Longfellow's Journals

Who is Longfellow and what does he have to do with the Titans? Read on.

Disclaimer: The Teen Titans are the property of DC comics. I am not DC comics.

Hokahe!

Prologue

A book. Well, it was a journal, really. That was all that was left; This journal and nine or ten more like it. For sixteen years, these leather bound volumes had occupied space in one of Dick Grayson's many safes. Even after all those years, the leather cover was still supple, though the pages had long since started to turn yellow.

The door to Dick Grayson's office opened quietly. He smiled softly as he looked at the three people slowly filing in. Cyborg, Raven, and of course, his own wife, Starfire. Each sat down in a comfortable chair on the far side of the desk. A fourth chair, between Raven and Starfire, remained vacant. It had been vacant for the better part of a decade.

All four sets of eyes rested on the old journal. Raven was the first to speak. "I guess it's finally time…" Dick Grayson, once Robin of the Teen Titans and now at the same time the successor to Bruce Wayne's business empire and Nightwing, was sad to note Raven had started speaking in monotone. Just like the old days.

Dick stared at the old journal again for a moment. The old days. That was why they were here, after all. Sixteen years ago, they had taken in a new friend and made him a Titan. It had been a hell of a ride after that. Putting his hand on the cover, he looked up at his long time friends. He saw a mix of impatience, perhaps Cyborg wanting to start off the "remember when.." comments, sorrow and pain from Raven. Starfire just looked expectant, wanting to hear the thoughts of an old friend, now long gone.

Dick himself wasn't sure if this were really a good idea. Granted, he'd been the one to suggest waiting until they knew the time was right read the journal. Well, they knew now. An hour before the former Titans gathered in Dick's office, the journal's author had finally taken the trip that would lead him back in time. While the journal could not possibly contain information on things that were to happen from this point forward, it could still cause the Titans harm.

"Yo, boy wonder, you just going to stare at that thing, or are we going to crack it open and see what's inside?" Dick knew Cyborg was curious. He was also avoiding looking at Raven. He was, after all, the man who'd built the device that let the traveler take his trip.

"We already know what's inside." Again, Raven was monotone. Dick pitied her. He knew that this was going to be hardest on her.

"Yes and no, Raven. We know what events may be chronicled, but we do not know his perceptions of them." As always, Starfire was trying to put a calm face on this situation.

Dick exhaled slowly, steeling his nerves. Silly to be afraid of a book, he told himself. And yet…. "Part of me wants to wait and get the story directly from him…"

"Dick, he's been gone an hour. He'd have returned by now if he could have." Cyborg cast an apologetic look in Raven's direction. She was gripping the arms of the leather chair so tight her hands had gone bone white, but she did not say anything. She was fighting hard to remain in control of her emotions.

"Right….lets get to it, then." He slowly opened the old journal. He read the opening lines of the first entry silently and smiled in spite of himself. He cleared his throat and began to read. "Let me just say", he quoted, "that, at first, I didn't know. The trip back had affected my memory. By the time I actually started to regain some of my memories….well, the greeks wrote a play about it, and Freud could have based his career on me…" Cyborg chuckled. Raven was fighting not to look stricken. As Dick continued reading, each of the former Teen Titans let their minds wander to the day, about eighteen years ago, when they first me the young man calling himself Aaron Longfellow….

…..

Jump City, October 2005

"Dude, I just trashed your high score!" A triumphant Beast Boy laughed, holding the gamestation controllers above his head.

"Yeah? Not hard since I've only played once. New game, remember?" Cyborg held out his hand, a challenging look on his face. This back and forth banter with Beast Boy was half the fun. He knew Beast Boy was going to give him a run for his money. Time would tell who held the ultimate high score.

"Oh. Yeah." Beast Boy handed Cyborg the controller, chagrinned. A couple minutes into the game, it became apparent that Cyborg was going to turn the tables and leave Beast Boy in the dust. When the inevitable happened and Cyborg was forced to hand the controller to his best friend, it was with a "Top That" smirk.

Beast Boy was about to taunt Cyborg, but for a moment couldn't speak. He curled up in a ball on the couch, arms folded over his stomach, as he alternately felt very ill and very hot. Cyborg was likewise affected, with added trouble from electro-magnetic interference.

It passed quickly, leaving the two friends breathing heavily, afraid to move. They were quickly forced to move when the tower's internal lights shifted to red and a computerized voice warned of two fires in the tower: one in the basement, one in the evidence room.

Cyborg hauled Beast Boy to his feet and both headed for the evidence room. The other Titans were in various points in the tower and all knew the drill. Beast Boy, Raven, and Cyborg would cover the top half of the tower, Robin and Star Fire would cover the lower half.

Along the way they ran into Raven. "Did you guys just feel….."

Beast Boy finished her thought: "Like we were going to barf and then burst into flames? Yeah, we felt it."

They could smell the smoke as they neared the evidence room. Before they opened the door, Cyborg scanned the room with thermal sensors. "Looks like it's just a few small flames now, but they're spreading fast. Hang on….looks like there's someone on the floor in the center of the room."

Thinking their leader was helpless, the teens quickly entered the room. Using her magic, Raven suffocated some of the more out of control flames while Beast Boy used an extinguisher on the remaining hotsports. Cyborg carried the body out of the room.

Raven easily contained the flames on her side of the room. She watched Beast Boy make quick work of the remaining small fires. He was quick and confident. When he put the extinguisher down, Beast Boy looked around. "Well, we lost some pictures, Control Freak's remote…the big map…but aside from that, looks like it's just a remodeling job. Come on, lets go see how Robin is doing."

They left the room and found Cyborg running a portable medical scanner over the body. It was a young man, but it wasn't Robin.

Robin and Starfire were just getting their fire under control. It hadn't been a big blaze when it started, but it had quickly jumped to boxes of paper; old clues, clippings, analyses, even old clothing, and had quickly gotten to be almost more than the two could handle. The fire sprinklers had finally kicked in and that had pretty much saved the day. Unfortunately, Robin and Starfire, along with everything else in the room, were soaked.

"Robin, what do you think caused this?" Starfire asked, looking around.

'I don't know. Spread out and see if you can find anything or anyone."

After a minute or so of searching, Robin's communicator went off. Starfire stopped searching and went over to Robin. It was Beast Boy on the other end.

"Dude, you'd better get up to medical."

Robin furrowed an eyebrow. "Is someone hurt?"

Beast Boy hesitated. "You'd…just better get up here."

"We're on our way."

The team was gathered around a bed in medical. The occupant was a young man. "Looks like he's our age." Robin estimated their mysterious guest to be about Raven's height. His hair appeared to have been burned to dark stubble. Strangely, his clothing showed no burns. Starfire noticed it too.

"His hair hs been burned off, but his clothes do not appear to have been exposed to flame at all."

"No burns on his face or neck." Raven leaned in closer. "His eyebrows and eyelashes are ok."

"Weird." Beast Boy peered closely at the newcomer. "He looks kinda familiar. Any idea who he is?"

Cyborg shook his head. "Don't know. He's been unconscious since we found him and he didn't have ID."

"Smoke inhalation?"

"No," Raven answered. "He was already unconsious when the fires started spreading."

"Yeah, and I don't think he was in there long enough to breathe much in anyway.." Beast Boy said.

"I think BB's right." Cyborg had moved over to the room's computer. "There are no problems with the security system, and this guy didn't trip any alarms. I think he got there the same time the fire started."

"The same time all the other weird things happened," Beast Boy complained.

"Yeah, what was that?" Raven asked in her dull monotonous voice.

"I don't know. My sensors show we got hit by pretty much everything: thermal, chronoton, EM, even some trace alpha-radiation. We'll each need to spend time in the big scanner to see if we've picked any of that up." He pointed to the large, full-body enclosure that dominated the far wall of the sick bay.

"Wait, radiation? How bad?" Robin asked, raising his voice to be heard over Beast Boy's panicked complaints that his DNA was unstable enough as it was.

"Like I said, trace amounts of alpha. It's slow and usually can't penetrate skin. It can be inhaled though, so we need to be checked. We need to check him too." Cyborg went back over to his team mates. "I'll have to check the security mainframe and see if anything else happened."

"Right. Lets make sure we're all ok, then we'll take a better look around the tower."

Three hours later, Cyborg was finally satisfied that the Titans, and their visitor, were clean. Robin and Starfire had each taken the time to change into dry clothing.

"So…now what do we do?" Raven asked.

"Cyborg, when you scanned him, did you find anything suspicious?"

"Aside from the fact that he's here, nothing."

"Ok, I don't think we should turn him in to the police, and he doesn't appear to need a hospital. Let's see what he tells us when he wakes up. I want someone to be near by, to keep an eye on him. Cyborg, you and Beast Boy see if you find anything else in the evidence room, then check the security system again. Raven, I want you to stay with our guest for now. We may need your powers to restrain him if he turns out not to be friendly. Starfire and I will finish checking the basement."

After her teammates left, Raven tried using her power to heal the stranger, but she found nothing really wrong with him. He appeared to be resting comfortably and in very good health.

Raven watched the young man for a little while before deciding her time was best spent in meditation. She had briefly tried to user her powers to probe his mind, but found a barrier in her way. It seemed to her to be fairly weak. It would be nothing for her to break through it and get to the mind beyond. Part of her, the demonic blood running through her veins, wanted her to try, wanted to tear into this person's mind and see what secrets it held. She was able to keep in control though, and instead just focused on keeping herself calm.

It was a struggle that left her unable to show very much emotion. Even with Trigon defeated, Raven found she had to keep a tight rein on herself, or she would lose control of her power. As much as she feared being alone, she could not risk her friends. She couldn't afford to form the type of bonds she wanted to form. Sighing, she refocused and continued with her meditation.

Raven had been there for a couple hours before any of her friends came in to see how she and the guest were. To her annoyance, it was Beast Boy who was doing the checking up.

"Hey Raven, I thought you could use some company, so…."

She cut him off in mid sentence. "Not really. It's nice to have some peace and quiet for once." Raven didn't exactly dislike Beast Boy, but he got on her nerves so easily. He was often, more often than she was really willing to give him credit for, a perceptive person. He was genuine, trusting and trustworthy. Unfortunately, for every good moment he had, he had three or four annoying moments. And he always seemed to find a way to interrupt her mediation.

Beast Boy's ears drooped a little. "Oh…well…If you want to get something to eat or drink, I'll keep an eye on our visitor for a while."

"I'm fine, but thanks for the offer." Instead of leaving, Beast Boy took a seat on the opposite side of the hospital bed.

Beast Boy took a minute to look their guest over. Maybe it was the high cheekbones, or maybe the larger than average nose, but something about him seemed familiar to Beast Boy. He looked up at Raven, who had stopped paying any attention to him. "Were you able to pick up anything from him?"

Raven, eyes still closed in concentration, merely shook her head.

"Nothing? You can't get any kind of anything from him?"

Raven sighed heavily. "No, Beast Boy. His mind is shielded."

"Raven, that's not nothing. That's something." He paused a moment. "Can you get through it?"

"I can, yes. But I won't do it, not unless I have to."

Missing the warning note in her voice, Beast Boy pressed her. "Why not? For all we know he could be some sort of scout or spy or something, and the only way we'd know is if you could pick it out of his mind. For all we know…"

"For all we know," Raven responded in a tight voice, "He might not be anything of the kind! He has a right to what's in his mind, Beast Boy. He hasn't done anything to hurt us. He just showed up."

"Yeah, kind of like Malchiore." Beast Boy clapped his hands over his mouth when he realized what he'd said. "Uh oh…Raven, I…"

Raven's eyes shot open, blazing red. "I can't believe you'd say that! What about Tara? How many times did you stand up for her just to have her betray us?" She didn't let fall the tears that were suddenly in her eyes. 'How could you have just said that to me?' she thought.

"Hey, she saved us in the end!" The changeling shouted back.

"'s'cuse me.."

"Only because she knew we were going to defeat Slade, and she didn't want to be on the losing side!"

"uhm…if you could…."

"Oh, come on! If that were true, would she have sacrificed herself?"

"Maybe she thought she could control it more than she could!"

Before Beast Boy could respond, a hand slowly worked its way into the space between them. "Excuse me, but can you keep it down?"

They both looked down into the very confused gray eyes of their visitor.

"Eh…sorry…" Beast Boy scratched the back of his head while looking very embarrassed.

"S'ok" The visitor said. He sounded tired. His eyes took a moment to wander the room, taking in the computer equipent, the view from the window, and finally, Raven and Beast Boy. "Uhm…who are you, where am I, and how did I get here?"

"I'm Beast Boy, this lovely young lady is Raven," Beast Boy ignored Raven's glare, " you are in the Titans Tower, home of the Teen Titans, and we were hoping you could tell us how you got here."

"Oh." He looked at Raven, then back at Beast Boy. "What?"

"Who are you?" Raven beat Beast Boy to the question. Her voice was back to it's usual monotone.

"Oh." To the pair's surprise, their visitor appeared to have to think about the answer to the question. "Uhm…Aaron Longfellow….I think…." He bit his lip nervously. Raven could see the fear and uncertainty in his eyes. "Are…are you sure you don't know me?"

Again Raven beat her changeling companion to the answer. "I'm pretty certain we'd remember someone who could make the kind of entrance you made."

"Dude, are you trying to tell us that you don't know who you are? Why you came here? Anything at all?"

Aaron, what ever his name was, hesitated, then nodded.

"Great. I'll go get Robin." Raven turned and left, leaving Beast Boy alone with their now awake visitor.

"I still think you look familiar," Beast Boy muttered.

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Well, there's the prologue. This was really just an exorcise, but if feedback warrants, I'll keep writing.