Rain poured outside of Titan Tower in sheets battering the window of his room. Thunder roared and lightning flashed throughout the night. The rest of the Titans were sound asleep. Only Robin was awake.
He didn't know how long he had been awake; how long he had stared at that blank ceiling waiting for sleep, sleep that wouldn't come. Waiting thoughtless, just waiting. He didn't know why, but he did it anyway. He got up, out of bed and slipped on his cape and mask. He went through the sliding door of his room, and out into the hall.
He moved at a leisurely pace past the rooms of the other sleeping Titans; sleeping, that should have been what he was doing. He went down to the living room and plopped down the coach. He flipped through the channels on the giant TV but nothing interested him and he quickly turned it off. He turned toward the kitchen, but decided not on having some of the blue furry food in the fridge for a snack.
But then it drew him, drew him like a magnet. He opened the door to the basement and went down the long stairwell. Each step he went down creaked under his weight as if it would break. The basement had an eerie silence unlike up in his room where the pattering of rain and thunder crashing was heard constantly. He moved across the slippery wet floor swiftly. Rain must have leaked in here, he thought to himself.
He moved into the storage room and turned on the light. The bulb flickered for a few seconds and then there was a flash of blue light signifying it had burnt out. I'll have to tell Cyborg to fix that tomorrow. He could still see in the room so it didn't matter as much to him. He looked around until he found what he was looking for. He moved several boxes and brushed the dust off one underneath them. SLADE was written in crude print on the lid, which he removed. He had never really gotten to look at what was left of Slade after the incident. His remains had just been put in a box and left in the storage room to rot, or so it had seemed to been for.
Robin lifted the mask up, the mask he had removed so many times eager to find out who was behind it. It was too late now, and he had never known who it had been. Who were you? He asked the mask mentally, as if expecting it to answer back. He put it down and picked up a glove. The hands behind countless crimes wore these. What was it like? And WHY did he do them?
"Maybe you can see for yourself," a voice whispered in the back of his head. He slipped the glove on. It suddenly stiffened and a surge of pain went through his hand, but then it disappeared at the same instant if came. He jerked his hand out; the glove wasn't stiff. I only imagined it; it HAD to be just my imagination! He looked into a cracked mirror hanging crookedly by a nail. It was tinged bluish in the dim light. There was his reflection as it should have been; yet it was someone else…