My Own Worst Enemy
Chapter 3 – Guilt

It was a long trek home on foot for the young thief. He hadn't thought to steal Robin's motorcycle at the moment; even if he had, he more than likely would have let the opportunity slip past him, anyway. The poor kid had lost more than enough already.

Red X hated Robin. That much was too true to dispute. Nevertheless, he couldn't let his hatred stop him from respecting the boy. Twenty minutes of inner monologue while he walked the huge distance from the mountains back toward the city had let him eventually come to terms with that. Guilt wasn't a very common feeling for the thief, but right now he was experiencing it in truckloads.

I should have stayed.

He was sure that Starfire would be fine. He didn't know her too well, personally—they'd only met a few times, and each of those times he was typically more absorbed with throwing snide comments Robin's way than getting to know the lovely alien girl who usually seemed so reluctant to fight him. Still, he knew her by reputation; he knew she'd survived much worse than what had just happened to her.

So there was really no reason he should have stayed behind. Beast Boy and Raven probably plucked Starfire from the icy waters within minutes of his disappearance. The group of them was probably already back at the tower (X quickly cursed them for having their various means of transportation handy) and treating Terra in the medical bay. There was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Right? Right. Nothing to worry about.

So why was he continuing to feel as though he should have turned back a mile ago?

X sighed, finally starting to feel defeated, and stopped in his tracks, looking behind him through the trees at the base of the mountain he was just reaching the bottom of as though it would let him see the group again. "This is ridiculous," he grumbled to himself, now turning completely toward the spot he'd left them in and starting to walk back up the hillside toward the Titans. "This kind of idiocy is only gonna get me thrown in jail."

It would take him another good twenty minutes to get back to where he'd left them. By then, they would surely be gone, if they weren't already. The thief figured that he could at least get some peace of mind by seeing that they really hadn't had any problems. He wouldn't be wondering whether or not Starfire was alright for the next few days.

I am too much like Robin, he realized with a grimace. Trying to save people I don't even like. This better be the only time I feel this guilty about stuff like this.

A whizzing sound flew past him somewhere to his left, effectively cutting his inner monologue short. He paused, tensing his stance and glancing around him, listening as the trees and bushes he still strode through rustled in the distance with whatever had just blown past. Weird, he thought, glancing to his other side to ensure that nothing had circled him and come back to attack. Surely enough, nothing was there; the thief let himself relax and turned to look behind him, wondering what in the hell could have moved that fast without smacking into anything along the way.

Maybe he was just losing his mind. After all, it seemed to have become a recent trend.

X smirked to himself while he turned to continue walking back to where he'd left the Titans. Now there's something Robin wouldn't joke about.

¸ o ´ o ¸ o ´

"We've got to get her back to the tower, Robin."

The boy wonder didn't respond to his robotic teammate; he merely continued pacing back and forth in front of the fallen blonde, his mind clearly entirely elsewhere.

Cyborg pressed his lips together and wondered what exactly he was supposed to say to snap Robin out of his trance. Beast Boy and Raven still hadn't returned with Starfire—at this point, it was fairly clear that something had happened, and Cyborg knew that the odds of Robin willingly leaving this spot were slim to none while the Tamaranian girl was still missing.

Still, he tried again. "Terra's lost consciousness. She needs medical attention. We have to get her back to the tower."

Robin stopped his pacing, glancing at Cyborg with a pained expression on his face. The half-robot cleared his throat pointedly.

"Now."

Silence fell over the two for a few seconds. Robin's masked eyes moved first to Terra, and then to the edge of the cliff.

"Just a few more minutes."

Cyborg rolled his eyes, not wanting to feel exasperated with the young hero but unable to help himself. "She's fine. Terra isn't. I don't know what that thing, whatever it was, did to her head. We need to get her back to the tower so I can run a neural—"

"I said a few more minutes."

"She might not have a few more minutes," Cyborg spat in return. "What if she's in a coma? What if she's brain damaged? What if the damage only gets worse while we're standing here waiting?"

Robin whirled around, glaring with all his might at the half-human and opening his mouth to retort. But he didn't know what to say; how could he come up with a valid reason that they shouldn't take Terra to safety as quickly as possible? His mouth hung open for a moment before he thought to close it, straightening his stance and folding his arms while Cyborg looked on with narrow eyes.

"You go on and take her. I can't leave yet."

"Robin…"

"I can't." His voice was firm, and his eyes narrowed to match the defiance in his tone. Cyborg only sighed. "I'm sorry. I can get Raven or Beast Boy up here if you need someone to go with you. I can't leave."

Nodding, Cyborg stooped down to scoop up the tiny blonde in his arms, taking a few steps toward the T-car before pausing to look back at the boy wonder. "I understand that it hurts, man. Just…don't go crazy on me. She'll turn up."

Robin stared toward the cliff, letting the wind blow his cape around his body and ignoring the impulsive urge to shiver. "I know," he said quietly. Even though he didn't.

He said it with the hope that the confidence would come to him with the words. It didn't work.

Oblivious, Cyborg let out another sigh while he turned away with the cataleptic geomancer in his arms. "Why don't you call Rae and see if she'll send BB up, then? I'm sure he'd want to be with Terra right now."

"Yeah." Absently, the boy wonder pulled out his communicator, flipping it open and pressing a button until he saw Raven's twisted frown come across the screen. Already he didn't like that frown a bit. "What is it?"

"We can't find her."

He'd somehow already known that the empath was going to say that. "Did you check further down the river?"

"We checked everywhere, Robin. Beast Boy is in the water right now searching again."

"Well, check the forest, too. Maybe she got out and went—"

"Robin."

Cyborg's voice cut him off; the hero turned to see his friend giving him a discouraging stare. Robin sighed in defeat. "Maybe we should all head back. See if we can pick her up on the sensors or something."

"Exactly what I was thinking," Raven responded, looking to the icy water she hovered above. "As soon as Beast Boy comes up, we'll come to meet you. I'm sure Beast Boy wouldn't want Terra going without him."

Robin quirked an eyebrow, noting the twitch in Raven's features while she spoke the geomancer's name. Opting to ignore it for the moment, he simply nodded in response. "That's what Cyborg suggested. We'll get her situated in the back while you guys finish up. At the tower, we'll hopefully be able to get a lock on Star's signal."

"Right. See you in a few." Raven paused, stopping her hand in motion while she reached to flip her communicator shut. "We'll find her, Robin," she promised, trying a small smile before finishing the act she'd started.

Robin was glad she hadn't waited for a response from him. Flipping his own device closed and returning it to his belt, the boy wonder turned and walked toward Cyborg, who had the back door of the T-car wide open and was currently wondering how exactly he planned to situate the unconscious girl in the backseat. Leaving, in a way, felt to him as though he was somehow betraying Starfire…but he knew he couldn't let himself think of it like that.

Besides, he wasn't planning on sleeping before she was found.

¸ o ´ o ¸ o ´

As he'd expected, X arrived to find an empty mountainside, the debris from the blast Terra had blown him out of the cavern with still strewn across the ground. Now that he'd confirmed his suspicion, X was satisfied to realize that he'd just effectively wasted an hour of his life to start toward the city and then come back to find nothing. Just goes to show what guilt does for you, he inwardly mused, glancing around to make sure he was alone before shrugging and turning back toward the path that led home.

He'd only gotten a few steps forward before he stopped. Something wasn't right. He didn't know why, but he had the strongest feeling that something was watching him. Turning his head slightly, he peered at the ground beside him, his mind going back to the last time he'd hesitated to turn around when he sensed someone behind him.

He shuddered discreetly. Dealing with Terra hadn't exactly been fun. If he turned around to find a large, iron object swinging toward his head, he was going to have to seriously hurt somebody.

When he turned, his eyes only met darkness. X blinked in confusion; he was rarely wrong when he felt a presence around him.

But maybe he was just being paranoid.

The thief tried to shrug the feeling off, turning once more and beginning to walk toward the city. Maybe whatever happened to the blonde girl was contagious. It had seemed like a bad joke earlier, but now the idea started to feel like a very real possibility. Especially once he heard someone laughing softly from above him.

X turned quickly this time, looking up and striking a defensive stance. His eyes widened when they met with a very familiar-looking, darkened figure in the sky, several yards away from where he stood. He merely gaped at it for a moment with a stupid expression on his hidden face before he thought to try and speak. "Starfire?"

The figure didn't respond. Instead, it plummeted downward, snapping to a horizontal flight when it reached the ground. It was approaching fast; X backed up a step, holding his arms in front of him to ward off any oncoming starbolts, and—

THWACK.

She punched him hard across the face before he could so much as make sure it was her. Dazed, he fell to the ground, watching her dark figure stop above him and barely making out a smirk on her lovely face. It was Starfire, he was almost sure of it—her hair looked darker, but it was probably only the night's sky he was seeing it against. He couldn't quite see her eyes, and they were usually so bright…but again, he blamed the blackness that surrounded him. "What are you doing?" he questioned, beginning to push himself up.

She stopped him by pressing one of her boots against his chest, pushing him into the ground until the air was forced out of his body. "It isn't your lucky day, after all," she smirked. X's eyes went wide; her foot came down hard onto his head before he could get a word out.

For the second time within twenty-four hours, everything around him suddenly went dark.

¸ o ´ o ¸ o ´

He couldn't find her. It had been more than two hours since he'd seated himself in front of the main computer in the operations room, and still he had nothing to show for it.

Robin had tried searching for her signal on every frequency the communicators were capable of using, thinking that perhaps the fall had knocked the settings awry. More than half of an hour passed on that effort with no result. He attempted a sonic scan next without thinking that the sound of rushing water was just as detectable by the device as a human heartbeat. The machine, being too stupid to know the difference between the two and lacking the capability to block out the flow of the river from its sensors, proved entirely useless. Running a heat scan on the area seemed at first a much better idea, but the boy wonder hadn't taken into consideration the huge distance between the city and the mountainside they'd found Terra on—he lacked the means to run a more concentrated sweep than one that wouldn't even tell him the difference between the signature of a fish or an elk.

He was beginning to lose hope. He was growing very tired. Staring at a computer screen could only leave his eyes blissfully unaffected for so long. At first, he was determined to find her; now, he only wanted to bang his head repeatedly against the keyboard that sat between him and the screen.

She was probably fine, he tried to tell himself. She'd probably only been carried further down the river before either washing ashore or awakening on her own. She would probably be back at the tower any minute now.

He genuinely wanted to make himself believe it, but Robin had never been very good at holding onto hope, especially when the sliver offered to him was so unbearably small.

The sound of the doors at the head of the room sliding open piqued his attention; the boy wonder glanced over his shoulder, daring to hope that he'd see her familiar red-headed form floating in through the door with the same bright smile she always greeted him with. He was disappointed to find that it wasn't Starfire coming to join him beside the console. It was Beast Boy, trying a weak smile and offering a small wave toward the leader of the Titans.

Robin attempted to smile in return, but the despondency that weighed itself upon him was too great to let him manage it. "Hi, Beast Boy," he greeted instead, moving his burning eyes back to the computer display before the changeling could get close enough to notice the worn-out look on the boy wonder's face.

The changeling let the smile slip away from his face once the other Titan's eyes were off of it. Letting out a quiet sigh, he stopped just behind the chair Robin occupied, folding his hands behind his back while he stared along with him at the various empty locations that were arranged on the screen. "I'm guessing it's still not going too well?" he asked, wishing as soon as the words escaped his mouth that he hadn't phrased it quite so bluntly.

Robin only wished that he'd left the "still" out of his inquiry. "No."

A moment of silence passed them by; both Titans simply stared wordlessly at the screen, barely even taking in the images shown to them by the various security cameras set about the city. It was late—not a single soul was walking the streets at this time of night. Surprisingly quiet, actually, for a city as lively as Jump.

Still, it was good that it was quiet. If a crime were to occur anytime soon, the team just might find themselves too disheartened to bother to stop it. "Terra isn't doing any better, either," Beast Boy said quietly, shooting a meek glance toward Robin in the hopes that, in some small way, his misfortune would somehow ease the other boy's pain.

Robin simply continued to stare at the monitor for a few seconds, letting the changeling's words unfold in his mind. He hadn't even thought about it before—not ever—but Beast Boy probably knew exactly what he was going through. He had gone through it more than once himself, after all. The boy wonder tore his eyes away from the monitor, frowning deeply and offering Beast Boy a remorseful stare. "I'm sorry," he said in a more sincere tone than the changeling could ever remember hearing him use.

"Don't worry about it," the changeling said casually, shrugging his shoulders so nonchalantly that Robin felt a stab of pain for Beast Boy in addition to the hurt he was already enduring. "She's gonna be fine. I just…don't know when, that's all."

He finished his sentence with a lighthearted laugh, rubbing the side of his head awkwardly while Robin only looked on with a troubled expression. He hadn't even considered what Beast Boy must have gone through when he lost Terra for the first time. To lose her a second time…it must have ripped the boy apart inside. It was a wonder that the changeling managed to be so happy all of the time for all the "I should have"s and "what if"s that must have gone through his mind at various points over the years.

Even now, while the geomancer was lying unconscious in the medical bay with only Raven and Cyborg to watch over her, Beast Boy was still smiling…still laughing at jokes that only he understood. Robin almost wanted to ask him how he managed to stay so upbeat even through everything he'd gone through over Terra, but truthfully, he didn't want to know. Nor did he want to have to find out on his own.

"This…" He paused, waving a hand toward the computer screen in front of him to indicate to Beast Boy what he meant. "…it isn't easy."

Robin's eyes remained on the monitor; a trace of the smile stayed on Beast Boy's face. "I know," he quietly acknowledged. He, too, watched the inactivity on the screen, hoping that he was at least serving as some sort of moral support for the boy wonder.

"What if…we can't find her, you know?" he said in a voice so soft it may have been mistaken for a whisper. The smile finally fell away from Beast Boy's face, melting into a deep, sympathetic frown. Robin, whose eyes were elsewhere, didn't take notice. "I can't even imagine…I mean, what if I wake up tomorrow morning and this wasn't just some kind of nightmare? I don't even…I mean, I can't even think of what it might be like…"

The changeling placed a comforting hand on Robin's shoulder; the boy wonder glanced at it, just as Beast Boy had when Starfire had done the same for him earlier that evening. "I know."

Robin felt tremendous amounts of guilt. He never even offered a hand to Beast Boy when Terra turned to stone. He never even thought about it—never even considered how much pain his teammate was probably going through. But Beast Boy was so strong on the outside; he handled his heartbreak with incredible grace, masking it nicely with smiles and jokes that earned a roll of the eyes from everyone. Maybe that was intentional, too, Robin mused. Maybe Beast Boy never really wanted to be funny. If someone got to like him because of it, he might grow attached to them again. What if, like Terra, he only ended up losing them?

"When Terra fought us on the street that day…and in the volcano…"

The other Titan's voice efficiently drew Robin out of his thoughts; he looked from his shoulder, which had been abandoned by Beast Boy's gloved hand, to the twisted expression changeling's face, waiting for him to continue.

"…you remember how Slade was controlling her, right?"

Robin slowly nodded. He hadn't heard it himself, but Beast Boy had told them all the story once the fight was over. "The suit she wore. It was a neural interface that connected him directly to her nervous system."

Beast Boy nodded his confirmation. "And do you remember him ever getting into her head during that fight?"

Robin frowned a puzzled frown. "No. I don't."

"Neither do I." Beast Boy smiled to himself, feeling as though he'd finally figured something out without Robin beating him to the punch. This was probably largely due to Starfire's absence, but still… The changeling shook his head clear so that he could finish his statement without letting the sadness of his friend's disappearance get him down. "So I've got two theories on this. And before you ask or tell me not to be ridiculous, no—neither of them involves robots or a trained army of any type of reptile."

The boy wonder couldn't help laughing at this. "Okay. I'll trust your judgment, but just this once."

"The way I see it, either Slade's suddenly developed some awesome mind-control powers, or he wasn't even the one controlling her."

The young hero was rendered silent for a few seconds. "But…her clothes…"

"It wasn't the same suit she wore the first time. And the orange—didn't you notice it was a little darker than Slade's normal color?"

Truthfully, he hadn't; he'd been too wrapped up in the anger of seeing Starfire blushing madly and standing so close to Red X to notice much else. Now that he thought about it, though…it wasn't the same suit as the first time. It looked more like the one he'd worn as Slade's apprentice—half orange, half black. When Terra was the madman's apprentice, the suit she wore was silver, save for one black-and-orange detail fixed upon her chest. "And it was missing the 'S' he made us both wear," he realized aloud, blinking at Beast Boy as the realization donned upon him. "Do you think…?"

"Yeah, but who, you know? I mean, it doesn't make sense. Why would someone try to trick us into thinking they were Slade?"

Robin's brain couldn't even begin to process the question; shook his head lightly and rubbed at his face in exhaustion, finally resolving to click the monitor in front of him off for the night. "I don't know, but I can't think anymore today. I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow, we're going to find Starfire."

Beast Boy nodded, slightly disappointed, but understanding nonetheless. "Don't stress out, Robin. She'll be okay."

Robin pushed himself out of his chair, smiling weakly and patting Beast Boy on the shoulder before starting toward the door. "I hope so."

"I know so," Beast Boy piped up confidently, his eyes following Robin the rest of the way out the door. Once it swished shut, the changeling sighed, his gaze moving almost automatically back to the now-blank screen Robin had been working at. Shrugging, he mused aloud, "What the heck, right?" and hopped into the seat Robin had left behind.

Maybe the boy wonder was too drained to work anymore on finding their friend and resident alien, but Beast Boy was certainly still too shaken up by the events of the day to even force himself to sleep. He might as well spend his time tonight doing something productive—it might even get his mind off of Terra for a few hours.

No, it won't.

He knew the voice of reason in his head was right. It wouldn't, but at least he knew Terra was safe for the moment. If there was one thing Beast Boy knew, it was that losing someone so treasured could crush a person, and he didn't want Robin to have to feel the same way he had for the past few years. The sooner they located Starfire, the better…for everyone, but especially for Robin.

¸ o ´ o ¸ o ´

In the medical bay, the two remaining Titans sat together at a small table, both of their watchful sets of eyes cast upon the young geomancer lying unconscious on a bed across the room from them. The decision to bring her here, they both knew, was both slightly foolish and highly dangerous. Who was to say she wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night and proceed to bring the whole place to the ground once she realized where they were keeping her?

While there was no way to know for whether or not it should be a concern of his, Cyborg resolved for the moment to consider the possibility highly unlikely. His gaze passed over the various screens showing different sets of vital signs relayed by the monitoring devices she was currently rigged to. "Scanners show everything's normal," the half-robot sighed aloud, finally moving his eyes to the empath across the table from him.

Raven kept her stare on Terra's unconscious form, taking a long sip from a mug presumably filled with herbal tea before breaking her eyes away to meet Cyborg's. "I guess we've just gotta let her sleep it off," she observed, casting her eyes away from her teammate in an effort to appear nonchalant.

Cyborg was no empath, but he wasn't exactly dense, either. He'd had an idea that something was wrong with Raven since she'd berated Beast Boy for his hesitation to rescue Starfire. "Mind telling me what's wrong?" he pressed, leaning an elbow against the table and balling his hand into a fist to support his chin. Raven didn't so much as glance at him; Cyborg tried again. "I know you and Terra weren't exactly the best of friends, but I have a feeling that's not what's bothering you."

Raven briefly closed her eyes, shaking her head slightly to clear her cluttered mind. She could keep it to herself, but why bother? It was probably better that she opened up to somebody…since the girl that usually forced her to was currently absent. "I didn't even sense it, Cyborg. I couldn't even feel what was controlling her. She felt to me just like Terra gone bad—the same Terra we fought against when she first worked with Slade."

The half-robot guessed by the sour expression still displayed on Raven's face that that hadn't been the only thing bothering her. "You said yourself that whatever it was had a block on you," he said reasonably. "I don't know what it must have been, but if you can't sense it then you just can't. You shouldn't beat yourself up over it."

"I know."

The pair sat in silence for a moment, Raven's eyes remaining on Terra and Cyborg's on Raven. The empath sipped again at her tea before letting out a quiet sigh.

"It's just that…when she came down to taunt Beast Boy…he knew."

Cyborg didn't know exactly what to say; he kept his gaze on her troubled features, trying to piece together something comforting to offer to her. Raven was never the easiest person in the world to offer a friendly hand to in the first place, though, and he was almost sure that he'd never had to console her through doubts about her own powers before.

"It was like he thought that hugging her would solve all their problems. And it did." Her eyes finally moved to meet Cyborg's, an apprehensive frown already overpowering her lips. "It made me physically sick just watching them, Cyborg. I don't know what it was—maybe because I didn't know what was controlling her, and he so willingly let down his defenses…or maybe something else entirely. I don't know."

Cyborg's eyebrow quickly lifted in curiosity. This was a prime opportunity to tease her that he didn't think he could pass up, even with the given circumstances. "You don't think—I mean, you and BB aren't…are you?"

Raven only blinked at him in surprise, registering what he was implying before a blush quickly began to appear on her face; quite a rare occurrence for the empath in front of him. "No," she said quickly, shaking her head before the question could pose itself again in her own mind. "No, that wasn't it. I was just…angry."

"But…angry because of BB and Terra, right?"

The empath narrowed her eyes at Cyborg's wiggling eyebrows. "I'm trying to open up here, and you're not making it easy."

He only smiled goofily in response. "Sorry."

Her glare slowly relaxed, and her eyes moved toward the mug still loosely clutched in her hand. "I was angry because it seemed like he expected everything to be okay again. Just by holding onto her. He was being stupid, and I got him out of the way when Slade started to tap into her powers…I wasn't there when Starfire needed me."

"Rae…" Cyborg frowned at the remorseful expression that had spread over Raven's face. "That isn't your fault. You did the only thing you could do. If you and BB hadn't gotten out of the way, you'd have both been knocked out anyway. Nothing would have changed what happened to Starfire."

The emotions surging through her turned her hand black while it held onto the mug; a spurt of tea quickly splashed up from it, causing Raven to hastily release the object. Wide-eyed, she simply stared at her palm for a moment before drawing her hood back up over her face. "I could have done something," she quietly disagreed. "I could have stopped it."

"No, Rae. Don't get yourself down about that." The half-human tried an encouraging smile, earning at least a sideways glance from the guilt-ridden empath across from him—which, he surmised, was better than nothing. "Besides, Star's gonna be just fine. She'll be turning up anytime now. I'm sure of it."

I wouldn't be so sure, Raven wanted to tell him. I can't sense her anywhere. I couldn't sense her in the river. Not in the forest. Her emotions are too freely expressed to let her easily hide from me.

Instead, she gave a small smile in return, letting her hand return to her mug while keeping the importance of holding her feelings in check in the back of her mind. "I hope you're right."