Chapter 26

Getting chewed out by Zatara was an…odd experience. I wasn’t really sure of how to categorize the experience. He was demanding, loud, and honestly really obnoxious.

Which is pretty much exactly what I said to his face. Much to the horror of Zatanna and the surprise of the Titans. I was prepared for a variety of responses, ranging from him trying to throw a punch at my face, to him backing off. Instead, he wheeled around and started to yell at me to my face.

Which I of course thought was entirely possible to happen. In fact, it was the most likely option for him to pick. However, what I hadn’t expected was his words.

“Obnoxious? You know what’s obnoxious? A bunch of kids running in to fight a three-thousand-year-old sorcerer! Do you even have the slightest idea what would happen if you had gotten injured or even worse? What would I say to your parents? To your friends? To the people that care about you?”

I blinked in surprise at that. Whatever retort I had on my tongue died against his words. His eyes showed anger yes, but there was also something else in them that just…seemed to throw me off. I wasn’t quite sure how to process it.

I was also taken aback by him appealing to my wellbeing. It’s one thing to call me a child or that I wasn’t strong or experienced enough, like what the sidekicks go through. But it was a completely novel argument about how people would be sad if I got injured.

That was…something completely foreign to me.

I didn’t have family. Pretty much ever. I had a grand total of about two people who I’d be willing to call friends. Likely due to my socializing skills being absolute dogshit. I learned how to socialize from a greedy rich bastard, a girl who responds with one-word replies, and a guy whose idea of a normal conversation was psychological torture.

Needless to say, my people skills weren’t sharp. Sure, I could understand people better than most. That was easy. It was like reading a book.

But knowing what to do, and actually doing it were two different things.

This was all to say that I understand people, even though I didn’t have much in the way of ties to them. But the idea to consider what someone else thinks in order to relegate my own actions was just…so weird.

I could understand holding back in order to have a friend get into a more favorable position to mug someone. I could understand taking the fall for a group in order to gain more loyalty and favors with them. But skipping out on a heist because someone you liked was what, worried about you?

It didn’t make sense. How did that benefit me at all? It was an unhinged way to look at things.

Everyone has the freedom to do what they want to do. There might be consequences to those actions, but they are free to chose them. That’s what it meant to be human.

…So why wasn’t I able to say that to Zatara? Why did I feel so…tongue twisted? Is it because I knew it was fruitless? That he would just ignore whatever I said in order to further his own idea?

Was I worth something to someone? Of course I was. The government couldn’t keep their hands off me. In Cadmus, they didn’t separate all of us in fear of someone breaking out. No, they separated me from everyone else. They wanted me for something.

I had worth to both the Justice League and my team. For the Justice League, I fought against crime by their rules. For my team, I kept them safe, secured. Healed their injuries and covered their backs.

Value wasn’t something innate to a human being. It was something that you took yourself. Your own actions decide your own value. Do people really think Superman would be as valued if he didn’t have his super strength, his super speed, or flight?

People had value. It was directly related to what they could and couldn’t do.

After our chewing out session, Zatara then decided to teleport all of us back to the Titans tower. He went himself, as he still needed to have some words with Constantine.

I had expected things to look roughly exactly as they did not half an hour ago. What I hadn’t expect was for everything to be trashed. The TV had been cratered in several places. Burn marks littered the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. The couch had been turn over and cut into in places. The kitchen was a mess, with what seemed like just about everything in the fridge having been pulled out and thrown on the floor.

And then there were the Titans. Beast Boy seemed like he had been put through the wringer. Bruises marred his body, and he was sporting a pretty gnarly looking black eye. Thankfully however he didn’t seem to be bleeding. Which couldn’t be said for the others.

Cyborg’s arms were notably pretty messed up. Thankfully it was mostly the metal bits, as seen from when they shot out jets of electricity sporadically. Though he did have cuts along his actual flesh in his arms.

Which is why I immediately went towards him to treat him. While Beast Boy and Cyborg were mostly sitting next to each other in the living room area, Aqualad was near the doorway. Also sporting bruises, but nothing that looked too bad.

Until I realize he hasn’t moved his hand from his side since we came back. There was likely an injury that he was trying to downplay or not let others see in order to not worry them. That was the kind of person Aqualad was.

“…What happened here?”

Robin stated, after snapping out of his dazed state seconds after I had already moved. Tree sap coming out of my hands in order to get into Cyborg’s wounds. In response to Robin’s words, all three of them glared over to the kitchen area before looking back at him.

“Well…we were attacked by man-bat creatures right after you left.”

“And the defense system of the tower couldn’t handle it?”

Cyborg seemed especially annoyed at that, though not at Robin.

“Oh, it was able to handle it alright. Especially with all of us to help out. Unfortunately, someone thought to help us.”

“Oh no…”

Zatara whispered to himself. He was bent down investigating some sort of…painted circle with candles? If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was almost satanic looking. Raven stared at it with wide almost disbelieving eyes.

Beast Boy snorted derisively.

“Yeah, Constantine summoned some demons to help us out. But they immediately began to destroy everything around us, forcing us to fight them as well.”

…what?

“So Constantine attacked you?”

They both shook their heads in the negative.

“No, he was trying to help, but apparently had messed something up and the demons started to keep pouring out and wrecking stuff. We finally beat them all up and chucked them back through the portal before closing it.”

“All’s well that ends well, I say.”

A distinctly british voice came from the kitchen floor. Constantine was likely hiding on the other side of the counter. Almost everyone in the room proceeded to glare at him or at least the area he was in for that comment.

While the other Titans were mostly busy crowding around Beast Boy, Cyborg and Aqualad, Raven continued to examine the likely demon summoning circle with Zatara before he began to clean it with several waves of his hand and a mutter under his breath.

Zatanna joined her father. Likely feeling a bit uncomfortable crowding around a bunch of wounded people. Or perhaps because her father demanded that she do so or be grounded for life during the chewing out session. Zatanna then wrinkled her nose slightly as she tilted her head towards Raven.

“No offense but…you give off a similar vibe to Constantine.”

Raven hummed at that, while Zatara shot Raven a…pitying look? Odd. Actually, I don’t think I ever noticed Raven and Zatanna talking to each other. One would think they’d be interested in each other’s magic. Like two martial artists trying to learn from each other.

Though maybe that’s not the case? I have no clue.

Whatever the case, it didn’t take long for Robin to talk to Constantine. While Robin was quiet, Constantine sure wasn’t. Rubbing the back of his head in an awkward manner before throwing up a grin at the boy wonder.

“So…guess this means I can’t crash on the couch again, huh?”

“Definitely not. Because you’re going to be coming with me.”

Zatara spoke up. Going towards Constantine before pausing and turning around to his daughter. He ushered her to say her goodbyes to her new friends, which seemed to really embarrass her. In the end she left with just a casual wave to us before her father spoke a spell and made her disappear.

Zatara then went over to Constantine before this time opening up a portal for the both of them. Grabbing onto Constantine’s arm before ushering him towards it.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we can move on to the second most important artifact that was stolen.”

“Oh bollocks…”

Constantine sighed with resignation clear in his eyes. As they approached the swirling blue portal, he attempted to pull out a cigarette to smoke, only for Zatara to grab it and throw it away. Causing Constantine to give him a dirty look.

“Now, what exactly did you do with the blood of Yggdrasil?”

Zatara stated while pulling Constantine through the portal. This time Constantine chuckled before answer.

“Oh, funny story that one. I-”

He was cut off due to going through the portal with Zatara. Shortly afterwards it disappeared. Leaving all of the Titans alone in the wrecked living room.

…Oh fuck, we were going to need to clean up all of this, weren’t we?

*~o~*

We were in fact the ones who had to clean up the top floor of the Titans tower. Thankfully nothing else was really damaged, but even still, it was difficult to fix everything. Covering up and fixing burn marks on the walls and ceiling was…difficult. To say the least.

Thankfully the Justice League footed the bill. There was a strange category of what exactly they’d pay to fix, almost like a list of what insurance covers. And funnily enough, John Constantine was simply labeled as one of them. Right over Weather Wizard collateral damage and a sudden alien invasion.

We all took shifts in fixing up the living room. It was an added space to the chores list. But even with that, it was going to take a bit of time in order to fix up the living room. Especially with Beast Boy and Kid Flash messing around with the supplies, leading me to purchase three times the amount then was strictly necessary.

It was annoying, but at least I wasn’t footing the bill.

Which once again got me to think about the finances of the Justice League. All of this money couldn’t have possibly just come from the U.N. and the traffic they got at the hall of justice. They had to be making money in a different way.

And it was my belief that one of the Justice League members either masqueraded as or was actually rich. Maybe even stupidly rich, like Lex Luthor.

…Was Lex Luthor one of the Justice League members? That would be quite amusing, but who would he be? Considering he’s constantly in Metropolis, it’d be easy to point at Superman despite obviously looking nothing like him.

Then again, it could all just be a front.

I winced a bit as the feeling of a migraine hit my head, before immediately subsiding. Being able to pump myself full of drugs at the drop of a hat was really convenient. Well, full of drugs was an exaggeration as it was just some light over the counter pain reliver stuff, but it at least was very effective.

Besides, that wasn’t anything that really bothered me. What did bother me was Starfire. After what had happened that day, Starfire had started to act…a bit differently. A lot more overly flirtatious with me, even in public.

I wasn’t sure what our relationship was, but I of course erred on the side of caution. It didn’t help that she would give me very cryptic questions as well.

“What did you think about Zatanna?”

A trap question if I ever saw one. Obviously, it was to gauge whether or not I was interested in her sexually. Or at least if Starfire should consider her a threat. Yet despite this, Starfire still seemed all around peppy.

I wouldn’t think too much about it if it wasn’t Starfire. The girl who wears her emotions on her sleeves. She couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag, much less in front of me.

So why didn’t she seem to be treating it like the leading question it was?

“…she was pleasant enough. Made a strong teammate.”

I carefully commented. Starfire seemed to nod at my words.

“Yes, I quite liked her too, and her magic tricks! She’s a lot more entertaining than Raven is with it.”

Well, I could agree with that at least. Raven didn’t seem to do ‘flashy’. A stark contrast to fighting with several hundred pigeons coming out of a magically appearing hat.

“I agree.”

“And she’s very attractive!”

…Now that was a trap, and yet still Starfire seemed just like her normal easy going self. Making me doubt the obvious trap’s existence. My instincts said there wasn’t anything insidious about Starfire’s words, but my mind dictated that it couldn’t be more obvious if it tried.

Thankfully I was bought a moment of reprieve by the most reclusive member of the Titans coming out of her room and into the kitchen area with me and Starfire. Leading Starfire to wave her down.

“Oh, Raven!”

“…Don’t let me keep you from your conversation.”

Starfire waved away Raven’s words while flying around her as she opened the fridge.

“We were just talking about Zatanna. Do you also think she’s attractive?”

Raven looked up at that with a raised eyebrow. Before turning around and giving the same raised eyebrow to me. Hey, what the hell? Why would she assume that it was me who said it?

“Uh…she’s pretty enough I guess?”

Starfire nodded along as Raven used her magic absentmindedly to open a can of that disgusting piss known as Canada Dry. Starfire then floated back towards me before landing on her feet.

“And what do you think, friend Law?”

Now that I had enough time to formulate an answer, I already had one waiting. The perfect answer to this situation.

“Not as attractive as you.”

I blinked. Unable to fully comprehend the actions that Starfire had just taken. She had laughed in amusement at my answer and then slapped my ass. An act that had Raven spit out her Canada Dry in surprise straight into my face.

Still unable to comprehend what had just happened, I continued to stare off into space as an embarrassed Raven dismissed herself with Starfire quickly inquiring after her.

…Tamaraneans…were uh…different, weren’t they?