Lover's Walk I: When Young Man's Thoughts Turn To…

"Love is friendship set on fire."

Jeremy Taylor

"Good to have you back Noel." Robin said as he escorted Noel back into the Titan Tower. "You picked a good time to get hurt."

"So I heard." Noel said. "Did you find his body?"

"No." Robin said. They'd searched as much as they could, even calling in a favour from Aqualad, and found no Killjoy. Robin just hoped the body had been washed away. He didn't want to think of the alternative.

"Hey Savior! Good to have you back! Oh, new threads!" Beast Boy said. He turned into a chimpanzee and bounded into Savior's arms.

"Argh, monkey breath!" Savior said, dropping Beast Boy. He had gotten new clothes: his jeans were now light blue, but his shirt was now white and his white "leather" jacket now had a stylized S on the back, a pointy design as not to rip off Superboy. His boots remained white, his hair as well.

"Sorry if that offends you Gar. Before he left the Watchtower Noel got to meet all the BIG superheroes. He may not want to hang around with us little guys anymore." Robin teased.

"You're just as important as they could ever be Tim: you're my team. But I mean, sheesh. That was SUPERMAN." Noel said, speaking in awe. "I mean, him…Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter…those guys are living legends."

"Not to mention Batman." Robin added. Noel's eyes narrowed.

"I don't know if I like your mentor as much as I used to…I still respect his incredible abilities and brain, and it was nice that he made me these new clothes…"

"With FAR better protection then your old gear!" Robin said. Noel's new clothes weren't as good as his specialized gear, but they were fairly close.

"A lot heavier too." Cyborg groaned as he lugged in a huge crate on his back containing backup sets of Noel's clothes.

"But all that is matched by this "Holier then thou, you don't deserve to be doing any good because you're a human and therefore flawed and your effort will probably turn bad" mindset…I'd love the chance to be trained by him but I don't think I'd want to hang around him. Is he always like that?"

"And worse." Robin said. Cyborg groaned again and Savior snapped out the Shimmer to help him.

"NOEL!" Starfire squealed as she ran from the kitchen and jumped into Noel's arms. Noel gasped.

"AIR!"

"Sorry!" Starfire said, smiling. "Are you ok?"

"All fixed up. Heard you guys dealt with a nutso assassin while I was gone." Savior said.

"You can let go Victor, I can carry this to my room…"

"Nice to know you have something to put in your closet…" Robin said as he handed Noel the various jackets, shirts, pants, and boots, in a variety of colours. Maybe he should let his next set of uniforms have some variety…

"A house is not a home and all…" Savior muttered to himself. His room was pretty bare. Bed, desk, closet, and boxes, far from the highly personalized rooms his fellow Titans had. The only real distinguishing mark was a photo by the bed.

"What's wrong Noel?"

Noel looked at his closet for a moment, and then turned back.

"Where was Raven?"

"Mediating, probably. She's not big on these things."

"I gathered." Savior replied, turning and stuffing more clothes into the closet.

"What's wrong, Noel…?" Robin asked. Savior sighed.

"What's her story?" Noel asked.

"Um…Noel, I don't know if I should give you that kind of…"

"Please?"

"….Ok, but don't tell her."

Robin spoke of Raven's origin, the child of the demon Trigon and a human woman, and the hardships this had caused her.

"She probably is a fairly kind person at heart, but…she really can't express it. Or pretty much anything. It causes problems."

"Nothing?" Noel asked.

"Yeah." Robin said.

Savior muttered his next words so bad Robin couldn't make them out.

"What Noel?"

"Oh nothing…so that ice queen is just a front, huh?"

"Some. Look Noel, why do you want this info? Really."

"She reminds me of me. I figure she could use a friend." And something more. Oh god, something more…

"We are her friends!"

"I know. I know." Savior said. He sighed again and went over to another crate he had gotten delivered from somewhere, taking books out of it and putting them away. Robin walked over and fished one out.

"The Battle Strategies of Alexander the Great." Robin read.

"I'm named after him. My middle name." Noel responded.

"I gathered." Robin said, putting down the book. He walked over and picked up the photo at the end of the bed. It was a woman holding a baby, smiling shyly, in a way that spoke of happiness and yet pain behind it. The right end of the photo was ragged, as if it had been torn.

"Is this your mother?" Robin asked.

"Yes." Noel replied curtly, picking up the Alexander book Robin had put down and going to put it away.

Robin figured that time was as good as any.

"Noel, are you Maxwell Collins' son?"

Savior slammed the book down into the bookcase so hard it echoed through the room, making Robin jump a little.

"Your mentor is also a tattletale." He said to the bookcase.

"I'm sorry Noel, that's just the way Batman is…but are you?"

Noel didn't reply.

Then a brilliant flash suddenly blasted from his body, blinding Robin. He threw up his arms and blinked until the flashing spots went away. He took a look at Noel and gaped as he saw him as he had been before the accident: slim, red-haired, and looking pretty much nothing like he did as Savior.

But Robin could recognize things anyway.

"You are Noel Collins. THE Noel Collins, who went missing three months ago. Maxwell Collins IS your…"

FLASH! Robin was blinded again as a glaring Noel suddenly reactivated his ability. When Robin could see again, he was again the white-haired Savior.

"Only in blood." Savior said. "I didn't go missing, I left. And I'm never going back. EVER. He is not my father and he never WILL be." Noel said, in a cold final tone. Robin looked back at the picture and realized why it had been torn: part of it had been removed. Most likely the part bearing a certain someone.

"But Noel, he's had the police and FBI and…"

"I AM NOT GOING BACK." Savior hissed, an undercurrent of pure hate running through his voice.

"I'm not telling you to, but why…?"

"That is something I do not want to discuss at the moment. Please leave Tim, I'd like to be alone." Savior said, turning away. He began putting his books away again, ignoring Robin.

Robin left, puzzled and wondering if he should give Bruce another call for info.

Then he decided he would let Noel tell it in his own time.

Some time later, Noel sat on his bed, looking at the photo of his mother. Remembering her last hour, and what it had done to him. For better or for worse.

"I've met someone mother." Noel said, talking to the photo. He knew his mother was dead, and being agnostic at best, didn't really think she was in a better place looking down and listening to him. But he did it anyway. It comforted him.

"She's not anything like those women the bastard always tried to use to hook me, in his little games. She's just so…well, knowing of the world. Much like I. But she's got…obstacles in front of her…and even then…what am I feeling? Is it love? Is it that thing? I wonder…I know it's not lust, there are a hundred girls with her kind of face and attitude who would be far more willing…maybe that's why she just strikes me so? A challenge? I don't know mother, all I know is that it's there and that it's strong, and more and more I just want to express it…to her…but I can't think of a way that would work…I don't know what to do mother…all I know is that I have to do something or else I'm gonna explode…"

Noel carefully put the photo back, got up off his bed, crossing over to his bookcase and looking at the volumes. There was very little light reading, but Noel had never been much of a light reader (he had once read the entire Jurassic Park original novel in a day and then said "That's it?" when it had ended). He selected the Alexander book and flipped through it.

Perhaps he should apply a war strategy. It had helped Alexander do the impossible. It had been a while since he had read this book and Noel had forgotten some of the details, but one that came to mind was one battle where Alexander had had about 15,000 men and his opponent had had over 50 times that many, roughly 600,000. However, Alexander's men were well trained, loyal, and fearless, while the king (he had been Persian, Noel believed) had huge numbers of weak, badly trained cowards. Using a wedge strategy, Alexander had weakened the front line of his troops in order to put more men on the sides, and the center had held before the enhanced sides had crushed their opposition and snapped onto the center like a vise. The much larger army had fled, trampling a good deal of their own number underfoot. Their casualties ran into the tens of thousands. Alexander had lost only a few hundred men.

Even the most impossible obstacle could be overcome. It was just a matter of strategy.

Then again, winning the heart of a woman whose half-demon side caused things to float or blow up if she expressed how she felt…

Maybe a war-esque strategy was a bad idea.

Noel put the book away. He'd go see her. The ball was in her court.

God knew how she'd return it though.

It had once been a welding plant, and the shoddy front still suggested it. But anyone with a brain knew this was no plant. There was a new kind of factory in there.

Pleasurable poison.

The boss, Mr. Warrant, thought he had it made. He had figured it all out and now was enjoying the fruit of his labors. He was his own boss, he had enough money to buy whatever he choose (including the silence, or lacking that, the end of anyone who would get in his way). Women threw themselves at him. His neighborhood worshipped him as a king.

He had the troops, he had the position, he had the power.

A king.

Wrong.

The spiky-haired, nose-ringed punk who stood on one of the roofs was the kind of man who would willingly serve in exchange for the product Mr. Warrant and his lieutenants would provide. His brain hadn't been in the best of shape before, and years of shooting junk in his veins and snorting stuff up his nose probably hadn't helped it, but he though he was better off then a lot of the people he knew. Including the masses in that crack house in the side, having lost all their humanity to their addictions, doing anything to get what they craved.

Disgusting.

Worthless.

And most of all, impractical. This will not do at all.

All Stike ever heard was the slight ringing metallic noise that a well-honed sword will make when being drawn. All he ever saw was a dark figure with a moonlight-lit blade.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Your new king." The dark figure said.

And then he sliced Stike's legs off at the thigh.

"Kneel."

Raven wasn't in her room, and thank god for that: Noel couldn't think of an excuse to come into her room. Instead she was in the gym. The other Titans knew this was HER time and hence kept away, but Noel didn't know that. Instead he walked as quietly as possible to her side.

She opened her eyes from under her hood.

"Noel. You're back. Good to see you." Raven said, and that was it.

Noel stood there, wondering what to say. But his calmly ordered mind was in turmoil. Argh.

"Is there something you want?" Raven asked tiredly. She didn't open her eyes. "If not please leave."

"Can you teach me how to do that?" Noel said. Raven warily opened one eye.

"Why?"

"Seems relaxing."

"Robin knows it as well. Ask him."

"The guy who is currently one step away from getting into a fistfight with Cyborg because of a few points in a game? Somehow I'm not comforted."

Raven sighed inwardly. He was trying to stay again. She would normally be far more annoyed at being bothered. She wondered why Noel wasn't setting that off in her.

"……..Ok, fine. I suppose there's no harm in it." Raven said, half of her hoping teaching Noel a few of her tricks would make him go away, and the other half…wanting some company.

What in the name of Metrion? She NEVER wanted company.

Then again, her company usually consisted of the childish, loud-mouthed, and annoyingly semi-stupid antics of the rest of the Titans. They could be quiet and mature, but they rarely found a reason or a need to. But Noel…

"Sit down. Cross your legs." Raven said. Noel said down right in front of her. Too close.

Yet…she didn't much mind.

"I doubt your muscles know how to calm themselves properly. Here, take my hands."

"HO-KAY." Noel said, his voice cracking. Raven arched an eyebrow.

"Having throat problems?"
"Oh…maybe…I think one of those Troika got me in the throat good…" Noel stammered.

It was worse then he thought. Why was he being blessed/cursed with this wonderful/terrible torment? He hoped Raven was keeping her empathy talent toned down: the last thing he wanted her was to take a peek at him and be repelled.

He needed a subtle touch. That, and a ton of luck. And hope.

"Now just relax. Not much to it." Raven said, checking Noel's tension through his hands.

And so the two sat for a while, Raven's occasional instructions eventually dissolving into her steady calm muttering chant. Noel found it was relaxing. And he needed relaxation.

She let go of his hands too quickly for his taste. He wondered what it would be like to touch her skin and MIND OUT OF THE DAMN GUTTER THERE COLLINS.

"You're not bad at this, for a first-timer." Raven said about half an hour later. She got up. She was leaving.

"Uh, Raven…" Noel said.

"Yes?"

"What does Azarath Metrion Zinthos mean anyway?"

Raven's eyes narrowed.

"Why do you care?"

"Because…well…I do." Noel said. It was the truth.

"……..It's complicated."

"Well, Robin spoke to me of my teammates while we were cleaning up. I know…about your father and all…" Noel stammered, careful not to mention she was the only teammate he had inquired about.

Raven's face darkened at the mention of her father.

"I'd like to go now." She said, turning.

"It's ok, really Raven. I hate the bastard, I mean, my father, too."

Why was she stopping? Why did she care why Noel hated his own father? He was prying and she didn't like it…but she really couldn't sense any malice in his intent and if that wasn't it then why…

"Why?" she found herself asking.

"Well…um…bit of a long story…"

Oh grand, goodbye…

"I'll listen."

Where the heck had that come from? She didn't want to listen! Didn't she?

"My father…you may have heard of him. He's Maxwell Collins."

Raven, even with her rather narrow interest in the world, had heard of him.

"The…?"

"Yeah. Everything they ever said about my Dad is pretty much true…what people rarely hear or care about are the things he sacrificed to do what he did." Noel said, as the whole bitter injustice rolled back over him.

Sometimes he felt bad about his problem. Compared to a lot of kids, he had it made. While they were being beaten by their moms and raped by their fathers, he was having every whim he could ever want catered to.

But that, unlike what most of the world thought, did not bring happiness. No.

"My father's marriage was a power one. No love was there." Noel said. He had wondered a thousand times over the kind of insanity that accepted such things, even thought they were good. "My mother didn't want to marry him. And even when she did she was a wildcat, doing her best to lash out at him. They managed to have me before they started with the separate beds. I was about six months old when my mother had the "accident"."

"She died?"

"No. She lived. But after that…no one would ever tell me what the "accident" was. But whatever it did, every bit of hell my mother had was extinguished. Good thing for my dad. She was embarrassing him constantly. But whatever it was…"

Noel just stopped, wondering how to word it and wondering if Raven would walk away.

She didn't.

"She wasn't June Cleaver, but my mother was the sweetest, kindest woman I ever knew. When I walked with my dad's "partners" aka the people who were trying to screw him before he screwed them, she always stuck out. So many air-headed trophy wives with no idea what the world was like. And their children…spoiled rotten, cruel, with senses of self-entitlement so high I was amazed some of them didn't float off the ground with the amount of hot air they had in them. And through it all, my mom just sat, smiling when she was told, smiling as they laughed at her behind her back, just smiling all the time. I never saw her cry…until the end."

"She taught me everything I know in life. Not my father, though he tried so hard. Not because he cared. Oh no. I wasn't his son. I was his immortality. He knew he would die, so he wanted to make me a clone of him so that his legacy would continue. It's probably why whatever happened to my mother happened. Poor bastard. I inherited my mom's fierceness, and her new self taught me how to use it as best I could. Outright rebellsion didn't work, you had to be subtle in your actions. Because of that, I always knew his little scheme, and I hated him for it. He was nothing but a machine, caring nothing for more money, more power, always more, more, more. He hurt a lot of people. A lot. He didn't care. He never cared. My mom…she cared too much. She tried so many charities, so many ways to help…I found out when I was fifteen that nearly all of her efforts were carefully routed back into my Dad's company via his accountants. What got out was reviled as the "rich bitch" trying to make herself feel better over the way my dad stepped on and used everyone he could. She smiled through it all. I wish she could have cried. It might have let her live longer…"

"Cancer?" Raven asked, somehow guessing.

"Of the liver. I guess she drank a lot. It took seven months. The last four were really bad. But she held on, trying her best to teach me all she could about how she felt about life and living. Was my dad there? No. Not until the end. And that was it."

Noel ground his teeth.

"He came in on her last day. Even after all the things the bastard had done, she let him in. She said her time was almost here and she asked for one last thing. I knew what she wanted. She wanted him to say he loved her. He didn't even have to mean it. He just had to say it. THREE DAMN SIMPLE WORDS."

Raven already knew what had happened.

"He didn't say it. He got up and left. She died an hour later. I was there. I gave her all the comfort I could. She cried for ten of her last fifteen minutes. It was the only time I ever saw her cry. Then she told me she loved me, and that she knew I would do great things. Wanna know her last words? "Don't hate your father. It's all he knows." And then she was gone."

Noel suddenly sniffed, and then he put his hand to his face as he fought back some tears.

"I kissed her goodbye, closed her eyes, went back to the house that was no longer a home, got some clothes, raided my savings, and walked out. I didn't see my mother buried. I have never visited her grave. I may never be able to. Because of him. I tried to honour my mother's last words, but I'm too weak. I hate him. I loathe him with every ounce of my being. I will never go back to him. He will not have his legacy. He will die and he will be forgotten. I left, took buses across the states, landed in New York, got mugged, ended up in a shelter, and about ten days later I was engaged in a fruitless job hunt when I got off a subway and a paint truck crashed. And now…here I am."

Noel took his hands away from his face, and the Shimmer emerged from his palms, flowing around him in a few loops and then floating in front of him, almost like it was looking at him.

"I'd like to think she'd have been proud of me."

Raven cocked her head, and then, as much to her surprise as to Noel's, she reached out and took his shoulder.

"She would be."

And then she left.

Noel watched her go.

Now he knew. The path he had to walk may led to heartbreak…

But he was going to walk it anyway.

Raven left. She had to think.

Though she was pretty sure she would find no answers on what bothered her.

Mr. Warrant was on the phone shoring up a deal when the body landed on his table. The legless, gutted body, it's mouth open in a silent, eternal scream.

He looked at it, hanging up.

"Isn't that Spike?"

"Not Spike, Stike. I have no idea what it meant either." Said one of his lieutenants. Men with guns had already begun filing into the room, summoned by a silent alarm.

"We have a problem. Deal with it." Mr. Warrant said.

"Don't bother." Said a voice up in the rafters.

Everyone immediately aimed at the voice and opened fire. Gunfire filled the rooms, drawing in more gunmen from the other rooms where product and money was being counted. The racket lasted for nearly 30 seconds before all the clips ran out.

"Wonder if there's anything left of the fucker." Said someone.

"Gentleman! What did that wall that you shot full of holes ever do to you?" came the voice again. This time it was on the floor.

More gunfire filled the room.

Laughter started up as it finished. Mocking laughter.

"Laugh all you want, we'll get you eventually." Mr. Warrant said as he ejected his empty Glock clip and slammed another one in.

"I think not. Pawns rarely take the king."

"Shoot the fucker!" Mr. Warrant ordered. Yet more gunfire.

"Waste all the ammo you want." Came the voice, from the ceiling again, when it died down.

"What is this guy, a ghost?"

"No. Could a ghost do this?"

Then a dark figure streaked from the shadows, landing on a gunman. In half a second there was the start of a scream, a wet ripping noise, and then more gunfire as the figure bounded off the body, over the gunmen's heads and back into the shadows the dimly lit room had. That was all the time he had needed to rip the man's chest open, as the victim gurgled and then died.

"There's a new time dawning, you scum, and you aren't a part of it. I can't be having you." Said the voice.

"What the fuck are you talking about who the fuck ARE you?" said one of the lieutenants.

"Look out the window."

Gunfire demolished the window.

"I said LOOK out it, not shoot it, you wastes of tissue."

More gunfire. Gunmen had begun leaving the room to get more ammo.

"Out there…is the night. My kingdom. I am its lord."

Yet more gunfire, as more guns clicked dry.

"Its my time now. You are not wanted, needed, and worst of all, useful."

And then he was there, amongst the group, a black suited man with shoulder length black hair and burning black eyes as his black-gloved fist drew his titanium katana blade.

"So die."

The blade slashed out, slicing a gun in half and cleaving off most of the gunman's hand before the slicing blade met another gunman and sliced his stomach open. People aimed and fired, but the Lord of the Night, as he had so named himself spun away and the gunmen shot some of their fellows instead.

A lieutenant screamed as the sword stabbed through his back a moment before he was lifted and through into the wall. A gunman came up to the Lord's side but the Lord slashed his right arm that way. Metal talons exploded from his gloved fingers and sliced the man's throat open. Still slick with the previous' man's blood, the Lord whirled and stabbed the nearest man through the chest, then drove his hand all the way through the man and gutted the man behind him.

A group opened fire again, but the Lord swung the body still stuck on his arm and put it in the way. Bullets riddled the corpse as the Lord calmly reached down and picked up a Sub-machine gun one of them had dropped and used it, blowing heads and chests apart with seeming ease.

Another group opened fire at him from the cover of a door. The Lord pulled the body off his arm and transferred his sword to his other hand, even as his palm opened and a grenade slid into it. He primed it and hurled it into the room. It detonated a second later, spraying the room with flaming napalm. Screams filled the building

"Forget napalm, cooking human is a truly great scent." The Lord said as he recalled a famous scene from a film about Vietnam. He spun the sword and headed after the rest of the cockroaches.

He went from room to room, leaping and dodging through the waves of bullets as his sword and talons soaked every room he passed through with gore. By the time he had gone through all the rooms it was dripping off him in streams.

It was down to Mr. Warrant, one lieutenant, and several remaining gunmen when the Lord burst into their room. The Lord stabbed one of them through the back with his claws and took advantage of the way three of them had lined up as he slashed his sword out in a wide arc, decapitating all three of them (well, he didn't quite get the last one, but he removed enough of his head to be fatal).

Mr. Warrant fired his gun, sure that he was hitting. And some were. But whatever the man wore, it took the bullets without slowing the man down.

The last gunman started firing as the last lieutenant started bringing his reloaded gun up.

The Lord spun and hurled his sword. It pierced through the gunman and carried him backwards with so much impact that the blade then pierced the lieutenant's gun hand, pinning him to the wall as he screamed.

Mr. Warrant's gun clicked dry.

The Lord walked over to the screaming lieutenant and placed his metal taloned hand on his head, shoving it backwards and crushing it against the wall as he pulled out his sword.

Mr. Warrant shoved a new clip in his gun as the Lord turned around.

"Question is, can you kill me before I can kill you?" the Lord asked.

Mr. Warrant aimed.

And then his hand was sliced off. He gasped and look at the spurting stump as he tried to figure out how the Lord had gotten across the room so fast.

"Guess you won't be the one to kill me." The Lord said, and twisted his sword before driving it and his claws into Mr. Warrant, yanking them outward and pulling him apart. Blood soaked him.

He ignored it.

He went back through the room, ignoring the money and drugs strewn about. In a minute he had found the dark room where many users waited, doing anything they could for a fix.

The Lord's eyes narrowed in disgust as many unspeakable acts went on in plain view, all in the desperate need for something that would kill them.

"Disgusting." The Lord said, taking a few steps back and retrieving another submachine gun. "You sold all your potential for poison. You bring nothing to society. Goodbye."

The Lord emptied the clip into the room, ignoring the screams. Junkies had no place in his world. They had no future except as leeches.

Not practical.

He ran out of bullets before he dealt with all the things that dared call themselves human in there, so he found another clip and emptied that one too. That dealt with the problem.

He went back through the rooms, emptying everything that was flammable onto the floor and walls. It took a little while. He could hear sirens coming as he finished.

As he headed for an exit, he found a small surprise: a stabbed man who was still alive.

"Can't do this…" he was saying.

"You're right. I can't." said the Lord, as he lit a match. "I must. My kingdom must be cleansed."

"Gonna have you…mother fucker…!" the guy coughed as blood leaked from his mouth.

"Is that gas I smell?" the Lord asked, and threw the match.

He left the burning, exploding building behind. There was still much work to do.

Uh oh. This is gonna be a problem…on the next chapter of Lover's Walk!