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“What a shitty way to go,” Gar said, taking a swig straight from Raven’s bottle of cheap wine before returning it to her custody. She resisted the urge to grunt at this behavior – had long since accepted there was no changing this particular habit of his.
What Gar meant to say, of course, was What a lame way to go. But he couldn’t say that – not when a fellow hero had died. It wasn’t like the news article Vic had sent in the group chat was just about some random Joe (although, to be fair, Raven wasn’t sure any of the former Titans had actually met this deceased hero). There was a built-in sense of camaraderie, and therefore a degree of decorum expected of them. In short, there was only a very short list of acceptable responses. Kori, Dick, and Victor had knocked a few out already:
This is just tragic , Vic had typed in the message that accompanied the link.
Terrible! This fills me with grief. (Kori, naturally.)
Always sad to lose another hero was Dick’s sober contribution.
Raven had just stared at the text thread, stained lips pursed around the rim of her wine glass, unsure of what exactly to say. She let Gilmore Girls play on in the background as she hemmed and hawed over what exactly a proper response would entail. For Azar’s sake, she had just learned to fully embrace the emotions that came with keeping people close to her – how could anyone expect her to say something insightful when confronted with the demise of a complete stranger?
She had paused Gilmore Girls. She would wait until Gar got home.
Gar had the built-in excuse of not having seen the text yet because he’d been in class all night at the Jump City University School of Veterinary Medicine. A lab, actually, judging by the fact that he came home dressed in those papery scrubs Raven couldn’t help but ogle him in. He hadn’t even bothered to change out of them, just tossed his bag and keys aside when he walked through the door, kicked off his sneakers, and sank down next to his messy-haired, pajama-clad girlfriend on the couch.
Now, as she watched him skim the article, she considered the practicality of responding with humor. Honestly, if anyone were to do it, it’d be Gar. Uncharacteristically, she kind of wanted him to say something wildly inappropriate just to see how they’d all react.
And, honestly, it sort of was a lame death for a fucking superhero. Gar had done well to couch his true opinion in sympathetic language, Raven thought. What a shitty way to go.
It wasn’t shitty. By superhero metrics, anyway. For normal people, sure, dying in a car crash was probably decidedly shitty. Dying at all, generally, was regarded as shitty. But it was also totally normal. Car accidents happened, like, every day, to all different kinds of people. The difference between normal people and superheroes was that heroes fought radioactive space aliens and/or unstable billionaires with the military might of a small country on a semi-regular basis, so…
Car crash? Cake walk.
Raven busied herself with scrubbing at the lip of the wine bottle with her sweatshirt sleeve as she awaited Gar’s opinion.
“Seriously?”
She glanced up to see him cocking an eyebrow at her.
“What?”
“You do realize I put my tongue in your mouth all the time, right?”
“That doesn’t mean I want all my vino with a side of saliva, thanks,” she drawled back. She glanced pointedly at the phone in his hand. “Well?”
“Well what?” He locked the phone and laid it unceremoniously on the coffee table.
“You’re just not going to say anything?”
“ You didn’t say anything.”
“Because I was waiting on you, genius.”
“Codependent much?” With this, he reached over and wiggled one of her toes between his thumb and forefinger playfully. She yanked her foot away as if he were venomous.
“Are we supposed to feel something about this guy’s death?” Raven blurted, unafraid, after all, of sounding callous in front of the man with whom she shared every other aspect of her life.
Gar gave a low rumble of a laugh, shaking his head ever-so-slightly. “I think our friends miss us, right? We all miss each other.” He reached out and reclaimed the wine bottle, pausing with it partway to his lips to finish his thought. “And every now and then we need to remind one another of our shared mortality so we don’t forget to meet up a few times a year.”
“That’s rather dark.”
“Hey, I didn’t plan on coming home after a long day to chat about death and dying, Rae,” Gar said in his defense. “Blame Victor for that one.”
“Is that an option?” Raven replied. She picked up her own cell phone, navigated to the group chat, and began typing theatrically while reading aloud: “Thanks, Vic – I was actually having a nice evening until you– Gar! ”
Midway through her dramatic recitation, he had reached over and hovered his pointer finger menacingly above the send button. He erupted into a fit of childish giggles at her protest, rolling his eyes as he retreated back to his side of the couch.
“Fine, fine. Have it your way.”
Raven backspaced furiously, then sighed at the blinking cursor. She felt a wave of concern from Garfield.
“Hey, why’s this bothering you so much?” he wanted to know, eyes trained on her. “There’s gotta be something else going on.”
Raven gnawed at her lower lip. “It just feels so…mundane, doesn’t it?” she said after a moment.
Gar furrowed his brow, puzzled. “What does?”
Raven didn’t tear her eyes away from the news headline. “I don’t know, just…the idea that you can be a superpowered being, equally hated and admired your whole life, and…and you can dedicate your existence to fighting evil – or to spreading it – and like, death doesn’t care. You can just die in your pre-owned sedan on your way to the grocery store one day.” She looked up, sure she’d lost him by now, but Gar wore a look of pained comprehension.
“Your death doesn’t have to match your deeds,” Raven continued. “It’s a silly thing to be thinking about, I know. Like the way we die is a badge of honor or something. But it’s just weird to grapple with…knowing that we can live as a hero, but we may not die like one. We can’t all be–” She stopped herself, shaking her head like she’d merely lost her train of thought, but she knew exactly what she’d been about to say.
We can’t all be crucified. We can’t all sacrifice ourselves. We can’t all go out burning and molten and bright.
We can’t all be Terra.
Raven could have kicked herself. People didn’t necessarily have to walk on eggshells around Garfield when it came to Terra anymore, but still – Raven was his partner. She made it a point not to bring up things that might cause him even a modicum of distress, and nestled near the top of that list – between his parents and his inner beast – lived Terra.
Even though she’d caught herself before completing her thought, she could tell he caught her intended meaning. She watched, sheepish, as he donned a sad smile. Then he reached out and took her hand. Gently. More gently than she deserved.
“Sometimes it can feel like we all have big shoes to fill,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. “But sacrifice…we make sacrifices every day. They don’t have to be these huge… things .”
“I know.” Raven sighed, bringing his calloused hand to her lips. She pressed a chaste kiss to the skin of his knuckles before releasing his hand. “But it’s not just dying , right? All we knew for years – Azar, all I’ve known for most of my life – is power and pressure and…and being different. I never envisioned a time in my life where I wasn’t consumed by my abilities. And I certainly never imagined the possibility of going out in a car crash .” She waved her phone to illustrate.
“You never imagined going out any other way besides at the hands of Trigon.”
“No,” she conceded, “but still. It’s weird, right? Tell me it’s weird.”
Gar still seemed lost. “Car accidents?”
Raven threw her hands up in exasperation. “All of this…this… normalcy !”
There was a pause as her words sunk in. Then, Gar’s face lit up with a grin.
“What?” she demanded.
“Come here.”
“ What .”
“Just come here , Raven.”
She obliged, scooting closer to him. He met her halfway, pulling her into his chest, resting one hand atop her hair.
“I don’t need comforting right n–”
“Can you just shut up and let me do this thing?”
“Okay.”
Gar hugged her tightly for a moment, then pulled back to look in her eyes, cupping her chin.
“Raven,” he began, “this is what we live for. This average life, this cheap apartment, pasta for dinner every night because we’re lazy and also broke…we’re creating this normal, don’t you get it? We’re…we’re…”
Gar paused, face screwed in consternation. “What’s that word that’s almost like creating, but is more like collecting ? Like what museums do.”
“Curating.”
“We’re curating this normal life, Rae,” Gar continued easily. “We did this, all of this, to allow ourselves to feel like regular people for once in our screwy lives. I know it took a lot out of us both to step away from the Titans, but it’s what we wanted – needed . Right? I mean, I thought we were on the same page with that.”
“We are,” Raven assured him quickly. “I mean, we were.”
She retrieved her phone from where she’d abandoned it between the couch cushions. When she unlocked it, it took her back to the Titans text thread – right where she’d left off. She scrolled wordlessly until she got to the point, a couple weeks earlier, when Kori had sent her ultrasound photos for them to gush over. Gar watched as she zoomed in on baby Mar’i’s face, almost indistinguishable from the goo encasing her.
“Um,” Gar supplied.
“Can’t we have it both ways?” Raven wanted to know, tracing the general shape of Mar’i with her fingertip.
“You want a baby ?”
“What? Azar, no.” Raven straightened abruptly, making certain Gar could see her exaggerated eye roll. “I mean, Starfire and Nightwing and Cyborg…they’re all still full-time heroes. But they don’t seem to be missing out on stuff. I mean, when we – when you and I – stepped back from the Titans, from being heroes in general, I guess we expected to just be able to put it all behind us. At least for a time.”
She caught his eye meaningfully, leaning forward to rest a hand on his knee. “But…it hasn’t been like that for me. Has it been like that for you?”
“No,” he admitted. “I think about it a lot.”
“Me too.”
“I mean, if I could die being t-boned in a minivan–”
“He was not driving a minivan, Raven. Now you’re just embellishing.”
“– then I at least want to feel like I’ve lived well,” Raven continued, unfazed.
Gar smiled, leaning in to rest his forehead against hers. “So, what?” he asked softly, one finger still dancing across her jawline. “We pack up and leave? We grovel at the feet of the Justice League?”
“We’d hardly need to grovel,” Raven muttered. “We’re practically on their mailing list. Hey, you two, any time you want to reenlist would be good .”
“We also accept penance in the form of monetary donations,” Gar quipped, and they shared a smile. “But seriously, Rae. Wherever you are, I’m there. I’ll fill out my withdrawal forms at the university tomorrow.”
Raven recoiled physically, her head almost snapping backwards. “What? No, Gar, you can’t drop out.” She shook her head rapidly. “This is coming out all wrong. No, I mean…there’s got to be a way to strike a balance.”
“Part-time partial?”
“Per diem.”
“Not on-call, god willing.”
“Heroes are always on-call. Isn’t that kind of the point?”
“Raven, if you want to convince someone to do something, try not to make it sound so much like prison,” Gar advised somewhat somberly. He straightened. “So do it, Rae. I’m for real. Like, what are they going to say? No thanks, we don’t need your help, you fearsome interdimensional sorceress ?”
“They might,” she said half-heartedly. Nevertheless, she pulled up that text thread once more, ornamented the article with an obligatory “thumbs-down” reaction (“Cop out!” Gar protested), and began typing:
Garfield and I have been thinking. Lunch date soon?
The response from Nightwing was almost immediate.
What are you doing now? Pause. Right now.