A/N: Hello friends! I apologize for the unforgivable lateness of this update. This chapter is a bit of a filler, but it will most likely be the last of its kind for the foreseeable future. I hope it whets your appetite. Enjoy and thank you so very much for the kind words!~ :)
"What just happened?!"
"I don't know."
"That was…"
"I know."
"We saw…"
"I know."
"What are we gonna do?"
Raven sighed as she walked—a great exhale of melancholy. The night had gone on for far too long. A biting, barking migraine was eroding her concentration, and the equally enthusiastic changeling at her side wasn't helping matters.
The team returned solemnly through the lounge doors, Raven in the lead. They had searched for Robin once more after his smoky departure, all to no avail—again. The sting of his apparent betrayal had muddled all sense. It felt as if they were running blind through No Man's Land—frantic, pathetic, and ultimately dangling uselessly from barbed wire.
Beast Boy was nipping at her heels like a petulant puppy while Cyborg remained uncharacteristically sedate as he trailed five paces behind everyone else.
Starfire had recovered from the initial shock. She still wore a faraway expression; however, there was a familiar spark beginning to blossom within the emerald depths of her eyes. Robin's mere presence on the rooftop, whether as friend or enemy or whatever, was enough to keep her hope kicking.
Raven halted before the mainframe computers and yanked back her hood. She took another long breath before answering Beast Boy. She stared at the screens distantly, unable to meet his furious emerald gaze.
"I don't know, Garfield," she whispered honestly.
Robin's foreign face plagued her, haunted her. How inhuman he appeared, how sharp and cruel his familiar features were—a fractured reflection! Yet, Raven knew that his vicious appearance was nothing compared to the agonized fury that flowed like molten rock beneath his pale and bruised skin.
It was the anger of a rabid dog—a sorrowful, pitiful rage.
"C'mon Rae. We have to do something!" Beast Boy cried, uninspired by Raven's reserve. "It's Robin!"
The misery of the night's events tied her throat in a cinderblock noose. It was even worse than she imagined.
In her mind's eye, she saw herself holding a shotgun to Robin's skull, saw as she was forced to put the poor dog down.
She snapped.
"I know!" she yelled, rounding on Beast Boy.
A flash of volcanic red raced through her violet-blue glare. Her usually placid face warped grotesquely, inhumanly. Writhing shadows danced about her shoulders like eager devils. Her cloak fluttered wildly in an invisible, impossible gale.
The unassuming porcelain cups and dishes on the kitchen counter shattered in a spray of shards, tinkling as they crashed to the carpeted floor—fanged snow. The ground rattled. A sudden spike of cold engulfed the room, sapping the air of heat.
"Whoa," Cyborg censured half-heartedly.
"Raven! Stop!" Beast Boy squeaked, taking a step backward.
The clear fear on his innocent features brought Raven back to reality like a slap to the face. She gasped and the ominous, magical spark in the atmosphere snuffed out and became mundane once more. Her cloak fluttered and fell, wrapping around her in the usual protective cocoon.
Her chest heaved as she tried to control her frenzied emotions. She hadn't felt this out of control in years.
The sizzle of her demon blood still sparkled under her skin, a livewire begging for freedom. A small peek of antlers remained upon her exposed brow. Ashamed, she quickly threw her cowl back over her face. The edges of the violet hood singed where she touched it—spots of smoking black.
"I-I'm sorry," she apologized with a tortured expression, turning away.
Leaving the others, Raven sprinted from the room.
If she was to be any help in rescuing Robin, she very well couldn't blow up Titans Tower in the process.
Robin sat with his back to the cobbled wall. His battered arms were wrapped around his knees as he stared into nothing.
The bodysuit sat discarded at the bottom of the makeshift closet, a jumbled heap of metal and black fabric hidden behind a pair of boots. He hadn't touched the articles since his last mission—three days ago.
He found it impossible to sleep. Only nightmares awaited him on the other side of the subconscious. At first, he had been so exhausted after Slade's sessions that his body screamed for rest. Sleep had been a luxury.
He had adapted.
The incessant pain, the aching of his muscles, and the fatigue had quieted to disapproving mumbles. His mind, on the other hand, only blabbered louder and louder. It pulsed with unholy imaginings, scenes of torment cooked up just for him.
The feel of his boot thwacking into metal as it connected with Cyborg's chest, the look of horror on his friends' faces as he carried out the wishes of a psychopath, Starfire struggling to stand as she gazed at him in moonstruck dismay.
He couldn't even tell them, couldn't even explain his sudden malice. Nor could he express to them the breaking of his heart as he bit the hands that had loved him all these years.
One particular dream kept him from seeking ignorant shelter under the sheets.
In it, he would run.
He would also jump and climb and crawl as he tried in palpable desperation to reach the object of his desire: an ethereal light that glimmered in the distance, waiting patiently for him.
As he grew closer, his frenzied steps would slow to a careful trot. The light was within his grasp now. He felt its warmth on his palm, his cheek. All he had to do was say the magic word and it would be his. He would open his mouth to speak the key to his salvation, but nothing would come out.
Unperturbed, he would try again, with more effort this time.
Still, no breath escaped his clamped lips.
He would try to scream the word. He felt the burst of air explode from his lungs, felt it travel up his throat and over his tongue…
Silence.
Now the mysterious, wonderful light was mocking him—he heard as it began to laugh.
No, but that couldn't be right. The stomach churning cackle was coming from somewhere else—above him.
He would look up.
There, as large as a mountain as he loomed over the cowering Robin, was Slade. His dual-colored facade was a gnarled, painted skull—mouthless. His nose was snake-like, two slits in the bone. His icy eye sat in the middle of his forehead like a grotesque cyclops.
His body went in and out of inky translucency, bouncing between shadow and tangibility.
Although he had no mouth, peals of throaty laughter erupted from him. Even more unsettling, his shoulders did not shake with mirth nor did his eye glisten with any sort of glee. Despite the waves of maniacal hooting, the monstrous Slade looked down upon Robin with obvious hunger.
A whimper went unused—it died in Robin's throat.
"Cat got your tongue?" a voice hissed in his ear. "Try the zipper."
Confused, Robin lifted a hand to his chin. The familiar bumps of a metal zipper greeted him. His lips had been replaced with it. The hellish laughter pounded against his eardrums as his fingers searched desperately for the clasp in which to open his stitched mouth, but there was none.
He started to back away. He had to get out of here! The light shimmered tauntingly beside him.
But he had waited too long; he had reacted too slowly. While he had struggled with the zipper, his hands and feet and head had been impaled with corkscrewed twine. The cyclops raised a massive, ever-changing hand and Robin felt himself being pulled off the ground. His body elevated higher and higher into the inky darkness, further and further from the light below.
When it was out of sight, and he was completely blind, he felt as Slade's spidery fingers clasped around his torso and squeezed like a cold-skinned brood of vipers.
His arms and legs went numb. He choked on unspoken wails.
The laughter finally died out into an evil quiet.
"I'm collecting stupid little boys."
That's when he would wake up, covered in a frigid sweat.
The backs of his eyes burned with the images of the nightmare. His throat was still coiled and cinched. Deranged, he would topple out of bed and scramble to the shabby mirror, checking to see if his mouth was still a mouth.
He had had this exact dream every night for a week. Each time, he would bolt from bed in the same half-asleep frenzy, unable to calm himself. That horrible laughter! It rattled around his brain like a poltergeist.
He was sure he was insane or would be very soon.
After his initial panic, he would resolve to sit on the floor and wait for Slade to come to take him to training. Anything else would only exacerbate his fragile psyche.
That was the state he was in as of now.
He dressed slowly, sadly. He memorized the feel of the baggy, black trousers as he stepped into them. He wrapped and re-wrapped his feet and hands with tape several times, determined to get it just right—not too tight, not too loose.
He no longer wore shirts because of the collar. The necklines on them would rip as they strained to stretch over the steel. Instead, he merely swathed his midsection with linen bindings. It didn't do much for warmth, but it did provide a decent buffer against Slade's infamous kidney shots.
"Better than the alternative…" he muttered humorlessly to himself.
Ready to go in less than ten minutes, he waited in resigned apprehension for the inevitable crank of the handle, the shift of the bolt, and the whoosh of iron through the cold cavern air as the door swung open—announcing his master's presence.
It could be seconds, it could be hours. He was cut off from time down here.
Sighing, he mindlessly brushed a hand over his temple, tracing the stubble.
He had never had hair this short—not even at birth. The foreignness of it enthralled as well as depressed him. He felt molded, carved, perversely crafted. Slade had not seen a teenage boy, he had seen clay, and he was determined to shape it in his image.
Robin had the scars to prove it.
A particularly nasty welt caught his attention in his peripheral. The bright red wound blistered boldly against the ever-paling skin on his forearm—a red sun peeking over the edge of the steel brace.
He cocked his head and studied it.
The weal was fresh—yesterday's news. It had a twin brother on his other arm.
He had done something to invoke Slade's wrath and the villain did not disappoint. Robin winced at the memory of being electrocuted into a defenseless state, flailing like a fish out of water on the floor.
The shocks were so intense, he could still feel them licking up his arms. Afterwards, he had two angry burns branching out from underneath the shackles.
Perhaps a few weeks ago he would have raged against the injustice of it. He didn't deserve this sore, this punishment; all the hurts and aches he had received by Slade's hand were lawless.
A few weeks ago, he would have used this obvious wrong to fuel his rebellion, would have let the pain stoke the flame of his stubborn spirit.
Then again, a few weeks ago, he still had a spirit.
Now, he observed the still-stinging blisters with a jaded eye.
Slipping away into blurry, unformed thoughts, he barely noticed when he heard faint footsteps approaching. The click of the handle pricked his ears. His fingers stopped stroking his shorn scalp.
Silently, he got to his feet and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. His naked face remained forward and unseeing—tabula rasa.
As expected, Slade entered. He turned to Robin expectantly.
"Ready?"
Robin nodded—more of a jerk than a nod, actually—not falling for the obvious trick question. Slade appraised him for a moment, baiting. The fish didn't bite.
"Come," he finally ordered, a flicker of perverse amusement coloring his sedate tone.
Pushing off the rock, Robin filed out of the room. Every time he went through this morning ritual, his stomach gave a twinge of regret at not sprinting as fast as he could out the tantalizingly open door.
Of course, he wouldn't get so far as three feet before being dragged down; not to mention that he had absolutely no idea how to escape this underground dungeon. Even if he made it to the exit—the doors were sealed in by a literal ton of rock and only opened at Slade's behest, as he just found out.
Still, the fleeting irrationality gave him a moment of idiotic, euphoric pleasure.
Slade strode past him, hands behind his back.
The stupid hope died, taking another piece of his spirit with it.
He followed, stepping on his master's shadow.