A/N:
The sequel is here! Thanks to all those who waited and came here from Year 1! And if you're new, know that each Year (and each Month as well) can be a standalone story. You'd be missing the full story but you can technically start anywhere and read each arc independently.
Here's what you can expect from this year's adventures:
- As you might've seen in the summary, Terra! I plan to portray her with respect and love, and much like in the show, she'll be both a victim and a villain. Therefore, Terra fans might love or hate my take depending on how you like her portrayed, so be warned!
- Following from that, BBxTerra of course! This is not endgame, this is just a False Romantic Lead. There's also a good heap of of BBxRae before Terra shows up, but *that* slow burn will take some detours before the final destination.
- This year we're getting deeper into friendships and relationships, the core five's parents, I'm slowly revealing pasts, and slowly amping up the angst. Everything's balanced with plenty of heartwarming friendship, humor and exciting missions hopefully!
- Other new people showing up this year: Ravager! Blackfire! Bumblebee, Speedy and Aqualad! Melvin, Timmy and Teether! And TRIGON!
- It's 29 chapters give or take.
- This year is very important to me. Every year has its own thing, but Year 2 I feel is the year where the morality base of the story, which everything that comes after hinges on, is finally established, as my characters discover it themselves. But you won't see why until the very end! ^^
Some replies from the last Year:
Miss Evergreen: Te contesto ahora! La segunda parte está saliendo YA! (No puedo responder directamente a las reviews si no tenés cuenta, por eso tuve que esperar a responderte por acá) GRACIAS POR TUS PALABRAS! Te cuento, no sos la primera persona que me pregunta si los cinco van a adquirir poderes, o me dice que lo estaba esperando. La respuesta es sí y no. Primero: los chicos no son normales jaja. Y sí se va a ir revelando que algunos tienen sus cosas, sobre todo Raven (Robin queda fuera, como en canon jaja). Pero lo que quiero es explorar cómo van a hacer los chicos para derrotar villanos siendo adolescentes (casi) comunes; el significado de la historia es que los Titanes hubieran encontrado una forma de ser Titanes en cada universo, con o sin poderes. No son solo guiños, es verdad, pero tampoco es que los chicos van a descubrir que tienen poderes y van a dejar la escuela, se entiende? Me parece más interesante mantener la tensión de que tienen vidas comunes, escuela, padres, eventualmente los mismos Titanes oficiales, el gobierno, etc. y cómo se las arreglan para resolver misiones igual. En fin, te escribí un manifiesto. Gracias de nuevo por la review! Espero que sigas disfrutando de la segunda parte!
FanFictionwriter652: And a part 2 you shall have! I can definitely promise increasingly longer and tougher missions, and of course BBxRae and DickKory which are the emotional spine of the whole story! Thanks for reviewing!
wolfieinthesky: Ask and you shall receive! There's going to be increasing amounts of BBxRae as we go along! Thanks for reviewing!^^
HunterMoore: You make this writer extremely happy! I wanted to stay true to the original world and still make it my own thing! Hope you enjoy Year 2 too! Thanks for reviewing!
September. The space between popularity and voyeurism p.1
The news story had dropped halfway through summer: the NHT Foundation, previously a half-known organization regarded by the Jump City residents with absentminded reverence, was revealed to be an empty shell of nepotism and tax evasion.
Dick had known to expect it: as soon as the case was wrapped up, he'd gotten a call from Jim Gordon warning him the Club would be mentioned in the story. He'd warned his friends in turn –Raven was told via sending Gar over to her house to tell her- and the story had come out that same night.
Dick proceeded to read every iteration on every outlet he could find. All of them detailed the fraud in factual terms and only vaguely mentioned an anonymous tip from a group of Jump City's own teenagers as having been key to the investigation. All in all, Dick was serenely satisfied with the coverage. In his mind, it hit the sweet spot where they were undeniably mentioned, but the full extent of their involvement was known only to the five of them.
Two days later, things took a turn. One outlet and then every outlet leaked their full names, and just like that, they weren't an anonymous group of teenagers anymore. Gar came to wonder, eyes twinkling in excitement, if kids would treat them differently when school started. Vic had quickly shot him down.
"A, no one reads papers anymore," he said, counting with his fingers. "B, it's over a month before school starts. No one's gonna remember by then."
And it was true; interest waned over the following week.
But then, a few days before school began, the news had gotten more traction seemingly out of nowhere. First it made it to TV, with a special segment that reframed the happening as heroic kids bravely trying to clean up the city, where previously the focus had been on the fraudulent charity. The news anchors intoned over a dramatic loop recording of Murakami High at night, and the whole thing was titled –to Dick's unending horror- 'Meet the Urban Titans of Murakami High'.
Dick had nearly choked on his breakfast when he saw that on the morning news with Bruce.
"We're not trying to be the Team Titans! Why does no one get that!?" he exclaimed, and planted his face on the table. "Please don't let this stick."
Unfortunately, the second batch of stories took over the moniker. The new articles featured completely made up 'interviews' with the five that none of them were ever called for. Raven heard a particularly cringe-worthy quote allotted to her ('We came together because there are unknown forced at work… Forces which demand that the Urban Titans be formed!') and assumed that kind of quiet lividness where she was scariest.
"I would never say this," she uttered, and Vic scooted away as the air around her seemed suddenly charged with electricity.
Meanwhile, their own classmates were sharing the articles and clips of the TV segment, with the school hashtag –the comments were half the positive school-pride kind, and half making fun of the try-hard interview quotes-, so no one could pretend to Gar that people at school wouldn't know.
(Gar was systematically keeping a record of everything –he kept both digital and physical copies of the articles, downloaded clips of the news segments, and even took selected screenshots of people's comments and mentions in social media. "This is our history," he told the others. "You'll thank me someday.")
"I wish they'd just say the name of the club," Dick exploded once. "All this trying to dub us is insulting. The Urba- I can't even say it."
"Now they're calling us something different," Vic informed him in a quiet voice, bracing for Dick's reaction. "The Teen Titans of Murakami High."
Dick predictably leapt to his feet with death in his eyes. "That doesn't even make sense! The Titans are teenagers too!"
Kori kept trying to find silver linings. "Is it not true that all publicity must be good?"
"It's not on our terms, though." Dick ran a hand through his hair and forced himself to breathe deeply. "But, yeah, okay… maybe this is better in the long run. Maybe this was always gonna happen. Putting ourselves out there like we did."
"I never signed up for this," stated Raven, her eyes firm on Gar's phone as she scrolled through their hashtag.
"Stop reading the comments," Vic advised her.
"You think people are gonna be weird about it tomorrow?" asked Gar.
With one day left of summer, even he had folded to the group's general tension about the start of school.
"I've no idea how people are gonna react," said Vic.
Dick put his hand to his chin like he did when he was nervous. "You know those tables behind the bleachers, before the main entrance?" And when they nodded, "Let's meet there and go into school together."
People were weird about it. As the five entered the school building, people turned their heads to stare at them in that unabashed way people do when everyone else is doing the same thing. It made them feel like they were public property.
"Did we just become even worse outcasts?" Gar wondered aloud.
Raven pulled the hood of her jacket over her head.
They moved through the school as a unit, because the staring was overpowering. They had almost gotten to the first out of all of their lockers –Kori's-, before a girl stood before them. "I just wanna say it's really cool what you're doing. It's good to know there's people out there who care so much."
"Oh. Thanks," Dick said sincerely. He regarded that girl as a brave beacon of compassion going against the tide of scorn.
They barely got to Vic's locker before two more boys approached them. "Can I get a picture?" asked one.
"A picture?" Vic echoed.
The other boy slapped his friend on the arm. "See, I told you they didn't do that!"
"Fine, but I'm actually not leaving without an autograph," the first boy said, and he held out a magazine open on one of the 'Teen Titans of Murakami High' articles.
Dick was at a loss, and his friends were looking to him for a final decision. "Uh, guys, thanks for the enthusiasm, really. But you know we didn't actually say the things in those interviews, right?"
When he said that, the boy was finally embarrassed enough that he gave up altogether. The two left.
Dick was so busy immediately regretting the interaction, he didn't notice Kitty Moth approaching them until she was inches from Dick's face. "You guys are joining our table for lunch. I won't take no for an answer," she said, and then strutted away, which was one way to not get a no for an answer.
After that last incident,the five were forced to stop and reconsider the entire walk into school thus far. They looked at each other.
Gar was the first to figure it out. "Wait a second." He looked around the hallway, at the people peeking at them, talking behind their hands, looking at them and then looking away and smiling. Reality shifted where they stood. "Are we… are we popular?"
Vic leaned back on the lockers. "Was everyone… gawking when we thought they were jeering?"
Gar said, "Be right back," and jumped away. The others watched him slide to a stop before two girls. The surprise and friendliness in their eyes progressively soured as he talked to them, and they ended up walking away from him. Gar returned to the group. "Okay, I couldn't score a date. So we're not popular. I don't know what we are."
"I think infamous is the word, Gar," Kori suggested, at the same time as Raven remarked, "That's your idea of popularity?"
Vic had a hand to his chin, considering this new situation he hadn't predicted. "I blame the superhero mania of this town. Everyone loves the Titans, and we're the high school equivalent to them."
"I didn't sign up for that either," grumbled Raven.
Dick struggled with how he felt about this turn of events.
The last time he had been on the papers, it had been for his placing nationally on a karate tournament. And the last time he'd been the subject of looks and whispers in the halls, it had been after he and Rex got the break and enter charges, on his last day at school before Bruce pulled him out for the year of homeschooling. This was different to both of those experiences; he was genuinely proud of what he'd done to earn his fate this time. But he was still the talk of the school: watched, exposed, open to be dissected, never to have a moment of peace and anonymity. It's like I'm cursed with popularity, Dick thought. And then he heard how insufferable that thought was, and mentally punched himself in the face for thinking it.
"Let's think positive," he told his friends, partly to squash his inner monologue. "At the end of the day, people know who we are. That can only be good. We'll get missions now."
He believed it as he said it, and he actually got his friends to perk up. But after that he actually hadto part from his friends and go experience school for a whole day. Kids came up to him nonstop. Teachers brought it up in classes, with varying degrees of approval—Mr. Mod likened them to delinquents in a long rant that had little to do with introducing the History syllabus. Mr. Bill stopped him in the hallways to pat his shoulder and tell him they had his support. Mr. Fixet just fixated on Dick throughout class and smiled, like he didn't know what to say, and it was both endearing and disturbing.
Dick met Raven in the hallways between second and third period, and he saw in her face a perfect reflection of his own weariness.
"This is a circus," she told him in passing.
"That's unkind to circuses," Dick replied.
Principal Blood summoned them around fourth period.
"The recognition you got is fair and deserved," he told them in his slow, ceremonial way as he paced before them. "I want you to know the sudden… fame of your Club… will logically lead to you having some more benefits."
Dick perked up at that."Can we move to a bigger roo-"
"No," Blood cut him off.
"Can we get a key to the-"
"No."
Dick frowned. "Then what are the benefits?"
"Mr. Grayson, I am astounded at your impatience," Blood said, and made his eyes widen to punctuate his words. "The benefits will be dispensed as each situation crops up."
"In other words, we don't get benefits," Dick surmised after they left the office.
For lunch, they all individually decided to ignore the popular girls' invitation to their table, and arrived one by one to their usual corner of the cafeteria.
"Too many people have talked to me today," Raven said darkly as she arrived, and proceeded to not say another world through the whole duration of lunch.
"People like to ask which one of the Titans I am," shared Kori. "They like to compare me to Fimm or Chameleon."
"It was always Lux Piper for me," grumbled Vic. "People look at her metal armor and go, yeah that checks out. Then they ask to join the club on the same breath. Shameless."
Only Gar seemed positively recharged. He'd arrived at the table glowing, craning back his neck to talk to someone, "Yeah, I'll get back at you about joining us, babe. I'm definitely on it!" He'd grinned at his friends. "This is the best thing that's ever happened," he declared, and had well dug into his food before he realized. "…Hey, why aren't we at the popular girls' table?"
Dick arrived last. "I was trapped into a twenty-minute rant by Chris Folinsky," he said, and buckled down on eating like he needed the comfort. They were pretty sure he had his eyes closed behind the sunglasses.
The end of the day didn't offer a respite.
Gar and Vic turned the corner before their clubroom to see a line of people outside the door—to them it seemed like half the school was there.
Gar rubbed his hands together. "Okay, time to let all the pretty girls in."
Victor grabbed him by the collar. "We wait for Dick," he stated. They waded through the crowd of people with grins and empty promises to see them soon, and made it into the clubroom to find Kori and Raven were already safely inside.
They four of them knew the moment Dick arrived, because the crowd outside grew louder. They heard him shouting from inside the room. "The conditions for joining the club will be up tomorrow!"
The sound slowly ceased in the hallway as the crowd dispersed.
"Okay. Guess that's what's happening," muttered Vic.
Dick held the meeting on his room.
(The other three could never believe Gar when he said the first time he'd visited Dick's room, it had been spotless to the point of monk-like minimalism. Every time Vic, Kori and Raven had been there, Dick's room had only gotten more chaotic. It wasn't the same order of mess as Gar's room –Dick's didn't look like a live creature made out of dirty laundry and crusty leftovers might jump at you from a dark corner-, but he still had to clear a space on the floor in order to appropriately pace in front of the others.)
"We know we can't take all of those people," he said. "We have to reject some, right?"
"What is the limit of number of members?" asked Kori.
"We never set one," answered Dick. "…I didn't think we'd need to."
"Let's say fifteen," proposed Vic.
Dick grimaced. "Ten."
"Five," said Raven. She was stared at. "Okay, fine. Six."
"Let's go with ten," Gar said, nodding at his friends in turn as if to gather consensus. "Okay?"
Kori was quick to close the deal. "Agreed."
"Alright." Dick pulled out his notebook. "Starting tomorrow we'll have to have some kind of test for potential members. Which means we have to set parameters for accepting or rejecting people. Hit me."
"Physical aptitude," said Victor, shrugging.
"Of course," said Dick, writing it down.
"There should be a logic segment," said Raven. "Something like problem solving."
Dick wrote it. "Uh-huh."
"Friendliness," said Kori. "To be someone we can trust."
Dick nodded. "I think that's good enough. Physical, mental and social aptitude."
"Morality should be in there," said Vic. "In the mental segment."
Raven added, "While we're at it, general mental health."
"Hey, hold on," said Gar. "This isn't fair anymore. Who here would have passed all of that? We can't ask things from people we couldn't do ourselves, right?"
"Scared you wouldn't have passed the problem-solving, Gar?" Vic teased.
"Um, would Raven have passed friendliness?" Gar countered.
"Perhaps the parameters are too rigid", Kori said, mainly to move the conversation along from the way Raven was now glowering at Gar.
"Yeah, I probably wouldn't have passed the mental test with all I had going on last year," Vic admitted. "Doesn't mean I couldn't grow into a good team member."
"Okay, I see what you're saying," Dick began. "But also, this isn't the club we created last year. It's not a place for lazy people to waste time. We're doing something now. And we've done things. We have history. The game's changed."
"We did only learn to fight last year," Raven pointed out. "We should give people a chance to prove themselves too."
Dick gave this some thought. "Okay, here's what we should do. What do we all have in common?" His friends looked at each other. To say they didn't suspect the answer was an understatement. Dick smiled. "We all jumped when we had the chance to go out of our ways to do the right thing. I say we test all these other things, but morality's like, the top tier parameter. If they wanna do the right thing, that weighs more than everything else."
Kori smiled, "I think that is a good idea."
"Yeah, that could work," agreed Vic.
With that decided, they buckled down on coming up with the questions.
The next afternoon brought an even lengthier line of people outside the clubroom. It seemed the announcement that they were doing auditions had drawn a bigger crowd.
It was impossible to provide a general description of the people gathered: a sample pool of applicants would be a sample pool of the school population itself. Dick knew some of these people had come for the hype, thinking the Club was a gateway to popularity. But he also saw eager-looking kids who might have genuinely come for the club's vision; rebel and loser types who might've thought the club would be some kind of refuge; popular kids, here for reasons Dick wouldn't venture to understand; and plainly, kids who had showed up simply because they'd seen a lot of other people had.
Making his way up the line, Dick stopped cold when he saw Jenny Hex and her two friends in the line.
"Seriously?" he asked her.
"What?" she snapped, shrugging, her face perfectly blank, like she had never mocked them endlessly.
Dick shook his head and moved on.
When he saw Jade, Angel and Kitty on the line, he didn't even stop.
No one has any shame, he thought. Who were these people who'd sneer at them and then turn around and ask to join them?
He made it to the door, where his friends were waiting. "Ready?"
"No," said Raven.
"Great, let's go." Dick stopped. "Wait, let me weed out some of them." He raised his voice. "Alright, everyone! Anyone who's not willing to succumb to an extensive physical trial should leave now!" He was heartened to see a few leave the queue. "Okay, those who do not know better, follow me!"
They went to the gym first. Dick set everyone running –some people left then or shortly after- and then had them go through the obstacle course he'd prepared.
The five had been eyeing a really muscular guy who'd been on the line, thinking he might come in handy: a fellow sophomore called Adam who insisted in being referred to as Adonis. But when his turn came, he unexpectedly failed the course at the first stage—he succumbed at the ninja rings, his muscular arms somehow not taking the weight of his body.
"Are we looking at a sixteen year old who probably uses Synthol?" Vic wondered aloud.
Dick nodded. "I think so, yeah."
"I do not want to know what that is," said Kori.
When it was Jen's turn, she advanced like an Olympic gymnast, spread out her arms and announced, "You should let me join because I can do this." She proceeded to jumpstart the obstacle course with a handstand.
"Impressive," Dick whispered to his friends as Jen jumped through the course flawlessly, "but no way in hell."
When everyone had had a turn, Dick stood and told them all –people who'd done well and people who'd floundered alike-, "Okay. Thank you, everyone. Follow me into the hallway for the next part of the audition."
As people filed out after the five, the popular girls ran ahead and stopped them. "You're not telling me they passed this section, right?" Jade demanded
Dick didn't even look at the kids she was pointing at. "All of you are doing all sections of the test, Jade," he replied. It was what they had all decided.
The five split the auditionees and settled in various spots around the empty school to do the next part, the logic and morality sections.
Sitting on the bottom of the stairs to the second floor, Gar struggled to read the first Logic question. "…So A sits between D and… no wait. A sits neither opposite to D or to H and… A is sitting in between C and G. Yeah. Then B sits neither opposite to A or G… but is sitting in between F and D. So who sits adjacent to E?"
The boy in front of him, Seymour Something, was fixing him with a pointed look through his green-rimmed glasses. "Okay, do you even know the answer to that?"
"Uh…" Gar hesitated, and repeated the speech Dick gave them, "this group of questions is just to see your abilities—if you get it wrong it doesn't mean you're not getting in."
"Okay, well, then I pass that question," said Seymour.
"You can't do that," said Gar, not knowing whether that was true.
"Okay, well, I pick D."
Gar peered at him. "Are you guessing?"
Seymour wore a self-satisfied smile. "You'll never know."
Raven had taken the spare room down the hall.
Her first interviewee Adonis entered making a racket. "Okay! Who do I have to screw to get fast-tracked into this thing!" And he looked pointedly at Raven, like he somehow thought he'd impressed her.
Raven's glare didn't seem to work like it usually did, since he kept a smirk on his face as he sat on the chair across from her. "Look, I really wanna join this club. I know you guys get free time off class and get mad clout with the teachers."
"All of that is wrong."
"Right." Adonis winked obnoxiously.
Raven breathed deep and moved on to the questions. Not ten minutes later, the boy had proven to be a resounding failure. He only grinned when Raven told him he could go.
"Hey, I didn't do so bad, right?" he tried, and when Raven didn't respond, he said, "Hey, come on, we both know you want me to be in your team."
"I do?"
"Look, if you put in a good word for me, I'll take you out on a date. How 'bout that?"
"Threatening me will get you nowhere."
His smile fell, and he seemed to think she'd genuinely misunderstood him. "No, I meant-"
"You didn't pass, Adam," she said, deciding to talk as plainly as she could. Thankfully, he got up, seeming to be a good sport after all. But, hands on the door, he turned around. "Hey. You grew up over the summer. Well done."
Raven looked up. She couldn't see what he meant. "What?"
His eyebrows arched and his eyes moved to her chest, with a suggestive nod. He laughed at her wide-eyed reaction, and left, leaving Raven angry he'd pulled this one over her.
Jen was next. She sat down and looked more cat-like than usual when she cocked her head at Raven. "You're blushing."
Raven was more than ready for this day to be over.
Kori took the foot of another set of stairs. She was currently auditioning Gizmo and Mammoth, whose real names she'd only just found out. Gizmo –actually called Mikron- was rapid-firing the answers to the Logic questions, so those were over soon.
"Now is the Social Aptitude section," Kori said. "Number one. If you had an acquaintance who mistakenly took your pen instead of his own, and took it home, how would you resolve the issue?"
Mammoth –real name Baran- put his hand under his chin pensively. "Hm. I would crush them with my own hands!" he boomed, making Kori lean back a little. "Is that it?"
"No," said Kori.
Kori had let them audition as a pair because she'd been sure neither of them would be passing the Morality bit. She had been right.
From the clubroom, Dick shouted out, "Next!"
Chris Folinsky entered with a pirouette, brandishing a remote control for some reason. "Behold! My chosen codename is Control Fr-"
"Chris, for the umpteenth time," Dick interrupted. "We are not the Team Titans, we are not imitating them, and we are not trying to get in contact with them. We have nothing to do with the Titans. We're our own thing."
Chris put his arms down and glowered at Dick. "What's the fun of it if you don't craft your own superhero personas?"
From his spot at the bench outside the front office, Vic heard Dick cry, "It's not supposed to be fun! You're supposed to want to help people!" from all the way inside the clubroom.
Vic chuckled. So this is going just as great for him as it is for me, he thought. A moment later he saw Chris Folinsky stalk away, muttering under his breath. He focused back on Jade and Angel in front of him.
"…and that little clubroom doesn't work for us, we need a bigger space to work in," Jade was saying. She'd began making demands like she was already in. "And we want to know upfront what requests people are gonna make a month in advance-"
"Jade, you're not even in the club yet," said Vic. And you never will be, he thought. "In the interview portion I ask you questions."
She cocked her head and looked patronizing. "In job interviews in the real world, honey, you're supposed to ask your potential employer things too."
Vic gave her a mystified smile. Jade hadn't gathered enough credits to graduate the previous year and was currently repeating her senior year; she'd just gone comfortably back to her old Alpha Bitch spot. "Okay, well, are you done with your questions?"
She shrugged. "I guess."
"Why do you wanna join this club?"
Jade scoffed. "If anyone deserves to be in a Club that shows up on the news, it's us."
Vic smirked and marked a fail for the very last question. He had a system in place. Since the Morality bit was the most important, he started with those questions. If they failed that, he didn't bother going through the Social and Logic portion. So far, no one had made it to the other portions.
Before they left, Angel took Jade's hand, and shot her a meaningful look. Jade scoffed. "Ugh. Hey, did we answer right?"
"No, you got everything wrong," Vic.
"What were we supposed to say?" asked Angel.
"Literally all you had to do was show what you wanted to do was help people, which is the meaning of the Club."
Vic didn't know what he'd expected their reaction to be. He was taken aback when they seemed satisfied with the answer, but it was out of his mind when they left without another word.
Predictably, Vic was done with his share of candidates earlier than his friends. When he dismissed his last auditionee, he walked around the hallway and found Gar, who had barely made a dent in his crowd. "You want me to take some off your-"
"Yes!" Gar said desperately.
Vic instructed half of Gar's kids to follow him back to the bench.
The sun was setting as Dick dispatched the last kid from his lot. He went out onto the hallway to find Vic and Raven already waiting.
"So?" he asked them. "New people?" His brain was fried, apparently. He was sure he was going to be dreaming about the logic questions he'd asked over and over again.
His friends understood him regardless, and answered in the negative. No. No new people.
They were soon joined by Gar, and eventually Kori.
"You guys added anybody?" Dick asked them, having since woken up a bit.
"None for me," said Gar. "Hey, by the way, a lot of the people we go to school with are nuts."
"I made no addition either," said Kori, and they moved to finally leave the school.
Raven said, "Yay, we're the same five people we were before. Should've just taken my suggestion and made a quota of five."
"What we did was fairer, and now we have a strong admission process all figured out," said Dick diplomatically, and sounding like he was trying to convince himself. "Now we can focus on all the missions we'll get."
"Oh, I left my bag in the clubroom!" said Kori, and ran back.
The other four stopped to wait.
"Hey, did anyone get Jen?" asked Vic.
"Me," said Raven, closing her eyes.
"How'd she do?" Vic asked her.
"She was the only one who passed the physical with flying colors and got the single worst mark in the mental and social."
Vic snorted. "Yep, that checks out."
"Who got Kitty Moth?" asked Gar. No one answered. "No one had her?"
"Maybe she didn't come," Dick said distractedly.
"No, she was in the line today," Vic said. "Surprised she didn't stay."
"You mispronounced 'thankful'," said Raven.
Kori rejoined them, and the five finally left.
I wonder why Kori wasn't with the rest of the group for that last conversation! Surely it won't lead to any hijinks!
Comic fans might catch a slight reference in Raven's fabricated quote in the magazine. Let me know if it rings a bell.
Also, making Dick's room go from unrealistically clean to messy when his mental state became happier is how I decided to marry Robin's room from the cartoon and Dick Grayson's messy apartment from the 80's comics, which is an aspect of him that I LOVE.
Let me know what you think! Until next week!
~The Lighthouse