So weird, my chapter four's always seem to be the funniest ones and this is the third time counting if you've happened to have read From Solo to Trio and Return to the Swamp. Have fun with this one, Robin, and learn to laugh at yourself!
Arual-san
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Alfred maintained the same quiet dignity as he always did when he had to make the exact same drive back to the place he had already just been when all the while the teenager behind him was positively jumping off the walls in the Rolls Royce to either side window, not wanting to miss a thing, when he flipped the dials so the separating window went up and down, never getting bored of that simple thing.
Since the police of Jump City were a massive fail except to the least worthy of super-villains the Titans' patrol of it was a full time job that meant trips away from it were few and far in between. Beast Boy had souvenirs of Tokyo sure but with every passing day his memories of it became a little less clear cut. The adoring faces of his karaoke fans he was sorest to lose…even when they had all turned into crazed stalkers when he'd tried to get some air.
But this was a brand new and additionally famous city that he was in now. The sights of how the concrete jungle of Gotham dwarfed their little Jump, the sounds of beeping cars, newspaper vendors yelling out the recent incarceration of whatever supervillian, the smell of…
Beast Boy ducked in his head in with a rush, coughing and wheezing after getting a face full of exhaust from the malfunctioning car in front.
"Seatbelts please, young man," the old butler put mildly, rounding a corner.
"Yeah, yeah, okay," Beast Boy said in a rush, buckling it, but still that small strap barely kept him contained, especially when the car rolled up to the front gates of his new mission. "Geez, where's the queen? I don't have a hat to take off!"
Credentials were given when asked for and Beast Boy was so stuck just gawking at the illustrious academy and its many wings that he almost didn't notice when they came to a stop in the visitor's parking. He flew out the door like a lit firecracker until he realized that although his feet whirred in motion he hadn't gone more than a foot from the car.
He looked round to see Alfred holding back his blazer with one hand, holding up his book bag with the other.
"Oh yeah!" With the rapid reflexes of an animal, Beast Boy snaked his arms through the bag's straps and started off again…only to find himself still held in place. The boy's over the top enthusiasm was a bit tiring to the old man but nonetheless Alfred could not let the boy out of his sight without properly preparing him with his room number, key and class schedule, matched as close as could be with his teammate's.
"One more thing," Alfred said, turning him around. He gripped the boy's tie, tightened its knot so that it might've been a noose.
Beast Boy hacked. "But you tightened it before we left!"
"Yes and you somehow managed to loosen it up again," Alfred replied, plenty used to the sass of a teenager. "If the decision had been up to me, young man, I would have run you through a rigorous training regimen of proper etiquette."
"Oh, what's to know?" Beast Boy asked, blowing a raspberry. "To be a rich person all you have to do is act boring and talk boring and drink tea with your pinky finger out."
Alfred's eyelids drooped low in doubt. "Quite." He released the boy's tie with some hesitation, had to remind him to stop tearing down the path like a maniac when other students would be on it further down the line.
The old man looked after the boy for some time and the lines of doubt remained creased in his forehead over the small nagging question of whether he'd set off on its way a helping hand or a hindrance. That alone was for Robin to decide.
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Dick need not have worried about concealing the miserable expression on his face as he walked the halls for third period, for many of the other students bore the same expression. He'd made a point of memorizing the rules the last he'd been there but still his wrists burned slightly pink for the couple times he'd slipped up and gotten whipped. The officials here lived to enforce authority and no parent was against a little discipline for the sons that would take up the family legacy.
He wasn't entirely sure what it was he was looking for, just for anything at all suspicious. It was that wandering attention that had earned Dick those two slaps to his wrists during class but when he was walking the halls he was free to inspect the behavior of classmates and professors.
Professors had the habit of complaining about how their income wasn't as high as it could be with the wealth of their clients as he passed the teacher's lounge. The majority of the students probably wouldn't receive the full amount of their inheritances until they became of age. A number of them might've signed up just for the thrill of it when they lived such strict and sheltered lives.
Everyone Dick passed was a potential suspect as an operative in Renwei's black market. The question was who to probe and to what extent to avoid suspicion when he moved on to the next potential. Bruce did the same sort of undercover work in the back alleys of Gotham but just because Dick was in a prestigious school didn't mean he could afford to take his mission any less seriously. Adults had the habit of underestimating how truly nasty kids could be…even if they didn't have the hidden switchblade of the common thug.
Because of his age and that alone, Dick hadn't much experience taking on an undercover assignment. Bruce couldn't just say he was bringing along his son to show him the tricks of the street without raising a few eyebrows.
"Not a problem," he murmured under his breath when just thinking those thoughts he expected the communicator in his pack to start vibrating with Batman filling him in on new information, always thinking it was his place to keep the boy under his wing.
Dick had been prepared and had removed the batteries. This was his mission, no matter that Batgirl and Batman were the ones to initially discover it. He wasn't going to stop pushing the fact that he was a capable and independent hero until the point got through the Bat's thick skull, until his guardian stopped looking at him like he was that lonely little eight-year-old brought in from the circus a whole other life ago.
This mission was another way to prove himself and one that the Bat couldn't overlook when Dick was right under his eye.
It was that drive that had kept him going through the day and he refocused on the other boys he passed, brushing by with little notice, picking up tidbits of conversation before he selected one with which to mingle.
He wasn't there to make friends or reestablish relations with former ones. He just had the fake them convincingly enough.
"Father's stocks are through the roof," a sandy-haired boy bragged, his arms crossed smugly. "I suppose I'll get an upgrade soon from that trashy Ferrari I rear-ended last week."
"It's really not that large of a dent," commented another thoughtfully. "Easily fixed with a vacuum suction and a little paint."
The reply would have been a perfectly reasonable solution to a fender bender in a normal school but it was a joke and a fine one at that in this school. The boys only allowed themselves a few dignified chuckles but it annoyed Dick all the same and he passed that chatter that was the norm.
Dick passed by a couple other similar conceited conversations until he neared his next classroom.
When he passed by a pale young gentleman raised his head from his friends to give a scrutinizing stare his way. He nudged a friend, abruptly ending all previous conversation. "It appears the Wayne heir has returned from his study abroad."
"Heir?" a boy scoffed as if it was funnier than the Ferrari dilemma could ever be. "You mean he's not just some lowly orphan Wayne picked up from the streets? The actual Wayne bloodline flows through his veins?"
"I suppose the remaining Wayne would have no other choice to pick up some street urchin to pass his fortune down to…"
"Seeing as no woman would ever want to marry a living, breathing statue."
The chuckles started again like they had before every day of the single year he had spent in this academy. It was a joke that always seemed new to the soft-faced, spoiled heirs he'd come to despise and it didn't help that the adults seemed to agree that he wasn't worthy in not being a blood relation even if they couldn't voice aloud those thoughts.
Oh if the black market accomplices could be every single boy who had ever spoken ill of him and his guardian.
Then – he pummeled a fist into his hand – he could treat them like any other villain.
Dick made sure to arrive to his history class a few minutes early since in the previous period an over eager disciplinarian professor had handed out tardy wrist lashings at least fifteen seconds before the bell had rung.
He decided to direct his attention to a group a few spaces from him and so he hardly noticed when the next boy that came in walked past three rows to sit right next to him.
Class droned on like the two before it and Dick was pulled away from his observation much too soon. He had to keep his eyes focused up front and no where else, not for a second, his stinging wrists reminded him.
It became more difficult to do when his left ear picked up the almost undetectable sound of a snicker stifled behind a pair of bit lips. So yet another person was laughing at him. Great. All the more reason to get the mission over with faster.
He would've just ignored it like he ignored all the other taunts but the random, stifled snickering didn't seem to stop even ten minutes in. That was highly suspicious in itself what with the strict upbringing of the other students.
But Dick couldn't look away from the blackboard and the professor, not for an instant, for that would be the instant he would be caught.
Since he'd dropped in during the middle of the term the history professor decided to load him down with homework at the end of class, which was most likely to happen with every class he went to that day and hinder progress from his true objective. Third period had only just ended and yet the academy was already doing everything it could to remind him why he'd never wanted to come back.
He heard another snicker from behind his back. Now that boy from the neighboring desk was following him in the halls.
That was it, his first lead to pursue. If that boy wanted to follow him than Dick let him do so at a brisker pace so that they made it to a corner of the west wing that was always all but deserted at that time of the day.
Once they were as close to alone as they were going to get, Dick spun on the spot.
"All right, why are you-!?" But Dick choked on his words mid-sentence, startled back on his feet on seeing Beast Boy in a perfectly passable human form.
Beast Boy positively beamed that he'd been noticed at long last. "Hi Ro-!"
A hundred blaring alarms screamed inside Dick's head in incredulity, at the other boy's sheer stupidity, and he clamped his hands over Beast Boy's like lightning to keep him from uttering that one word that was his secret identity.
"You-! I-! What are you-!?" he started, completing none of his sentences and he had the feeling Beast Boy was grinning behind his covered mouth. Dick released him to avoid suspicion from the few people passing through but was no less calm.
"What are you…"
"Doing here?" Beast Boy supplied all too happily, scratching his head. "Eh…wrong turn at Albuquerque?"
Not pleased, Dick crossed his arms, waiting.
"Simple. You forgot about this little guy." And Beast Boy raised a hand to show his leader one half of the same holographic generator rings that had allowed Cyborg to infiltrate the Hive Academy. "I couldn't pass up such a great opportunity!"
Both boys looked to the insignificant ring with the very significant powers, one with praise, one with loathing like he'd wished he'd buried it away with all the other crime-fighting memorabilia in the basement where no mischievous green hands could ever find it.
"You see, the girls couldn't come and Cy would kind of stand out anyway with that big quarterback build so I thought I'd keep you company. Two heads are better than one!"
"Right," Dick droned with dry sarcasm. He was sure it had nothing to do with Beast Boy meeting his hero Batman and getting to fool around with some advanced technology he'd probably end up breaking.
It only took that second of thinking about Beast Boy's motives before Beast Boy was leaning in much too close with a wickedly wide grin, breaching all sense of personal space.
Staring directly into his eyes.
"Stop it!" Dick hissed through his teeth. It was creeping him out in no small way.
"So you do have eyes!" Beast Boy exclaimed like it was the discovery of the century. "And they're blue! Puts those other theories to rest that you have cybernetic night-vision implants or that you've got such an oversensitivity to the sun that they'd explode in their sockets!"
Dick's teeth not only remained clenched, they grated audibly. Just then he couldn't help but notice Beast Boy's unusual positioning. "Why do you have a hand behind your back? Show it to me."
"You're the leader," Beast Boy said with obedience, revealing that hand but only after he'd replaced it with his other.
"What do have behind your back?"
"Just a ring on each finger," he replied a little too innocently. "You saw the first ring and you saw its brother, I don't see why-" But Beast Boy cut himself off right there, whipped out the camera and snapped a shot of Robin's bare face just as swiftly as he could.
Dick cried out in alarm from the glare and Beast Boy seized the opportunity to high-tail it out of there.
"Ha ha ha! That two-hundred buck pot is MINE!"
Spots danced in his vision but Dick lowered his hand at that exclamation and he would wholly believe someone just then if they had said that steam was coming out of his ears. He didn't run after and he didn't need to bother.
Beast Boy raced down the halls with glee like the money was already in his hands after so long awaiting the opportunity to strike. He didn't know where he was headed, just that he had to get as far away from the west wing as possible and so he took turns and double-backs without a thought.
He found a restroom and pushed past the door all so that he could get a first glimpse of his prize…
When Robin himself laid waiting on the other side with red burning in his newly discovered blue eyes. He shut the door with force before it had the chance to shut itself.
"Du-uuude!" Beast Boy whined and he was always fully taken by surprise by his leader's uncanny tricks. "How do you do that!? You were way behind me and I passed like thirty empty rooms!"
"Just the same as tracking any other prey."
"Heh-heh…" But Beast Boy was jolted right off track from getting nervous when he saw a glimpse of how his prize photo had developed. He gave a long, wailing moan. "Man, your eyes are all squinty! The other titans will think I photo-shopped it! Hold still!" He snapped away photo after photo to Dick's increasing resentment, not reading the tell-tale warning sign of the Titan leader beginning to bristle. "Would it kill you to smile!? I thought they'd up the bounty if I caught you in some stuffy uniform with Mama's boy hair but they might lower it if you're all grumpy and-!"
Dick lost all composure and lunged. "Give me that!"
"Eeep!" Beast Boy squealed, ducking out of the way and shielding his precious camera. "Wha-? NO! It's my picture and my camera and I got it fair and square! You don't know how long the rest of us have been waiting get this, both East and West!"
"Give it!" But despite Dick's sharply honed skills of martial arts the camera only just slipped out of his reach again and again with Beast Boy's own slippery movements of having been in the forms of so many different kinds of animals.
"Cyborg started the pot if we ever got a shot of your face!" Beast Boy said, unveiling the long-kept secret at last. "We've been keeping it in a pillowcase in Cy's closet and keep adding to it whenever we get the urge to see you without the mask, even Raven's pitched in a couple times! Then we got the Titans East in on it too and it really took over!"
Dick finally managed to wring in the camera by its dangling strap and soon he had half of it, which compromised Beast Boy's cockiness considerably.
"Hand it over! My alter-ego is mine!"
"But my moped needs a new everything!" Beast Boy argued, pulling back. "Come on, my baby needs some love!"
"You can change into anything! You don't need any wheels, you're just lazy!"
The boys pulled back forth, straining and throwing insults, trying to throw the other off balance all for the little black camera between them, quite overlooking the sound of the fourth period bell ringing. It went on for a while despite the camera's smooth surface until in their pivoting across the floor that Beast Boy came across a splash of water and slipped. It felled them both but Dick took the main brunt of the fall and Beast Boy snatched the opportunity to grab his camera and act like he'd meant to slip all along.
Dick picked himself up from the floor but instead of reinstating the fight let out a mix between a growl and a sigh.
"Can you just go home if I let you keep the stupid picture?"
"Go home?" Beast Boy repeated as if he hadn't heard right.
"Yes. I really don't think…you're the one best suited for this mission." Truth be told, Dick quite thought that Beast Boy was the one least suited to the mission and for obvious reasons.
"Well I'm here, I'm enrolled and I'm staying and that's that." Beast Boy had decided that for the both of them after he'd spent hours looking for the rings and braving the cold wind of the high altitude flying. "Oh and while I'm here I'm your third cousin so don't forget it."
"And you had better not forget that you can never call me Robin on this campus."
"Uhhh, oookay…uhh…" Beast Boy kept trailing on, giving his friend the time to fill him in on any sort of clue, "fearless leader?"
Dick sighed and looked away. "It's Richard."
"Really? Sounds so kingly. Sooo…Richie?" he branched out hopefully.
"Only if you want my textbook as your tombstone," Dick replied, forebodingly holding out his physics book. He wouldn't allow Beast Boy to waste anymore of his time with a proper funeral. "Call me Dick."
Beast Boy scratched his head. "How is Dick a nickname for Richard anyway?"
"I don't know, it just is." And for the first time since he'd arrived at the academy that day some of Dick's old spirit had returned. "And I wouldn't be taking cracks at my name anyway, Garfield."
"Hey!" Beast Boy came back at once, plenty used to having to defend his real name. "My name has a rich English history and it was the last name of one of our own U.S. presidents! Why does everyone only ever think of that blasted cat!? He's not even that funny!"
"Because you're kindred spirits in that way," Dick replied, just as ready with reply.
Beast Boy's head sunk low with an old sourness brought into the open again but he perked up out of it just as fast when they were out on a new adventure, just him and Robin. "Gotcha, uh…Dick. I'll be on my best behavior."
"I'll hold you to that, Gar. We're old-schooling this one, meaning our secret identities remain secret 24/7, no exceptions." He'd laid the ground rules which Beast Boy was sure to follow if he didn't want to fly all the way home but there was one last thing that needed resolving.
Beast Boy sputtered as his tie was re-tightened to choking levels once again that morning.