Robin was careful. Years of training with Batman-- and yes, Bruce had taught him about i that /i sort of thing, too-- served him well. He'd locked his doors and windows before going out, left the R-cycle in the garage. He'd even mumbled some kind of excuse about needing to catch up on sleep before he'd gone up to his room. And he'd waited until the right moment, not a second longer. Those few hours between night and morning when everyone but lovers and criminals were asleep.

And which one was he, really?

He knew exactly how long he could spend with Slade before he had to get back. He'd even factored in the time it would take if Slade decided to play one of his little games-- strip Robin naked, tie him up and go have a cup of coffee while the poor boy screamed for release.

As it went with these things, he'd been doing it for so long that he'd almost forgotten about not getting caught. It just didn't seem like a possibility any more. After all, if no one had noticed for all these weeks, why would they notice now? They wouldn't. And besides, Robin was a loner, always had been. If he went out by himself for a few hours at night, none of the Titans thought much of it. At least, that's what he told himself.

This night-- rather, morning now, it was almost four-- seemed no different. Robin tapped in the security code at the front door of the tower, then knelt to take his boots off as the door slid silently aside. He crept into the main hallway, up the stairs. His mind was busy somewhere else, going through all the little details of his lie, just like Bruce had taught him. How to clean up without anyone hearing you. Finding little excuses to explain away scratches and rope-burns. He stepped into the main room-- the one with the massive window that faced the harbor-- without even bothering to look inside first.

Beast Boy's eyes shone in the dark like a cat's. Robin stopped where he was, stood there and stared with his shoes in one hand, hair ruffled and probably smelling of sweat and cheap lubricant. He said nothing as Beast Boy slowly took in his appearance.

"So, it's true, isn't it?" Beast Boy said quietly.

Slowly, Robin set his shoes down at his feet; he wiped his sweaty hands on his thighs. He still said nothing.

"That rumor about you and Slade," Beast Boy went on, a little louder. "What Raven said. It's true."

Robin could have said a hundred things. He could have denied it. He could have played innocent, or at least used one of the excuses that he'd so carefully constructed. Instead, he said, "Yeah."

A heavy silence decended between them as Beast Boy considered this. If allowed to think about things long enough, the boy could be dangerously intelligent.

Watching him, Robin felt... guilty. Not just because he went to see Slade, or what he did. It was that he enjoyed it. No, it was just i how much /i he enjoyed it. Slade's lair was sound-proof, all noise muffled by the creak and grind of tons of machinery. Robin let himself go there as he had nowhere else: he was free to writhe and scream and cry out, and he did. He could forget all about the Titans, about the city, about the world. And that was a betrayal in it's own right. The Titans had been his dream, once. Now-- now, was it so much of a burden that he had to lie in the arms of his own enemy just to get away from it?

"So," Robin said slowly, as his mind tried to get a grip around just what was happening here, "Raven knows?"

Beast Boy's eyes narrowed. "They all know."

Another silence. Far away, a clock rang half-past. The boys glanced towards it, relieved to look at anything but each other. It was another few moments before Robin sighed and picked up his boots again. He stepped forward. "Good night, Beast Boy."

"Good night."

End.