Chapter Five: Hero

I am so high,
I can hear heaven.
I am so high,
I can hear heaven.
Oh but heaven, no heaven don't hear me.

Raven landed hard, both feet driving neatly into the ground as she came to a halt from flying just before the Tower, face flushed slightly, breathing rate up a bit from her normal rate. The front doors were gone- presumably torn away by whatever strange force had become irritated with Cyborg's security system- and the sounds of the battle came from within. Raven looked to Robin, who nodded, and both rushed into the Tower, Robin with his bow-staff out, Raven with her hood up, hands out.

Ready for a fight.

"Raven! Robin!" Starfire threw off what appeared to be something any one of the Titans would have recoginized even if it had been years and years since they had last seen one: A Slade-bot. "Friends, the battle has moved to the roof! Beast Boy and Cyborg have requested that we join them upon your arrival!"

"Slade..." Robin muttered, his voice low, his hands balling into fists at his side in spite of himself. "I don't know how he found out we regrouped, or what he means... But we have to stop him right now!" His face whiter than usual, he moved toward the elevator, leaving the other two to run toward the closing door toward the rooftop.

Raven looked around: Had she and Robin really left from this rooftop a little less than an hour ago? The moon still hung in the sky, and the world around them was still beautiful, but now it seemed tainted: Robots were falling down the sides of the building, revealing to Raven, who had never been afraid before, just how high up they were from the ocean.

Clouds sparkled around them, the light seeming beautiful and yet somehow deadly. She drew back: Anything within that wide sky wouldn't be able to hear a word she said, not now or ever, and she was alone in this battle. Alone in the air, in the world around her.

She looked over at Robin, his face clamped tightly, his jaw more pronounced than ever. Raven looked at the army and remembered their first battles together, almost feeling as if she was warped back to that time two years back, when they had been a young team struggling to believe in everything, including in one another.

"Rae, now!" Cyborg screamed. The fondness of the nickname "Rae" moved her to action, moving in on the enemies, looking for the real master, the man known as Slade. Taking several of them and throwing them over the edge, she moved closer to the center, floating a few inches above the ground.

And they say that a hero can save us.
Im not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.

Beast Boy was engaded furiously in attempting to drive the robots away from Starfire, who had fallen and was clinging to the side almost as if she were not happy enough to tap into the joys of flying. "Get back!" He was holloring, and Raven could only sigh: What wouldn't she have given to hear some corny joke and not the protective seriousness that reminded her that they were all different people now.

People who could no longer use the word 'hero' to describe themselves, having abandoned an entire city at the loss of their leader, having abandoned their work as a silly, childish dream.

We just wanted to save people, she reminded herself softly. We just didn't want to wait for the heros that we didn't think existed in the world to come and save us. It wasn't a crime... It was just innocence, stupidity. She kicked the nearest robot in her anger and moved toward Starfire, catching her around the waist and pulling her up onto the building next to her.

"Are you alright?" The other girl only nodded, and Raven sighed: She had been wrong to compare the way things were now to the way they had been. She moved forward to join the battle again: Regreats were never expressed on a battlefield in the first place, not now.

"There's too many of 'em!" Cyborg was heard yelling, and Raven could see that Robin became even more tense at this statement. Raven could tell by the frensy of his movement that he knew as well as everyone else that the team could not hold out under pressure forever.

"Fight anyway!"

The battle became increasingly violent, and soon not only Starfire but also Beast Boy were unable to fight. "I cannot believe we will win..."

Beast Boy sighed, still trying to get to his feet in vain. He could no longer help fight off the swarm, and he was begining to feel increasingly helpless. "We'll make it, Star. We were heros once and we can be heros again."

Someone told me love will all save us.
But how can that be, look what love gave us.
A world full of killing, and blood-spilling
That world never came.

And they say that a hero can save us.
Im not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.

Raven sighed as the battle thined, worn and tired. The other two members of the team looked just as tired. And that was when they saw him, almost completely unguarded, mask gleaming in the light. "Slade!"

At the sound of his name, Slade looked up, eyes hard behind his mask, a smirk coming to his face as he realized it was the voice he had not heard in over a year: The voice of the boy who thought he could be a leader and failed, had failed at life even after his team was gone, who had tried to rid himself of his team to free himself. "Hello, Robin. I see your... friends are back."

"Don't mock me," Robin spat. "How did you know we were here!" He glared at Slade, at the debries of Slade-bots around his feet. "Why do you have such an interest after a whole year?"

"Do you really think my eyes ever left you, Robin?" He mocked, his voice even more mocking now than ever. "You're a hero, after all. A hero that couldn't save his own friends, but a hero none the less. Personally, I think it'll make for a better villan anyway." He smirked. "You always were a villan at heart, willing to spill blood and kill to protect people, or so you told yourself to cover for your actions..."

"Shut up!" He practically found himself screaming at Slade, feeling Raven's eyes on him in partual fear, partual affection, as if pleading with him not to make himself insane. "Just shut up! You know nothing of me and you never will!"

"I know that you call yourself a hero," he said with a smirk. "You're not a hero, though, are you? You're nothing but a coward who ran from his friends." He side-stepped a low blow from Robin's bow staff and continued to talk. "You're a hero, all right- A hero to people like me, who know you don't belong anywhere."

Now it was Raven's turn to hit something: And so she hit Slade, hard and directly in the middle of the forehead of his mask. "Don't ever talk that way again to anyone, least of all one of my teammates."

"Love can't save you, defensive little bird. Love saves nothing. In fact,nothing can save you." He moved forward, smirking. "You'll all just keep spilling blood and hating, until everything you hate is forever a part of you." He raised his bow staff. "You can run, but you can't hide forever, Raven. Not from who you are, or what you are, or how you feel."

A blast from Cyborg's cannon hit him, and Slade turned to flee. "Mark my words, Titans, we'll meet again." And in a single leap, he was gone from the roof, gone from the area.

The after-effects of his battle still hung from the air, the entire area reminding them of the painful words that had just been spoken.

"Love is a lie?" Raven asked softly, but no one turned to look at her as she turned to help Starfire and Beast Boy, both of whom were staring at where Slade had jumped from as if he were inhuman, as if the entire act bewildered them.

Robin kicked out, his boot striking something nearby and making a loud metalic clunk. "I'm not a hero... There is no hero here."

And they say that a hero can save us.
Im not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.

Now that the world isnt ending,
its love that Im sending to you.
It isnt the love of a hero,
and thats why I fear it wont do.

Raven looked over the wounds on Starfire's left arm one more time: Invisible, as if they had never existed at all. "Thank you, friend Raven," the alien girl said gratefully, despite the hard look on Raven's face as she sank down on the worn, forlorn couch between Robin and Cyborg, looking lifeless.

"Raven?" Robin said quietly. "Can I talk to you... Alone?" He added, catching Starfire's look of hope at the prospect of finding something out about them. He watched as Raven got gracelessly to her feet and followed him out of the living room.

"Are you alright?" He asked her, standing in the long hallway with the door shut so as to avoid being overheard. "You seem... Down on yourself."

"I was once told love was the answer," she muttered vaugly. "But they were wrong. Love only leads to more killing and spilling blood..." She sighed. "It's pointless of me to think someone like you, a hero, could ever stay with a scared little girl like me..."

"Raven, I'm the one who's not a hero. You heard Slade... He's right. I'm not a hero... I just chose to run, to fly away instead of staying to stand up for what any true hero is willing to believe in." He sighed. "We're defeated here and now, and we didn't even get anywhere..." He paused. "Raven, do you see me as a hero?"

"Yes." She paused, unable to explain her feelings for a moment. "Robin, you are a hero... You tried everything, you wanted to protect us... You just didn't know how. You're a good guy... Are you going to listen to him, of all people? You're nothing like him and never will be." She stopped to let that sink in and took his hand. "You're not a villan. You're one of the few heros who still knows what it's like."

He hugged her gently, almost afraid, as if she might draw away from him at any second. She smiled and leaned her body against his slightly, and they rested like that. "We'll find a way to be ready for whatever comes, okay?"

"We can't stand here and wait, after all..." He whispered. "We've got to find Slade and protect the people of this city again."

For you and for me.

And they say that a hero can save us.
Im not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.

And they're watching us
(Watching Us)
And they're watching us
(Watching Us)
As we all fly away.

No one said a word as the two entered the room. No one truly needed to: The content expressions on the faces of their friends told them that somehow, some way, everything would be alright. "We've got to get to work on finding Slade. Cyborg, you can search the computers! Starfire..."

Everything was back to normal.

Or as normal as you can get for a team of heros.

Because heros are what we are.

Raventhedarkgoddess: I don't own the song Hero by Nickelback. R+R, please.