This is my second-one shot – assuming you read my rather… controversial The Thing – based on the anonymous 17th century poem "Who Killed Cock Robin?". Also incorporated is the two-liner, also-anonymous 17th century poem which is untitled, but about killing robins and wrens; I have a suspicion that they were written by the same person.
The other poem, right at the end, is a rather morbid one by usually cheerful 17th century contemporary poet Robert Herrick, again about a robin redbreast. Truthfully, I got the idea for this fic when I checked out a crusty old book entitled, rather uncannily, Bird Poetry, from the school library – I'm the only person to have ever checked it out since Whitchurch High School first acquired it in 1977!
Go figure…
I should say it now; this mini-fic also contains a real passage from the Bible, from the Book of Apocalypse, under "John's Prophecy" or something. Until I wrote this, I had never looked twice at a Bible, but since scanning through it to find a suitable passage, I can safely say it ain't all doves and everlasting peace…
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Teen Titans. If I did, would I be writing fan-fiction?…
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Kill a robin or a wren;
Never prosper, boy or man.
A cold glitter seemed to descend upon Jump City that day, even though the funeral was not to be held there. Gotham City itself seemed indifferent, but then, it always did. Gotham was a festering pit of crime and despair, with only one – now only one – to protect its dark, filthy streets. Not an ideal place to send someone to their final resting place.
And had Richard Grayson's parents not been buried in the graveyard of the city's cathedral, there would have been no reason to bury him in its sordid earth. But beneath a tombstone that read GRAYSON… well, that was where he belonged.
Alongside his murdered parents.
Murdered himself.
Not many had turned out for the funeral – Richard Grayson's life had been too short to have affected very many people; to cause many ripples. But there were a fair few even so; his team-mates – the Teen Titans – and Bruce Wayne in an immaculate Armani suit and wine-colored silk tie, Alfred standing faithfully at his side with his hand on his master's shaking shoulder. Clark Kent – Superman, of course – had turned out too, with the ever-beautiful Lois Lane on his arm; and the Titans East, too, Speedy, Bumblebee, Aqualad, and Mãs y Menõs.
Aside from that…
Who killed Cock Robin?
I, said the sparrow,
With my bow and arrow,
I killed Cock Robin.
With a shaking hand, Speedy dropped his bow and quiver of arrows to the ground. On a pedestal, a beautiful oak coffin lay, its design as gothically-inspired as Gotham City itself. The very best – and most expensive – Bruce Wayne's billions could buy.
Robin's coffin.
The coffin of someone far too young to have died. A teenaged boy, little more than a child.
Batman's child, and a child that had been murdered.
"You were dumb, Robin," Speedy whispered. "You know that, don't you?…"
His dead friend – his clone – didn't answer. Just lay there in that beautiful dead state. Speedy could see the dark bruises under his icy, white skin, see his split lip that would never heal.
Who saw him die?
I, said the fly,
With my little eye,
I saw him die.
Beast Boy – the green-skinned shape-shifter – joined Speedy at the coffin. He had been the one that had found their leader; sprawled out, bruised, battered, and dead. His animal instinct had picked up that Robin was in trouble, but by the time he had led the others to him, they had been too late.
Far too late.
Who caught his blood?
I, said the fish,
With my little dish,
I caught his blood.
It had been stupid for them – for any of them – to assume that Slade was really gone. Robin had been the only one who hadn't believed that Slade had died by Terra's hand, buried beneath a flood of molten rock deep in the bowels of the earth.
He had been right.
And it had gotten him killed.
After those terrifying visions, the effect of the chemical reagent in Slade's mask, they ought to have believed him, but they hadn't. And because they hadn't, when he had received a chilling message from Slade himself, he hadn't shown it to them. He had kept it to himself, afraid that they would think he was freaking out on them all over again. He had thought that they didn't trust him, that they secretly thought him mad.
And it had gotten him killed.
He had spilled his own blood.
Who'll make the shroud?
I, said the beetle,
With my thread and needle,
I'll make the shroud.
Beneath poor Robin's broken body, spread over the luxury silk-padded interior, was a shining black silk cloth. His ebony hair, restored to its spiky state by the undertaker, matched its hue exactly. His skin – where it was bare beneath his red, yellow and green uniform – was drastically white in comparison, decorated all over with those terrible purple bruises, like splashes of deep violet paint spilt just beneath the surface of his skin.
Though the undertaker had certainly cleaned him up, there were some things he could do nothing about. The bruises, for instance, or the split in his firm mouth.
The crack in his skull, deep beneath the surface of his body, where Slade had kicked him. Right at the base of it, almost where his spine began.
The blow that had killed him.
Who'll dig his grave?
I, said the owl,
With my pick and shovel,
I'll dig his grave.
Out in the churchyard, engulfed in the grayness of the morning – a heavily misty one, somehow reminiscent of the Victorian Age, and Robin's beloved Sherlock Holmes – the Boy Wonder's cold, deep grave awaited him.
His coffin would lie on top of those of his parents, and he would be reunited with them after eight painful years.
The black marble headstone had been amended, with Bruce paying for the extra lettering. Beneath Mary and John Grayson's names was added;
Richard John Grayson
Beloved Son
Beneath that was his date of birth to date of death. Born in March – died in December.
Just weeks from Christmas.
It didn't say The Teen Titans' Leader. It didn't say The Boy Wonder. It didn't say Batman's Sidekick. Although he lay in his coffin dressed in a crisp, fresh uniform – instead of the bloody, torn one they had found him in – with his mask still over his azure blue eyes, closed in sleeping death, they could not afford to write that on his grave.
Richard John Grayson
Boy Wonder and Leader of the Teen Titans;
(Also ex-ward of billionaire Bruce Wayne)
But don't go getting any ideas that Bruce Wayne is really Batman
It didn't work like that. It wasn't like Terra, frozen forever in her self-made stone prison. They had left a plaque stating her membership of the team, but it hadn't mattered.
They hadn't blown anyone's secret identity by doing it.
So the legacy he had had left behind – and the reason he had died – had to remain a secret. In death, he had been restored to nothing more than the orphaned acrobat he had been on the night he had lost his parents.
A little boy with nothing.
Who'll be the parson?
I, said the rook,
With my little book,
I'll be the parson.
From the back of the church the priest came up the aisle, his robes black and billowing behind him as he strode purposefully, confident. Funerals did not break him up – they were part of his job. A silver crucifix hung around his neck, and he carried a deep purple leather-bound book.
A purple that matched the dead boy's bruises.
Who'll be the clerk?
I, said the lark,
If it's not in the dark,
I'll be the clerk.
Behind the foreboding priest scurried a mousy little man, with fair, feathery hair and glasses, and clutching a large black book and expensive-looking black fountain pen. He made his way up to the front of the church and settled himself behind a tiny desk that had been set up there, opening the book to a clean page and getting his pen ready.
With much shuffling but minimal talking, the mourners made their way to their seats on the hard, cold church benches.
All except for Raven.
Who'll carry the link?(torch)
I, said the linnet,
I'll fetch it in a minute,
I'll carry the link.
The priest lit a taper and held it out to her. In a simple black dress, worn close to her curves beneath her hooded cloak, Raven took it from him silently and lit the white candles set all around the coffin. Her hood was up, the shadow hiding her red eyes, her tear-stained face. When she was done she handed the taper back and leaned into the coffin and kissed Robin's pale, bruised forehead.
It was like kissing ice.
She made her way back to her seat, standing between Cyborg and Beast Boy. Beast Boy offered her a weak smile; Cyborg barely acknowledged her.
She had done her task.
The priest dipped his thumb into a vase of holy water and blessed Robin's forehead, right where Raven had kissed him. Then he looked up, made the sign of the cross over the congregation, bowed his head and began the service in a soft, calm voice that somehow comforted all who were there.
"We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of Richard John Grayson, but also to celebrate his short but well-lived sixteen years here in this living realm…"
Who'll be chief mourner?
I, said the dove,
I'll mourn for my love,
I'll be chief mourner.
Next to Bruce Wayne, Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran shook with effort of holding back her tears. They welled uncontrollably in her green eyes, and she fiercely blinked them away, but now her thick eyelashes were wet and the salt had begun to sting her eyes. She too was clad in a black dress, longer than Raven's, and with a more floaty, detailed style. On her head she wore a tiny black pillbox hat – fashionable in the thirties and forties – at a tilted angle, with some loops of black netting and a single white lily attached to it. Hardly her usual style, but it suited her. Black gloves and small black court shoes completed her look – bereaving the death of someone she loved deeply.
A gothic look for the mourner of a Gotham child.
She wore a purple plastic ring on her finger.
Flanking her, the wall of a man known as Bruce Wayne – Batman, like no-one knew – shook too. His handsome face was dry and tearless, but Starfire could tell that somehow, the man was beyond tears. Inside, his heart had been shattered like glass.
Like glass, irreparable.
The time came for them to play their roles, and side by side they made their way up the aisle, not unlike a married couple in the way in which they carried themselves.
Purposeful. Reverent. Slow.
Starfire stood first, elevated on the pulpit draped with deep purple velvet.
Purple that matched Robin's bruises.
In a voice that shook uncontrollably, that broke even though she used every ounce of what the others perceived to be her "alien strength" to hold it together, she read the little passage out, the one that she had chosen especially for him.
An excerpt from a Sherlock Holmes, his very favorite snippet out of them all. From A Study in Scarlet. He had shown her once, read it aloud to her when she had (untruthfully) protested that she was unable to read it herself, and she had listened to him in the dark silence of the front room. Late at night, and alone with him. Just listening to his voice, soft and hushed, because there was no need for him to raise it.
Just the two of them. She curled up against him, her arms around his waist, congratulating herself over her victory; he too absorbed in Conan Doyle's tale to notice that she was just short of sneakily feeling him up.
Robin was dumb like that.
Then it was Bruce's turn. The billionaire read out something he had penned himself, about the fateful night he had been in audience when Robin's parents had fallen to their deaths from their trapeze. About how he had identified with the boy, because he had been through something so similar. About how he had taken him in as his ward, taken him on as his sidekick, as his partner…
About how he had grown to love him like a son.
And about how he felt that he would never know happiness again.
His voice did not crack like Starfire's had. Somehow, the man was so overcome with emotion that he appeared to harbor no feelings at all.
His stone-gray eyes were dry.
When he was done he stepped down and offered Starfire his hand – despite the unfamiliarity, the alien princess took it gladly and together she and Bruce Wayne made their way over to Robin's coffin.
To see him was last time, before he was encased within the earth forevermore.
Gazing over his broken form – the Earth-boy that she loved more than anything else on this world and her own – Starfire burst into tears. She struggled to control them, but the tears streamed down her cheeks too freely, their flow too unbridled. Bruce put an arm around her shoulders, but he too could barely control himself.
In the coffin next to Robin, Bruce had already laid a beautiful leather-bound collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, years old, from the library at Wayne Manor. So old that it was, in fact, a first edition, from all those years ago.
Worth a fortune.
But in the face of Robin's death, money meant nothing.
Nothing meant anything.
Bruce abruptly broke away and went back to his seat. The priest had already begun speaking again, but Starfire could not leave the coffin's side.
Along with the book Bruce had left, there were many other little tokens that others had placed into the coffin.
Little gifts to go to the grave with him.
Beast Boy had made him a special card with lots of cut-out shapes from colored paper, and had used three glue sticks doing it. He had wanted to put some tofu in there too, but Cyborg had promptly said No Way. Cyborg himself had put in a shining silver hubcap, his prized possession from his very first car. Aqualad had put in a very rare and beautiful seashell found only at the very bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, while Speedy had left his dead friend the gold-plated arrow he had once won as a trophy at his very first archery contest. Mãs y Menõs had left red and gold castanets – native to their homeland – and Bumblebee had put in a tiny fluffy toy robin she had bought from a toy store. Alfred had put in his very favorite real silver ink pen, all the way from England, while Clark had ventured down into very depths of the earth to retrieve a real diamond to lay in the coffin with the dead boy; Lois had daintily placed it in alongside the official Daily Planet tie-clip – irrelevant, but expensive – she had brought, where it glittered on top of the black silk shroud.
They had unintentionally turned Robin's coffin into grave-robber's heaven.
Raven had placed in a silver amulet, threading the chain between his cold, dead fingers, explaining that in more rural times it had been seen as a way to ward off evil spirits throughout the journey to the afterlife and beyond. She had also put in a mirror of intensely gothic design, but would not explain why. They got the suspicion that she was going to attempt to contact him beyond death via the sprit world, but didn't want to say anything to get their hopes up in case it didn't work.
They had a feeling that it wouldn't.
Starfire had put in as many things as they would allow her. The tanabula necklace she had made especially for him for the occasion of Blorthog, which she herself had threaded around his neck as though he was incapable of doing it himself. Her favorite pink fluffy pen. His own bo staff with a pink satin ribbon threaded around the retracted length of it. On her ring finger she wore the purple plastic toy ring from a cracker he had slipped onto her finger that last Christmas, almost a year ago. It had been the wrong finger then, but she had been overjoyed by the innocent gesture nevertheless; and every time she had managed to navigate him under a sprig of mistletoe he would suddenly realize that there was something he had to attend to, or Beast Boy and Cyborg would start fighting about tofu, or the Titan Alert would go. She had been disappointed, certainly, because she hadn't managed to get a kiss out of him, but had always reasoned that there would be next Christmas, and that when it came, she would simply hang mistletoe absolutely everywhere so that there would be nowhere he could go in the whole tower where he didn't find himself standing under some.
Now he was dead.
Who'll carry the coffin?
I, said the kite,
If it's not through the night,
I'll carry the coffin.
All too soon – although it seemed, at the time, to have gone on forever – the service was over. Grimly Cyborg, Clark and Bruce stepped forwards, knowing that their duty was abound.
All gathered around the coffin one more time, sobs held back, quelled. Clark held the heavy wooden lid with ease as the others paid their final, final respects to the dead boy lying on silk, his last gifts all around him.
A pure diamond.
A first-edition Sherlock Holmes omnibus.
A solid silver fountain pen.
None nearly so precious as life itself.
Raven ran her fingers over his bruised brow. Bruce squeezed his dead ward's frozen fingers. Cyborg laid a hand on his still chest, while Beast Boy flicked his fingers through the dead boy's jet black hair one last time. Bumblebee leaned against Speedy and fought back the sob that begged to be freed; Lois went to her purse for a handkerchief to wipe her carefully-mascara-ed eyes with. Aqualad bit his lip and looked down; Mãs y Menõs clutched each other and wailed until Aqualad kicked them sharply and silenced them. Alfred leaned over and whispered; "God bless, lad" to Robin's still form. Starfire approached up the middle of the small gathering, the flowers she and Raven had chosen that morning clutched tightly in her pale hands.
Three crimson roses and two white lilies, tied together at the stems by a length of black velvet ribbon.
Red for the blood he had spilt; white for eternal peace. Black for his hair, and because it had been the only color Raven had had in her room.
Starfire placed them on his chest and kissed him on the mouth, savoring it even though he did not – could not – respond.
Even though he was dead.
Ice.
Starfire was pulled away and held by Raven and Bumblebee as the lid went on; both girls could feel the third girl, the Tamaranean princess, struggling in their grip. She knew that he was dead as much as any of them, maybe even more so, but she could not bear to see him locked up in that wooden box for all eternity. But Raven and Bumblebee were strong, and they held her.
Held her as the boy she loved was taken from her forever.
Who'll bear the pall?
We, said the wren,
Both the cock and the hen,
We'll bear the pall.
While Raven continued to hold Starfire, her arms wrapped around her broken friend, Bumblebee released her grip and went to join Lois and Speedy as Clark, Bruce and Cyborg easily picked up the coffin. Either Clark or Cyborg could have carried it alone, but there had been a mutual agreement between the three of them that they would bear the weight together.
Together, holding it delicately, Lois, Bumblebee and Speedy brought the pall – a large square sheet of beautiful embroidered red silk – and draped it over the coffin. They stepped back as Clark, leading Bruce and Cyborg, began the procession, followed by the priest in his black robes.
Speedy took Bumblebee's hand.
Alfred somberly offered an arm to Lois, who gladly accepted it.
Aqualad went behind Mãs y Menõs.
Huddled together at the back of the procession, Beast Boy, Starfire and Raven followed the others out of the church.
The clerk, who had been writing non-stop during the service, was long gone, but no-one noticed his absence as the procession stepped out into the graveyard and was enveloped by that cold murky grayness. It was so thick it threatened to crush them, but they ignored it.
Nothing meant anything.
At the Grayson's grave – lying reopened, like an abyss all the way to Hell – Robin's crimson-draped coffin was lowered carefully and solemnly into the ground by Clark alone. Starfire clutched at Bruce's arm as though she was in pain, and he silently but purposefully squeezed her hand reassuringly.
Who'll sing a psalm?
I, said the thrush,
As she sat on a bush,
I'll sing a psalm.
Now that he lay below ground level, Robin the Boy Wonder was all but truly gone. Absent yet of a layer of earth, his beautiful coffin was still visible, but it was in no way comforting.
The priest stood beyond the open grave and opened his purple book once again.
Purple as poor Robin's bruises.
The priest began to read again, from the Book of Apocalypse:
"And he who was sitting on the throne said 'Behold! I make all things new!' And he said 'Write, for these things are trustworthy and true." And he said to me 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To him who thirsts I will give the fountain of the water of life freely. He who overcomes shall possess these things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But as for the cowardly and unbelieving, and the abominable and the murderers, and the fornicators and sorcerers, and idolaters and all liars, their portion shall be in the pool that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death…"
The priest looked up, paused sadly.
"…May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all. Amen."
Who'll toll the bell?
I, said the bull(finch),
Because I can pull,
I'll toll the bell.
As they each whispered "Amen" in reply, the chimes of the church's bell began to ring out across the cold, empty churchyard. Two men with shovels appeared as though summoned from the mist, and by the tolling of the bell, and began to fill in the grave again.
Earth fell on top of the coffin, burying it deeper and deeper.
Locking Richard Grayson away forever.
All the birds of the air
Fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
When they heard the bell toll
For poor Cock Robin.
The men finished.
And left.
The priest said that he would meet them back at the church whenever they wanted to join him. Then he too left.
Clark put his arm around Lois' shaking shoulders and led her away from the grave, back up to the church. Speedy did the same with Bumblebee, his masked eyes conveying a silent, understanding message to Cyborg as he and the rest of Titans East followed in Clark's stead.
The rest of the original Teen Titans – Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven and Starfire – still stood at the graveside, Bruce and Alfred close by.
Richard John Grayson
Beloved son
Boy Wonder and Teen Titans' Leader
Dead.
Murdered.
Gone forever.
Someone who could never be replaced.
As the last chime of the almighty bell died, echoing to nothing on the still Gotham morning air, the silence was broken only by Starfire's screams of anger and despair.
A purple plastic ring on her finger; her most precious gift.
Purple as the dead boy's bruises.
Laid out for dead, let thy last kindness be
With leaves and moss-work for to cover me:
And while the wood-nymphs my cold corpse inter,
Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister!
For epitaph, in foliage next write this:
Here, here the tomb of Robin is…
The End
No, contrary to whatever you may believe after reading that, I have not got chronic depression. Anyone of you that read The Thing must know that, at least… My other one-shot isn't nearly as morbid, honestly! Indeed, I have written four other fan-fics (all Teen Titans, and all connected to each other) and I am currently working on a fifth. They are all huge, and have never been on the internet at all, but now I am looking to have them posted up. Well, three of them; first, I must explain my tragedy. I wrote two of them last year, entitled Lost in Ecstasy (a lyric taken from Tara's Song in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode, Once More With Feeling) and Robin Goes To Hollywood (a play on Frankie Goes To Hollywood). I was very pleased with them both, and I have full print-offs of them both, so I haven't lost them completely. However, my computer crashed and was irreparable, and I was stupid and didn't put them on disc, so I lost them both computer-file-wise. I still have my third, fourth and uncompleted fifth one – I transferred them to a memory stick immediately – and they are in fact an entire trilogy, collectively entitled Promises and Prophecies. The problem is that the storyline was linked to the first two, so I have a bit of a problem if I want people to read them. However, I have decided to simply write up a brief summary of them both under a "prologue" at the first part of my trilogy to give anyone who wants to read it an idea of what has happened before… So, if you enjoy this – which is, by the way, completely unrelated to any of my other fics, and is also just weird, and I don't usually write things like this, believe me – you might want to give my Teen Titans trilogy a try. The first part is entitled Asylum, and the second part is called Black Magic. Part 3, Remember The Titans, I am still currently writing, so it could be a while before I get that up.
So, enjoy, don't be put off my trilogy if you don't like this, because my other fan-fics are much better, and review if you want – I honestly don't mind flames if you really think it was that bad…