Disclaimer: I do not nor will I ever own the Teen Titans. The are the sole property of DC Comics and whoever else bought the rights before I was able to drum up the cash.

Command Decision

Summary: 'There are times when a leader alone must make the choice, when there is no clear path and the decision rests entirely on one young man's shoulders. I hate those times…'

"I know what we saw, but I still can't believe it. I can't believe that Raven is really gone."

My well planned soliloquy was rudely interrupted at this point by the last person I wanted to hear from.

"That's because she isn't."

"Slade…"

My body on reflex I leap from the head of stone stairway I am standing on and throw six birdarangs in a blanket pattern. They harmlessly ricochet off of his armor, but the time he wasted blocking was well used by Beast Boy to charge him in the form of a triceratops—I wonder if he even knows that that's the name of the animal he's become?—and ram the loathsome psycho into the nearest wall.

To be honest, I am pissed. I'm the one who's supposed to take down Slade. He's my enemy…I soon remember though that Beast Boy is not, and he has just as much right to be pissed at Slade as I do. After all, Slade took away his beloved.

I've had way too much time to think in the last five seconds. I look over at Slade to find that he was on his hands and knees—almost looking defeated except for his eye.

"What's the matter Slade? Had enough already?" It's a stupid question I know, but what else could I say right then. I mean, he looked done. Except for that one eye, his body was screaming exhaustion.

"Sorry to disappoint you Robin, but I'm not here to fight. I'm here to help."

Ha! Him help us? That's rich. I would laugh in his face if he gave me another second, but Beast Boy speaks my mind.

"We don't need your help!" He's pretty ticked off, I can tell.

"Yes, you seem to have everything under control. Raven can still be saved."

I'm about to ask him what he means—really, I'm slightly intrigued—but Starfire beats me to the reaction and rushes Slade, slamming up against that wall for the second time now. Something is wrong here. Slade shouldn't be taking this so easily, even if he is trying to help us, he would normally be fighting back by now. Why is it that the only piece of the man in front me that feels like the Slade I know is staring out at me through that cold grey eye?

"You will not dishonor our friend with your trickery," Starfire all but yells at the evil man.

"Whatever you're sellin', we're not buyin'," Cyborg pipes in.

Starfire has a point—Slade has already done too much to Raven in my opinion. He won't survive this final insult if it's just another one of his plays. I grimly set my jaw and wait for this to finish.

"Think of me what you will, but what Trigon did, even I wouldn't wish on this world."

Cyborg fields this one with what I'm sure all of us are thinking. "It's a little late for 'I'm sorry,'" he seethes as he powers up his sonic cannon.

"You mistake my generosity for regret, Cyborg. I only offer my assistance because it suits me."

Well, that settles that. We should have known better. Slade has never been about anyone other than himself. He really hates to lose, and after Trigon's coup de grace, there's no chance of him winning much anymore.

"But we saw Raven become the portal. She was destroyed." Thank you Starfire. Now we're getting down to brass tacks—did I really just think that corny cliché?—this is what I want to know.

"Raven has fulfilled the prophecy of her birth. That part of her existence is complete. But another part still remains, for the moment."

Okay, I'm tired of the riddles. Time for me to take an active part in this conversation. "Why are you doing this? What's in it for you?"

"My reasons are my own. Do you want your friend back, or not?" Well, that got me a whole lot of nothing. Should have known better anyway. I'm about to answer, but Cyborg interjects.

"Just tell us where she is, and we'll take it from there."

Slade's response doesn't really surprise me, but it sets off the alarms in my head anyway.

"There will be no 'we.' This is a journey only one of you may take." Three guesses as to which 'one' he's talking about.

I can see it all so clearly now. The symbol on his forehead is gone. He has no power. He's drained because Trigon has stripped him of whatever power brought him back from the dead—he's surviving just on his own willpower now. And now that he's free of Trigon, he's ready to start over again, ready to look for a new apprentice, ready to start building his world, as soon as Trigon's is gone. I'm so busy putting the pieces together in my head that I barely hear Beast Boy's retort.

"No deal! She's our friend, all of us are going."

I smile inwardly at Beast Boy's bravado, but I can't help but wonder if it would really be best for us to all go. Who knows where we might have to journey? Besides, it's my fault she's gone. If I had been a little more attentive, a little more in tune with Raven I might have been able to do something in time. If I had been a little less self-centered and looked outside of the Tower for help, Raven might not have been lost. I know the others wouldn't let me, but I take full responsibility for Raven's loss—I'm the leader, therefore I am directly responsible for what happens to my team. I am nothing without my team. I have been foolish enough to prove that to myself many times over. No, Raven's loss is on my head, and I need to go after her, even if it's for purely selfish reasons. I come back to reality in the middle of Slade's next little speech.

"…Trigon is all seeing; his mind can be at any place, at any time. For us to succeed Trigon's attention must be occupied.

That settles it for me. I go, they stay—though I'm not sure who is really going to be the safest in this situation. I fear for my team, for losing one of them again. And now it becomes clear—if I were really thinking like a leader, I would be concerned about preserving what was left of my team, but I'm more concerned about getting Raven back. True, Raven may be the only one who can help us, the only one who can defeat her father, and if any of the rest of the team gets hurt Raven can most likely bring them back too—I mean, Raven exceeded even our wildest dreams of how powerful she really was. Who knows what she can really do? The question remains though, what of the rest of my team?

And again, someone raises it for me—I swear, sometimes the team is almost too much in tune with one another. "And how do you expect us to do 'dat? We already tried fightin' him; look where it got us!"

"It's the end of the world, did you think it would be easy?" Sometimes I can just feel that smug grin of his under that mask, and all I want to do is take an industrial chainsaw to it.

"I don't expect you to win; I don't even expect you to live. Only endure."

That's the thing you fear isn't it? No guarantees for anybody. All I can hope is that they find a way to survive. That they are careful, and that they fight as a team, watching each other's backs the way I taught them when we first formed the team. I'm going to have to be careful as well, going off to who-knows-where with a madman in a mask. Oh well, I guess it would be the first time.

There are times when a leader alone must make the choice, when there is no clear path and the decision rests entirely on one young man's shoulders. I hate those times, and this is clearly one of them. I have to make a decision that nobody likes, except for maybe Slade. I may not live to regret it, but if I find Raven and bring her back then it will all be worth it. This team needs Raven more than any of us realized. She was the stability that we held onto. It could have been me, but I made my mistakes early on and of my own accord, the damage I caused from a fully conscious decision. The damage done by Raven could not have been avoided by her; she did everything she could, but fate was against her. And I was not strong enough to save her. Now it's time to do for her what I couldn't before, or die trying.

"I'll go with you."

My decision is not well received, and I'm only slightly annoyed when Starfire speaks up first.

"Robin, no…" but I don't give her a chance to finish.

"If there's even the slightest chance to save Raven, what choice do we have?" What choice do I have?

Now Slade talks again—doesn't he ever get tired of hearing his own voice? I'm too busy thinking about how I'm going to leave behind the rest of my team to hear his next bit of information—something about a ring.

"I know from experience that it works." So that's the final piece of the puzzle—that's how he's still able to walk around after Trigon stripped him of his powers. Starfire gingerly takes the ring from Slade's outstretched hand, and this is my last opportunity to bolster her confidence, to help the remainder of my team before they go off to fight a battle they cannot win.

"I know you can do it," I state with all my conviction. I know they can, because they have to, and the Titans have never failed me before. I hug Starfire because I know that will help her confidence, and to reject her now would not be a good idea. I can't help but feel a little strange though, hugging one girl I'm about to leave to go find another. She hasn't let go yet, and therefore neither can I—as I said, bad idea. Fortunately Cyborg speaks up and I get an opportunity to break away.

"It may get ugly, but we'll keep him busy."

Beast Boy jumps in as well: "Yeah, just wait 'til Trigon gets slapped with my patented "Wet Willy Maneuver." He illustrates his point by sticking his finger in his mouth and removing it covered in slobber. I shudder—I have been the victim of that maneuver more than once myself. It really is patented too—he keeps the certificate framed on his wall.

I could almost laugh, if it weren't for the dire situation. "He won't know what hit him."

I'm almost getting sentimental, but Slade's gravelly baritone brings me back to the business at hand.

"Your goodbyes are really quite touching, but we have work to do," he states coolly as he stalks toward the edge of the hole the portal left in the ground.

I turn to look at Starfire and I can tell she wants to say something, but what ever it is, I don't want to hear it. I don't want this to be more complicated than it already is. I fix her with a glare that tells her that now is not the time. I set my features one last time as Slade calls my name.

"Robin," he says flatly, and then turns down the slope leading to what can only be Hell. I follow him to the edge, but I turn before I disappear below the edge.

"I'll bring her back, I promise." But as I jog down the rocky path after Slade I wonder: is it a promise to them, or to myself? I hope I get to find out…

A/N: This has been rolling around in my head for some time now. It didn't really come out the way I wanted it to, but I think it gets the point across. I just always wondered why he was so quiet in this scene, and I figured it was because he was thinking a lot more than he was saying. It was kind of fun to jump into his head and see things from his point of view. There are a few very subtle references to pairings in this one, but that wasn't the main point of this story anyway. Kudos if you can figure them out. Let me know what you think—really. I grew up in a tough neighborhood, I can take it. GTHEH—Got To Have Elephant Hide. Later.