Teen titans
Robin reborn
Episode Iv: Death & Rebirth
part I; Raven
by Secondchild02
Disclaimer: No, I still don't own Teen Titans, if I did it would be a lot cooler and involve robot ninja apes.
In the dim glow of a bank of computer monitors Slade watched the world through a hundred hidden eyes. Dozens of windows showed news channels from all over the city carrying questioning headlines about the Titans. 'Where is Robin?' was a popular one, the Boy Wonder had been absent from the city for almost a week and people were curious. Others showed Titans Tower with its top level devastated by a mysterious incident and some channels claimed to have footage of some kind of explosion in the early hours of yesterday morning originating in the tower. There were wild eyed eyewitnesses claiming that Raven, never the more popular of the group, had torn up a downtown coffee house in an assault on one of its customers injuring dozens in her rampage. There were odd reports of Beast Boy, regarded as the most light hearted of the Titans, mauling a known criminal and then leaving him in the street bleeding to death. Only Starfire and Cyborg had escaped the wrath of the press so far, but for how long? Daytime talk shows were filled with debate as to whether the city needed them and reports as to how much damage they had caused as opposed to good they had done.
Behind the anonymity of his mask Slade permitted himself a satisfied smile. Everything was happening according to his design, if he couldn't destroy the Titans physically then he would ensure that the publics faith in them was completely destroyed. His mind turned to Vengeance, his most recent tool to destroy his enemies. It believed it could destroy the Titans on its' own, Slade mocked such thinking, if it was one thing he had learned about the Teen Titans it was to never underestimate them. Countless times he had them in his gauntleted grasp only to have them slip through his fingers like trying to catch smoke. Vengeance would fail and the Titans would be all his.
Raven stood on the roof of Titans Tower waiting for Starfire to show up, below her she could hear the sounds of construction as Cyborg and Beast Boy repaired the main living area. She had few minutes to wait as Starfire wasn't back from Starlabs yet where she was having her injuries looked over and the staff were eager to study her alien physiology. Raven suspected it was so the pervert lab technicians could see Star' in her underwear, the very reason Raven refused to set foot in the building anymore as her psychic abilities had lead to a few slapped faces last time she went for a check up.
She looked out over the city unconsciously watching a plane circling for its landing at the JCX airport and found her thoughts wandering. How were they going to defeat Vengeance, how were they possibly going to restore Robin? and how would the team take it if they couldn't? What else did they all have, she didn't have anything. She didn't go to school, she didn't have any skills that could be employed in the normal world, she didn't even have any friends that weren't in the Teen Titans. What sort of job could she possibly be suited for? She mentally pictured herself at thirty, still chasing after small time punks through dark city streets and across roof tops and shuddered. What ever the outcome of this situation they were all in it was time to start planning ahead.
A purple dot in the distance became Starfire who landed almost silently a few meters from Raven "Friend Raven" asked Starfire "you required conversation with me?" Starfire's eyes were bright and filled with earnest curiosity. "Starfire, I need to ask you about Robin, how do you feel about him, truly?" Raven watched Starfire for a few seconds as she stared at her booted feet. Starfire raised her head again "I think Robin is the best person I have ever encountered, both here on Earth and on Tamerran. He is strong and brave and cares more for others than for himself, sometimes to the risk of his own safety. He is a hero, not just to the world but to me as well and I love him completely"
Raven was felt like she was about to retch. She was a complete stranger to any affairs of the heart often stating that she had no time for such frivolities, and that the Titans work for the city was too important to risk clouding with unnecessary emotional involvements. She also appreciated that this was not everybody's point of view on the subject and listening to Starfire talking about Robin and of love with her voice wavering with conviction and such raw emotion was making her feel uncomfortable.
Raven looked at Starfire, the slightly taller girl seemed like she was wilting slightly from the emotional outpouring. "What would you say if I think we may be able to bring Robin back, today" said Raven all the while looking straight at Starfire. "What do you mean, Raven? How could this be done?" Starfire's eyes were full of blind hope and a terrified hunger for what Raven was saying to be true. "I think Robin was able to resurface owing to his romantic interest in you and your close proximity to him at the time. A time at which I have worked out I was in the coffee house with Jinx" said Raven "At that time I was angry, about Robin, about Jinx taunting me and especially about Slade, you know what happens when I get angry, Star"
Starfire stepped forward and put her hand on her friends shoulder "It is okay Raven, you cannot help it"
"Of course I can help it, K'ory I spend every day meditating and focusing and using whatever technique I can to control my anger" Raven had her eyes tightly closed "I didn't ask for it! I didn't ask to be the daughter of Trigon! but I am and I cannot feel anything that intense or powerful at all. Anger, Rage, Jealousy, Hatred, even being Irritated is enough to make me blow up the TV or melt a cup of coffee or throw Beast Boy across the room"
"Fiend, Raven" Starfire put her other hand on her friends shoulder "no more regrets about your lineage, you are your father's daughter but you are not him. Now tell me of your plan to restore Robin to us". Raven took a breath and continued "When I was in the coffee house, when I was losing my temper with Jinx, I began to draw in all the local magical energy in the city. My anger is a small but powerful force in my soul and needs to absorb as much power as possible when it is released in order for it to keep going" Raven looked at Starfire who seemed to be following the conversation okay but Raven couldn't tell as the girl's eyes were always wide and curious. "Anyway, I think I absorbed enough of Vengeance's power, or distracted him somehow for Robin to resurface and prevent him from destroying you"
"So we defeat Vengeance how? by making you angry?" Starfire looked at her friend curiously
"Precisely, but you need to be there as well in order to reach out to Robin and keep Vengeance off balance long enough for me to free Robin"
"And Cyborg and Beast Boy?" asked Starfire
"They will have their part to play, trust me" said Raven and hoped that when it came down to it they didn't have to.
Cyborg finished wiping down the worktop of the kitchen and stood back beaming "As good as new," he nudged Beast Boy who was standing beside him in a hardhat and comedy sized tool belt "nothing like working with your hands now is there". Beast Boy examined his own heavily bandaged hands "Yeah, but not as the actual tools". Beast Boy had today; burned his hand on a blowtorch, smashed his thumb with a hammer, put a nail through his hand, become glued to the wall, and as a result of a practical joke from Cyborg used sandpaper in the toilet and was now walking a little funny. "Aw come on, you can't still be mad can you?" Cy was grinning from ear to ear. "I think I'm still bleeding" said Beast Boy weakly. Cyborg walked off towards his room chuckling as Beast Boy produced a haemorrhoid ring cushion from a drawer and placed under himself as he sat on the couch making relieved noises. Raven entered the room followed by Starfire who was floating behind her humming a strange melody. Beast Boy wasn't curious what Star was humming as it might turn out to be a Tamerranian song and Star might try and sing it. She probably had a wonderful singing voice in her native language but on Earth, and especially to Beast Boys ears, it sounded like a pig was being killed. "Hey" he waved at them as they approached. Raven took in his cushion, hard hat and belt with a raised eyebrow, "You look ridiculous" she said picking up her book.
"I've been working hard baby, making a home for you little ladies" Beast Boy stood up, wincing, and did what he hoped looked like a put on cowboy walk around the room. Raven looked at him sternly, registering disapproval at being referred to as a "little lady" and looked into his mind seeing what had really happened today. "Yes, if I need anything sanding I'll give you a call" she flashed him a peevish grin and went back to her book. Beast Boy grinned nervously, he was beginning to hate Raven's mind reading. "What is this?" he turned to see Starfire holding his haemorrhoid cushion in one hand and was poking it with the other. "Er, its nothing Starfire, really" he waved his hands nervously motioning for her to put it down and that it was no big thing, really. "Is it some kind of comfort device for the hindquarters?" Star put it down and sat on it, wobbling from side to side in a effort to get comfy. "It is not very effective, what is it for exactly?" she asked and Beast Boy reluctantly whispered in her ear what it was for. Star had a look of embarrassment and confusion on her face "Maybe you could have Raven take a look at it, she can heal a number of injuries". Raven dropped her book "No, I don't think that would be a good idea"
"Why?" Star had that 'am I dumb or am I being mischievous' look on her face
"Just, because" Raven retreated behind her book again. Beast boy groaned and headed for the door,
"I'm going for a cold bath, later" and moseyed off out the door.
"But, Raven why wou-"
"Shut up Star!"
A few hours later, and after explaining to Starfire that she really didn't want to see Beast Boy without his pants on, Raven made her way to her room to meditate before going to bed. She couldn't recall when she had last had a good sleep in the past week and had just grabbed an hour here and there while she had sat in the library searching her books for a way to bring back Robin. Was this what Robin did, he always seemed to be up and about either in his crime-lab working on a case or down in the gym. Behind his mask Raven imagined he must look awful and in need of a good nights sleep.
The Red Cross Book was the key, after the information Batman had given her she was certain. The only trouble was that there was scant information available on the book itself. It had been of particular interest to the Nazi's during world war two and only resurfaced following the war in the private collection of a prominent Nazi officer after it had gone for auction following his death. It had been passed from museum to museum in the decades that followed, never being wholly translated and for the most part forgotten about.
It frustrated her that she could do nothing, They had constantly swept the city for Slade's hideout and had constantly found nothing. Raven was sure she had absorbed the knowledge of its location from Jinx but owing to the HIVE mental training she must have kept it from her. They literally had nothing to do until Vengeance came to destroy them, and Raven hated waiting..
After changing into a plain black tracksuit Raven sat on her bed and cleared her mind. She enjoyed this time, her door closed and mind blank before she entered her meditative state where she could resolve all of the problems of her day. Slowly she lay back on her bed, letting her head sink into the huge pillow she had, which was of course black, and let her mind unravel.
Raven stood on a huge, flat, rocky plane under a permanent night sky where strange, unfamiliar stars twinkled at her. 'Strange' she thought ' I normally need the mirror to get here'. She found herself in her Mindscape, the representation of her psyche, a place she normally needed her meditative mirror to reach. To say was surprised was an understatement, Raven had been trying to get to her Centre, a place where she could step outside her mind and view her thought processes in order to find missing links and view things from a different angle. She should not be here, it was worrying her.
"Raven, hello" a yellow cloaked double of herself faded into view, it spoke with her own voice but had a slightly uptight quality like pretentious history teacher. Raven recognised the figure as Knowledge, the part of herself that was pure intellect, who she was never fond of as yellow didn't suit her and the Harry Potter glasses didn't do her any favours. "Hello, Knowledge," she replied "what am I doing here? I was trying to get to the Centre"
"You are here because I called you, I need to tell you something, something you have not had the time to work out for yourself" Knowledge adjusted her glasses in an annoying way, Raven noticed she had brown leather patches on her bodysuit at the elbows. "What is it?" Raven asked.
"I suppose you cannot help but wonder as to the recent change in coloration of your eyes?" Raven looked at knowledge curiously "It has baffled me as well until I stumbled across this" Knowledge reached into her cloak and pulled out a small iron cage that contained a tiny figure made of fire. "What is that?" Raven looked at the tiny figure as it threw itself against the bars and screamed in a small high pitched voice. "This is a fragment of a Demonic Soul, it became absorbed by you when you attacked Jinx. When Anger began drawing in all the ambient magical energy in the city, as you well know, this came in as well"
"And this is causing my eyes to change colour?"
"Yes, unlike Anger which is only half demonic this is fully demonic. It cannot harm you as it is only a tiny fragment of the original. The alteration to your eye colour is minor but I thought you would have figured it out by now"? Knowledge began fussing with her cloak and put the tiny cage back.
"Are you sure it's really safe to have that inside me?" Raven raised her eyebrow at knowledge "It is evil after all"
"It really poses no threat and I do believe it is providing a small amount of amplification to your powers as well" said Knowledge. They looked at one another for a second or two,
"Vengeance," said Raven eventually "it has to be a part of Vengeance, it's how he was unbalanced long enough for Robin to prevent him from killing Starfire, I absorbed a tiny part of his power"
"Well done" said Knowledge "I think it's time to get up now"
"Huh?"
Starfire sat at the console, her elbows resting on the keyboard with her hands on her cheeks and her eyes closed droopily. She was asleep. Raven finished her tea and set it down on the main table, it was her time to keep watch. In times of emergency one of the Titans was required to stay on duty at the main computer in order to assess and process the information the tower constantly received from the JCPD and other law enforcement agencies. She didn't feel mad at Starfire for falling asleep, they had all done it, the poor girl had been through a lot in the past few days. Firstly to deal with Robin's death, then his apparent resurrection and her assault, but now she had to deal with the fact that Robin was alive and was in who knows what kind of trouble. She took off her cloak and wrapped it round Starfire who mumbled something in her own language but remained asleep. Dressed in only her long sleeved body suit she sat on the couch and rubbed her eyes. A plan was forming in her mind, a plan she didn't like but it was necessary in order to defeat Vengeance and it had to be enacted soon. Robin, or at least his body, was in the control of Slade and she couldn't be sure how much, if in fact any, information about the Titans he had shared with Slade. Of course it wouldn't be of his own free will but how much of Robin did Vengeance had control of, did he have his memories?
Raven shuddered and tried to bury an image thrown up from the basement of her mind. In the beginning, when the Titans had first formed, there were only the four of them. It would be another couple of months before Starfire came to Earth and the team was starting to find its own political structure. Robin was the leader of course, he had the most crime fighting experience, and although Cyborg was apparently Robin's number two he had often gone to Raven for advice and for her to act as a sounding board for his ideas as to which direction to take the team in. It had been during a brief campaign of terror by Two-Face in Jump City that Robin had come to her room that night.
He was exhausted, no-one knew when he had last slept let alone eaten and was at a dead end in the case. When she answered the door she was sure she smelled alcohol on his breath, Robin had placed a ban on any alcohol in the tower but everyone had their own stash. Besides, from their talks Raven had deduced that Robin had a lot of demons to run from and she was glad he was using only alcohol to block them out.
He had been wearing a pair of black shorts (a/n as in outdoor shorts, not his boxers) and a red t-shirt with his usual mask of course. He half stumbled half fell through the door to her room and sat on her bed. she realised only after he was inside that she was only wearing a violet t-shirt that stopped short of being too revealing.
"Robin," she had asked "are you okay?"
"Two-Face," he said, slurring slightly "I can't figure out what he's going to do next. I'm going to let the city down, I'm going to let everyone down. I'm going to let you down". Raven sat down next to him. the room was only illuminated by the pale glow of her alarm clock, 03:42, it read. "Robin, who are you more worried about letting down? the city or the team?" she put her hand on his trembling shoulder.
"You forgot about you" Robin looked at her and put his hand on hers.
"Robin," Raven smiled at him and took his hand off of hers "I think you need to go back to your room now, or maybe have some coffee, or better yet a cold shower". He hung his head,
"I'm sorry, I guess I had too much tonight" he said referring to his bottle of rum that both he and Raven knew he had in his room. He turned and smiled at her again, Raven smiled back, 'how often is this going to happen to you Rae? he's not that bad looking!' her mind had screamed at her. "Okay," she said eventually "you can stay here tonight, but you are here to sleep only, everything else is off limits. Understand?" Robin nodded weakly and fell back onto the right hand side of Raven's bed. Raven sighed and went about forming a pillow barricade between her self and Robin.
About a minute later the pillow had been tossed aside and Raven was wrapped in Robin's arms, her head under his chin with their feet making knots with each other. Their breathing eventually fell into the same rhythm and Raven could feel Robin occasionally trying to kiss her neck. Despite pretending, badly, to be asleep Robin wound up lying on top of her but still fully clothed although Raven got an impression of how he was feeling at the time. "Robin," she whispered softly in his ear "we can't. You don't want this, we work together and it would ruin our working dynamic. I'm flattered, and this is nice, but we can't" he nodded slowly and she kissed him once on the cheek. And lying like that they never fell completely asleep as they shifted occasionally to better share each others warmth, Robin would every so often hold Raven a little tighter and Raven, when she thought Robin was almost asleep would run her hand down his back.
The sun rose slowly filling Raven's room with dull light. Waking from a sleep that had eventually came for but a few hours she saw that Robin was gone, and they had never spoken of that night again.
About six months later Starfire had came to Earth and the rest was history. These days Raven thought of Robin only as the groups leader, a thought that had been hard to get used to but now after a few years it wasn't so bad.
Starfire mumbled again and Raven caught the words "Oh Robin" amongst the incoherence and immediately blushed with embarrassment. Robin was Starfire's and not hers, had never been hers and never would be. Sure life was lonely, but she had chosen her life as a Teen Titan and she knew that they were not the first to carry the name. For all it's modern conveniences and technology, Titan's Tower was old, decades old and beneath it lay a place no one liked to talk about, most of all Robin. The Vault.
The Vault held the remains of all previous Teen Titans fallen in battle, the graves of heroes. Quite often members of the Titans didn't have families or homes or anyone who would care about them if they died. It wasn't opened very often, who would want to go down there? but Raven had found out that that Robin went down there once a month.
The Vault was enormous, Titan's Tower would have been swallowed up by it with room to spare. It was a series of circular levels that descended in a corkscrew with a huge drop in the middle. The last time they had been in there was to entrust Terra to its keeping and Raven had taken the opportunity to explore. Wonder-Girl, Kid Flash, they were all here resting forever beneath their home. There was someone else there who Raven didn't expect to see; Robin. A simple plaque on the wall said "Here lies Jason Todd, Robin" And there it was, it was just beneath the surface of every thought that went through the mind behind that mask; fear. Robin wasn't forever, the identity had been laid aside, inherited, and even died in but still the boots had been filled by someone willing. The Robin grave was well tended with the metal plaque polished and the surrounding floor swept of dust. Did Robin feel he owed it to this Jason Todd or did he owe it to Robin, the persona and not the person.
Raven snapped out of her musings and focussed back on the current situation, her shift on watch and the problem of bringing Robin back. Leaving Starfire asleep at the console, her communicator would beep if any news came in, she went to her library. Not as secret as her room and not in the strictest sense hers, the library occupied the entire level just below the main room and had been compiled by various Titans over the years. In truth it may as well as been hers as none of the others ever came in here. Robin never seemed to require it's services as Raven suspected that he used his laptop in his crime lab to link straight to the batcave and it's legendary mainframe. Beast Boy didn't read anything more complex than a comic-book, Starfire had never been seen with a book either, and Cyborg didn't see the point in reading when he could just download whole books into his brain at a time. This had led to the library becoming the sole domain of Raven and it showed. A few mugs with the dregs of cold tea in them lay about the place and here and there a crust of a turkey sandwich kept them company.
Under a dull reading light, this only illumination in the room, Raven opened another volume of occult text, rubbed her eyes and looked out of the expansive windows that lined the wall of the library. Her eyes snapped open and flashed black from edge to edge and the book in front of her fluttered it's pages as if in a gale. He was here.
Vengeance sat on a rock on the shore of Titan island, he was bored, he was starting to dislike this Slade character who kept insisting that he hurry up and destroy the Titans. They didn't mean anything to him but right now they had the annoyingly necessary demonologist, he needed him to explain why he kept feeling like someone was standing behind him. He kept blacking out occasionally and coming to in odd places and it was starting to make him angry. That snivelling human would know why although Vengeance suspected what the cause was. He knew he wasn't the brightest of Demons but being immortal he had developed a long memory and now it was presenting events from thousands of years ago for his inspection. Every Demon knew that in order to be properly channelled into this dimension you had to possess and reanimate a fresh corpse. He remembered it was something to do with the brain and preserving the pathways or something. He was starting to suspect that maybe Slade hadn't killed this Robin at all, this would complicate matters.
However he had to get Havelock out of Titans Tower, and deal with this Raven at the same time.
Beast Boy was sitting in his bath lost in enormous drifts of white bubbles and his own thoughts. Particularly thoughts about Raven. Since their conversation in the conference room she had been on his mind constantly and he was wondering why. Normally she hated him, every time he told a joke he was met with a sarcastic comment. When she became the victim of one of his practical jokes she would chase him round the tower psychically hurling things at him, like bookcases. He found it surprising that he would even be thinking about her at all, especially when he was in the tub.
Of all the Titans, Raven would have to be the one he got on with the least. They were exact opposites; he was loud, crass, a goofball and easily bored while Raven was quiet, polite, overly serious, and seemed quite happy just reading for hours. He tried to talk to her but if he disturbed her it often brought pain.
Lying back amongst the bubbles he caught a grin sneaking onto his face as he thought about his team mate. He sat up sharply sending suds and bath toys everywhere, what was he doing? Robin was captured by Slade and being used like a puppet to do his bidding, Starfire was moping round the tower unable to do anything but cry most of the time, he'd been going slowly nuts and had almost killed Gizmo, Cyborg seemed to be the only one maintaining any sense of normality while Raven was slowly turning into a copy of Robin. She rarely did anything except research and seemed on the verge of losing control most of the time. the face of another person crossed his mind; Terra.
A tear formed in his eye, how could he forget her. She had been the first person he had ever connected with on that level, the first girl who had seen past the green skin and the pointy ears and got to know him. His minds' eye plunged down through the various levels of the tower; the living room, the library, the conference rooms, the gym, Cyborg's workshop, and down even further. It passed through the basement to an enormous pair of steel doors embossed with a huge double T and then past even them into darkness until it rested on what would look to many people like a statue. It was of a young girl, no older than sixteen, she wore a mix of what looked like bandages and armoured plates with a pair of strange devices on her head. Her arms were outstretched to their limit, fingers spread wide with an expression of absolute resolve on her face. A viewer of such a statue would marvel at the detail and proclaim that the artist who created such a work was a genius, you could even see a tear forming in her eye.
But it was no statue, it was what remained of Terra, sealed in the vault with every other toppled Titan. His bath no longer desired but unable to move, Beast Boy sat and stared at the cool tiled wall "What are we going to do?"
Sitting in the dark of the room that had become his prison, Havelock once again tried to open the door. As he griped the handle he cried out in pain and in his mind a vision of enormous terrible birds devouring his entrails flashed in his mind. That little witch had cursed the door, he'd also noticed that around the window and the walls a sticky substance had been painted in the shape of Azarathian runes and his head span when he looked at them. He crawled back to the centre of the room and lay wheezing in a heap. 'Has the Master abandoned me?" he thought feverishly 'surely he has not, I am still worthy of serving him' as he thought this he noticed the painted on runes flashed red and evaporated. He smiled, 'The Master comes for me'
By the time Raven hurried into the main room the rest of the team were all there with Beast Boy smelling strangely of lavender oil. He tried to avoid Raven's curious gaze but was rescued by Cyborg, "The silent alarm was triggered about three minutes ago, it's Robin's access code alright". Raven looked up at the giant monitor screen that was displaying a transparency of the Tower. "Can we locate him?". Cyborg shook his head "Internal sensors can't see him, he's using a psyonic disruption field similar to your own"
"Yeah, you can only find me when I want you to," Raven frowned at the monitor and stepped towards the keyboard "this should let us find out what level he's on". Behind her Beast Boy smirked,
"So now we'll be able to find you when you're hiding from your chores, Raven"
"If you value you're green skinned hide that is" Raven growled in response "He's on level seven, he's after the demonologist"
"We should've seen this coming," wailed Beast Boy "we could've put him the prison but no let's keep him here where there's only four of us and not even any guns"
"Surely we would not wish to harm Robin with a firearm" Starfire asked earnestly.
"It's not Robin, Star," said Cyborg "and we may have to take him down"
"But we cannot harm him, Raven spoke of a plan to save Robin" Starfire turned to Raven "you must save him" she asked imploringly.
"One way or another, Star, it ends tonight" Raven's voice was as level and firm as an iron bar as she drew her hood up "Teen Titans," she said calmly "Go!"
To Be Concluded…
Will there be a climactic battle between good and evil? will Slade get his just desserts? Why is this story called "Death & Rebirth"? it sounded really cool!
You have to wait for;
Death and rebirth
Part II; the end of all things
Authors note; not as good as you thought? Well this is but one part of our stunning feature length conclusion to this tale and the next one will live up too its name. I got a little creative with this one, especially about the tower and what lies beneath it. I added the robin x raven thing coz it's gonna provide the cause of a major conflict in the next part. Why two parts? Well there was so much I need to put in the last episode that it had to be split in two. Well, hope you liked it. Not much action I know but like every good two parter the fur starts to fly in act two, see ya.
