A/N: Hi, just reposting this w/ no lyrics...curse 3: Gifts & Curses:
What makes a hero? Is it their prevailing sense of justice or is their steadfast and reliable integrity? Is it amazing speed, strength, or courage? Is it their need to help the unknown faces in their hectic world, to give them a feeling of security?
No, I believe it is something much simpler than any of those things. What makes you a hero is your willingness to give up what you want or need the most, to keep it or them from being harmed. To do this and remain steady in your conviction, no matter how much pain it may cause you or what you're trying to protect, makes you a hero. Maybe that's why I hate the idea of heroes…
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" ARRGHHH!" Robin yelled in anger as he pummeled the crap out of a punching bag. It was needless to say that he was angry, but not exactly clear why. Most of the team just thought he was angry at this 'Viper' and the fact that she had just beaten them, single-handedly mind you, and then she had escaped. Being the perfectionist he is, Robin would naturally be upset over this, and would not be uncommon to the team for him to spend hours in the gym to vent out his feelings. After all, it was in the nature of heroes or leaders to obsess over these new villains and such.
But none of these reasons were why he was really infuriated, why he was really not letting anyone talk to him, or try to calm him down.
" How could I have been so stupid!" he shouted to himself. " Am I that blind! That kick was coming, I should have seen it by how she fought, and was I not able to fight back! That entire fiasco back there was my FAULT!" he yelled out, finally knocking the mangled mess of what once was the punching bag to the floor. Finally exhausting himself, he slowly sank to the ground, a terrible guilt filling him up, and just leaned against a nearby wall to keep from falling over completely.
Has he stared straight ahead he whispered to himself, " If that knife was just a few inches over…she could've died. And what could I have done lying there against a dumpster? Nothing. I failed her."
He pushed himself off the ground after what seemed like hours and walked over to the mirrors hanging across the other side of the gym. Looking at his masked face, he pulled it off to show two very deep blue eyes, two eyes that seemed to mirror the soul of someone much older than just sixteen. He hardly ever looked at himself without the mask anymore, in his opinion that boy died along with his parents that night, and marveled in the fact that he really didn't recognize himself. The wonders of what a mask or a pair of specks can do to alter a person's image of himself. Looking down to his mask, which was crumpled in his hands, a million thoughts went spinning through his head, but one in particular overcoming the rest.
' Don't you see now Dick? This is why you can't feel this way about her. Next time she'll be stabbed in the chest cavity, or kidnapped, or whatever else some lunatic can come up with! I can't… I won't let that happen to her, just because some stupid 'hero' has feelings for her!'
He slowly put the mask back on, once more hiding who he truly was from himself to become Robin, and left the gym, to out of focus to work-out anymore. He walked down the hall in sluggish, morose steps, thinking about the only thing in the world he wanted more than his family back.
' I know that I can't like her, hell who am I kidding, after a little over a year its LOVE her! She'll get hurt, I know she will. Robin has to many enemies and old 'friends' that would jump at the chance to take something away from the dear old Bat's " little bird." After all, what was it that the Bat told you to mind most of all? Oh that's right, that heroes aren't supposed to fall in love.'
' Ugh, just forget it Robin!' he scolded himself, disgusted I the self-pity he was currently wading in. ' it's not like a girl like that would ever feel the same way towards me anyway,' he thought as he walked into the kitchen.
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" Jerk," Beastboy muttered to himself as he stalked down the hall. " I know he cheated… you can't just go from turbo level to nitro level without some kind of a cheat code! That's, like, skipping three whole other levels man! Oh, just wait, I'll get him back. I just need to think of the perfect revenge plot…hehehe," he laughed with a mischievous gleam in his green eyes. " I could always switch out his car battery fluid with honey, oh that would make him sooo-OUCH!" he yelped has he collided with Raven, who was walking back down from the roof.
" Oh, sorry," he mumbled as he first pushed himself up and then proceeded to help Raven up. " I was just, ummm…thinking of what to get Cyborg for his birthday! Yeah that's it."
Raven stared at Beastboy thinking, ' okay, I was wrong. Star isn't the worst liar in the Tower.'
" So, uhh, whatcha doin' up on the roof?" Beastboy asked hesitantly when Raven just continued to stare at him. It was making him uncomfortable.
" I was thinking about that Viper girl," raven answered emotionlessly.
" She was tough right?" Beastboy asked. " I mean she knew how to beat all of us, and she was as good as Robin when it came to hand-to-hand combat."
" Yeah, she was."
" So, do ya think Robin is still ticked off still, or do you think he's calmed down enough to not, ya know, bite anyone's head off?" Beastboy asked with a trace of guilt in his voice. After all, he had been knocked out of commission, and was pretty much useless and not able to help.
Raven, sensing this, gave Beastboy a very rare smile and answered, " I think he'll be fine Beastboy. He knows you gave everything you could've given considering the circumstances. We just weren't prepared for such a prominent villain after the slump we've been having lately, but I'm sure next time we will be." She cocked her head a bit in thought and then continued when Beastboy didn't say anything. " Besides, that wasn't why he was so angry."
" Then why was he?" Beastboy asked with confusion.
As she turned to walk towards the kitchen, she turned around and said, " That isn't for me to disclose, he'll do it wen he's ready." She continued down the hall to get a much-needed cup of tea.
Cracking a huge smile, Beastboy followed her, extremely relieved that no one was mad at him. ' I wonder if she does like me after all.'
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Halfway across town, Viper was wrapping her injured leg up with a cloth caked in anti-bacterial cream. She winced as her gash began to sting, but ignored it and continued to wrap. This wasn't the only injury she had sustained from the Titans, despite what it may have seemed like, they really were an able team, they just were lulled into a false sense of security. She would need back-up when she faced them again, which by the way, she was now positive was going to happen, because Slade had just came up with another 'brilliant' plan to bring down the teenage heroes.
Personally, Viper didn't give a rat's ass about those teens, she was more concerned with the two other presence's she felt were in the city. Having animal DNA flowing through your bloodstream did have it perks, and this time her instincts were telling her that these two were more powerful predators than she, so to speak. But Slade had told her to push them from her mind, seeing how they hadn't chosen to reveal themselves just yet, and to focus on the matter at hand. She didn't approve of this tactic, but she was a good apprentice, so she did as she was told, and hadn't brought them up around Slade anymore.
Finishing her wrap job, Viper looked out the window of her, I suppose you could call it a room, but it was really more like cell.
" Jeez," she grumbled to herself. " You think this guy could have afforded a nicer pad but whatever."
In all honesty, the room wasn't as bad as some of the previous homes she'd had. After her mother died from birth complications, her father wanted nothing to do with her. She was the reason her mother was dead, he told her, if you weren't such a freak she might still be here. So, when she was five, he put her in an orphanage, and left her there without a soul in the world. For seven bleak years, she was shuttled form one foster home to the next, none of them able to deal with her 'special abilities.' When she was twelve, she ran away from a particular abusive family, and traveled to Gotham. Picked up by a crime lord, he trained her to be his perfect assassin, and she proved to become just that. She soon began to think of him as the father she never had, and he treated her like his own little princess. But, as what happens to most crime-lords, her mentor was killed in a highly developed scheme, that she later found out involved Batman. The city's hero had set up her boss, and in an elaborate turn of events, had his own gang turn on him to try to save their own hides.
So, with nowhere to go, Viper ended up traveling all over the US and finally landed herself in the marvelous Jump City a little over a month ago. Slade came into the picture shortly after, having had failed twice to find his successor, and she agreed to become his newest apprentice. And, like before, she proved to be much more suited to Slade's ideals than the other two ever were. She knew she really didn't care to be there, but was too cynical to even hope to have a family anymore, after all, dreams didn't come true. And then imagine her surprise when she found out that one of those would be apprentices was the Bat's very own Robin.
" I guess that's two things we have in common Bird-boy," Viper said to the giant T-Tower in the distance. Then her face turned grim and she spat out, " Just you wait, I'll make sure you pay for being involved in the plan that took away the only family I had ever known! I'm gonna make you wish you never killed him, you can be sure of that." She then tore of a part of her bed and hurled it through the window, not really caring that it killed an unsuspecting, unknown man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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He was only watching her attempts to cook, but he hadn't felt so happy in nearly a week. That's how long it was since the 'Viper Incident' as Cyborg had taken to calling it, and Starfire and Beastboy were both all the way healed. The Titans were ready to face this girl again, and they were a bit more confident with themselves after having little one-on-one chats with Raven. Robin, in particular, was feeling less guilty and was almost back to his regular self, sometimes being called an " ignorant, decadent, weeping little boy," was just what a guy needed to lift his spirits! And when he heard the alarm go off, and saw the unruffled looks of determination on all the Titan's faces, only one negative-self thought passed through his head.
' I'm going to protect you this time Star, no matter what, I'll always be there to help you, I promise.' And with that, they were off.
