I know this took FOREVER, and I'm sorry about that. First there was an attack of writer's block, then a vicious bout of disinterest, then school decided to make itself more of a pain in the neck than it usually is……. but enough with excuses, on with the show!
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Dawn broke softly over Titans tower, a quiet lifting away of night's enshrouding darkness that dyed the troubled sky a light gray, a featureless expanse of stormclouds with the rose-tinted fire of sunrise leaking around the edges to fall on the restless waters below. Gilded gold by the little light, the waves shifted and murmured to themselves in muted roars, breaking themselves on the rocky shore and throwing foam into the air that, catching the glimmers of the rising sun, fell down red like a shower of blood.
Fighting and failing to break free of the clouds that painted dull gray across the radiant sky, the sun's faint light crept through the wide windows of the stately tower's main room, a gleam of resonance that quickly grew, dancing shimmering diamond patterns across the somber walls. And though within minutes the dying radiance had flooded the wide room, tinting the frigid and empty air with its warmth, there remained one place in the plaster and cement walls that was untouched by the gentle gleaming, one place that seemed to absorb the caress of dawn. There, staining the pristine wall despite desperate attempts to be rid of it, spread a smear of black ash, reminiscent of an unnatural fire, and a taint of red-black blood.
The sunlight began to spread in creeping rays across the churning sky, falling gently through the windows that marred the gleaming surface of the tower, slipping under the cracks of doors, spreading like some disease from room to room, seeping through walls, slowly warming the cold shadows that winter left in its wake. Yet in the very heart of the tower, shielded from the invading sunlight, a forbidding door stood silently in a well of shadows that contained far too much fear, far too many memories to be lifted by even the brightest dawn.
Robin allowed his eyes to slip shut, burdened by the suddenly titanic weight of the mask on his face, pressing on his skin that still held the heat of the fire that had almost killed him, the cloth that had once been unnoticeable now suffocating him with its weight. How he longed to simply lift it away, and with it all of the responsibilities, all of the emotions, all of the memories……….
His mind fogged with pain and exhaustion, he allowed the green-gloved hands to wander up to the restraining cloth, feeling the edges worn from his constant worrying, the familiar folds of silk that had become his life, his mind, his soul. He was struck by the absurd thought that if he tried to lift it off, the weight of all that it had seen and driven him to would make it heavy, with a density far greater than the paper-thin cloth. Maybe all of the emotion, all of the pain that it had seen had seeped into the weave and through to his skin, drying there like a layer of blood, congealing and cementing so that the mask was fixed to its position atop the bridge of his nose. Maybe it had held the form of his face for so long that it had replaced the skin, and tearing it away would expose his bone and blood upon the open air, far more revealing than he had ever intended.
"Stupid," he murmured sleepily to himself, yet he could not shake the vague fear that his entire soul had been lost between the black folds of the mask…….his eyes closed, he envisioned the dark cloth growing, rippling, bulging with the effort of containing all of the memories it had come to represent – and yet at the same time the hue grew lighter, until he was lost not in a small mask, but the ebony creases of a long blue cloak.
There was a slight flurry of sound from inside the door that stared blankly at him from across the hallway – only a soft whir, like the hiss of discharged air that was a hero's last breath, or the whine of a cold, uncaring machine jolted into gleaming life. Silence fell; then, distinctly, the metallic clanking of steel on tiles, and then the door crashed open, heedless of the silence that had settled over the Tower beyond like a burial shroud. Robin winced, startled by the sudden burst of sound, and let his hand fall from his mask back down to his side, looking up at the stern, half-metallic face that suddenly emerged from the dead gray light on the door's other side.
"Robin." Cyborg nodded, once, in grim recognition, before turning and walking away down the hall, leaving the door wide open like some gaping maw through which the fumes of ammonia and peroxide drifted like some monster's hideous breath.
"Wait!"
Robin scrambled to his feet, taken by surprise, and lunged down the hallway after Cyborg's hulking gray form. "Wait!" The half-robot did not stop, each clank of his steel-soled feet carrying him farther away. "Wait, hold on! Cyborg, stop!"
Robin lunged forward, managing to grasp one blue-plated arm, digging his heels into the hall's carpet as Cyborg stopped, his bionic eye still gazing unwaveringly ahead, his human one peering down at the green-gauntleted hand on his elbow. Robin stared up into that challenging gaze almost defiantly, trying desperately not to look at the open door behind him that he could hear bumping against the wall with a sound like the footsteps of some ravenous approaching beast.
"What, Robin?" Cyborg asked softly, with an almost dangerous calm, his voice with an element of steel to it, hard, sharp and cold.
"How is she?" Robin asked breathlessly, pleadingly, masked eyes wide with desperation, mind still fogged with exhaustion and pain. "What's wrong with her? What the hell's going on, Cyborg?" A moment passed, and the half-metal face peering down at him offered no response. "And why won't you talk to me? Why do you keep looking at me like I've committed some kind of horrible crime? What've I done, Cyborg, what've I done?"
There was a moment of silence. "I don't know, Robin," Cyborg said acidly, spitting out his leader's name as though it was a curse. "Why don't you tell me? Why don't you tell me why you said you were going to get Raven, and then Raven didn't show up? Why don't you tell me why it's only talking to you that she gets hurt and upset?"
Robin stared at him, blankly, mouth hanging slightly open, his grip on Cyborg's arm loosening in his shock. It didn't matter; the half-robot didn't move to walk away, only stood there waiting, fixing Robin the blood-red glare of his bionic eye, impatient.
"You don't think –" Robin simply stared back up into that gleaming red light, thunderstruck, incredulous, "You don't think that I hurt her on purpose? Don't you know that I'd rather hurt myself than see Raven in pain? Don't you know that I've been sitting here –" he flung his arm out in a frustrated gesture that encompassed the hallway, his voice rising in passion and volume with every word, "Don't you know that I've been sitting here for the past God-knows-how-long, torturing myself with visions of Raven hurt and dying, going over all of the thousands of stupid things I've done and hating myself for it? Don't you know how much I love her?"
The last words were spoken almost in a scream, a feral roar the built up in chest and burst from between his bared teeth, a lifetime of agony in his tone, a single tear dampening the cloth of his mask in the hidden black folds where Cyborg could not see. And in the face of that unbreaking truth the half-robot seemed to deflate, his rigid form relaxing, the cold glare of his bionic eye losing its accusing fire. "I don't know anything anymore," he said wearily, brushing Robin's green-gloved hand away. "You're right, though. You love her. You told me that. I've seen how much you love her – you've literally been through hell and back for her." He shrugged, an oddly exhausted gesture, as though even that slow and ponderous movement was too great a tax on his strength. "I'm sorry, man, I just – I told you, I don't know anything. It's just all so screwed up – it's not your fault, though. It's not anyone's fault. I don't know. Maybe it'll make sense in the morning."
"How is she?" Robin asked piteously, masked eyes begging, pleading, hands clenched into fists at his sides.
Cyborg shook his head. "Honestly?" he hesitated, as though he was considering telling a lie despite the word he had just uttered; then he sighed again, and made a vague gesture in the air with one steel-fingered hand. "Really, there's no way to tell. I've done all I can; she's in one of her healing trances, as far as I can tell. But –" he paused again, looking at Robin doubtfully, as though wondering whether he was capable of bearing the burden that the next words would lay upon him. Robin didn't blame him; he felt washed out, exhausted and pale – he couldn't even begin to guess how he must have looked.
"But?" he prompted impatiently. Cyborg only sighed again.
"But I think there's something wrong," the half-robot replied grudgingly, as though each word cost him something dear and irreplaceable. "From what I can tell, she isn't getting any better. It's as if something inside her is doing more damage as quickly as she can heal it." He shrugged and started to walk away again. "There's nothing else I can do. We'll just have to see what happens. You should get some sleep, man. It's been a long night."
Robin stayed where he was, staring into the shadows that hid the end of the hallway long after they had swallowed Cyborg's retreating form. Then, suddenly, he felt anger flare up in him; stupid, unthinking, unreasoning anger, hatred for the half-robot, for himself, for Raven, for the shadows all around him and the sun that dared to rise and intrude on his private grief. It was a fluctuating fire in his chest, growing to consume him, flushing his skin with its unnatural heat; but he relished it, because it turned the tears that built up behind his eyes from water to steam, smoke that fogged his mind and made his vision blur and waver into a red haze that he was sure would never lift.
Finally, jolted into movement by the fire that swept over him, he turned on his heel and began to stomp away down the hall, walking woodenly, with a broken, disjointed step that carried him down a stairwell and through a labyrinth of dark corridors, always avoiding the sunlight that crept in through the Tower windows, until he plunged into the pitch darkness of the garage, letting instinct guide his steps, until his outstretched hands caressed the R-cycle's smooth body.
He slid onto the cycle, the familiar feeling of the metal beneath him only lending fuel to his bizarre anger. He placed the helmet on his head and cinched the straps, then revved the engine and streaked away into the morning, the scream of tortured rubber on asphalt not quite managing to drown out the scream that tore itself from Robin's open mouth.
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Darkness…………..
Waves of red fire surrounded her, throbbing, pulsing, shifting into snarling teeth that snapped at her, and claws that plunged into her chest, setting her skin aflame where they touched.
Fire……..smoke and fire…….. anger…….. pain……..
She gritted her teeth against the sudden searing pain, raising white hands that burned red in the inferno's heat. Waves of shimmering darkness reared from her fire-shrouded form, crashing down onto the crimson tide all around, quenching the flames where they touched. Hissing in anger, the inferno strengthened lunging for her; but again it was beaten down, beaten back.
Drifting up……….. out of sleep………floating through murky waters, towards a light that gleamed far above – then, past the light, darkness.
Again the flames clawed at her, and again she forced them away; but her strength was waning, and there was a terrible sense, a dark foreboding that to lose this battle was to fall under a tide of fire and never rise again. There was a sinister laugh echoing in the fire's malevolent screech, like the grating together of shale boulders and the shrieking of damned souls.
A memory stirred. A face……….
Robin?
She was falling, losing ground, being driven back to avoid being swept away by flame, arms crossed and shimmering with black magic against the fiery onslaught. The very air began to burn, scorching her lungs, so that it hurt even to breathe –
Then, suddenly, so suddenly it left her gasping for air, the fire was gone.
Pain still throbbed in her chest, and she reached out with a finger of cooling blue light, soothing away the burning agony. A hint of red gleamed at the edge of her vision; she turned, ready for battle, only to see that it had coalesced into a pulsing river of liquid light, and was flowing up, away – not leaving, not entirely, for she could still feel the heat trembling in the air where it had passed. But for now, at least, it was gone. She fell to her knees, exhausted, breathing deeply.
Without warning, a band of burning iron clenched around her throat, its white-hot touch blackening her skin, scorching her hands as they flew to the metal band, scrabbling at the burning iron, trying and failing to tear it off. It drew tighter – tighter – tighter – she couldn't breathe – and tighter still –
Cyborg, lying awake in the dark, glimmering cavern of his room, was jolted into awareness by the crashing of glass and metal that echoed through the Tower like a demon's tortured scream.
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Robin gritted his teeth in a feral scowl, leaning low over the R-cycle's handlebars, knees clenched tight around the cycle's metal body. He could feel the anger that had flushed every inch of his skin torn away by the whistling wind's violent claws, a red specter ripped violently from his body and lying in gleaming shards in his burned asphalt wake.
Over the shrieking of the wind, the annoying, ringing tones of his communicator managed – barely – to make themselves heard, shrilling with a harsh screeching in his ears. Lips curled back in a sneer by the force of the wind that streamed past him, he pried one hand from the cycle's handlebars, pulling out the small device and flipping it open, looking recklessly away from the road in front of him.
Cyborg's face peered up at him out of the small handheld screen, his blue-plated skull haloed by the bright, glaring lights of the infirmary. His eyes narrowing as he saw the expression on the half-robot's face, Robin wrapped his finger's around the cycle's emergency handbrake, slowing his pace to a crawl, swerving over to the side of the road, feeling strangely bereft without the elation of the howling wind in his ears.
"What is it, Cyborg?" he snapped, making no secret of his irritation. "I was busy."
The half-robot opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again when no words emerged. Shutting his eyes, he took a deep breath as though to steady himself; then his voice came filtering through the communicator's small speakers, a tide of words that chilled Robin's heart.
"Robin, you need to come home. Right now."
"Why?" He snarled, trying to stifle the sense of uneasiness welling up in the depths of his mind. He felt suddenly weak, as though in tearing away his anger the wild ride had ripped from something altogether more precious and vital to his survival.
Cyborg breathed in deeply again, and Robin thought he could hear the creak of oiled joints as the half-robot clenched his hands into nervous fists. "Because, there's something wrong with Raven."
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This is sucky, I know, but it was written in bits and pieces between science projects. CURSE THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM! CURSE IT, I SAY! 37 more days…… 37 more days until I'm free….. checks watch and realizes it's 1:00 in the morning Hey, only 36 days! Woohoo!
Next chapter……. I won't tell you anything except that Dusty's going to want to kill me. Get your pitchforks sharpened, folks………
