Yo! Sorry if the update took longer than expected. I know I said that I wanted to finish this story ASAP but my writing muse seem to have left me so I had to go look for another one. This chapter didn't turn out the way I planned and the title completely changed. Anyway, here it is!
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Part 25: Family... Pep Talk with Dad and Al
No one is ever completely innocent. Not anymore.
Ever since Adam and Eve took a bite from the forbidden fruit, people have been labeled sinners from conception till death.
They would spend their lives toiling day and night, trying to seek atonement for the sin that they did not even take part of. It was their ancestor's actions, not theirs. But they still have to pay. They still have to seek forgiveness. They still have to suffer… This original sin is one of the reasons why Innocence leaves a new born baby as soon as it sheds its first tears.
People realize they are impure and dirty as soon as they leave the womb of their mothers. The first sound newborns hear is a rasping and vengeful voice screaming that they are dirty, ruined and a sinner.
Confused at the voice, blaming them for a sin they know not of, all the newborns could do is cry in fear and pain until they lose their innocence and then begin to seek penance. But penance is not easily given and the burden is too heavy for most people. As they grow old they begin to curse life and forget their original objectives. Not understanding why they have to pay for a sin foreign to them, they grow weary and insane from their task. So they started creating more sins. A sort of localized sins for themselves, in order to tame their insanity and ground their actions. Some eventually go back to their path towards penance while some stray and just continue to sin.
Aqualad never fully understood the Christian concept of this original sin. He still couldn't grasp the thought that just one mistake, just eating a fruit, would lead to eternal suffering. The concept, he thought, was just like Beast Boy's Don't-Eat-My-Tofu-Or-Else idiosyncrasy. But what he could empathize with was the concept of bearing a sin not of his own action and continuing to create more sin. He felt a shiver pass by his spine as he walks through the bleak high-ceiling hallways of his castle. Spiders and their cobwebs seem to have found their way to the underwater palace as it covers the upper part of the hallway. But the cobwebs don't seem out of place, the prince thought. Afterall, it's been ages since anyone has passed by here.
Huge portraits hung from the wall depicting different faces of Atlantean Royalty. The boy did not care to look at them nor to familiarize himself to his linage. If it was possible, he wanted to stay away from this place for good. Prince of Atlantis, huh. Aqualad sensed his eyebrows furrow and his teeth grit as he remembered who he was. The Unwanted Prince of Atlantis. The Abandoned Prince of…
"That's a scary face you're showing there, son."
The Atlantean quickly stopped looked behind. There he saw an aged Atlantean staring at him. The boy immediately knew who it was.
"Atlan." The boy said. It had been years since he last saw this man but the sense of familiarity has not faded. This man had become his foster father-figure ever since Aquaman abandoned him. It was because of him, that the prince was able to learn to control and master his powers.
"What are you doing here..?" the boy queried.
"I should be asking you that. It seems like the books in the Great Library weren't enough for you. After immersing yourself for two months in there, I found it strange that you suddenly decided to go inside the place you hate the most." The man looked straight into the prince's eyes. "The things you've been researching for these past few months. I suggest you stop."
The young Atlantean gritted his teeth, turned and began walking once more. "I can't stop, Atlan. "
"You do know what you're getting yourself into, right?" the man asked.
"I do. After all, you taught me most of it."
Atlan did not chase after the young Atlantean. He stood there until the young prince's footsteps could no longer be heard. "I sometimes regret teaching you…."
x-x-x-x
Why do I feel like I'm being abused these days? Speedy thought to himself as he tries to dodge the flying dirty laundry ball. The ball just passed by him, an inch away from his face. He felt himself lose consciousness for half a second when the unbearable stench entered his nostrils.
"Darn! You almost had him Cy!" BB caught the ball in mid flight. "This time..!" the changeling was about to throw the ball when an arrow came flying towards him. Luckily he was able to dodge. The solid ground turned to ice as soon as the arrow hit it. "What the hell Speedy!"
"What? We never had an agreement that I'm not allowed to defend myself? Besides…" the young archer takes out three arrows and readies himself, "HOW COME IT'S FOUR VERSUS ONE!?" the scene zooms out and shows Speedy being surrounded by Bee, Cyborg, Raven and Beast Boy.
"Oh, now your complainin'!?" Bee places a hand on her hips and raises a brow. "Who was it 30 minutes ago that claimed that he's able to take down all four of us alone?"
"I meant in a fight! Not in some crazy game of doge Beast Boy and Cyborg's month old dirty laundry!" the archer shouted at the top of his lungs as he menacingly pointed at the smelly ball BB was holding.
"Actually, they're three months old." Beast Boy interjected.
"That's not the point!" the red-head glared at the changeling. Bee gave out a tired sigh and signaled to BB. The green titan's ears dropped in disappointment and rolled the ball to Cyborg.
"Alrigh' alrigh'." Bee raised both her hands up in surrender. "We won't do the four versus one.."
Speedy lowered his bow and arrows. He was about to say something when suddenly.
"STAAAAANNNK BALLLL!" Cyborg throws the stank ball up in the air.
"What?"
"How bout' two versus one then?" the east titan leader makes a peace sign along with a sheepish smile. The ball's shadow suddenly became bigger as the archer looked up. Raven was now up in the air next to the infernal ball. She does a scissor kick in the middle of the air and sends the stank ball straight at Speedy. The archer was in too much of a shock at the pace of the events that he just stood there and took the stinky pile of laundry in the face.
"Nice one Rae!" the others circled around the empath and congratulated her on her splendid kick.
"Nice.. kick…" that was the archer's last word before he barfed and passed out.
x-x-x-x
A few floors away from the others, Robin was impatiently staring at the monitor in his room. It had only been a minute when he sent a message to Batman but the reply felt like an eternity.
He unconsciously grabs a pencil from the table and began tapping it.
Tap.. Tap.. Tap.. Tap..
It's been almost three months already….
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Raven shows no sign of regaining any of her memories, not until we get back the other pieces of her soul...
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Even though we've been taking turns going with Herald dimension to dimension looking for signs of pieces of her soul, nothing…
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
I hope Herald and Star will find something in today's trip. We can't keep up this happy-go-lucky façade in front of Rae for long. Lately, she seems to have noticed.
The lead of the pencil has almost run out.
Tap. Tap. Tap….. crack.
The pencil gave in. And so did Robin's patience. He was about to slam his fist on the desk when the monitor lit up and showed that there's a call. The masked leader took a deep breath before answering the call.
"When I received your message I thought you were gonna ask me for some tips in balancing your taxes." A deep and stern voice came out from the screen.
"Hahaha… Very funny. So how's Al doing?" Robin tried to suppress a smile. Even though the man clad in a black bat costume only held a stern face, the masked boy knew that he was also very glad to see him.
"Alfred's fine. Still nagging about a lot of things but he's fine. I'm starting to think he'll outlive me." The man leaned a little towards the screen. "So you sent me this emergency message just to ask how Alfred is doing?... Maybe I should send a virus to your Tower." The man began typing on his keyboards.
"Wa?! Wait! Don't do that! I missed you too.! I missed you too!" The masked boy was frantic. He knew that even Cyborg won't be able to completely stop a virus created by Batman.
"You know…" the man's pointer finger was ready to drop and make the final click, his face still stern and unreadable. "I never knew you'd actually give in like that. And hearing you say that made me want to send it immediately."
Click.
"No! Our data banks!" Robin was about to ready himself to counter a deadly virus when files started popping out of his screen. Pictures and different data on Raven and Aqualad appeared before the West titan leader.
"How…Where…." There were videos of some of the Titan's previous battles and activities in the Tower. There was even a short clip of them playing on the beach on the uninhabited island.
"I'm guessing you want me to give you information about these two." The Dark Knight's face was still the same but Robin knew that a smug smile was beneath that apathetic face.
"I never knew we had such an astounding stalker." The masked boy grinned. "Nothing ever gets pass you, huh."
"Naturally." Was the man's plain answer. "I recommend you take stalker remark. It's called surveillance. It's something needed in order not to get the world destroyed." A video of Beast Boy picking his nose in gorilla form suddenly popped out in one of the videos right after he said this.
"Riiiigghhtt. Surveillance."
"I still… *cough* haven't organized the videos yet." The masked boy couldn't help but stifle a laugh. Even the Dark Knight makes mistakes sometimes. That's what makes humans adorable don't you think.?
After a minute of deep breathing, Robin finally got to business. "Since you seem to have the gist of the situation, can you tell me anything that might help Raven? And can you tell me where Aqualad is right now? We've been trying to contact him ever since Rae's birthday party. He just disappeared without a word."
"I'm sad to say there's nothing I can do about the empath's condition since interdimensional travel and soul transmigration was never really my favorite topic. Besides, I think this is a problem that your team.. your family, have to take care of personally. On the amphibious humanoid… Aqualad..." the Dark Knight stared at the picture of the Atlantean on his screen, "that boy doesn't smile much anymore, huh." The off-hand remark caught the boy's attention.
"You knew him..? Oh yeah. He's Aquaman's partner."
"Used to be. Those two stopped talking to each other for a long time already." The masked leader sensed the heaviness of his mentor's words.
"Can.. can you tell me about what happened between them? I think Aqualad's sociopathic attitude might have something to do with what happened to him in the past." The look of Aqualad's distant gaze passed by Robin's mind.
"I never knew you turned into such a gossip. You never liked it when I pried into other people's past, now here you are asking..."
"I have to! He's part of the Teen Titans. He's part of the family. And as the head, I have to make decisions that require me to be a bit nosy." It was true that he never liked it when Batman would pry into other people's lives in the old days. He felt like they were invading people's personal space and that it wasn't right. There are some things that people need to hide. Most of the time the secrets are dirty, especially political secrets, but others are more personal. They are wounds that people try to cover and bury. Every time they would peek into one of these wounds, he felt guilty. He knew that what Aqualad was hiding was one of those wounds, but he feels that he has to know.
"True. Unfortunately, I'm not obligated to tell you."
"But!"
"When you told me that you wanted to try out doing things by yourself, I believed that you weren't ready to leave the cave yet. But you left anyway. And after a while you were able to gather others around you and form the Teen Titans. Knowing that you have people around you made me more assured but I still worried so I observed you guys from time to time. There were times that I wanted to intervene but I held back and continued to just observe. I've seen you and your team overcome a lot of trials and I didn't have to do anything. You know why you guys were able to do it? It sure wasn't because of your half-baked leadership."
"Hey-!" Batman meant well. He just wanted to poke fun at Robin.
"It was because of the trust you guys have with one another and your half-baked leadership skills. You said that the Titans is your family now. So I don't think you should go ask help from an outsider. If you want to know what's bothering the Atlantean, ask him straight. If he still doesn't want to talk, then use the interrogation techniques I've taught you."
"That… I don't think threatening Aqualad by hanging him from the highest tower will work."
"Then take him to a sushi bar and tell him that you guys won't leave until everything's been resolved. That's what I used to do to Aquaman. It also proved to be useful when I wanted him to shut up." The masked leader could just imagine the face of the Atlantean if he would really do it. That might just work. He was carefully considering that when-
"What's this talk of raw fish, Master Bruce?" a familiar sovereign voice spoke off-screen.
"Is that Al?" the face of the Dark Knight's trusty aide emerged from the screen.
"Ah, young master Robin! Have you gotten skinnier? Are you eating well there? Don't tell me you've been gorging yourself on pizzas." The butler had a disapproving look.
"Ugh. No… I.. aww! But cooking is such a hassle..!" The boy tried to avoid eye contact out of guilt.
"You can always stop by here at the mansion if you want to eat something. Hmm. It's been a few years since we last heard from you. Is something the matter? Did you call to tell us you'll be coming home this Christmas? You never send any holiday cards."
"Ah…Uh.. Actually, it's Bruce that called…. And.. no… I don't think I can make it this Christmas. It's the busiest time of the year. Villains always seem to have something scheming during the holidays." The young master is now starting to remember how much of a nag Alfred can become when you don't send a holiday card. Well… it has been a couple of years since he last sent them, so he has every right to nag.
"Of course. I suppose. But would it hurt you to come pay us a visit from time to time. You don't know how much Master Bruce misses you."
"Alfred. I think—" the Dark Knight tried to interject but to no avail.
"You're coming at the age where you have to start thinking about the future young master Robin. Don't you have anyone special there that you might want to introduce to us?"
"Huh? What? What do you mean someone special?" Robin felt trouble coming.
"Master Bruce and I aren't getting any younger. It would mean the world to know if you're planning on settling down sometime. Because I'm as sure as bloody Hell that Master Bruce isn't."
"Wait! Wait! Hold on! What do you mean by that! I haven't even reached my twenties yet!"
"One can never start too early. I've actually done some research…" Alfred suddenly took out a thick folder and started rummaging through pages, "…and found that the Tamaranean race are quite resilient to Earthly diseases. They also don't have any traces of cancer cells in their physiology. Though they have shown to have some peculiarities during their adolescence… but that passes quite quickly. "
"Wha wha wha?" the image of a happy-go-lucky green-eyed alien girl appeared in the masked leader's mind when he heard Tamaranean. He instantly turned red. "Of all the things to research on, why Tamaraneans! That's enough joking around Al! Bruce, tell him!"
"No cancer cells you say.." the Dark Knight positioned himself into his contemplating stance.
"No.. no way! You aren't seriously considering what Al's saying!"
"Well… cancer cases have been growing these past few years.. and interplanetary union really isn't something new…"
"Indeed Master Bruce. Ah. That's right. Don't you have a Tamaranean companion there young master Robin? What was her name again?" Robin felt like a cornered rat. He wasn't ready to have such conversations with his adopted parent and close friend.
"IthinkIheartheotherscallingm erightnow! Sorry! Gotta go! Bye!" the screen on Batman's side turned black. The masked boy sign out and escaped.
"Well… that was mighty rude of the young master." The old butler scoffed and turned around. "I'll be readying your afternoon tea now, Master Bruce."
"Starfire."
"Sir?" the aide looked back, a bit confused at the answer.
"That's the name of Robin's Tamaranean sweetheart. Though I don't think their official yet."
"Hmm… I see he didn't inherit your playboy attitude. It would be great if he'd introduce her to us someday." The old man continued walking.
"Cancer cells… heh… you must have enjoyed yourself making fun of him after all these years."
"Not as much fun as you had, Sir." The butler smiled and left the cave.
Batman opened the files he showed Robin earlier. He looked at the Atlantean's picture. The boy's face was uncaring and his stare was cold. The Dark Knight opened another picture in one of his folders. A picture popped out in the main monitor. It was a picture of a muscular blond-haired Atlantean with a beard. On his shoulder was a young Atlanean boy smiling as he was pulling onto Batman's cape. Apparently he was urging the antisocial hero to come take a picture with them. Both of the Atlaneans were beaming with happiness and glee.
"I never brought you to any sushi bar after that fight you guys had. Seems like both of you wear a cold stare now." He closes the picture and opens up a new one. Raven's face was now in the monitor. "Looks like you didn't completely conquer the fear you have inside you little miss." He closes Raven's picture.
Silence fills the cave as Batman spends a few minutes just sitting on his chair, looking up at the ceiling. He looks back to his computer and sees a picture frame on top of the keyboard. "That wasn't there before." He picks up the frame and sees a picture of him, Robin and Alfred. It was the last Christmas they had together before the masked boy left. It was without a doubt that the cunning butler was the one that placed that picture frame there.
"Now...How will you handle this family problem, son..?"
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I think Alfred's the man since he's able to handle Master Bruce and Young Master Robin so well. I never really got to find my writing muse but I sorta found a temporary one. Looking for inspiration, I even tried to draw. If you want to, you can check out the drawing on deviantart. my account's also called sybcj there... it's in the scrapbook section.