Things hadn't been going his way lately, not in his professional life and certainly not in his personal life either. His life was feeling like a series of unfortunate events, a series that felt as if it would never end.

He knew that he was the weak link in the Titans chain. It seemed that in every mission during the past few months he needed to be bailed out of a situation of his own doing. There was the time the tunnel he was digging caved in on him and Starfire had to work furiously to quickly dig him out. Then there was a time that Merlin the villainous archer almost shot him, and it was only because Robin knocked him down as the deadly arrow whizzed by that he was still alive. There were many other incidents where one or more of his teammates had to step in and save his life, while he seemed unable to return the favor to his ever competent teammates. At first Beast Boy joked about bad luck, but the trend didn't lie: he wasn't keeping up with his friends and felt that he was becoming a liability to them. Everything he touched turned into you know what.

The sun was setting and its warm rays reflected off the bay while the changeling pondered what was happening to him as he sat on the Tower's rooftop ledge. Usually this would have a therapeutic effect on him and wash away his worries and stress, but not today.

And it wasn't just his super hero life that seemed to have become an endless disaster. His dating life was non-existent. The few times he managed to convince a girl to go out with him invariably did not end well. Oh, the girls were polite, but after the first date they would ghost him, and not answer his calls. He tired of having girls laugh at him when he asked them to go out with him. He even resorted to dating apps and his luck was no better. He rarely got responses, and on the rare times he did, the girls would ask if Robin was available. And not once did a lady initiate contact.

He sighed as he stared across the bay toward Jump's downtown area, where he would take his rare dates. He hadn't been out on one in over six months. Apparently, chicks didn't dig the ears after all. And though Robin was dating Starfire he was constantly approached in public by fan girls, who would do anything to date the Boy Wonder and some would even shove business cards with their contact information into his hands. Even chrome dome was far more successful than he was with the ladies and had a steady blond bombshell of a girlfriend named Sara Simms.

Nevertheless, there had been two positive events in the last two months. The first one was Robin discovered that Beast Boy had relatives who thought he died in the waterfall accident. A reunion was scheduled and they seemed genuinely happy to meet him, but he could tell that he seemed … well … odd to them. How many people have a nephew or a cousin who's green, has fangs and pointed ears, can morph into animals and is a Teen Titan? Sure, they thought it was cool at first that he was a superhero, but then the novelty wore off and it became obvious that he was just a green oddball to them. Still, they were kin and they stayed in touch. He often wondered what it would be like to be just an ordinary guy who didn't carry the weight of Jump City, if not the whole world, on his shoulders.

The other event was one that he initially shrugged off: a cure had been discovered for the dreaded Sakutia virus. Not a serum like the one his parents created that pressed the virus into a stalemate, but a way to actually kill the virus in one's body and return to full and normal health.

Gar was nervously twirling a vial the size of a test tube in his hands. Its contents were a deep blue. He had procured it in secret just the week before. At first he wasn't even sure why he obtained it, he just did.

The mission earlier in the day had been an unmitigated disaster. What should have been the most routine of missions was turned in a botched mess, because of another blunder of his, some bank robbers managed to escape. Upon returning to the Tower Robin took him to his office and read him the riot act, warning him that until he got his act together he would be benched and subject to extra training and couldn't return to active duty until Robin deemed he was ready. And to add insult to injury Wally was going to back fill for him.

That was two hours ago and it was now dinner time, though he had no appetite. Robin was no doubt announcing Beast Boy's new status to the team. While being demoted to trainee was humiliating, he couldn't disagree with it.

He raised the vial to his eyes and looked at it. He tapped it and swirls formed in the blue emulsion. He slowly nodded to himself as he removed the rubber stopper from it and raised the vial to his lips. To his immense surprise a gray hand appeared out of nowhere and grabbed his wrist, pulling the vial away from his mouth.

"What do you think you're doing?" She asked as snatched the vial from him.

"What do you think? Now give that back to me."

She picked up the rubber stopper and plugged the container with it.

"This is the Sakutia cure, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is. Now give it back to me,"

She frowned at him. "You do understand that if you drink this that you will lose your powers, forever."

"My powers are lame."

"I disagree … Beast Boy, why are you doing this? I know you've been in a slump lately, but it happens to everyone."

"It happens more to me than others ... Raven, I'm tired of being a freak and a loser superhero. I just want to be normal and now I can."

She clutched the vial tightly in her hand.

"What are you talking about? You are normal."

He stared at the bay and sighed before turning to face her.

"Look, I know you're trying to cheer me up, and I appreciate it. Now would you please give it back to me?" He said as he extended his hand.

"You can't be serious about throwing your life away like this."

"You make it sound like I'm committing suicide."

She sat down next to him on the ledge. Sharp rocks were hundreds of feet below and the waves crashed into them while their feet dangled into the void.

"In a way you would be committing suicide. Sure, Garfield Logan is who you are, but you're also Beast Boy. You can't separate the two, you wouldn't be complete anymore."

"I won't miss him. No one will."

"Gar, if Beast Boy 'dies', I know I will miss him. Think about it, won't you miss being able to morph into a bird and flying, or becoming any animal you desire?'

He frowned. "Maybe I will miss that. But I have to leave all that behind to start over."

"Why do you want to start over?"

"Well, this might be news to you, but Robin just demoted me. I'm not a Titan anymore and I can't go on missions again until I shape up, which will probably be never. I need to move forward, and that means starting over as plain old Gar Logan, normal, ordinary guy. No pointy ears, no fangs and no green skin."

This time Raven sighed. "Yes, I know, he told us just before dinner. For the record, I disagreed with him and told him he was making a mistake."

The green lad perked up. "Really? Did he change his mind?"

"No, he didn't."

Gar's ears drooped.

"So I told him that he would have to demote me too."

"You really did that? So did he change his mind?"

"No, he didn't. He thought I was bluffing. I wasn't. So now I'm also off superhero duty and … get this … I'm being back filled by Jinx. I left the table in disgust and didn't eat my dinner."

"WHAT!? That has to be a joke. Rob is replacing you with Jinx? Is he nuts? Why, just because she's Wally's screwball girlfriend?"

"You know our fearless leader, he can be stubborn and won't back down."

The changeling looked completely blown away. He shook his head in dismay.

"Why did you do that? Now you can't go on missions and you're gonna have to get up at 5 AM every day for the stupid extra training."

Raven suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

"It's complicated."

"Huh?"

"I don't know how to explain this with words ..."

Raven hesitated, then quickly leaned over and gave him a very quick and chaste kiss on the lips. She pulled away immediately, blushing intensely.

"You kissed me!"

She nodded as she looked away. Her blush got even redder.

"You kissed me!" He repeated.

She inhaled deeply before looking back at him.

"I've been wanting to do that for a very long time. I apologize, Garfield, it was uncalled for, to just kiss you without aski ..."

Gar placed his palm behind her head and pulled her in to another quick furtive kiss. They then both pulled back and looked at each other.

"I … uh … also wanted to do that for a long time." He hemmed and hawed as he too blushed.

The roof top door opened and Robin walked out of it and approached his friends. He looked troubled.

"OK, maybe I got carried away with this demotion business, how about a compromise?" Robin asked in a very diplomatic tone as he made a conciliatory gesture with his gloved hands.

"What do you have in mind?" She asked in her flattest deadpan,

Robin looked at the changeling. "Here's my deal: Beast Boy, you won't get demoted, so you can still come on missions; but you still have to do the extra training for three months."

Raven looked at her green sweetheart. "What do you think?"

"I think I still want to be Beast Boy." He beamed at her.

"Good choice." She replied as one of her tiny smiles made its appearance.

Robin noticed the vial in her hand. "Raven, what is that?"

She opened her hand, exposing the vial. "This? It's nothing special, just something for making a potion."

"A potion, what kind of potion?"

Raven and Gar locked eyes. He smiled and pulled her into a kiss. Robin's jaw almost hit the floor.

"A love potion." Gar joked between smooches. "Hey mama, how about we go out and get some dinner?"

"Sounds good to me." She said as she raised her arms while they were still kissing and teleported them away via one of her humming, dark energy hemispheres.

Robin stared at the spot where they were a moment before.

"A LOVE POTION!?"

The End