written for honorary titan week 2020 hosted by teentitansseasonfive over on tumblr! this is for day 1: favorite honorary titan! i chose terra since i wanted to diversify the characters i'd write about for this event. i don't normally consider terra an honorary titan since she was on the main team, but for this week, i'll make an exception, especially since this event gave me a chance to get this idea out of my system.

Escape

"Uh, an iced mocha, please. Oh, can I also get a cake pop? Cookie dough if you have any left."

"Burning the midnight oil, huh?" Seymour remarked, punching her order in the cash register.

Tara's lips twitched as she fished out her debit card and handed it to him. "Come on, dude, it's not that late. Another geometry test that I didn't study for, y'know?"

"I hear that." Seymour chuckled. He swiped it through the scanner next to his register and watched the light blue dots flash on his screen. As he waited, he called the barista next to him and asked her to get Tara her cake pop. Another employee was already making her drink, faucets flipping on quickly behind him and ice being thrown into a tall plastic cup.

"Okay, all set," he said, taking the small bag from his coworker. He handed Tara her debit card and cake pop, adding, "You know we close in thirty minutes, right? I dunno if you're gonna get that much studying in."

"Better than nothing, four-eyes," she gently ribbed, glancing at his coke bottle sized glasses.

"Hey, don't diss the specs." Seymour raised them, the black rims shining under the fluorescent lights. "You know I got bad eyes, and these are the only frames that can handle my prescription."

She laughed and waved him off so he could tend to another customer behind her. Taking her drink from the other barista, she searched the coffee shop for a suitable seat and found many to her liking. Considering it was close to closing time, Tara had her picking and selected a tiny desk in the corner. It didn't look too sticky compared to the other wooden, wobbly tables that she passed, wrinkling her nose when she spotted splotches of old milk and bread crumbs scattered on metal seats and stools near the counter.

She settled down, the chair creaking despite her lithe body. Crossing her ankles, she clipped her blonde hair behind her ears and pulled out a spiral notebook from her book bag. Flipping open to a random page, she narrowed her eyes at her pencil scribbles of rock formations and limestone pathways in the margins. Some were quick, hasty doodles while others had more effort put into them, their shading darker near the ridges of the formations she sketched underneath a few math problems.

She stuffed her cake pop into her mouth and gnawed through it. The chewy texture felt like she was chomping through a wad of gum. As she worked her way through it, she wondered if the birthday cake flavored cake pop would have been the better choice when she swallowed, the residue of the gob unnecessarily sticky in her mouth. (Then again, she had never been good at making the best judgment regarding anything in her life.)

Crumpling up the bag, Tara leaned back in her seat and glanced out one of the many windows. The bustling nightlife of Jump City hurried around her while she remained still. Cars dashed across the intersection without a single care for the people on the crosswalk. Horns beeped, and lights flashed, her gaze transfixed on a van clipping the curb like speeding bullet, its wheels spinning without purpose in midair before slamming back down, hurrying towards an unknown destination.

She wondered what kind of expression the driver must have been making at that moment. If they were gasping or screaming, if their face was milk white or blood red, she couldn't picture it. (When she faced her death, she roared and boiled alive for only a millisecond when everything suddenly numbed.)

Shaking her head, Tara sipped her drink and sighed. The cool taste on her tongue was far better than the sickeningly thick cake pop. She sipped generously, downing half of it in a couple gulps. The ice clinked together, and she jiggled her hand, the cup shifting to let more liquid seep to the top instead of being trapped underneath the clear brown cubes.

Returning to her work, Tara turned the page and scrutinized the contents. There were more doodles, most of them she had forgotten. Butterflies dotted the margins and fluttered between the thin blue lines. They rested upon stones, carried across the sea drawn in a light teal colored pencil, skipping and never falling to the depths below.

"Ten minutes, Tara," Seymour called, appearing around the corner.

She raised her head, blinking. Lights around the corners were being shut off, and shadows crawled more vigorously along the tiled floor. Customers shuffled out the front door clutching napkins and cold coffees. A twitch formed underneath her left eye, the muscle throbbing so quickly that she recoiled back in her seat. She hadn't realized how much time she wasted and tipped her chin to her chest.

"You, uh, need a few more minutes? I'm on cleaning duty tonight. You can stay for as long as I'm here," Seymour offered, scratching the back of his head and raking his fingers through his curly black hair.

She managed to twist her mouth in a smile. "Yeah, thanks, dude. I just got distracted, I guess."

"All good." He nodded and turned around at the sound of his name. Catching a broom someone threw at him, he swept the leftover straws and dust off the floor away from Tara.

As his footsteps shuffled away, Tara closed her notebook. She sighed and untensed her shoulders, lowering them as if gravity was pressing down on them. Standing up, her chair clinked against the window, and she chugged the rest of her iced mocha, not caring one bit if the sweet drink trickled down the sides of her face and stained her white dress shirt.

Pushing in her seat, Tara slipped her book bag over her shoulder and left without looking at Seymour. They didn't need to say goodbye when they would be failing the same test tomorrow. She paused in the doorway and tossed her cup in the trash, watching it circle around the rim before slinking into the sea of other plastic and paper cups.

Seymour watched Tara escape into the night, running without a purpose just as she had done so very long ago. He held the broom to his chest and felt the darkness grow around him. As his coworkers continued shutting off lights, Seymour closed his eyes and decided to take out the trash before leaving.