I don't own the Teen Titans, any of the characters, blah, blah, blah... You know.

(A/N-- First off, I'd like to profusely thank my reviewers. If it wasn't for you guys, this story would have been abandoned long ago. Also, I am SO sorry that it has been so long since I updated this fic. I know, I know. But the first meeting in a crossover is always the most important, don't ya' know? Big thanks to my reviewers on the last chapter. About a certain complaint, I felt that I needed some way to gauge how far the readers would let me go with the whole "powers" issue. Thanks for your criticism, and sorry that it took so long for me to update, but I needed some time for inspiration. By the way, thanks also to "Jarec" for his helpful tips. ON WITH THE SHOW!!)

JOKER VENOM & GOTHAM'S GREATEST

The Joker's face split into a smile so wide that Gar was sure that his face would tear in two. The menacing figure before him seemed to just stare a hole through Gar's soul. It felt like he was being dissected.

"Harley," Joker said cheerfully to the woman next to him. "Do you see what I see?"

The woman nodded appreciatively. "Sure do, Mista' J! Whaddya want me to do with him?"

The Joker's smile got wider, regardless of how impossible it seemed to Garfield.

"Oh, you know the usual," he said dismissively. "Physical torture, shatter his psyche, destroy his humanity... All the fun stuff, dear."

Gar's eyes widened in surprise.

"Come on, green bean," Harley taunted him as she approached, pulling a tire iron out from behind her. "Time to play!"

He watched Harley approach the green kid. The boy had gone into a semi-crouched position, ready to... do whatever he did.

Batman's eyes narrowed as he watched the kid move from the henchwoman's first attack. He had seemed to just bend backward, his nose inches from the weapon that swung uselessly over his head. Harley tried again, and the Knight saw the boy move to the side a moment before Harley attacked with a vertical swing.

Odd. It seemed like the lad had known beforehand what the woman was going to do. He continued to watch the enigmatic green boy evade all of Harley Quinn's attacks with almost no effort involved.

However, it was Quinn's last attempted swipe that stunned the Dark Knight.

Harley had swung her tire iron at the kid's head, and just as the weapon was a foot from his face, the boy was suddenly replaced by a very large--and very green-- gorilla.

The creature caught the iron with one massive hand, and hefted the woman up as she had refused to relinquish her weapon. The primate threw the woman away with a mighty swing of his arm, Harley flying through the air, back flipping as she soared through the air and landed somewhat crudely next to her boss.

"Impressive," Batman noted quietly as police sirens broke the silence of the night.

"Enough joking around, Harley! Finish him off before Batsy gets here!" Joker demanded in annoyance

"I'm tryin', Mista' J! Honest! But I can't hit the little brat!"

Joker's smile vanished when a police cruiser came swerving around the corner, lights glaring and siren blaring.

"Do I have to do everything myself, Harley?!" he shouted. The crazed Arkham guest suddenly held strange weapon that resembled a caulk gun. Pulling the trigger before Gar could react, a hypo needle flew out of the barrel and embedded itself deep in his skin.

"OW!" His eyes clenched shut as his hand flew to his neck where the needle stuck. He pulled it out of his skin and threw it to the ground.

"What did you just do?!"

The crazed villain just smiled.

"Here comes the punch line!"

"What are you..." he paused. His mouth felt like cotton all of a sudden. He tried to swallow but he throat refused to work. He forced himself to cough, and with great effort, his throat finally opened.

Without any preamble, he began to giggle, spurting air through his nose as the sudden urge caught him by surprise. He couldn't help himself, and the momentary lapse in his mirth was not long enough for him to catch his breath. His face melded into a near-perfect reflection of Joker's morbidly humorous visage.

"Hahahahahaha!" Clutching at his stomach, desperately trying to get the precious air that his burning lungs thirsted for, he fell onto the ground emitting a half moan, half chuckle. Even while he lay prone, trying to force himself to stop laughing, he knew that he would soon lose consciousness and there wasn't a thing he could do to stop the poison's advance.

'Joker's venom... I can't fight it off! I have to find the cure!'

Gar, beneath his gruesome smile that concealed his immense pain, began to formulate a plan.

Surely of all the beasts on Earth, surely, one of them would hold the cure to this... poison?

Gar felt the usual drop in he experienced when he changed shape, but soon that sensation was replaced by white-hot pain. He tore his eyes open, and as soon as he did, he wished he hadn't. His bones were broken, his skin torn in places with blood rushing out of the holes. His mind swam as the pain became too much, losing all concentration he held. He felt the world as if it were submerged under the ocean.

He fought for control, vaguely hearing the sounds of a struggle beneath his deep haze. The sound of a gunshot, a physical struggle, and finally the sound of a loud pop. He heard footsteps very close to him, and then the sound was drowned out by his own laughter. He opened his eyes just a fraction to see an imposing man garbed in a black cowl and cape, wearing equally black body armor standing over him. He looked worried, and the last thing he remembered was the man picking him up and carrying him on his shoulder before he finally succumbed to the inky blackness of his own mind.

Gar quietly snickered and giggled during the drive to Wayne Manor, but his eyes never opened. The Dark Knight gave the boy a "once over" before setting his eyes back on the road. Several open wounds bled profusely, seemingly caused by nothing. They just appeared when the boy started to vibrate on the ground. He guessed that when the boy tried to change, his bones broke and some tore through the skin.

Batman was an extraordinary detective, but it didn't take much of a genius to decipher who the boy next to him was. Despite his... nightlife, Wayne did watch the news every day. Call it job security. The boy was a member of the Teen Titans stationed in Jump.

Garfield Mark Logan, a.k.a. "Beast Boy." Batman had searched the boy, and had found that the shapeshifter did not carry any kind of comm link. So he deduced that the boy here was either alone, or he wasn't a Titan any longer.

"Robin, what have you done this time?" he asked no one in particular.

Deep in the recesses of Gar's mind, the boy stood firmly rooted in his own private sanctuary. It was actually Titans' Tower, on the roof. He stared into the setting sun, watching as a group of gulls flew past him toward the shore. A slight breeze ruffled his hair and carried the scent of salty ocean water. The day's dying light echoed across the rippling waves, turning the vast harbor into a shimmering display of color and warmth. It was here, either in reality or in his mind that the green child came to reflect.

He sighed heavily, shoulders sagging slightly while he looked blankly across the ocean.

"Beast Boy?" came a voice from behind him.

He turned to look into the face of the blonde haired geomancer. His not-so-secret crush, Terra.

Or rather, Terra's specter, who had somehow found a way to communicate with him despite her stone grave. Gar had never told anybody about this, preferring to let it just be the two of them together. Sometimes, she would appear in here, either to give advice to him or to comfort him.

"Hey." he replied, turning back to the view.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she walked up to stand beside him. Below them, the waves rolled onto the sandy shore and crashed against the rocky outcroppings, both subtle and fierce at the same time.

"Just... thinking." he said quietly.

"About what, BB?" she asked, raising an eyebrow to show her curiosity.

He turned his head again to look at her face, which still shone like the first day he met her. Her eyes, which still held more warmth than the sunset before him. He couldn't bear to look at the girl any more.

"About... how I've failed."

"Failed at what? What on Earth are you talking about Beast Boy?" she said almost like she were reprimanding him.

"You wouldn't know, Terra. You can't." he replied just as calmly as he could, water beginning to form at the corners of his eyes.

"Beast Boy, I underst..."

"No, Terra! You don't understand! You don't know what its like for me!" he shouted, the bitter, angry tears now falling freely.

Terra's eyes widened in shock as Beast Boy raised his voice to her. But it wasn't because he was mad at her. He was finally letting it out, the repressed feeling that had been present since his childhood.

His grief.

"You don't know what it's like to watch your parents die knowing that you could have done something! You don't understand having to live every day with your parents' blood on your hands! You don't understand, Terra!"

She suddenly felt very small in his presence, wanting to shrink away into nothingness. Only Beast Boy ever had this effect on her.

BB spoke again, this time quieter, but still wracked with self-hatred.

"You don't know that every night, I can't sleep without having nightmares because I have your blood on my hands now. I could have saved you. But there's nothing I can do to fix what I did."

The blonde Titan lost any anger she might have held at Beast Boy's outburst, walking closer to him and pulling him into a tight embrace.

"Beast Boy, that wasn't your fault. I made that choice. It was my fault, not yours."

"No, Terra. Don't you see it, yet? I should have stayed back at the cave to get you out! I should have beat Slade myself so you wouldn't have to sacrifice yourself."

"BB..." she said, pulling away from him. "You can't blame yourself for that. You would have died."

"Maybe... that would have been best." he muttered. "I have hundreds of lives on my conscience now. My parents, you, and all those people that died at the research center. You just don't understand."

Terra seemed upset at this remark, releasing his hand as her own eyes began to fill with her own hurt. She turned from him, walking away into the Tower, pausing just once to give him a final glance.

"No, Beast Boy... You don't understand."

With startling realization, he recognized the impact his words carried.

"Terra, I didn't mean to..."

The girl just shook her head and closed the door, leaving him alone on the rooftop.

The sun began to set, the moon revealing itself on the other side of the sky. Gar let the images fade away, leaving him to stare into the darkness. Overwhelming hopelessness overtook him, robbing him of his strength and willpower. He couldn't keep going anymore. He had lost his parents, his friendship with his team, his girlfriend, and now it seemed that even her spirit had left him.

Though he felt the encroaching darkness begin to surround him once more, he felt at the edge of his senses a presence that he had just been with. It walked to his prone form and sat beside him, a sense of disappointment in him melting away into sympathy as the figure once again took his hand into their own.

She hadn't abandoned him, after all.

Through the midst of his unending grief, his seemingly endless sorrow, Beast Boy felt a small glimmer of hope inside himself. Just the tiniest possibility that everything was not yet lost.

Garfield smiled.

Bruce Wayne, still dressed in the Bat suit, sat at an enormous desk looking over Gar's vital signs. Against all odds, the boy had stabilized the moment he had been put in the glass tank filled with various medicinal fluids. The green boy hung suspended in the blue water, his eyes closed as his body bobbed up and down, his hair falling into his eyes. The bones had miraculously mended themselves a few days ago, but some of the injuries had not been so quick to disappear.

Bruce rubbed the sleep from his eyes, once again running a diagnostics check on the boy. After a moment, the numerical data scrolled up the screen, once again reading that the boy was in critical condition.

"Hmm."

Footsteps behind him alerted him to the presence of his trusted butler, Alfred Pennyworth.

"Master Bruce," he said quietly. "You haven't left the lab in days. Please, come and eat something before you fall ill."

"Alfred," he asked quietly, "do you remember Richard?"

"Master Grayson?" he asked in surprise. "Yes. Why?"

"Richard formed a group a long time ago. The Teen Titans. This boy... he's one of them."

"You mean..." Alfred trailed off, staring at the sleeping Garfield.

"Yes, but now he's here. Why?" He rubbed his chin, pondering the question.

"I'm afraid I can't say, Master Bruce. But, if he is a "Titan," then where is Master Grayson?" Alfred finally tore his eyes away from the boy, looking instead at the exhausted Wayne.

"My point exactly."

The two were quiet again, until with a sigh of resignation, he finally turned to his butler.

"I have no choice. I have to tell his team."

The manservant sighed in frustration. "Very well then, Master."

Wayne smiled inwardly. Only his butler could possibly get this irritated over not being able to do his job. Bruce set up the connection to Titans' Tower in Jump City, waiting for the Titans to answer.

Back in Jump, the four remaining Titans stood in the antechamber. The team's leader had left the Tower after Beast Boy had left, and in the morning had come back to find the other three Titans had discovered their green friend's absence. So, Robin had been forced to tell them what had happened. Three voices shouted in unison:

"You. Did. What?!"

"I decommissioned Beast Boy! He was a threat to the city!" Robin defended himself, staying well away from his comrades.

"Robin, how could you have done such a thing to our friend?" Starfire cried.

"It wasn't your choice to make him leave!" Cyborg roared.

"What were you thinking?" Raven asked in barely masked fury, her eyes beginning to glow red as a nearby window exploded.

"I was doing my duty to protect the city! Beast Boy was an endangerment to everyone else! More people would have died if Raven hadn't intervened!"

"Rob, I swear, if Beast Boy's hurt I'll..." Cyborg started, but the giant television interrupted him as it alerted them to an incoming signal. A computer voice calmly stated:

"Incoming signal from... Wayne Manor, Gotham City."

Robin's jaw dropped.

The other Titans stopped yelling once they saw the look on their leader's face. Robin walked to the screen and activated the relay, allowing the message to come through. The screen flickered to life, and sitting at his lab desk was none other than Robin's old mentor, Batman himself.

"Hello, Robin."

The greeting held no warmth, no feeling whatsoever.

"Batman? What do you want?"

The three other Titans walked up behind him, listening to their leader talking to his almost revered mentor as though he hated him.

"Do you care to explain what this boy is doing here?" Batman asked, swiveling the camera to the tank, where a full view of the green shapeshifter filled the screen.

The Titans gasped, Starfire covering her mouth with her hands, Cyborg whispered a quiet curse. Even Raven seemed to lose her perfect composure when she saw her friend hanging lifelessly from the various tubes attached to his body.

"What's wrong with him?" Robin inquired, suppressing the urge to vomit.

"Joker's venom tampered with his powers. He tried to change shape, and his skeleton morphed. But... he didn't. His bones have mended, but he's still in critical condition. It seems that he put himself in a self-induced coma to shield himself from the pain. He hasn't woken up, yet."

The team silently beheld their comrade, too depressed to say anything. Finally, Robin took charge again.

"We're coming down there, Batman. We need to see him."

Batman nodded, as though he had expected this outcome.

"Alright, but I want you to put a replacement team there. We can't have Jump City be completely unguarded."

"Will do," Robin nodded.

Batman severed the link, and Robin once again turned to his teammates. Cyborg spoke first, still angry at him but beginning to forgive the Boy Wonder. The boy had expressed worry for his friend, and that was enough to assure the metal Titan that Batman's apprentice regretted his mistake already.

"We'll talk about this later," Cyborg stated firmly to the Boy Wonder. "But right now BB needs us."

"Agreed, friend Cyborg," Starfire chimed in. "We must go and see our dear friend. It is our duty as friends."

Raven still held the shocked expression she wore when she saw the comatose Garfield. She finally shook it off, and muttered an agreement with her friends.

Robin finally asserted himself as leader once more, issuing orders for the team to make the necessary calls to the honorary Titans, and to ready themselves for the trip to Gotham City.

"We have to go see him. It might be our last chance."

(A/N: I'd like to personally thank my PM reviewer! You know who you are! Anyways, constructive criticism is always appreciated!)