So...I just watched The Batman season 4 episode 1, and I decided that Zucco got off WAY too easy for killing Rob's parents. That's where I come in to make his life worse, ah, the power of a fanfiction writer. *sly grin*


Vengeance

Haly's Circus was a really well known place before the...incident. There was one in every city, even though the main one traveled from city to city because it was simply the best.

There was also one in Jump City, but it was abandoned after the Flying Graysons' accident; all of the circuses were.

Every time the Titans passed by the old building, Raven could feel strong emotions coming from her leader. Anger, sadness, regret, hate. She knew why; he grew up in the circus, he was part of the Flying Graysons, he watched his parents fall to their deaths during their performance in Gotham.

And the man who had caused that was currently terrorizing a small antique business with his 'family'.

Robin got off the R-Cycle and was about to run into the building when they arrived, but Raven pulled him back and motioned for the others to keep going.

"Behave yourself," she said. Her eyes locked on his face, showing that she was dead serious. (When wasn't she?)

His breath hitched when he realized what she meant, he didn't know if he should be angry or grateful, so he just nodded and ran in.

The mob boss grinned when he saw Robin, recognizing the Boy Wonder from when he was younger, a lot younger. "Looks like the kid's got a new family, what? Didn't it work out with Batman?"

Robin clenched his fist at the mention of 'family'. He knew the criminal meant Batman with that, but it felt like he was referring to his parents, even if he didn't know that he killed Robin's parents.

So Robin simply yelled 'Titans GO!' and sooner than he had imagined, Tony Zucco and his 'family' were being escorted into a police van.

Raven shot him one of her rare smiles, her way of telling him she was happy he kept his cool.


Robin walked into the living room, the others were playing volleyball on the roof, he had even gotten Raven to play with them. The only reason he wasn't with them now was because he wanted to check something, he simply needed to know if Zucco got put behind bars by now.

He switched on the news, frowning when he saw the police van had stopped in the middle of the road because of a flat tire. Probably drove over a pointy rock or something.

But because of this, a lot of reporters thought they could get a couple of answers out of the criminals for their new headlines.

"This is Vicki Vale, live at the scene."

Robin rolled his eyes, it was as if Vicki Vale was everywhere she could get the latest gossip. He watched as she managed to slip towards the tied up criminals without the cops knowing, either the cops were really stupid, or she was really stealthy.

"Mr. Zucco, do you admit to killing two of the three Flying Graysons seven years ago?" She blurted.

Robin froze, all the memories coming back to him because of that sentence. Suddenly he was a ten year old boy again, watching the fear in his parents' eyes as they fell to their deaths on the trapeze.

Tony grinned and his eyes snapped to the camera. "Yes, and I regret nothin'. They should have listened, they got what was comin' for them."

Robin's eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. His decision was quickly made and he walked out of the room.


"He ain't here," Cyborg called through his communicator when he entered the living room.

When Robin hadn't come back to the roof after about twenty minutes, the others decided to go check on him. But he was nowhere to be seen, so now they were searching the whole tower for him.

Beast Boy walked into the living room, a frown on his face. "He isn't in the gym."

"Or in the Bird Cage of Justice." Starfire said when she flew in.

Raven appeared behind Cyborg and lowered her hood. "He isn't in his room either."

Her eyes focused on the TV screen, her blood ran cold when she saw the live image of the police van driving, the tire had been fixed a while ago.

"Oh no," she breathed, realizing what the Titans leader was about to do. "Come on, we have to hurry!"

Before the others could realize what was happening, she had teleported them to the scene.

They appeared beside the van, the cops were clearly freaking out. Raven scanned the scene with her eyes, the criminals were still tied up but...Tony was missing, and there was a huge hole on the roof of the van.

"What happened?" She asked the officer standing closest to her.

The man was clearly a bit shaken up, but he cleared his throat and tried to look professional. "We were driving, but there was a sudden explosion, so we stopped. Me and my partner got out of the van to see that on the roof." He pointed to the man sized hole on the roof of the van.

"Before we knew it, a...shadow jumped out with Zucco, we couldn't see anything, just Zucco struggling as the figure dragged him away. From his reaction and the reaction of the other thugs, it wasn't an escape mission."

Raven glanced at the criminals, they were terrified. This was bad, very bad.

"We've got to find him!" Beast Boy spoke up. Raven silently agreed, scared of what Robin could do in this state.

As the officer left, Cyborg looked at something on his arm. "I tracked down his communicator, he's in...Haly's Circus."

Raven could feel the confusion of all the Titans, they didn't know Robin's past, they couldn't imagine why their leader would do something like this. That didn't really matter right now, all they had to focus on now was finding Robin and Tony. She didn't trust him right now, she had seen him angry when someone hurt her, he nearly killed someone when they managed to fatally harm her.

Tony Zucco had actually killed his parents. She was sure Robin could repay the favor.

"Beast Boy, Cyborg, stay on the ground and get to the place. Starfire, you're with me. Let's go." She called, lifting herself high into the air.

The other three Titans nodded and followed Robin's second in command's orders. Starfire mimicked Raven's actions and flew up, her worried green eyes scanning the whole area as they made their way to the circus.


"We need to stay silent, we won't be able to get him if he hears us." Raven whispered.

If Robin heard them coming, it would take him seconds to get Tony and go somewhere else. He was trained by Batman, he knew how to be stealthy and quick at the same time.

They managed to get in and hide behind a wall of empty boxes.

Robin was there, standing on the place trapeze swingers would be before they would perform. A bruised and beaten Tony Zucco was sitting at his feet, hands tied behind his back and face caked with a mix of dried and wet blood and tears.

"Wh-what are you doing thi-this for?" He stuttered.

Robin glared down at him, his voice cold as he spoke. "For ruining a young boy's life." He hissed, before kicking him off the platform.

Tony screamed, but the Titans did nothing, Raven told them to wait, and if Robin really was going to kill the criminal, then they would step in.

They watched as Robin jumped down and shot his grappling hook, catching the mob boss and landing on the other platform.

He grabbed Tony's collar and dragged him towards the edge again as he spoke. "Hundreds of families have been destroyed because of your selfishness and greed. I promised a kid to get back at you for killing his parents."

"W-which o-one?" Tony stuttered, his face going paler and paler the closer they got to the edge.

Robin gritted his teeth and held the criminal over the edge. Which one? This meant that he had ruined the life of more children?!

"Figure it out," he hissed.

He dropped him.

When Robin didn't make a move to save Tony, Raven decided it was time to step in.

Beast Boy shifted into a tiger and caught the criminal by the collar with his teeth before placing him on the ground and allowing Raven to cage the traumatized mob boss in a ball of black energy. She flinched when he passed out, Robin did some serious damage.

Robin stared at his team, a confused look on his face. Starfire used the distraction and flew up, wrapping her arms around her leader's chest and lowering them to the ground, Cyborg's Sonic Cannon aimed on the Boy Wonder the whole time.

As Starfire put Robin on his feet and let go, he frowned. "Guys? What's going on?"

"Friend Robin, we cannot allow you to do the killing of this man." Starfire muttered, her voice a bit sad from having to go against her friend.

This seemed to confuse him even more. "Kill?" His masked eyes locked on Raven's emotionless face and he froze as he understood.

She looked away, thankful that she couldn't see his eyes. She just knew that they were filled with hurt at the moment.

"I...wasn't going to kill-"

"You dropped him from that high up! That's an instant kill!" Beast Boy shrieked. "Why are you doing this? I know he did a lot of bad things, but he did nothing that deserved this!"

Robin clenched his fist, having a sudden urge to punch the green changeling for that comment. But then he reminded himself that his teammates (excluding Raven) knew nothing about his past and that he couldn't blame them for thinking like this.

"Listen," he sighed. "Batman has one rule that me, Batgirl and him had to follow. Don't kill. And I have no intention of breaking that rule."

"Yeah, well, you have a habit of even breakin' your own rules when you lose your temper. What stops you from breaking Batman's?" Cyborg asked.

Robin frowned as he realized something, he hid the fact that he was hurt and just kept a straight face as he talked. "You really don't trust me when I'm like this, do you?"

Each Titan looked away, feeling really uncomfortable with having to admit that fact.

"Raven?" He asked.

The half-demon almost cursed, he asked her on purpose. "You're...not yourself when you're angry." She stated carefully.

The Boy Wonder sighed and got something from his belt, rolling his eyes when Cyborg readied his cannon, Beast Boy shifted into a rhino, Starfire lit up her starbolts and Raven's eyes started to glow white.

He couldn't blame them though, he had proven before that he could beat them all. (Even if it was against his will, he blamed Slade for that one.)

"I wouldn't have let him die," he stated firmly. "Look."

Robin the disc on the ground and backed away as it exploded and ice began to spread. "The ice would've broken his fall." He explained.

"It would also have broken his back," Beast Boy muttered.

He shrugged. "A minor issue for all the things he's done," his voice hardened at the end and his head tilted to the side. Raven just knew that his eyes were locked on her, it was clearly aimed at her, she knew what he meant with 'all the things he's done'.

"Friend, please, why are you doing this?" Starfire pleaded.

Robin scowled. "Personal reasons, Starfire."

"I think we deserve to know why our friend and leader decided to go bad." Cyborg said, finally lowering his cannon when he realized Robin really wasn't going to do anything.

The Boy Wonder froze, not knowing what to do, for once. He definitely wasn't going to tell them the truth, it wasn't that he didn't trust the Titans, they had been a team for years now. If it was up to him, he would've told them his identity already, especially when all of them told each other their real names.

But Bruce wasn't as trusting, which was understandable. If the Titans knew his identity it wasn't that hard to figure out who Batman really was. The Dark Knight would kill him if he told, he wasn't all too happy about Raven knowing either. Robin had gotten a seriously long lecture when his father found out, he was actually surprised Batman didn't come to Jump and made him spar with him.

Batman's definition of sparring wasn't really fun. It basically meant 'kicking your ass until you're strong enough to take me down.' Which was almost impossible to do.

Robin had managed to win from his mentor one time, but after that, never again. Apparently, Batman had been holding back until that moment; after that, he went full out when 'sparring' against Robin.

"I...made a promise to a young boy, Zucco killed his parents, and I promised the him I'd make sure the low-life got what was coming for him. And I like to keep that promise." He stated.

It wasn't really a lie, but it wasn't the truth either.

Robin had promised to himself that he would get back at Tony Zucco. He wanted the man dead, but after Batman took him in, he decided he couldn't do that. It was the wrong thing to do, and Bruce would be really disappointed, Robin was sure his parents wouldn't have wanted it either.

So killing wasn't an option, but that didn't mean he couldn't inflict lots of pain on the criminal, and now was his chance.

Hell, he probably would've let it go and simply let Tony get taken by the cops. But after he made that comment on the news, Robin just had to break him out and do things his way.

He was pretty sure this wasn't what Batman had in mind when he gave Robin the explosive gel...or maybe it was, the man was prepared for everything.

Before anyone could say anything else, the police sirens could be heard and Robin shrugged. "Why don't we get Zucco to the police?"

They walked out of the old building; Raven carrying Tony with her magic. She tensed when Robin passed her; he leaned down, his lips to her ear. "We need to talk," he breathed, before continuing to walk.


"You seriously didn't trust me?!" He hissed after the door to his room shut. The walls were sound proof, he didn't have to worry about the others hearing them arguing.

"Can you blame me? You nearly killed Madam Rouge when she tortured me!" She countered.

Robin rolled his eyes. "That has nothing to do with this."

"Yes it does!" Raven said, her voice raising as she lost control of her temper. She didn't have to worry anymore about blowing things up, which was a good thing or else Robin's whole room would've been destroyed by now. "I'm just me, they were your parents! If you're like that with Madam for hurting me, than let alone Zucco!"

She had a point there.

Robin sighed and closed his eyes, silently counting to ten before taking a step forward. "First of all, you're not just you. You're amazing and I could write down a whole damn list of all the reasons why. Second of all, I. Can. Handle. It."

She groaned. "You're so damn stubborn, you know that? You were obsessed with catching Slade, you're scary as hell when someone hurts me fatally, you're unpredictable. Excuse me for thinking that you were going to kill Zucco for taking your parents from you!"

He flinched but quickly covered it up. "I'm many things, Raven. But I'm not a killer."

"As far as I know, you weren't a sadist either." She hissed, her head tilted slightly so that she could look up at him as they stood toe to toe.

The room was silent, the tension could be cut by a knife.

Robin growled and turned away, running his gloved hands through his hair as he sat down on his bed and took his mask off. "Am I really that unstable?" He asked, his voice small.

Raven hesitated, but nodded.

She watched as he groaned and placed his head in his hands, trying to figure out when exactly he allowed to his anger to get the best of him.

If Jason was here, he'd have called him a hypocrite. Dick always used to tell him to control his anger, and what was he doing now? It definitely wasn't controlling his anger.

Raven sighed and sat down beside him. "Look, I'm sorry that I judged you that quickly. I should've contacted you first, but-"

"I know," he cut her off and looked up, shooting her a smile. "I'm sorry too."