The Identity

Sunnyside Down


"The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose."
- Richard R. Grant


Summary: One month. Two bets; the first lost by an unwilling participant, the second will later spur a hero war that was years in the making. In the middle of the chaos are the Titans, the creators of the second bet, as they blur the lines between virtue and sin in a desperate attempt to take their leader back from Slade with the little information they have been given: his identity.
Rating: Teen (mild language; heavy violence; physical abuse/torture; suicide and homicide; dark themes).
Disclaimer: The Teen Titans; Slade/Deathstroke and William Wintergreen; the Justice League (including Superman, Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Batman, and Aquaman); other Justice League members including (but not limited to) Oracle, Zatanna, the Vixen, the Black Canary, and Zauriel; and Batman's arch-foes including (but not limited to) the Joker, the Riddler, Two-Face, Catwoman, and the Penguin and all of their respective environments and circumstances are copyrighted by D.C. Comics. Spiderman and the X-Men and their respective environments and circumstances are copyrighted by Marvel Comics. The concept of Cooms, Snarkel, Pollick, and the Jump City Dandy Dogs; K'baazh; Luke'sa and Juveil; and other minor characters belong to Sunnyside Down. Some mechanics in this universe conflict too closely with copyrighted material to be considered the author, such as the pasts of Robin's parents. Some major plot points may conflict with the D.C. and Marvel canon storylines. The basic concept of The Identity has been used in several other fan-fiction arcs (such as Robin yet again being kidnapped by Slade), but any uncited passages or closely aligning complex story-arcs will be reported and it will be requested that the offender's account be terminated.

All comments, questions, and regards can be sent through a review. Both signed and anonymous reviews are accepted. All questions will be answered through PM and all questions are welcome.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy The Identity.


Chapter 1

"A few observations and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning lead to truth."
- Alexis Carrel


Raven of Azarath was a natural observer. She never found herself to be particularly curious. It was when there was a malfunction that she had the sudden motivation to take a much-needed second look.

She was the most perspective of the team. Instead of rushing headlong into a situation like Robin; ignoring the undertones much like Cyborg; or simply disregarding most things like Starfire and Beast Boy, Raven strived to know her enemies – a stroke deadly, ghastly but essential in completing the portrait. Slade had been no different. His long-term presence in Jump City allowed her to know more about him than any other.

Instead of simply disliking him, however, she hated him.

She despised the way his name formed around his lips the first time she uttered it; his first appearance drew suspicions from dust. She could not doubt his skill. She admired it. The Titans had needed a challenge, a spot he dominated for nearly a year. Something – small, almost insignificant at first – struck a chill in the air and hunted rabid butterflies with the mention of his name. Not fright, not even that of awe; instead, knowing.

Slade did not talk to Robin – he purred.

Only she noticed.

His motives were taken literally by the other Titans, but he set plans into motion just to see Robin. Nothing more, especially nothing less.

Raven hated it.

It might have been a game at first. Her observations then proved Slade's goal had been to toy with their minds. Misleading the leader was basic villainy, an obvious tactic; but his purpose became more apparent as time passed. As orange and black robots mixed into salty air and stretching black abyss, Raven overheard Slade mutter something so smoothly, possessively it scared her:

"I want you."

She scarcely left Robin's side for the next week and a half.

The inevitable happened. Hair caked in sewage waste and temper flaring, she had left Robin alone so she and the others could deactivate a dud. Guilt inflicted ten thousand nettles in her skull each time she tried to think; their first encounter with Robin in orange and black made invisible swords pierce her heart. Over the course of a month, Beast Boy's elaborate plots of brainwashing, zombies, and clones stumbled upon deaf ears, forcing him to find comfort in dogs and birds; Cyborg's lost faith in their leader developed into hatred towards the Titans, a transformation that later nearly had Beast Boy killed; and Starfire swept into a chamber of confusion and depression, flinging her towards returning home – all while Raven flipped through unread book by unread book, muttering silly words in hopes of contacting Robin on mental planes.

Slade's advantage over Robin was them, a revelation that inevitably drew them back together. Following the trail of dog howls and flapping wings was the first joint effort the team had done in weeks, and blasting into Slade's lair sent sparkles of newfound hope into their hearts.

As they slowly walked home beneath the city lights, Raven appreciated the smell of the ocean for the first time.

The event lingered then dissipated into other events. Slade reappeared several months later and brought hell with him. Terra fell in and out of their lives – as most things did, as Slade did. He burned in a mixture of lava and betrayal.

Trigon swept him back into their lives, his worst appearance yet. Robin's obsession intensified.

Raven tried to speak of her suspicions. The words formed on her lips, sentences slipped into place, evidence built a steady ground, but she never followed through. The attention she needed was hard to grab – the call of duty interrupted many personal strives.

Only once had she gotten something out to Cyborg. The ocean air tickled her nostrils, noticed for the first time, as the Team walked scattered across blacktop. With a hand clamped on her shoulder, he confidently said, "If something was wrong, Robin would tell us."

Robin would never tell. He was never meant for a team.

Raven once gathered the guts to question him but only met a blank stare. Then his nose crunched as his eyes narrowed almost menacingly, his lip thinning into a scowl. A theft on 72nd Street dropped the conversation for her.

Tonight changed things. As the sun dove slowly into the ocean's horizon and the city lights flickered unenthusiastically to life, the Titans huddled uneasily in the main room, indirectly contemplating the subject Raven had tried discussing for nearly a year.

After a confrontation with Slade earlier that afternoon, Robin had gone missing.

"We fell for it again!" Beast Boy cried, smacking his head several times against the extended couch. His eyes were directed towards the others bunched worriedly to his side as he fiddled with his hands. "If this was the first time," he licked his lips nervously, then nearly bared his canines, "that would understandable, but this is the second frickin' time. Whatever happened to," (he transformed into a gorilla – his best impersonation of Cyborg), "'We're going to have to keep a better eye on him'?"

Cyborg was not amused. "His robots were too much, alright? I had to take an eye off 'im for one second to keep us alive. What the hell were you doin'? Last time I checked, this was a joint effort!"

"Please, friends," Starfire said, "we have not the time to fight. Robin is in danger."

Raven sunk into the couch as she closed her eyes lightly in a fruitless attempt to relieve her headache. "She's right. Nothing is going to change that Robin is gone. The question is what are we going to do about it?"

"We're a step ahead this time," Cyborg said, lifting himself heavily onto his feet, the wood floors creaking under his weight. "Slade has to use us again – we're the only thing he's got." He stepped cautiously forward, as if the floor was a touch-activated trap. "We have to find the threat and get rid of it before he gets rid of us… no pressure, though."

Raven shrugged, rubbing his temples slowly. Every word formed another nettle. "We don't even know if he wants him as an apprentice anymore."

A silence stuffed the room. She half-expected Beast Boy to lecture on how optimism helped in times such as this, but his fidgeting only grew worse.

"We…" Cyborg said. "… need to search everything. Bodies, rooms, storage – everything. We find Slade's leverage tonight."

They searched into the evening, into night, through blood, rooms, and intelligent designs. Cyborg led the operation, scanning rooms for explosives and bodies for smaller threats; Beast Boy scurried through rafters, vents, and ocean floors; Starfire discarded any food and all the planets; and though Raven offered her help, she lost faith in the whole expedition during the first thirty minutes.

Slade prided himself with originality. Even if he had reintroduced Robin into a forced apprenticeship, he would take different measures to do so; more drastic ones.

Quietly, thoughtfully, Raven pushed herself into a room of orange and black pictures on articles and an empty bed, the last place to check. It almost seemed sacred, eerie as the door swung shut from window's breeze. The impact rattled dust off the walls. Grey eyes stared through her from cluttered desk, floors, and walls and through clippings clumped together.

She situated herself on worn carpet and beckoned a box of papers near. It overflowed with thinning blueprints. "Pointless," she muttered but idly flipped through them despite. Recent prints were discovered and a weird habit took hold. Robin had created escape routes from every room - bathrooms, office spaces, even utility closets. He never showed fear, but the pages did.

"Something was wrong," she mumbled. She flipped quickly through the remainder of the stack, her eyes concentrating on thousands of solid yellow marks. "Something is wrong."

She shoved the blueprints into the decaying box, pulled two others towards her, and continued her search more intensely, but the search was in vain. The one other time she had ventured into Robin's room, she had noted how neat it was. No misplaced paper or object and a perfectly made bed, almost to the point of compulsion. Papers now littered the room, crawling from overstuffed boxes and seeping from a cluttered desk. Robin's sheets had not been washed for months.

It was as though he was desperate.

"There's no major threat to the city," a voice said. Raven glanced over her shoulder to find Cyborg leaning weary in the doorway. He shuffled into the room, heaving a halfhearted sigh. "I almost wish there was." He clicked his tongue. "Found anything?"

"No." She continued to flip through newspapers. Evidence was too rocky for the blueprints. She soon lost interest in the articles. Any crime Slade committed had unlikely correlations. 'Other than getting closer to Robin,' she thought. A flicker of black crossed her mind. She concentrated on empty walls to calm herself, but her eyes were drawn towards orange and black photos.

She examined each, her eyes trailing carefully across his walls. Mask after mask, headline after headline. An abnormality lied amongst the chaos, nestled unevenly between clippings of decent successes. She dropped the papers and drifted to the wall.

A dent embedded itself lightly into tan, the slightest hint of dark orange playing on its surface. Raven lifted a fingernail and scrapped a few flakes. They fell silently, like dust, onto carpet grain.

"Cyborg," she said. "Get Beast Boy."

He hesitated, his lips quirking downwards, but discarded his current clipping to grab his communicator. "Beast Boy, met me in Robin's room." He snapped the lid before receiving a reply. "What's wrong?"

She did not hear him. The paint grew brighter as she stared, guilt tearing through her chest, drowning out fear and confusion. Metal shoes clunked against floorboards as Cyborg approached the wall. "You've gotta be… shit!" He swung around, boot ripping the brim of the carpet, and stomped a few steps across the room before returning for a second look. "Only sound coming from here for months was Robin muttering to himself. Why didn't my cameras catch him? I should've known!"

Tearing her eyes from the wall, Raven floated silently to the open window, blinds crusted in solid dust and orange flakes. Her stomach chocked on acid butterflies.

Just as the urge to leave gripped her, she sensed Beast Boy shuffling diffidently down the hallway. Regret, fear, knowing, anger. In a moment less than a flutter of a blink, her mind eye revealed Robin huddled over cluttered desk, tracing exits on torn blueprints as Beast Boy, a wolf, slept restlessly just beyond the door while the moon crossed a city-lit night.

Ears dipped, he stood in the doorway, staring into the room as though it was not a room at all but a cell. "Whatcha need?" he said slowly. Two flinches, both attempts to enter the room, and then a step onto worn carpet. His nose immediately clenched, his eyes narrowed, and he drew an arm to protect his nostrils.

"He was here, wasn't he?" Raven said. She felt cornered suddenly, naked.

Cyborg was skeptical, perhaps ignorant. "Slade's in an armored suit. You can barely get a scent from that."

"We invaded his lair, dude, remember? The place frickin' stunk." He sneezed, drops of salvia wetting his lowered arm, but the limb was immediately replaced between lip and nose. He scuffled back, a silent plea to remove himself from judging grey eyes, but he never received a positive reply.

"When…" Cyborg said, his lips curled in an annoyed scowl, "… do you think he was here last?"

Beast Boy shook his head, licking chapped lips. "… two, three days," he said hoarsely. "Could'a been a 'bot."

Black lightning reigned violently behind closed eyes. Meditation on the foot of the un-kept bed calmed the storm. But as Cyborg paced from wall to wall, muttering a string of curses, and Beast Boy failed in another attempt to remove himself from the room, another image grasped Raven's imagination. Dark orange and dull silver in a sea of black silk. Her eyes flung open and she hastily flipped, overturning silk sheets. Stuffed under his pillow lied an orange and black communicator. She handled it tentatively and placed it lightly in her palms. Slade's symbol gleamed dully with the half-dead overhead light. Paint chipped, flakes blending into silk, as she tightened her grasp and the lid creaked upon release.

A recorded transmission of Slade, green, translucent. The image skipped and delayed. A grave moment of silence, then Slade's voice (hideous, smooth, purring) slipped statically into attention. "Hello, my dear Robin. I sincerely hope you are… enjoying your vacation with your friends. I'm afraid but very delighted, however, to announce that it will all soon be coming to an end." A brief chuckle. "Now, now, no need for such a temper. I have a proposition for you – a bet, if you will. Unfortunately for you, dear bird, you have no choice in the matter… but you're a smart boy. You already knew that."

Cyborg and Beast Boy leaned over her shoulders, their decreased breathing battering her pale cheeks.

"It goes something like this: it lies on the plane and mystery that is an identity. With all those documents on my successes, you must have gotten somewhere on mine, and I am making progress with yours. Whoever finds the other's identity wins."

A thoughtful pause. "But that's really no fun. Not without stakes. And the stake, dear boy, is you. You will return to my side upon my victory, and I shall rid you of my presence upon yours. There are boundaries, of course. What would a bet be without them? None of your… silly friends are to hear of this – if they do, I automatically win. And no Batman – we don't want this to get messy, do we? I, on the other hand, vow not to torture any of the mention peoples for information… a fair trade, I believe.

"There is no time limit; terminated only by death, something neither of us will be experiencing soon, I'm sure.

"If I were you, I would be fretting – it's your life, my little bird." No mask could hide his tooth-filled grin. "Time's ticking." The communicator snapped shut automatically; the faint sound of the manual clock echoed through the air.

A stuffed silence, left for dead under the setting sun. Starfire, standing awkwardly against the doorframe, popped it. "Friends…" she said, slightly dazed, "… what has happened to our Robin?"

"He lost," Raven said. Slade's coat-of-arms attracted her stare. "Robin lost the bet."


Dinner did not exist that night. The clock struck ten as the Titans sat motionless around the pristine table. The steaks – four real, one tofu – marinated for the team's twenty-sixth-month anniversary rotted, uncooked, in the sink. The arraying lights of the muted news illuminated their faces.

Upon hearing the bet, Cyborg attempted to break out of tower and into Slade's old lair; Beast Boy exerted too much joy slamming the mechanic into kitchen walls. Starfire ended the conflict with sobbing words, leading to a silence which stung.

Cool wind from opened windows bristled, bringing unnoticed goose bumps. A click as Starfire's fingernail chipped on metal as she timidly twirled her hair. The television lights highlighted the lead chair, desolate.

As though silence recoiled and snapped viciously before them, Cyborg kicked back his chair and yelled, "Why are we still just sitting here? We should be searching for him. He's out there!"

"We have nowhere to look," Raven said.

"We'll start in the slums, expand from there. We'll call the Justice League – Batman! Slade won't stand a chance."

"The Justice League?" She rolled her eyes with a chuckle. "When was the last time they went into action? All they do is run evaluations. It'll be weeks of questioning and investigation before Superman even lifts a pebble."

"This is Robin we're talkin' about!"

"It doesn't matter. He lost the bet. We can't do anything."

Cyborg's face reddened. "We were never a part of that frickin' bet! He didn't even agree to the damn thing."

"Of course he did. If he 'adn't, we'd be having this conversation month ago."

"Please, friends," Starfire said, releasing a strand of hair, "do not let us perform the useless argumentation. We must acquire the mind of Robin."

Raven's shoulders sagged. "… She's right, Cyborg."

"He'd do anything to get one of us back – especially from Slade," he said. "He wouldn't be just sitting here."

"Maybe not, but he'd take the time to think."

The argument was lost in a splay of mundane colors. "I'm going to check the security cameras," Cyborg said, his voice soft in defeat. He stepped heavily away from pristine. "I'll find something." He shook his head. "I have to find something." His jaw set, he left the room, immune to any replies.

With a tired, gentle sigh, Starfire arose, finding stability in the air. "I shall accompany Cyborg and participate in the watching of cameras." She excused herself after a short, but weary bow and followed Cyborg's fading footsteps.

Breeze and color danced mournful steps upon the tabletop, drawing attention away from unspoken words. Raven half-wished Beast Boy would wear his stupid grin and start a lecture of optimism and faith, but he stood upon a different plane outside open windows. A blink… another, and then a click. Beast Boy stood slowly, but Raven still jumped, her heart picking up then dropping again. "I'm going out," he said. He left, a hawk, through the side window, his body blending into sullen night.

Raven relaxed awkwardly on the extended cough afterwards, though comfort never came. Images of a political argument sped past on the television, revealing hidden shadows on the walls then cloaking them again. She wondered if they were speaking of Robin. They weren't. No one was. His face would appear on the cover of magazines and newspapers for a month and the Justice League would eventually do their investigation like businessmen, not heroes. Two months, he would be a distant memory; a year, barely remembered at all. Heroes learned to deal with tragedies, but they did not happen with a bet.

Slade's words marched through her mind like a high-pitched, low-quality television show, the words speeding up and slowing down in obscure places. The politicians grew a single grey eye, staring through her, unblinking, as though she had committed a sin. She was not sure if she had.

Her mind changed the channel out of fright. Poker. A man, dirty, desperate, came close to losing everything, but bluffed his way to the top. Countered a bet with on more sinister, more challenging.

While this man enjoyed his unexpected victory, so did Raven. It was a careless idea, an idea that rebelled against everything she vowed – sneaky, hazardous, criminal. Just criminal enough to rival him. To make a wager over a life; to lie; to cheat; to steal – the only way she knew how to save a life, his life. The only life, at the moment, which mattered.

As the ocean wave crashed violently against the tower's base, the sound crawling through the windows, Raven pushed redial on the remote. The world faded into darkness as the television buzzed and a dial tone, viciously loud, echoed. A click, a shudder, then the image of a devil's throne in the company of clockworks and gears. With hands clammed politely in her lap, she released a deep breath, her face and posture straight.

"Hello, Slade." A smirk, triumphant, emerged. "I'd like to make a bet – one you can't refuse."