1.

The alarm went off, waking everyone from the midday stupor they'd happily settled into. It had been a while since the thing had sounded, and it caught everyone by surprise. Beast Boy jumped about five feet or so, landing on his rear end in the centre of the room.

"We seriously need to turn that thing down..." he said as he stood, rubbing the affected area of his back side. The screen, looming huge in front of the group, turned on and showed a day time bank robbery, being pulled off by quite a familiar face.

"That is so not the Great Mumbo..." Raven said, half sighed at the sight. He was dressed as a magician, top hat, tuxedo, throwing coloured cloths and red rubber balls everywhere. Plus, he was blue, that kind of sealed it.

"It's Mumbo alright...thought we put him away..." Cyborg said.

"Yeah, but they always seem to come back. We need a new jail." Robin muttered, obviously distracted by the scene being played out on the screen. "Come on, let's not let him get away." Robin swept out of the room, his cape fluttering and trailing behind him. Starfire, as soon as Robin was around the corner, quickly stood and flew away, catching him up and walking close to him. Neither said anything, but he was glad she was close. He was always happy when she was close to him. He wondered for a moment if she knew that? Maybe one day he'd tell her.

One day, but not today.

The others followed, and they were all soon inside Cyborg's car. Cyborg was driving, and Beast Boy nabbed the shotgun seat before anyone else had a chance, leaving Raven in the middle seat, and Robin and Starfire sitting beside each other. Again, much to Robin's appeal. Robin didn't know this, but Starfire liked it too, being near Robin that is. Out of all the humans she'd met in her short time on earth, he was by far the nicest, most caring one. Plus, she really liked the way he kept his hair, so spiky. No one did that back home.

"Are you worried about what we may face when we get to the house of money?" Starfire asked Robin, in that high lilting voice of hers.

"Well, last time we met the Great Mumbo, I got turned into a monkey, so yeah, I'm a little nervous. But don't worry, we can take him." Robin offered her a full smile, which was something else she found she liked about him. She even forgot about the mask covering half of his face when he smiled. It was just that great.

She could see the bank, and all the commotion associated with it looming up ahead, and regrettably put Robin out of her mind.

She didn't know this, but he did the same about her, and just as regrettably.

Suddenly, a very odd thing happened, the car which they'd been speeding along in came to a sudden halt, and at the same time, it turned into an odd sort of horse drawn carriage. A very ornate, Regally decked out horse drawn carriage, minus the horses.

"Ok," Raven said, in sarcastic exaggeration. There was a doily hanging from the roof straying into her face, which she brushed aside like a loose lock of hair.

Then, there was a creaking, like someone was trying to break a two by four in half by bending it over on itself.

"The ball's over Titans, better get home before midnight!" Mumbo was standing on the roof of the bank, brandishing a black wand with white, ivory tips.

"Umm, perhaps we should exit the...car now." Starfire said, reaching for the door that wasn't there anymore. They all managed to escape carriage just as it imploded on itself, leaving behind a large, orange, perfect pumpkin.

"My car!" Cyborg yelled. He was holding the sides of his head, as if he were trying to keep his brains from exploding.

"Titans, get that wand!"

They all raced towards Mumbo, who for one reason or another, refused to move.

"You pumpkin my car, you get the laser!" Cyborg yelled, and fired a stream of blue towards Mumbo. A goodly sized portion of the banks roof disappeared in a cloud, but when the cloud lifted, Mumbo was gone.

"Did I get him?"

"Guess again Tin foil boy!" He appeared over Cyborg's left shoulder, and quickly ensnared him in a trap. Around him appeared a box, with three doors stacked horizontally. Mumbo threw the doors open, and where Cyborg's head was, his feet now laid. His head was in the middle, and his torso was on the bottom. Mumbo quickly disappeared again.

"Dirty...blue skinned...hat wearing...wand waving two bit clown!" The head yelled, from under the feet. Raven slammed the doors closed, and with a wave of black energy, decimated the box.

"Pull yourself together," she said, in a somewhat monotone voice. She quickly flew off after Mumbo. Cyborg, after finding that all his parts were back where they belonged, followed her.

Mumbo had disappeared again, the group looked around, hoping that the next move would present itself.

"Magicians..." Raven muttered to herself. Suddenly Mumbo reappeared in the middle of the street behind them.

"Catch me if you can, my little Titanimals!" He took off his hat and reached inside. What he pulled out, was another Mumbo, identical to him in every way. This second one did the same, creating a third, and the third reached into his hat as well, creating a fourth Mumbo. All of them went in different directions, down different streets.

"Titans, split up!" Robin yelled. Robin went after one, Raven, another, Beast Boy another, And Cyborg went after the last one. Starfire, who was still standing still, decided to go after the same one as Robin was chasing. To her, it was not a difficult decision.

She wasn't really thinking at all, in fact.

As Robin raced down the street, she flew to catch up to him, and then picked him up. She could carry him and fly faster than he could run, and they'd done the manouevre enough times that Robin wasn't especially surprised when he was no longer touching the ground.

"Star, I think he's on the roofs," Robin said, which was another really good reason to be airborne. She veered upward, slowly putting distance between them and the ground. Sure enough, Mumbo was on their right, running over the roof of the buildings and bounding over the gaps between them.

"Star, throw me!" Robin yelled. Starfire didn't hesitate. With a strength that came from another world, she tossed Robin straight towards the fleeing Mumbo. In mid flight, Robin shifted his body into a manageable pose, and removed the staff from his utility belt.

He landed on Mumbo and the two went tumbling across the roof he'd just jumped onto. Robin managed to get a good knock in with his staff and when Mumbo stood, he was nursing a nice big lump on the right side of his head.

"You'll pay for that, Bird Boy!" He smiled, and pulled a bouquet of flowers from inside his coat.

"That's it?" Robin said, relaxing noticeably. Mumbo tossed the flowers at Robins feet, and a swarm of bees erupted from their depths.

"Waaaaah!" Robin broke off in a mindless run, seeing only enough to not run off the edge of the building, but caring about little else. The bees that followed him were dense enough to form a black cloud, which homed in on him like a heat seeking rocket.

Meanwhile Starfire had snuck behind Mumbo, and let loose with a few bolts of green energy from her hands.

Mumbo turned in time to see the attack, and pulled his hat down, to cover the whole of his body. He'd grasped it by its brim, and when he pulled it stretched like elastic, protecting him from Starfire's balls of light.

"Nice try," he said. "Now what trick do I have for my lovely assistant today?" He waved his wand, and in a puff of smoke, Starfire found herself hung upside down, in a glass case full of water. Her feet were chained and locked over her head.

"Houdini's water torture chamber! My favourite!" She pounded against the glass, but it wasn't giving.

"Starfire!" Robin yelled in panic. He stopped running, and quickly put his staff into a spin in front of him. As the bees came at him, all of them were felled as the staff spun, almost too fast to be seen. When they were all at a pile at his feet, he made a run for where Starfire was. She didn't look good, her movements were slowing and her eyes were only half open.

"Too late for her, you should worry about you!" Mumbo waved his wand around his head and pointed it straight at Robin, with a flash of light, a giant metal boxing glove catapulted out of it, heading straight for Robin.

He managed to fire off his staff before being struck.

It felt, for lack of a better term, like a car hitting him. He was thrown backwards violently, and when he stopped sliding along the ground, he didn't get up. His throw was good, however, and before Mumbo could move, the staff struck his wand, shattering it in two. He was instantly turned back into his original form, a sickly looking old man.

The water chamber holding Starfire disappeared, water and all, letting her fall a foot or so to the surface of the roof. After she regained her senses, she flew over to Robin.

"Robin! Are you hurt?" He still wasn't moving, but offered a low level grunt in response. Mumbo, meanwhile, had stood back up, and was attempting to make a run for it.

"You are not going anywhere!" Starfire said in a grave, determined voice. Her eyes lit up and she fired twin bolts of light from them. They struck Mumbo in the back, burning two holes through the thin fabric of his shirt, and sending him sprawling.

"Ouch! Ok ok...you win," he said as he picked himself up. Robin was staring to stir.

"It's...ok Starfire, he just knocked the wind out of me..." Robin said, gasping for air. He tried to stand, but winced in pain and collapsed again.

"I think he did somewhat more than that," Starfire said, grabbing Robin's arm and throwing it over her shoulder. "Here, I shall help you." Robin, who did not like in the least being helped to do much of anything, offered no complaint. Frankly, he hadn't the wind to start an argument. He reached into his belt and pulled out his communicator.

"You guys...alright?" He huffed into the machine. Cyborg was first to respond.

"You bet, the guy just up and disappeared a few seconds ago."

"Same here, nothing left of mine, either," Beast Boy chimed in.

"Me too," Raven said.

"We got...the original...right here..." Robin said. He sounded like he'd just finished running a marathon to the moon and back.

"Hey, Robin, you ok?" Cyborg asked. Robin then realized, to his approval, that he had his arm around Starfire's shoulders, and looked briefly into her almond shaped, green eyes.

"I've uhh, been worse." He said, smiling at Starfire. "Titans..." he paused to cough, "let's go home, this guy's under control."

Starfire flew, with Robins arm still draped over her shoulders, and the were soon gone.

"Uhhh, guys, how am I going to get down!" Mumbo yelled, waving his arms wildly, but there was no one there to hear his pleas.

The police, however, soon came by to scoop him up and put him in a nice, cold, drafty jail cell.

2.

"He hit you with a metal boxing glove?" Beast Boy was sitting alongside Robin's bed, as he unclipped his cape and threw it aside. He winced again. He was about to find out how bad the damage was, and he knew it was going to be bad.

"Yeah..." He said, lightly prodding the section of his chest that had taken the brunt of the blow.

"...cool!" Beast Boy said. "You gotta hand it to the guy, at least he's original."

"Yeah, I guess there's that."

"Well, come out when you're ready, we've got victory pizza waiting!" Beast Boy said, almost triumphantly. Robin was still feeling the burn of the injury he'd sustained, but pizza sounded pretty darn good just then.

"Check." He said. Beast Boy left, with a definite spring in his step. As Robin undid his uniform, there was a light knock at the door.

"Yeah?" He said, to whomever it was. When the door opened, it happened to be Starfire. She took a step and the door slid shut behind her.

"Oh, hey Star." He said. She had her fingers laced together behind her, and was wearing a big, Starfire sized smile.

"Are you...uninjured?" She said, her expression becoming a bit more serious as she spoke.

"Well, I'm about to find out, care to stick around?" Starfire put on her most concerned face, as Robin strained to lift his shirt over his head. She wore expression, but there was just a little excitement at seeing Robin sans shirt.

She felt privileged in some way.

When he'd managed to get the shirt off, he looked in the mirror to see the damage. After getting a good look, he turned to face her, and she saw it as well.

There was an ugly blue and purple bruise making its way across the right of his chest. Having looked at it, Robin could make an accurate diagnosis. It was probably a couple of cracked ribs, and he told Starfire as much.

"Oh, but we must get you to a medical treatment facility!" She seemed overly worried. Robin had had this same kind of trauma before, and there was no way he was going to a hospital to get it patched up.

It, to him, simply wasn't worth it.

"Forget about it Star, I'll just wrap it up, should be fine." He went to the drawer he kept his medical supplies in. The Batman had taught him, a long, long time ago, to be prepared to fix yourself. Hospitals had a habit of asking for personal information that a cape wearing super hero ought not be asked. He pulled out a long bandage, and set about trying to wrap it around him. This was harder than it at first sounded, and what he'd planned on doing quickly, then escorting Starfire to the pizza celebration, was turning into a circus act.

"Here, let me assist you," Starfire said, walking over and claiming the roll of bandages before Robin could offer an objection or otherwise. Her eyes carried with them an intense caring, deep concern, like she was about to attempt curing cancer, rather than wrapping a minor wound. Robin was touched, but was so lost in her eyes, he forgot about the world entire, and the pain coursing through him.

She walked slowly around him, wrapping the injured section of his torso, she hated to see him hurt. She could feel him shake every time she put a loop around the bruise. She wished that there was something she could do to take the pain away.

She realized that Robin, at that moment, was all she could think about. His life was all that mattered to her then.

She was almost done the roll, and finished by wrapping a few loops of it over his left shoulder, more or less securing it in place.

"There, is it too tight?" She asked as she was walking back round to the front. It was, far too tight, but Robin didn't want to disappoint. When he turned to face her, she was only a few inches from him. He could feel her breath on his neck, her hand was still laid on his shoulder where she'd just tucked a loose end in.

"No...it's...fine." They moved forward and their lips met, and for one moment, the entire world held its breath. They both closed their eyes and let the moment take them, let the moment last as long as the could, shut out everything, and just lived outside of time and space, for that one, short moment. Soon, though, the moment was over, and they pulled apart. When Robin opened his eyes, Starfire's cheeks were red, and she had a coy smile on her face. He matched it with his own smile, and leaned in for seconds.

"Yo, Robin, Starfire, pizza...NOW!" Cyborg shouted from the other room, innocently enough, though he could not possibly have known what he was disturbing. Robin and Starfire just sat, looking at each other, and Robin smiled again. He had a disappointed, but happy look on his face. An odd look, but he pulled it off fairly well. He took up Starfire's hand in his own. He gave it a little squeeze, and smiled again

"Shall we?" He said. She reached behind her and grabbed his shirt off of his bed. Quickly he pulled it on.

"Yes, let's," she said, and smiled.

In a few minutes, the victory pizza was had.

3.

The figure sat before his many TV monitors, looking over the fight with interest. Mumbo had done well, but not that well. After all, he'd been caught.

Cyborg fought with passion, Beast Boy lent humour, Raven, a mystery, could control the darkness, will it to do her bidding. All of this, the figure had seen before, and none of it was really knew. Still, the camera's had caught it all, and he was now seeing it all. But there was something else. Something that he'd not noticed before.

The figure leaned in close to one of the monitors.

It showed first, the beginning of the pursuit, all of them splitting up. That one, Starfire, was left to make a choice, and so she chose. She chose to follow Robin. When they caught Mumbo, a fight ensued, and during it, they protected each other. The work of teammates, or something more? The figure, to be honest, was not sure. He scanned the videos of that scene, looking for something. Ahhh, there it is, in their eyes. He could see exactly what he needed. He could see the thing that he had been searching for all these months, the thing he could use to take his revenge

What the figure saw, in Robin and Starfire's eyes, was love.

Who the figure was, well, he was Slade. And he had a hypothesis to test.