Chapter 3: A Candle in the Window

When Robin regained consciousness, the dim light in the room afforded him little visual acuity. When he tried to move, he took note of the standing cross to which he was chained. The blood was draining from his arms and they were starting to go numb with the effort of trying to maintain blood flow in this elevated state. Robin tried to lift his head and suddenly became dizzy. He had taken more than one blow to the head when he battled Gizmo and Mammoth. He tried to open his eyes further as conscious thought returned, but he found that his right eye was nearly swollen shut. A small trickle of blood seeped from his hairline on the same side. "That must be where I caught the edge of the entertainment center," Robin thought to himself. Mammoth had swung it at him and Robin, who was still asleep on the couch, didn't even see it coming until it contacted his head. He was ashamed to think that he was taken out so easily. He wondered about the other Titans. Surely they were awake by now. Had the alarm gone off? He couldn't remember. Robin coughed and spit out what was in his mouth. Most of it was blood. Apparently, he had taken a worse beating than he suspected.

A door on the far side of the room opened and two tall slender figures entered the room. One of the men wore the white robes of a cult leader. The other wore the highly technical suit of an evil genius. Had Robin been able to speak, he would have cried out in terror: Brother Blood and Slade were working together.

"Good morning, Robin. Sleep well?" Slade's calm voice called through the semi-darkness.

"What...do you want with me?" Robin gasped. It was hard to breathe with the bruises on his ribs.

"My, my, but Gizmo and Mammoth have done their job well," Slade commented, inspecting Robin's wounds. Robin wondered why Jinx had not been included in that morning's attack.

"I'd like to say that there is loyalty among thieves, but I don't suppose they would be willing to bring me the girl," Slade continued as though Robin were not there.

"Rebellion and desertion are not tolerated within my organization, Slade. Jinx will pay dearly for running away," Brother Blood reminded him. "School girls often do not realize the gravity of their words."

Slade looked at Brother Blood and nodded curtly. "I find that when there is distraction, the best thing to do is to eliminate the distraction. Isn't that right, Robin?" Slade grasped Robin by the hair and jerked up so that Robin looked him in the eye. Robin couldn't answer. He was too confused. Had Jinx deserted the Hive? What distraction was Slade referring to? Where did Robin himself fit into all of this? There were just too many questions. After delivering Robin a swift kick to the ribs, cracking two of them, Slade joined Brother Blood at the door and exited. Robin choked and coughed for several minutes after they left, resigning himself to the fact that without his utility belt and his communicator, the other Teen Titans would find it next to impossible to find him.

Robin tried to comfort himself with thoughts of his friends. Football in the park with Beast Boy and Cyborg, long walks with Starfire, training sessions with Raven, meals and movies together as a team, as much as he could think of, but all he seemed to be able to do was let his head roll forward again and lose consciousness. His body was just too weak to keep up.

Raven and Jinx skirted the tree tops as they soared across town, crossing several of the sectors that Raven had assigned her friends to investigate. She was beginning to wonder where they were when her communicator clicked on again.

"Raven, where are you?" cried Beast Boy. Raven snapped out of her daydream and grasped her communicator.

"Report!" Raven barked.

"We're all back at the Tower like you ordered...all except you. Where are you?" Cyborg replied. Raven checked the clock built into the communicator. It had been over three and a half hours since they started their search. Silently scolding herself, Raven looked back at the screen of the communicator.

"Got a lead on Robin. Head for these coordinates now! Meet us there!" Raven rapped out.

"Who is with you?" Starfire cried.

"No time to explain. Just meet us there!" Raven cried, clicking off her communicator.

As Starfire, Beast Boy and Cyborg rushed to join Raven and her mysterious companion, Beast Boy quietly worried about his blue cloaked fiancé. He almost lost her once for taking a chance on someone, so he hoped that this person, whoever they were, wherever they were leading Raven, was for real. Beast Boy reminded himself that Raven was not a weakling and this helped some, but the trace evidence recovered from the living room suggested that Gizmo and Mammoth had been the ones that attacked Robin. Beast Boy hoped that Raven knew what she was getting into. Where there were Hive agents, there was usually Slade.

"Where are we going?" Raven demanded after a few minutes along side Jinx.

"They teach you in theories of criminal activity class that the best place for a hideout is right in the open," Jinx recited, coming to a stop in front of an unfinished office building. The structure had been enclosed and the outside edifices had been finished, but the inside of the building was not yet ready for businesses to inhabit. Raven looked up and down the building and then back at Jinx.

"I don't suppose you know where to find him inside?" Raven asked, expecting Jinx not to know.

"Not a clue. But there's only one way to find out," Jinx said, pushing up the sleeves of her costume. Raven was about to suggest that they wait for the other Titans when the T-Car squealed to a halt at the curb.

"Did someone here call for backup?" Cyborg quipped.

"What do we need them for?" Jinx sneered but quickly changed her tune when she saw Cyborg. "I mean, wow, backup!"

"This was your lead?" Cyborg asked skeptically, eyeballing Raven.

"You trusted her to lead you to Robin?" Beast Boy squealed.

"I do not care who she is! If Jinx knows where Robin is and she is willing to help us then we must take advantage of it," Starfire said determinedly.

"If she double-crosses us just once..." Beast Boy threatened.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, a one-way ticket to dimension Trigon," Jinx muttered. "Snot suckin' little grass stain..." Raven heard her comment and without warning slammed Jinx against the building with one powerful hand. She once again grew closer to Jinx's face.

"That is the boy I intend to marry. If a hair on his green head so much as twitches the wrong way, you're going to be casting your spells from a wheelchair," Raven said evenly. With this, she released Jinx and turned to the rest of the team, leaving Jinx to smooth the front of her dress and give a half frightened half resentful look to Raven. Raven looked at the others and said, "What?"

Cyborg and Starfire smiled and shook their heads. Beast Boy grinned widely as his eyes gleamed.

"Gee, Raven you're so possessive!" he teased.

"I love you, too. Now let's go," Raven said, motioning for the others to stand close enough to her for her to use her dimensional capabilities to transport them inside the building.

Deep inside the building, on one of the multitude of upper floors, Robin awoke again to the sound of running electricity. He forced himself to lift his head though hunger and exhaustion begged to differ and what he saw frightened him more than anything else on earth. He had been moved to some cavernous larger room, roughly the size of the gym in Titans Tower, and had been placed on a platform high above the floor. There were a series of trapeze and acrobatic swings strung across the room to another, much larger platform on the other side. There, lying upon the far away platform was Starfire. She had been captured, beaten and left for dead. Anger boiled Robin's blood.

"I trust you rested well, Robin," Slade said, his voice sounding as though it came from a speaker somewhere in the ceiling. "As you can see, we've arranged a little obstacle course for you."

"What have you done to Starfire?" Robin shouted.

"You can yet reach her, Robin. The power to do so is in your very blood," Slade replied. Robin suddenly quaked with fear. He had come from a family of acrobats several generations in the making. Robin nearly wept for fear remembering that terrible day when the sturdy wires that held his parents' trapeze had been cut, sending the Flying Graysons to their deaths below and leaving six year old Robin an orphan.

Somehow this was different. This was now. This was Starfire and she needed him. Robin wrenched himself up to a standing position and took hold of the first swing, testing the tensile strength of the wire. Cautiously, he looked below him. There was no net to catch him if he slipped. Swallowing hard, Robin took a deep breath, prayed to his parents for courage, and took the first broad swing across the chasm.

The remaining Teen Titans, plus Jinx, cautiously infiltrated the building and made their way across the new-smelling lobby to the unfinished elevator shafts.

"Something's not right. This is too easy," Cyborg murmured.

"Of course it's not," said Starfire, backing toward Raven. "This is dangerous as the building is unfinished. We must find Robin." There was a corridor directly in front of them, and from a room near the end of this corridor there issued an electrical buzz and a very feminine scream.

"Okay, that's not suspicious," Raven said sarcastically.

"We must save that innocent girl!" Starfire cried.

"What about Robin?" Beast Boy cried.

"This person may not be alive when we return!" Starfire cried, energizing one of her starbolts. The kids flinched at the sound of another agony-filled scream and for a moment forgot their endangered leader as they bolted for the end of the hall.


A/N: Thank you so much to all that have reviewed and been keeping up with this storyline! Special hugs and sugar cookies to Jestana, Raven A. Star, Arrendi, and zerodog43 for their diligent reading of all my TT work and perpetual reviewing skills! I love you guys! I really don't deserve such a loyal following. -blush- If you are wondering where I got it in my head that Slade is still alive, get on Animation Insider's TT fandom and start scoping out the episode descriptions for the new season and you'll see. As for Jinx, if you've seen "Deception" you know exactly where I got that idea. Anyway, keep on reading and reviewing! I love being bombarded by the email alerts I get! Bwee!