterodactyl. He flew a few loops around the tower before landing on the ledge again.
"You deserved that, ya little salad head." Vic smiled as he punched the button on the turbo lift.
"Dude, I think you need to stop watching so much Dr. Phil." Gar shook out his wings before folding them inward and shifting back to his human form. "I mean, self-esteem pep talks and talking about life's paths and all that? Really. The old Vic would have told me to shut the hell up and quit griping."
"Sensitive man, huh. Well, I'm not the one who needed a Kleenex." Vic grinned as they both stepped onto the lift after it reached the roof.
Gar's eyes widened. "Vic, you can't say anything about that, man. I've got a rep to maintain. It was dust in my eyes. Really. That's all it was, I swear. Okay, I was kidding about the virus. You're not going to say anything to the girls, are you? Vic? Vic!" The lift whirred into life and started to descend down the tower.
"Shut the hell up and quit griping, Green-genes."
END