IX.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. But wait, did a plot suddenly materialize from nowhere?
As usual, thank you, reviewers. I recently realized that FF deleted the email addresses (way back in Chapters 1 & 2). The formatting is unbelievable. If you're interested, Raven's email address is "ravensdadcanbeatyourdad(at)jumpmail . com". Control Freak's was just "megachars(at)jumpmail . com".
Raven stumbled out of the waffle shop.
"That didn't go so well," she said.
"Maybe you shouldn't have said that about illegal immigrants."
"I told you. I didn't say illegal immigrants, I said—"
"Well, that's how he heard it."
"We got waffles, okay?"
"Those don't count as waffles. They're—they're not round, they're—I don't know, but it's definitely not a convex shape."
"They're perfectly adequate waffles."
"No," he said, shaking his head. "They're like the squashed, pitiful, crying remains of what used to be waffles."
"Whatever," she said.
"Don't whatever me, missy."
"And what," she found herself saying, almost mischievously, "are you going to do about it?"
"Well…" he said in a low voice—almost a leer—
A garbage can exploded in a flurry of black. Damn it—stupid…
"Bothering you?" Robin was using the same unnerving voice.
"Shut up," she said thickly. "I'm tired." A sewer grate flung itself at a dumpster.
"Looks like you've got plenty of energy to me."
Think of something witty, something that'll shut him up effectively and impress him at the same time, not that that's really a primary goal—
"Go away."
Yeah, *that* was a good one.
"Oh, that was a good one," he said.
"Stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Saying what I'm thinking." She tried to make a mock-pout, but her face, having never contorted into such a—coquettish?—expression before, collapsed into a typically depressed, drooling, tired grimace. At least, that was how it felt. Extremely tired.
He looked at her curiously. "I'm not the telepath here."
"I do wonder, sometimes," she said. She saw a sleeping baby in a carriage and lost her train of thought in jealousy.
"Let's get a taxi," she slurred. A mailbox imploded to emphasize the point.
"How will that help?"
"Obviously, getting us to the Tower more quickly. And letting me take a nap."
"We're at the coastline," he said, with an arched eyebrow.
"What?" She looked up. They were.
"…super," she deadpanned. Unfortunately, shards of lamppost proved either her ire or her drowsy lack of control.
"Don't kill the messenger."
Why doesn't *he* ever get tired?
"Why don't you ever get tired?" she said.
"What? It's not like I don't sleep."
"I think you're a robot. Again." She poked him with a black tendril. Being tired was making her strangely uninhibited. But he didn't mind, it seemed.
"You sound like you've been eating antifreeze."
"You ate it first."
"You liked it more. Inhibition releaser and—ow! Don't poke me there."
Raven and Robin finally returned to the Tower well past two. As they walked into the main gate, Raven yawned, tripped, cursed, and fell into the ground. Chairs disassembled themselves. She blushed, but luckily Robin didn't laugh.
"It's late, I know," he said. Such patronization usually grated with Raven, but she knew he wasn't just being a jerk.
"Yeah," she said into the floor.
Robin stepped away, and Raven evaluated just how little she wanted to get up. Very little indeed, though she did want a cup of herbal tea. She wanted it quite badly, in fact. So badly she could smell the scent in front of her, feel the warmth on…
"Hm," she said. There really was herbal tea in front of her. Robin bent down and handed her the cup.
"Here," he said. "Have fun camping out."
"I will," she said. At least for now. What could it hurt?
92. They have certain household uses.
Bringing herbal tea to you when you really need it, giving you sustenance when you really need it, beating up Beast Boy, tripping up Beast Boy… these are things Robin and bananas help with around the Tower.
93. They're good at opening cans, surprisingly.
Robin showed me this banana-shaped can opener in his belt. Funnily enough, it's called a bat-banana-can-opener. What the hell he has that for, I refuse to ask.
94. They tend to end up horizontal much of the time.
Most fights we get into with competent villains, Robin goes sprawling once or twice. And if you've read any of the stories from Megatherium's breed—let's just say Robin is horizontal is an entirely different way. As for bananas, they, uh, lie on tables horizontally.
95. Probably because both are arguably desirable.
Robin does have lots of good qualities, and bananas are tasty snacks, I've found.
February 8th.
Raven was floating in the kitchen. She had awoken when Robin had picked her up to take her to her bed, and nearly zapped him silly. After getting in an apology and a few hours of sleep, she had resolved to solve this—inhibition problem—by continuously meditating until breakfast. Her mind drifted to her banana list. A few days left, but just a few similarities left. And still there was a gassy villain to find.
She figured it was probably strangely Beast Boy-like thoughts like that which were making it hard to meditate. She felt urges to groan, grin, or roll her eyes.
"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos," she said.
"Hey, Raven." It was Robin, up already, it seemed. He really didn't sleep.
"Hi," she said. "Thanks for the tea last night. And the—everything else."
"Thanks for the grammar," he replied.
She exerted a brief bit of control and a black fist punched him on the shoulder. He winced.
"Whiner," she said. "It wasn't that hard."
"Still sore from last night," he began.
"Don't make up excuses, mister," she said, a smile playing about her lips. Then she realized she might be sounding a bit too—convivial—and the smile disappeared. Robin was looking very confused.
"Are you all right? I don't hear anything blowing up," he said.
"Funny," she said, for what felt like the hundredth time.
"No, I'm serious," he said.
"Great," she said. "That makes me feel better. Glad to know you enjoy having a time bomb in your Tower so much."
"Our Tower, and for your information, I do," Robin said. "Why don't you ever believe me on that?"
She smiled, again, which seemed to disconcert him. "I was joking. Or at least, I was hoping to draw another one of these speeches out."
His expression softened and he chuckled. "Still," he said. "If you were feeling emotion, why wasn't anything going on?"
"I don't know," she said. But she was thinking about what he'd said now. "You know, Robin," she continued, turning to face him, "maybe it would be easier if you explained some more things, too. Those images I saw in your mind."
He was tensing up; she could feel it in the air. "Even though we've talked about my history—we've even lived it."
"It's nothing personal," he said. "I'd just rather not talk about that."
She raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like the one excuse you never accept."
He opened his mouth. Then he stopped.
"Okay," he said. "What do you want to know?"
96. By the time they get to me, they've got troubled histories and experiences.
It would hardly be appropriate to recount Robin's origin; let's just say that he's not had too easy of a life but he's made what he could out of it. Bananas, I admit, have only the experience of being torn away from their tree, washed, sprinkled with pesticides, and possibly processed.
February 12th.
Raven walked into the ops room and sat down, flipping War and Peace open and scanning the text to find where she'd left off. She had mostly settled into her typical rhythm when she realized that Beast Boy and Cyborg were looking at her oddly.
"What?" she snapped.
"Nothing, Rave," Beast Boy said. She wanted to tell him not to call her 'Rave,' as if she were a European discotheque. "You just, uh… You seem like you've been in a really good mood and all, and, well…"
"Well, what?"
"You were humming," Cyborg said. "It was—weird."
"I listen to music," she said. "So?"
"You were humming, Raven," Cyborg said. "You've been humming to all your reading for the last four days."
"And I haven't seen you on the roof at all!" chimed in Beast Boy. "All that work on the tripwire…"
"BB!" shouted Cyborg.
"Uh… the… the highwire, I meant, heh…"
"Anyway," Cyborg said. "Just wonderin' if maybe, you, uh…"
"No," Raven said, closing her book and walking out.
Have I really been unusually happy? I mean, Robin and I have been spending time together. He's—much more sensible than the others. It's possible. Maybe.
Then a chime rang, summoning the Titans to a meeting.
Raven went into the room. She was last again.
"All right," Robin said. "Hey, Raven."
"Hi," she said, and sat down.
"So, what's this meeting about, dude?" asked Beast Boy.
"Red X," Robin replied, with a grimace. There was a brief silence.
"I've made a few deductions," he said. "After seeing the kinds of weapons Red X used, I remembered some synthetic gases I was developing in December. They were too volatile for my taste, and I was actually going to dump them out when Beast Boy and the elephant landed on the roof. After that, I forgot about the whole matter, didn't even go into my lab till well after New Year's."
He paused and checked whether Beast Boy was asleep yet.
"When I did, I found it was messed up, but it was hardly a surprise to me. The whole Tower was messed up. I figured someone had just barged in, we were all crazy then, and I didn't know why. Then I remembered the magician at the New Year's Party."
Robin looked around the room dramatically.
"He had come from upstairs. He was the only one I saw, and then, after that, the gases were released and we all behaved strangely. Everyone was in costume. X must've come and stolen the gases from my room—he was probably looking for the Red X belt and the accompanying xenothium."
"Is that how you spell it?" asked Cyborg.
"Yes," Robin said. "But how can you tell how I spelled it from me saying it?"
"Subtitles," said Cyborg.
Robin shrugged.
"Whatever," he said. "Anyway, X didn't find any xenothium, so he took the opiates, the knockout gas, the invisibility smoke, the hallucinogens, and the explosive gas. He probably experimented on people…"
Raven remembered the homeless people she'd rescued Robin from. They'd had some kind of drugs with them…
"He also," she said, "was watching you during that homeless people incident."
"What?" asked Robin.
"You were acting strangely afterwards, remember?" she said. "And they'd been given some kind of opiate. I'd bet he was experimenting there."
"Ah. That would explain that missing block of memory," Robin said. "Anyway—I remembered that he was looking for the… the… the SLADE from Gizmo, and I wondered what connection there could be between Slade!"
He broke off in a bit of a sweat.
"Unnaturally excited by this man," Raven said to no one in particular.
"Slade," Robin muttered. "I… I wondered what connection there would be between the SLADE and Red X. And remember, Mad Mod showed up under some kind of influence, too. Mad Mod, X, and Control Freak. There had to be a connection. I remembered Control Freak's claim that he had experimented with drugs—and of course Control Freak had hardware of all kinds, modified from the clean-Slade—excuse me—clean-slate versions. So Raven and I went there to examine what was missing."
He cleared his throat, looking rather uncomfortable at this point.
"Raven pointed out Control Freak's video card was missing. Combine that with Mad Mod's hypno-technology and the, the, the, the SLADE's ability to project energy, and I was beginning to see a picture forming vaguely."
Beast Boy's snoring had finally reached an audible pitch. Robin ignored it.
"So Raven and I visited Chang, and found out he had the missing link—an energy adapter. If he could put these parts together, Red X could convert energy from the, um, er, SLADE to power a holo-projector for Mad Mod's hypnoscreens, at any point, anywhere. This device is called a total energy-reflecting radiation apparatus, a TERRA."
Beast Boy was startled awake. "Where?" he said. Raven felt her eyes snapping into the rolled position.
"So," Robin continued, "Red X is going to want this adapter next. In case you're interested…"
"I know I'm not," Raven muttered. Robin ignored her.
"…it's called an adapting zirconium agitation refractor," Robin said, "or an AZAR for short."
He grinned. Raven, very briefly, smiled at him. Beast Boy's jaw dropped.
"I think he's making up these acronyms," Cyborg whispered to the green Titan. Robin looked at him whispering, and for some reason, grimaced, as if it were something highly disturbing.
"The AZAR is here in the Tower right now," he said. "This all leads me to believe that X's target will very soon be us, right here."
"Not like that's unusual," Raven said.
"I know," he said, rather ruefully. "Be on the lookout, everyone. Dismissed."
