Titans Tower

Once upon a time, Garfield Logan had lived in many places.

He had lived at the research station in the Congo, where the mornings were loud with birds and the evenings smelled like river water and his mother's cooking. He had lived at Caulder Manor, that big crooked house with the high ceilings and the portraits that watched you down the long corridors with patient, painted eyes. He had lived in guest rooms and temporary quarters and the particular impermanence of being between things.

And then there was Titans Tower.

It stood on a rocky island in Jump City Bay — T-shaped, gleaming, turning amber and rose with the evening sunset. At night its windows were lit and warm, and from the Jump City waterfront it looked like a lighthouse. Or something better than a lighthouse. A lighthouse said: danger is near. The Tower said: come home.

His room was on the fourth floor, east-facing. It was not, he was the first to admit, a tidy room. Robin's room was reportedly immaculate. Raven's had exactly the right number of objects in exactly the right places. Garfield's room had layers on the desk, snack wrappers among the comic books, posters on every wall — bands he liked, animals he admired, a large illustration of the African savanna he had torn from a magazine and taped above the mirror. A mug used for tea so many times it no longer really came clean. A sock situation he had decided not to address.

But on one shelf — the high one above the desk, where the morning light hit it first — his mother's field guides stood in a neat row, organized by continent. Africa. South America. Australia. Antarctica. Europe. Asia. The Arctic. He had read each one many times, and they were exactly where they were supposed to be, always, the one orderly thing in an otherwise magnificent mess.

The common room was where the Tower felt most like itself. The wraparound couch had developed permanent indentations over years of use, each one corresponding to where a Titan usually sat. Garfield's was in the middle. Robin's corner was neat. Raven's was near the lamp. Starfire's was by the window. Cyborg's was the wide end.

This was where the films were watched — Beast Boy chose them most often, and Raven occasionally, if rarely, was caught laughing before she could compose her face. This was where the breakfast arguments happened. Cyborg believed in protein. Garfield believed in cereal. The argument had been going on since their first week and showed no sign of being resolved, which was fine, because it was not really about cereal. It was about two friends having the same conversation every morning.

The training room was where Garfield had grown the most. Not just in new forms — Robin ran drills that had nothing to do with transformation. Reaction time, coordination with teammates, reading a chaotic situation for the leverage point instead of just the biggest target. He had learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, that the right move was not always the loudest one. He and Cyborg had a long-running obstacle course competition — the score approximately equal, neither of them willing to say so.

The Tower's computer system — Cyborg's precise creation — tracked all active threats in and around Jump City. Garfield checked it every morning, a habit he had absorbed from Robin, who checked it approximately every four minutes.

At night, when missions were done and the city quieted, Garfield often ended up alone on the common room couch. A green boy in a big room full of windows, watching Jump City's lights reflected in the bay. The city was never fully dark. There was always something lit, always something moving.

He liked that. He liked knowing the city was out there, still going, still needing the people in this Tower to show up for it tomorrow.

He liked being one of those people.

He would sit there until the city quieted and his eyes got heavy. Then he would go to bed, and in the morning he would check the threat board and eat his cereal and argue with Cyborg about breakfast, and it would be exactly right.

It was always exactly right.

Five people who came home to the same Tower, the same couch, the same conversation about cereal.

That was what home was.