The Choices We Make
By, Tarawen
I write this because I was told to – I do this however not because of the prison warden who demanded it of me – but rather I write it because It occurs to me that there is no record of how I reached this point – sitting in a prison cell waiting for my Master to come and get me.
My name is Robin, and I am a villain, a super villain I suppose – yes a super villain, a criminal, an evil that haunts that little child's sleep. Once I was a hero – loved by the people, stern and unyielding – but then I met Slade. I became his apprentice in order to save my "friends" from death. However my true fall into the darkness starts some time after my apprenticeship to Slade.
I dropped to the floor – it was a small building, just small enough that Slade had noted it as a place for something valuable. Yet another item that my Master wanted, sometimes I wasn't sure if he actually wanted the items or if he was simply testing me. As far as I could tell he never used any of them – but then again, I was only his apprentice, so why would he tell me?
I'd been his apprentice a year now…or at least it had been around that…a year of servitude to save my "friends" from death. I had lost track of time some time before so I can't be sure it was a whole year. My "friends" still had no-idea why I had betrayed them…betrayed their trust and joined Slade. They thought I was evil…they hated me all the more because I wasn't any normal villain, I had been their friend, I knew them inside and out – and I was the only villain as of yet to beat them day after day.
It was nights like that one when I yearned for the guards to see me, to catch me so that I could take out some of the anger. The horrible anger that made me exactly like the Master who I hated beyond everyone - except perhaps the Joker, because I will never hate anyone more than I do that pasty circus freak. Perhaps it was on that night, or maybe before then when a small part of me admitted to enjoying this…enjoying the darkness, the evil, the villain that I had become.
I recall that I blew the door open with a bomb – I did it as loudly as I could – I needed a good fight. Guards poured out – they had doubled security since I'd joined Slade – after the first two months of me stealing valued objects and getting away with it companies had started to take matters into their own hands – no longer trusting the Titans to save them they had hired armed men who would kill. I whirled cracking the gun out of the first mans hand using my foot – over the course of the next few seconds everything blurred for me as it often does and I allowed the heat of battle to take me. As the battle finished I found myself holding one of the guns, pointing it at the last mans head – I'd never killed before – not once.
"Kill him," Slade's voice came through the set of earphones I wore upon his command, and I obeyed without question – I pulled the trigger – I always obeyed Slade by this point – always. It was easier to not think about what he made me do – easier not to question.
But as I stared down at the blood which flooded out of the dead mans head I realized I'd lost any sense of self-control, when Slade didn't command I was vicious reacting purely on instinct, and when he did command something I was worse. "I killed him," my voice had sounded like a rasp.
"Good Robin, now – get the chip." Slade's slick voice filled my head and I moved to obey all the time thinking over and over again, I killed him.
Picking up the chip I began to walk from the small room, I killed him, it was cold that night as I recall – cold and dark – I felt like I was back in Gotham again – the City of the Hopeless…I killed him, I began to run, hurry back to my Master – I killed him, as I ran I felt as though I was being watched, I killed him and I liked it.
A dark shape dropped in front of me and for a moment I couldn't even see who it was I was so caught up in my thoughts – I killed him and I enjoyed it, the blood, the pain on his face, the surge of power it gave me to know I controlled his very life.
Then my sight cleared I was focused again, I would deal with this later – I looked forward prepared to fight again only to spiral back into confusion – Batman stood in front of me – his face was grim and as cold as the streets seemed. "Robin."
With one word Batman seemed to have rendered my brain useless, I couldn't think, I couldn't move, I was lost – and then the orders came and everything was very clear, "Attack him."
I was evil – he was good. I belonged to Slade, I had sold my soul to the evil – he was still committed to good even though he'd been through so much. Everything was very clear.
I did as my Master said – I attacked, and I attacked more vicious than I had ever done before – but this time my body wasn't the only thing moving, my brain was functioning with more clarity than I had thought was possible. Indeed…I attacked, body and mind.
We exchanged blows he and I for a time, and then he began to talk, "the Robin I knew would never have joined this…Slade." The dark crusader observed as he swung a fist which I ducked. "Where is Robin, what have you done with him."
"I am Robin," a grin twisted my face at this point and I suspect I looked absolutely mad – "I'm that little boy you saved so long ago Batman," I struck him hard in the head with one metal shod boot.
"No your not, not unless something went very wrong," the dark man pulled himself back up staring me full in the face.
I grinned again, "Oh…something went wrong, something went horribly wrong," I admitted this to the older man I'd once considered a mentor "So tell me, now that I'm a killer – what do you think of your little boy?"
"Killed?" Batman halted – he clearly had thought his little psychiatry tricks would turn me back to his side.
"Oh yes…he told me to – my Master – you do know who my Master is don't you?" I walked closer to the man and he backed away in shock and dismay – and I knew then that I had fallen just far enough that I could never be saved, "His name is Slade – he told me too – and so I killed the man."
"The Titans never said…"
"They don't know yet," a dark look crossed my face, "They never seem to know," looking up again I began to laugh, "And so I did it, I shot a man in the head." My laugh reached an almost high pitched level – it was more than amusement I knew – although Batman probably didn't – it was all of my pain – all of my hate – all of the empty nights I'd spent – all of it released in one horrible laugh.
He just stared at me; like I was mad – I probably am – I think you have to be at least a little insane to be a super villain. Then I ran I jumped past him slamming him in the head one last time with my boot and running away – and he just stood there, like his world had been shattered into a million pieces.
When I got back to my Masters lair he just stood there and smiled at me for a few moments until standing and walking down from his chair, "You see Robin – we are the same."
He was right we are – we are exactly the same – I suppose he was always right. I remember the moment of emptiness as I stood there, I held out the chip to him like I had held out so many other items he'd wanted. He accepted the item and then as his hand brushed mine, I broke down right there sobbing into the metal floor, and he just watched in that same uncaring way he always watched me. That was the day I gave myself to the dark eternally and forever – because you see there is no escaping true darkness once you've accepted it, no escaping that it is you just as you are the darkness.
It must have been only month after that when I killed again, Joker – my Master gave me Joker, a token he told me, a gift for my – obedience – but I knew it was because I had joined him in the dark – and even as I knew I didn't care.
The Joker – now that was a…interesting day, he stood there and as he did all my anger came raging forward and I cracked my fist into his stomach. Strange that all I did was knock the wind out of him – now that I think back I wonder why I didn't torture him, but I suppose that torture wouldn't have brought my parents or released my soul from the all encompassing dark – so I guess it doesn't matter.
And I killed him – oh he begged – offered me any number of things – offered me everything, and then I stabbed him – right in the gut where I'd hit him only minutes earlier. Then I watched him die, he talked a lot as he died, but I remember only one of the things he said that night. "Maybe I kill, and maybe I steal – but I never did it like you do Robin…you were born in the dark – weren't you?"
Perhaps I was, maybe I was destined to be evil – but I don't think so – it was just a choice I made. I sincerely believe it is a choice that everyone makes in their lives, everything leads up to it, and then that choice dictates who you are and what you do for the rest of your life.
The next few months were filled with dark things, horrible things – but what I got caught at and put in here…I think that was the worst.
It was a family – just like mine, my Master wanted the fathers money – he owed Slade a large sum I recall…he wouldn't give it to me – he refused and so Slade told me to take it in skin…the man said he didn't care if he died. But my master didn't mean him. I killed his wife and his child – I killed them right in front of the man – he had been tied to a chair at the time. I barely remember the wife even though it was only days ago – but the child – I remember the child.
We all make choices in life…I made the ultimate one – and I am a slave to the darkness for the rest of my life.
This is the account of prisoner 35628 – the prisoner was broken out of prison shortly after finishing this account. This account has been released to only specific individuals – his former allies the Teen Titans and certain select members of the government.
As Slade put the written account down on the table infront of himself – Robin really was – just like him – he knew the drama would end soon and his apprentice would just accept his enjoyment in pain as a normal thing, even a good thing. He would forget all about the darkness until he grew to be an older man – getting on in his years – and then he would find his own apprentice – and introduce that young man or woman to the darkness.
A/N: That's my one-shot about Robin if he had stayed Slades apprentice - I know I'm complete geek - I'm writing about a Cartoon - but something about those two apprentice episodes really spoke to me, and ever since I saw them I knew I would have to write this. So here it is. Please R&R.