It was mid afternoon and a flock of seagulls flew over the tower's roof, squawking as they flew by in the cloudless sky. It was a hot summer day and the bay's briny smell reached all the way to the top of Titans Tower. Beast Boy watched as the birds flew off, seemingly without a care in the world. He thought about joining the avian visitors for a while; but his heart wasn't in it.
He instead turned his attention back to the city's downtown area, which was at the south end of the city's iconic suspension bridge. The Titans spent a lot of time downtown. Sometimes it was for pleasure. Maybe they'd eat dinner at the wedge shaped pizzeria, or go out for ice cream, or maybe shop on the 16th St mall near the convention center, where Raven's favorite bookstore was located. Sometimes though, they would be there on business, as in fighting bad guys. This morning their visit had been of the latter kind, though they did eat lunch at the pizzeria after apprehending the bank robbers. All in all, it had been a rather routine day: catch bad guys, celebrate with pizza and soda pop afterwards.
That said, there was deviation from the routine. On the surface it was a minor event, yet he couldn't stop thinking about it. It happened after the robbers were caught and they had been handed over to the police. Usually after a lesser mission like that was completed a small group of fans would approach them, and ask them for autographs or to take a selfie with one or more of the Fab Five. Starfire and Robin would predictably get the most requests, followed by the changeling and the tin man. Raven would also get requests, but would only sign autographs and never agreed to pose for selfies. Maybe it was because she couldn't force herself to smile.
As they were wrapping up with the last fans, Beast Boy was posing with a young couple for a selfie. He grinned his winning smile as the pictures were taken. As Raven watched she saw an ice cream cone thrown by someone fly out of nowhere. The aim was poor and it missed Gar, instead hitting the girl posing with him square in the face.
"You throw like a girl! I'll show you how its done." A voice echoed from the small crowd.
Raven raised one of her dark shields over Gar's face and a second cone hit it with a squishy thud and fell to the ground. Gar turned to the punks and glared at them.
"Dudes! What's your problem!?" He shouted at them, shaking an clenched fist.
The crowd stepped away and Gar's eyes widened when he saw the two boys. His mouth suddenly dried and no more sounds came out.
"You stink!" One of the punks, who sported a spiky Mohawk, laughed at him.
"You're nothing but a green freak, a loser. No wonder Terra dumped you and ran off with Slade!" The other one shouted before they turned to walk away, laughing, oblivious to the glares from all the fans present. Their laughter was short lived, as a four eyed Raven rose from the ground, blocking their path.
"You thankless ingrates." She growled at them. "Do you have any idea of how many times he's saved your worthless hides?"
The two punks stopped in their tracks, clearly surprised by Raven's presence. They recovered quickly.
"We aren't afraid of you, witch. You're also a freak. We don't need creeps like you protecting us, so get a clue and crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of.."
Robin appeared out of nowhere, and grabbed the foul mouthed punk by his shirt lifting him off the ground,
"No one insults my friends!"
"We already did, boy blunder. What are you gonna do about it." The punk sneered at him.
Raven saw Robin's jaw tremble. She placed a hand on his shoulder.
"He isn't worth it, let him go. He's baiting you. He wants you to hit him."
Robin shoved the miscreant away as he released him. The punk almost lost his balance, but his companion caught him. He looked back at Robin and grinned.
"Slade rules, the Titans drool." He shouted as they ran away, laughing. Gar saw Robin's clenched fist tremble.
"Raven's right. This is the thanks we get for protecting scum like them." Robin grumbled.
Gar also laid a hand on Robin's shoulder. "Dude, Rave's right, they aren't worth it. They're gone, let's just forget about it."
"How can anyone in Jump like Slade? Have they forgotten everything he's done?" Robin seethed. "What's wrong with people? This didn't happen beofre."
"The green bean's right, they're just some losers, let's forget about it." Cyborg said in calm tone.
Starfire approached her friends and smiled in that sweet way that was her own. Her green eyes twinkled as she clasped her hands.
"Agreed, we should put this unpleasant event behind us. Perhaps we should go and partake of the pizza? And for dessert we could go to the factory of the cake of cheese?"
"Good idea, Star. Now that you mention it, I'm kinda hungry." Cyborg agreed.
Robin nodded. "Sure, let's go have some pizza."
-(-)-
Gar continued to stare at the downtown area. He could actually see the pizzeria from the roof … sort of it was pretty far away. The pizza had been excellent as always, and they quickly forgot about the incident with the hecklers as they bantered. The only problem was that he hadn't forgotten about it.
You're nothing but a green freak, a loser. No wonder Terra dumped you and ran off with Slade!
The words echoed in his mind. He raised his hand in front of his face and removed his glove. His hand was of course still green. He sighed. He then heard roof's access door open and turned around.
"Hey." He greeted her.
Raven silently walked up to him.
"I was looking for you. I thought you were coming to my room after we got back."
"I was, I guess I lost track of time. Sorry."
"It's OK. Gar, do you want to talk about what happened this afternoon?"
He shrugged. "Sure."
She took his ungloved hand into her own, interlacing their fingers.
"When you saw the guy who threw the ice cream at you, I could sense that your heart almost froze. What happened?"
He didn't answer right away. He then sighed.
"I had a dream last night."
"More like a nightmare. Your emotions woke me up."
"Sorry."
She shrugged. "That's what happens when you share a bed with someone. Or at least when I do. And that must have been quite a nightmare because I was jolted awake."
"I've had worse … Rave … when are we going to tell the others, you know, about us? We've been together for over a year. I'm tired of sneaking into your room every night."
She caressed his face with her finger tips.
"They already know, they haven't said anything because they're too polite. I know we aren't fooling anyone when we turn into our own rooms at night. But I agree, it's time we make it official. We can tell them tonight, at dinner … but back to your dream."
"Yeah, that … remember when Star traveled to the future and she said that I was fat and bald?"
"I remember, and I've told you to not worry about that. I've already told you, that's not going to happen to you. You won't get fat and I placed an anti balding spell on you. You aren't going to lose any of your lovely green hair, I don't care what Star saw in the future."
"I know, but there's more. Star also said that I was part of a circus and that I kept myself locked in a cage. I dreamed about that … Rave … those two punks today were in my dream. They threw an ice cream at me and called me a freak in the dream."
"That's strange." She replied.
"Rave, does this mean I'm gonna end up a circus freak like Star said?"
"It has to be a coincidence. How could those punks still be young 20 years in the future? Or ..."
"Or what?"
"Well … I do have the ability to sometimes sense what's going to happen, at a subconscious level. Maybe while we were asleep it made its way into your mind from mine, you know I have some telepathic ability, and maybe your subconscious reassembled it as a dream."
"Maybe you're right" He replied, sounding very relieved. "So what are we gonna tell the guys tonight?"
She furrowed her brow as she pondered the options. "I don't know, I guess we'll say that were in a long term, committed relationship."
He smiled. "That sounds good, but I like the sound of permanent even more."
She returned his smile "So do I. So, permanent? You really mean it?"
"I do, permanent, as in until death do we part." He replied with a huge smile on his face. "You know that Rob is gonna lecture us about the birds and the bees."
She smiled slyly. "As if, we're the ones who could lecture him. Starfire has told me that they are still celibate."
The changeling grinned his agreement, until his demeanor suddenly changed.
"Star's gonna want to sing us some ear shattering, 800 verse Tamaranian love song. If we don't listen she's gonna be hurt."
"The things we do for our friends. Maybe we can ask her to sing the abbreviated version." She said in her monotone. "So, shall we just go and tell them now?"
"Works for me."
They slowly walked to the rooftop entrance, still hand in hand. The stopped at the door and leaned over to share a kiss. Suddenly they stopped and looked at each other, with a panicked look on their faces.
"Starfire's gonna want to organize the wedding!" They shrieked in one voice.
-(-)-
OK, that was a random drabble. Sorry I haven't updated "I can't do it.", I'll try to get back to it soon.