Author's Note: I don't have anything witty to say here for once. Enjoy the chapter. It's back in Kori's POV (aka my comfort zone).
DISCLAIMER: Disclaimed
Chapter 4
I land gently on the roof of Titans Tower, back in my old Starfire uniform. We have to wear our hero attire for these tower checkups so we don't look like a random civilian breaking into the tower. I opted to enter from the roof seeing as it would be a closer entrance to the ops room and all of our old rooms. I head downstairs and make sure what little technology we left behind was still here. So far, it looked like no one tried to ransack the place. I do a thorough sweep of the tower for any signs of robbery or disrepair and find nothing. I send out a mass text to the other former Titans and get ready to leave, but before I do, I decide to stop somewhere for a few minutes.
I head towards Robin's old room and the door slides open with a familiar whoosh. The room hasn't changed much since the day he told me he was leaving, except all the boxes are gone. But his old bed and desk are still there. I sit on the bed and memories rush back to me, all the times we kissed here, all the intimate touching, especially all the times we made love here. Then the memory of him telling me he was going to leave hits me even harder than usual and I burst into tears.
"Oh, Richard… I miss you so much… My friends think I'm crazy for thinking you're back… I'm not crazy, right? You're out there somewhere nearby, I know you are. Right?"
I look around the empty room. Maybe I am crazy; I am sitting in an empty room talking out loud to myself. I sigh and get up off the bed. Before leaving, I pull out the mask I found in my dorm room and set it on the pillow. A shrine of sorts to all the memories we made here.
I walk through the empty hallway to head up to the roof and stop when I see something on the floor. It's red and kinda looks like one of Robin's birdarangs, but as I get closer, I see that it's in the shape of an X. Oh, shit. Before I can pull out my phone and call for help, I feel a hand on my shoulder and I do the dumbest thing I could possibly do. I gasp, which causes me to directly inhale the chloroform from the rag the intruder placed in front of my face. As the world starts to fade, I whisper one name.
"Robin…"
BABS' POV
Okay, I'm allowed to be worried now, right? Kori left at around 10 yesterday and said she'd be back no later than this afternoon. Well, it's nearly midnight and still no sign of her. What can I do? I can't exactly go to campus security and report her missing. I mean, she was going to Titans Tower! How do you explain that? Wait! I don't need to panic! She gave me Rachel's address in case something like this happened! I head to my car and drive towards Rachel's apartment. It's kinda late, but who cares? This is an emergency. I rush up to the apartment and knock on the door. After several minutes, the door opens and standing there is Garfield Logan in a dark blue bathrobe that clearly isn't his. He blinks several times in confusion.
"Babs? Babs Gordan? What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing, but I'm pretty sure I don't wanna know. I'm looking for Rachel, it's an emergency."
Rachel must've heard us because she joins us at the door in an oversized t-shirt.
"Babs, what's wrong?"
"Can we discuss this inside?"
"Yeah, yeah, come in."
Once everything is settled and Rachel and Gar put on some real clothes, we sit in her living room.
"Okay, Kori hasn't come back from her visit to Jump City. She said she'd be back no later than this afternoon and I haven't heard from her since she left."
"That's impossible. She texted all of us and told us everything was fine with the Tower."
"Maybe the problem wasn't in the tower."
Rachel sighs.
"Alright, we'll call Richard, Vic and Bee. We'll search Jump for her. Thanks for coming to tell us."
"Hey! I wanna help look to! I'll have you know, I was Batgirl for 3 years. Now I'm Oracle, the world's best computer hacker. Wait, did you just say you're going to call Richard?"
"Yeah, he's back. Didn't Kori tell you?"
"Kori doesn't know for sure that he's back."
Rachel makes a small growling noise while Gar starts calling their friends.
"Okay, we'll deal with that later, right now, we need to focus on finding Kori."
A FEW HOURS LATER, IN TITANS TOWER
"Why did we agree to do these searches on our own?"
Nightwing growled this for about the fifth time since we all left. Most of us just rolled our eyes, but Cyborg snapped.
"Say that one more time, Bird Boy, watch what'll happen to ya."
"Are you threatening me?"
"No, I'm just saying that doing the individual searches was YOUR idea."
"Are you saying it's MY fault that Starfire's missing?!"
"ENOUGH!"
We all jumped at the sound of Raven's voice.
"Shouting at each other won't help us find Starfire any faster. Now SHUT UP and LOOK!"
"Raven's right! We'll go in groups of two and search for clues. Nightwing and Oracle, check the west wing of bedrooms. Raven and I will check the east wing. Cyborg and Bumblebee check downstairs. We'll use our communicators to keep in contact in case we find anything."
I'd never imagine Beast Boy-er, Changling, would take charge like that, but I guess love really changes a person. Speaking of love changing people, I may have dated him way back when, but I have never seen Nightwing look so worried over anything.
"We'll find her Nightwing. I mean, she kinda stands out, she can't be that hard to find."
"That all depends on who took her."
"Well, it must be somebody who knows how to get into the tower."
"That is a very short list. And nobody on it is easy to find."
I sigh and give up on trying comforting him. We check all the Titan's old rooms, saving his for last. The room looks normal except it looks like someone had been sitting on the bed and left one of his old masks on the pillow.
"Hey, I don't think I put this here…"
"Maybe she did. I know she found a mask like in our dorm after that frat party the other day."
"Well, good. Then we're getting closer to finding where she went missing."
We wander back into the hallway and find an odd red X on the floor. Next to it is a very oddly shaped S. They both appear to be forms of weapons or insignias. I've never seen anything like them, but Nightwing clearly has judging from the look of fury and pure hatred on his face.
"Nightwing… What-?"
Instead of answering me, he pulls out his communicator.
"Nightwing, did you find anything?"
He hisses the next word and I recoil from him.
"Slade."
Yes! Slade and Red X are working together, thank you jaqui101 for that idea! Now if you'll excuse me, it's snowing again and I might just have to kill myself… Just kidding, I'm not gonna kill myself. Next chapter, the search for Starfire is on! Until then my lovelies, R&R! -Starprincess
