(Long) Author's Notes: Well, it's finally here. Thank you to those who have left reviews (I do read them. I was sorta WOOT when I read that one sorta flame...er, well informing me Robin loves Starfire or wahtever propoganda :D. Considering it's just damning me just for the Slade/Robin vibe, my writing style must be at least acceptable :). Now that I think of it, I think that's my only flame ever for my fics... But then I have horrible memory.
And to Katarik, when I read "recced".....took me a while to understand what that meant. More like my friend explained it to me actually. Yes I can be dense much :D If you're reading this, mind if I ask who/where it was reccomended?
I've actually written the first 5 pages around 3 weeks after chapter 2... Yeah I sorta neglected until now... Lack of season 2 and just not that captivating episodes when I managed to--e-hem, "procure" some episodes. After watching "Haunted" and conversations with my friend, I got back into writing. Also giddy that my ideas for this fic and for future expansion on this story did actually follow the show quite well. The concepts anyway.
As for the warning of slash/yaoi:
I've decided to not actively make this slash (in the physical sense). It will most likely have slashy undertones (as if I could resist), but it is not the point of the story. Psychology and interactions between characters are more important to me than to read simple "he humped him" type of content that many expect when they hear "slash/yaoi" (I hope you don't o.o;...for this fic anyways).
The only way I can describe the fine line of straight and yaoi I'm treading with this story, is that if you wish to see slash, you'll probably see it (minus sex). If you don't want to see it, you can ignore it easily (hopefully).
Ok I shut up now. Prepare for 14 pages of boredom XP
To IntoxicatedXtc for slavedriving me to finish this chapter (read her stories now!)
Act III: Maybe
By Cloud Ishida
"The speed of the boss is the speed of the team."
- Lee Iacocca
"It's Slade."
Cyborg simply stated. Due to the single lighting of the Research Room, he could only pick out a thin outline of Robin's form. The fine sheets of light shaping into shoulders were oscillating in rapid succession. The faint sounds of gasping for breath rebounded off the walls of the near empty space amplified them to rumbles in the room of silence. But nothing indicated that the figure in the darkness acknowledged him. "Robin, did you hear me?"
It seemed as if everything was going back to normal. Friction was here and their but the Titans were feeling like a team again. It started with their encounter with Mad Mod to the establishment of the T-Car and some newfound closeness between members. They played out their roles according to the script of being a Teen Titan. They all desperately wanted their normality back.
"I heard you Cyborg. I'll be right there." After a moment passed, Robin heard the doors sliding shut to cease the hallway lights tainting the room. He could almost feel the wave of apprehension coming from the half-robot.
Robin followed his script. He followed his role as leader. But the nights were still colder than usual, more silent than usual. The times when he was left alone either by choice or circumstances, his thoughts would retreat to one man.
And so he would still stay in his Research Room, where he could be alone and immerse himself entirely in his work. That was an addition to his script now. It just meant he had dual roles of stern but flexible leader, and the stoic detective determined to prove mysteries are unacceptable. The fact that Slade got the best of him not only with Red X, but with previous engagements as well was intolerable. Losing was not an option in his line of work, or in him.
And he hated losing, even in dreams.
The others couldn't, or wouldn't, understand that. It wasn't a lack of respect for his team mates that Robin came to that conclusion. That drive to win was part of his "powers" as Robin. It was what made him train to reach and surpass his limits to be better than the best. It was what made him be a leader. And because he had to be in order to survive being a fighter for justice among godly mentors and gifted heroes.
And all that he built for himself was being threatened by a single, recurring dream. A dream where he felt all of it, but remember nothing but the disturbing elements that made him wake as if caught in an asthma attack. He was glad he was under the covers of darkness or Cyborg would have thought otherwise to inform him of their night caller.
Realizing he was taking too long to compose himself, Robin finally headed for the all-purpose, room. Years of mastering concentration and tuning out distraction was being undermined by a pathetic dream.
Stupid dream.
Every step was tedious and electric at the same time from knowing the object of his torment was waiting for him...pissed off that Slade was always ahead of him in the race.
And it was a race.
A race Robin had no intention to lose. Who is Slade? It's a question Robin never forgotten but was now overshadowed by a more pressing question.
Why?
Diving deep into introspection, Robin approached the room before he realized he left the Research Room. Without realizing, he absently stepped through the sliding doors to a surreal scene.
Stupid, stupid dream.
Robin stopped frozen before the first step of the stairs. Frantically his mind pushed itself from internal questioning to external preparation.
To prepare himself to see this as nothing more than another criminal taunting their demands to the Titans.
His target was just another criminal--nothing more, nothing less.
Just a criminal. If only your everyday criminal, the Titans would have him behind bars before breaking a sweat. This was Slade on that giant screen, the size magnifying the armoured mystery man's unnatural prestige.
The other Titans were like mice before the lion and faded into a blur of frescos painted on the floor and walls in Robin's view. He either didn't notice them, or couldn't notice them.
With just a fraction of a millimetre shift of that icy blue eye, Slade welcomed the new presence.
Robin couldn't take his eyes off the screen. And he didn't understand why.
It was Slade looking straight at him yet not at the same time; an eye piercing through the screen, across the room, oblivious and cautious of the other Titans. But he was only looking at the boy whose feet seemed to have weld to the floor. So covert was the gaze that the other Titans suspected nothing; letting the unimportant four see what he wanted them to see. They were too preoccupied with their own contempt for the psychopathic criminal to perceive anything else.
And Robin found himself unable to turn away. Even this staring match was a battle, and he didn't want to lose. But it was unbearable being beneath that eye drilling into him. Telling him how above him he was.
So unbearable.
The dream made it so. And the glint in the other's single eye continued its omniscient gaze as if to say, I know.
That Slade was dreaming too.
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"Time is not on your side."
The screen dissolved into blackness, but Slade took in the view of his prize until the last line of static dissipated.
He looked over his shoulder to where his robotic creations were setting up the finishing touches on the supposed chronotron detonator and readying for transport. The warehouse was only serving as a stage waiting for the main curtain to arise once the Titans arrive.
Despite the lack of uniqueness to the innards of the building, Slade was confident that at least one of the meagre Titans will discover the location. Most likely that robotic hulk of the group, or perhaps the young lady claimed by darkness.
Robin, as he had calculated, seemed to be in no condition to put that impeccable brain into use this night. And he didn't look particularly well rested either.
It was a beautiful sight to see when everything was going to plan.
His taunting of the boy and gauging his reaction, Slade had the boy mentally where he wanted him. It was a guarantee now that Robin would seek him out indefinitely.
All Slade had to do now, was alter the conditions to separate the bird from his flock.
Months of planning, of meticulously going over every fine detail of his plans was about to pay off. Patience had been very kind indeed.
Breaking away from its pack, a droid approached its creator and signalled that the moving preparations were complete. Then, with a wave of Slade's hand, the droid returned to its co-workers and carried its own shared burden of the detonator.
Arms held behind his back, the trigger dangling from his fingertips, Slade followed his minions out of the warehouse. But, not before taking one last look at particular areas of the building's surroundings.
He will have a front row view of the spectacle he hoped to see tonight. The first act of the play of a hero's downfall. By the sole account that would occur under his hidden surveillance, Slade would see if Robin was truly prepared for his influence.
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"Titans, GO!!"
Even if there was an army of him, he would not back down. Robin vaulted with systematic chaos into the throes of battle.
Starfire's grace, Beast Boy's adaptability, Cyborg's resolution and Raven's resolve all interacted as one to make quick work out of their enemies—that is if they were given the chance. Each Titan headed for their unspoken corner of the battlefield to duel with the mindless robotic heaps but never released their first attack.
Robin didn't see the boundaries or limits. As far as he was concerned in this heat of battle, all was fair game, turning it into an all out street fight. He didn't even want to waste time extending his staff, opting to propel it with remarkable precision as a boomerang. Each throw crushed the heads of multiple droids as one by one each metallic creation fell under each bone-crushing blow by the Boy Wonder.
Charging like a bullet train Cyborg readied his fist to strike until a blur caught in his line of vision and skidded to a halt. "Hey, I was gonna do that!" But his voice trailed unheard. The blur of red, green and black streaking in a violent dance, like seeing an untamed animal rebelling against the hunters who want him caged. Cyborg felt as if his systems were being hacked again as his body was transfixed to the ground while he witnessed the carnage. The way Robin was manoeuvring, the way his entire attention and being were freely given to the droids, was starting to unsettle the metal giant.
Starfire found herself looking on in a daze watching Robin berserk through the enemy line. Every kick, every punch, every body slam was not wasted on thin air, but smashed through wires and steel. It was brutality she never witnessed before within her young life. Not even the mechanical accuracy of the droids could match the leader's ice cold attacks. For that one moment, she was quite literally frozen scared, freezing her fists of emerald fury.
Beast Boy felt hands on his back using him as a live vault. Even as an oxen whose sheer weight and size could crush a man, Beast Boy just stood with his jaw sway from the fierce winnow left behind by Robin's flight. And he was flying. The changeling knew that Robin had sentiment for gliding through the untamed air around the city, but that was with a grappler or something to support him, to lead him to the next safe landing. Now--now he was just flying on his own, without the guidance of a line to his next destination.
Raven ceased her incantation with a gasp by the sudden, violent intrusion. With strength and agility one can only describe as superhuman, Robin back flipped as his boots connected with the droid's jaw and crushed the head of another droid behind him in one smooth motion and landed on top of its head. Raven floated in shock though her controlled features expressed mild surprise. Too startled, in the girl's own way, she couldn't understand or acknowledge the sudden flash flood of emotion emanating from the Robin's direction. Too disarrayed yet uniformed to put an emotion to it.
Like frightened children happening upon a domestic fight between their parents, the four Titans witnessed their leader's disturbing behaviour. A lithe boy with a frame that no one would think fathomable that such a small body compared to his opponents could take down an entire army.
And Robin was too focused, too driven to one goal to notice their concern. Too blind to even see them, to even remember they were still there to fight by his side—that he was part of a team. His aggression screamed solitude so loud it was like shriek. They were in two different worlds as Robin continued his onslaught, and one world was blind to the other.
Just as he didn't see "their" world, they didn't see "his" world either.
A world where all this supposed fury, all this supposed rage was reaching the boiling point to this present frustration. These droids were nothing but a distraction had to be dealt fast and hard before the detonator goes off, where ever it is now. There was no time for grace, no time for adapting, no time for resolving, no time for making decisions.
Just act.
Robin wasn't about to let these minor mechanical distractions deter him from reaching his goal and save the city. So that he will succeed and he will win. Considering a chance of failing was equivalent of out-right failure.
And he wanted to show that he was the winner. For all the times Slade has managed to one-up him, Robin wanted to pay back ten-fold.
Pouncing on the last standing droid, Robin stared down on its half-torn face, his make-shift escrima stick poised in the air.
Patronize me?!
Slam.
Mock me?!
Hard.
You. Know. NOTHING.
Fast.
About. ME!
"--now. We are victorious..."
He felt his arm gently restrained, and an equally gentle voice calling out to him. The physical contact was reaching him where voices could not.
Still panting from pushing his body to its limits in the attack, Robin slowly lifted his face up to meet the emerald eyes of Starfire. His eyes shifted slightly to the group behind her, all of them wide-eyed and concerned as the alien girl's. But there was also something else floating in the arcs of their stares.
Eyes covertly widened at the sliver of fear staring back at him.
With that truth Robin flapped his wings out of his world, and into those of his friends. A part of him was belittling, that he blindly reduced himself to just an angry boy lashing out at anything he could get his hands on. But it was a fleeting realization, for the task at hand was still unfinished; the danger they've set out to stop was still free to strike. "Slade's got his finger on the button, and we've got nothing! Does that sound like a victory to you?!" Almost slashing aside Starfire's hold, Robin stomped off in heavy footsteps out of the warehouse.
Internally, the small guilt seeded by the realization in his head was weighing down his legs, but that didn't mean the others should see it.
Starfire remained crouched beside the crippled robot beneath her. Her eyes remained wide at the sight as she watched the last of his cape disappearing around the corner of the broken doors and shifted back to the droid. She couldn't help but imagine what if... what if laying before her was a live being behind that mask. It was an image that almost made her empty her stomach, because she realized from what she witnessed, the fatal situation could easily come true.
It was only Beast Boy's voice that cut through the silence with his simple description of the spectacle the just witnessed, to express what everyone was thinking. "Was anyone else freaked out of their minds...?"
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Rewind.
Precision.
Play.
Agility.
Stop.
Domination.
It was watching a ballet warped into mindless violence with the sound of metal crushing and wires sparking as the grand, orchestrated music guiding the dancer. Raw beauty and strength oozed out of every turn and every assault.
Slade widened his lips beneath the steel mask. The trail of seeds to his nest was attracting the songbird directly to him, just as expected. And once again, just as Red X had sought him out on his own, Robin was following him openly by his own free will.
The rhythmic echoes of Robin's uncalled for breaking of the last robot even gave Slade chills run down his back bone. The chills one experiences when anticipation of your desires are manipulated by untold stimulations. Indeed, his choice was the correct one. Not one of his expectations had been broken but rather, the results of his calculations were met with a surplus of agreeable outcomes.
But Slade knew better than to revel prematurely in his progress now. No, the closer he was to reaching his goal, the more he had to tread with caution. As adept and mature Robin was, the boy's emotions were too turbulent and almost impossible to tame if his stubbornness was anywhere near the level of Slade's. Everything he wanted in an apprentice was within his grasp.
Everything but the always elusive loyalty factor.
And it was a factor he intended to mitigate.
A boy like Robin, despite his aggression, a witness and instigator of violence, still had an air of innocence about him. Sappy as it sounded, that innocence was friendship.
Oh no, Slade was not about to let something as pitiful as "belonging" stand between him and an eager student. He was to be the one to carve the rough diamond into a flawless treasure that puts all other radiances to shame. A perfect diamond tempered by his hands, and to be shown off as his finest piece of work. The diamond that could cut through anything and everything—at the flick of his own wrist.
Four pathetic children will not get between him and his dream.
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Another nuclear sneeze escaped through Starfire's dainty nose. The other Titans slowly shifted out of their defence poses as the alien girl sniffled. Her sneezing was becoming stronger, becoming nuclear bombs with each step. "I believe it is this way." Starfire informed as she rubbed her red nose.
Taking one more glance to make sure Starfire wasn't about to torpedo another one, the team started to move down the sewers. Robin lagged behind, as he replayed the scene at the docks in his head.
The beating. The interrogation. His own words.
"Look, guys...," Robin started, hoping to relieve the human in him of the burden of guilt. Things had been done, things have been said. "About earlier..."
He was greeted with eyes that spoke of nothing and everything. His outburst at the docks challenged their views of him, and Beast Boy made his observation likely shared by the others loud and clear.
And just how those words stung.
It was a syringe invading his ears when Starfire told him, and it was the same when Beast Boy did.
Maybe it was true that he was the one crippling the team.
The part of him that the team accepted as what made Robin leader was becoming the reason for that "massacre" in the warehouse, and their seed of dissident now. There was just a moment where the idea that he wanted to save the city more than anyone of the others, to right a terrible wrong more than the others. It was a preposterous notion; the young leader knew that. But the fact that for just a fleeting moment, that he was the only obstacle between Slade and domination was the guilt seeded in his mind.
That the others were tools for his need for justice.
"Whatever it is, it'll have to wait." Raven answered for the team. She purposefully pointed to the drone loading its deadly cargo.
Already leaving the thought behind by the sight of how close they were to finishing the hunt, Robin reverted to calculating leader again. "Titans, go!"
Taking the point, Robin failed to realize the shaking of the walls, and a crash of debris flew out. A brick barely missed his head, but a large one with a life of its own and curled around his loose arm and all too late felt himself seized through the hole.
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Right on schedule. Even the lowliest of pawns have a critical use on the playing field.
Slade watched as the bird dived and fluttered from one pillar to the next in robotic precision. Cinderblock clumsily followed from behind, failing to think ahead of his prey.
But one didn't expect much from pawns anyways.
Robin sent off the four Titans to save the city while he slowed the goliath down for the benefit of his team mates.
How... predictable.
Though that is what anyone would observe, but of course, Slade isn't anyone.
It wasn't pure altruism fuelling the heart of this Titan. No, Slade sensed--knew more was at play than surmised.
This wasn't a truly selfless endeavour the dear songbird has taken upon himself. It was all to bide time, and information. And that fire was fuelling the seemingly unnatural strength Robin was emitting to take down the walking pile of cement... Imagine all that, just to find him.
Slade watched as Robin unnaturally flipped Cinderblock down with all his weight and momentum and gently land on the living boulder's chest. He watched the lips as it mouthed for his whereabouts. The boy eyed the coincidental blueprint to the lair.
Though Slade's warning of not killing the boy may have played a hand as well in Cinderblock's defeat, it was still a satisfying battle. Catching a smirk, the one eye watched until the bird disappeared into the darkness with only the blinking lights on the digital map signalling his journey down the sewer Styx.
Just as Slade thought.
How predictable indeed.
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Robin waded through the running water, gradually coming to a shallow halt to steel runs to another tunnel. Not wanting to alert possible triggers around the opening, he took out a compact blow torch and steadily cut through each run. Placing the homing map to his belt, Robin gently took the loose runs in his free hand and carefully set them in the trickling water about his boots.
Delicate, but deadly with speed and precision, in a mere minute there was an opening big enough for him to get through and continued following the map.
Lower and lower he climbed down into the earth. Steel hallways that shouldn't exist shielded the structure from rocky instabilities. Robin didn't even notice it was quite warm despite the cold glare of metal staring back at him. The chill of raw earth failed to crawl into the floor of the underground structure. A perfect sign someone took the area as a home.
Robin, so engrossed with the map, only looked up once every thirty-three steps, and only at corners. He measured that he climbed 246 metres deep and probably ran 168 metres though the snaking hallway. Quite a bit away from the others... Though he didn't know exactly where the others were now. A minor lapse in thought he should look over.
His hands tightened and his eyes narrowed as he the encircled "S" grew larger with every step he took.
Soon Robin hit a dead end. But the mark on the digital map was screaming to him that the target was on the other side. A gloved hand rested on that wall, feeling the coolness fighting a war against the heat emanating from his body. Even the heat from the floor was quieted to submission by his blaze.
So here it was.
Just a single wall separating the two; just a simple cataclysm to breach it.
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"Then, we are victorious?" Starfire meekly inquired of their success. None of the four Titans even felt a feathering of pain from the laser blasts. Nothing on Cyborg's sensors called for any attention to danger. From the looks of it all, it seemed as if the answer to Starfire's question was a yes.
Beast Boy not wanting to bathe in the nauseating sewer water anymore, fluttered as a tiny hummingbird out to the boat that carried what they now knew was a fake chronotron detonator. As he landed he morphed smoothly into a dog and feverishly shook his body to throw off excess water. Reverting to human again, he continued to bang one side of his head to knock out more liquid in his pointy ear on the other side, "So, how's about we get movin' before we smell like—unmentionables for a week?"
"I second that." Cyborg agreed and held out a hand to a waiting Starfire floating above him. She hefted the half-robot like a basket of flowers towards the boat.
Raven landed behind and started to wring out the water from her damp cape. Then she left it for her mind to twist her cape dry as she heard Cyborg calling for their leader on his wrist communicator.
None of the Titans heard a reply from the other end of the line. Four pairs of eyes glanced at one another looking to see if the other was worried.
Cyborg felt a grip on his arm. "Robin? Please answer us..." Starfire leaned into his wrist urgently asking for Robin to answer. When still no response, she took out her own communicator as she darted out through the canal to where they last saw their fearless leader.
Without a word Beast Boy evolved to a hawk to catch up with the alien while Raven held Cyborg by the hands as she used her dark magic to help support his weight.
As the three neared to the gaping hole in the wall, they heard Starfire shouting in the empty subterranean. "Robin?! Please no more hide and go-seeking. We've discovered the rouse of the detonator so there is no more trouble so please let us just go home now..." The others couldn't tell if she was pleading with the walls or to the silent communicator.
There was no sign of Cinderblock or Robin. No blood splattered the walls to say the worse has happened, but the tall tale signs of battle, with the crumbled columns and hand-made potholes by giant fists only served to fuel that leaving their leader alone was not the best of ideas.
"My sensors aren't picking up his communicator..." Cyborg reported. He eyed more of the shattered stones than at his readout on his arm.
Closing her eyes for mere moments, Raven tried to feel any traces of Robin's mind. "If he's close by I would have sensed him. He's not here."
"But where can he be? We left him right here and he must have won the fight against Cinderblock and he should have caught up with us or at least have waited and—"Starfire felt a hand on her shoulder stopping her string of words.
"Just chill, Star. He probably just... chased Cinderblock outside." Beast Boy attempted to calm the agitated alien, but he wasn't doing a good job of hiding his own apprehension.
The last image of Robin single-handedly taking down an entire army of robots did not fade. And in the light of that memory was what invoked their quiet worry on what happened in the area they were standing in. Did their leader go too far? Is he injured someplace and unable to contact them?
"We should go to the surface." Cyborg snapped the others out of their thoughts. "The radio frequencies must be having a hard time penetrating through underground."
Reluctantly, they took the advice and headed for the nearest manhole cover. Starfire taking one last look at the destruction was nudged along to the surface by Cyborg. As he stayed behind the group, he heard a small warning sound of a locator being terminated.
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"No way would I ever work for—" Robin eyed the peculiar cylinder exposed to his line of vision in Slade's hand.
"If you join me, if you swear to serve me, if you never speak to your friends again, I will allow them to live." Slade let the scenario sink in to his newest protégé, the expression on the younger face exactly what he expected. "But..." Oh how he wanted to extend that expression of utter surprise—to know he had won, "if you disobey, even the smallest request, I will annihilate them Robin... And I'll make you watch." And there is that look of defiance again. Such a brave front to hide the delicate melody of despair. "So, do we have a deal?"
Silence permeated the air. Robin was at a loss of words. This... this was nothing he had ever expected. He wanted fists to fly and weapons to clash to determine the outcome, not this. He was being beaten with words.
Badly.
Losing was never an option open to him. He can't be--he won't be beaten by this man who insists he knows more about himself than he. It was a battle he expected to win like all other battles because he never, ever, accepted anything less.
Rage flooded his veins again, and a scowl to even scare the devil himself painted his face. "How do I know what you say is true? For all I know, this is all a sick bluff." Although he knew in the dark recess of his mind, Slade does not joke. Not in the normal sense of the word.
Robin could almost hear the smile behind that infernal mask. "How can you be sure I am 'bluffing'?" A disappointing comeback to such a threat, Slade amused. He was flattered even more that Robin truly did not even speculate that all of his plans and ruse was for him. The boy truly didn't have anything to say to challenge his own current position of power.
How naive.
"You expect me to believe, you wouldn't push that trigger when you feel like it? Do you expect me," Robin spat out that twisted word, "...to trust you?!"
"How can you risk not to?" Slade countered smoothly and concise.
The arrogance fattening the reply repulsed the boy. His fists shook with rage demanding for release. His legs trembling to spring forward and silence that man for good. But he just couldn't move. He couldn't let himself go berserk when one stupid move on his part is a consequence on the others. Words were useless in his state of mind while hate was brewing inside him, only giving him fuel to utter two pitiful words. "Fuck you."
Slade would have laughed loudly with his head held back at that immature remark if he didn't know that Robin always looked for openings in an opponent. It was phrases like that that helped him remember Robin was still a teenager—a mere child. Instead, he just tilted his head to the side in amusement, the remark not even denting his armour. "You need some lessons on respecting your elders, young man."
"You have done nothing to earn it." Robin retorted. He was not one to be lectured on. Not by his friends, and certainly not by his enemy.
Silence returned again, but didn't last long. Slade walked quietly to the side, into the shadows. Robin did not dare move though his body threatened him to. Risk chained him to the floor he was standing on. He could hear a faint click of a lock, squeak of metal and another click. A door, of a cage perhaps, Robin thought.
"I understand your scepticism Robin." Slade emerged with a tiny bundle in his hands. "It's one of many qualities I'm fond of about you."
Robin's stance slightly faltered from what almost sounded like... a compliment? Despite trying to be ready for anything, that particular description with that particular word was not what he expected.
As Slade approached closer with his large hands concealing whatever he held. Defending to the side of caution, Robin took a step back when Slade was approaching too close for his comfort. Though being in the same room with him was enough to make him connect fist to metal.
Without a word, Slade revealed a tiny kitten; its small stature made more prominent in his single, large hand.
An understandable look of confusion wrinkled Robin's face. There was no sign of disease or maltreatment by its current owner. The soft, ivory white fur of the delicate animal bobbed up and down in rhythm of its breathing. Delicate mews were the only sound floating in the room besides the grinding of gears. In all its appearance, it looked like a healthy kitten playfully licking Slade's finger.
It felt so wrong.
The image before him was a living oxymoron to Robin. Something disturbing underlined all this as the feline was outstretched to him, offering the precious kitten to the bird.
"She won't bite." Slade remarked, watching the gears in Robin's head working. What was he planning? Is it Slade's pet? Why is he showing this to me? Is he truly crazy?
The kitten lost interest in Slade's finger, and turned her attention to the boy she was showcased to. Soft mews carried out to him, asking to be held by another for new smells and play. Slade held his hand out steadily, waiting for the other to acknowledge the kitten's request to be held.
Watching the kitten outstretching her paw much too far, Robin caught the little bundle before she fell off the still hand. Immediately the kitten played with his fingers, sniffing and licking the green glove. If Starfire was there, she would have melted at the sight of Robin holding such an adorable creature. "What is this about?" The coldness in his voice contrasted sharply with his gentle hold on the kitten.
Slade retracted his hand, and turned to walk towards the monitors. He listened to the purrs of a content animal. It was amazing sometimes, how something so tiny could soften even the most hardest of hearts.
But, pitifully helpless against intellect.
Keeping his back turned while observing the cells of the four Titans, Slade revealed another trigger, smaller than the one before. "A demonstration." Casually, he pressed the button.
Robin held his breath as the kitten suddenly glowed orange and red. Purrs changed into pain-induced hisses. Claws blindly dug into his hand as he tried to calm the flustered animal. The young leader looked from the obviously agonized kitten to Slade's back. "What are you doing?! Slade!!" Robin felt something much too warm soaking his gloves. He looked down, eyes growing wide at the sight of green turning almost black, stained in blood.
Red liquid spilled horribly too much and too fast from every orifice. Vomits of blood and crimson tears, so much blood clogged her throat that only gurgles emitted to express distress. Whatever attempts he performed to alleviate the pain as much as possible was returned with louder and bloodier cries. Afraid of the kitten falling out of his hand through violent spasms, Robin quickly knelt down to the floor, almost dropping the dying feline on the ground.
He was transfixed, eyes growing wider and wider. He forgot the blood on his hands, or the overflowing pool of blood from the kitten expanding to stain his knees. Amidst the glow of orange and red, the eyes locked onto him, as if accusing him for the pain.
And those cat's eyes were so much like Starfire's. Oh god if that kitten was... Then the image of Cyborg, Raven and Beast Boy replaced the dying, if not already dead kitten.
All too long after the gurgles and cries ceased, the glow dissipated. A mass of fur soaked completely in thick, dark red blood saturated it. Robin stared, dumbfounded, something so lively dead so fast. Only the sound of an all too calm voice reminding him, that the other was still in the room.
"Now." Slade stood with his back still turned to the boy kneeling before the lake of red. "Do we have a deal?"
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"We should split up." Cyborg suggested, though sounded more like an order by the sound of his voice. Starfire was continuously trying to contact Robin before he informed the group his locater was terminated.
Raven shifted slightly to his side. As she expressed unintentionally or not, she had the most personal experience in the art of control, and it felt like instinct that she would have a say of authority in their leader's absence. "Starfire, Beast Boy," she waited until their eyes set upon her, "you two search above ground. Cyborg, you continue searching underground. I'll head back to the tower and use the computer's extended sensors to locate traces of his communicator signal." While the others nodded in agreement, Raven waited for an objection from Star, having the feeling that she wanted to remain in the tunnels where Robin was last seen.
The alien did open her mouth to say exactly what Raven predicted, but thought better of it. It was tactically obvious that she and Beast Boy were the best to search above ground. Starfire's aerial aptitude was unmatched, and the changeling was able to see through the eyes of a hawk. Cyborg's internal sensors, his sight would have extended beyond walls. With Cyborg stationed underground, Raven was the logical choice for computer work since next to Robin and the half-robot; she had the best aptitude with the main computer.
Beast Boy almost had to run to catch up with Starfire as she accelerated up into the dusk sky. The two remaining Titans could hear Star resuming her pleading into her communicator.
Raven hovered above the street to leave for the tower, but stopped as she took in the sight of Cyborg just standing there. Something was weighing his mind and it didn't take empathy to figure that out. "Something wrong?" She flatly asked. Stupid question, she knew, but there wasn't another that fit the moment.
The events of the night weighed on his mind. The one on one talk between him and Robin weighed his mind. It was almost like... Robin knew this would happen. It was an outrageous thought. But it felt like he was planning it all along since the birth of Red X.
Feeling the dark girl's gaze still on him, Cyborg turned his head over his shoulder, eyes solemn. "Everything."
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Robin stared at the new uniform set before him. The colours, the style, everything in the image of Slade.
Like branding an ownership on his soul.
Slade circled around him, observing any physical display of emotion. But the boy stood rigid, eyes firmly attached to the clothes he had "requested" he wear as the beginning of a new life. He was without a trace of anger or hate lingering in fists or face. It could be he was in shock, or merely the boy's way of dealing with change.
More likely, he was figuring out how to defeat his opponent.
That sharp, analytical mind was another aspect of Robin's personality Slade agreed with. Everything was not over unless the self admitted so. So long as the self believed there was a tomorrow, than the spirit can never be broken.
Of course it was also a deterrent for his goal. But Slade just had to convince the boy that his tomorrow was in the palm of the one-eyed man's hand. "I hope it fits. It was quiet difficult to calculate exactly the measurements. But I think you'll grow into it." The voice sounded too sure of himself.
His guest turned his head so slightly one would say he was still acting like a statue. But Slade caught it as it was his business to know every detail no matter how insignificant and petty. Robin felt air ready to vibrate his vocal cords but thought better of it. It seemed much better than he not question how Slade "calculated" such private information.
The silent treatment. How... petty. Petty, yet again, expected. Slade just smiled under the cover of his mask.
Ah, which reminded him...
Slade stood in front of the former Boy Wonder, holding out an inanimate object to him this time. "A gift."
Shifted into Robin's line of vision was a mask very much his own. Only tiny wisps at both corners added a touch of uniqueness. He stared at the masking staring back at him, and then looked up at an expected Slade's eye.
"I'd like to see how it looks on you." The absolute politeness of that order was enough to nauseate his guest.
Wearily, Robin shifted his attention back to the mask, and didn't at all like how it drilled into his thoughts. But pride had to be crushed for now.
He had to do this. His friends were counting on him even if they didn't know it.
Even if he had to beat it into them that he was protecting them.
As if on automatic, he raised his gloved hand still stained with blood and held the life he would have to lead from that point on. Once he wore it, Robin would be no more.
The new suit was something he could handle; it was only a fashion statement compared to this. In his view, Slade just standing there while he ripped his own mask off was equivalent to a striptease. To be naked in front of a hated enemy was the worse humiliation someone with his kind of pride would die from. And the humiliation of the symbol he loathed tattooed on his face.
That he had been marked by Slade.
Defiance to such slander was buried by the fresh memory of blood. Slowly, grudgingly, Robin raised his free hand to his own mask, his arm suddenly feeling like it was chained to a ton of weight.
But, something happened he didn't expect.
Slade, with satisfaction carved into his eye, turned around. Away from him.
Robin froze his arm, his body truly turned to stone this time. Such a simple movement crashed onto him like a tsunami. Was he toying with him? Did he expect him to take the initiative and attack?
As if he sensed the aroma of bewilderment, Slade ever so slightly turned his eyeless side of his face towards the other. "We both understand the value masks."
Subconsciously, Robin knew exactly what Slade meant, and it fanned the flames of hate even more. His thoughts being shared with—
Robin shook that disturbing thought from his head. Don't dwell on it or you'll lose the bigger picture, he told himself. And he was doing a pitiful job at it.
Feeling enough time had elapsed, Slade turned eyeless side first, and beheld the figure before him. The new decoration fit flawlessly, a sense of pride filling him. Even without the suit, Robin radiated the image befitting of an apprentice.
Finally, the fruits of his labour ripened to his satisfaction.
He stepped up to his short protégé, a hand reaching towards the slender chin with a curled finger lifting it. The look of defiance made a comeback, but the mask caged it well.
"Perfect."
From this point on, it won't focus on episodes anymore (until probably the last chapter). Mainly because my biggest if only complaint about the "Apprentice" episodes is Robin is a "bad guy" for way to short a time. Probably just for the night, wasn't it?
Anyways, I had to change some writings from the first 5 pages since it seemed that there's some other fics that have used the same type of wording. So instead of risking "COPY CAT!!!11" reviews, I erred on the path of caution (ie: bad editing :D).
If anyone is interested, I wrote a really informal (read as: incoherent) essay on analyzing "Haunted". If there is enough interest, I might post a link to it in this chapter, or in my profile or something.
And what the hell is wrong with ff dot net (yes I can't even put that down as an abbreviated link)? Can't even use asterixes any more? Or any symbol for that matter?!
Hopefully, next chapter won't be taking so long......or 14 pages :::dies:::
Leave a review if you feel like it :)