Chapter 17

His heart was thumping in his throat and he felt and odd sensation in his stomach. It took him a moment to recognize the emotion: desperation. It was the same feeling he had felt a long time ago, in a different life, on that fateful day when he had lost his parents. And now he was feeling it again. Anger blazed in the eyes that were hidden behind a mask and he had to fight the urge to annhilate the man standing in front of him, the one who had caused all this suffering. The only thing holding him back was the look in her eyes.

Those big green eyes that were normally so vibrant, healthy, and happy were now filled with tears of sadness and the expression of complete and utter confusion. He could almost sense her emotions; she was scared for her friend's life and torn between who to save. It was heartwrenching to see her in this state of utter despair, for she knew it was her duty to save a member of her team, but it was also her duty to her heart to rescue him. His fault.

Believe it or not, though, he was capable of taking care of himself. Deciding that the others' situation was worse than his own, he imporvised a quick plan to try to take this one on. Rushing to her side, he quickly asked for her communicator. As he did so, they both seperated for a moment to dodge a running kick from Slade. They rushed back together long enough for her to give him the device and then seperated. He retreated to a dark corner to talk to the others while she rushed forward to join Raven in fighting their adversary.

He activated the communicator, pausing for only a moment to revel in how good it felt to be back. "I need numbers. What percentage of Beast Boy's body is devoid of the probes?" he asked, speaking quickly and to the point.

A surprised voice answered him. "Robin?"

He sighed, frustrated, for time was of the essence. "Yeah, it's me. Listen, I need those numbers, Cyborg. Otherwise I won't be the only one taking a leave of absense from the team. So start calculating!" He knew that he sounded harsh, but it was neccessary in times like these. After all, they were in the middle of a huge conflict!

"Right. Got it." There was silence on the other end and he impatiently waited on the information, watching the fighting as he tapped his foot.

Raven was in good shape, ducking and dodging almost all attacks on herself and Starfire, and also managing to go on the offensive a few times. He was glad he was no longer on the receiving end of her fury, although that could change in a matter of minutes if something went wrong. That was why nothing, nothing, could go wrong, not now.

"I'm back. The process was fifty-one percent complete when the probes attacked. I'd estimate about fifteen minutes and thirty...nine seconds before it breaches his brain and becomes lethal. If you're going to do something, do it quick, because time's running out, man," Cyborg said, his voice filled with concern, wondering what was going to happen to both of his friends.

He thought for a moment before replying."If you were to continue elimating the probes while they were attacking, about how long would that take?"

Cyborg's brow furrowed as he thought. "Well, since the probes are in action, it will be a lot easier to locate and destroy them, so it might improve our time... Let me get back to you on that. Hold on." With that, his face once again left the screen.

He waited, again watching the fighting. The girls definitely had the advantage, though they still had received their fare share of scrapes and close calls. His eyes, however, were not on fighting techniques and styles, as many would probably expect of him, but on the fighters, or rather, one fighter in particular.

He loved the way her body moved gracefully through the air as she flew, never losing her aire of majesty. It truly was a great thing to witness her in action, her wondrous style outshining that of many others he had seen in his time as a hero and as a villain. Her eyes were glowing green, but he didn't need that as a sign to tell him that she was angry; he could tell even if he hadn't heard a word she said or seen her eyes, just by looking at the way she moved.

"Yo!"

He snapped back to reality to see a smriking, teasing Cyborg on his communicator screen. "Sorry?"

"Terra's been working this whole time. If I combine my efforts with hers, we estimate a time of completion of about twelve minutes. That gives us a three minute margin," Cyborg replied, repeating himself.

"All right, start working. Can you get Beast Boy on the line, or can he even talk?" he asked, silently wondering ready he was ready or not to see the younger boy.

"Hold on."

Growing more and more impatient, he tried to concentrate on the numbers. Taking into account the time it would take Cyborg to set it up so that he could talk to Beast Boy, they had dropped their margin time to about two minutes. It was still possible, but he would not do anything without Beast Boy's consent. He had sworn never to force anyone to do anything they didn't want to do ever again, unless it was absolutely a life-and-death situation if they didn't. He didn't want to force anything on the younger boy that he would not have the strength to do.

"Hey." It was Beast Boy, smiling despite the obvious pain that was apparent in his eyes. Always the jester, that one.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, his voice filled with concern, causing Cyborg to raise an eyebrow. He really had changed a lot this past year, enough so that he actually made his feelings manifest.

"Pretty...good...all things...considered," Beast Boy said, gasping as a new round of pain coursed through his body.

He looked the younger boy over. The probes only occupied half of his body, thus there were splotched of green within the orange. There was obviously much pain behind his ever-present smile.

"Listen, how long do you think you can keep this up? Because you know if you can't handle it anymore, just say the word and I'll call the whole thing off. I'll be fine with whatever choice you make," he said. He could tell that Beast Boy was surprised at how much emotion was evident in his expression and his voice, could tell that the younger Titan was wondering what had happened to change him from the isolated, unemotional, anger-prone leader to the caring leader.

"I'll be fine. Don't give...agh!...up just yet. Just stop 'em if I'm gonna..." He didn't finish the sentence. He couldn't: he was too much of an optimist.

"You don't have to do this, you know. I can take care of myself," he said, wanting to make sure that the younger boy was absolutely certain. Was that really him talking? He could tell now why the others were having such a hard time believing that this was his voice. He really had changed so much during his absence.

An area around the changeling's ear returned to its orginal green color and the boy sighed with relief at even a slight drop in the pain levels. Beast Boy smiled slightly, saying, "No, I'll be fine." He was obviously trying to sound brave in front of Terra, though Robin could see the fear in the younger boy's eyes.

"Alright. Well, tell Cyborg to give us a call when he's finished or if we have to abort the mission," he replied, cutting off the transmission and preparing to return to battle.

Suddenly, Starfire came flying at him, a living projectile. He caught her in mid-air, stumbling backwards for a moment due to the force of the impact, then straightening himself up. As he put her down, he wondered whether he was ever going to be with her again after all of this was over. As he thought this, he noticed her feet shuffle towards him a bit.

Before he knew what was happening, he felt her lips press against his. It was a wonderful sensation and for this short moment that it had happened, he felt that time was standing still. Joy overflowed his mind. And then it was over. Blinking, he stepped backward a bit. Finally, his mouth formed words. "What was that for?" It wasn't exactly what he had meant to say, but he couldn't form words at the moment; he was still getting over the initial shock.

"It was for...luck. Just in case this was goodbye." Her eyes were glittering with the excitement of what had just happened.

He smiled up at her, returning her happy expression. She smiled back at him, and they grabbed each other's hands and rushed forward to return to the fighting. She pulled him into the air and swung him around in a circle as he extended his leg in a strong kick, feeling it connect with a metal chest. Though his mind registered that was throwing and receiving blows, he wasn't completely there at the moment. He didn't register Raven's smug smirk or Starfire's increased attacks on Slade.

One watching him from the sideline would have said he fought like a dragon, relentless in the fury of his attacks, though his faced remained a constant expression of glee. Though he and Slade were still evenly matched, he was not registering the fight and thus did not think it was that hard. He didn't even register Raven answering her communicator. He didn't hear what she said, but she was grinning.

"You know, Slade, now that the Titans are probe-free, I don't have to listen to you anymore," he remarked as he dodged a hard right punch.

Lost in his emotions, he was completely oblivious to everything around him, that is, until a sudden crash brought the metal door down and he turned to see Cyborg and Terra standing in the doorway, both wearing relieved expressions that told him that the opertaion had been successful. Unfortunately, he was so distracted that he didn't notice a certain metal boot headed his way until it hit him full on in his side, sending him careening backwards into a wall.

Still, the Titans had a huge advantage with the addition of two more team members, and Slade soon found himself a bit overwhelmed trying to fight five angry teenagers at the same time. So, as usual, he pulled a trick out of his huge bag to end the fight.

He didn't hear exactly what Slade was saying to Terra, but she seemed to be taking it pretty badly. He could see her lower lip quivering as she mouthed the words: "Stop it, stop it!"

The ground began to shake as her eyes began to glow yellow and rocks began to fall all around them. Slade slipped away, taking advantage of their distraction to escape, for they had all rushed to her side to try to keep her from losing control again.

He reached the scared girl first. Putting his hand on her shoulder, he helped her rise and said, "It's okay, we're not mad at you just because Slade knows how to expose your weaknesses. I know how it feels. All you need to do is gain control. Concentrate, I know you can do it. Beat it back."

She looked up at him with a tear-stained smile filled with hope, hope that he really was excepting her even though she had let Slade escape. Taking deep breaths, she calmed herself down enough so that the quaking stopped. She grinned up at the crowd that had gathered around her, but her grin faltered and she suddenly gasped at something when she saw him again.

"Um, Robin?" Starfire tapped him on the shoulder and gestured towards his side, the one that Slade had rammed his metal foot into not long before.

He followed her gaze to see that his uniform was dripping dark liquid. Blood. He had been bleeding? He must not have noticed it what with his emotions having taken over and all the confusion going on. "I'll be fine," he said, as much to convince the others as to convince himself. "Let's go home," he added, walking forward, but Cyborg blocked his path.

"Man, you're not going anywhere with an injury like that. Let Star carry you or something, because there's no way you could make it losing that much blood," Cyborg said, crossing his arms over his chest.

He opened his mouth to retort, but as he did so, his world blurred and he looked behind him to see a buddle of dark liquid behind him. He really had lost a lot of blood. As much as it would hurt his pride, perhaps the idea wasn't such a bad one after all... Closing his mouth, he nodded his head slightly to acknowledge that he had accepted Cyborg's propostition. Before Starfire could lift him, though, he let out a shapr gasp of pain as her hands accidentally touched his open wound. After a year of tortures of both the mind and the body, his brain reacted to more pain by shutting down. The last thing he heard was her gasp of surprise as he saw sudden darkness and felt himself go limp in her arms. He had blacked out from the overload of both physical and psychological stress.