Raventhedarkgoddess: I'm just going straight into the story, too lazy to type a note this time. Yay for lazy people.

Chapter Eighteen: Hopeless Peace

Slade chuckled. That was all there was to it was to it, not a laugh or a swelling wrentch of gut, just a chuckle, as if putting forth more effort would have been pointless when faced with a situation such as this one. "Pathetic," he spat, the word coming out on one harsh breath. "Do you think vegance, that fighting back and shedding more blood, is the answer to your pathetic quest for a non-existent peace?"

"I don't want to hear another word out of you!" Cyborg came up behind him, shot a blast of cold, hard blast of light, hoping to knock Slade off his feet, but no such luck: Out came Slade's bow-staff, and he twisted his entire body in such a manner that he landed, cat-like, on his feet, standing upright, his glare continuing.

"You don't like the truth? I thought you fought for truth, justice, and..." Here he paused for only a second to move over slightly, dodging rocks Terra attemped to use to stop him from speaking. "But of course, hypocrites are always in the way of this world."

"We are not hypocrites!" Starfire tried to move in on the villan, but he clipped her arm with his staff and the blood began to flow in a way that made her feel unaturally weak and helpless. She drew back in the formation attacking Titans, feeling small and, once again, unwanted by anyone or anything in the world around her.

The same chuckle, metalic and cold, echoed around the room, rolling over the walls and echoing within their hearts themselves. "Of course you're not. What about my underling? You killed him, and then you left him to die. Does that make you good people? You thought you killed Terra, killed me, because we were bad people. Does that make it right? Does killing done by good people make your form of killing right? Well?"

"Shut up!" Robin was furious, angry, because Slade was exploiting his thoughts, projecting them from within his head onto the walls, the ceiling, and the warehouse around them. But how can he know me and what I think... I've got to finish this! Raven's face came into his mind even as he stared at her hooded back, reminded him of what he had vowed to do. "Just shut up!"

"Listen to yourself, Robin. You're just a scared little kid, telling yourself more lies. Tell the truth, Robin: What are you really trying to do when peace is false and the world falls apart around you with every little thing you try to do?" His eye, the one that could always be seen, was peircing: No way was slad laughing, he wasn't mocking Robin, he couldn't believe that...

Robin opened his mouth to yell, to scream, to reply that it wasn't false, that peace could only be achived with some people dead, but Beast Boy saved him from answering in a way he knew couldn't be the truth: He slammed into Slade's side, and this time, caught off guard, Slade staggered, fell toward the hard ground, and was kicked by Lecita, who had come in from seemingly out of nowhere. Slade looked up in time to recive a hard blast of sonic cannon to the face.

"Don't ever say that there's such a thing as a false peice again. Ever," Lecita whispered. "Besides, the evil in this world deserves to die, and I'm going to stand beside this team ever step of the way if it means killing evil like you."

"So evil is black and white, you think? How do you know that every person isn't a bit evil? Everyone has evil in their heart, and hate, and you're not even trying to hide how much you hate me. So why do you bother? If you can't stick to and follow your morals, you're not a hero, you're a coward and a fake. That's all you are. The Teen Titans are not heros. They're fakes and liars and nothing more. That's all you will ever be. And you, Robin, are their lead..."

A black ball of energy hit Slade in the chest where he lie. "You're going to be quiet. We're going to take you to jail, and we're going to be the kind of 'good' you don't seem to think exists. You have a choice: Either take a chance on life, or keep talking about what you don't understand and die right here." The monotone was heavy, the voice slightly differnet in a way none of the team understood, her face unseen, so no one could tell exactly what she was thinking, but the position of her upper body said it all: Move and I will kill you.

"I understand. Just another way for you to avoid the facts, Ms. Roth. After all, we wouldn't want anyone to destroy your life with Robin, or anything to come between you, because things like that are important to you. You, who doesn't really feel a thing... You'd laugh while you killed me if it wouldn't make you look like the sick, cold-hearted person that you really are..." Slade was testing his luck and his eyes showed it, gleaming with a sense of pride in what he was saying: I will give you something to think about before I go, they threatened. And you will be sorry for your own actions...

Raven's mouth was open, her hand was raised, but Robin moved in, his eyes burning behind the mask. "Don't ever talk like that about her, ever!" Bow-staff raised, he moved in on Slade, saw his friend's faces, theirobvious horror,but couldn't stop. "This may put me on your level, but if it will stop you from taking the lives of people more innocent, I'll live through the guilt again!" He knew what he had to do and felt the staff moving down, slower and slower, and then...

A sick smack. Then silence seemed to press on Robin's ears, and he couldn't hear anyone. He just felt that, in his heart, even if it made him evil, letting evil live couldn't be right. Did I do the right thing, though?

Several minutes passed where, from behind Robin's eyes, everyone stared and everyone was still, even though in fact some were talking, and Beast Boy was clutching, slightly horrified, to a wide-eyed Terra, and Raven was calling his name as if from at the end of a long, echoing tunnel. "I... did it again..." His hands, his staff, were covered in blood, and he couldn't seem to figure out who he was, holding his hands out, staring at them. The hands of more evil... Slade's voice seemed to be saying in his head.

The drive back to the Tower was silent, the car full of quiet teenagers. Robin had insisted he ride on alone, and so Raven, almost motionless,sat in her seat, shotgun, in the T-car. "Cyborg, do you think he'll be okay?" Robin was flying through the rain on the back of his R-Cycle, almostinvisiblefor them to see,and she knew that in his head he must be seeing the same thing they were: Himself killing a being, becoming drenched in the blood, hearing Slade's words.

"He's got to battle his own demons, Rae," Cyborg replied, knowing that was as close to an answer as he could come. Lectia gave him a rather shy half-smile in the rearveiw mirror and he returned it, not really knowing what else to do. Everything, including the importance of being together with her, felt overshadowed now by the death and Slade's final words.

Dammit. Stupid idiotic bastard! He would have killed my friends, but he was playing head games... I'm just as bad as he was. Water sprayed the eye shield of his helmet, but it was ignored, and he proceded to test the speed out, almost sliding on several occasions, half of him wishing he hadn't declined to have Raven there to slow him down if he ended up becoming too crazy. There is no right answer, is there...?

"Friend Robin must do the 'slowing down', yes?" Starfire asked quietly, watching the wheels skid, noticing how he barely managed to regain control. "Feeling sadness is no reason to attempt to cause your own death."

"We're here, Star," Terra pointed out. "And Robin's just not thinking clearly. He'll be fine. We all make mistakes, after all." Cyborg eased into the small parking garage of the tower and everone climbed out, Raven moving the quickest up the stairs. I've got to talk to Robin, her mind said. He has to understand that he can't let it weigh on him... That he kept his promise... None of this would have happened if he hadn't promised me something that was impossible.

"You okay, Raven?" Lecita asked her quietly. "You seem really, really out of it, and I couldn't help but hear you say something was your fault just now..." Cyborg came up behind her and so she said nothing else, but her eyes plainly said that she still wanted an answer.

"I'm fine." A lie, hissed the voice inside her head, which she ignored and made her way into the tower's main living room, where a soaking wet Robin had collaped on the couch. Cyborg and Lecita looked at each other, once, then twice. "Uh... We're going to go downstairs and do some work on the car," Lecita said quickly, obviously just wanting an excuse to leave the room but trying to act as if work on Cyborg's car was what the two of them had actually planned all along. Cyborg said nothing else, only nodded, and the pair of them headed downstairs.

"I'm gonna help Terra set up her room," Beast Boy said, not as slow as he appered, and the two of them moved for the stairs quickly, so that they would not be caught in the middle. Terra glanced once over her shoulder: For a leader, he sure is letting this get to him.

"May I join in the 'setting up'?" Starfire asked them, feeling lost and alone in spite of herself, in spite of telling herself she wouldn't do that anymore, wouldn't be upset because she was still friends with everyone.

"Sure," Terra said quickly. Anything to get away from Robin and Raven, from the tears in his eyes and the obvious need for words in hers.Even I can't fix everything, they seemed to say.


"So, Cyborg... I guess I got here at a really bad time, and most of this is my fault... If you really don't want to date me, all you have to do is say so, you know that, don't you?" Lecita looked at him, her eyes large, her face drawn in a tight line. "I mean..." She felt her face blush: She was doing nothing but babbling.

"Nah, you've had a rough time, besides, you fit in here. And why wouldn't I want to date you? It's not like you told Robin to kill him or anything. Besides, I love you, or I wouldn't have agreed to date you in the first place, now would I?" Cyborg kept the human part of his face kind, wishing he could arrange the mechanical into a more kind face. Instead, however, it remained cold and hard. I've got one of those faces no one can love, no matter how much they try, he found himself thinking for no real reason at all.

"I love you too," she managed through the block coming up in her throat. "Cyborg, do you think Robin would let me become a member of the team for good? I don't have anywhere else to go, and..."

"Shh, don't talk like that. The Titans are all one big family, we talked about you staying here before when... I mean, with your sister. I'll help you fix your room up later this week, and... I'm really happy you want to stay with us," Cyborg concluded very lamely.

Shocked at her own daring and the feelings seizing her, she quietly leaned over and kissed him on his lips. "Me too," she whispered, pulling back, smiling at him. "Me too."

"Everything's gonna be all right, Lecita." Cyborg looked over at her with an apprasing smile, and suddenly the metal side of his face didn't feel so ugly. "Everything's gonna be all right."


"I think that's everything, Terra." Beast Boy was looking around the room, at Starfire and Terra, who were cleaned up and collaped on the bed. "Most of the stuff was in place, but this looks really good now."

"Yeah, thanks, you two," Terra replied, smiling and looked at Beast Boy, then Starfire. "You're both great friends." She stood up and walked over to Beast Boy, not even bothering to be discrete as she gave him a hug. He smiled and hugged her back.

Starfire looked at the two of them standing side by side, looking into each other's eyes, and was surprised to realize that she felt nothing: No passion for Beast Boy, no anger at Terra, nothing. All she saw were a pair of friends, holding onto each other and acknolwaging her as their friend. "You are a great friend as well, Terra. As is everyone else in the Tower." Robin came into her mind, but now she only wanted to comfort him: The old longing, the familer need to kiss and hold him, was gone.

Terra smiled, thinking about how ironic this coversation was. "The places I've been, the things I've done... I really don't deserve a home like this, you two." The other two only shook their heads, smiling.

"You belong with us." Beast Boy kissed her cheek and Terra grinned. One thought was running through her mind, over and over, making her smile, allowing her to love and to laugh along with them.

I'm accepted at last.


"Robin, come on, please sit up or at least look at me. You can't make it any better if you lay there with your head in the couch and refuse to look at anyone." Raven was attempting to coax him out of his position, in which he looked pathetic and small. "If you don't get up and talk about it, you're just going to abandon me, and that wouldn't be right after everything you've been through just to get here, now would it?"

"I broke my promise. I can't give you peace, or a free world to live in, and I can't save either of us. I'm just a loser who killed somebody because he thought it made him right. I'm just as wrong as Slade, Raven!" Even though she couldn't see his eyes, she knew they were most likely puffy and painfully bloated behind the mask he wore. Unable to make him come out of his position, she shook his arm quietly, pleading with him while still trying to surpress the pain, failing to fully hide all of the emotions raging at her from under their surface.

"You are not. You did save me. You saved the whole team back there. If you give up, so will everyone else. Don't they mean anything to you, or are you just going to lay there on this couch and ignore me? I'm trying to let you know that I still care about you, and you can't even make yourself look at me... Are you going to give up on life just because of something the enemy said?"

"We're all the enemy. Didn't you hear him? I kill, I'm as bad as he is. Is it really right for us to kill, to fight back on something that you are? I'm just as wrong as he is. Two wrongs will never make it right." He sat up and leaned against her, and her supicions were confirmed, the tear trails coming from under his mask and clinging to his face. "You're the only one I've ever known with a really clean heart. You always want what's best for people, Raven. I don't understand why you think I need to get up."

"Because you're the one person I've ever risked defying my emotions for. I love you, Robin, and if you die, I will too, because you're keeping me alive inside." She bit her lip, fought back the emotion, fought back the tears. "You're not evil. Who cares if every heart has some evil in it? Why should you care? He would have killed innocent," she added softly. "He would have killed everyone you vowed to protect. Is that what you wanted, no guilt and Slade still at large?"

"No, but Raven... If I'm just like he is, then I deserve to be dead too."

"Robin, the world can never really be rid of evil. You're nothing likeSlade.If you want to try to protect someone, you can do it. You protected me, and in a way, you didn't break your promise at all." He was leaning against her, like a doctile child who needed her guidence, her assurence and her love. Her hand went through his hair silently , and he could feel her eyes on him, caring for him with the emotions within.

She kissed his lips without a word, seeing he was thinking, not responding. He kissed her back and then pulled away. "Raven, I finally figured it out." He wiped a tear away with some force, some serious thought reflected in his face.

"What, Robin?"

"No matter how hard I try, everything's going to have it's downside, and we all breath and bleed, but we live on, and... That's what life is all about. Not being good, not being evil, but fighting back and knowing that we can fight back regardless. I've been being stupid, thinking it's all divided. We've just got to live and learn and love, don't we?" Robin looked at her as if she had held the answer all along.

"Yes, Robin." She smiled at him and he leaned toward her, putting his lips over hers, her powers finally escaping, the window shattering in a distant corner of the room. Yes we do.