January. The life-saving trick of opening up about your weird traumas p.1

In a single trip to the bathroom, Dick passed in front of a blown up toilet, avoided the one sink that was cracked open, then came out onto the hallway to circumvent the entire area they had to close down because someone had torn a few lockers off the wall, and finally stopped next to a drinking fountain that had been smashed in. That last one was new. The exposed pipe was currently creating a long puddle in the hallway.

This is getting ridiculous, he thought. It seemed every morning brought a new act of vandalism. Dick wouldn't be surprised to find the school a smoking pile of rubble one day.

From the opposite end of the hallway, Mr. Bill slipped and fell on the wet floor.

"Oh, of course I of all people fall in the goddamn…" he was mumbling when Dick made his way over to help him up. "Oh! Mr. Grayson!" Bill seemed embarrassed when his student helped him stand. He fixed his thick-rimmed glasses. "I'm sorry you had to hear that. I'm afraid I lost my temper," he said, as if Dick hadn't had to sit in class as Mr. Mod raged for a good twenty minutes about the ungrateful, ruined youth of today in much more colorful language just a couple of days before.

"It's alright," Dick replied. "Mr. Bill, does anyone know what's going on here?"

"You mean who's behind all of this?" the teacher asked, as they both stepped away from the puddle. "No, I don't think anyone knows. Someone's getting something out of their system," he sighed, and smiled sadly at Dick.

Dick watched the teacher go on his way, an idea forming in his head. He went to the cafeteria to find his Club.

When he sat down, Gar was vying for the others to try his tofu meal, to a resounding lack of success.

Dick interrupted him to say, "Guys. I have a… task for us."

They looked at him.

"A task?" asked Kori. "What do you mean?"

"You know, a good deed, for the school," Dick explained. Very eloquent, Dick. "What we decided we'd do back when we saved the SAT's."

"Oh. We're actually doing that?" Victor asked, looking uninspired.

"Just because we never got another request doesn't mean we're not doing it," said Dick, making his voice sound more secure. "You know Jade probably buried everything. So it's not like the radio silence is an indication we're not needed or whatever."

"No, but I was hoping you'd forget about it," Vic replied.

"You know I'm in," said Raven from the other end of the table, and then went back to eating.

Raven had always been into the good-deeds thing from the start. Dick had wondered why. But he hadn't dared ask her yet.

"I am as well," said Kori. "The concept of doing heroic things is simply lovely."

"So who's the client?" asked Gar.

"Yeah, who requested our services?" asked Vic, with a bit of edge in his voice.

Dick shoved Mystery Meat in his mouth. "No one," he said after a moment.

"No one?" echoed Raven.

"I propose we solve this vandalism spree that keeps getting worse every day." Dick's statement was met with uncertain faces. "Okay, look at it this way. If we catch the vandals and it gets out that we did, people will know what we do, and we'll get more requests. It's like, working for free for the exposure or something. And taking the school's defense into our own hands." He was getting too good at rousing speeches.

"Well, if the club's goal is to do good deeds for the school, this is the right thing to do," surmised Raven.

Gar shrugged. "Let's go, Project club."

But that afternoon in the clubroom, they found they didn't know where to start. They shared the rumors they each had heard around the vandalizing, and then they were stumped. They had no clues.

"Detectives can dust for fingerprints, then run them through a database," said Vic. "Or get access to security footage. How the hell are we gonna figure out who did it?"

Dick thought. "…We can talk to the victim."

"Meaning?" asked Gar.

"The janitor. He's the one who has to clean it all up."

They found the janitor mopping floors on the east wing.

Dick went forward. "Mr. Duncan? We wanted to ask you about the vandalism that's been popping up lately."

The Janitor just looked at them. He was a short man with an impressive moustache, who didn't usually talk to students if he could help it.

"I mean have you ever seen anyone in a suspicious attitude?" Dick elaborated. "Someone hanging around the vandalized areas? Maybe during class-"

"This doesn't happen during the day," the janitor answered. "I leave at seven p.m. I do a last check-up before I leave. And in the morning I find all this mess."

"You mean someone's entering the school at night to do it?" asked Gar.

Dick cocked his head. "You never thought of sticking around to see if you could catch the culprit?"

Mr. Duncan stared him down. "I work twelve hours a day, kid. You'd better believe that as soon as I can leave, I do."

To his credit, Dick recanted quickly. "Right, right. Sorry."

"Now, if the school wanted to hire a night custodian—that's the day they'll get twenty-four hour security, but until then-"

"I get it, I'm sorry."

Gar pulled Dick away. "He was raised rich, excuse him."

The five met in a circle. "So we have to find some way to be in the school through the night," said Dick.

The other four avoided his eyes for a second.

Dick never had found out that Gar and Vic had actually broken into the school. As such, they hadn't told him about the backwards window in the boys' bathroom. After the whole fiasco, Dick had innocently asked Raven, "How did you even know that Brooke girl's address?"

Raven had taken her time to think. When she'd faced Dick, her face was stone. "I don't know how Gar knows the people he knows."

Dick had looked convinced. Raven had breathed again.

That window in the boys' bathroom would have been a key advantage for this task, but it would expose the rest of Gar's –and really all of their- misdeed. The four covertly eyed each other, wondering if anyone would speak up. Dick was too busy thinking to notice them, and then he thought of something else, so the others guessed this was now an unavowable secret between the four of them.

Dick said, "We need to ask Mr. Duncan if we can stay in school after he leaves, and if he can leave like a side door open so we can get out. Then we'll see how this person gets in, face them, and make them stop."

The janitor had moved up the hallway while they discussed this. Once settled, the kids went to him.

"Is there any way we can stay in school past seven tomorrow?" Dick asked him.

"What?" The janitor peered at them. He wasn't a stranger to kids wanting to come in after hours. This was just the first time a group had asked him to his face.

"We want to stay and see if we can catch whoever's vandalizing the school," Dick explained.

"Why would you do that?" Mr. Duncan retorted.

Dick felt himself blush. This was the hard part, he thought: being forced to admit their motives in front of burnt-out, judging adults. It made Dick feel like an idealistic child again. He ended up saying, "We wanna do this for the school. To help protect it."

The janitor leaned on his mop. "You want me to sanction you staying in the building after hours so you can save the school from this other kid."

"We were thinking you could close up at seven like usual, except leave one door open so we can get out."

"Well leaving a door open is a security hazard." Mr. Duncan looked them over. "Tell you what. I'll leave you the key when I leave. That way you can close up yourselves, and I don't have to go to bed knowing I locked you kids in here."

Dick couldn't help but look surprised. "You're giving us a key? Really?"

"Yes. I'm retiring next year anyway," the janitor said. "And if I find out this is some sort of party or occupation or prank… well. I'm an old fool."

Dick smiled. "It's not. It's just us. We promise."

The janitor looked them over with an unreadable expression. "That vandal probably gets in through the front door. There's a key that's been missing from the teachers' lounge all week."

"Oh. Thanks for the clue."

He nodded at them and got back to work.

"Whoa. We're really doing this then," Gar said, but he was smiling.

"So, we're gonna have to stay in school the entire day and night?" asked Vic.

The weight of what they had agreed to do fell on all of them.

Dick thought about it. He really looked for a better way of putting it. But he found none. "Yes."

"…Fine," sighed Vic.

"I've got Math homework," said Gar.

"Bring it," said Dick.

"Do we bring sleeping bags, a change of clothes?" asked Raven.

"Yes, all of that." Dick confirmed, gratefully.

"Food," said Kori.

"A few of us will go out to get some dinner," replied Dick. "The rest will stay to open the door."

Thus decided, it was a bit anticlimactic then to go home for the day, but they managed.

When school let out the next day, Vic went out to the parking lot, took his car out, left it a block away, and came back into the school. They stayed in the clubroom, closed the door, shut the window, kept all the lights off, and waited until everyone left. The boys passed the time playing video games on mute.

After a while of them not hearing any sound, they went out, quietly, to investigate. Seeing no one but the janitor, they then hung out in a random classroom, for variety's sake.

The first few hours were calm. They did homework, ate snacks, even unearthed a chess set, and started a tournament that immediately left only Vic and Raven going against each other.

Meanwhile, Gar wandered close to Dick.

"Hey, Dick? I just wanna say sorry for the Mr. Mod doodle thing again."

Dick eyed him. "Sure, Gar. It's okay."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry I added to your surprisingly large record that you still haven't explained."

Dick frowned. "I'm not telling you about my record."

Gar feigned innocence. "I didn't-! Did I ever ask?"

As a response, Dick walked away from Gar. From a distance, Vic raised his eyebrows at Gar. Gar shook his head.

Dick had turned towards Kori. "That reminds me, Kori. That film I wanted to show you is in the library. You wanna go see it?"

Kori was instantly delighted. "Oh, yes."

They left. Vic, who had never stopped staring at the chess game, started smirking. "Hmm. Betcha this is when they get together."

Raven and Gar looked up at him. It was the first time any of them acknowledged aloud something that was very palpable and obvious.

"You think?" laughed Gar.

"It's after school, we're all alone, they drifted off together…" Vic said. "Yup. I think this is it. Way overdue, too."

In a corner of the library, Dick and Kori used the AV club projector and pointed it to a rolled down window curtain.

"See, the thing is," Dick was saying, "Rocky is the original underdog story. Like, it's a typical rise to glory story, but it was the first to do that, and the thing no one remembers is he actually lost his final battle, which I think is really cool to show…"

Kori was enjoying Dick's commentary more than the movie itself—when he talked, it was an excuse for her to look at his face. She was really only striving to concentrate on the movie because he wanted her to experience it.

When Dick had first told her the Club was about being lazy and taking advantage of uncaring, distracted school officials, it had seemed off to her. She didn't know Dick at all back then—but it seemed to her he was… hiding, somehow.

Dick always looked like he was trying to blend in and go unnoticed. Kori saw it in his stubborn use of sunglasses, in his generic teenage boy clothing –as he was usually in jeans and some sort of red or blue sports jacket-. It was as if he wanted to sit back and look at the world without the risk of the world looking back at him.

But it was clearly not what he'd been born to do. Dick commanded attention without meaning to, perhaps without noticing. He was a person people trusted, though Kori couldn't put her finger on why.

When they had decided to dedicate the Club to helping people, Kori could tell this was the real Dick. Right now, he was positively glowing, activated, revived. Kori knew she was seeing who he was meant to be all the time.

And being alone in the darkened library with him, able to watch all of that from a front row seat… What more could she want? She mindfully enjoyed every second of it.

"Banana!" Gar exclaimed in the empty classroom.

Raven looked at him. "I don't know what-"

"Just say who's there."

"I already did."

"One more time."

Raven sighed, and Vic snickered. At some unfortunate moment in time, Gar had learned that Raven had never heard some of the most classic jokes. Now he'd made it his life's purpose to tell them to her. All of them.

"Who's there," Raven uttered through gritted teeth.

Oblivious to the danger in her tone, Gar said, "Orange! …Orange you glad I didn't say banana!?"

"I'm certainly glad this sad joke is over."

Vic chuckled to himself. He gave Raven props for even listening to Gar. He didn't know why she did it.

When Victor got up to wander around the school, he left the two of them doing what by now was a routine of theirs, where Gar would promise her that, "One day, I'm gonna make you laugh real hard."

And Raven said, "That's never going to happen."

"Okay, you once said I was funny, remember?"

"I don't recall, no. Maybe you dreamt it."

"Oh, come on!"

The little to no offense Gar took from Raven's put-downs made them feel less vicious and more like friendly banter. Vic thought Gar was probably the reason Raven felt more reachable to all of them.

Victor roamed the hallways. The afternoon sun filtered through closed crevices. The school was still unnatural in its emptiness. The five of them were here secretly, and that tickled a childish delight for sneaking around, but no one was saying it. They were all more confident in their self-imposed purpose now.

If he went down the west wing, he could hear the sounds from the football practice and the cheerleaders. He steered clear of windows and doors, lest the people outside saw a shadow from inside the school.

At a certain point –Kori would never know how much time had passed- Dick checked his phone for the time, said they should be getting back to the others, and the spell of coziness they were in was lifted. They put everything back in its place and left the library.

Dick texted Vic asking where they all were, and they followed his directions to the second floor.

Kori scrolled on her phone as they walked through the hallways. She'd set up notifications for articles that talked about the Team Titans –she'd been trying to learn as much as she could about what were now her local superheroes- and it dismayed her how many news focusing on Lux Piper were negative and insulting; the article she had pulled up was titled 'Obese superheroes promote a dangerous model to the American public' and it affirmed Lux 'being allowed to be in a prestigious team while fat' was detrimental to public health. She had shown it to Dick to get some clarification. "I had thought your country was freer and… body positive. But then this article is not that."

"Well, there's still a lot of backwards views," Dick said. "But to be honest, articles like that tend to be click-bait. I mean…"

"I know click-bait," she assured.

"Okay," smiled Dick. "Look, I'd ignore this website entirely. It tends to come out with this trash."

"At least the comments are, uh… crucifying them." And she peeked at Dick to see if that was the right shape of that word.

Dick smiled. "Yeah, I bet they are," he returned, subtly approving her.

He looked over to her. The empty school was kind of chilly, and Kori was only wearing a sweater. Dick himself was fine in one jacket, but girls were different. Raven had been wearing her outdoor coat in the classroom, before.

"Are you cold?" he asked. If she was, he was going to give her his jacket.

"I come from Tamaran. I have not got cold on this country yet." A second later Kori realized she should have said she was cold, so he'd give her his jacket. But then she would have boiled.

When they got back to their other friends, they found Gar and Raven looking away from each other, each with arms crossed, and Vic in the middle trying to appease them.

He had a hand in each of their shoulders, and was talking to Gar in a sing-song lecturing voice. "You can't force a person to share, Gar. Someone like you is happy to spill everything about his life, but Raven won't. You have to respect that."

Gar crossed his arms and huffed childishly, in an action that perfectly matched the overly patient tone Vic was using.

"What's going on here?" demanded Dick.

"Gar's prying," said Raven.

"I'm trying to have a conversation!" protested Gar, waving his arms at her.

"I don't understand why you need to know everything about my life," Raven said.

"In case you don't know, friends talk about stuff! It's weird that you've moved house so much in your short life! How did I just find out you were born in Gotham?"

Raven looked down at him. "Because you make me regret telling you anything."

Dick sighed. He'd come to hope that by now Raven and Gar were more stable in their relationship, but it seemed they were really too different to be peaceful. "Gar, leave her alone. Vic's right, she doesn't have to share if she doesn't want to."

"Hmph," went Gar.

"Now let's go. Janitor's about to leave, and then we have to focus on what we came here to do. Okay?" Dick looked at both of them pointedly.

"You don't have to tell me twice," said Raven.

Gar dragged his feet behind the rest of the group.

Can you guys guess who's behind the vandalism? I'll give you a hint: next chapter Gar's gonna put his foot in his mouth and Kori's gonna get really mad at him. ;)