Teen Titans; Epilogue Story – Prologue; Rewind – Chapter 17: An Even Match
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Slade had almost killed Robin.
Batman dodged the man's tricky explosives as his cape took most of the damage down a notch.
"You won't get away, Wilson!" He called back out, knowing that the trigger had been mangled in the drop down into the sewers. When both men awoke, Slade had almost hurled all of that anger at the bat, yet chose to flee the male's lamenting for awhile before he was caught red – handed.
A red – breasted bird had almost been sacrificed. Slade knew it would tick either hero off to know the truth.
That Robin couldn't die. Yet, in his pursuer's mind, the boy was as good as dead. How fortuitous that he'd finally gotten under the Dark Knight's cowl without having to lose a limb just yet. He must have trumped Joker in that position. Yet, everyone somehow did…if you had the mind to be collected around the billionaire bat – who had a swung Batarang this close to his masked skull.
As Slade dove a corner, muck and grime never even touched his uniform. He wondered if the boy would remember any of this. Even if Trigon had not really been the one keeping the kid in line, he wanted the teens to radiate that false hope, just long enough until their leader came to the conclusion that he'd never be the boy wonder if he had a primal fear driving him to stalk his enemies down. He couldn't kill per se, yet he could adapt to any given situation with a slight…push.
He was still fifteen, still a Titan to them. Slade would be back with more props to place in a row, just to see who'd catch his hints besides the child to have last lost to his mind games.
Besides the bat, Robin had to stay around for a very long time if he wanted to know the answers he sought. He knew the man's name only so long, but no his actual identity. Not enough, but Slade knew enough to ruin Bruce as CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Tempting, but getting clear away from Gotham cit came first.
"Stop! Don't move…."
Looks like that time had come.
"A dead end, Slade." Batman held up his latest weapons and made sure that his enemy's eyes would be front and center soon enough. Slade chuckled darkly and cocked his head back at the bat with a turn, making it so he wouldn't show his irritation. He had to adapt, just as Dick might in a few more years.
"How upsetting. My plans didn't work this time, but you forgot one thing, Batman…" Giving his eye a slight squint towards the Dark Knight, Slade made sure to pin his enemy to his fate as he pulled silently out a bo staff fro his belt pouch. Collapsed, it expanded to the size he required to have the rodent leave him to his next master plan.
Getting Dick to ruin Bruce for him, and via memory, he'd work remotely until the boy did enough to call himself a true renegade.
Bruce's one flaw was that he could not trust, which had lead Dick right to his new master.
"The boy may be cured of the probes, but I don't need them anymore…His mind is etched with my image; every thought!" Slade swung out at the same time as Batman, weapons clashing in the dark.
"Every sound, and every memory he still clings to…. those won't die…. I! Will! Have your head on my wall!!"
"This was never about him…!" Bruce blocked a direct attack from the assassin's staff.
"Maybe." Slade twirled his bo - staff like a baton and pressed a button on it as shock waves lit up the tip.
"And yet maybe you both were in my way…. I had a job to do; I had a perfect reason to take you out. Your ward wanted this. He wanted to show you how much you'd just abandoned hi –
"I never did that! If I did, I'd try to make amends…You shouldn't even be aware of any of that…." Growled the Batman.
"Impossible!" Slade snorted and readied for a second blat from his powered staff. "Richard was confused enough. I just…gave him a gentle…..push!...In the right direction! The attack on the Flash?? Green Arrow's ambush?? WE did it. He can't tell you he was under anyone's control but his own –
"Lies!" Bruce attacked, pushing back as the man side stepped him with his large steel – toed boots.
"Starfire believed it too; she always was too trusting. The Goth? She won't find enough evidence. Any bit of that will vanish without a trace. I controlled the bots to a point, but the rest was all Robin's doing. He did kill and he did break the law to save them, but in the end…"
Slade looked up; the vibrations above them had changed.
"We left it all to rubble, forgotten. He's not going to recover in this time, but in another. If you know how to travel through it, Batman?"
"Why are you –
Slade put up a hand. "I don't want to fight; I know a loss when I see one. So do you, but your ward…. he'll never give up."
Bruce's shaded eye holes narrowed.
"You may have to confine him to his room for a bit…" The man said darkly. "Your ward is still the Martyr who gave up everything to protect you, and died paying the price for your disobedience."
"He wasn't the one you were –
"I wanted to have Trigon's magic. I was bored. Ah, what can I say. Without you, Dick's face would have been forced to line the tabloids as the "new heir" to Wayne Enterprises. Not my style, really…. Though a second opinion wouldn't have hurt. But still, that was never my true aim…. just to bring you to your knees was enough." His eye grew to a slit as the shadows closed around the man. He pulled out a metal disc and before his leave, turned to the blocked exit where that Dead End led to new possibilities beyond those stone walls of Gotham City's sewer line. A crumbling infrastructure, and a great analogy for the bat and bird's relationship.
Never built to last.
"If you see the boy again, tell him I'm never far off." The explosion was vastly complex as it lit up the tunnels with a deafening screech in the bat's ears. A riled Bb came through with Speedy right besides, trying to make do with dragging a stunned Bat from the underground just as it was coming apart on top of their heads.
/
The crumbling streets were the work of a vicious mad man. Slade had escaped, and this was his calling card. Everything; evidence, footprints, even a stray scent had to go.
Raven and her crew shielded themselves well enough from the blast, but Dick didn't realize that the unit Slade had earlier on left in his protégé's care was beeping quietly at his hip. A stray set of coded letters and jumbled numbers appeared, and Dick couldn't take himself away from the blast long enough to drag the thing up to eye level. Cy instead did the honors.
Codes.
Riddles.
Slade.
Robin gulped and rubbed his arms as Raven looked to see if his mind was in need of a break from all of this.
~We got him, Bruce is here…. we didn't catch Slade though…. he blew up the tunnels before we could go after him… ~ Speedy said through another of the Titans' units. Cy shook his head. "We got a message that was in code from that crook. Though…You may wanna hold off on anymore talk about Slade, Roy…. Jus, see ya up on the surface."
Speedy nodded, and screen shut off with a click closed.
/
They didn't go back to Titans tower that evening. Dick wasn't allowed to go back to his old life until they'd decoded the difficult clue that Slade had left behind. Even Batman wouldn't speak to anyone, as if Dick was just being babysat and had no paternal figure to talk to.
~ Like Slade had said…I was the one who made him this way…~
As much of a guilty feeling as it sounded, the most unlikely of allies came to the Bat's door and wished to speak with him about Robin's condition.
Raven's face was there; still as ever, as if she'd not lived through the same traumas as her leader. The Prophecy in this time line was broken. Likely, it had never been bound to start, since Slade was the one who had driven his enemies to suffer like never before. In the current, next time line, she predicted a difference between how Slade and Robin might interact. That he'd never come after them again…
"Master Bruce; the Titan known as Raven is down the hall outside of your study room door, sir." As if Al had lived through just one bad hair day, he didn't seem to lose his poker face once during all of these months of trying to free the youngest master of the home.
Question was; was he still ever free? Or was Slade waiting to have a round two with the dark knight for old times' sake…
/
Bruce opened up the entrance to the Batcave and shimmied down the hall, taking a secret passage built into the walls of the manor to reach the study without Beastboy having the "nose" to sniff him out.
Raven stood, not trying to barge in, but her hand edged towards the knob slowly.
Before she could pluck it herself, it turned and she tugged her hands to rest at her sides as before.
A rather restless older male with a chiseled face and a weary set of green eyes peered down at her, as the door quickly swung open. "Raven, hello. Everything, alright? You….needed something?" Guessing his appearance was to ACT aloof to her, she sensed his pain and slowly let her hood down to try to get the words out.
"You need to come and see Robin." Was her forced response.
He nodded and with a serious look at the teenager's masked emotional expression, the man left the manor's study to seek the answers to his earlier question.
Will he want to trust us at all, or anyone…anymore?
/
The boy had taken off part of his uniform, but the rest made him feel uncomfortable somehow. He wasn't sure why, but the cat suit portion was left on and all he wanted to do now, was shower off the shame and regret of earlier that day…
As Cy and Wally had already told him, it could have been so much worse…
~What's worse; is that I can't stop thinking about him, or what I did to my friends…~ Dick tried to leave his bed and was feet from the adjoined bathroom, when the door to his room swung open on its hinges.
Raven stood beside someone he'd not been ready to see.
"Bruce." He gulped, feeling helpless where he stood. Eyes widened in surprise, they soon dimmed by the man's full appearance. He looked impatient. Of course. Duty before anything else.
"Raven, why did we need to come here? Are you ok, D –
"I'm fine." Dick snapped defensively to his former partner. "I'm…going to take a shower…" He shivered as if something in there could curb what he'd felt, by not exploding at the man as he'd wanted to.
~ Slade knew it always. He knew how mad Bruce made me feel…how incomplete I was for leaving and staying away... I can't bother with him…I just can't. Not yet… ~ Sighing, he turned the knob and gave the billionaire a rather cold shoulder for good measure.
/
"Why is he doing that ta' us!" Bb gumbled and sat on his rump as a hound dog by the fireplace.
Bruce wasn't the only one afraid of Slade's lie; it could be the truth, and he wanted to make sure that it would never come true. That man's predictions were usually very well – formulated. Never, entirely false.
" You are who he…. thought about before Slade captured him to be his apprentice." Raven explained with her hood up to hide her pains from the detective.
Bruce sighed and bit his lip, content on letting Dick have his space for now.
"He, was afraid…but I would never do what Slade did. If he –
"He compared himself to Robin, Batman." Cy frowned and analyzed the coded puzzle from another side of the room. "He's just scared. If Slade ever does return –
"We'll be ready." Roy stood up and seemed to be in even worse spirits than Dick. His mentor was healing up, but the scars might show until after the holidays.
"That's right!" Constantine slapped his face and had almost forgotten what month it was. "October. You'd be surprised how may séances go awry down south here for you yank…. What?" Raven had given the male a look to stay quiet.
Bruce was nudged before John had, had his fun with the teams. "If your world's Slade ever pulls a fast one, you can call on me anytime." John was immediately shooed out of the room and had a call come through about some practical magicians in Lancaster summoning flesh eating unicorns in his reality. After that, he'd be long gone from their current time line.
/
Dick paced the room and wondered too well; what was that message? Why was he not allowed to participate in cracking it! He was ok now, and Slade….
Could still come back…
His whole body froze.
He'd never needed the nanobots. They WERE just a tool…
The feeling of anguish and horror spread across the boy's features as he looked up into the sink's only mirror.
Not a wrinkle. No lines, only a memory as his eyes squeezed shut to the sound of grating gears and a scream…
His eyes to the image in front, he squirmed out of his ugly suit. A martyr…. was that what they thought? Why didn't it want….
He couldn't.
Dick dropped his arms to his sides.
He couldn't take it off….!
/
"What do you mean there's a switch!?"
Dick stomped about his room, screaming at Cy and his co – leader, Raven. The suit…the code! He couldn't remove that portion at all without an answer to Slade's riddle…
"What about the code? On his unit. Did you manage to solve –
Starfire floated into the room with her eyes longingly searching her friend's deep blue ones. "We cannot... It…. doesn't have a reliable answer, Batman said…"
"No…" Dick's eyes narrowed, unforgivingly. He put out his palm to her, acting like his bossy self in their presence. "Star. Give me my mask. I'll go find –
"I will not help you, friend Robin…" She stirred by the door, as if he'd have the gall to put her through more mind tactics. She floated up to him, a firm glance that she could not abide by Robin's new thoughts of revenge. Dick's eyes lowered. Right, he…wasn't himself... He never could be again. He lowered his palm to his side, realizing that this counted as rage right now. Slade had gotten him under…under control…. the serum. Without the right methods…. He shook.
"We will find the solution to this "coded clue." that Slade left behind for us to answer." She bobbed her head and reassured, "Yet you must first make amends with the man who –
"Why?" Dick brushed back her worried stare. All of their disappointed looks made him more nauseous than the stomach illness –
He stopped. A, memory. He'd have to talk to Raven about that. Maybe, she could erase the rest of them…
~ No. Then we'll end up at square one. Slade won't come looking for us; Bruce, maybe to settle the score. Anyway, why should we listen. He doesn't care, right? ~ His mind seemed to fight him at every turn; leading the hero to them was no master plan, but to Bruce…an intervention. And after what happened?
~They still don't trust me. ~ His inner voice reminded him.
/
"He claims that we're trapping him inside his home. "Raven frowned while cross legged on the sofa beneath her flowing cloak.
Cy scratched his head and tried to just see Robin's fit as a normal "state of teenaged rebellion."
"He's busy throwin' a hissy fit cause Slade got away. We know; when –
"And WHAT do you think Slade wants more than anything?" Raven turned and asked the question to her team. Alfred brought around a tray of tea and finger sandwiches since they'd skipped breakfast that day. "Whoa…so, he got his wish?" Bb's ears drooped as he recalled the anger in their leader's tone when Bruce had tried to reason with the hero. "Bummer for us…. dude… so not cool…"
"He's not himself. The serum did something; his mind isn't steady, and it may be raising his anger and cortisol to…unneeded levels." Bruce turned into the hall and surprised the heroes as Batman. "But maybe if I don't talk to him as Bruce Wayne, though as the man who once called him a partner."
"We think that he just wants to kick Slade's…."Bottom" Starfire and Roy both nodded and exchanged glances at one another. "If Dick ends up flying solo, then he's really just plain, lost it."
/
Dick was up in his room, but they had to try it Bruce's way. He had to stop the kid from losing his head all alone in it…. Like Slade was there, whispering in his ear. Raven had said to be careful of Dick's new precognition. If Slade had those same abilities, then Dick's own powers were only held back because of the nanobots.
Like a machine, less than human. It must have been agonizing watching those you cared about be put to a stop as simply props in a performance; a performance that was formulated by the mastermind currently out of sight, yet never of mind. As Dick wallowed in his self doubt some more, the sounds from his room became softer, and that was when Bruce didn't knock on his ward's door – but knock it down.
/
Inside was the sound of a whispering wind from an opened window latch. Raven and her team all stood beside the bat and began to scale the area for clues. Maybe a kidnapping or an abduction, yet the detective had already found the trail and was out the window in less than a few short moments. The Titans followed, while Roy and BB once again stayed behind to look for a clue to what had nabbed their missing leader.
Bruce had discovered right away, that this had been of Richard's own free will. There was no struggle, and no sign of a break in.
On the bed the boy had hacked the unit's program to get into his laptop, and the code's message was a riddle. By that, it was solved as well and a set of numbers, an address to where they should really be looking stared the heroes in the face. Rather, mockingly. As if Slade had planned this from the beginning.
Batman soundlessly landed with a crouch out in the yard, finding the time to command the bat mobile to come hither, which it did. He leaped into the driver's seat, feeling the empty seat behind his and setting off into the city that time in the late afternoon.
He'd left to search for Slade, and it wasn't clear if Slade had ever left to begin with. Bruce frowned and keyed in the coordinates in another way. With widened eyes at where he'd be too late to find…
He was back where it had all begun. And where he'd hope to find a body once he arrived to pull the plug on Slade's last award wining performance.
/
Standing amid a row of stocked boxes upon crates, the warehouse by the Gotham City pier side was as ominous as Jump's was at all hours of the day. Dick had thrown on a jacket and second pair of pants to keep his uniform from being spotted by the man he was here to instigate.
He wanted to fight back, to make sure Bruce didn't get the honor. Slade's Nanos were gone. He'd known how to solve the clue Slade had left for only Robin to answer.
Or, Martyr.
He cringed. It was cold in this warehouse, but it seemed to be slowly rising in temperature as a dimmed set of lights by a catwalk lit up to illuminate one rather pleased figure in the chilly darkness.
"Can't have my guests uncomfortable. That's better, don't you agree." Dick grunted and tried to put on his best poker face. Slade smirked with a chuckle below his mask. "Couldn't part with it, yet? What seems to be the reason for your visit….and, the get up isn't new…?" He questioned the boy as if it were not twenty questions he was going for.
"I solved your riddle, and I still can't get the suit to come off. You have a key, some way of deactivating it. Why? Why didn't you tell me it was –
"Well, you wore the mask and that almost likely never was removed inside the tower."
Dick frowned. Of course, he had cameras. What villain left himself wide open for an attack like Slade?
"Even while you slept, you clung to it for a reason. The suit, though? It can come off, but it won't be so easy once it does."
"Why?" Dick asked again, getting impatient.
"Why is it stuck on me at all?"
Slade placed his hands to the railing and flipped onto the bar to make his way in a landing crouch to the floor.
"Robin…. You'd rather be someone else. Like you have been, all along."
"What?" Dick gave up. Gritting his teeth, he tugged at the item as it latched to him but then pulled away, as if it had a mind of its own. Then, like a rubber band sling, it slapped his arm while having the hero let out a barking cry in pain.
" Haah! What?? Why won't….it…. come off!! What is…."
"It's taken to you, I can see. A little bit of genius I came to expect of Lex…but never did I think it would also be compatible with my Apprentice…."
"G- Get away! I….am not working for you! They stopped you! A –
"Then why are you here?" Slade brought his hands behind his back coolly, and awaited his ex – pupil's full answer.
After tolerating a gawking, speechless teen's dribble in his wake, Slade gave up with simply his "taking a step back" approach.
" Hmm" Slade rubbed his chin. "Now, let me answer that question for you. You got mad. Enraged." He started to circle the teen, eye readily waiting to rip apart that kid's tortured new ego. Piece by piece, making the teen's upper lip start to sweat. " Angry at your friends, and you're afraid that the serum is making you… act out? Is that it…?" His tone softened a bit on that last part.
"I…would never hurt them, but you changed me. No… it did." Robin rubbed his arms, forming a new habit that Slade could focus on exploiting later. "They all –
"You can't control the effects properly. It was as I told you before, Richard." The man purred in his most enrapturing drawl he could commit to.
Dick gulped and dropped his shaken gaze to the floor. To lie before the man his very trust, was a sin. If he did that…
He really would become a martyr.
He looked up as Slade let out an outstretched, gloved hand. His masked eye…. Seemed, more sincere than before.
"I can help you." The man soothing said. "I have always been there, Richard. Even when the Bat and your friends refused to believe that you could kill of your own accord, I know you weren't yourself. I knew what you were capable of, and why you didn't die. They don't, however…And they will never try to understand what we are."
"No…I- I'm nothing like you!" Dick rushed forwards with a battle-ready yell and found himself side stepped, sliding away as his boots hit the ground with too much force, throwing him off balance and from his feet. He dusted off his now ripped pant knee and stood up quickly. He didn't want to play the victim, he panted. Slade was doing something, Mind control maybe? Was it all because of the link that they'd shared because -
"See? You want to control that power as much as I've learned to, but not even the Bat can get inside that thick head of yours as well as, maybe an equal might –
"You are an enemy!" Shouted the boy with a snarl up at the tall, male. "The Titans…. You hurt my family…. all to get back at my –
Slade moved his head a little to the side to ask uninterrupted, ignoring the teen a moment. "Were you ever partners, Bruce Wayne?"
Dick froze. He felt his heart racing, trying to get it to calm down. He felt tremors run up his arms as both men turned towards one another.
Was…he…really watching…?
/
