'Allo! Since it's Friday and work was slow, I wrote this… I hope it manages to make someone happy…
Disclaimer: I actually don't really own any cartoon character… shame on me…
Pairing: none. Really!
Warning: Nope! No slash what so ever! Might add a warning for unoriginal idea though…
Background: None... completely freestanding story…
Childhood Memories
The Teen Titans were seated around a table pretty close to a stage where three people where under the illusion that they where naked. Cy and BB were roaring with laughter, while the other ones tried to keep it down a bit. All in all the Titans seemed to be enjoying the show. Well… Raven had her hood up, but if you looked carefully you could sometimes glimpse a smile in the darkness.
The teens were attending "the Amazing Marc's hypnotizing show", currently making a stop at Jump City. They had needed some time off, and this was the only thing they could agree on. Robin insisted on running a background check on Mr. Marc, to be safe, but as it turned out that he was indeed a show-hypnotist and had been one for around 20 years, even Robin relaxed. Finding out that the man's real name was Marcus Little, that he was married since ten years and had two kids, also helped. So far the show had been amazing. Marc seemed to be able to convince the participating audience that they were in very strange situations indeed.
A sound of a small silver bell, held by Marc, sounded, and the people on stage blinked their eyes and smiled sheepishly at each other while taking their bows.
"Who will be next?" The hypnotist asked.
"Me! Me!" Beast Boy waved his hand in the air.
"And who are you, young man?" the entertainer asked, shading his eyes and trying to make out BB in the darkness behind the spotlights.
"Best Boy of the Teen Titans!" The boy beamed.
The others winced a little bit as eyes turned their way. Sure, they were in their uniforms, but it was a quite dark room and not everybody had spotted them yet. Too late now, though. The owner of the establishment quickly jumped up on stage, showing more teeth that seemed humanly possible, in a wide grin.
"Ladies and Gentlemen! I am happy to announce that we have special guests here tonight! Everybody: the Teen Titans!"
Cheers and applause echoed through the room.
"Let's invite them up on stage, shall we?"
The room agreed.
Soon all five of them found themselves on stage in different stages of embarrassment. BB had insisted on going first. Unfortunately the hypnotist didn't know that the boy could turn into different animals, and as he asked the BB to act like a monkey, he was quite… surprised… at finding himself eye to eye with a huge gorilla. The audience loved it, though.
Cyborg was convinced that he was a small girl in pigtails who didn't want to go to bed, which brought down roars of laughter until he was brought out of the trance by the bell. One glance at Raven made Marc skip over her and try to hypnotize Starfire. This didn't quite work. Probably because she was an alien and far too interested at what was going on to relax enough.
Then it was Robin's turn. The boy smiled a bit. Hypnotism was a mind-thing, no way this guy would be able to put him under… hmmm… his voice was sure soothing, though… watch the pendulum? Sure… why not…?
"Let's try something different this time!" The man beamed as soon as the teen was put in a light trance. "Robin, I want you to go back in time. You are four years old. Where are you?"
"I'm at the circus!" the boy answered in a rather childish voice.
"Oh, a visit to the circus! How exiting! Are you there with your parents?"
"Well, yes of course they are here!" Robin sounded rather annoyed at the obvious question.
His friends started to look at each other, wondering if they should put a stop to this. On the other hand they were curious about their leader's life before Batman. Maybe just a bit longer…
"I want to ride the elephants!" Robin suddenly demanded as the answer to a question they hadn't heard.
"Really? Isn't that rather dangerous?"
"Nooooo I get too ALL the TIME!" Robin uttered with all the confidence of a four-year-old.
"Is that so?" the man smiled as the audiences laughed warmly. "Now, I want you to move forwards in time. You are eight years old. What do you see?"
The boy changed before their eyes; suddenly a mask of pure terror was on his face.
"No! Mum! Dad! Nooooo!"
"Robin?!" Cy took a step forward and grabbed his leaders shoulder.
"No! Let me go! I have to find them!" Robin pulled free, and before anyone had time to react, he was heading for the doors. His teammates were hot on his heels, but as they busted through the doors the boy had already disappeared amongst all the people who was out enjoying the Saturday night. As more and more people started pouring out from movie theaters and restaurants, the visibility became even worse. Raven, BB and Starfire took to the sky, but twenty minutes later they still hadn't found him.
Robin was running. He didn't recognize anything around him and was getting more and more frightened. There were so many people about. Had they been to the circus? Where was he? He had to find his way back! Something in his belt had started beeping, but he didn't know what it was and ended up throwing the whole thing away. He came to the edge of a park. Wasn't it a park next to where the circus had stopped? This city didn't even look like Gotham, but he had a memory of some trees, and that was good enough. The main tent might be around here somewhere. He ran down one of the lanes crossing the park. Unexpectedly someone appeared out of the darkness in front of him. Something flashed silver and Robin suddenly found himself sprawled on the ground, tripped by the metal pole the shadow had aimed at his feet.
"Oh, that was sloppy Robin." a voice drawled above him.
Robin turned around on his back and stared up at the shadow.
"What did you do that for!? Who are you?" the boy's voice was a mix of aggravation and fear.
The man took a step into the weak light coming from one of the few lampposts not broken in the park. He was huge. Robin's eyes grew round as he stared up on him.
"Who are you?" he asked again.
"You don't recognize me, Robin?" The voice sounded incredulous.
"I have never seen you before! I have to find my mum and dad!"
"Your parents? But they are dead…?"
The boy's lover lip started to tremble and tears were spilling down his face from under his mask.
"They… they fell…" Robin sobbed.
The man suddenly kneeled in front of him.
"What happened, Robin?"
"They… they where up in the trapeze…"
"No, boy. That happened years ago. What happened tonight?"
"To… tonight? That did happen tonight!" The boy looked confused. "What are you talking about?! And why are you calling me Robin?!" The boy started to edge away. "My name is Richard!"
"Yes, I know… Richard Grayson…" the boy relaxed a bit again when he heard his full name. "But I like to call you Robin… just like your mum did…Robin, I knew your parents. My name is Slade."
The boy gasped.
"You… you knew them? Are you at the circus? Is that why you are wearing a mask?"
"Well… yes…" the man agreed.
"I… I don't remember you…?"
"No, I got to know your folks before you were born. I have been working with other companies since then, but I have met you many times when you were younger. When I heard what happened, I had to come. See if I could do anything to help."
"Help?"
"Yes."
Slade held out a hand to Robin and the boy only hesitated a moment. He didn't take the man's hand, though. To Slade's surprise the boy threw his arms around the man's neck and started sobbing against his chest. Robin felt the strong arms embrace him protectively and immediately felt a bit safer.
"Don't be afraid, my boy… I'm here now…I'll take care of you…" Slade's deep, soothing voice worked wonders with the, at least mentally, young boy, and the sobs soon started to die away.
"I don't know where I am…" the boy admitted. "Where's the circus?"
"We are in Jump City, the circus isn't here…"
"What? Why? Did they leave me?!" Robin seemed about to cry again.
"No, Robin. You ran away… the shock of seeing your parents' accident... it took me until now to find you…"
"It wasn't an accident! They were murdered! I… I want to find their killer! His name is Tony Zucco…" Robin looked up at the man pleadingly "Can you help me find him?"
"And what will you do, once you find him?" Slade asked, knowing full well that the man had been dead for years.
"I'll kill him!" The boy's eyes had narrowed, making the mask show merely white slits.
"That's against the law, Robin."
"What? Are you a minger?!" The boy almost pulled away before Slade tightened his grasp.
"Easy, Robin. No. I'm not a cop." Slade had heard the slang-word before, luckily "But killing the man… are you sure?"
"Are you sure you're not a cop? You have to tell me if you are, you know! Dad says that they have to if you ask!" The boy was still suspicious.
"I know, but I'm not. Do I look like a cop to you?" Slade sounded quite amused at the thought.
"Nooo…" Robin said hesitantly "But you don't sound like one of us, either… you sound like a flattie…"
"Well, I haven't actually been with a circus for a very long time, so I guess I am a bit of an outsider. But you know you can trust me, don't you Robin?"
"Y-yes… I think so…"
"Good boy. So. Why do you want to kill Mr. Zucco?"
"I have the right to! I have the right to avenge them, don't I?"
"Who taught you this?"
"Everybody knows that! It's the law!"
Slade was quiet for a while. Interesting. The boy's point of view when it came to these things must have changed under the influence of the bat. The man smirked behind his mask. He hoped the man had a hell of a lot of trouble with it…
"You are right, Robin. I'll help you… that is, if you want me too?"
"Yes, please! Where do we start?"
"With your pockets."
"What?"
"There might be clues to what you have been doing, in there."
"Doing? Since tonight?"
"No, Robin. Look at yourself. You have grown. Your parent's died a long time ago, don't you remember me telling you so?"
The boy let go of Slade's neck, and looked down on himself.
"I thought I was taller…" he said, bewildered, and the man chuckled.
Robin smiled up at the man and grabbed his hand.
Trusting little boy, this… Slade thought to himself. Not much left of that trust nowadays…
"Let's see if we can find anything in your pockets, then. I see you have lost your belt?"
"It kept beeping…" Robin blushed "I didn't know what it was, so I threw it away… I'm sorry…"
"That's all right. I have another one at home for you. Different clothes too…"
"No! No, this is fine! This is my uniform!" The boy looked down on it again. "Kind off…" he muttered. He patted his pockets. There were a few odds and ends, a quarter, a piece of string, a button… and half a ticket. Robin studied it for a while.
"The gr- great hyp… hypnot… you read it!" he handed it to Slade, who eyed it.
"I see. You have been hypnotized…" he took a rather firm hold on the boy's hand again and snapped his fingers with the other hand. Robin just stared confused up at him.
"What are you doing?"
"Just trying something, my boy… I'm glad it didn't work, though… must be a specific sound…" he added more or less to himself. "Come on, let's go home and see if we can't find this Tony Zucco, all right?"
"''kay." Robin said, adding. "I'm hungry… and sleepy too…"
"We'll be home soon. Don't expect too much, though, I move around a lot."
Robin shrugged. Moving around a lot was normal. You made your home wherever you should happen to be, the best you could. Noting weird about that... He was tired, though.
"Carry me?" he mumbled and reached up for the man.
"Oh, but you are a big boy, now…"
"Don't feel big…" Robin muttered, and sighed happily as Slade picked him up.
"Why are you wearing that mask?" Robin wondered sleepily.
"Well, why are you wearing yours?"
"Wha-" the boy's hand's touched his face. "Why am I? Out here? Ouch!" the boy had tried to pull it off, but winced as the adhesive wouldn't give very easily. "It's glued on!" he complained.
"Don't worry, we'll get it off later…" the man comforted him.
Suddenly there was a flash of green.
"Let go off him instantly!"
Robin looked up and, terrified, grabbed on to Slade. A strange flying woman was diving straight towards them, and her eyes where glowing green! Then they were surrounded by weird teenagers, all looking very angry, and Robin whimpered softly.
"Stay away! Who are you!?" he screamed, clinging to Slade for dear life.
Then a blue-clad scary-looking young woman held up a bell… the sound….
Robin blinked.
"What?" he muttered. "What happened?" He realized that he was being carried and looked up. "Slade?!" Robin's fists shout out, hitting the man's upper arms and making him let go.
"Oh, well… it was rather too easy anyway…" The man chuckled, seemingly unfazed by being surrounded by five superheroes. "It was… interesting, though, my boy. We will have to discuss this again… soon…"
The man then reached for his belt, and, faster than the eye could follow, he had thrown a teargas-grenade on the ground. When the team was able to see again, the man had disappeared.
"All right." Robin said. "Not a word. And whoever suggests hypnotism again will have to take it up with my bo-staff."
The team glanced at each other, slightly grinning. Oh, no… their beloved leader would be hearing about this for a loooong time….
The End.
A/N: Hoped you liked this shortie… I immediately apologize for every unfair reference to circus-people… I just wanted to suggest that the young Robin might have had a different set of laws in his world… and this might make him even more interesting to Slade… Peeling away the Bat's influence might also reveal the "old" way of thinking… hmmm… this is interesting… why am I wasting this insight on an "A/N"? Damn... Well, no one reads this anyway, so I can use it later and pretend it just occurred to me… yay!
I AM working on "for Better…" so those of you following it, don't worry… I'm a bit behind, though…. ahhh.. I will try to get the next chappie out this Sunday… I have it all planned out… and it's probably going to be long… it it's the last… not sure yet…