Tower Of Heroes

Are you comfortable? Good. Pull the blanket up a little, and let me tell you about the day five young heroes found each other.

It started with a letter.

Dick Grayson was eighteen and had been fighting crime alone in Jump City, California, ever since he stepped out from under Batman's shadow and decided to be his own kind of hero. He called himself Robin. He was fast and clever and he never gave up. But one rainy night, a masked man named Slade had led him through a maze of warehouses and almost caught him — and Robin sat on his rooftop afterward and thought: I can't do this alone. Not forever.

So he did something brave. He asked for help.

He wrote four letters. Not emails. Real letters, on real paper, with real words that said: Jump City needs more than one hero. I think that could be us. Meet me at the harbor on Tuesday.

And on Tuesday morning, they came.

Koriand'r arrived first, and she came from the sky. She was a princess from a planet called Tamaran, far beyond our solar system, and she could fly and throw golden bolts of energy called starbolts. She had traveled a very long way to be on Earth, and she was curious about absolutely everything. Her real name was difficult for humans to say quickly, so she had given herself an Earth name: Starfire. She landed on the dock beside Robin, grinning so wide it could have powered a lighthouse, and she shook his hand so hard he stumbled backward. "On Tamaran," she explained cheerfully, "a strong handshake means you are glad to meet someone." Robin rubbed his hand and told her he was very glad to meet her too.

Victor Stone arrived next, and you could hear him coming — not because he was loud, but because the wooden dock creaked a little under his weight. Victor had been in a terrible accident that had hurt him badly, and his father had saved his life by replacing the damaged parts of his body with some of the most advanced technology ever built. Victor's right arm was a sonic cannon. His eye could zoom in on things a mile away. Steel plates covered half his chest. He was half human and half machine, and he called himself Cyborg. He crossed his arms, looked out at the tower on the island, and said nothing for a long moment. Then: "I'm in." That was enough.

Raven came without a sound. She simply appeared at the edge of the group, her dark blue cloak settled around her shoulders, her eyes quiet and watchful. She was an empath, which meant she could sense what other people were feeling — every flicker of nervousness, every spark of excitement. She kept her own feelings wrapped up carefully, like something fragile she was protecting. She did not smile. She did not frown. She said, "Let's get this over with," and Robin understood that what she meant was: I came, didn't I?

Beast Boy was last, and he came in as a pelican — a large green pelican, which is not something you see every day at a California harbor. He circled overhead twice, spotted the group, and folded his wings to land. The landing was enthusiastic and a little sideways. He turned back into a green-skinned teenage boy, adjusted his purple-and-black suit, and said, "I did that on purpose." Garfield Logan was a shapeshifter who could become any animal he had ever seen. He used this power mostly to make people laugh, and sometimes it even worked.

So there they were. Five of them, standing together on the dock in the warm morning sun, looking at the island in Jump City harbor and the tall steel tower that rose from it — shaped like a letter T, as if it had been waiting for them all along.

"Titans Tower," Robin said quietly. "That's our home now."

Starfire clasped her hands together with delight. Cyborg gave the tower a slow, approving nod. Raven studied it carefully. Beast Boy asked if there was a pizza oven inside.

There was.

They didn't know yet how much they would need each other. They didn't know about the battles still ahead, the villains who would test them, the moments when everything would feel impossible. They didn't know that they were about to become something much more than a team.

They were about to become a family.

But for now, the tower was waiting, the city was below them, and five young heroes walked across the bridge together for the very first time.

Sweet dreams, little hero. Chosen families always start with someone brave enough to ask.