Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans. I am currently planning on stealing them but I haven't recruited any villains to do my bidding yet. Oh well...

Authors Note: I just want to thank everyone who read what I had so far and reviewed. Yes these reviews make me so happy! Anyway I was originally planning on putting the rest of Slade's POV on this chapter since it is already near completion but instead maybe we should venture in a certain boy wonder's head and see what makes him tick. How does that sound? Hope you enjoy part 1 of Robin's pov. R and R!!!

-T-

Regular: whats going on currently, thoughts, feelings,"talking" about flashbacks

Italic: explains thoughts and intense emotions and flashbacks

Summery: Robin's thoughts about Slade during "THE END" parts I, II, and III

Subjects: Slade and Robin; not Slash. Robin's POV

Genre: Angst/Drama/ a little violence

-T-

WARNING: Spoiler for Apprentice Parts( and prior to that) and "The End" episodes as well as some Death stroke background information. If you haven't seen these or read the DC comics please do so before reading this fic.

-Robin's POV-

The war is won, Trigon is defeated and yet despite how free we are I remain a trapped bird. Why I still do is well beneath me and the memories in which they lurk inside an empty void.

Nothing says "home sweet home" like the darkness of my own living area back at the Tower. I for one am glad that this room is mine considering the fact it is all the way on the near end of the tower far away from noise and disruption. Peace and quite, just how I like it. Looking over to my desk, I however think otherwise. I frown seeing the over flowing paper work lay there untouched since I left it before Trigon. Unfortunately after we defeated the beast, my desk which I wished so hard to lay in useless ashes forever was restored. I sigh at this hearing my doors close behind me, I guess we can't get everything we want...

Its late and my body is done in. Just getting back from defeating an evil demon who was so close to getting away with destroying the whole entire world can put a lot of stress on a person, I of course being just that. Taking a seat on my bed I switch on the lamp on my night table and allow my head to hang between my knees. It's over, the end of the world is no more...

I should feel relieved shouldn't I? My shoulders should be slouching, my eyelids should close with ease but my body depite how tired and in the need for sleep it is remains tightly rattled. It is if the war hasn't been won at all that my body is ready to take on a whole new transformation. An unpleasant feeling in my gut says otherwise, it tells me that even though the war is over another is soon to erupt out of it's ashes. This time, the war is not to be involved between my friends and a whole evil force, but just me and a whole different plater.

Yet as I set here alone in this room some depravity swarms my mind. With no avail I just couldn't shake what abhorrent thoughts thrive beneath me. My eye narrows in pure disgust realizing what being is that depravity.

Slade...

Its appalling, and yet I stand in awe from whatever is making me feel this way, thinking about him, shaping my will, just 'why" is all I have to ask. What lingers in the solitary of my room makes my insides churn in agony. Masked eyes narrow in pure hatred as all the thoughts of the malicious man once again fills up every corner of my mind. How I hate him...

He should of died. He deserved every right to...

Yes, Indeed Slade should have. Why the man didn't perish in the lava pits of hell lays very well beneath me. Looking up from the ground with a clenched jaw I swivel my neck over toward my working area. The wall he thrives upon lays before it as well as that haunted mask.

It strikes me suddenly about why I hate that mask as much as I do. The curse is a part of him, the mask makes him the villain just as how my own mask mask me the hero. Ever since the first day I rested eyes upon the orange and black site I was not able to shake the fear away.

On spite I turn my head the other direction in hope shutting my eyes begging for it to all go away, to leave me alone. I hated it, that mask of his was better off being Slade it's self the way it always glares at me as if it was really him. Ever since that dreaded day that I learned his name to our first encounter, I could never stop thinking about the crimelord. That first time, lead to my downfall...

:::flashback:::

I had him just where I wanted. Glaring at the man while we fought each other on top of that damn building made my heart pound with the all the hope in the world that I would be the one to defeat this crooked monster, being able to finally unmask that false face I would put an end to his existence in this city. That I Robin, boy wonder, the leader of teenage super heroes would be the one standing in triumph over Slade's defeated body. How I dreamed so many times of this moment coming to me, for a while I felt that today was going to be just that. In pure frustration I chuck one of my bird arranges at his head. Slade shatters it without effort in a heart beat from his backhand. Surprised at this, I watch the broken pieces fall down at my feet but I couldn't say what caught me more off guard. Was it the way the weapon broke as if it was a wooden stick? or was it the way I threw the at device at him with such force and anger. I wanted to shake my head.

That throw was meant to kill. Did I just try to kill him rather than try to pin him to the wall with what that weapon is mainly designed for?

Slade takes advantage of the moment as I remain disturbed from it. Running toward the edge I watch amazed in how my nemesis takes an impossible leap off the building to another distant one.

Now It was my turn...

Taking a few steps back to get a running start I launch my body toward the plateau. As I begin to drop I catch my self and tumble at the landing but with ease. Glancing up I see Slade, mask and all staring down at me in a pleasing way that made me sick to my stomach. The look on my face must have showed it.

"Careful. I wouldn't want you getting hurt.", the mastermind warned.

Yeah right...

I thought baring my teeth in response.

It's not like you really care anyway...

"I'm not the one who's going to get hurt. Now hand them over!" I demanded from the crook. Slade was going down, and I was going to make sure that after tonight he would never show his face in Jump City again. I would be able to rest with him gone. Everything would be over, no more working nights, no more starving evenings, no more night mares, no more concern friends, no more Slade. I would be rid of his haunts, his malicious ways, his taunting persona would be forever gone. I yearn for this beyond all things...

" I thought we had a deal."

Yeah so what would you like me to do about it, Slade? Just let you get away like that while I have to go back home and have my friends turn their backs on me because of what I just sacrificed in order to defeat you? The deals off!

Slade was toying with me now and I was really beginning to grow rather impatient of him.

"Sorry." I scuff, "I have a strict rule against giving stolen technology to psychos."

Stopping at this I pause in realization to what just happened. I did steal...

Sensing that Slade picked up on my remark I was able to almost see that wry smile playing across his masked face.

Great. Now I am starting to think like him too. Just perfect, really.

"How very noble of you. But stealing in order to trap me? That wasn't so noble. Two wrongs don't make a-"

He pushed me again. Hating him for everything I angrily cut him off.

"Don't ever lecture me! Whatever you're planning, Slade, it's over!" but something on the inside gave off a different feeling. Some kind of doubt in the out skirts of my mind told me otherwise. That it really wasn't over and never would be. Perhaps that...

"Oh, on the contrary, Robin. It's just begun."

My heart quickly dropped to my stomach as I silently began to panic. It has to be over, this has to end now.

We charge at one another on the dot. The uneasy feeling that lurked within myself has turned into sear apprehension. To hide this I throw strike after strike at the towering black and orange figure in hope that one of them would hit. Unfortunately for me I miss every time but non the less I don't let up on my blows.

He can't win. I won't let him win.

At this thought my mind goes blank and to my luck my lungs get punctured by one of Slade's kicks. I tumble away from him from the force. I could of sworn I was at the edge that time as I got back on my feet and charged at him again. We go at it for a while seeing that it was a never ending battle between villain and hero that would of well lasted forever if neither of us ended up defeated. I was beginning to grow tired but I kept on persisting forward until my side of the battle is won.

There's no running away now, Slade...

Apparently, Slade thought this too. I go to land a punch into his side until my fist are caught by his steel trap of one. Almost in a mockery he seizes my fist till my figures were on the verge of breaking. I wanted to yell out in pain but my ego told me otherwise. Before I could recover an armored elbow drives into my lungs hard. Suddenly I could not breath, the wind rushed out of me like a popped balloon as I was flung once again toward the edge of the rooftop. However failing to catch my self this time, I stumbled through some crates and to my surprise began to fall.

No one was there to catch me either. I scream and cling to the ledge for dear life. It was over, Slade won and now I was going to surely die. I look down to the pit of my soon to be death and watch the speeding traffic go on bellow me. Funny how death can be so simple yet so complicated at the same time. I was going to die not the way I would of liked to die but I was going to die non the less wasn't I?

No more than 3 seconds later the masonry of the the ledge begins to crumble beneath my finger tips. Then all at once I could of sworn seeing my life flash before my eyes as I began falling to my death. Falling just as how my parent's fell to their own.

Closing my eyes I could picture their faces, glimpses of memories with Batman, the Titan's and Slade .

Slade?

Realizing that I stopped falling, I look up into that mask that I presumed wanted me dead. My wrist was being held on to that broke my fall and that narrow eye that was anything but cruel at that moment told me that it was true. Slade really just saved my life...

" You...saved me?" I asked him. I was so confused about why. Didn't he hate me? Didn't he want me to die? I looked up at him in question while wanting to ask why he saved me but I never got that chance.

Nor did I get a full answer.

"I'm not through with you."

:::end of flashback:::

I never thought that through out all my years of fighting crime, such a villain can pose a threat like Slade. Then again, Slade was not your ordinary villain now was he? No, Slade was a mastermind capital of controlling other's thoughts, provoke feelings, manipulate minds to his liking. He was a person capable of many dangerous things, but then again, Slade wasn't just a person either.

Looking back at the wall while intently staring at his mask, a thought comes to me suddenly about what really done me in that night on the roof top of that building. What baffled me the most, left me in complete awe and wonder was not why I lost the battle or how I done so much wrong that day, but why it all happened in the first place. From the first time Slade's own single ice cold blue eye punctured my mask I've noticed something ...odd. It was almost like I was never wearing a mask in the first place, as if Slade was able to see right through me. When he looked at me, nothing else in the world mattered to him, and for some unruled out reason I felt like he wanted me to think the same. He wanted me to see myself for who I really truly was, not Robin, not the brave Teen Titan's leader. The moment he looked at me I was not a boy wonder anymore I was the person that everyone refused to see, that being non the less a child. A small fragile, naive child. As much as I hate to admit it and even though it angers me to think about it, In Slade's view I was just that scared little boy who lost his parents, an orphan with no place to go to, Richard Grayson, the boy behind the mask. Why though was it just him that was able to cock his head in the way he was able to, glare down at me with such intensity that he made me feel like a misbehaved kid, and in the end when I fall into my misery was he the one to catch me? Why him? Why does it have to be Slade; that ever so cocky crimelord of the city? The memory of staring up into Slade's single eye in wonder brought uneasiness to my chest. Rage begins to spark from the inside of my heart. My temples begin to pound against my head as I feel my face scrunch up in agony.

Why did he have to be the one to save me?

Getting up from my bed I bravely made my way over to the wall and slowly snatched up the mask that has been glaring at me in mockery since the minute I stepped foot into the room. Tracing the outline of the single eye socket with my thumb, I began to wonder the question that drove me into obsession. That three word question that haunted my dreams, twisting them into unbearable nightmares that pledged my memories like film strips of a movie. I stiffened a breath holding the question in my mind rather then let it burn my lips with it's poisoned tone.

Who is Slade?

This simple yet complicated question haunts me every waking minute of my life. After all of these many months of research I was nor able to find any information on this mastermind that would help me bring him to Justice. I literally worked my self overtime in trying to find his weakness, what fueled him that I could have happily reduced it if I ever found out what it might be. Clenching the mask now in both hands I find my self agitated by this question, knowing that there was no resting until I found out the answer.

Who are you?

There was a silence. As if expecting an answer from the mask I sat down at my desk and studied the source.

Great...

I thought wanting to raise my hands up in the air.

I'm talking to a mask...now I must really be going crazy.

Shaking my head at this, I had a feeling that it was going to be a very long night. Knowing just one thing so certain that who ever Slade may be he is human, and as human as he is Slade had a past. His past surely being a dark one. I scowl at this realizing the hard truth that lays beneath the mask just as how truth lays beneath my own.

Dark mask, dark past for one things so certain, Slade's past shared darkness with my own...Slade...who are you?

Authors Note: Was It ok? I truly hope so. How was that for part uno of Robin's POV huh? As you can see, our boy wonder has a lot on his mind and part 1 here is a preview of a whole bigger "enlightenment" that our bird is going to realize about the mastermind. I covered as many points as I was able to for this chapter, like Robin's reaction to Slade when he saved him from falling. It's kinda cute for Robin to realize that Slade's not all that bad but it's confusing for him at the same time because Robin holds a deep passion of hate for the man. Anyway...perhaps the rest of Slade's pov will be up within a few days. Please make sure to review cause if there are no reviews there will be no Sladey time. So R AND R!!!