Pitchgiving 2021, part 13: Birds of Prey 3: Birds of a Feather

This follows directly after the Batwomen pitch, and while all my DCEU pitches are in continuity, it really builds off my Birds of Prey 2 pitch from last year.

The Birds of Prey (along with the balance of the Batwomen) have to team up with the Gotham City Sirens, because the male crime-lords in town partnered with Jason Woodrue to use Ivy’s pheromones against all the men in the city (I’m thinking at least Penguin, Two-Face and the Ventriloquist will be our fodder villains for this one). To complicate things, before the Sirens sit down with the Birds of Prey, Ivy made a desperate plea to Alec Holland to try and stop Woodrue… only for him to fall under the spell of her purloined pheromones. We probably start the story en media res, with Harley, Catwoman and Black Bat managing to break Ivy out of the clutches of Woodrue. This leads Woodrue to unleash his altered pheromone into the city, where all of the men turn incredibly hostile- basically normal men on the street attack them. The crime bosses use this chaos to their advantage; Batman is able to quarantine Gotham’s male heroes in the cave while he works on an antidote… all while being a pretty demented bastard all the same on their video link. This leaves things up to the ladies to fix. I think the way we first introduce this, is Harley is sneaking off from Ivy to meet with Jason Todd. Black Bat knows that, because she also knows the context: Harley feels terrible for her part in kidnapping and torturing him. She’s trying to make amends, and at the same time there’s really no one else who understands what she went through like Jason does. It starts as a two-person support group, but will grow from there.

Harley is nervous being in the back of a plane again. The last time she was in one, everybody died, and she’s having flashbacks. It’s mostly an excuse to show a montage of moments from the Suicide Squad (I figure if we build it into our mythos eventually people will watch it enough for it to become profitable- and it is a fun movie- which is why next year I’ll pitch a follow-up… but shhh). The montage ends with Flag, and we cut back to Harley in the back of the plane, a tear sliding down her cheek, “I miss Milton.”

Black Bat notices, and sits beside her in the plane, and takes her hand, “Harley, it’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?” she asks, trauma clearly having taken the wheel. “At any second Waller might kick in the door and decide to try to kill me again. And this plant dick took Ivy… I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to her.”

“I know,” Black Bat soothes, “we’re getting her back.”

“How’s our mental patient?” Catwoman asks, emerging from the cockpit.

“Still crazy after all these years,” Black Bat says. “But she’s good. Because she has to be.”

“She’s your responsibility. I’m getting Ivy out, because I don’t like owing favors. But the headcase is yours to babysit. If she goes to pieces, we may not have the space to put her back together.”

“I trust her. She’s just… her last time in a plane didn’t go so great.”

“We don’t have time for trauma. We need to jump in fifteen seconds.” Catwoman flings a parachute at Harley, and it flies past, before she raises her hand. Catwoman looks at Black Bat.

“She’s good,” Cassandra insists. “She’s rallying.”

Catwoman runs out of the plane and leaps gracefully past camera. Black Bat helps Harley into her parachute. “What if I can’t do this?” Harley asks.

“I’m pretty sure,” Black Bat glances at the cockpit, to see the stick is tied in place with a whip, “yeah, by engaging the autopilot Selena meant this stolen plane is going to crash as a distraction, so we don’t have much choice. Come on.” Black Bat takes her hand and pulls her to the door and jumps with her.

They’re buffeted by a bad wind, and separated, and Black Bat gets caught up in a tree as a patrol arrives. For a moment it looks bad. Then Harley pops up out of the grass and takes the patrol apart with swift, acrobatic efficiency. Catwoman’s already up in the tree and slices Black Bat out of her chute, and she falls with a somewhat comedic thud, before standing and brushing herself off.

“Jumping out of a perfectly functional plane is just crazy enough to be in my wheelhouse. What I meant was what if I’m not functional enough to save Ivy, to infiltrate this ‘compound,’ to be the kind of partner I’ve always wanted…”

“Harley,” Black Bat interrupts, “I love the brilliant, fucked up way your head works. But the reason I trust you, even now, with my life, is that when you follow your heart, I’ve never seen it steer you wrong. So when I say you can do this, I mean that you will, if you can just stay out of your own way. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Harley says.

“You two ever consider motivational speaking?” Catwoman asks, slinking down the tree. “Or getting your own Lifetime movie? Or maybe just starting a nationwide hug tour?”

“Ignore her,” Harley says, “she deflects genuine emotion because she’s worried if she doesn’t immediately bat it away people will understand how desperately she craves it, and to belong.”

Catwoman is not happy being analyzed; Black Bat puts up her hands. “You poked that bear.”

“Doing this for Ivy,” Catwoman says, annoyed. “Silver lining: maybe the two of you will get shot in the process.”

I’m assuming, since this is a big, ambitious swing already, that we should just montage them breaking in, taking out some guards, and rescuing Ivy, where we slow down again, because Harley wraps her arms around Ivy and kisses her. It needs to be a moment… but afterwards, it needs to not be a big deal, too (because I want them together, and happy, but if we make it too much of a thing then it’s like there’s something atypical about women finding love together… and there isn’t).

“What took you?” Ivy asks gently; she’s trying to keep it light, bantery, and not let on how scared she’s been, how much being used by Jason Woodrue has psychologically or physically taxed her, because she knows Harley has been merciless with herself, so she has to compensate by being kind.

“Traffic,” Harley says, half a laugh, half a sob.

“No crying,” Catwoman says, almost accusatory, but we can tell, too, it’s because it’s affecting her.

“In baseball?” Harley asks, raising her bat. The Sirens stomp together, as we do another quick montage (because we have so much story to get through on this one).

They get free, and we’re going to do a quick little flashback. Again, I don’t want to make a thing about them, like there’s anything odd about their pairing… but I like this moment. This is the moment it all comes out in the open.

“I didn’t look for you because you were probably the only person at Arkham who tried to understand me. I knew the tendency for a patient to put their doctor on a pedestal; I told myself you were doing a job, and doing it well, and that can be sexy, in its own right. I knew not to assume it meant anything, either about how I felt about you, or about how you felt about me.

“But then I saw you, with Cassie, and out in the world, as yourself, strong, confident, but with a heart so big and open that of course it flashed like a giant kick me sign to a monster like the Joker, but also… that showed just how warm, loving, and compassionate you were, how much you wanted for someone to love you like you love everyone. And that you could see people like us as… people. That’s a damning statement, to be sure, about our society, and the mental health profession, but you’ve always been a diamond,” she touches the diamond pattern on her right wrist, “and you’ve always deserved someone who saw that,” she kisses her.

Black Bat interrupts the story, and we reveal that Harley and Ivy are cuddling on a loveseat, while the other two are sitting in the same room. “I’m out. It’s like listening to 2 out of my 3 moms talk about making out. I’m out,” she reiterates as she leaves the room.

Catwoman sits quietly in her chair and stares.

“I had a cat like you,” Harley says. “Would just sit in the corner of my room and stair. Until I brought a guy home. Or a girl home. Or anyone else. And then, she’d lock eyes with me, and only then, she’d start to bathe.” Catwoman frowns, trying to figure out her meaning, before just leaving the room.

“I don’t mind an audience, but a part of me did want you just for myself.” I want her to have that, too, so we’re going to fade to black.

We fade back in the next morning. I don’t care who wants what, but I really want to emphasize the humanity in this moment, the normalcy; one of them is snoring buzzsaw loud, and the other has just left a puddle of drool on the other. And even this, I know, could be filmed with the male gaze in mind- but it shoudn’t. They should look like the room got hit with a hurricane, their hair should be mussed, as little makeup as possible (I mean, the characters are usually caked in it, so I’m genuinely not sure what’s supposed to be their skin and what’s makeup), but they are frumped to a degree that even Margot Robbie (and presumably Lake Bell, because that’s great casting I suggested in the last one) look like normal human beings. Black Bat knocks on the door, and comes in, keeping her arm over her eyes. “I really, really, hate to intrude on your love nest- like, I don’t know the words in English to express how much I don’t want to intrude,” (I like the idea of her spouting something in Mandarin or whatever to prove that the words exist, at least somewhere).

Harley wakes up, and feels self-conscious, picking up that Cass expects a sexed-up Adventureland, “Yep, the air is thick with the smells of sex and sensual oils and lubricants and just,” and tries to mop up the drool, wake up Ivy, all while making the both of them look a little more put together than they were (this should be silly and fun, not for gratification).

“Okay, whoa, already way more information than I would have ever wanted to know. But before I exit, you should know… it’s spreading. Ivy’s pheromones, Woodrue had enough of them that he’s blanketing the entire city. It isn’t just our neighborhood that’s a nightmare. It’s the entire city.”

“Let us get dressed.”

“Oh, God, no more,” Cassandra moans.

“We’ll be out in a minute.”

“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?” Ivy asks.

“What, that I took a beautiful woman to bed and then proceeded to drool all over her stomach? That I was snoring so loud it bugged me even in my own dreams. That despite my days being consumed with thoughts of sex and death the entire time you were missing, once you were back, all I could do was pass out next to you?”

Ivy, again, is gentle with her, recognizing Harley’s spiraling. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. I just needed you to hold me.”

“And I couldn’t even do that right.”

“The drooling wasn’t exactly what I expected. But I slept like a baby. I felt safe with you. It was exactly what I needed.”

“Yeah?” Harley asked.

“Being with someone isn’t just about rocking their world sexually. You also want to be comfortable just being with them. Feeling safe, and secure and, and loved.”

“Yeah,” Harley says, realizing how much she needed to hear that, and cuddling up against her. “I love you, Ivy.”

“I love you, too, Harls.”

Damnit. Okay. That’s on me. I promise I’m going to try and stop being so damned enamored of the two of them together that I can get back to pitching. I think the best way to get this story moving again is to take a peek at the other side of the aisle, namely the ‘good’ guys.

We watch Barbara walk by her suit in the Clocktower; she’s wearing clothes for a run. She tells Oracle that she needs to pick up an assignment from school, but then she’ll be back, and asks if Oracle needs anything. She asks for a Yoohoo (or other product placement to be paid for later).

There’s something on the air as she puts in her earbuds and puts on some music. We’re going to leave the music on for most of her run, at least until the insanity gets to be so much she silences it, and suddenly is forced to confront exactly how screwed up the few blocks she’s ran are. I figure this is one long take (but possibly with some hidden cuts, if need be). First she runs by a man who is clearly screaming at her, partially dodging to avoid specks of spittle flying through the air. Unfortunately, this is Gotham, so angry men yelling at random women on the street is a thing, and doesn’t phase her. At a hot dog cart, a man and a woman with a baby in a stroller seem to be altercating, when the man raises his hand. Barbara grabs the hook of his elbow and uses it to roll him over her back without stopping. She runs a little further, and a man takes a swing at her. She puts him down without any problem, only for another man to attack her. And a third. She puts them all down with ease, but we pull back, to reveal that this has all happened on the same block. Barbara turns down her music and calls Oracle. “Oracle, what the hell is going on?”

“You know that weird fog on the waterfront that turned any man who came into contact into a woman-hating troll? Yeah, well, it’s spread across the whole city. It’s chaos. Figured you knew.”

“I slept in. I’m going to head back to the Clocktower. Something tells me we’re going to need to handle this.”

We cut to Batgirl arriving. Oracle is clearly phased by what she tells Barbara. “So I called Batman, like you asked. He’s aware, by the way. Um… I’m struggling. I know this isn’t a typical workplace or… anything approaching a normal situation. I guess I just never imagined I’d ever hear Batman call me a c-word.”

“What?”

“And he called you, uh, B-girl.”

“Well, that is my-” she realizes Oracle means the other B-girl.

Oh. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

“It was more, comically surreal. But… he’s terrifying. Most of the time I don’t breathe when he calls. And I even noticed he noticed, and has tried to emote more, which should make me feel more comfortable, that he’s trying, but it’s like watching the Tin Man try to be more emotional by wearing Totos face. But it’s only right now, when I actually saw what he’s like when he’s threatening. And the idea that he could stay like this…”

“We’ll fix it.

“Almost makes me feel sorry for criminals. Not because of what he does do, but because… because of what he could do, what I now realize he might do. Gives me the feeling he is one day where they give him a shot of espresso instead of decaf from being Joker in a cowl.”

“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t drink caffeine at all- just doesn’t trust himself.”

“Really? Does he even sleep? And he still doesn’t touch caffeine? How does he stay up?”

“Obsession.”

“The Calvin Klein cologne? Does he chug it?”

“Will. Same way he’s still remaining functional, if a bit… jerkier than usual.”

“Feels like an understatement, but yeah, he’s still working, with all the other Robins, Nightwings, Red Hoods and whatevers in the cave with him. He’s isolated the compounds. Definitely bears some signatures worth being concerned over. Three names, at least trying to read between the lines; he was editorializing some, especially when it came to Ivy. But it was her pheromones. But they seemed altered, in a way that makes him suspect Swamp Thing and Jason Woodrue are involved.”

“That’s bad,” Batgirl reacts. “Really bad. Ivy on her own is trouble. Ivy and Woodrue are extinction level trouble. Swamp Thing would have been our go-to guy to help with it, but if he’s working with them, or they have him… call everybody.”

Everybody?”

“Let me rephrase. Everyone without a y chromosome. Anyone who can help, we need on standby, or here if they can swing it”

“What about Batwing?” Batgirl doesn’t follow. “They’re nonbinary.”

Barbara sighs. “I’ll text Batman. If this goes down to the chromosomal level, it might make sense to have Batwing sequester with the rest in the cave. But if not, it’s all hands on deck.”

We’re back in Ivy and Harley’s apartment. Ivy is wearing a shirt from Arkham (yeah, like she did in the first Arkham game), and is drinking coffee. “So… I’ve been talking to some of the houseplants.”

“You, too? They only seem to want to talk to me about celebrity butts. You?”

“That’s not them, hon, it’s a voice in your head. No, the plants tell me Alec was here.”

“Alec, Alec… why doesn’t that name ring a bell?”

“He was my ex. Is sort of dead. And a plant elemental.”

“You used to bang the plant guy?” Harley asks, amused, horrified, intrigued, confused. “I mean, there’s bumping uglies and then there’s bumping uglies.”

Harley.”

“I swear, I did not know, or I would have at least straightened up before he grew out of a few bags of fertilizer in the tub- we may have to replace the tub. He said it was the fastest way to get here from ‘the Swamp,’ which I really hadn’t expected to be all so literal. One of the bat people owed me a favor, got me his number, when you went missing. I thought plant guy, wearing a trench coat, he must be some kind of plant dick, and, not you know, your old plant d-”

“It was his friend who wore the trench coat. But it worked, I guess. You found me.”

“We did… just not at first. He led us into a trap. A trap for him, I think, or at least a trap for if he came looking for you.”

“Oh, no. A couple nights ago? When Woodrue’s experiments got a lot worse.”

“Yeah,” Harley says meekly. “But he did get us the lead that got you back.”

“For which I am grateful, but… do you understand what Alec Holland is?” Harley shrugs. “He is basically a plant god. Meaning, he could take my pheromones, and increase their potency. He could probably even reproduce them. That’s why Woodrue didn’t put up much of a fight when you came for me- because I was redundant-maybe even a distraction at that point. And now it’s a race against time, and we’re starting from behind.” She finishes her coffee and turns around. “How much pull do you have with these bat people?”

“Like I asked for a tour of the Batcave or for them to drive us around in the Batmobile while we made out in the back seat.”

“And they said ‘no?’”

“No back seat. The rest all depends. Are we asking to work with them, or trying to scam ‘em?”

“If you don’t at least leave the possibility of the latter open I’m never talking to either of you again,” Catwoman says, pouring herself a bowl of milk.

Ivy’s prepared. “I spoke with the city’s Economy Development Corporation, and they estimate there are half a million cats in Gotham City. I know cats are survivors and all, but what happens if jilted men decide to take their anger out on women’s cats, or worse, if my pheromones end up working just as well on male cats.”

Catwoman stops lapping at the bowl. “Can I at least steal something, when this is all over, so I don’t feel like a complete sap?”

“Sure,” they both say with a shrug.

The Birds of Prey/Batwomen assemble at the tower, with the promise that the rest of the women heroes are dealing with a bigger threat outside of Gotham, but will be there as soon as they can wrap it up. Then they get the call from the Sirens, all agreeing to work together.

Oracle has been able to put together the records from all of their Woodrue-related locations so far. And it seems he’s been using places, money and resources from three separate crime families. Analysis of recent police surveillance has proven that the three seem to be working together, and that they need to hit all three crime bosses at once, to mop up as much of their men and resources as possible. They split into three teams, with Ivy’s team going to where they think Swamp Thing is/Penguin, Batgirl and the Birds of Prey going after Woodrue/Two-Face, and Batwoman and the other Batwomen going after the location where the pheromones are all stored to destroy them/Ventriloquist (he’s squatting on old Joker territory; he lost clout after fallout from BoP2, especially with his willingness to sacrifice his henchmen for a joke, nobody really wanted to work for him)- that meant the Ventriloquist had a lot of territory with abandoned chemical storage/disposal, perfect for the pheromones they pumped out of Ivy.  

The Batwomen easily deal with the Ventriloquist, Scarface and his vanilla mooks. Then they realize there was a lot more pheromone than they realized- acres of it. Batwoman calls her father. The base is still observing chemical weapons protocols, so they’re fine, if somewhat understaffed. He agrees to help her bomb the pheromone storage (I think he loads a plane with explosives and arranges for Kate to steal it, having learned since the last movie how to fly a plane… ish- the main sticking point being her landings are still mostly crashes in the simulator).

Ivy leads the Sirens to rescue Alec. Penguin, slightly impacted by the pheromones (but having always been a dick) gets the snot kicked out of him, and realizing how ridiculously powerful Ivy is, decide not to screw with them and leave without much of a fight. The true brawl, though, is with the Swamp Thing himself. He’s still under the influence of Ivy’s pheromones, only a stronger, more robust variant he helped concoct. Thankfully, midway through the fight Ivy realizes that the Swamp Thing they’re fighting isn’t Alec at all, that he essentially grew himself a bodyguard, so while the others fight him off (badly), Ivy reasons with Alec, that he’s a good man, the man she admired, the one she fell for. She kisses him, and it brings him out of his stupor, and then some. The bodyguard keeps fighting, but some of the life has gone out of it; this is amplified by the fact that Harley, seeing the kiss, goes berserk, and will hit him in the twig and berries frequently with her big-ass mallet. Alec’s still a little influenced by the pheromones, and clingy; Ivy says she thought he got engaged, and he says that’s complicated. Ivy tells him things are a lot less complicated for her- that she found someone who makes her happy, and looks over at Harley, practically glowing. Ivy uses the Swamp Thing’s arm to pull Harley to her, and kisses her. Harley stammers that she thought… before Ivy tells her she thinks too much, and kisses her. “I do.” And they kiss again.

Finally, Two-Face’s place is where the real fight happens. One half of his mansion is overgrown. The Birds of Prey split up, Batgirl leading one segment into the overgrown side, since she’s got all the weedkilling toys, and Question leading the other up the pristine side. Question and Huntress make short work of Two-Face, before wondering where all his goons are. Both Harveys smile. Woodrue knocks Batgirl and Canary through a door, rolling into the room. Harvey tells them the reason he didn’t see a point in putting his men in harm’s way tonight was that it was going to be a bloodbath- that they were just waiting for all the guests to arrive.

At that moment, the Sirens and the Batwomen arrive. Two-Face brags to Woodrue that his timing is impeccable. As you can see, we’ve got a ridiculous cast of women here already… but things are about to go just completely nuts. I wasn’t screwing with you when I said that this was Endgame for DC’s women. Well, here it goes.

I think for the ending we bring in a big Big Bad; personally, I’d swing for the fences and have it be Granny Goodness with a team of male furies; Granny Goodness has basically been taken to task by Darkseid. He thinks her Furies need to open up to male members, that she’s been artificially holding her elite soldiers back. So she’s testing his hypothesis, by recruiting a team of men. She explains that there’s a part of her rooting for the women, because they’ll prove her right if they win, not that she could ever gloat to Darkseid. But she wants her ladies back; she was the one who gave Woodrue the necessary upgrade to be able to adapt Ivy’s pheromones.

At first, the combined Birds of Prey are outmatched. But then… those other heroines we teased earlier on, who would show as soon as they wrapped up the bigger threat… they arrive. This loops in all of the most powerful of DC’s women for a fireworks finish as they beat a team of men under Granny’s control, before all of the rest of the women show up. This list is in no way all-inclusive, and will likely swell. But it should give you an idea of who’s punching who.

Wonder Woman Lobo
Big Barda Scott Free
Supergirl Granny Goodness
Power Girl Superboy
Zatanna Jason Blood/The Demon
Ivy Jason Woodrue
Catwoman/Black Bat (snatches Granny’s control rod)
Harley Quinn (souped up) Joker, like from the first Arkham game (can really be Clayface, if that’s too silly)
Batgirl Nightwing
Mary Marvel Black Adam
Fire  
Ice  
Huntress  
Mera  
Jesse Quick  
Natasha Irons  
Artemis  

Wherever possible/necessary, we can replace the menfolk with their CGI counterparts (having the Demon in a fight wouldn’t necessarily require paying Jason Blood to show; I’m all for paying him to show, mind, but I know some actors really hate showing up to film what is essentially a cameo, and it’s possible the budget on this will also be insane, so building in places where we can cut costs might be helpful).

But the women are winning. Granny is conflicted; she’s winning the moral argument even as she loses the fight. But she also knows that Darkseid doesn’t brook failure… she sees an opportunity to slink away, taking Jason Woodrue with her.

And, personally, I’d bring in at least 3 men, here: Batman, Superman, and whatever other male Justice Leaguer would be most impactful (could be Aquaman, given current box office). We start with whichever of them has the most recognizable voice, calling from offscreen. Camera pans, and we see those three, and think this is round 2 and it’s about to get brutal…. Only the men aren’t attacking. Or cursing. Batman explains that he’s synthesized an antidote, that he’s got Flashes spreading across the city administering doses.

Harley asks Wonder Woman if this means she’s in the Avengers- “I mean the Justice League, clearly you weren’t my safety squad.” Wonder Woman pretends not to have heard, and walks away. Harley is, for a moment, disappointed. But Batgirl is behind her. She tells her some people might look at them as minor league, but if Harley, Ivy, or Catwoman want, they always have a place in the, and before she says Birds of Prey, we go to black, and smash in the Birds of Prey logo. We quickly do the cast credits, before cutting back, immediately to the same scene.

Catwoman runs up to Harley and Ivy. “That thing I needed to do, it’s done, and we should go. Now.” She turns, and we can see she has a utility belt slung over her shoulder. It literally doesn’t matter which of the Batmen she took it from, but it’s slightly funnier if it’s a Robin and he has to hold his pants up. Batman bellows after Selena, and we cut again to black.

More credits. Then we’re on Apokalips. Jason Woodrue has seen better days. Clearly, he’s been tortured for a while. Desaad is overseeing that, but Darkseid is working with Woodrue’s figures. Desaad is becoming more concerned, that he’s been working with Woodrue’s information tirelessly, without speaking. Desaad is trying to get an answer from him, if the Antilife Equation is complete, if he’ll be able to mold the minds of men to his will. He’s not going to reply, but I would like to have him turn to camera, similar to Thanos at the end of the very first Avengers, and smile. But while that CGI Thanos looked a little cartoony, this one should be horrifying- and his smile should be a thing of nightmares. That Darkseid is happy at all should be something we’re all worried about.

Note: That puts an end to Pitchgiving 2021. Because I’m at least as crazy as Harley, I’ll be rolling right into Pitchmas, with 12-ish MCU pitches, building off the last several years of pitches.

Pitchgiving 2021, part 6: Teen Titans 2: Impulsive Youth

“No reason to be nervous. They’re just like any other people. Who can think and move tens of thousands of times faster than you. Even an idiot moving at that speed would make you look like… like Superboy.” Robin rings the doorbell, and before the sound hits him the door swings open, with Wally West standing inside. He’s roughly Nightwing’s age, having been a Titan, previously. He looks around, for Batman or Nightwing, then looks down, disappointment showing on his face. “I thought one of the older bats would show. Guess I’m just hanging out with a Robin. Not a first time for that.” He sighs. “Come on. Bart’s in here.” Wally leads Robin inside. The front room is a mess of cables, monitors, magazines, comic books. Bart isn’t just there, he’s everywhere, a blur of motion as he reads and games and watches movies and surfs the internet (at agonizingly slow speeds for him).

“Bart, chill; ADHD can be hard to handle at normal speeds, but at super speeds- you’re going to make Robin go cross-eyed. You up on your meds?”

“I’m always up on my meds, I just metabolize them so quickly that I have to take one every five minutes or so.”

“How is that possible?” Robin asks, before appending. “Legally.”

“Currently, the Wayne Foundation is sponsoring sensitive research on the best timing for weening doses of ADHD medications, which means they go through a lot of them. Daily.”

In the blur, we get a single, static image of Impulse eating Gray’s Papaya. “Were you eating a hot dog?” Robin asks.

“Have to keep up my caloric intake. There’s nothing magical about us Flashes; takes me the same amount of calories to run across the continent as it would for you- I just do it thousands of times faster. Plus I had a hankering for Gray’s Papaya.”

“That does sound-” before Robin can finish the thought he’s holding a hot dog in his hand, and so is Wally. In fact, there are dozens of hot dogs around the room; they aren’t all from Gray’s- they only have so many cooked and ready at any one time. Robin’s about to take a bite of his hot dog, before he thinks to question, “And you got these legally, too?”

Wally laughs, because the Bat really does encourage distrust in his people. He notes his concern is well-founded. For a while Barry was feeding himself with change from wealthy people’s couch cushions, which he felt bad about, and especially when other Flashes started popping out of the woodwork, that was so many superfast mouths to feed. “We cover all of our expenses in cash, now. Batman got us access to some venture capital from Bruce Wayne. Turns out we had a few ideas worth patenting, and now Jesse’s running QuickStart licensing them out. And occasionally, Wayne’s companies hire Flashes to do supercomputing for him- basically we can process information faster than any computer, and there are occasions where that additional processing speed can be life or death. Currently we’re mostly working in the Wayne physics labs, with the supercollider. There are particles created in the lab that last only fractions of a second- but to a team of Flashes that’s like days.”

“And it’s sooo boring,” Bart says, bounding between activities. Wally grabs him as he blurs by, and forces him to stand in place for a moment.

“This is what we talked about. I know it can be rough, having to move at someone else’s pace. But you need to leave your feet on the ground, sometimes, and be a part of the human race.”

“It’s not my fault the rest of humanity’s a few hundred laps behind,” Bart says.

“Joke all you want, kid, but nobody’s buying this ‘a Flash doesn’t need friends’ BS. Because we’re all Flashes here; I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t have Barry, Jay, Jesse, even you. And that’s ignoring that I still have all the guys from my days in the Titans. It okay to need people, Bart; it’s okay to be human.”

“You only think that because you haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”

“Bart ran back here from the future, but whatever spooked him enough to rip a wormhole through spacetime, it screwed him up.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not in the room.”

“I can see as fast as you can move; half the time you weren’t in the room. And while I don’t doubt you saw some things, you have amnesia; even you haven’t seen what you’ve seen.”

“I still saw it. And I ran back here.”

“To stop it?”

Bart stops moving. “I…”

Wally’s there in an instant, a shoulder for him to collapse into. “He can’t remember even that.”

“That… sounds really rough,” Robin says. “But that’s why I hope you do come with us. I was skeptical, when I first joined the Titans; I didn’t think anyone could understand me, or what I’ve lived through, or what my life’s like. And they don’t, not completely, because we all have our unique problems. But they do, better than anyone else could, understand what it’s like to live in the shadows we do, the weight of the legacies we have to uphold. You have a family here, people who care about you no matter what. But I hope you can join my friends; they’ve helped me be a better me, and I think you can, too. Plus, Batman lent me a batplane to fly us-“

Impulse is gone in a blur, his clothes and selective magazines, games, etc. are, too. “He’s in the plane,” Wally says. 

Robin finds him sitting in the backseat of the plane, which is now full of Bart’s junk. Robin slides into his seat. “I was wondering if I could fly,” Bart says. “I read the manuals while I was waiting for you, as well as everything in the Central City Library, section 629, Aviation.“

“Everything?” Robin asks.

“Yeah, even Aviation in Southern Oregon¸ by Bill Alley, even if I’m not sure why we had a copy here. Wait.” He’s gone and back. “Apparently it was an interlibrary loan for a graduate student paper, but they kept it so long the loaning library just charged them for it, and they donated it to our library. And I did appreciate the picture of ‘Professor’ Charles Nelson’s balloon; it looked like a boob- appreciate in the amusement sense, not the pervy sense- it didn’t look that much like a boob.”

“I see why they call you Impulse. But, why did you put ‘professor’ in scare quotes.”

“Because the book did- though they never explained why; I guess there was some question as to his credentials.”

“You have an eidetic memory.”

“Uh…” He’s gone and back again, and this time is holding onto a dictionary. “I do. And a debauched, unchaste mind. And a prurient sense of humor.”

“I’m pretty sure most of that is being a teenage boy.” Impulse gives him a quizzical look. “I’m just glad none of the girls can read our minds.” He adds, quieter, “And none of the guys.”

“What was that? Sometimes when I’m moving fast- like to return the dictionary” (which is now gone) “sound works differently, you can make it sound like someone mumbled something real low, or sound like they’re speaking real fast and high-pitched like the chipmunks cartoon. It sounded like you said something about Tom Yum Gai, and now I need some Thai soup. Gimme a second.”

An instant later, he and Robin are both holding soup. “Batman would not be cool with us eating in the batplane.”

“It’s cool,” Impulse says. “I move hundreds of times faster than things fall due to gravity. Even if you spill, I won’t let it spill. Okay?” Robin still looks anxious. “And I won’t tell Batman.”

“Cool.” That loosens Robin up, and they eat in the plane.

We cut to Wonder Girl, flying over the waters along the California coastline. We can set this in Atlantis if we want, but I’m just going to assume that somewhere in the mainline DCEU movies that I’m not plotting we’ll have sunk San Diego and it’s now Sub Diego. Wonder Girl dives into the waters, shooting like a bullet down, stopping at the entrance to one of Sub Diego’s underwater domes. She emerges inside to find Mera. She explains that Arthur was unique, but the idea that his mother was the only Atlantean that might meet and fall in love with a human, well, it was naïve. One such native of San Diego discovered her powers when her home sunk into the ocean, and used her abilities to save as many of her neighbors as she could. But since then she’s been just like Arthur- lost between two worlds, a foot in each, a home in neither. Mera hopes that, like Arthur, being a hero to both might find her a home in both, too, and that the Titans helped Garth get his land legs. “That’s what the Titans are for. Um. Do you mind if I talk to her on my own?”

Aquagirl is sitting on a bench, looking sad and lost. She barely looks up at Wonder Girl as she approaches. Cassie sits down at the other end of the bench.

“Hola,” Lorena says, without looking up.

Cassie perks up. She’s taken some Spanish. Not like a lot. But maybe she can make Lorena feel more at home. “Hola,” she says enthusiastically, then her brow knits as she tries to figure out how to proceed, before stumbling out, “Soy Cassie.”

“Me llamo Cassie,” Lorena says, meeting her gaze.

“Oh, you’re Cassie, too?

“No. Me llamo Lorena. Tu llamas Cassie. Se llama Mera,” she says, pointing at Mera. “But my English is fine, if you’re more comfortable with it.”

“Then why’d you start with ‘hola?’”

“Because this was home. With my family. They wouldn’t let me speak Spanish outside the home- I needed to fit in, to be ready for people who might not accept me if I had an accent. But at home- at home we only spoke Spanish. Spanish means home for me. Family. Meant…”

“Oh.”

She sighs heavily. “I couldn’t save them. The house came down in a mudslide. Everything but my bedroom window was subsumed in mud. I was digging with my hands, thinking of mom. She was an EMT. I asked her once, when my cousin and I collided. There was a lot of blood, lots of little scrapes, but she was everywhere at once fixing us up. Handling two kids with a few cuts, sure, but I asked how you handle it, when there’s too many people to help. She told me you can’t save everyone, and the hardest part of her life- not just her job- was knowing that trying to save some people meant letting a lot of others die- that sometimes to help the most people, she had to decide only to try to save the ones she could. And my family were buried under thirty feet of mud. Even if somehow they hadn’t been crushed in the fall, they weren’t going to have enough air to last the hours it would take me to dig them out.  So I saved the people I could.”

“God…”

“Was not answering prayers that day.”

“I’m so sorry.”  Cassie presses Lorena to her.

“Me, too. I do hope Mera’s right; up there, down here, I’m tired of being alone with this.”

We overlay that last line over the kids all arriving at the camp, as Robin grabs Superboy by the hand, and pulls him away from the rest of the folks into a more secluded part of the main hall. (first, a note: I’m not so much queerbaiting, here, as it might seem; I absolutely do intend to make Robin bi, now that it’s cannon. Superboy isn’t, and while I think making theirs a respectfully unrequited love but still strong friendship might be in the cards, I’m not planning on just completely 180ing away from my prior plans, either). Robin explains that he DNA tested everything at the camp, hoping to get a lead on Deathstroke or Ravager. “Or at least catalog everything Beast Boy humped,” Superboy offers.

“I did learn more about his emissions than I ever cared to; curiously, some of his changes occur down to the genetic level. But I’m telling you, specifically, Conner, because this has to do with you. We’ve known you were cloned by Cadmus scientists at the behest of Amanda Waller while Superman was ‘dead-’”

“Yeah, but they couldn’t get a complete sequence, so they had to patch it up with human DNA, like they used frog DNA in Jurassic Park.”

“Right. Cadmus swore up and down they used DNA from that Rhodes scholar physicist who just barely missed a slot on the US Olympic gymnast team- but no one really believed them. And what we never knew before now was which human they took DNA from. Some of that might be that before recently, until he had a run-in with the Outlaws, we never had a sample of his DNA in the batcomputers.”

“Did you just say batcomputers?”

“Shut up,” Robin says quietly, only mock-defensively, before he gets about as empathetic as we ever see him. “I’m asking you if you want to know who your human ‘father’ essentially, is.”

“You just told me he’s shady. I don’t imagine I can say, ‘No,’ now.” Robin looks wounded, until Conner smiles. “I’m yanking you. Who would say, ‘No?’ You?” Robin shakes his head as he opens up his laptop, then shows Conner his laptop screen. It’s an image of Lex Luthor, with his name in the corner. “No way.”

“Yeah. When the sequence came back, at first I just thought it meant Lex was skulking around. But it was also only a 50% match. Took a while for me to figure out the other half was Kryptonian; it doesn’t just sequence the same way, some of the catalysts are different and… I’ll shut up.”

“No, it’s okay. I missed your blathering, and it was keeping what you told me from knocking me over.”

“Yeah, it’s uh, it’s been a year for surprising revelations.”

“That sounds ominous. You okay? I’m in no position to be helpful if you’re not, but I’m floundering for anything to distract me from… my parentage.”

“Ominous?” Robin asks nervously. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, just maybe surprising. Unexpected. And I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way I do- or anyone, really, but… I want this to be a safe space. And it can’t be if we’re holding things back, keeping secrets. I don’t want to be Batman.”

“Dude, that’s not a secret. No one wants to be Batman. I barely know him, but I doubt even Batman wants to be Batman. Dude is miserable. You’re way too well-adjusted to be Batman.”

“No- thank you, but that’s not the…” Robin trails off as he stares at Conner, who just stares, always a little slow on the uptake.

“There you two are,” Wonder Girl says from the doorway. “Up to no good? There isn’t still bad blood, is there?”

“Under the bridge,” Robin says with a crinkled nose.

“Well come on. Like it or not, we’re all linked to the big 3. People look up to us, for leadership and grooming tips. And to keep Beast Boy’s libido at least somewhat in check.”

“Yeah,” Robin says, “there are definitely some adjustments we need to make to our collective boundaries on that one.”  

They do an orientation thing. I assume it will be dorky, so it’s a good chance to cut away, zooming into a bored Lorena’s head, we zoom out, she’s someplace else, looking riveted. We linger for the moment on the gathered crowd of teen heroes, sitting or standing, listening to someone at the front of the room. In the crowd are: Hawk, Dove, Aquagirl, Speedy (the one recruited in the Outsiders, not Roy Harper), and Miss Martian.

There are burlap sacks they each were escorted in wearing (these are the theatrics he mentions). “I’m sorry for the theatrics. But someone has infiltrated the Titans. I… spoke with Robin, but couldn’t convince him to take precautions. So I have to take them for him. That’s what all of you are: a precaution. Lorena here got herself recruited, she’ll be our eyes on the inside. She can test boundaries, loyalties, push people enough to figure out who’s a danger. I imagine some of you are asking why I need a whole team, and the answer is that I can’t believe there’s been a spy in their midst this long without detection. The only alternative, is that some of them have been turned, possibly even all of them. Push comes to shove, I want to be able to stop the Titans before they can hurt themselves or anyone else. We’re here as friends of the Titans- not foes. But sometimes, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. That’s why, if it comes down to a fight, Hawk will be your field commander. Until that point, Dove will be in control, as we agreed. Dawn, it’s your operation, as of now.”

Dawn Granger, Dove, rises. She’s fairly no-nonsense, essentially having only agreed to be recruited because she wants to pursue a peaceful solution with the Titans first; her and Hawk’s involvement is basically premised upon her getting first bite at that apple. “Thank you, Batman,” she says, and we finally see it, we’re in the Batcave, with Batman standing in front of his batcomputer, with Batgirl standing close by.

We don’t stay for long, but get the idea that Dawn wants to play it subtle, at least to start. She considers the Titans heroes, and so they need to be careful about how they proceed.  

We cut back to the orientation, panning from the bored Lorena to the manic lack of focus of Impulse. He’s daydreaming, for a moment, and we see him flashback to the moment between Superboy and Robin right before Wonder Girl interrupted. I’m thinking, to visualize the idea, we watch Impulse run back into that scene, stare at Robin, staring at Superboy, look at Superboy, and we watch as he, at relatively quick speed, figures out Robin’s crushing. Hard. His mouth drops open, and then he smiles. “Good for him,” he says, before running out of the room.

I’m thinking later in the evening, they’re doing a bonfire as a group. Roasting marshmallows, team-building type of stuff. Robin and Conner are staring at the fire, as Robin’s struggling to tell Conner how he feels, and Impulse just jams them together for a kiss, not really understanding why that’s not okay. Wonder Girl takes them all into the administrator’s office.

She demands to know what’s going on, and Impulse demurs, realizing from her anger that he’s screwed up, and clamming up.

Conner, nervous, makes a joke about her wearing a tight Principal’s outfit. Impulse adds his approval. Cassie basically is trying to push them to be empathetic to Robin coming out, but he kind of splits the difference, “I think that would be a good look for you. And I never said I was gay.”

“The request is denied, and if I hear one more peep about it I’ll have you all in miniskirts before the day is out.”

“Her heart-rate’s steady,” Superboy says.

“She is not bluffing,” Robin says.

“I don’t know if you do want to say anything, Robin. But if you do, you’re with friends.”

“I’ve been struggling with this since we first got back. I don’t think I ever questioned it before. I always liked girls, dated girls, was only really ever into girls. And at first I just thought I was jealous. You know, Conner’s got good hair, that jawline, a physique some men would cripple for, and he could be relaxed, and himself, in situations that terrified me. And I was a bigger dick to him even than my usual, at least until we patched things over. And then I came to respect him. Even admire him. And… I don’t know how to say the next part…”

“Dude,” Superboy says, “just say it.” Because there’s drama to be had, I’d play it ambiguous, like he could be hurt/angry and just wants this awful moment to end.

“I’m attracted to you, Conner, which makes me bisexual.”

“That’s cool,” Conner says with a shrug.

“It is?”

“Dude, I may live in Kansas, but I’m not like from Kansas. I’m from Metropolis.”

“Your cousin’s from Kansas, and I wasn’t at all nervous telling him.”

“You told Cla-ondike Bar Man?”

“Nice save,” Impulse says; he is eating a Klondike Bar, because Conner gave him a hankering.

“And yeah. He was super supportive-”

“It is in the name. But I’m glad. I know he’s, he’s a better me, in every way; at least twice the man I could ever hope to be. And I’m glad you told him first.”

“You’re not,” Robin says, “but it means a lot that you wanted me to tell you first.”

“You’re not going to try to kiss me again, are you?”

“Only if you want me to, and even then, I don’t know. I don’t kiss every pretty girl I meet. There’s more to it, than that.”

“Man, that makes me itchy; like it didn’t matter five minutes ago, but now that I know it’s a possibility, I want you to want me. I don’t think that’s a healthy impulse.”

For a moment they all wait for Impulse to weigh in and he says, “I’m not arguing.”

“I mean, you’re welcome to try if you want, but only if you want,” Robin replies. “I don’t want anything from anyone they can’t give freely.”

“I,” Wonder Girl starts, “have some concerns about Starfire.”

“She does strike me as the jealous type,” Impulse agrees. “And the type of jealous type to start fires when she’s jealous. Wait… is her name a typo?”

“I was more worried about her feelings, though now I’m also concerned about fires.”

“Starfire’s great,” Robin says. “She’s also not really into me.”

“I seem to recall what the K…” Conner stops himself again, “kindly parental figures I have in Kansas would call ‘heavy petting,’ last year.”

“Sure. And we had fun together. But as we talked, it kind of became clear she had more of a thing for Nightwing. And I told her to go for it. Um… I did emphasize waiting until she’d reached the relative physical and emotional maturity of a human adult first, but yeah. I think last year I was just the Robin she could get- not really the Robin she wanted. And maybe that’s changed. Maybe she’s changed, or I have. But I really don’t expect that she’s carrying a torch for me.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Wonder Girl says. “Just be gentle with her. And not just because of the fire thing. But also not entirely excluding the fire thing.”

“She is such a sweet person. The absolute last thing I’d want to do is hurt her. I’ll talk to her. First thing. And if she’s in that kind of a mood, I’ll take my licks.”

“Maybe I should go with him,” Bart says. “For moral support”

“I don’t think you have the morals to support anyone,” Wonder Girl says.

“And he didn’t mean those kind of licks,” Superboy says.

Now, for my money, I kind of like the idea of Starfire having a Robin thing. Like, she originally had a crush on Nightwing, and that’s why she was excited to join the Titans, only to find that the Robin she was going to spend time with was a newer one. But then, also getting to know and like him. What I’m saying is, at least until we can get Nightwing and Starfire in the same movie, I kind of like the idea of having our cake and eating it, too; I’d even likely build out a love triangle, though Tim would likely step aside at that point. He’s too good a detective not to see that given who she is, she doesn’t want to be with Nightwing’s self-serious younger brother- not really– that why they’re perfect for each other is the unbridled joy they share, and that, while of course it hurts, he’s okay with that. “I loved you as deeply and honestly as I could, so I hope it doesn’t hurt when I tell you this: I don’t think you’re the love of my life, but I think he could be the love of yours. And I love you enough that I want that for you.” Given the… events I have planned for Titans 3, I think there’s a pretty easy off-ramp for that, and no, I’m not giving you any hints beyond that, no matter how many boomerang arrows you might shoot at me (I have a no giving into boomerang-based terrorism policy that has never served me wrong).

And to address the elephant in the room: this really isn’t a no-homoing. I’m completely open to getting Robin a boyfriend for the next one, even if I’d personally prefer it be another hero, because I don’t really want to start dealing with the normal partners in one of these- it pulls too much focus from the team (though given the line-up I had in mind… it might be easier to set him up with a shape-shifting telepath who could be both– though I could be down with making Hawk bisexual, too, and assuming we’ll have a love triangle between Hawk, Dove, and Robin- though if we assume the general structure of these stands and only plan to do a trilogy, that may not leave a lot of time for that to play out). But this is all largely a logistical issue; if I’d known earlier on that DC were going to have Tim comes out as bisexual, I might have been able to balance my roster differently, maybe have Aqua Lad (but not Tempest, he’s in the Outsiders orbit) show up to be the beef to Robin’s cake. Those kinds of details are usually fudgeable, long-term, but for whatever reason it feels important to me, as part of the challenge inherent in these pitches, to play it where it lays, essentially.

The Titans are all at the swimming hole, in trunks and suits.

“No powers, but then I’m just ‘boy,” Superboy complains.

“Hey, me, too,” Beast Boy exclaims.

“This sounds an awful lot like Robin trying to even the odds,” Terra snipes.

“We discussed that,” Cassie says, “and Robin agreed to give up his wonderful toys.”

Impulse, elongating the words excruciatingly says, “Eyedondnowhiffffeyekenmoobdadzlohleee.”

“Too bad. Now, I know our powers are part of our identities- who we are, and using them can be unconscious. But the moment you use a power and get called on it, you have to stop. So if you’re flying,” she points at Beast Boy who’s a green bat in the air, “you have to drop.”

“Uh oh,” Beast Boy says, shifting first into himself, then into an elephant and cannonballing into the water.

“If you don’t, you’re out, and your team just has to operate with fewer players. Name of the game is king- or queen– of the hill. Girls start on top of the hill, boys have to try and take it. You can use whatever tactics you want to employ, but no powers. Last man- or woman- standing on the raft wins, and the losers- including anyone ejected from the game- cook dinner.”

I see it playing out a lot like most X-Men sports, that they start with the best of intentions, and fail repeatedly; I think Cassie nominates the first boy and girl out to act as referees for the opposing team- because the more people they catch out, the more spread out the cooking will be. I imagine Beast Boy and Terra get one another out almost immediately goofing around with their powers. I suspect Robin hatches a plan using Impulse as a sacrificial lamb, moving fast enough to make them think that both he and Superboy are using their powers, which gets Cassie, Aquagirl and Raven to go after them- only to find Superboy had been hiding underwater. But then Superboy underestimates Starfire’s prowess, thinking without her flight or fire or strength she’s just a girl he can push off a raft, only she rolls and throws him, and he starts to fly, getting amped enough that he keeps flying even after Cassie tries to get him to stop and she tackles him before he reaches the raft, splashing down in the water, where she tells him he’s out.

Robin manages to sneak up on Starfire, tackling her- but she parries enough that when they go rolling she stays on the raft, and ends up on top. And she’s confused, thinking he didn’t like her anymore, yet he’s responsive, his skin flushed, pupils dilated, skin moist, and his trunks are doing “that thing” again. He tries to play coy, to tell her he thought she was into Nightwing, and she tells him that, after much soul-searching, and much girl-talking, “I have decided there is room in my bank of spanking for two Robins. Spanking is the way humans show one another affection, yes?” He tells her she’s just as beautiful as when they first met- the only difference is he now knows Superboy is beautiful, too.

Starfire is intrigued, because now he is a cute boy who can talk about other cute boys, but will still kiss her like she’s the only Tamaranean on Earth. She kisses him, really passionately

Cassie starts flying, “Yeah, I’m, uh, shutting this down. They win. I don’t want to take the raft back, now. We should go. Give them privacy, or at least make it so I don’t feel like I’m in the audience of the show they’re putting on.” Beast Boy, who is standing at the edge of the raft with his hands over his eyes, splays his fingers to gawk. “Come on,” Cassie continues, yanking Beast Boy by the shoulder, “we’ve got an apparently romantic dinner to cook for them.”

Robin and Starfire meet up at the main hall for dinner. He’s wearing a suit. She’s got on a flattering dress. “I can’t believe they made such a big deal. It was some kissing,” Robin says.

“I’ve heard Conner’s parents refer to some of it as ‘heavy petting.’”

“I’m pretty sure to them that’s anything more erotic than touching hands,” Robin says, but flushes when she takes his.

“Am I petting you too heavily?” she asks gingerly.

“No, it’s, it’s perfect,” he says, and they go inside.

The rest of the Titans have put together quite a spread. “You brought a suit?” Superboy teases Robin.

“I learned from Batman; I prepare for everything.  And I don’t know that your cousin told you, but he packed one for you, too.”

“Um, you went through my stuff?” Conner asks, clearly uncomfortable about the prospect.

“He and I agreed we need to,” Cassie says seriously. “All of our stuff; I went through the girls, he went through the boys. And I went through his and he through mine.“

“You rifled through her ‘stuff?’” Starfire asks. “Is this the kind of thing I’m expected to be jealous over?” Raven purses her lips and shakes her head, “No.”

“Unless she was wearing it when he rifled through it,” Lorena offers, and Cassie shakes her head that that did not happen.

Starfire is relieved, because jealousy really isn’t her speed, and she doesn’t feel she really gets it.

Superboy’s still upset. “I kind of wanted her to deck you. You went through my stuff.”

“I think we’re still being hunted,” Robin says.

“Deathstroke?” Superboy asks.

“Or his employer. He’s a mercenary. We were a contract to him. And maybe we made it costly enough he couldn’t justify the job anymore. But whoever asked him to attack us in the first place, they probably didn’t go away.”

“So Batman, then?”

“Conner,” Cassie says.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Robin says. “But the first thing I learned from Batman was to never start from an assumption. It makes you ignore clues, and try to fit others to your preconceived notions. If we want to catch whoever is coming for us, we needed to be alert. That meant checking for bugs or anything else that might give them an in to hurt us.”

“It also meant playing our cards closer to the vest,” Cyborg says, emerging from one of the side halls. “I’ve been here since before any of you arrived, watching, scanning for signals, trackers, bugs.”

“And you finally ended the longest game of secret hide and seek because you haven’t found anything?” Superboy asks.

“Not exactly,” Cyborg says, opening his palm. He has what looks like a cricket in his palm.

“Aw, he found a friend,” Beast Boy says, transforming into a cricket and leaping into Cyborg’s hand. “Hey, momma,” he says, before it attacks him, making him realize it’s a robotic ‘bug.’ Beast Boy shifts back into a human. Cyborg shifted his hand to form a little cage around the bug, which is docile again.

“She’s territorial with other insects, to keep them from interfering. That was how I found her. I kept finding piles of dismembered insects- her suitors. Once I found her, I could monitor her, listen to what she was transmitting. To keep from letting them know I was onto them, I had to let the broadcasts through. And the broadcasts were encrypted. Some high level, black ops government encryption. Took me forever to break it- until tonight, in fact. That’s when I learned this little bug wasn’t alone. There are thousands in this forest.” He projects a hologram of the campground, with thousands of dots all radiating circles to signify their communication. “Now, I can shut them down the second I want; hit the entire forest with an EMP and they’ll all go dead. I think we should keep them active. I think, now that we know we’re being watched, and how, we can use that to our advantage. And hopefully, between now and then, I’ll be able to take over their swarm of cyber locusts.”

“So then it’s definitely not Batman, right?” Conner asks. “Because then they would definitely be robot bats, right? Or maybe, if he was playing coy, some kind of insect that’s symbiotic with bats, or specifically hunted by them. Right?”

“I’m not convinced,” Robin says. “But it does seem like a very good reason to be careful.”

In the back of the room, Terra stares, worried. She looks a lot more comfortable in the next scene. “So they’ve discovered our surveillance. Seemed like that was a matter of time. But the intel we’ve gathered in the interim is priceless. The money we could get from the Gotham circus crowd just for some insight into Batman’s fight tactics is enough to retire on- though collecting is always a matter of having to dodge corrosive pies and penguin suicide bombers.” Their location looks familiar. I won’t spoil it yet, if you haven’t guessed why. Deathstroke is more familiar with Terra, this time; it goes beyond the familial relationship he pushed in the last movie, to where now he’s clearly stringing her along romantically. All the while, Ravager looks on, uncomfortable. When Terra leaves, she confronts him about it.

“Dad, I watched you gut a teenager for having the audacity to throw a dagger at you. But… this feels wrong. Manipulation is one thing. I’m on board for love-bombing Terra; I like her just fine, and if that makes her more pliant for what we need, that’s serendipity. But you don’t want her. You don’t even like her, not as a person, not as a partner. So using that to manipulate her, it’s dishonest to a much more extreme degree- one that doesn’t even feel necessary; it’s just egregious.”

“I don’t have time for your Elektra bullshit.”

“Ew. Gross. No. My having minimum standards is not the same as being incest-curious, you sick prick. I’m saying why do this? She’s already going along with everything you want. Why toy with her emotions? Why break her heart? Perhaps more critically, why risk alienating an asset that essential and powerful?”

“Because I might need more than this. She’ll betray her friends for me. But would she kill one, if that’s what it took? Would she kill all of them, if there was no other way to fulfill our contract? Kindness is a mercy I can’t afford.”

He storms off, and we linger on her a moment. “That went great, Rose,” she says, clearly hurt. “He’s Deathstroke. I don’t know if he has feelings, so of course he won’t understand why him lying to Terra makes it impossible to trust he isn’t lying to me. God, he’d probably punch me just for wanting to trust him. I just wanted someone to care about me, a dad… I can’t believe I thought it could be him.”

Cyborg matches the bug tech to Luthor patents. Robin consults with Red Hood over a video link, who relates that Luthor leaves his fingerprints on his black market tech; nothing so blatant as LexCorp. insignia- nothing that the authorities would be willing to hassle him over, but stuffed with proprietary, patented LexCorp. tech no one has the expertise to even use- he wants the capes to know he’s the one supplying black market tech- especially weaponry. “It’s his way of saying he’s gunning for us.”

“About that-” Robin starts. Cyborg pantomimes that he’s going to go, and give them privacy.

“Don’t. I’ve already got Nightwing crawling up my ass over it. My choices are mine.”

“Are they, though? I’m really not trying to hassle you. I’m asking the question I would want to ask if what happened to you happened to me. Are your choices your own? Or are they a reaction to an extreme, even unfathomable trauma. Over the course of less than a year you lost your innocence, any belief in a just, rational world, even the ability to trust in a kind, benevolent paternal figure.”

“He was never kind, and unless you’re a Gotham charity clinic, it’s hard to see benevolence in his actions. You do know that ‘Batman’ is a legally accepted reason to collect disability in the state, right?”

“I don’t want to debate. You’ve been through things I can scarcely imagine, and clearly they hurt you, even changed you. I’m not trying to judge you. And I don’t want to insert myself in this any more than you want. But if you want to talk, either to process, or to probe, or just to have someone hear your pain, I’m here for you.”

Red Hood sighs. “I hate that.” Robin asks what. “You and Dick. With Barb, she’s teacher’s pet. That type, they outshine us, and you know it’s because they’re trying to fill a different kind of hole inside them-” he winces- that was not what he meant. “You know what I mean. But you two. I hate that I take after him the most of us. That both of you can be nice. Kind. Caring. That all I seem to have got from the old man is a desire to hurt people so they can’t hurt other people.”

“You don’t have to be anything like him,” Robin says. “You can choose who you want to be. We all struggle with that, with trying to be who we want, instead of defaulting to who we think we are. But there’s a lot more choice than most people think. If you want to be kind. If you want to be nice… just try. And you’ll be nicer, at least. None of us can be Superman but him.”

“Dick could. Given a spit-curl and the ability to fly.”

“Fair. But the rest of us, we get there by trying to be better than we have been. We make the effort. And that, truly, starts with being kinder to ourselves. I know you feel like our broken bat, or at least the family’s black sheep. But to us? You’re just our brother. We want what’s best for you. For you to be happy- whatever that needs to mean for you. And for you to be proud of us.” Robin takes off his mask. “This thing’s heavier because you used to wear it. And that weight makes me cherish it more, makes me take carrying it more seriously.”

“You were always going to be the serious Robin. I’ve seen pictures from your childhood. You were a serious 8-year-old. And I’m both proud and angry. Because you’re a much better Robin than me- than I could have ever been. I wanted it, so badly… but wanting it didn’t make me a good fit. But you are. I was just keeping the tights warm for you.”

“Nah. You just outgrew them. Like Nightwing. You’ve got your life to live, now. Just, make sure you make the space to live it, and not just in between being who everyone else needs you to be. Not Batman, and not any of the other madmen we deal with, either.”

“Okay. You take care, little brother,” Jason says, and cuts the video link.

“Everything Kosher?” Cyborg asks, emerging.

“Copacetic,” Robin says, wiping his eyes and replacing his mask.  

“You know the Arrows?”

“Green, Red, Speedy, any others I’m forgetting…

“They mock the bat ‘family.’ But it’s because they aren’t close. They don’t have what you have, and wish they did.”

“I didn’t know they mock us.”

“Not anywhere you might hear- not with the way Batman teaches you to punch. I heard he flattened a Green Lantern once.”

“No. He was talking hypotheticals- that if the ring protects a user based on their sensing a threat, you could theoretically cold-cock one before he realized it was coming.” It seems like we’re changing the subject, until Cyborg turns to leave. “Thanks. We’ve got problems, like any family, only when one of us screws up people get hurt, or sometimes die. It can make it really hard to see the good, when the bad is so important.”

“Know what you mean. My dad saved my life. He also made me a high-tech Frankenstein. Maybe, if I’d had the chance to process, I could have landed somewhere near ‘complicated.’ But before I could, he sacrificed himself to save the world.”

“I get it. He loved you. But he hurt you. And it’s hard to accept, on an emotional level, that the father who hurt you was the same one who loved you- that he isn’t all good or all bad- just you dad.”

“Something like that, yeah. But I… I didn’t come back to interrupt. It’s the bugs… I cracked the next layer of their encryption. I can see their transmissions, now.” He takes over the screen, and puts up the same map of the camp from earlier. Only this time the ripples are being responded to, and we see ripples, painting an outline of a location. “Given the time between call and response, and the literal thousands of data points a second, I know where they are. And maybe it’s just a relay station, but it’s a solid lead.”

“What time is it?”

“You don’t have a watch?”

“You’re a walking clock. You don’t have the time on your HUD?”

“It’s 2.”

“Is that too late?”

“For normal people, or you?”

“Who here’s normal?”

“I think we go, now, we keep the element of surprise. I’ll brew some coffee, we’ll pour it down our people. Cool?”

“In a pot. In the kitchen.” Cyborg, slightly annoyed at the intimation he’s a coffee pot, stomps off into the kitchen, muttering, “I can’t tell if you get Superboy stupid after 2 AM, or Superboy mean, but I know I don’t like his influence on you.” Robin beats him to the kitchen, “What the f-” he stops himself.

“You know Conner’s not stupid, right? He can think nearly as fast as Impulse. And from what we know of his father he has the potential to be a world-class scientist, but one thinking at the speed of the world’s fastest supercomputer.”

“I wasn’t trying to insult your crush.”

“I’m not defending him because he’s cute. I’m defending him because everyone seems to forget he’s three. He was cloned, and artificially aged. He had the weight of the world thrust on his shoulders by Cadmus and Amanda Waller before his first birthday- and just as quickly the original Superman came back and he became, in the same moment, obsolete and the lesser copy- because Superman is an impossible ideal for the rest of us to strive for. Conner is trying to shoulder a legacy most of us couldn’t budge, all while trying to figure out how to grow up- but in a fraction of the time everyone else gets.”

“Hey,” Cyborg says, touching his shoulder, “we all struggle with our mantles- and with our fathers’ legacies.”

“There are parallels, sure, but this isn’t about you and me. Superman died once. And it could happen again. And if it does, Conner is going to be the greatest hope we have, and as we’ve seen, hope in a world without Superman is a very precious commodity. We need him to grow up, but we also need him to grow up feeling loved, cared for, respected, and nurtured. Imagine a Superman who grew up to be someone like… like Lex Luthor. Feeling entitled, disrespected, angry, motivated by greed and petty jealousy. Superman’s family had a gentler time to raise him, and a lot longer, to build him into the man the rest of us depend on. I know Conner can be that, too, but if he’s going to get there, we all have to help him- we need to, and he needs us to.”

“Okay, man, you’re right. I’m here to be the adult. It’s not cool of me to peck at him. Conner deserves the chance to be his own man, and I need to get the hell out of his way.”

“I’m,” is what Robin gets out, and we can tell he’s struggling to apologize for coming down on him, but I also want to keep Cyborg’s moment going a moment longer, not because he doesn’t want the apology, but because he recognizes he should be the bigger man in the moment. “I know, man, but like I said, I’m the adult.” (I’m not entirely sure how old Cyborg is supposed to be, but I’d aim for as young as possible, that he’s technically in the Justice League, but that he’s barely old enough to drink, and while technically not a teen, he’s only just their senior, so while he feels like he should be a mentor he’s not that much more experienced- mostly because I don’t want there to be a weird age difference, and I want him to be able to pal around more where possible)

“Thanks. I should go start waking people up.” Robin leaves the kitchen, and Conner is there waiting.

“I know that was for my benefit- that you knew I was here.” He scoops Robin up in a hug.

“And if I didn’t?”

“Don’t make it weird.”

“Like this hug?”

“Don’t make the hug weird, now.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the one doing that.” Conner puts him down. Robin’s actually a little shy, in this moment, because he’s really getting mixed signals from Conner. “Just, don’t do anything you don’t mean, okay?”

“What?” Conner asks.

“I felt something in your jeans, something warm, solid, yet yielding. So unless you were carrying a roll of Rolos in your jeans for some reason…”

Conner reaches into his pants pocket; right now I’m amused at the idea his jeans are tight enough that there’s some maneuvering to get it out of his pocket, before he removes a roll of Rolos. He pops one into his mouth, maybe several, because I think this line only gets funnier the more full his mouth is, “And I’m not going to explain myself.” There’s a long, awkward moment, before he asks, mouth still fairly full, “Want a body-warm Rolo?”

“I legitimately don’t know how to respond to that.”

More awkward silence, before Conner says, mouth still full, “Prude.” He finally chews it down and swallows. “But seriously, what you said. I know lots of people are scared of me. Pa-w Paw-”

“I know who your foster family is, and ‘Pa’ died before you were even created.”

“Right. But I’m bad at keeping up the secret identity. This is practice. But he used say, according to his wife, that he didn’t like horses. They’re too strong to be as stupid as they are. And I know a lot of people feel that way about me. That I’m just… irresponsible. That I don’t take anything seriously. And… I don’t always, it’s not a completely unfair criticism. But I- I really am trying to do right by people- to be the kind of man C-ousin, my cousin is. How do you do this? Living two lives.”

“I mean, it helps that my dad is my dad and Batman is Batman. But it’s pretty much that. When my face feels funny because of the mask, I feel like a different person. It’s a persona.”

“You in the mask, or out?”

“Both. They’re both facets of the real me. You ever feel shy, reserved?”

“What?”

“I know that, typically, you’re brash, outgoing, fun, a little disruptive. But there are moments where you feel you should listen, and be serious, right? Like when your cousin introduced you to the rest of the Justice League.”

“Sure. You know about that? I guess… Batman seems like the loose lips kind of guy.”

“He is, typically. But with Kryptonians, he assumes the rest of us need to know the score. If even one of you went rogue…”

“Yeah. And I bet he’s the first target if one of us ever does. He’s already demonstrated a propensity for going after Kryptonians, and he… won, so far as my cousin describes it. So yeah, if anyone mind-controlled any of us or we got Eclipsoed or whatever… yeah. Not surprised he’s got a back-up plan.”

“Back-up plans within back-up plans. I just assume, 1000 years from now, one of Joker’s long-dormant projects will come to life, and some poor ancestor of mine or Dick’s will have nanotech kick in that makes them the Batman of that era. Or something less silly sounding.”

“Should you not be telling me this?”

“Oh, I don’t know anything specific to tell. But… the point is, that day, when you met with the League, you put away class clown Conner, or even class president who’s still one of the guys Conner, and you listened. You wanted them to take you seriously, and you knew proto-Fratboy Conner wasn’t going to cut it.”

“Proto-Fratboy?”

“Harsh. But if the toga fits.”

“Togas always fit. That’s like half the point.” He pauses a moment. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” Robin squeezes thumb and forefinger together to indicate a little bit.

“It’s just that. It’s situational. It’s code-switching. Everyone does it to some extent. You and I, we have to do it a little more dramatically than some.”

“I thought code-switching is a Black thing.” He whispers the word black, but loudly, so it’s basically the same volume as the rest of the sentence.

“You’re really starting to sound like you’re from Kansas.”

“Dude.”

“Code-switching can refer to the ways in which Black people will speak in a more relaxed vernacular amongst racial peers, then try to speak in more racially neutral ways in more mixed groups to avoid the biases usually demonstrated against people using that vernacular.”

“Can you imagine a Black Superman? People would freak out. Imagine if they’d used Steel’s DNA for my human half. That would be crazy.”

“Conner?”

“Right. Focused.”

“I think that’s a lot of what your cousin does. That the kind, outspoken, caring, attentive hero is the real him, and that when he puts on the glasses, that’s when he’s taking a step back, being the reserved version of himself, the one who listens, the one who tries to figure things out before rushing in.”

“So you’re saying it wasn’t an accident he became a reporter?”

“I don’t think it was, no. I think he was trying to figure things out- figure people out, too, figure out how he fit into the world. I think it probably started young. In Kansas. Asking his parents about who he was, and where he came from…” Conner gets quiet.

“I… I think that’s part of why we get along. I didn’t have a childhood. And I get the sense from you that you didn’t, really, either. I mean, I assume he doesn’t keep you locked in the cave during the day doing the Batman equivalent to creepy, cloistered home-schooling, but you sleep, right? And not during the night. I bet you sleep-walk through your classes just like I do. I bet your real life is your night life, and the rest of your life is just the thing you get through to be able to do this.”

“People who think you’re an idiot are idiots.”

“People think I’m an idiot?” he deadpans. After an awkward wait he smiles. “I was hoping having Impulse here would soften that, a little.”

“He’s the best-read idiot you’ve ever met. I don’t know how much he comprehends, but he retains literally everything he’s ever read.”

“Then why did he have to borrow my magazine for so…”

“I think you’ve said too much already. But it sounds like you two have a bond. Or at least have riffled through the same sticky pages more than once. So I’ll let you wake him up.”

“Dude, morning wood…”

“I’m going to just assume that’s the clever nickname you gave him one morning on a not-completely-romantic walk through the wood on a crisp morning.”

“You would assume incorrectly.” There’s another weird moment. “It was dewy that morning.” And we finally cut the scene that never ends. Montage of the domino effect of Titans waking other Titans. It’s dawn by the time they amass in the woods. The Titans are attacked by the team lead by Dawn. Dawn makes one last plea for a peaceful resolution- that if the Titans will give up the spy they’ll stand down. The Titans refuse, because they don’t believe one of their own would betray them, and there’s a big fight, with the interlopers eventually retreating to the makeshift Batcave we saw earlier.

There, the addition of Batman and Batgirl begin to turn the tide, until Robin, no longer convinced Batman’s involved, takes on Deathstroke, who is wearing Batman’s costume. Ravager tries to shoot him in the back, only for Starfire to intervene, and Robin is able to tear back Deathstroke’s mask. That changes things. See, Hawk, who is big into wars, mercenaries, everything of the stripe, recognizes Deathstroke, real name Slade Wilson, and knows for a fact he isn’t Batman- that Wilson was prominently fighting in the Middle East when Batman first started haunting Gotham. He also says Batman’s a pussy. But the big deal is that Dawn’s Titans now know they’ve been had. While they’re all pretty banged up, this makeshift group of all of the Titans square to Deathstroke and Ravager. The music swells, Dawn and Wonder Girl share a look, before Wonder Girl says, “Titans.”

Before she can finish, Deathstroke says, “Now,” and they’re hit from behind by a cave collapse. I think Robin is about to die, that Impulse stops for a moment, and actually says that he could pull Robin out at speed, but probably not without hurting him. That moments like this he really hates being a hero, because it’s going to hurt, but Robin’s his friend, and he heals fast enough to survive it- unless something happens to one of his arteries… in which case he can’t be sure he wouldn’t bleed out in a fraction of a second, and that that’s a really disturbing thought to have right before- he shoves Robin out of the way just as time returns to normal speed and Impulse is bludgeoned into unconsciousness by falling rocks.

Most of the Titans are stuck under rock, not dead, but injured (some of the heavier hitters, like Superboy, Wondergirl and Cyborg are actually resisting her, and keeping the rock from doing permanent damage to any of them. Deathstroke leans on Terra to bring the cave down on the Titans collectively. This is where she breaks Beast Boy’s heart. He pleads with her to stop, tells her that whatever happened with Deathstroke, the Titans are her family, they’ll forgive her, they’ll take her back, they love her. She looks from Deathstroke and Ravager to Beast Boy. She kisses his cheek, and tells him she’s sorry, she got a better offer, stepping aside as a big rock smashes into his head.

This is the point of no return. Terra sees it on the other Titans’ faces, the anguish that she’s betrayed them. “Terra,” Robin says. “Please. Whatever his hold on you, let us help.”

“You are, birdboy,” she says. Terra strolls to Deathstroke, and kisses his cheek, the way she did Beast Boy. “How’d I do?”

“Job’s not done,” Deathstroke says. “Why are they still alive?”

She turns back to the Titans, and a smile crosses her lips. “That’s interesting.” The cave shakes, as Terra rips several Titans out of the rock. Those stronger Titans I mentioned are essentially in a ball, surrounding Aquagirl. She’s an aquakinetic, and has been using both the water content in the rocks and the water in the surrounding area to try to cushion the other Titans. Terra forms rock restraints around the stronger Titans and peels them off Aquagirl. “All this to protect their mole- well, our mole, really.”

“She’s a Titan,” Wonder Girl insists, even as Terra pulls her by the rock restraints to place her on a rack.

“Just like you,” Superboy agrees. He tries to heat vision Deathstroke, but Terra puts rocks in his way, before flinging him out of the cave. But Terra’s unnerved. She expected them to turn on her. She expected their hatred. Their anger. She wasn’t prepared for their anguish… and certainly not for their conviction that, whatever else is going on, she’s still one of them.

Raven was the last of the protective Titan ball. “Tara,” Raven says. “We’re your friends. Whatever’s going on, let us be there for you.”

Terra is breaking, and looks to Deathstroke. She needs a push, one way or the other. She needs Deathstroke’s approval, or for the Titan’s to turn on her. And this is where Deathstroke having his mask torn from him fighting Robin screws him. Because he can’t hide who he is. He can’t hide the fact that he doesn’t care about her, that his approval was always conditional, always manipulative. “Finish the job,” he barks, glaring. 

“Or don’t,” Ravager says. In that moment, I think she’s smarter than Deathstroke, recognizing that what Terra needs in that second is not to be an instrument, but to be a person, to be cared for, and considered. But he can’t see that. All he sees is defiance, and one more bratty girl standing in the way of him finishing this job- and the job, even though it isn’t personal, means more to him than the both of them.

“Get it done, or get out of my way so I can do it.” She tenses, and then releases the Titans. The injured, including most of the newer Titans, limp towards the exit. Raven stays, using her powers to create a stretcher for Impulse, who is messed up. Robin tries to have Raven fly Impulse to safety.

Impulse breaks his wrist so it can heal properly. “Not leaving,” he says, “only another hundred bones to reset.” Raven tells him she can do it faster, but it will hurt. We hear a symphony of cracks, before Impulse lands on the cave floor in a sprinter’s run. You can tell he wants to run at the bad guys and beat them down for the pain they put him through, but he notices his friends, the softness of their stances. They aren’t fighting anymore, not physically. They’re trying to save Terra, and to a one they realize how delicate these next few moments will be, and he drops his fighting stance, too. “Even though you broke a hundred of my bones not five minutes ago, Tara, you’re one of us. Whatever happened, we should go home, and figure out how to make it right.”

You did this,” Deathstroke bellows. He tries to stab Ravager in the back with a blade. She blocks it, and we change angles, to show that on the other side, she stabbed him in similar fashion.

“No,” she sighs bitterly. “All I did was try to help you. You just couldn’t help yourself.” Ravager starts walking away when Deathstroke pulls his sidearm and fires at her. 

Terra steps in the way of the bullet, the only sign of its impact an eruption of blood from her lips. She squares to Deathstroke. “I was aiming for Rose,” he protests.

Terra laughs bitterly, “I can see, now, that I was always in your sights.” A tear slides down her cheek. “You all should go,” she says, to Ravager and the Titans. “The cave is coming down. I was the only thing holding it up, and I can’t any longer.”

Impulse is at her side in a moment. “I’ll stay,” he offers. “I can run you out at the last minute. We can make this okay.”

“Or you can ride on cheetah-back,” Beast Boy offers, “in style.”

“I could give you a piggy-back ride,” Superboy offers.

“The point, Tara,” Wonder Girl says, “is you have a family right here. Some of us might be hurt for a while. But family forgives.”

“You would,” Terra agrees. “I’d just never be able to forgive myself. I can never go back, to who I was before I hurt you. But I did love you. All of you. I just wish I understood that sooner.” She encases them in a rock ball, which is deep enough they struggle to break out of immediately. Terra tells Deathstroke, “We can still run away together. I’m hurt, but I’m tough; and together, it could be a life worth having. If you could put away your plans, your obsessions, your jobs, I know I could make you happy.”

“No,” he says, “you couldn’t.”

“You never really loved me, did you?”

“I don’t know that I ever really loved anyone.”

The rock ball starts to crack and Terra rolls them out of the cave. “I really hoped you wouldn’t say that,” she says sadly, as the cave begins to shake.

We cut to the inside of the rock ball, as they roll, Robin tells them they have to wait until they can stop the ball, or either Impulse or Conner might kill the rest of them trying to break loose- or hit each other on the way- that only one of them should go when they stop. Time slows, as Conner and Impulse look at each other, and Impulse suggests Conner- he’s got the better chance of saving her, since he can fly straight to her, even through the falling rock, but that he’ll be right behind him to help in any way he can. Wonder Girl and Conner link hands and stand at opposite sides of the ball to slow it. As soon as it does Conner bursts through it, with Impulse on his heels. He flies into the mountain as it caves inward. For a moment it’s quiet, before a burst of heat vision carves a hole out, and he flies, showering chunks of rock in his wake.  

“Is she…” Beast Boy can’t finish the words.

“I was too late,” Conner says. “Right before I got to her, the rock crushed her chest, broke her heart. I saw it with x-ray vision,” he’s broken over it. Wonder Girl takes Terra and sets her gently down. 

An instant later, Impulse has stacked a giant pile of rocks- all of the ones from the cave-in. “Deathstroke’s gone. There’s a series of caves that go for miles, and come out in a hundred places. I could keep looking, though.”

“No,” Robin says. “We need you here more.” The other Titans are gathered around Terra’s body, mourning.

Robin’s the ambassador to Deathstroke’s Titans. They’re worried about Terra, and Robin invites them in. “You’re all Titans today.” Dawn tries to revive Terra, but fails, and says she didn’t seem to want to come back. Hawk holds back, because he’s not good with death, and because they brought a present. It’s Ravager.

She’s a little pissy about being dragged along by them. “They didn’t bring me. I found them. Because what I want, what I stupidly followed Deathstroke in a misguided attempt to achieve, is what you have. I never wanted to be a mercenary. I just wanted… to belong somewhere. To matter. To help.”

“I’d like that,” Robin says, “but I’m not sure you’ll like how I answer you.”

We have a funeral. Both teams of Titans are there as Terra is laid to rest under a headstone with her own statue atop it. We don’t linger, instead moving into the T-shaped Titan Tower, where Robin and Ravager are speaking.

“This feels like the opposite of what I wanted.”

“I know. But your dad’s still out there.”

“Really? He probably just squirreled away some high-tech accelerant to make sure he didn’t leave behind a corpse to desecrate.”

“People like Deathstroke are never really gone.”

“Now you just sound paranoid… but it wouldn’t be the first time literally everyone thought he was dead, either.”

“And I want you working with the Titans. But we’re burying a friend down there because of your father, and some among us are going to have a harder time not blaming you.”

“You mean you, right?”

“If not for you helping Deathstroke, would Terra be alive today, instead of in the ground?”

“I- shit. Yeah. Probably. I helped him put off wholesome family vibes, so she didn’t see him for the creepy manipulator he was.”

“Don’t shame-spiral. There’s a reasonable emotional reaction that you bear responsibility. There’s also a reasonable explanation as to why you were equally emotionally available for similar manipulation. Doesn’t absolve you, but it’s an extenuating circumstance- or we wouldn’t be talking now.”

She takes a deep breath. “I’m here to atone. I know I screwed up. And I know belonging is something you earn, and that the price of earning it goes up the more you hurt people.”

“Good. Because I want you to be down there, with us.”

“I know. Next time, I guess, that maybe that will be a wedding, or at least a Bris for Impulse.”

“I’m definitely telling him you talked about his penis.”

“I will definitely kill your whole family.”

“I’m an orphan.”

She pauses a beat. “You’re lying.”

“You’re not sure. And I didn’t mean on some far off day, as a prize for good behavior. Tara was your friend, too. And you tried to save her. Just like we did. You deserve to stand with us today. And eventually, I hope you can stand with us every day.”

Cut to the lobby, as they walk towards the funeral. “What is it with your bat family and taking in strays.”

“Like I said, orphans.”

“I still think you’re lying about that.”

“I still don’t think you’ll ever know for sure,” Robin says with a smile, walking into the sunlight. There’s a slight commotion at Ravager’s arrival, and Robin intervenes. “There is not one person here today who did not try to save Tara Markov, and there is not one person here today who did not care about her. Today, we’re united by grief and by loss. Tara deserves to have all of those who loved her by her side today, as we say goodbye. We all feel some responsibility for her, for how she hurt, and how her hurt was weaponized. I asked all of you here, because I don’t want any of you to have to be alone today, not with your guilt, not with your pain, not with your grief. This is what Terra wanted, a family, so for today, at least, I want us to give her that.” Robin sits. While most of the Titans are on opposing sides, with Deathstroke’s Titans on one side and the originals on the other, Robin sits at the head of the casket, flanked on one side by Ravager and on the other by Aquagirl. Music swells, we pan over their shoulders towards the setting sun over the bay.

Pitchgiving 2020, Part 1: Teen Titans

Okay, I had a lot of fun last year doing the 12 Days of Pitchmas, pitching 12 films set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So this year I’m doing Pitchgiving for movies set in the DC Extended Universe. My plan at the moment is to do one pitch a week for twelve weeks, posted on Friday. Depending on how this goes, I might also do a Pitchmas, too, but given that that’s 3 months from now I’m not making any promises.

The rules are basically:

No sequels to already established movies/teams

No stories I’m already aware of (it’s possible I’ve missed reporting of a thing, but I’m the one holding me accountable for this)- I may pitch a movie that’s only been titled but that I know nothing about (as I did with Blade last year).

Hopefully you have as much fun with this as I do.

Teen Titans

I’m assuming we’d go with an arc featuring Deathstroke as their big-bad, setting up Terra to get recruited in the first one, then betray the team in the second, for a third-part finale. I’d shoot for a combo of the Johns era team, and the classic team (Robin, Beast Boy, Raven, Starfire and Cyborg); for this one probably add in Superboy and Wonder Girl, reserve Impulse and Aquagirl for the sequel, maybe pull in Speedy and Ms. Martian for the third. I think Batman convinces Robin to attend/run a ‘camp’ for young heroes on the West Coast, one part Heroing 101, one part getting them out of their mentors’ hair while they deal with something big and dangerous. Robin is, at first, a controlling, entitled dick, assuming he’s the only one who knows what he’s doing (to be fair, he is the most experienced- though if we keep JL Cyborg that might be a point of contention- which could be fun). His co-leader is Wonder Girl, who runs the women’s side of things. Yeah, this basically starts as a summer camp thing.

“This is dumb,” Robin says, throwing his tights into a suitcase.

“It’s an opportunity,” Batman says. “To build your own community.”

“A redundant web of superhumans independent of yours, in case the Justice League is ever incapacitated.”

Batman smiles, ever so slightly. “It isn’t just that. The work we do is… unique. There aren’t a lot of people who can understand it- or us. Being understood for who and what we are can make the difficult choices we have to make worthwhile.”

“It’s summer camp.”

“It’s a team building exercise.”

“Two problems with that: we aren’t a team, and I’m not a team player.”

“You’re already an excellent partner; being on a team is just being a good partner to multiple people at once.”

“You’d never have made Dick join a team,” he pouts.

“The Titans were Dick’s team. They helped him become a man- it helped him become his own man.”

“So you’re trying to get rid of me.”

“I didn’t want to get rid of Dick.” Batman sighs. “One of the hardest things about being a father is letting your children go. It was hard, with Dick; we fought, a lot, and there’s still a strain there. I hope I’ve learned from it. But you’re always welcome here, and you’re always welcome as a partner. I want you to have the freedom to be the man you choose- whoever that ends up being.”

I think we do similar scenes, at least with the big 3, setting up that Wonder Girl (Cass) is uncertain about taking on a leadership role, since she’s pretty green. Diana reminds her that she trained with the Amazons, so she knows how to support people, build them up, and strengthen them as a group.

Superboy is worried about getting pushed around by Robin as he and Superman fly to San Francisco. “Tim’s, the current one, is the third Robin. Dick was the first.”

“No, I said a.”

“Language.”

“Jerk, then. Why is everyone in Batman’s entourage a jerk? Is that their organizing principal? An overdeveloped jerk gene?”

“Our ‘family’ are lucky, Connor. We were blessed with extraordinary abilities, and the responsibility to use them to help people. Batman’s people… come from tragedy. They’re trying to put the world right, so what happened to them doesn’t happen to anyone else. Sometimes that makes them tightly wound. But they are good people.”

“Is that why you let Batman push you around?”

“There isn’t anyone I couldn’t push around. But you know what takes more strength? Not letting what you can do overtake what you should do. The world is better off when I work with Batman, so I do.”

“He’s still a jerk. I am not ready to deal with all these jerks.”

Cass and Robin meet first. They share an intellectual connection- both type As who are organized and competent and used to carrying others on their shoulders. Connor bumbles in and he’s a bull in their China shop, but he also sparks Cass’s curiosity. I don’t want a full-blown love triangle, but Robin getting miffed at Connor for being the easy heart-throb of the team can spark the larger conflict between them, that Tim doesn’t see him as serious, and Connor sees him as overly serious.

We meet the rest of the campers: Starfire, Raven, Terra and Beast Boy. Starfire is an aloof but passionate weirdo warrior princess from beyond the stars. Raven is a haunted, sardonic witch who likes people more than she’s figured out how to articulate. Terra is a bubbly, girl next door with a smile that melts hearts. Beast Boy is the youngest, or at least the youngest at heart, he’s everybody’s goobery little brother who can’t stop making animal/fart jokes. The dynamics are roughly that Raven is jealous of the easy charisma/fitting in of Cass, and Starfire is both the biggest outcast and the least aware of that fact. Terra’s a bit of a tomboy, and she and Beast Boy get along swimmingly. I think Cyborg is there as support personnel, utilizing his tech to cook their meals. He’s also quasi there to keep an eye on them, too, though his instructions were to let them make their own mistakes. We also meet the camp site, a series of small cabins, and a central meeting hall where they dine. There’s also a lake for them to swim at.

I’d probably play most of the story as a coming of age/campground flick, but as things progress, the place goes from spooky to downright malevolent, with an escalating series of ‘accidents’ that nearly hurt them. Robin narrowly prevents Beast Boy from dying in a freak accident as a support beam collapses, nearly hitting him. The beam doesn’t look tampered with- but the odds that the beam fell when it did, that naturally occurring damage eroded it in just the way it did are infinitesimal. He tells Beast Boy that if they’re under siege, the skill, talent and caution of their attacker rivals Batman’s, which of course makes them immediately assume it’s a test. Robin calls Bruce, who is in the middle of a fight with criminals but doesn’t stop talking (or punching) while denying involvement.

So Tim and Cass set up a trap, maybe revolving around them doing a dance. That gives us a chance to pair our characters off, at least in the short term. Cass asks Connor. Starfire asks Tim. Terra asks Beast Boy. And the set up works, and they end up ensnaring Deathstroke in their trap. He monologs, and the Titans get cocky- only for Rose to shoot Deathstroke loose, and provide covering fire. Connor stands in the path of the gunfire, amused. Tim gets hit. At first Connor is flip, while Starfire rushes to his side. “He’s a bat person. They play 9th degree chess and have armor built into their Underoos.” When he doesn’t hear more, his voice trembles when he glances back, “Right?” Tim’s bleeding.

Connor wants to fly him to a hospital, but Tim says he’ll bleed out if they don’t stabilize him first. Tim barks orders, essentially overseeing his own emergency surgery. Cass uses her lasso to tourniquet the leg. He has Connor use x-ray vision to tell him about the shape of the bullet, which pancaked and continues to slice at his femoral artery. He has Raven clamp down on the artery so he doesn’t pass out, then Beast Boy shrinks down and becomes a small creature to block the artery. Wonder Girl goes in after the bullet with her fingers, and manages to pluck it out. “I need a ride to the hospital.” Superboy steps forward. “Not you.” Wonder Girl picks him up. “We aren’t all bulletproof,” Tim says through bloodied teeth as he strips away his mask. Wonder Girl flies off with Tim.

We cut back to the dark dining hall, where Superboy is standing alone. Cyborg enters.

“I screwed up,” Cyborg admits.

“Really? Cause I’m pretty sure I’m the one who let Robin get shot.”

“Batman asked me to come here. Keep an eye on you kids.”

“Us kids?”

“It was on me to keep you safe.”

“I assume you don’t have kids,” Connor says. “Even normal kids get hurt. Put them in tights and tell them to charge a super villain with a gun and- you weren’t here to keep us safe. You were here to make sure we didn’t get each other killed. And I nearly did.”

“Kind of sounds like we both screwed up,” Cyborg says.

“Yeah,” Connor says. “So what are we going to do to make it right?”

The answer is, they track down Deathstroke, using Cyborg’s sensors and Connors senses. They find the cabin at the lake he was staging his attacks out of, and then track him to a base on the edge of the city. Cyborg wants to charge in, to get some payback. “No,” Connor says. “I screwed up last time by not thinking. We need a plan. And we should get backup.”

Back at the hospital, Robin waits until the nurse is done checking his vitals, then hobbles out of his room. The rest of the Titans are in the waiting room, dressed in their civilian clothes; Terra is missing, but don’t draw attention to it. “You shouldn’t be walking,” Starfire says, moving to support him.

“You don’t honestly think that’s the first time I’ve been shot, do you?”

“I kind of want to shoot him right now,” Connor says, before realizing it’s probably too soon. Pan around the room, everyone else looking horrified. “Uh,” Connor’s flailing.

Stop at Tim, and we linger a moment before he bursts out laughing, and slaps Connor on the back. “I’m actually starting to like you. Now lets get out of here before the cops show up.”

We cut to Deathstroke’s base. Cyborg is there, monitoring, until he’s hit from behind by a chunk of rock. Terra enters. She’s shaken up. Whatever the plan was, watching Robin get shot really messed her up. I think I would tweak the Deathstroke/Terra relationship. She’s desperate for a familial connection. She wants a family, and to feel loved. She gets the former from Deathstroke and Rose, but he’s also essentially grooming her at the same time. To my mind, it’s not because he wants her, personally, but because he knows that he needs his hooks in her deep for the betrayal that is to come. I’m sure even this idea is controversial- even for a villain, and I wouldn’t be surprised if DC balked at getting anywhere close to that topic (I mean, I’m not the one who made Deathstroke a statutory rapist- this is, if anything else, a slight modernization of the concept). But the key takeaway is Rose and Deathstroke love-bomb her to make her feel appreciated and cared for, with just enough withholding to keep her seeking approval.

The Titans arrive, with Cyborg rubbing his head. Terra flees, so as not to ruin her cover, getting out just in time. This fight goes differently, with Deathstroke having set traps specific to the Titans all over his base. The traps whittle down the Titans, until it’s just Robin fighting Deathstroke- which might have been a good fight, if he weren’t recently gunshot. Robin’s losing, trying to buy time and keep Deathstroke talking. Deathstroke claims they’re a job- nothing more. Robin’s horrified that the job might be from Batman, and trying to pull that information out of Deathstroke while losing… he doesn’t get confirmation. But he does buy enough time for his team to rally, and take Deathstroke down. At the last minute Rose arrives with a helicopter, dropping a ladder for Deathstroke.

“Flip a coin for who gets to rip it out of the sky?” Superboy asks Cass. The chopper fires a volley of missiles across the bay at San Francisco.

“Shoot them down,” Robin barks, and anyone capable of firing (Cyborg, Starfire, Raven) shoot down as many as they can. It’s not enough. “Flyers!” he yells. Everyone takes flight, with Starfire looping back and picking up Robin. She drops him on a missile that he disables and flips off of, and she catches him after destroying a missile herself. The rest take out missiles, too.

They meet atop a giant T shaped tower. “Deathstroke?” Robin asks. Cyborg scans, Superboy too.

“Must be some high end tech if we can’t find it.”

“Yeah,” Robin says, his eyes narrowing.

Cut to an underground base. Deathstroke is having a video call with Lex Luthor. “And he thinks it was Batman?”

Deathstroke is a little worse for wear, maybe in a sling. “The seed was there without my having to plant it. All I did was give it space to grow.”

Back to the rooftop, Terra lands behind them. “Where were you?” Robin asks, coldly, even for him.

“Sorry,” she says. “Seeing you get shot, I needed to clear my head. I went for a run. Then I saw the fighting,” she drops the remains of a missile, smashed between a pair of rocks, “so I came to help.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Beast Boy says, nuzzling her. “Yeah,” Robin says, as we zoom in on his face, clearly suspicious, “me, too.”