Right, this is an old story left to collect dust in my old Writer's Cat account before I decided to consolidate them all on my current account. I hope that I can find the drive to finish this…encouragement and reviews (even negative ones) might make this come to completion faster *looks off to the side all innocent like* Enjoy.
Robin sighed, masked eyes peering over his beloved city for any signs of obvious trouble. Today had been unusually quiet for the teen. His night of researching and tracking various villains with sparse intermissions of five minute naps had turned up nothing suspicious or alarming with the big time evil doers, nor had there been any late night alarms or notices for thugs and small time crime lovers. Robin had retired for the night at five in the morning with an itch of paranoia wriggling in the back his mind, of course, the boy wonder had passed this off as a natural reaction from years of fighting crime. The onyx haired male had awoken to the sounds of Beast Boy and Cyborg having their usual breakfast dispute at seven.
The rest of the day was calm, with not even a mugging to report, and it was wearing on Robin's nerve to the point where he had locked himself away in the training room, skipping any form of lunch or dinner to replace the energy he had depleted from a rigorous session set far above his usual routine. Now he was perched atop the Titan's Tower, the deep purple night sky lit with the moon and sparse stars that managed to shine through the light of the city. It a nice way to end the day, albeit still riddled with a suspicious paranoia that some form of trouble was going to pop up the moment he let his guard down, but nice all the same since he had some time to relax. The cool night air picked up, forming a gentle caressing breeze that made him shiver in the tight brightly colored clothes he always wore. Huffing slightly, Robin rose from his perch, casting one last glance back before moving to stalk back to his room for another restless night of monitoring villainous activity.
Just as he reached the door, a soft subtle booming noise caught his attention. Robin stiffly turned around, a look that said 'are you fucking kidding me?' plastered on his masked face. Promptly following the rather gentle explosion was one that would have even woken up Beast Boy from a tofu coma. Growling, Robin took off towards the ledge of the building, his hand flying deftly to his belt to hit a small button that called forth his bike from the garage. Pushing off the ledge forcefully with his long lean legs, the boy wonder propelled himself into the air for a swift descent, an action most would have balked from, but just as he reached the middle of the tower, a black object came into view, the light beaming from the front nearly blinding Robin. Twisting in mid-air to contort himself from a nose dive to position where he had his arms tucked in close, his legs brought up high and spread as if in mid leap. After descending a couple more feet, Robin found himself seated firmly on his bike, his body moving with practiced ease to make sure he was not going to crash. After hitting a few switches the motorcycle turned into something more amphibious; the water flying up around him as he smashed into the tepid waters that separated the tower from the city like a pair of foamy white wings. Robin smirked at the thought as he shot off on the water, sending a signal on his communicator to alert the others he was on his way to the site of the disturbance. While he normally would have rounded every one up, Robin was all too eager for some action that day and waiting for his team was not an option. The bike changed back the moment he the front of the bike hit the sand, the engine roaring as Robin took to the streets, nothing more than a blur to citizens that happened to be around.
Ignoring the beep of the communicator, the young hero took a hard left, masked eyes locked on the pluming tower of smoke. When he arrived, he restrained an excited smile, hiding it with a dark scowl when he found the trademark signs of the one villain that seemed to evade him at every turn. Stalking through the ruined building, he found, to his surprise, the actual Slade battling what seemed to be new type of defense system robot. Then again, perhaps it was just another robot. One that Slade actually decided to put fake blood into to deceive Robin into thinking it was truly Slade until the blasted thing blew up in face. Hmm that grunt of pain seems authentic enough. Robin surveyed the scene until Slade had managed to take the giant robot down, the mass of metal giving off numerous explosions before things settled down enough to see Slade limping slightly over to his prize, a vile of clear liquid tinted a pale blue. Robin narrowed his eyes recognizing the substance immediately from one of his late night research routines for items possibly targeted by criminals.
What Slade was after was a recently developed toxin in the quest to cure some sort of illness. It was incident similar to when the Chinese were hunting for a way to obtain immortality and came up with gunpowder, except this time, the researchers had no idea what the toxin did aside from eventually killing its recipient. Robin struggled to slip and stalk through the rubble without notifying the larger male to his presence, he knew this was pointless, Slade probably knew he was there since the beginning. It was nice to hope. Slade gripped the vial, looking over the clear liquid curiously; completely ignoring Robin's presence…well ignoring him until Robin landed a sound kicked to his masked skull. Slade barely even stumbled from the blow, the single visible grey eye slowly focusing on his attacker with unhurried patience.
"Well little bird, I see you have finally arrived but…where's the rest of your little team?"
Robin growled, knowing that the undertone in Slade deep voice was one of a taunting nature, insinuating that Robin would not be able to beat him without his friends. Drawing his bow staff, Robin dropped into an aggressive stance, ready to strike the obviously injured man. While it was not a very 'hero' thing to do, the masked teen knew he couldn't let any chance of an advantage slip through his hands when it came to fighting a man like Slade who had beaten him time and time again in hand to hand combat. Slade's eye narrowed in evaluation, the hand holding the soon to be stolen goods slowly moving to place the vial in a special holster designed to protect the fragile casing housing the toxin.
"The other Titans are on their way."
Robin said in response to the elder man's taunts, his tone neutral and emotionless, as he watched Slade fall into his own stance, the blood from his chest wound oozing slowly down the front of his black ensemble. It was subtle, but Robin noticed the slight wince at the movement. Slade decided to try to deter him again.
"Robin…you haven't beaten me before now, even with your team by your side, what makes you think that this fight will be any different?"
Robin smirked and lunged, knowing that the depth, length, and lay of the wound on Slade's chest would affect the man's ability to block the blow. As he expected, Slade just barely managed to draw his own staff and deflect the strike, but not before the blunt end of the metal rod jabbed the jagged wound sharply, making Slade hiss in anger and pain. Grinning with confidence and satisfaction, Robin fell into a steady and vicious string of attacks. Yet despite the obvious advantage he had over Slade, Robin had forgotten that on top of the sleepless night he had experienced before this fight, he had only gotten about ten hours of sleep within the past week. Couple that with the serious lack of food, and the hero was set on an even level with the villain, and with that returned to the disadvantage of being inexperienced in comparison. After fifteen minutes of well-timed blows and acrobatic stunts that even the professionals would have envied, both men were feeling the strain of their own handicaps, though Slade hid the effect of his wounds better than Robin who was struggling to stay upright.
In a wild attempt at finishing blow to knock the full faced masked man unconscious, Robin lunged with his bow staff. His target half-heartedly knocked the staff aside, but could not move fast enough to avoid the reaching hand. Robin gave a shout of victory as he turned the failed strike into a successful retrieval of the vial. Flitting away, Robin managed to remove it from the case in the precaution that the case might do something unsavory now that it was away from Slade. Slade darted after him, forcing Robin to evade or chance a fight with only one hand. As Robin attempted to leap up to a ruined catwalk and towards a hole in the upper wall caused by Slade's fight with the robot, his fatigue finally struck. Just barely missing a bar he could have used as a handhold, Robin plummeted to the ground. While the boy wonder was no stranger to falling and avoiding particularly nasty injuries, he remembered too late that he held a delicately cased toxin in his hand. Falling into a roll to try to avoid breaking the vial, Robin failed, his grip tightening around the glass middle as he used his wrist to push off the ground and roll away from the incoming kick from Slade.
The brightly colored teen gave pained yelp as the glass shattered in his hand, thin, sharp fragments of glass biting through the thick material of his glove and slicing into the flesh beneath. The liquid, now oozing and dripping over his already messed uniform, seeped in to coat his various scratches and invade his blood stream. Robin struggled to rise, his limbs shaking while sweat dripped from his brow, his breath an exhausted rasp. Before Slade could put a word in edgewise, Robin promptly collapsed, the remainder of the vial falling from his limp hand. Slade paused. He was injured and his main obsession was unconscious with a new and unstudied toxin streaming through his veins. He had come to the research facility to steal the toxin and do what the idiots could not, figure out the effects of the new poison. If it proved useful, he would keep it; make more if possible, if not, Slade intended to sell it and the information concerning the toxin to the highest bidder. Now it was on and in the teen hero…plus a strange nagging voice in the back of his mind was advising him not to leave his precious bird behind for his friends to try to work out an antidote to the toxin, a voice Slade found perplexing at the very least.
Picking Robin up bridal style, Slade was careful not to smear the poison on himself before moving towards his exit, his legs a bit unsteady. Just as the wall blew apart, the rather irritating voice of a certain red haired alien child cried out in protest to his current position with Robin. Slade turned to glare, their demands that he return their friend striking him as irritating.
"Silly Titans, little birds aren't for kids."
Slade did not know what prompted the odd comment, but he wasted no time in making his escape, leaping from the hole and down to his get a way vehicle and took off before any of the other Titans had a chance to follow him as he melted into traffic. Within an hour, he arrived at one of his sub-bases, one that held more high tech equipment than his main base. To his surprise, Robin had yet to awake, his breathing slow and even, as though trapped in the deepest cycle of sleep. After settling his prisoner on a padded table, Slade immediately went to work, gathering what samples he could from Robin's clothes before stripping the teen to his bare form, depositing the toxin coated clothes in a special container to preserve what he couldn't get of the liquid, before turning to clean up the pale skinned form before him.
It had taken Slade nearly three hours to gather what he needed and set all of the tests in motion, all the while Robin slept soundly, the small flesh wounds, even the bruises, healing completely in the short time span. This of course, spurred Slade's interests, but not to the point to try to test this increased ability to heal. Now, Slade sat in front of numerous screens, silently taking in mountains of data that his tests and hacking of the company he had just indirectly robbed retrieved for him.
Robin stirred slowly, feeling light headed even though it felt as though his mask was squeezing his face uncomfortably. Reaching up without thought or hesitation, he ripped away what Slade had left in some show of courtesy, letting the mask fall to the floor as he swung his feet over the edge of the bed. He knew that he was not home at the Tower, nor was he in some hospital somewhere at the mercy of some scientists or researchers studying him to see the effects of the toxin taken in through skin and wound contact. No, Robin was in a place that no one knew about. Yet…Robin also held a lingering feeling that there was something here he needed to find…something of great importance that he needed. Blindly seeking this unknown object, Robin drifted into a corridor, the comfortable medical bed left behind in his pursuit.
Meanwhile, Slade scowled at the screen as he read the results report of the toxin tested on animals. It was not that Slade did not like that they tested the substance on hapless creatures, he could not care less, it was the one hundred percent death rating that concerned him. What chance did a healthy teenaged boy who fought crime for a living stand against a toxin that killed animals without fail? Engrossed in seeking the answer to this question, Slade turned to the signs that the victim suffered while under the influence of the drug, his lone grey eye scanning the information hungrily. The villain, so absorbed by this task, failed to hear the soft creak of a door or the gentle padding of bare feet on cold stone.