Author's Note: So in this chapter we get more Robin/Titans action, and Robin recognizes changes occurring within himself. And I know most of you probably don't care for OCs (original characters), so I did my best to make Z interesting and engaging. She goes through quite a bit of character development in this chapter, along with Robin. Enjoy.
As the weeks passed, Slade began allowing Robin to spend time on the roof of the Haunt when he wasn't training or when he didn't feel like sleeping. The crisp night air invigorated him, but also reminded him of how he longed to be outdoors. Like playing volleyball on the roof of the Tower with Cyborg and Beast Boy and… he shook the thought away.
Robin began noting patterns in himself, most notably that he could only sleep soundly without nightmares after completing a mission, usually to steal some sort of weapon from some heavily guarded facility. This quite bothered him; it was almost as if he had begun to welcome his missions. Maybe even like them.
Memories of certain comments Slade had made flashed through his mind. You'll learn to like it… on some level… you enjoyed stealing for me.
Robin tossed and turned in his bed vehemently.
It was a thrill, wasn't it?
He kicked the sheets away heatedly, got up, and went to the clock: early evening. Almost time for tonight's mission. He paced back and forth across the room. I wish I could blow off some stream and train right now…
He stopped.
What? Had he actually thought that? Training meant Slade's company. How could he possibly want something like that?
But he did, he realized with shock. Not for his captor's company necessarily, but just for the satisfaction of blowing up the targets as specified, back-flipping and landing soundly on the steel beams below the ceiling in the south room, and so forth. Training reminded him that he still had his abilities—which were actually improving under Slade's guidance—that he still had something. That he hadn't lost everything.
But he was losing control. Blackmail was one thing, but succumbing to these pressures… letting them mold him like clay into something he knew he was not… was entirely another. He had become reliant, and reliant on things only Slade controlled. It made him furious.
Purposefully he pulled on his gloves and boots, and then proceeded towards the cement wall. After one punch he decided it wouldn't relieve his pent-up bitterness. Maybe I'll go up early, he thought. Watch the sunset.
As he trod through the Haunt, he looked for Slade, but saw him nowhere; he was probably in the room Robin assumed to be his office of sorts, in the northwest corner, a place he was never allowed.
Climbing the rungs, he tossed open the door in the ceiling and mounted the roof. As he walked towards the west end, he passed some sort of electrical unit and started at the sight of bent, dark figure.
Z was seated towards the sun, arms clasped around her knees, her head down. When she looked up in surprise, Robin saw her eyes and nose were red. Immediately he felt a pang of remorse.
"I—I'm sorry," he stuttered, stepping backwards, "I didn't mean to invade your privacy."
She sniffed, looking into the sun orange-rimmed sun. "You're not." Her voice was very quiet.
"No, I really—"
"I meant you're not invading my privacy." A corner of her mouth turned upward faintly.
"Oh." Robin stood motionless, feeling awkward, half-wanting to retreat back to his room.
She glanced back up at him. "You can sit."
Robin sat cross-legged, a couple feet away from her to respect her personal space.
"This is my favorite time of day," she said. "Right before sunset, the light turns golden, and it turns everything facing its way to gold."
Robin gazed around at the emptiness that was one of the darker sides of Jump City. Yes, he supposed, the faces of the buildings did indeed look golden. "I guess you're right."
The sun seemed to burst through the air, reaching for them, and gleamed off Z's hair. Robin thought it almost looked like Starfire's.
No, he commanded himself. Don't think of her.
"I haven't seen you in weeks," he said. "What have you—"
It was when Z flipped her hair with a toss of her head that Robin noticed the bruises. They were fingerprints on her arms, dotting her skin with purple and yellow splotches.
"Where did you get those?"
"Huh?"
"The bruises on your arms."
"Oh… I forgot all about that." At once she picked up her long-sleeved black jacket that had been lying beside her, pulling it on and zipping it up. "There, that's better."
"Who did that to you?" He vaguely wondered if Slade sent her on missions as well.
"Really, it's no big deal," she insisted through a nervous chuckle, and Robin noted the blush beneath her freckles. His unmoving gaze insisted she answer him.
Z met his glance. She made a disgusted sound, and looked away again. "Slade gets a bit… rough sometimes."
Robin was mildly astonished. "Why…? Did you… do something to anger him?"
"Uh… not exactly." She shifted her weight uncomfortably, and then sighed in defeat. "We… get together sometimes." Her voice was barely audible, and her face reddened even more.
"What!?" He couldn't hide his horrid bewilderment at the understanding. "He…" Robin lowered his voice to almost a whisper. "He… rapes you?"
"No!" she cried crossly, tightening her grip around herself. "…Well… that's how it started. But it's not… not that way anymore."
Robin was unconvinced. And quickly realized the presence of a newfound, stronger abhorrence for Slade within himself, if such a thing was even possible.
He gritted his teeth. "If I weren't in the position I'm in…"
"But you are," she said simply. "And even if you weren't, what would you do? I'm the one choosing to stay."
Robin wore a pained, sad look. "But… why?"
She shrugged and smiled a fake smile. "I guess I wouldn't know what to do with myself out in the world after all these years. It's kind of hard to leave something behind when it's all you've ever known, you know?"
Robin silently reflected. He supposed he had been lucky all his life compared to Z, despite the deaths of his parents. He had had someone willing to take him in… and then, later, he had had the Teen Titans. Friends. He wondered if Z had ever had any friends at all.
"Before I came up here, I went into his office. He was arguing with someone through his computer. It was just bad timing, really. So when he was done, I made the mistake of trying to… uh… soothe his anger. Long story short, he grabbed me and threw me across the floor. Oh, and he said he wasn't in the mood for a worthless slut like me."
"You are not worthless," Robin said firmly.
Z chuckled bitterly. "But I am a slut."
"Why do you care what he thinks?"
She paused, considering. "I don't know why… all I know for sure is that I do."
Robin was unsure of what to say to that, so he said nothing. He returned his gaze back to the sky.
The sun had flushed into a rosy pink, and its bottom half was settling beneath distant purplish clouds. The air had cooled in the easy silence that had settled between them.
After a time, Z rose. "Well, Robin—may I call you Robin?"
"Please do. I'm not exactly fond of 'apprentice'."
"Well, Robin, thanks for the company." She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and emitted a small, ironic laugh before adding, "It's almost like you actually care or something."
"I do," he responded sincerely.
She smiled faintly, but a fragment of sadness crept into her expression. "Try not to; it might land you in trouble one of these days." She began walking away, but before she left, she frowned and somberly added, "I'm bad news, Robin. And you're too nice for a place like this."
Dread churned in his stomach as Robin tossed an explosive disc at the double doors; when Slade told him he would be stealing from his former mentor's company—Wayne Enterprises—tonight, Robin did his best to maintain a neutral expression, but saw that he had failed, judging from the smile he had heard in Slade's voice.
Wading in through the smoke and rubble, he made his way towards his target, which was encapsulated within a beam of light. Having earlier disarmed Wayne Tower's security system, he reached in and…
"You're not walking out of here, Robin!" Cyborg's voice boomed from the gloomy green room. "Not without a fight."
Robin faced them, his demeanor impassible. Finally, some real action.
Multiple thoughts buzzed in his mind all at once. Those aren't some random guards or crime bosses; those are your friends!
His body ached for a fight. But did he really want to fight his friends?
He wasn't sure.
And not being able to mentally answer that question with an adamant "No" was more than he could take.
I have to get out of here!
His mind flooding with thoughts of escape, he emitted an enraged yell, bursting towards the Titans at a sprint.
"Titans, go!" Cyborg cried.
He's replaced you well.
His heart raced as he neared them, mind steeped in depersonalization; his racing legs and pumping arms didn't feel like his own, and his mind felt far away.
Cyborg, as he was so tall, threw a downward hook, which Robin dodged, bounding onto his mechanical back, and leaping forward, past the airborne Starfire and Raven, and towards his objective: the retracted metal ladder by which a sign read "roof hatch access".
Robin grasped a rung and swung feet-first from it, kicking open the door, and landing acrobatically inside a sort of dark crawl space just beneath the roof. Hastily he struck the outermost hatch so it flew off, and clambered up to the roof.
His eyes scanned the roof rapidly: alone. He ran, past the enormous fluorescent letters spelling "Wayne". Maybe he could climb into the window of the neighboring building and…
"Not so fast, Robin. You have yet to achieve your objective," Slade said coolly through Robin's earpiece.
"The device was too heavily guarded," he lied. "I'll have to steal it another—"
"No."
Robin skidded to a stop, facing back towards the small door in the roof.
"Go back," Slade commanded. "Unless you want me to destroy them, go back, and fight."
"Robin!" Cyborg shouted. Robin turned around abruptly. The Titans stood before him.
"Look, I don't know what's going on," he began, hands raised defensively and stepping forward, "but we don't want to fight; we just want to talk."
There were no thoughts now—just his fighting instincts. Robin launched a vicious kick at Cyborg's chest, sending him sliding on his back, despite his weight.
"Guess there's nothing to talk about," said Beast Boy in a threatening voice, cracking his knuckles. Rapidly he transformed into an enormous gorilla at least twice Robin's height, and raised his fists above his head with a roar.
Robin somersaulted backwards away from the impact, which seemed to vibrate the entirety of Wayne Tower.
Beast Boy swiped his colossal hands at Robin, who cut away each time. He jumped powerfully backwards onto the cross-section of the letter "A", and then propelled himself into a back-flip, landing on top of it.
The shape-shifting teen hurdled with ease to the top of the "A", aiming to seize Robin within his powerful arms, but just missed.
Now on the right end of the "W", Robin pulled out a GE disc, lassoed it around Beast Boy's arm, and deftly swooped through the center of the "A", towing the gorilla behind him so his massive body became lodged inside the letter.
Robin rose from a crouch as the "A" wobbled and sparked from the impact, facing Starfire.
I can't fight her, approached the hazy thought.
"Please—" she began earnestly, and then gasped as Robin darted past her towards Raven.
Raven shielded herself with her powers from his brutal kicks and punches, casting black splotches in the air.
Robin sensed a large presence behind him, and ducked to avoid Cyborg's punch from behind, which connected with Raven's black shield.
Just then something struck his side powerfully—ram horns, he noted vaguely—and instantly he was rolling away, almost over the edge of Wayne Tower.
"Dude! Are you okay?" resounded Beast Boy's alarmed voice. Robin waited for him to approach before delivering an unforeseen punch that sent his friend flying into Cyborg, knocking him down.
He sat up into a crouch as the voice reverberated in his ear: "Fight to win, Robin. Use the thermal blaster." Robin touched the heat ray attached to his arm tentatively.
Raven rose into the sky. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Immediately a swirling channel of blackness propelled towards Robin and encompassed his torso, lifting him into the air, but his right hand was free, so he hurled a disc at the fluorescent letter beside her. The flash blinded her, and she toppled onto the roof.
"No!" he heard Starfire cry.
Cyborg was back up. Robin threw punches at him, which he blocked with his palms.
"C'mon, man, don't make me do this," he protested, but Robin persisted. "I don't want to do this!" Cyborg grasped his arm then, and aimed a sonic cannon blast at Robin, but Robin swiped a leg beneath him, effectively knocking him off his feet.
The force of the cannon blast sent Robin into the sky, but with a nimble touch he directed himself so that he landed on top of the letter "A". He fled across the letter-tops before the Titans he had fought could recover. "Y", "N"…
"Stop!" commanded Starfire, who floated in front of him, blocking his path, a starbolt glowing around her palm with green light.
Abruptly he stopped on the stretch of the "E".
"Do not move."
"I thought I told you to use that blaster," Slade said warningly. "Attack! Now!"
Slade had raised his voice, which he seldom did. Robin noted reproachfully his fear at the voice, the fear mixed with fury; he prided himself in a seemingly shatterproof confidence.
A hum from the heat ray rose to a high pitch and a red light lit up its tip, ready to fire, and Robin, eyes wide, aimed it directly at her, feeling out of touch with reality. This can't be real…
Starfire closed her hand into a fist, her eyes determined. But then Robin saw something transform in her. Like she was realizing something. When she spoke, her tone was dismal.
"Robin… you are my best friend… I… I cannot be in a world where we must fight. If you are truly evil, then go ahead…" The starbolt disappeared, and she lowered her head and brought her arm to her side, closing her eyes in submission. "…Do what you must."
I can't.
Robin's mouth dropped open, his heart sinking into an acidic mix of shock and grief.
She's lost faith in me.
He lowered the weapon, and his voice was thick. "Starfire… No, I—"
In an instant, sharp feedback shot into his ear canal. "Robin!" He clasped a hand to his head, grimacing. Slade's voice was low and threatening. "I gave you an order. If you won't attack, my probes will."
Their eyes met, confusion in hers, until a small gasp emanated from her lips.
"Starfire!" He knew what was coming.
Slade was going to kill them.
Starfire's entire body convulsed, and Robin raced to the edge to catch her fall. Every visible patch of her pale skin began glowing red like sunlight through thin flesh. Robin glanced helplessly down at the other Titans, who clutched painfully at their bodies and stumbled and fell.
"Stop! Please, stop!' Robin shrieked, Starfire quivering in his arms.
"Attack, Robin," Slade commanded in a whispering hiss. "It's the only way to save them… Attack with everything you've got."
Robin's eyes darted about helplessly, searching for something, someone, anything that could help him somehow.
He saw nothing.
Terror prevented him from swallowing, from blinking. He could scarcely breathe as he realized he must do it. So he placed Starfire's body gingerly down.
"…Robin…"
His voice broke. "I'm sorry."
And he fired.
Interesting Facts and Insights About Lingering Demons:
I ended up putting a lot of my own personal traits in Robin and in Z. For example, my favorite time of day: late afternoon when the sunlight turns golden. It's so beautiful.
For a long time I considered turning the nature of Z and Slade's relationship into a sexual one, before finally deciding. But it's more than just that; Slade controls her psychologically, which will be shown and talked about in further chapters.
"It's kind of hard to leave something behind when it's all you've ever known." Z's quotation here rings true for all of us, in a way (I think). I relate to it a lot. Change can be frightening. We become accustomed to the familiar, even if the familiar is something bad.
On the roof we also see the manifestation of Z's low self-esteem through her own words. I myself suffer from low self-esteem, so this was actually very easy for me to write, which is kind of sad, I guess.
Towards the beginning of the fight, Robin experiences depersonalization. It's not a nice feeling; I feel it any time I encounter conflict that strikes a nerve in me. Google defines it as the following: "A state in which one's thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not to belong to oneself, or in which one loses all sense of identity."
