Author's Note: Finally! An update! I know I don't have too many readers, but…yeah. Sorry for my long absence. I already have a few more chapters saved up, but I decided I'll edit them real good before uploading them all. On with the story…
Chapter VIII
Titans Tower, Jump City, the present.
Robin was getting ready for the trip to the past. He couldn't risk attracting too much attention while there for fear of changing the course of history. Hence he decided to go as Dick Grayson and not Robin, wearing casual jeans, a red shirt, and a black jacket over it. Underneath his civilian get-up however, was a belt-full of tools and gadgets that might come in handy. He also decided to bring his mask…just in case the need arises for him to hide his identity.
He recalled the interview with Jenkins.
There was fresh blood on his uniform…looked like it's been there for an hour. So, three hours before the interview. Around 6:30 in the afternoon…that should be my landing time…
But the real problem was the landing place. For, in plotting the coordinates, Robin discovered another glitch in the device. There's no guarantee that it would bring him exactly to his target spot. He could land anywhere within a hundred miles radius from his target coordinates. Taking these things into consideration, he set his target spot for the center of Jump City. That way, he would have a higher chance of landing right in the city or at least somewhere near it.
He attached the device to his utility belt, which will also serve as his means of controlling the device without his computer. He paused to consider what he was about to experience.
Two hours…that's all I have. It's highly unlikely that I might find anything relevant at all… I'm not even sure if Jump City is a good place to start looking… But it's all worth a try…
He pushed a button on the device on his belt. With a split-second flash, and a barely perceptible shockwave, a portal of blinding white light opened before him. He entered and then the portal shrunk to nothingness.
Two miles outside Jump City, ten years before the founding of the Teen Titans.
Robin found himself stepping out into what seemed like a large bedroom. As soon as he was out of the time-travel tunnel he crouched into a fighting stance, expecting anything. He looked around and surveyed the environment. There was nobody else in there but him.
The room was clearly a bedroom, having a four-poster bed, a bedside desk, and two doorways on different sides of the room, one of which (Robin assumed) led to a bathroom and the other to the main chamber of the house. On the wall opposite to the door that led to the main chamber was a huge, curtained, glass window. On the side opposite to the door that led to the bathroom was a tall wardrobe. The room was vast and its ceiling could be found about ten meters up.
It almost looks like my room when I was staying with Bruce Wayne…
Robin noticed that there were a lot of ornaments about, some of which were expensive vases that – Robin had just realized – were shaking in their places.
Of course! The shockwave from the opening of the portal must've shaken those vases. If that force could be felt from the outside…somebody might come here and check!
Now that the idea struck him, Robin thought he heard footsteps nearby…getting closer and closer. He had to hide somewhere…
He turned and looked at the wardrobe.
The butler was dusting the framed paintings on the second floor hallway when he thought he felt a disturbance in the normal flow of the wind. This was confirmed when he looked down the hallway and found some of the paintings more tilted to one side or another, not quite how they were when he had just finished dusting them.
He looked around and found nobody else. He knew that his master and he were the only ones in the house, and Mr. Wilson was still downstairs. And whatever did that to multiple framed paintings in a split second without even being detected – that hardly counts as something his master would do in his own house for whatever reason.
He walked over to the nearest room to check. He opened the door and he was met by nothing out of the ordinary. The four-poster bed, the bedside table, the wardrobe, the curtained window, all the vases and both doors were exactly as they had always been. But he went in further…just to be sure.
He turned and found nothing suspicious (for the vases have stopped shaking by then). He checked the bathroom but nobody was there. Just when he thought of going back to his work, his instincts turned his head to the wardrobe at one side of the room.
This butler had also been a soldier once, in the British army. And he knew better than to distrust the instincts of a soldier, especially when dealing with things similar to soldier activities. What he was doing at the moment surely looked similar to hunting for intruders.
He closed in on the wardrobe and confirmed that it was closed. He knew that an intruder would not be stupid enough to lock himself inside a wardrobe with no chance of getting back out (without making a lot of noise, that is). But he checked inside just in case.
He pushed coats aside right and left. He went into the wardrobe himself. He made absolutely sure that he had checked every inch of it before going back out.
He found nobody.
Robin, who was lying flat on his stomach on top of the tall wardrobe, heard the man's footsteps moving away and back to the door from where he came in. He silently raised his head to get a better view, overlooking the entirety of the room. From the looks of the man, Robin assumed he must be the butler.
He's just like Alfred…, he figured, recalling the butler that he and his mentor had when he was still staying at Wayne Manor.
The man had almost reached the door when another man came in. Robin instinctively lowered his head out of sight. He listened to the two men's conversation.
"Will! There you are!" said one of them, obviously the one who had just entered.
"Listen, I'm going to Jump City. I have to meet someone there, it's urgent. I hope you don't mind leaving dusting for a while to drive me there?" asked the same man in a polite manner.
"No problem at all, sir. I'll just get changed."
"Okay, Will…I'll wait for you downstairs."
The two men exited the room and closed the door behind them.
As soon as he was sure they were both a good distance away, Robin dropped down soundlessly on the bedroom floor. He walked to the curtained window and took a peek at the outside world. He saw the vast gardens that comprised the mansion's grounds and the pavement road that ran through them and went around the mansion. At the far end were a brick wall and a metal-barred gate where the grounds' road connected to the road on the other side of the gate. Beyond the wall were woods that extended to as far as the eye can see. The gate had a symbol on it: the letter "W".
"W", huh? Well, what do you know? This is just like Wayne Manor. he thought to himself, remembering his mentor's home…his own former home. But he knew that it was not the same place. No matter how much the butler resembled Alfred, Robin was sure it was not him. The master of the house called him "Will". Besides, Wayne Manor was situated near Gotham City, nowhere near the area of Robin's possible landing.
This reminded Robin of what he heard earlier. The master said he needed to go to Jump City, meaning that Robin did not land within the city. And there was only one way for him to find his way to his destination: follow the course that the men's car would take.
Robin briefly checked for signs of an alarm system installed for the windows. Finding none, he pushed the window open just wide enough for him to slip through. He hung the grappling end of his bird-shaped grappling hook somewhere on the base of the window and pushed the button that released more rope. This way, he slowly descended to the gardens, careful not to pass by any windows on the first floor.
With all the thick bushes and tall plants, invisibility was not a problem (especially not to a stealth-specialist like Robin, who thought that it was easier not to be seen rather than to be seen in that condition). Robin traversed the entire length of the gardens and made his way to the brick wall on the far side, taking care not to shake the plants too much as he passed by. And then there, he waited.
It was one of the earliest car models that made no engine noise. But that didn't stop Robin from sensing it as it emerged from behind the mansion and drove down the curved road, stopping by the front steps. The front doors opened and out came the master of the house, who closed and locked the doors behind him. Robin pulled out a cylindrical device the size of a cigarette from his utility belt. It was actually a portable telescope…that he now used to get a clear view of the man making his way down the stairs and to the car.
Although it was but a fleeting glimpse, Robin did get a good look at the man's face. There was something about the man that seemed both otherworldly and familiar to Robin, who couldn't quite place what it was. All he knew was that the man had some kind of…aura.
It was only when the car had already driven down the road, and exited the gates, that the thought dawned in him. When the gates closed (they are remote-controlled by the butler), the "W" insignias on them contributed a lot to the formulation of Robin's idea:
Coincidences just keep coming… That guy has the aura of a Bruce Wayne about him…
Author's Note: Sorry for the late update. My computer's been having seizures lately. Just a little fun fact: around the time that I was typing the last line in this chapter (particularly the part where Robin thinks about Bruce Wayne), something entered our house's terrace door and went straight for my and my brother's room. My brother said it was a bird and I thought about how fitting it is for a bird to fly into our room just when I was writing about Robin. I went to check it out. Guess what… it wasn't a bird at all. It was a bat. And just how fitting is it that the last line of this chapter had the terms "coincidences" and "Bruce Wayne" in it?