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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
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738
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1/1
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9
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1,053

Romance Is Underrated

Summary:

Gar hurt Raven's feelings, and now she wants an apology…or at least an explanation.

Work Text:

Romance Is Underrated

***

Set after Teen Titans Issue #20: Identity Theft

***

If Gar had known that his little verbal faux pax was going to get Raven so mad at him, he never would have said it. If he'd known Raven would have been so hurt by it, he never would have even thought it. Unfortunately, precognition was not counted among his many and varied abilities and powers. He hadn't known, and now he had to deal with the fallout. Namely, one recently reincarnated - and damn beautiful when she was angry, even more so when she was sad, because all he wanted to do was wrap her up in his arms and croon comforting words to her - Raven. He had to deal with the fallout in the hallway, and why couldn't he die somewhere where the first person to find his body wouldn't probably be one of the kids? Gar thought that sucked even more than the conversation he and Raven were about to have. "Why did you say it, Gar?" Raven asked, her tone wounding him almost as much as what it might mean that she was calling him by his nickname. Out of all of his friends, she was the only one to call him by his full name; she'd never called him Gar like everybody else. Maybe she didn't view him as a friend anymore, in view of how inconsiderate he'd been of her feelings last week. Gar couldn't blame her; it did sound rather bad, in hindsight, anyway. In hindsight, in foresight, in any sight under the rainbow. "Um...I said it because..." Well, he'd meant it, but saying that would make her madder and sadder, and it wasn't really the whole answer. "It wasn't that I was making fun of you," he started to explain, "just..." And there he faltered. "Just what?" Raven demanded, not willing to bend an inch. Her glare was so hot, Gar felt that it should melt his skin off his bones. "Eh-heh." Gar winced, looking anywhere but at Raven, and tugged his now too-tight collar away from his suddenly sweaty neck. "Um, well, it, uh...it was just that you never tried being 'normal' before...before, and I...kinda got used to it." He shrugged weakly. "That's all." Night-dark eyes narrowing at him, Raven practically bared her teeth as she hissed, "It's more than that. You're hiding something from me." She punctuated her last sentence with a finger jab at Gar's chest, and he reflexively retreated from her black-polished, half-inch talons. They weren't sharp, but that didn't mean they couldn't do damage. She was Raven, after all, and Gar had always considered her the most dangerous woman in the Titans. Gar sighed. He never could hide anything from Raven, and that didn't have anything to do with her empathy. "Okay, it's just..." He swallowed, and raised his eyes from the floor to lock with hers. "I've always thought that you were like me." Now Raven looked puzzled. "Like you?" she asked, voice wavering, but gaze holding steady with his. Gar nodes slowly. "That you thought being 'normal' was, well, overrated. And now with you trying to be normal, I just...it really brings it home to me how much you've...changed." It wasn't that he hadn't expected her to change - she'd died and come back as a teenager for God sake's - but he hadn't wanted her to change so much that she...that he didn't feel the same way about her. But she had, and he...he hadn't. And it was very confusing to him. Change begets change, and if she'd changed and he hadn't... Or maybe he had changed. Maybe he'd grown up enough to realize that love could change, too, but still stay as strong as ever. "Garfield," Raven said softly, voice tender yet exasperated, and she was still the only one who ever called him that. "Not everything normal is overrated." And then she kissed him. Gar thought that maybe Raven was right. Romance definitely wasn't overrated.