Blast to the Supposed Past

By, Alexnandru Van Gordon

I know it takes twenty-four hours for reviews to show up and I got bored before even twelve had passed. It's the weekends, and I really wanted to get this next chapter posted before I forgot about it. But that doesn't mean you can't review! Even if you just write three words I will be satisfied. It will help to know whether or not people are actually reading my story. Oh, and the Disclaimer? Oops. If you read my other fan fiction (the enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine—which doesn't show up one the search page (neither does my name) for some strange reason…) you will see that I punish myself for forgetting. But, mistakes will happen. Sorry Warner Bros—I promise it will never happen again! Oh—and I might have a guest star for Robin—maybe batman, but I'm think'n of someone else. Tell me what you think…

DISCLAIMER: I came, I saw, the Titan's conquered—that's right! I don't own 'em and you know that all to well. The plot, on the other hand, is mine.

Enjoy!

CHAPTER TWO: Stressed

Robin just about had a heart attack. He had seen some things before that had amazed him but this took the cake. Him—from the future? Most likely. How else would he be a couple of years older? How else would he know there was a trap waiting for Robin on the other side of the office door and that he would…

"You're not saying that he wins—one hundred and one percent?" Robin asked, panicking. If he hadn't been stressed out enough before, now he was beyond what he had ever felt before.

The sad figure nodded solemnly, arms crossed as he held his hat and scarf in separate hands.

"I'm going to be his apprentice? Again? For how long?"

The young man paused in thought. Now Robin recognized the mask, once hidden by shadows. It was exactly like Robin's except the tiny arch at the end of each eye that made them just like Slade's.

He shrugged. "You're fifteen and I'm twenty one…five and a half years to be exact, but I guess you could round it to six if you were picky."

Robin's stomach lurched. Six years of service by Slade's side—six years without escaping or committing suicide… Could he honestly stand it for that long—and even longer! It was obvious by the sight of this man that he still had to get away from Slade, but how many more years after then would it be… fighting, stealing, killing…

He shivered at the last thought, stomach lurching again, this time a squirt of blood came up from his throat and made it way out of his mouth. A small line of his blood dribbled down the corner of his lips onto his chin and he wiped it away with one of his green-gloved hands.

Great! He had a stomach ulcer!

"I told you you'd start spitting up blood, kid. Did you think I didn't know?"

Robin paused for a moment. Maybe he hit his head back outside with his battle against Slade's robots. Maybe he was schizophrenic? Wasn't impossible. After all, he was stressed.

"So, now what?" Robin sighed, defeated once again even before the battle began. "You said I couldn't get caught—but I can't leave those people. Slade said in an hour and he knows I'll do anything to make it to him on time."

"I'll fight him." The man explained, not at all worried. "You go back to the tower and contact the others. I mean to kill Slade."

"You can't." Robin said suddenly. He hadn't said it because he wanted to be the one to take down Slade—no matter how appealing that idea was—but because he understood the consequences of meddling with time. "If you're from the future and you stop Slade from making you his apprentice, you would only defeat the purpose of you coming back into time to stop him—and then I have no idea how time would mend itself."

"You're right…" His older self agreed miserably. "Gez—and I spent a year inventing that stupid machine to come back here and stop all this. Poor Starfire…"

Starfire?

"What about her?" Robin asked abruptly, worried beyond belief.

"Relax." His older self untied his coat and slipped it off, throwing it, along with his scarf and hat, onto one of the chairs. "Starfire and the others understood in an instant that I was not working for Slade out of my own free will. Half of the world will be taken over by Slade in five and a half years, but the Titans and the JLA will still fight. Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, Starfire…they and a couple of scientists created a time machine that I helped design. I escaped from Slade one night and used the machine to come back in time to stop myself from ever getting caught—Starfire was just worried I would make matters worse for myself. If I get caught—if we get caught, Slade will prepare for the making of the time machine and will either destroy it or use it for himself or use it to screw matter up even more. Understand?"

Perfectly. They were in trouble and all there was for them to walk on was eggshells.

Robin looked his older self over. He wore the suit in the same fashion as the one Robin wore the first time he was Slade's apprentice, but what was orange was now red. The left side of his cheat was the deep crimson you could only imagine as blood. It wasn't blood, but perhaps that was what Slade wanted it to represent.

"How will you know if you do change the past?" Robin asked.

He shrugged. "I expect either my clothes will change or I will get suddenly zapped out of here. After all, when I think of Starfire's trip to the future all I could think of was the possibility that I could save the future by doing this. I guess we will have to wait and find out what happens."

Robin sighed. "And what do I call you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You know." Robin shrugged. "I'm you and you're me. What if I'm talking to you and Slade or someone else hears. Shouldn't I call you by some other name?"

The young man paused. That was a good question and it made sense somehow. You could never be too careful.

"Grayson."

Sorry. I don't which Robin is Robin in Teen Titans. I've heard enough people call him Richard Grayson, so I'm just assuming that's who he should be in this story. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Robin shrugged. "Fine. Now—what about a plan?"

-S-

Now he was just plan impatient—and that was unlike his usual calm and cool self. Forty-five minutes since the message was sent and only half an hour ago he had been delivered news that the young Boy Wonder had beaten another one of his small armies of androids. If the boy was purposely making him wait, Slade would make sure that converting Robin to his side was all the more distressing for him. It was a small price to pay for being late.

He began to pace slowly across the scenes showing areas of the warehouse. The much older side of the building was a simple prison for all those people his robots abducted last night and he had put up only a few cameras to monitor them. If Robin wasn't busy saving them, where the heck was he? What on earth could he be doing?

He sat at the chair before the screen, anger rising in his chest. With a roar of fury, he slammed his fist down hard on the desk and left a dent in the metal. Could the boy have caught on that quickly and fled? No. Even though he didn't know about the people yet, the boy would never pass up another chance at fighting Slade. It was amusing watching the look of utter defeat on Robin's face each time Slade won, watch time he slid away to fight another day.

Then what was he up to.

"Robin is smart—but he's not smarter than you."

The voice startled him. He recognized his own voice and that made up for the most of his fear. The rest of his mind wondered how he would be hearing himself if he hadn't spoken. The voice came from behind him, and he could tell it wasn't a recording.

Standing and spinning around on a heel. Slade's one eye narrowed as he gazed into his own darkness in search of the intruder. He hadn't shown up on the cameras. How, then, had he gotten inside?

Finally, the figure stepped closer so that the small amount of light streaming in from the window fell upon his body. It was him—another Slade. The only difference was the mask, the mask he had designed carefully to strike fear into the hearts of many. What was orange was the red crimson of freshly split blood. Everything else remained the same save for a small scratch on the mask and a few others here and there—old war wounds, he would say. He could tell this Slade was older than himself, but not by much.

Who was it?

"Impatient—how disappointing." The second Slade sighed heavily. "Can't believe I was so weak even back then—now—whatever you would call it. You're good, but even you have a few areas to brush up on."

"Excuse me?" He was the one that lectured—not the student to be lectured. That was Robin's position. "Who are you and why are you here."

The second Slade shrugged. "I am you, and I am here to insure that your plan goes perfectly as expected."

"And do you have proof to support such a claim?" He growled. Who was this man to just barge in and just assume that he owned the place. And could he be Slade? Slade was Slade! This man had simply lost his mind.

"Shoot away. Ask any personal question and I will answer it exactly as you want it to be."

Slade was tempted to spit at him.

Fine.

"How did—"

"I lost my eye when my wife shot at me with a gun." The man answered correctly even though he hadn't heard the whole question. "Next."

Slade opened his mouth.

"—Wilson. Next."

Slade paused. How did he do that? No…he was just lucky.

Slade frowned and prepared to ask another question when he was abruptly interrupted with the correct answer.

"Wintergreen—and no, I do not regret the decision I made. Look at how advanced you have become. It was worth the risk."

Slade had nothing to say. The man had answered both questions on his mind and he was absolutely right—impossible.

"Alright then." Slade placed his hands behind his back the way he always did. "If you're me, why are you here, and how could you be here?"

"Time travel. Robin may not be as smart as either as us, but he is still a genius—and the machine he made with his puny friends and those dame scientists is—I admit—a work of art. I mean to use it for more useful reasons once I bring the Robin from my time back to where he belongs—and after you get the one in this time."

Now this was interesting. Time travel was a precious gift indeed and it was amazing that Robin would be one of the people to make it possible. Maybe fate had truly been kind to him in allowing him to notice Robin in the first place.

"And how old if the Robin that has come back in this time? Is he here to stop me?"

The second Slade gazed out the window. "Twenty one—and still the only one worthy. And, yes. His purpose to travel back to this time is to prevent his younger self from getting caught and modeled into the apprentice we've both wanted for so long. Trust me, he is quite promising."

"I have no doubt…"

So that was what was keeping the Boy Wonder. He had probably run into his older self and either fled or was hiding somewhere until he could devise a plan to save his future. But now his plan was ruined. His older self knew what was going to help it and now he could stop them.

No, because time was changing even now slightly than what it should be. The future persons being here only proved that Robin was bond to get caught, and the fact that this didn't originally happen in time proved that things might change to create the same future. The older Robin wouldn't be able to correct the past—especially with the future Slade to counter out whatever he did. The future was only half planned out now.

"This complicates things now."

The older Slade returned his gaze to Slade. "No fears. Robin cannot escape his future no matter what he does. His older self was a fool to believe he could outsmart his master. I will assist you in capturing your Robin and we will use him as bait to capture his older self. Once that is all said and done, I will return to the future and in five and a half years you will either follow this lead or prevent Robin from disobeying. If he builds the machine—let him. Just stop him from using it."

"That simple?"

"Need it be more complicated? And one more thing." The second Slade let each of his hands fall to his sides and cracked his knuckles by rolling them into tight fists before relaxing them again. "As fun as it would be to see him struggle, keep him calm—and without chemicals of your own—they won't work soon."

This wasn't too disappointing. Having Robin as an apprentice was good enough for him, but curiosity forced him to ask why.

"How am I supposed to do that—and why?"

The second Slade cracked his knuckles again. "Calm him the old fashion way—and you know how. Relax him, get him to trust you because stress can kill a person and Robin has had a surprisingly large amount of that on his shoulders for someone his age."

"He will never trust me." Slade stated. It was the honest truth too. There was no way Robin would even relax that much.

"No, but there are ways you can force a person to relax. The body can have great influence on the mind at times—all you have to know is the right way to do it, and I told you, you already know how. You've worked with stressed out people before—the military was enough to show you what happens to frantic people if they don't calm down. The same goes for stressed-out, tough, cute, little kids."

Was it?

"It's that simple?"

"Of course. Go ahead, try it the moment we capture him. You'll have to keep him calm before he sends himself to the hospital. Trust me—he'll wind up there soon if he already hasn't had enough. Now, about capturing him…"

-R-

Robin followed… Grayson out from the office and down along the balcony overlooking the inside of the factory-like warehouse. The machinery working was farther away in the dark area, but you could see light coming from behind large crates. Grayson guided him to the source, but they hid behind a crate when the goal came into view. Forty people were kept together in a group, androids circling around them to make sure no one tried anything funny. There were only two kids out of the whole lot—and Robin was grateful they were both young teens. Littler kids would have been trouble to save without the kids getting into danger themselves.

Robin reached for a birdarang from his belt, ready to throw it once he was ready to attack. But Grayson stopped him. With a hand on his shoulder, Robin glanced behind him to see what Grayson wanted.

"Cameras." Grayson said plainly. "We're out of view, but the moment you stand up Slade will see you and then it's all over.

"Great…" Robin muttered. How else was he supposed to save the people without getting caught.

Light bulb.

"Duck." He told Grayson.

"I'm way ahead of you, buddy." And he knelt next to Robin.

Robin plainly tossed his birdarang over his shoulder a good distance back the way they had come. Three of the twenty androids monitoring the people instantly ran to check what had happened, zooming past the crate the two were hiding behind without even noticing them.

"Stupid." Robin muttered and tossed a second one, this one blowing up all three without him having to take aim.

"I forget how many you have."

Robin laughed. "A lot."

And the simple pattern continued.

-A-

I hope you liked this one too. If it's bad it's only because I'm writing this at 1:27 a.m. in the morning on a Saturday night—what else would I do with no homework? If it's short it's because I can't keep my eyes opened. I just had taekwondo after missing classes for three weeks as Christmas break and my thighs are killing me from the warm up exercises we had to do. I'm exhausted.

Anyhow, please R&R. I didn't know if the Robin in Teen Titan's is Richard Grayson or Tim Drake (???). Oh—and the future Slade (man, he's one of those villains you love to hate) is not the guest star. He/she won't show up for a while unless I somehow get working on this story—which, I might add, won't continue if you don't review. More reviews equal more chapters.

-I hope you enjoyed.

-Alexnandru Van Gordon