A/N: first, i have NO idea what's up with the formatting in the song. it's gonna have a heyday when i try to do two songs side by side for the next chappie, which, by the way, will be the last one. yeah, i know, you're all extremely depressed. the tears will be gushing down people's cheeks. personally, i'm going to be extremely glad because then i'll finally have the Teen Titans out of my head and i'll be able to concentrate on all my original work. but i doubt you care. and without further ado, the penultimate chapter! enjoy and REVIEW!!!
How Long Is Never?
Chapter 12
"I never really wanted you to see
The screwed-up side of me that I keep
Locked inside of me so deep.
It always seems to get to me.
I never really wanted you to go,
So many things you should have known,
I guess for me there's just no hope.
I never meant to be so cold.
What I really meant to say
Is I'm sorry for the way I am.
I never meant to be so cold to you."
--"Cold", Crossfade
As he waited for Starfire to destroy the reactor, Nightwing crouched over his fallen friend, tinkering with the half-android's circuitry in an attempt to fix him. But Cyborg had been raked by at least a dozen bullets, and even with the muttered, half-intelligible instructions, he was unable to make any decent headway.
"Sorry, Cy," he said at last, sitting back in defeat. "We'll need to get you back to the Tower. You have a repair program there, right?"
"Ri'," Cyborg managed, blinking his human eye.
Nightwing nodded. "We'll hook you up to that, then, and you should be okay."
"BB?" the other inquired about their teammate's condition.
"I don't know," Nightwing replied. "He and Raven haven't shown up yet."
At that moment something thunderous emanated from below them; something that sounded like an explosion. The floor trembled and the bits of debris from the gunfire jumped about as if they had minds of their own, and the lights above flickered and went out, casting the entire underground room into the deepest darkness. A strange humming filled the air, and Nightwing looked around, trying to determine its source, and saw that the air in front of the detonator was shimmering, almost like heat waves rising from a highway. Suddenly that ceased as well, and the room was totally silent and totally black.
Nightwing fumbled at his belt, withdrawing a small flashlight (shaped, of course, like a black and blue hawk). He switched it on, the tiny beam slicing through the darkness, and he rose to his feet slowly, glancing around the room warily, as if expecting enemies to leap out of the shadows.
"I'm going to try to disable the detonator," he informed Cyborg. "Star must've destroyed the reactor."
"'Kay," Cyborg acknowledged, though he couldn't have done anything anyway.
His footsteps abnormally loud in the absolute stillness, the leader of the Titans walked over to the detonator, avoiding the shot-up computers and consoles littering the area. The force field was indeed down, and he was able to reach the detonator. He searched the smooth black surface with his flashlight for a panel of some sort that would hopefully lead to the machine's vital circuits. At last he found just such a panel, and he bit down on the flashlight, directing it at the panel as he pulled a miniature screwdriver from his belt, yet another one of his handy gadgets. It was but the work of a moment for him to remove the screws and set the panel aside. Behind it, now revealed, was a sadistic mass of wires, and they all pretty much looked the same to the common layman. Luckily for Jump City, Nightwing was anything but a common layman, and he replaced the screwdriver and chose a birdarang instead, scrutinizing the wires closely.
There. A pair of wires led from something that seemed to be part of the power source to something that definitely looked like part of the detonation device. His jaw tightening on the flashlight, Nightwing very carefully cut that pair with his birdarang. A small light began to blink on an unopened part of the detonator, and he watched apprehensively as it continued to blink, but then the intervals between each flash slowed and the light eventually failed. He let out a sigh of relief around the flashlight and stowed his birdarang back in his belt, removing the flashlight from his mouth right after.
"I think I got it," he told Cyborg, walking back over to the disabled android. "Time to get you out of here. More easily said than done, I fear," he added, recalling the Titans' unorthodox manner of getting down here in the first place. But regardless of future difficulties, he stuck the flashlight back in his mouth and crouched down, managing to get the half-robot onto his back in somewhat piggy-back style. He straightened with a grunt and began shuffling towards the exit Starfire had taken. It would most likely lead to an elevator, which he could then hotwire or something similar.
Before he got to the door, though, it burst open, and Raven glided in, gingerly holding something that was glowing faintly in her hand. "Nightwing? Is that you?"
"Yeah," he answered. "What d'you got there?"
"Beast Boy the Glow Worm," she explained with a tone close to disgust in her voice. "Change back," she ordered the worm.
Beast Boy obeyed and popped up in his human form. "Geez, NW, why's it so dark? Did you get rid of the detonator-thingy? Where's Cy? And Star?"
"The chronotron detonator has been disabled; Cyborg's on my back; and Starfire destroyed the reactor that was powering the force field preventing us from reaching the detonator," Nightwing reeled off, shifting his teammate's position to ease the tension a little on his shoulders.
"Dude! What happened to you, Cy? Why're you all not-working?" Beast Boy babbled, dashing to his friend's side and trying to see in the dimness.
"Cyborg got shot up a bit," Nightwing spoke for the half-android. "His motor functions were damaged. Hey, Raven, do you think you can get him out of here?"
She nodded beneath her hood. "I can ghost him out. Are you two coming with us?"
Nightwing shook his head. "I'll wait for Star to return. She should be back soon enough."
Raven nodded again and used her powers to lift Cyborg from the leader's back and float him to her side. She began chanting her mantra, and the two of the lifted into the air, enclosed in black energy, and ghosted through the ceiling.
Beast Boy had sidled over to the detonator and was now poking around, checking it out. "So this is the bomb thing? It's a lot bigger than Slade's decoy. Probably because it's real, right?"
"Probably also because it was meant to impact a greater area," Nightwing added. "Once Cyborg is back in business, we'll come back here and take it completely apart. We can't very well leave it just sitting here for some new villain to find."
"Did you guys figure out who made it?" Beast Boy asked, curious.
"No. All the technicians ran for their lives when the fighting started, so we didn't manage to capture any of them," the de facto leader explicated. "If any of these computers are salvageable, I'm sure we'll be able to figure that out."
Beast Boy nodded, and they settled down to wait for the one remaining Titan. Nightwing had begun to pace before Beast Boy voiced his concerns. "Uh, is it just me, or is it taking Star forever and a day to get back here?"
"It's not just you," Nightwing said, the anxiety audible in his voice. His grip tensed on his flashlight and he ran out the room, Beast Boy hot on his heels. The corridor outside was just as dark, and he scanned the walls for doors as they ran along. It didn't take long for them to find the elevator, and Beast Boy poked the button swiftly.
But nothing happened.
"Damn!" Nightwing groaned. "We cut the power—what was I thinking?" He sighed and ran a hand through his black hair. "Maybe we can force the door and go down the shaft, though," he mused. Extending his bo staff, he rammed it in the crack and forcibly levered the doors apart. They slid back meekly, staying open, and the two Titans peered into the even blacker darkness of the empty elevator shaft.
Beast Boy morphed momentarily into a raccoon and checked down the shaft. "It's not too deep," he said once he was human again. "We must be near the bottom."
Nightwing nodded. "That makes sense. We're in B2 now, and the elevators only went down to B3. Come on," he motioned for Beast Boy to go down, and a small bat flapped into the shadows. Nightwing hooked his grappling hook onto the edge and climbed down, landing quietly. He fumbled with the wall, locating the crack in the doors blindly and opening them as well. He heard more than saw Beast Boy pass through, and he followed, unhooking his flashlight from his belt and turning it on, swinging the beam of light this way and that.
"It smells awful down here," Beast Boy remarked, wrinkling his nose. "Like smoke and burnt stuff."
Even without advanced senses, Nightwing could tell that his teammate was telling the truth. "We must be near the…well, what was the reactor," he amended hastily. "The corridor only seems to go this way." He pointed right, and the pair trotted in that direction, Beast Boy some animal with night vision and Nightwing with his flashlight. They turned a corner and the smell grew stronger and worse. Small hunks of debris now were scattered across the floor, and they reached a mangled doorway that looked like its door had been removed without its consent.
Raccoon-Beast Boy scampered in and let out a bestial shriek, reverting quickly to his usual self.
Nightwing had been right behind Beast Boy and his sharp eyes, despite the dark, had picked out what his friend had seen. His flashlight beam now fell across the crumpled and unmoving form of Starfire, sprawled near the wall to the left. He nearly tripped in his haste to reach her side, and he dropped his flashlight unthinkingly as he fell to his knees next to her.
"Oh, God…oh, God…Star…" he breathed, shaking his head in denial. He gently took her face in his hands, turning it so he could see her better. "God…please be okay…oh, God…"
Beast Boy had retrieved the flashlight and shined it on her. Her uniform was tattered and the back especially was burnt; her hair was singed; and her entire body was covered in smoke-smears. The dark areas on her forehead, beneath her nose, and at the corner of her mouth could only be blood, and it looked as if she had run face-first into a wall.
Nightwing seemed out of his head, and he kept patting her cheeks as he cradled her head in his hands, repeating "oh, God" and "Star" and "no" incoherently. Behind his mask, he could feel the hot tears searing his eyes, and his vision blurred, causing her image to lose its clarity. He tried to blink the wetness away but it was no use; more tears came and leaked from his eyes, dampening his mask and working their way down his cheeks. His heart was beating painfully fast, his breathing all hitched and only half-working, and he knew that he had never felt this terrified in his entire life. And all he could think of was that he had ordered her to do this…he had done this to her…He shook her slightly, begging her to wake up.
Beast Boy's hand on his shoulder brought him somewhat back. "Dude…we have to get her out of here."
Nightwing didn't even look at his teammate. "She'll wake up…she'll wake up…God, she's going to be okay…she'll be okay…God, Star…wake up…"
"Robin!" Beast Boy yelled, and that got his leader's attention. "We have to get her to a hospital!"
"No!" Nightwing yelled back. "She's going to the Tower! I'm not leaving her again! Not again!"
"Well, whatever! She needs help, and you being delirious isn't doing her any good! You're not thinking straight, dude!" Beast Boy practically screamed at the other.
"I don't care!" Nightwing roared. "You can't take her from me! I did this to her, don't you realize? I did this to her! I didn't mean to hurt her, but…but…God…God, Star…wake up…please…" he brushed her bangs from her face, his throat thickening and choking away his voice. She remained motionless, utterly unresponsive.
"Robin, we need to get her outta here," Beast Boy insisted, crouching on the other side of Starfire so he could look his friend in the face. He grabbed Nightwing's arm in a reassuring way. "She's gonna be okay, Robin. But we need to move her, alright?"
Nightwing stared at him uncomprehendingly, the tearstains glimmering faintly in the little light. His thoughts began to fall back into order, and he finally nodded. "Right…right…" he whispered, and he gathered her limp form into his arms, standing without difficultly. He kept nodding dumbly, not quite right yet. "Just…just lead the way…" he choked out.
Beast Boy smiled slightly. "That's better, dude," he said encouragingly. "She's gonna be okay."
Nightwing held her a little tighter, a little more protectively and followed Beast Boy out of the useless factory. As they passed through the lobby, the receptionist glared up at them and pursed her too-red lips in disgust.
"Thank God you're leaving," she grumbled.
Beast Boy only stuck out his tongue and widened his eyes with his fingers in true immature Beast Boy fashion.
