Disclaimer: This is a fan work created at no profit and for entertainment purposes only. The author acknowledges that Teen Titans and related characters are property of Warner Entertainment.
Teen Titans: Menace in Mexico City
Chapter 5 – Rest Stop
The disguised T-car pulled into the nearly deserted parking space of a rest stop just an hour north of the Mexican border at fifteen minutes past noon. It hadn't even come to the complete stop before the back doors were flung open and two of the occupants took off as fast as their legs could take them for the bathrooms.
Cyborg rolled the window down and laughed heartily as he watched them disappear into the building with tears streaming from their eyes.
Raven glared at him from the passenger seat. The look was in no way diminished by her less pale and severe holographic appearance. "A soda drinking contest? Really?"
"Heh-heh." Cyborg shook his head. "Relax Rae: it's not a road trip without pranks."
"Indeed." Starfire leaned forward from the back seat, smiling her usual sweet, placid smile. In her present appearance, she qualified for 'perky goth' status. "Friend Beast Boy says this often."
Raven folded her arms. "He also says it isn't a Columbus Day, Arbor Day, or Tuesday without pranks.
"And this time it backfired on him." Cyborg said with pride.
Rolling her eyes, Raven gave him a sidelong look. "What I can't believe is that Robin forgot that eighty percent of what you drink is processed into coolant. What do you think he's going to do to you once her remembers?"
"Aw, it's just good, clean fun." said Cyborg. "He'll understand... until he gets to the bathroom."
Starfire frowned, one thin eyebrow raising. She knew just how zany the boys' pranks could get and didn't like the idea of something especially terrible being done to Robin while he was already stressed about the Batgirl situation. Her eyes glowed subtly. "Please: what is it that you have done to Robin and Beast Boy?"
No noticing the dangerous glow of nascent Tamaranian anger, Cyborg brought up a website on his arm console. "Oh nothin': just filled 'em to bursting with soda and sent them into the only rest stop in the state to earn a negative rating in the bathroom cleanliness category on ."
He held up the screen so the girls could read it. In no time, their expressions matched those they'd worn when the group first watched Wicked Scary.
"I'm part demon." Raven said at length, "And I'm not sure I could be as evil as you if I tried."
"Yep. I'm the greatest." Cyborg's grin only grew.
Starfire, however, had gone down to read some of the comments as well. "The smell of 'corn chips mixed with cow manure and burning sulfur... it is unpleasant, yes?"
Robin and Beast Boy reached the door to the men's room at the same time, got temporarily wedged in the frame together, then forced their way in. The door slung closed behind them. Precisely two seconds later, it was nearly pulled off its hinges as the pair ran screaming back into the lobby.
"Gah!" Beast Boy scrubbed at his tongue with his hands. "I breathed in through my mouth! I breathed in through my mouth!"
Slumped stoically against the wall with his arm thrown over his nose and mouth, Robin produced a tin of mints with his free hand, coughing on the fetid stench that whole time.
Beast Boy poured the entire tin of mints into his mouth, chewed vigorously and spat them out before collapsing on his hands and knees. "Thanks, dude. That was so nasty. Did you see that place? It was like Plasmus got into our fridge after the Tamaranian Feast of Mobile Cuisine."
Behind his glasses, Robin's eyes narrowed. "That's no ordinary smell and no ordinary mess. That's some sort of entity."
"Nah, I've pulled worse from my shower drain." said Beast Boy. "Smaller, but worse." He caught that horrified look on Robins' face. "Hello? Covered with fur here?"
Robin shivered once, then looked away. "Whatever. What are we going to do about this?"
"Dude, I gotta go way too bad to do any planning." said Beast Boy, "Just hand me a rebreather and I'll take my chances."
Starting to reach into his pocket, Robin paused. "How did you know I had a rebreather?"
"Because you're you, duh." Beast Boy rolled his eyes. "Actually, I'm kind of surprised you don't have some kind of bat-doohicky to clean up the bathroom."
The red heat of embarrassment crept up the back of Robin's neck, though he couldn't tell if it was because Beast Boy was right, or because he'd forgotten. "Well actually..."
Beast Boy grinned broadly like a five year old who just learned a juicy secret. "Dude, I was right? That is so cool—you really are prepared for anything. So what's taking so long? Do your utility belt thing and let's get this over with."
"Keep it down." Robin slapped a hand over the other young man's mouth. "This is supposed to be a vacation, so I don't want the others to know, alright?" Beast Boy looked at him askance over the hand covering his word hole. It itched at Robin to lie about the real reason he'd gone on vacation packing an arsenal, especially given how often the same lies had been used on him in his life, but Robin soldiers on for the good of his team. After all, Beast Boy was one of the main reasons he was giving the others a vacation.
"Because you know how they'll get. Star will be hurt because she thinks I plan to hunt criminals instead of spending time with her, Raven will psycho-analyze me, and Cyborg will never, ever let me live it down." At this, Beast Boy nodded.
"Good." Robin said, removing his hand and reaching into a hidden compartment behind his civilian belt. The device was a glass bird-a-rang containing chemical compounds segregated in different cells. "I started formulating this after our last fight with Plasmus. It's an aggressive cocktail of disinfectants, deodorizers, and a rare oil from Central Asia that unbinds fatty molecules from plastics, reducing lingering odors."
"So it's like an anti-stink bomb." said Beast Boy.
Robin chose to ignore that. "The initial by products are... pretty hazardous right now, but they'll clear in approximately fifty seconds. Can you hold it that long?"
"...I'm not making any promises, but I'll try."
"...A simple yes would have sufficed. Just something to keep in mind for the future." Robin said, stepping bravely back to the door of the men's room. "Stand back. I'm opening the door."
TT^TT^TT
Some minutes later, the two were washing their hands in a newly pristine rest room that smelled only of mild disinfectant and something slightly burnt.
"So..." Beast Boy said, his eyes on his hands, "I never said thanks. So... thanks."
"No need. I needed to go too. Stupid soda drinking contest..." Robin glared into the mirror.
Beast Boy shook his head. "No, I meant this—the vacation thing. It... well it means a lot, ya know?"
"We all had a hard time with the Aionor debacle. All of you deserve some time off after that—especially you and Raven." Robin finished washing his hands and punched the button on the hand drier. It didn't work.
While Robin pounded the button again, then began to inspect the machine for deficiencies, Beast Boy went into a stall and came back with some wads of toilet paper, handing one over to the team leader. "Yeah, but it's not just that. It's just... well, going on a road trip? Planning all the touristy stuff? It feel's... normal."
"Hmm?" asked Robin, raising an eyebrow.
As he dried them, he examined his holographically pink hands. "Come on, Rob. You're probably the only one that really gets it. Vic started out normal, Star was normal for Tammaran. I guess Rae might get the not normal part, but it's not the same as with you and me: we grew up being heroes. Neither of us really got a chance just being dumb kids: we always had to save the day so everyone else got to be dumb kids, you know?"
"I... never really thought about it like that." Robin admitted.
Beast Boy smiled at him and tried to shoot his paper into the trashcan, missing poorly. As he went to retrieve it, he shrugged. "Yeah, well maybe this vacation'll help you finally get to be a dumb kid too, huh?" With one last grin, he headed out.
For a moment, Robin was alone with his thoughts. He really hadn't thought of it that way, nor had he considered how Beast Boy, of all the Titans, was the one who best understood where he'd come from. It was a puzzle that even the Riddler would have had to admire how they each turned out the way they did.
It made him even more bound and determined to make the vacation stress free for his team.
TT^TT^TT
"How delightful! Honey and mustard and pretzels all in one small package!" Starfire exalted in her find at the rest stop's snack bar as she and Cyborg headed back to the car after picking up snacks and drinks for the next leg of their trip.
"Just so you don't get disappointed when you open it, that's honey mustard flavoring on pretzels. There's no actual honey or mustard in the bag." said Cyborg. While Star was carrying the chips and other snacks in a cut off cardboard box, he had all the sodas in a cooler arm, a bag slung over his shoulder, and a gigantic hotdog in his free hand.
Starfire's mood only dampened slightly. "Oh. Well I am certain that it is still delicious..."
Cyborg's human eye drooped a bit in sympathy. "Don't worry, girl. I got your back: I snagged a bunch of mustard packets from the hotdog guy." He shook the bag, which was groaning with pilfered condiments, for emphasis.
It took all of Starfire's warrior discipline not to float with joy. "Oh friend Victor, you are the life saver! I was afraid that I would go without delicious tanginess on this trip!" A pale hand deftly reached into the bag and came out with a packet. With a quick look around to make sure no civilians saw her, she put it into her mouth and chewed. "Mmm. Most delicious."
They reached the T-car to find Raven outside, leaning against it while reading her book. "Welcome back." she remarked without looking up.
"Hey there to you, sunshine." Said Cyborg, shoving the rest of his hotdog into his mouth to free up his hand to open the door. "Sad that it was just us and not your boyfriend?" he teased.
"I refuse to dignify that with a response." She said, eyes on her book.
Cyborg placed the cooler on the passenger side floorboard and unslung the bag from his arm. "Ya didn't have to. Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be back. Maybe a little traumatized, but he'll be back."
"Why would I be traumatized?" Cyborg turned to find Robin and Beast Boy just walking up. Beast Boy was wearing a hat made of a thick, corn tortilla that formed a bowl of nacho cheese on top.
The hat finally tore Raven's attention away from her book. "What on Earth are you wearing?"
"Nacho sombrero." Beast Boy said with eyebrows waggling. "How's it sit? Pretty cunning, don't you think?"
Raven stared at him, deadpan. "Be still my beating heart."
"You know you like it." Beast Boy grinned. He reached up, snapped a piece off, and dipped it in the cheese. "Want some?"
Curiosity overriding a new level of ridiculous Beast Boy was now trolling, Raven accepted the piece of nacho sombrero and sniffed it delicately. "Two questions: what happens to the cheese once you've eaten all of the brim, and how does a strict vegetarian justify eating nacho cheese?"
"Trust me," Robin answered for Beast Boy, "The cheese is vegan. Rest stop nacho cheese is barely even organic." He looked back at a confused Cyborg. "But why should we be traumatized?"
The mechanical titan rolled his human eye, trying to come up with a plausible lie. "Um... I heard from people inside that the bathroom might be a little groady?" He swallowed nervously, suspecting that the lie wasn't good enough. "Was it?"
Robin shrugged. "Not that I noticed. Beast Boy?"
"Me neither. Maybe they'd just cleaned when we got in there." Beast Boy said through a mouthful of nacho sombrero. Starfire had opened her pretzels and was dipping them in the cheese in the hat's crown.
Cyborg scratched his head. "Oh. Well my mistake then. Ya'll ready to head on then?"
"Yeah." Said Robin, moving to get in the back seat. "Oh, and by the way: nacho hats are expensive, so I have to adjust the travel budget."
"Adjust..." started Cyborg.
"Yeah, not by much though. We'll just have to get Unleaded Plus instead of Premium at the next stop for gas."
The red light in Cyborg's artificial eye dimmed. "Something other than Premium in my baby! Oh no you don't! I'll—"
"Just think of it as a cleaning fee." Said Robin, which cut him right off.
TT^TT^TT
AN: I'm back, baby! And so is this story! Sorry to the folks looking for my Danny Phantom story, but I did promise to advance Mayhem with my next update.
This might seems slow to people on the outside, but trust me, it has some important bits for the overall story hidden within.
And since it's been a while since I reminded you, if you like my writing, you might enjoy my original superhero fiction, which you can reach by following the link in my profile.
Next Chapter: The Titans arrive in Mexico City while M'gnn has a talk with her own 'team' before we reach the first twist in our tale.