2
Starfire was ready to go to church the very next day, but the reality of the situation took a bit more preparation than that. For one thing, the other Titans explained to Starfire that the most productive day to go to church would be on Sunday, as that would be when the most people were there and when the service was most conventional. Then came the procurement of formal clothing. Cyborg and Robin both had suits, albeit ones that requiring thorough cleaning and ironing. Beast Boy, Starfire, and Raven, however, had zilch. Nothing. Nada. In fact, Raven and Starfire in particular didn't even have hardly anything other than their team uniforms... and there was no way whatsoever that they were letting Beast Boy go to church in a t-shirt and jeans.
The resulting mandatory shopping trip was challenging at best. Cyborg and Robin found it difficult to bully Beast Boy into trying on a set of clothes in a timely fashion, and found it even more difficult to find formal pants and shirts that didn't show up green strands of shed fur. Black and white were absolutely out. That left Beast Boy's other primary choices as brown and gray (after having been beaten off of a purple dress coat once Cyborg said it made him look like a pimp). Eventually a short-sleeved gray knitted shirt, gray slacks, brown leather shoes, and a brown overcoat were settled on. Finding a small enough belt (fake leather, at Beast Boy's utter insistence), shoes, and a tie then became the finishing touches. Eventually they ditched the tie; Beast Boy wanted a snap on bow tie, come hell or high water, and eventually the other two figured that even no tie was preferable to that. When the boys reached the checkout counter, they realized they hadn't figured out who was going to pay for all of this fairly expensive clothing, which caused another argument. This was resolved once the small elderly Asian lady at the counter scolded them via ancient Eastern proverbs for being so worldly concerning clothes meant to express one's inner spiritual purity on the outer world. After checkout she admitted she'd made the proverbs up, and yelled at them to move, since they were holding up the line.
Raven and Starfire's shopping was accomplished with far less noise, but had its own trials and tribulations. Firstly, it took soem time for both ladies, still not entirely familiar with Earthly shopping techniques, to figure out that changing was to be done in a stall within a small easily overlooked side room. Not right out in the main store, as Starfire had first thought, and not in the side room, as Raven had thought, but in the little sections paneled off by wood. They had initially mistaken the stalls for product storage, as the wooden panels were rather ratty and didn't even cover that much space, being open both at the top and bottom. Then, after saying she didn't like several very different dresses one after the other, Raven finally admitted very lowly that she didn't like the idea of changing her clothes outside of her room, where she could lock the door. Starfire first pointed out the locks on the stalls, which did little to comfort Raven as they were flimsy at best. Then the Tamaranian offered to change with her in the same stall, assuming that the company would make Raven feel better. To her perplexement this only made Raven feel worse! Ultimately they decided to buy several dresses each, go home and try them all on at their leisure, and then return the ones they didn't want. Relying on a consultation with a cheery gray-haired store employee on the most suitable church garb, they both ended up with several variations on a very severe black theme that covered the body from neck to very modest lower thigh. Raven enjoyed the look, if not necessarily the itchiness. Starfire, though not greatly approving of being forced into such a drab hue, was focused on achieving her new goal of totally understanding Earth religion and considered it a necessary evil to be endured with dignity and a smile. However, her smile was a somewhat halfhearted one until Raven commented that the black contrasted her eyes and hair very well, a calculated move to perk her comrade up that worked as well as intended. They headed over to the men's department, satisfied in their choices... and halfway there remembered that dresses needed matching shoes, went straight back, and spent another half hour with their own gender-segregated fashion apparel.
When the clothing issue was finally resolved, that left finding the woman and her church. It wasn't difficult for Cyborg's search engine-friendly fingers to find the woman, a Mrs. Ashton. In fact, it was unpleasantly easy. In a matter of hours, her announcement of starting the Church of Starfire had had her plastered all over Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo News, and countless religious and superhero-devoted blogs. Further research indicated that she had been and yet remained a decades-long member of The Second Independent Baptist Church of Loving Fellowship, a seventy-year old entity that had drifted through several locations before settling at a suburb not too far from Jump forty years ago. According to a blog message by the woman herself, she had not yet established an actual separate Church of Starfire, but indicated that establishment was 'imminent and inevitable' and only required sufficient support from her circle of fellow believers in Second Independent.
The other major tidbit that Cyborg gathered through this cyberspace recon was the surprising thing that Mrs. Ashton truly did have a good amount of support, at least as far as the internet was concerned. Although Mrs. Ashton was the first to make a declaration of Starfire's supposed angelic nature, it was a concept that fans of the team, particularly the adolescent males, flocked towards. This, Cyborg found disturbing. But not nearly as disturbing as Robin did, who grew gradually more fuming with every comment he read, until finally even Starfire had to gently ask him to stop trying to grind his own teeth into nubs. This offered illuminating insight that none of the team was very comfortable in knowing - there was a heavy focus on Starfire's innocence, purity, and good lucks as they pertained to media depictions of angels, and an all too eager trend towards ignoring or downplaying all the little traits that made her an actual person and not just an idealized concept. Starfire herself took it all as harmless, though, a mere overreaction by people who hadn't met her and who would undoubtedly come to an amicable understanding once all parties just sat down and talked.
Robin called the church's pastor and had a brief, serious conversation, essentially asking permission to disrupt church services with the presence of celebrities behaving as meekly as possible. Pastor Whittaker was so pleased with the idea that it actually set Robin off his ease, along with the fact that the Pastor's voice sounded very... young. No matter how firmly Robin told the man that none of his team had any intentions of converting in the near future or officially endorsing any religious establishment, the Pastor apparently took the mere potential presence of the Titans in his house of worship to be wonderful publicity for Christ. It was only with great difficulty that Robin avoided getting any significant special favors in return for the deed. And it was absolutely impossible to refuse the reserved front row pew seats that Whittaker offered, so Robin took them and allowed himself to be glad that that was all he'd been made to take, hanging up with a feeling of exhaustion.
The next day was Saturday, and that left Cyborg that one day to try to avoid Starfire so he could bone up on all the little theological tidbits he'd long since forgotten. The poor half-man, half-machine hadn't cracked open a Bible in years, and badly felt the need to be a good representative of his faction, however neglectful he'd been to it over the years. And who could blame him? After all, he'd been busy. A very very busy superhero. Who also liked video games. And food. And sports. And playing pranks on/with Beast Boy. There was perhaps just the tiniest bit of guilt in his head, now that the matter had been brought up, that he hadn't made more time for the Big Guy, but whenever it got too intrusive he just thought about all the people he'd saved as a superhero, all the crime he'd stopped, and then he felt better. Surely God didn't want you to not have fun, right? Relishing your life was as much a kind of worship as passing the offering plate! Why give a man tastebuds if he wasn't meant to enjoy a delicious stack of barbecue ribs now and then? Such had always been Cyborg's way of thinking, throughout his life, and he saw no reason to change it now. But Starfire had a tendency to be... overenthusiastic, about pretty much everything. And thus he took it upon himself to be prepared.
Destiny ordained that they, like most churchgoers either temporary or habitual, would all sleep past their alarms and be twenty minutes late. Accordingly, they skipped breakfast, rushed showers, and dressed with frantic attention to detail. Several articles of clothing were put on backwards and then righted without being taken off. The back of Beast Boy's shirt was tucked in by way of telekinesis. Robin's hair was one centimeter off and he didn't even notice. They crammed into the car in more or less random order, no fighting over seats, and were off at exactly the legal speed limit once Robin reminded Cyborg that getting a ticket for driving to church would be counterproductive to their reputation.
Along the way, Starfire did indeed have many questions for Cyborg. But they weren't the ones he was ready for. In fact, they were pretty much every possible question except the ones he had been ready for.
"Why are the Christian places of worship given pointy roofing? Is it meant to suggest a dagger or sword?"
"I... I don't really know, Star," Cyborg replied, sweating a bit as he tried to switch lanes in a crowded street, failed, and ended up waiting at a red light. They didn't usually drive on Sundays unless a bad guy attacked. In which case the streets tended to clear themselves.
"Why are the church windows so colorful when windows on Earth are normally very plain? I mean no offense to your glass-blowers, of course."
"I dunno, we'll have to ask our glass-blowers, I guess."
"I do not understand, please, what is the difference between your God coming back to life and a reincarnating undead?"
"Uh... well, I'm not really sure myself, heheh..."
"Why do so many people who profess to be of the Christian faith only attend services once each week? Do they cease to be Christians the other six days?"
"Well, that's not really for me to say, Star!"
"If your God only reincarnated himself as a representative sacrificial human male, why are women allowed to be Christians? Should he not also have reincarnated and sacrificed as a woman?"
Cyborg tried to stop sweating, failed, and tugged at his suddenly too tight collar with his free hand. "Gimme a break, Star, gender politics in religion are complicated. I'm not the one to go to about stuff like that." In the rearview mirror, Raven was smirking. "But yeah, he was supposed to be a sacrifice for all people, not just guys."
"And what of Beast Boy? He is able to be many different beings you profess to be without souls."
"That just means I have MORE souls!" Beast Boy tried to argue in a huff, while Cyborg began to pray in his head for the drive to be over, please, God, please.
The discussion then shifted over to talk of communion, which Starfire had picked up some vague ideas on through Beast Boy. Raven perked up at the idea of cannibalism until Cyborg quickly explained that it was just a metaphor and that the literal items were typically crackers and wine, whereupon she began looking bored again, her fingers groping for a hood that wasn't there. Then Beast Boy began getting intrigued over the possibility of getting 'totally wasted' on communion wine, which caused Cyborg to very firmly tell him that communion was for Christians only. NO EXCEPTIONS. And also, that most Baptist churches used non-alcoholic substitutes (in case the little imp tried to sneak any).
Robin was the only one who was totally quiet. He didn't move, he barely blinked, he never said a word. It was, Cyborg thought, a little scary. At least there was nothing to be obsessive over. For a split second of pure insanity, he imagined walking inside the church and being greeted to the sight of Slade staring down at them from behind the pulpit, and bit his lip to avoid giggled in hysteria. It was just CHURCH. Why was he so worked up? Heck, the five of them had been more saintly their lives so far than most of the people in there, more than likely! Everything would be fine. It wasn't like the Big Guy was gonna punish him for not attending services more by causing Beast Boy to let out a huge fart in the middle of the sermon or something like that.
Except... now that the idea was in Cyborg's head, he couldn't stop imagining it. What flesh he had left went clammy and began to crawl.
Due to some desperate and probably mildly unsafe shortcuts on Cyborg's part, they got there without being late for the service. People were still milling outside the sprawing one-level tan brick building, walking, talking, pushing strollers and the like. To the chagrin of the entire team, the Titans noticed that they were more formally dressed than everyone else; the norm appeared to be knitted shirts in the color of the local sports team, and jeans. The latter particularly outraged Beast Boy.
"I TOLD you," he hissed at the other two boys in vindicated fury. "See? See what everyone else's wearing? I TOLD you, but NOOOOooo, you said-"
"Lower your voice," Robin said, very softly and grimly. It was his battle tone. So engrained into their consciousnesses was that tone that all four immediately straightened up and shut their mouths, awaiting their leader's orders. "We're more than just teenagers right now. We're representatives of the superhero community to the religious community. I expect everyone to be on their best behavior. You don't have to agree with everything said in the service. You don't have to like everyone you meet. But you do have to PRETEND to." Starfire's brow wrinkled. She started to open her mouth, then closed it silently after seeing the look on the Boy Wonder's face. "Starfire, you know why they'll make a big deal of you. Don't encourage it. Raven, people will probably react badly about your chakra. Don't let it ruffle you. Beast Boy, if you change into anything, so help me by the God I don't believe in I will make you pay for it when we get back home. Cyborg-"
"I know how to behave in a church, man," Cyborg interrupted icily with a level stare.
Robin coughed, suddenly seeming to realize how harsh he'd sounded, showing some contrition. "Right. Sorry. Guys, I don't mean to sound like I expect you to cause trouble, it's just..."
"Showing the proper deference to faith is important," Starfire said with surprising calm insight.
Robin started to say something, stopped himself, then started again. "Y-yeah. Yeah. That's right." He nodded awkwardly. "Remember, be careful not to stare at Mrs. Ashton if you see her, or argue with her if she comes up to you. We're just going to church. Like everyone else."
And so they got out of the car and started walking towards the building. Like everyone else.
However, by that time everyone else had noticed that the Titans were here, causing the sort of cheerful mobbing that was usually associated with impromptu press conferences during the aftermaths of battles. The warm, not as noisy as usual clustering of bodies necessitated some obligatory handshakes and waves just to get the room to keep on moving forward through the press of excited indviduals, step by step. Responses were as few and noncommital as possible. Raven kept trying to pull up a hood that she didn't have. Beast Boy and Cyborg both grinned, the former enthusiastically, the latter a bit bashfully. Starfire refrained from floating, her attention equally divided between balancing on heeled shoes and trying to appear friendly to the very many people who were reacting to her with varying degrees of respect, admiration, ogling, and outright adulation.
Robin just walked, acknowledging people with well-oiled and passionless motions, his smile as sharp as the slits of his eyes behind his mask.