A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far! I luf y'all! Please stand by for a LONG author's note!
As for the question that a lot of you asked – why the heck doesn't Terra know about Robin – well… Robin's disappearance didn't make national news or anything and by the time Terra showed up in Jump City the press had kinda figured out that Robin was a Taboo subject with the Titans. Plus, by that point Rob had been AWOHL for nearly eight months and nothing new had come to light so the press got bored. But the main reason is that I wanted Terra to get to 'discover' Robin. Yeah, all hail artistic license!
For those of you who were skeptical as to Robin having more or less emotionally broken down, think of like this: The only reason he really has left for living is to protect his friends and said friends a) believe that he stabbed them in the back and became a villain and b) beat him to a pulp now on a regular basis. How would YOUR mental health be doing after nearly a year of this plus being forced to go against everything you ever believed in?
Okay – at last, on with the story! (Warning: This chapter and the next contain more or less NO action)
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Terra had only ever ventured down to the basement a few times before and all of those times she had been with at least one of the others. Coming down on her own made her feel a bit like an intruder. The boxes Cyborg had been referring to were tucked far back in the shadowy alcove under the stairs and were hard to spot unless you were looking for them. Carefully pulling out the two mysterious cardboard boxes, Terra stared at them curiously for a minute before hesitantly opening the first one. It contained what looked like three scrapbooks each with a year written on the cover underneath of the words 'Teen Titans.' Terra selected the oldest book and pulled it out, allowing the volume to fall open in her lap.
The first page the book opened to had several pictures on it and four different styles of handwriting, only three of which the blonde recognized. In the upper left hand corner in a small, tight hand – the one that Terra hadn't seen before – someone had written "Star and her mustard" under a picture of the orange skinned alien girl happily sitting on a picnic blanket sucking away on a bottle of her favorite yellow condiment with a straw. Terra laughed before looking at the next picture. Starfire certain did love her mustard. The next picture had Cyborg's large, block-like lettering which seemed to be stuck in permanent cap-locks beneath it. It showed Raven, who was still dripping wet from a shower, clutching a blue bathrobe around her body her face livid as she stood next to the common room couch, a small puddle of water beginning to collect at her feet. Her right hand was held out in front of her in a clawing motion and her hair, the obvious reason for her displeasure, was a violent shade of magenta. Beast Boy could be seen mid-smash through one of the giant windows, a fist of black magic propelling him forward while Starfire stood in the background looking confused. The caption underneath the picture said, "The results of BB's April Fools prank on Raven." The last picture on the page had Star's looping script next to it and said, "Beast Boy and Cyborg play the fools of April trick on friend Robin." BB and Cy were doubled over with laughter as a third person hung upside down in between by one foot, a loop of rope around his ankle. The person wore green leggings, a red shirt with short green sleeves, green gloves that stretched nearly all the way to his elbows, black boots with dangerous looking metal soles, and a yellow utility belt. The yellow inside lining of a cape hung down obscuring the person's head from view, though, by his body position, Terra guessed that he was giving the half robot and shape shifter a death glare and/or was yelling at them. The over all bright colors of his uniform reminded Terra strongly of a stoplight. In the margin "I told ya we'd get ya, dude!" was written in, in Beast Boy's chicken scratch scrawl.
Terra scrutinized the picture closely, trying to pick up as much about the mysterious 'Robin' as she could from the one shot. Did this mean he had been a Teen Titan? From his appearance alone the geokenetic couldn't pick up what his powers might have been but he seemed to be well muscled though maybe a bit on the short side. In fact, his overall build reminded her of someone but she couldn't quite think of whom.
In one smooth motion, the blonde girl flipped back to the very first page of the scrapbook and stared in surprise at the large group photo it housed. This time the Teen Titans were depicted in their normal 'v' attack pattern and the quality of the photograph suggested that it had been taken by a professional. The first thing that struck her as odd was that Cyborg wasn't in his normal point position that he always took as leader of the group but instead stood one back to the left of point in front of Raven, grinning, one arm formed into his familiar sonic cannon in Terra's normal place in the attack formation. In the point position stood a boy whom the geokenetic guessed was Robin based on his brightly colored uniform. He had black hair that was gelled into spikes and a black and white half mask covered his eyes. His feet were about shoulder width apart, arms crossed across his chest, and there was a confident smile on his face. An unseen breeze was causing his yellow-lined black cape to billow slightly in a very impressive manner. The eye mask and hair suddenly reminded her of Icarus, Slade's apprentice, but she shook off the impression. Icarus was a villain and fought the Titans on a regular basis, Robin was obviously a valued member of the group – or had been anyway – maybe even the leader. She wondered why he had fallen out with the others.
Putting down the scrapbook for a moment, Terra glanced at the other box, wondering what was in it. More scrapbooks or photograph albums, maybe? Dragging it closer she unfolded the top four flaps and was surprised to find a number of video tapes and a camcorder sitting in the bottom. Grabbing a tape at random, the blonde placed it in the video camera and flicked open the viewing panel on the side before pressing play.
Beast Boy's face appeared on the small screen a mischievous grin on his face. "Today on 'Beast Boy Presents' you are going to witness something that no one outside of the Tower has ever seen and lived to tell the tale of before! You, my loyal viewers, are going to witness Robin, boy wonder of Gotham and leader of the Teen Titans, in one of his moods." BB stepped out off the camera's view and it began to move down the hall towards what Terra recognized as the gym. Faintly, she could hear what sounded like somebody having it out with the punching bag. The camera slowly approached the open gym door and then peeked around the corner. On the far side of the exercise room the figure Terra was now starting to identify as Robin was attacking the poor punching bag in an amazing flurry of punches and kicks that made Terra wonder what the punching bag had ever done to him. This went on for about two minutes until Robin hit it with one last mighty roundhouse kick and sent the bag flying into the far wall with a thud. Finally the boy wonder stood still, staring at the punching bag, breathing hard. Suddenly he glanced over his shoulder and looked directly into the camera lens watching him from the doorway.
"Beast Boy, what do you think you're doing?" Terra heard BB let out a quiet 'eep!' in the background and the shot cut off. There was black for a moment and then Beast Boy's face appeared on the screen once again. He was breathing rather heavily but other than that looking none the worse for wear.
"Next on today's program we continue our aviary theme –"
"Hey, BB!" Cy's voice interrupted in the background. "Since when do you even know what 'aviary' means?"
Beast Boy glowered to his right at the unseen Cyborg. "Dude! Quit interrupting! Animal Planet had a special on birds, okay?" The green changeling turned his attention back to the camcorder, though a hint of the ticked off expression still lingered on his face. "As I saying before I was so rudely interrupted, to continue with our aviary Titans theme for today we shall attempt to answer the long standing question – what is Raven actually reading?"
"BB, man, you've got a serious death wish today, haven't you?"
"Shut up, dude!"
"You two do realize that I can hear every word you're saying," Raven's normal monotone asked but with a slightly irritated edge to it. On screen, BB froze, a guilty grin on his face which was quickly replaced by a nervous one as Raven continued. "If you so much as come within ten feet of me with that camera I will feel no qualms about throwing you out of the window again."
"On second thought, on today's program we're going to be answering a different mystery of the ages… just as soon as I can think of one…."
"Friend Beast Boy? Friend Robin wishes to know where you are so that he can do the skewering of you with his bo staff!"
The short changeling's face went incredibly pale and he gulped audibly.
"Oh shoot! Well, that concludes today's program, folks! Until then, this is Beast Boy saying, dude, I really hope I can out run Robin!" The small screen went blank again.
Terra grinned and laughed to herself before reaching for another tape. Something about Robin's voice rubbed at the edge of her mind but Terra couldn't quite put her finger on what it was so she ignored it for the moment and inserted the next tape.