Take a deep breath. This is one of the last chapters, and I have crammed it full so that I can still submit the promised the 32. So, this chapter is very, very whelming. Be prepared. And please review. Pls pls pls! I am begging for critique! I have read a lot of really good stories, and the lack of reviews have discouraged me about my own skills. So pls pls pls review, I'm begging!
And exhale.
.®.®.®.®.®.Chapter 29.®.®.®.®.®.
Vegas
August 17, 17:30 EDT
"Hello Cerena Ross," Robin half snapped at, half taunted the woman of the fact that he so easily knew who she was. He was giddy with emotion, for a number of reasons.
After a moment of recollecting, Cerena combed her long, thick, brown hair behind her ear and gathered her attitude. "It appears as if there is something wrong with my manners," she spoke softer than Robin expected, "for you know me, yet I don't know you."
He scoffed at her remark. So Grace's mother, he thought. "I'm Robin," he blurted out, so happy to be done with the lie. Of course it wasn't under the best circumstances, but still it was nice to breathe again. "Yes, The Robin, The Boy Wonder, the protege of The Batman," he recited the best he could his words that defined himself to Grace, almost perfectly too.
He watched Cerena's demeanor change instantly to that of suspicion, fear, and to protectiveness. "Is that so?" she asked of him, reaching around and grabbing something that lay behind her black, leather, trench coat. Pulling out yet another pistol, she pointed it toward the ceiling.
Robin sighed.
"And I guess you're going to turn me over the to police for kidnapping?" she threatened, "I'll warn you here and now; I'm not going. Not easily. I can't leave Grace, not like this, and not with him." She was serious.
"I'm glad," he said, his dry humor relaxing the situation. "And actually, no I'm not going to turn you over to the police, nor Batman. I doubt that Batman even knows that I'm here." his words trailed off at the end of his reaction. IF the Bat knew where he was, he certainly wouldn't be there anymore.
"Really?" her appreciation for his help was whelming, shown clearly through her sparkling reply. "Why should I believe you?"
But her words fell on deaf ears as Robin felt his body began to sway. Oh boy. But the rocking only got worse as he felt darkness creeping over his eyes, mind, and conscious. Crap, he thought as he rubbed his forehead, thumping his shoulder against the wall.
The pain of the impact was choked by the hissing voice of dark stasis. So long with little rest. So little food. So much blood lost... it taunted The Boy Wonder as his eyes swirled and pulsed with the throbbing of his head. The grip tightened, threatening to extinguish his collective mind. Along with his conscious.
"Listen," he tried to Cerena, but his words echoed tirelessly in his head, making it pulsate even more. He felt his body rest against the wall. Reaching up, he ran his sweaty fingers through his nasty, ebony wig.
"Can I have some water?" he heard himself ask, though his lips didn't move. Crap- again.
"R-Robin! Is that you?" M'gann's excited words shattered the somewhat stillness of his thoughts. She then proceeded to connect with the rest of the team, thinning The Boy Wonder's mind out like a pancake.
"No!" he gasped, holding his ears.
"Are you alright?" Cerena asked, holding his trembling, tiny shoulders.
He gazed up at her as she sat him on the bed. "Can I just have some water?" his voice forced itself to be audible, though it barely escaped his quivering lips. "M'gann, disconnect us! Now!" he ordered, simultaneously splashing the cold water that was offered him onto his head. His mind crashed like an overloaded website once M'Gann was forced to server the connection, due to the rapid sensation. Leaning forward, he supported his chin on his knee as he doubled over.
"Thank you," he coughed to Cerena, his mind quickly rebooting. Cerena lowered her hand from his forehead and watched him intently, making sure that he was okay. Moms. "Look-"
"Are you okay? Is there anything that I can get you?" she asked sternly, yet her care for him shot out any doubt that he was in trouble.
Got any food? "Uh, no," he stared at her from under his glasses. "Cerena, Young Justice is here, like in this hotel- right now," he groaned, shaking his head side to side, water dripping everywhere.
"What?" she asked, her brown eyes growing wider than before. "No, I am not getting arrested," this time, she did sound like she was scolding him as she continued to fore it in his head. "I am not leaving Grace with-"
"Ross? The man that murdered Jennifer Blye and beat you? No, no you're not. Because I'm getting you and Grace out, together," he sat up and looked at her eye to eye while she sat across from him on the bed. "Cerena relax, geez woman. I'm not letting them get you," he drilled it into her head this time, while he lay across the bedspread, grabbing the gun from where it lay. "Sure you hired some goon to kidnap a girl, but she's your daughter and you were protecting her from Ross. You hired Grégoire to watch over Grace for you, but once you learned that Ross was so much as blinked at twice for a murder, you told Grégoire to get Grace the heck out of DC. You love your kid, and wanted to get her here, in Vegas, with you. And away from him.
"You have a very pretty house by the way," he motioned back to her, glancing over his left shoulder on his way to the window to tend to the open blinds. After securing the gun in his belt, for future use, he closed the curtains and locked the door.
"Thank you."
He nodded cordially.
"And, that's exactly right," she confirmed his story as she thanked him or understanding and helping, bringing a smile to the child's face. "Bout time someone got my side of the story."
"I get it. Really," he first confirmed her that he did believer her side, but continued slowly, trying to convince himself that he still remembered what motherly love felt like, "You were keeping your daughter safe... and you shouldn't, and you're not, going to jail for it. It just would have saved me some trouble if you told Grégoire to tell a body the story of why he's kidnapping you," he mumbled.
"He didn't?"
"Uh, no. But don't worry, instead he threw Grace and myself into the trailer of an eighteen wheeler, forgot to feed and water us, and shot me. But I'm okay with that now," he summed up what had been done to Grace and him during their trip. The pain in his shoulder was still present, but only when he thought about it. What hurt him most was what he allowed to be done to Grace. He had been shot before, often actually, and even more severe. But Grace was a civilian, and he failed in protecting her.
"What? No, that's not what I told him to do. Not at all. I never authorized an eighteen wheeler, nor a gun. He was supposed to find Grace, convince her to come along, then take a plane here. I even bought the tickets. But he said that they missed the flight, and would have to take the train or some sort of taxi," she collected herself watching Robin mope about, trying to collect himself.
"Well at least trains give you food," he muttered, again grabbing his head as some dizziness overtook him.
Cerena sighed and shook her head as she escorted him to the bed. "Okay, if he didn't explain it to you, then how did you figure it out?" she asked finally.
"Com'on lady, give me some credit. Grégoire and his goons left me alone with the internet." But his attention was drawn away once he saw a shadow fly across the curtains. "Okay listen to me," he spoke quietly, scooting close to Cerena's side, "I am getting you and Grace out of here, I swear. I just need to find a way," he spoke to himself, looking to the side.
"How about the secret door downstairs. It leads to the sewer system," she casually offered, and watched Robin slowly, almost deviously, grin.
"Where downstairs?"
"At the end of every hallway, there are two doors. The one on the right leads to a staircase, where there's another door that leads to the sewers," she explained, with appropriate hand gestures.
The Bot Wonder cracked a smirk. "Then I'll go get Grace, you get packed, and I'll meet you down there," he strategized, violently unlocking the door.
"You'll need a key," she nodded.
He took the card and slipped out. "Hey, Cerena?" he asked for her, poking his head back in.
"Yes?"
"These guys are good, so try not to get caught. But in case you do, lie!"
Zipping down the stairs, leaping down the final few flights, he entered the hallway which contained room zero-zero-six. Jack was the one who opened the door, was knocked to the side as Robin bound into the room, drawing the gun that he got from Cerena.
"Don't move," he threatened Greoire, Bruno, and Jack as he marched to Grace. "Put your guns on the bed and get into the bathroom!" Motioning with the pistol, he grabbed Grace's wrist. But she wrenched it from him and wrapped his cold, nervous fingers around the handle of another hand-held.
His eyes darted down to it, and back to hers. They stared at him in that way, the way that says 'oh yeah' where that spark glows in just the right way. The look that only the right girl can capture without it burning her eyes out.
"You mean this gun?" she asked, cocking her eyebrow and swinging her hips at him.
"I'm not even gonna' ask," Robin mused at her with a chuckle. He had no intentions to investigate the wiles of a girl. None at all. "Okay, move it. Get going," he ordered the three men.
Grace clung to his side as he ushered the men to the bathroom. "You're good," she whispered to him, glaring over the gun to the three.
"I'm winging it," he whispered back, hiding his mouth with his shoulder, since one hand held the gun and holding Grace behind him wit the other.
Locking the door, he smirked at her, though the dark was again creeping over him. "Let's go," he whispered excitedly.
"We're seeing my mom aren't we?" she asked as she followed him out.
He slowly nodded, trying to figure out the words to say. "Soon enough."
"Robin?" she grabbed his wrist. "Something's wrong, I can tell."
"Look Grace, Young Justice is here looking for me," he hoped that's what they were doing. Why else would they be in Vegas. "I have to get you and your mom out, before they find- you," he explained, changing the subject of his team's search to the two of them instead of him. He wasn't a bad guy, they wouldn't be looking for him.
Together they slipped out the door, and readied themselves to move toward the infamous door. Their footsteps padded the ground, the two of them moving as one, minds synched like partners. He had the plan, she had the ability to read it and adapt.
Suddenly, Robin dropped to the floor, grabbing his head. The dark, sleepy stasis was coming back and he felt M'gann searching for him.
"Misses Martian," They're actually acting like it's a mission..? "I am going to search the bottom floor again," Kaldur informed those that were in the telepathic link. Robin also heard Artemis volunteer to go with him.
"Caleb?" Grace breathed, kneeling before him, her eye searching his panting body.
"Go go," he shoved her while standing. The move startled her, allowing his arm to push her over. "Com'on!" he spoke to her, offering a hand to raise her to her feet. They couldn't make this easy, could they? He smirked at his thought, he was starting to sound like himself, despite the intense pain and the lingering idea that M'gann could hear him.
Grace drug him for the first few steps, but once the mental chatter subsided, he quickly drew the lead and led her to the end of the hall. Like lightning, he swiped the card then shoved Grace in just as the door at the opposite end of the long hallway opened.
Robin walked right into Grace, who was frozen in terror. Quickly, instinctively rather, he shoved in front of her so that he could see what the horror was. The breathe left him as the glare of two burning emerald eyes met his wet, weak blue ones.
"Kf," he breathed.
