The Titans were chatting with the union leaders in front of the plant's main entrance. Nightwing was extremely pleased with himself as he defused a potentially explosive situation by merely talking. He couldn't wait to tell Bruce, but that would have to wait. He still had to convince the riot control team's captain that it would be a good idea to release the protestors that had already been arrested, but how hard could that be?

Beast Boy was chatting with a small group of protestors who brought their children with them, entertaining the kids by morphing into various adorable animals. He was giving some small children a pony ride when Starfire approached him, looking somewhat contrite.

"Friend, may I talk with you?" She asked.

Beast Boy morphed back into his human form, deftly catching the little girl who had been riding on his back and handing her to her parents. Raven had been watching his crowd pleasing antics from a distance, jealous of how easily he handled kids and how much they loved him. She on the other hand, told children bedtime stories that would make good Twilight Zone episodes. She sighed, knowing that someday Gar would want to have a baby. She put that worry out of her mind, knowing that she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

"What's up Star?" he replied cheerfully.

Starfire marveled at the changeling. He never harbored a grudge and was always positive and happy. And he cared so much about others. Raven was a lucky girl, she told herself. Had she not found Beast Boy she probably would have spent her life without a mate.

"Beast Boy, I bring you apologies."

"Huh? What for?" he asked with a puzzled look on his face.

"Raven told me that I broke your arm yesterday when a hit you in my fit of anger. It appears that I am the klohrbag." She said sorrowfully. "Will you please forgive me?"

"Forget it. I had it coming anyway. And Raven fixed it right away; it was just a hairline fracture."

"So we are still friends?" she asked hopefully.

"Always!" he replied, kissing her on the cheek. He then morphed into a monkey and chased some small kids who squealed with delight.

Bumblebee was standing next to Raven and had been watching Beast Boy.

"Beast Boy sure likes kids, doesn't he Raven?"

"Uh huh" Raven replied. She then braced herself. Here it comes…

"So how long are you planning on waiting?"

"Waiting for what?" Raven asked innocently, knowing full well what she meant.

"To have a baby. Girl, for someone who's so smart, you can be pretty clueless. He's gonna want a few of his own, sweetheart. Haven't you thought about that?"

"A few?" Raven said nervously. "You mean he wants more than one?"

Bumblebee laughed. "I think you might want to start talking with him about that. The longer you put it off, the more kids he's gonna want." Karen teased the sorceress, who had an alarmed look on her face.

"Oh chill, Raven. I'm just messin' with your mind. But seriously though, you should talk with him about it sooner rather than later." Bumblebee reassured her lightheartedly, before switching to a more serious tone. "Just remember that there's someone else who will give him the babies if you won't."

Raven scanned the crowd looking for her, and found Terra joking with Beast Boy, sharing a laugh.

"Thanks for the friendly warning." Raven droned. "I'll make a point of discussing it with him tonight."

A clattering sound was heard coming from the plant gates. Two security guards unlocked the chains that held the gate closed and opened them. A man dressed in an impeccable suit walked out and approached the Titans.

"Mr. Lex Luthor has invited you to have lunch with him." the man announced in a tone that suggested acceptance wasn't optional. "Please follow me."

-( - )-

The Titans followed Maximilian Gantry into the factory. Cyborg turned on all his sensors, recording everything he could. The factory was impeccable, the floor clean enough to eat off of. Mr. Gantry was silent as he led them across the massive factory floor to the office section that was at the rear of the factory site. The titans exchanged confused glances with each other, wondering why the Kal-El's nemesis was inviting them into his inner sanctum. As they reached the south end of the factory floor, which was a massive one thousand meters long they reached an elevator. The plant manager motioned them to enter and he followed them in. The doors closed and the lift began to ascend.

"I'm Max Gantry, the General Manager of this LuthorCorp facility." He introduced himself. "Mr. Luthor has invited you to share a meal with him as a token of his appreciation for your handling of the protestors."

"That's, uh, nice of him." Raven droned in reply.

"It's unheard of." Gantry corrected her. "This is a great honor. I've worked for the Luthor family for over 30 years, and I have never been asked to share a meal with Mr. Luthor or his father."

"I'll remember to curtsey" Bumblebee said under her breath.

The elevator reached the top floor in the tower and its doors opened. Gantry led them down a short hallway with a pair of double doors at the end. A doorman opened the doors, which revealed and elegant dining room with places already set at the table for them. Lex Luthor was already seated at the head of the table and rose to greet his guests.

"Thank you for joining me for lunch. I have wanted to meet Jump City's superhero guardians for some time now. I must say you handled the situation outside most adroitly, unlike the incompetent local police department."

"Thank you Mr. Luthor, we always consider it our mission to do what's best for Jump City." Nightwing replied.

Lex worked his way around the table, introducing himself to each Titan, thanking each one and making some small talk. He got to Terra last.

"I didn't know you were a Teen Titan, Miss Markov. Did you just join the team?"

Before Terra could answer Raven interrupted.

"Terra is a probationary member of the team. She used to be a member a few years ago, but chose to leave us at that time."

"That's very diplomatic of you, Mrs. Logan. I seem to recall that she betrayed you and worked with the late Slade Wilson. Tell me Mrs. Logan, do you have any details on how Mr. Wilson met his demise?" Luthor replied.

"I'm afraid that you'll have to contact the authorities on Azarath for details on that matter." She replied.

"Of course." Luthor replied. "Shall we be seated? Lunch is ready to be served."

Luthor's servants served a sumptuous lunch to the Titans, including an exquisite vegetarian dish specially prepared for Beast Boy. Luthor continued with the small talk, talking about the new factory and the positive impact it would have on Jump City.

"Mr. Luthor, forgive me for my impertinence, but won't the wages you will be paying your employees in the new factory lower than those of the employees you fired at the closed factories."

"It's all a matter of perspective your highness." He replied, acknowledging her royal lineage. "The old factories were money losers and would have bankrupted themselves eventually. Wouldn't you agree that a lower wage is better than no wage?"

Starfire quickly realized that Luthor was a smooth operator, and her royal upbringing had taught her that this was not the setting to confront him.

"An interesting perspective Mr. Luthor, but still small consolation to those who lost their jobs." Raven replied diplomatically.

"Perhaps." Luthor replied, rising from his chair. "I'm afraid that I must leave now, as I have urgent matters to attend. Thank you for joining me. Please feel free to linger as long as you like while you finish your meal."

Luthor exited the room through a side door that led to a control room. He had been gathering all sorts of sensory data on the Titans while they were in the dining room. He retrieved a flash memory module from the console and placed in his pocket before heading for the roof where a helicopter awaited him.

Back in the dining room the Titans looked at each other with puzzled faces.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm not hungry." Beast Boy said as he rose from his place at the table.

The others agreed and they left together escorted off the premises by Mr. Gantry, and headed back to the Tower.

-( - )-

Cyborg was disappointed with what his sensors detected in the LuthorCorp factory, which other than a tire factory was nothing. He and Nightwing reviewed the results several times, searching for something that they might have overlooked, but found nothing. Nightwing's expression was grim, as he couldn't accept that Luthor wasn't up to something.

"There's no way he's just making tires there. He must have shielded the secret part of his factory from us. It's gotta be why he invited us in, so we could see there is nothing else going on there and leave him alone." Nightwing frowned.

"Dick, what if it's really just a tire factory?" The bionic Titan asked "I mean, it could be that."

Nightwing shook his head. "No way, it's too low tech for LuthorCorp, it has to be a front."

The two sat in silence, reviewing the results yet another time, not even sure what they were looking for in the mountains of sensor logs.

"So what do we do next?" Cyborg asked.

Nightwing already had an answer for him.

"We're going to have to go back in and search the place, this time without an escort."

Cyborg chuckled. "Breaking and entering? That's not our style Dick, plus it's illegal."

"Think of it as espionage, Cyborg."

Cyborg frowned, as he didn't like where this was going. Was Nightwing replacing his old obsession with Slade with a new obsession with Lex Luthor?

"And how do we keep from being discovered? My sensors did detect hundreds of alarms systems and sensors. We wouldn't get more than 5 feet into that factory without all hell breaking loose."

"Doesn't that kind of protection in a tire factory strike you as odd, Cyborg?"

"Well now that you mention it, sure, it seems excessive. But you didn't answer my question. How do we get in without setting off the alarms? And don't ask me to disable them, because I can't. There are too many of them and they're too sophisticated."

Nightwing hesitated before answering. "We'll send Raven in."

Cyborg gave him a dirty look. "You're kidding, right? You know she isn't ready to go on a mission like that, especially by herself. I thought you swore that there would be no more solo missions like that anymore. And BB won't stand for it either; he's become very protective of her."

"I was thinking she could send her soul self into the factory, the sensors shouldn't detect her."

"And what if they do? Sure she could zip right out of there, but it would be a PR disaster for us. I can already see the headlines: 'Titans Involved in Industrial Espionage!' It wouldn't be good Dick."

"It's a risk we're gonna have to take."

"Yeah, whatever. All I can say is good luck getting Beast Boy and Raven to agree."

-( - )-

Raven and Beast Boy were getting ready to settle in for the night. Alfred had restored Raven's room to its former spooky and creepy glory, which now even the sorceress herself found a bit over the top. She and Beast Boy brightened up the room a bit, replacing some of Raven's possessions with a few of Beast Boy's. Raven told him that she would not tolerate their room being dirty and she was constantly on his case for not picking up after himself. Slowly he improved in that regard, but she knew she still had her work cut out.

Beast Boy had just taken a shower as he had gotten dirty that afternoon chasing a mugger through a mud field. Even after morphing back into his human form he was still dirty. He emerged from the bathroom in time to catch Raven slipping a nightgown over her head. He ran up to the bed, sliding to a stop as he ripped his towel off and slipped into the bed au natural.

"What's with the textiles, Rave? The green love machine is waiting for you!"

Raven rolled her eyes, yet acquiesced to his round about suggestion of disrobing before getting into bed.

"That's more like it, baby!" he said as he drew her into a lusty embrace.

She pushed back from his hug.

"Hang on Gar, there's something I want to talk with you about first."

"Fire away, doll face!" the happy changeling replied.

Raven flinched internally at the new pet name, but said nothing about it, knowing that he would have a new one by tomorrow to replace it.

"We haven't talked about family planning." She said.

"What?" was the only word to come out of his surprised mouth.

"You know, like when do we start having children and how many?"

Much to Raven's relief he replied the following.

"I haven't really thought about that. I suppose that it wouldn't happen until we retire as Titans, or at least until we're older."

"How much older?"

"I dunno, I guess we'll know when the time is right I suppose."

"And how many?" she asked him nervously.

He seemed surprised at her impromptu interrogation, but continued to go along.

"I suppose we could start with one."

Raven pushed him onto his back, climbing on top of him with a smile on her face.

"Good answer." She remarked as she turned off the light.