A.N. Hello everyone, it seems to be the new fad, to have a Sladin Drabble story, so here's mine. I will most likely expand this one plot with another chapter and after that you should expect to read whatever randomness comes to my mind (so that's why the rating's M, just in case). I love using quotes from the show especially when I can twist them to work for me ;) so all the "blahblah's" are quotes, okay?

Pairing: Slade/Robin

Disclaimer: if only, if only...

"I just don't get it," Cyborg said shaking his head, "the dude falls into a pit of lava, burnt, melted, disintegrated… and he comes back."

"I know!" Beastboy spoke up, "maybe he some sort of freakish, mutant, zombie from the 4th planet in the Zebulan quadrant!"

Starfire's face creased in concentration as she tried to figure out if such a planet existed; Raven sighed and blocked out the others with the pages of her book; Robin…

… Robin sat in the center of his bed, away from the others, curled up with his head against his knees.

"There are no generators! There is no Slade!"

'But I knew better, I knew he was still alive… he had to be,' he placed his hand over his heart and coiled tighter into himself, 'I could feel it.'

In the overwhelming joy the team had felt at Trigon's defeat, they hadn't even thought to analyze the return of their arch foe. Now they all found themselves at a loss. They'd heard nothing of Slade in the past few weeks since the battle, but he was out there somewhere, and he was certain to be plotting.

'I knew there was no way that he would die, could die and leave me here as… nothing.'

Robin is the Slade hunter. It's his job, his purpose. It's all that consumes every vein of his mind, every thought, every mood tainted with his presence. How could a world exist with a Robin but no Slade?

It couldn't.

…

I died
So many years ago,
But you can make me feel
Like it isn't so,
And why you come to be with me
I think I finally know…

…

The team had often gone out and visited the stone statue that was Terra's grave. Beastboy and Robin were always the ones who lingered long after the others had returned home. Then Robin would linger longer still, waiting for the moment his green friend transformed and flew home; that was when he would jump down over the ledge Terra crowned.

In the twisted, black rock formed when she stopped the volcano's eruption there lay another, less impressive memorial. The shape of a mask decorated the rock, carved with a careful hand and accurate in a way only long hours of study could provide.

He had done it with the edge of his own bird-a-rang.

The routine was the same every visit. He would sit there for hours, letting his fingers trace over the face that haunted his dreams. He would try to think of what to write to commemorate the man who had fallen here.

He never could think of what to say.

The pain had crippled him far to much.

…

'He's... gone...'

That singular feeling still pulsed heavily within him as he lay coiled in his bed. Like a wide open crack had split his chest, crushed his heart: the moment he watched that mask dissolve into the magma there. Reliving it again in his mind he could hardly breath through the weight of that wound.

He couldn't remember anything else from that day. Maybe it was the shock, the adrenalin, the sheer denial that had made his body continue on and save his team. Whatever it was, when it wore off, alone in his room, that gorge in his chest blinded him with such agony that he screamed.

No tears fell from his eyes, for it wasn't a sadness he felt. But he trembled and tore his hair and screamed his throat so raw it bled at the all consuming pain of it. A piece of himself had been viciously torn from him, and he wasn't certain he would ever be able to get it back.

He screamed in ways he hadn't since the death of his parents.

…and yet,

Somehow he knew, he knew it wasn't over. Slade was unlike his parents in every conceivable way. He was, he was…

'Fuck, I still don't know what he is.'

"Who is Slade?"

But he had learned. He learned that who or what Slade really was didn't matter at all. Slade existed. He lived, just as Robin did. And that was the truth, no matter what the others had told him.

And he had been right.

…

You're scared
Ashamed of what you feel,
And you can't tell the ones you love.
You know they couldn't deal.
Whisper in a dead man's ear,
It doesn't make it real…

…

The months after Slade's death were sheer torture. He mourned and grieved... and pretended it was all for Terra.

Of coarse he did feel badly for her, ending the way she had, but his emotions towards her were so mixed. She had befriended them, tricked them, betrayed them, saved them… and she had killed him.

His fists clenched so hard he bruised his hands at the thought.

She killed him.

But hope was a tenacious thing, and it broke him a little more each time it arose within him, only to prove a lie.

In those months every time the alarm went off, hope clouded his chest and made his heart race. Every time the tower had flashed red he had thought, 'Could it be it him? Has he come back? What's he doing now?' And he would sprint to the computer to bring up the live feed from town,

Only to be crushed once more.

…

I know I should go,
But I follow you like a man possessed.
There's a traitor here beneath my breast,
And it hurts me more than you've ever guessed…

…

And he had been so surprised, scared, relieved… happy when he saw Slade alive once more. Even as he came after Raven with an iron fist.

When it had been simple hallucinations from Slade's toxin, his mind had been far to muddled and influenced by the drug for him to comprehend anything. He hadn't been able to... appreciate Slade's rise from the grave the way he could now.

Now that it was real.

'Monster,' he looked at his bright green glove and his bright red shirt, 'Monster how can you think this way? How can you compare his death to that of your parents? How dare you… care for him.' Suddenly it was as though the colors burned him and he franticly tore them off, flinging his clothing in every direction, utterly destroying his uniform.

"All you care about is destruction!"

"And all you care about, you destroy."

He kneeled panting, naked upon his bed, his delirium passed. 'I can never wear those colors again. I can't be Robin anymore.'

'But then what else is there for me?'

"So… Nightwing, hmm?"

'Yes... that's it, Nightwing.' He moved over to his dresser, suddenly filled with energy. He slipped on his civilian cloths and slipped out through a secret door into the night. 'A new name, a new existence.' Then he remembered where Raven went when she was trying to discover herself, 'the tattoo parlor.'

Logically speaking he couldn't get a tattoo and keep a secret identity at the same time, the villains would connect the dots all to easily. 'But piercings,' he thought, 'those I can grow out if I want to, and they are much more common.'

He smirked as his feet pointed him into town. He was feeling adventurous, rebellious, brave…

He was feeling more like himself than he had in a long time.

'I'll find you Slade, and, maybe when I do, I'll finally be the person you always knew I was. I'll finally be able to... tell you...'

…

I can lay my body down,
But I can't find my sweet release.

…

And sitting back, watching his monitor, Slade let a smirk of his own grace his lips, 'that's my little bird.'

…

Let me rest in peace.

A.N. So there you have it! I know it is short, but I always think that Robin's mind contemplates in short, irrational bursts that lead quickly to action, so that's how I wrote it. His reason for becoming Nightwing (in my fantasies anyways) is because of the changes to his character Slade caused, not some shallow jelousy or anger at Batman.

The bolded lyrics are from the song "Rest in Peace" from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Musical. The song just reached out and yanked my attention in this direction. And the reference to Raven and the tattoo parlor is from the original comics when she gets the tattoo of a black raven on her lower back, just f.y.i.

Review please!