Title: Broken Dreams (Side Story to SIS and AHR)
Rating: PG-13 or T
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words on this page! TT copyrighted to DC Comics.
Author's Note: I was listening to the song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day when I wrote this fic, and some of you might remember this from the two-three days it was up, before took it down. Well, I edited it, the song lyrics are gone, and it's still going up. Let's hope will let it stay this time around. When I heard this song, it screamed Robin to me, and since a lot of people were confused on why Robin decided to walk out in AHR, I thought I would do this fiction to sort of explain everything. You'll get most of this in the third fic, OTDSOA, but just in case you want to just read this, then by all means . Enjoy!
EDIT: Also, this is sort of to tie me over until I can come up with a proper chapter 5 for OTDSOA. After that fiction, I think I'll go work on Gotham Knights, with smaller fictions, like this one, on the side. I might not be doing anything big for TT for awhile now, but I promise I won't disappear from it either. Right now, the "Apprentice" series I've been running since SIS has sapped every nuance of creativity concerning it, and after AHR, I've been finding myself in the same hole. I feel like I've been losing touch with the series, going towards my own integrated Troia than the core characters I wanted to focus on (Robin, Slade, and even slightly Raven) in the beginning. I'm hoping that by stepping back from the "big stuff", I can come back, better than ever. Anyway, please read and review this story, and tell me what you think.
Summary: After dealing with Slade and going his own way, Robin walks alone.
One month after leaving the Titans...
His cape flapped in the wind, and he glared downward from a rooftop at the city he protected, almost as if it held all the answers to his problematic questions. A few drops signaled rain, a downpour starting sooner than he expected, but nevertheless, predicted. His spiky hair plastered itself to his face as the water began to run down his face, dripping off his nose, down his throat and off his lips.
And still he waited.
His mind was still reeling, still entirely screwed up from what that son of a bitch had done to him, and it was taking all his strength not to snap. He'd taken the first step, distancing himself from that life he once led, hoping never to go back there again, but for some reason, he could never run far enough. Like a drug addict, he never seemed to kick the habit of his old life, and he never seemed to cleanse himself from the grungy, crappy, and filthy thing that was his life about six months ago. Before that, he had been happy; he had been loved. He'd had good friends, a great life, a mentor who loved him like a son, and he was fighting the good fight. He was content to know that a fight meant arguing over the last slice of pizza, danger was venturing even a peek into Raven's room, and torture meant squirming in your seat because you wanted to watch cartoons when Beast Boy and Cyborg were playing video games for hours. Before his life was stripped away from him, before that last encounter with a vision of his nightmares, he had been happy. He'd found where he belonged, and he liked it there.
Then, he came along and tore it all to shreds.
He had to find himself again, and that was proving to be more painful then the entire experience of being Slade's apprentice again. He had to figure it all out once more, and that meant going to back to the basics, before he ever became a Titan. Before he even became Robin.
He had to find the Richard Grayson in himself. The problem was he didn't know where to look.
It was hard at first to set aside the Robin costume, but he shuddered when he realized the pain it brought to him. Blaming the costume instead of himself, he rationalized that Slade wanted Robin, wanted him so badly he'd kill, and the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to get away from being that person. It was Robin that was weak enough to yield to Slade's will; it was Robin who spent months at Slade's side, calling that monster "Father" and behaving like a good little boy. He never wanted to be that vulnerable again.
So, he fashioned a new costume, one of power, of strength. He didn't exactly know what to call himself, but like a man obsessed, he worked diligently, creating a masterpiece on sheer instinct instead of on planned prosperity. Black, blue, metal. It all fit together like a puzzle, one that he neither knew what the image was, nor cared to know. All he did was stitch and build, stitch and build, until at last, it was created.
He donned it the next night: tonight.
Suddenly, a shift in the air around him occurred, and he bristled, knowing full well what, or who, was approaching without even turning around. He didn't want to talk, so if she was planning on a casual conversation, she could screw it.
He dove straight down into the sleeping city. Let's see if she would follow.
Landing like a black panther, he sauntered down an alley, remaining in the dark. "Go away."
A whisper breeze blew past his face when she landed, and a soft, sad voice called out to him. "Robin, we truly miss you at the Titans Tower. Will you please cease your patrolling of the Gotham City and accompany me back? We are severely in need of your--"
"No."
The answer shocked her; he could tell in her voice. "But Friend Robin, you must understand me, you are behaving rather strangely, and we need you to fight the battles of roughness when the tough times get going."
Her strange tone and odd word placement reminded him too well that she was so alien, so foreign to him, especially now. He shrugged, uncaring. "Not my problem anymore. I left the Titans, and that's that."
"But Robin--"
"I'm not ROBIN anymore! So shut up, Starfire: I don't have time for talking. Gotham needs me now."
"But Robin--"
"No. Now, it's only me and my shadow, Starfire. I don't need you, I don't need the Titans, and I sure as hell don't need to talk. Listen to what I'm saying: go back the Tower. Stay there, and don't bother me again. I don't ever want to see you again."
"But we need you, Robin!"
"Sorry, but I walk alone." Didn't she get the point? Still, a few of his heartstrings plucked, and he had to repeat himself to reaffirm his own resolve. "I walk alone."
"But you don't. Friend Robin, please, now you listen to me. We are here for you, but you do not let us in. I know that you are hurting on the inside, but you fail to realize that so are we. Raven, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Troia... they all miss you. I miss you. I am hurting on the inside, just as they are; possibly more so. The pain I feel aches like a Teramarckelarv during mating season on my planet of Tamaran. To know that you are gone creates emptiness within me. It steals the joy from my heart and takes it away, almost to the point where I cannot fly. Please, Robin, come back. We miss you so. Come back."
"You don't get it, Star. I can't go back to being Robin again. You, them, Slade, being Robin... I don't ever want to go back to that again. I've spent the last month trying to forget it all, and you're asking me to plunge headfirst into what I was trying to escape from? Hell no. If I go back, I'd have to start from square one again, and I can't do that. I'm done with you, I'm done with the Titans, and I am done with Robin. I don't want to ever look back, because all of you would remind me of what I'm trying my hardest to forget." The world blurred to his eyes behind his mask, and he was left torn, his heart breaking while his mind grew stronger in its sensibility and reasoning. "I can't go back. I walk alone now, and that's how it will be from now on. I walk alone."
"Please, Robin. You are my best friend, and from a moment to another moment, I do feel that you and I are seemingly more than that. Please, I am begging you: come back."
Was she... saying she loved him? Somewhere at the bottom of his heart, he could feel his own feelings for her as well, and knew they were somewhat of the same caliber. Damn it! Damn it all! Why did she have to do this now? Why couldn't she have done this before everything that has happened? This was the wrong time, the wrong place, and he was the wrong person now! God, he'd changed so much, in such a short period of time...
Now, this was either going to kill him, or worse: he was going to survive, and shatter her fragile alien heart.
That, and shatter his own.
He hid his sobs, but the tears still flowed as he made his decision.
"Go back to the Tower. I don't want anything to do with you, Starfire. Nightwing walks alone."
He heard her bawling her eyes out, and yet he still didn't turn around. A short wind whipped his hair around, and he knew she had taken off, headed for who knows where to cry.
As much as he hated himself at that instant, his mind told him that he'd done the right thing. He was different now, and she expected him to be the same, but he wasn't.
Her dream, and his, of them being together was shattered in an instant, and all he could do was laugh harshly, cacophonously, into the night. "Damn you to hell, Slade. Damn you, damn it, you won again. You did it again: you won. And things will never be the same again. Even when you're not here, you screw with me, and I hate you for it..."
Nightwing walks alone. That's what he told Starfire: Nightwing walks alone, and until he could be someone he wasn't, until he could rebuild some semblance of a life, that was what he was going to do.
"Nightwing walks alone," he murmured, and sank against the alley wall, sobbing openly for the life with her that he knew he just lost, and measuring out the weight of his new name. "Nightwing walks alone."