Author's Notes

Just a short holiday story.

Chapter 1, 'Tis the Season

It was Christmas Eve in Jump City, and the stragglers were rushing to finish up their shopping, looking for those last few gifts that always seemed to be forgotten until the last minute. People bustled up and down the crowded sidewalks outside department stores and outlets that were packed to bursting. Cars with children and luggage in tow were stuck in gridlock both on their way in and out of the city.

Only one place remained untouched by the frenzy that was congesting all of downtown. Titans Tower sat isolated from the rest of the city, surrounded on all sides by foamy, brackish waves which lapped against the rocks.

The edges of the window panes were iced over from the bitter cold that had enveloped the city. In the common room, dusty boxes were scattered all over the carpet, their contents spilling out as if someone had searched through them in a hurry.

Raven sat on the sofa with her cowl down, a thick book in her hands, a blanket on her lap, and a steaming cup of peppermint tea beside her on the coffee table. She flicked her eyes up. It had been quiet for a very long time, long enough for her to wonder where everyone was, and after another moment or two of unsettling silence, she reached out with her powers to search them out.

She found Robin first; he was going over dossiers in his office. Starfire was in her room tending to Silkie. Raven's brow furrowed. She couldn't sense Cyborg or Beast Boy anywhere inside the Tower. She extended her mind to probe the area around the city, and came across them at last just outside of the city.

Vaguely, she recalled their discussion last night about chopping down a tree from the woods "the old fashioned way." Apparently, they were serious. Not entirely sure they were allowed to be doing that, Raven took a sip of her tea and went back to reading.

It wasn't too much later when the common room door swished open to reveal a mass of pine needles. Cyborg pushed in an enormous fir tree before him as he entered the common room, swinging it over his shoulder to haul it in after passing it through the doorframe.

Beast Boy marched in after Cyborg, beaming. He slipped off his coat, threw it down on the floor, and started to sing. "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas—!"

"Well that's good, since it is Christmas Eve and all," deadpanned Raven.

Beast Boy was about to pout, but it changed into a smile when he caught sight of her. Raven still had the little sprig of holly stuck behind her ear where he had placed it earlier that morning, like she was part of the room needing to be decorated. Oddly enough, after looking up from her book to give him a withering look, she had made no motion to remove it. Cyborg had noticed too. He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Once upright and in the stand, the tree was so tall that it brushed the ceiling. Beast Boy wasted no time before morphing into an octopus and using all eight legs to start draping ornaments on the branches.

"Take it easy, grass stain," Cyborg called out from under the tree, still adjusting the stand. "Didn't you learn your lesson last year about decorating in animal form? Your record for broken ornaments was seven. That's not a quota; don't do it again."

Beast Boy reverted back to his human shape. "Fine," he sulked. Then his eyes lit up. "Oh, I almost forgot!"

He took off towards a corner of the room and started rummaging through one of the many boxes filled with ornaments and trinkets. From the bottommost box, he pulled out something that was wrapped in tissue paper.

Raven eyed him from the sofa, and Beast Boy caught her eye, grinning wickedly. "Mistletoe."

Cyborg snorted.

Last year, Beast Boy hung mistletoe all over the Tower, but Robin had been dogging his steps and tearing it all down, hissing at Beast Boy for 'potentially instigating awkward moments between team members.' Which of course led to Starfire asking her friends how exactly 'the greenery of mistle' could cause friction between them all.

None of them had ever seen Robin blush before that moment.

Raven rolled her eyes and turned a page while Beast Boy morphed into a hummingbird and stuck the branch of mistletoe in the ceiling right beside the Christmas tree.

As Beast Boy had already done most of the work, Cyborg decided to do his share. Crawling out from under the tree, he activated his arm console and spoke into the built-in communicator. "Starfire, Robin, get into the common room and come decorate the tree before Beast Boy does it all himself."

Beast Boy smothered his laughter as best he could as Robin and Starfire both answered they were on their way. Even Raven's mouth twitched and she put her book down to help deck out the tree.

Starfire flew into the common room followed closely by Robin. "What a glorious tree! It is even larger than the one we had last year." With that she floated over to the nearest box and started arranging little silver snowflakes across the branches.

Robin watched Starfire with a smile on his face. Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy all looked at him furtively as they stuck to one side of the tree. The side opposite of the mistletoe.

"Robin," Raven said carefully, "why don't you help Starfire decorate that half of the tree? The three of us are taking care of this side."

"Sure, no problem," Robin shrugged.

He was oblivious as Cyborg and Beast Boy's jaws dropped open. Was Raven was actually helping them?

It was quiet as the tree became fuller with baubles, tinsel, and strings of lights. Robin and Starfire were unwittingly inching closer and closer to the spot right beneath the mistletoe.

Robin finally stepped under the mistletoe as he hung a ruby-red bird on a branch. Starfire, meanwhile, had floated just above him to a bare part of the tree that was up higher than any of them could reach standing on the ground. As she drifted upwards, Starfire felt something tickle the top of her head lightly and she turned to see what it was.

The mistletoe.

Starfire hadn't understood last year what this plant meant for the people of Earth, or why it made Robin so uncomfortable, but she had asked Raven, and now she knew exactly what it was. She looked down and saw Robin below her, still positioning ornaments.

Did she dare?

Well, it was an Earth custom.

Landing lightly, Starfire stood beside Robin and studied his profile for a moment. Feeling her gaze upon him, Robin turned to look at her and gave her a quizzical half-smile. She smiled too. Then she took his hand in hers and looked up slowly with only her eyes. Robin tilted his head back to follow her line of sight. His mouth went dry.

Starfire drew closer to him, her eyes falling closed. He watched her come towards him, unable to move himself. It was dead silent on the other side of the tree.

The Titans alarm blared to life.

Starfire's eyes flew open and Robin hesitated for a second before tearing his eyes away and running to the computer to see what the disturbance was.

As the others joined him in front of the screen, they saw that there was an incoming video-message.

On the large screen appeared a battered older man in a tattered and bloodied lab coat. His mouth was moving, but his words were barely audible over the commotion heard but unseen in the background and the static that practically cancelled out the video feed. The man continued to shout, and though his message was garbled, his plea for help was clear. The static was becoming more erratic and they could only just make him out.

"…experiment…mistake…help…Victor…."

Then the feed went dead.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Beast Boy spoke up. "So I guess my famous tofu-nog will have to wait, eh?"

The others only looked at him before Raven gave him a smack to the back of the head. "We should hurry," she said. "That man didn't look like he could hold off whatever is attacking him for much longer."

"I'm tracking the coordinates of that transmission right now," Robin replied as he rapped away at the keyboard.

Starfire wrung her hands together, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion and worry. "Perhaps that message was not intended for us. Who is this Victor he spoke of?"

A muffled thump came from behind them, and they jerked around to see what had caused it.

Cyborg was leaning heavily on the sofa. His expression was unreadable as he looked up to take in the faces of his bewildered friends.

"That would be me," he said in a cracked voice, his mouth set into a grim line. "And that man is Dr. Silas Stone—my father."