A/N: I never thought I would make it this far with this fic! I'm so happy! I usually don't like ending fics either the way I planned them or I just quit. This one was a great idea and I'm in love with writing for it. But all good things must come to an end sometime. So I'm guessing around three to five more chapters for this fic after this one. But please R&R! Thanks!

Disclaimer: Me don't own! I ain't so well in English class. Just kidding! I'm getting an A.

Chapter 24 Glass Signal

Plan after plan swam around in Robin's brain as he sat there in his leather seat in the jet. His mind was quickly going over everything he could think of. He wished he had more time to think things over, but time wasn't on his side anymore. He had to make due with the three hours he had till they landed on Jump City soil.

The jet's cabin was completely quiet for the first hour from their checkpoint in Florida. The only sound was the loud hum and buzz from being at such a high altitude in the air. Slade didn't feel like telling his soon-to-be apprentice any of his plans, and Robin didn't feel like speaking to the madman as well. The two would only glance up at each other every so often.

Finally lunch came to the teen. Robin didn't feel like eating. He usually didn't eat on planes, but some food would give him some brain power at the moment. The teen stared at the plate full of delicious food and crystal glass of water as his mind mulled over what to do.

Slade wasn't hungry and looked up from his newspaper when he didn't hear Robin dig into his food. Robin finally gave a sigh of defeat as he reached for his fork. He gave a quiet grunt of frustration when he couldn't reach it with his right hand because it was handcuffed to his chair. He rolled his eyes under his mask while giving up on eating entirely. He glared daggers at Slade while grabbing his crystal glass and gulping down his water.

"Aren't you ambidextrous, Robin?" Slade asked the teen with a small, sardonic smile.

"Actually, Slade, I'm not hungry," Robin answered stiffly. He put the empty glass down and flicked it a few times to make a soft ding sound echo around the cabin. "What ever happened to the simple peanuts?" he added with a dry chuckle. He glanced up when hearing Slade's communicator go off. Slade pulled the thing out of his belt while giving a warning glare to the teen before answering it.

"Jake," Slade said with a nod. "Why are you calling?"

Robin bit his lower lip when hearing that it was Jake on the other end. He knew that Jake had to be quick and smart because the teen was taking his place at the Tower. Slade would only pick the best to do that job. Robin's mind raced as he tried to think of a way to get some kind of message across to the other teen without Slade knowing. The boy had to try not to smile as a thought hit him.

"I'm getting antsy, Slade," Jake was saying. "The Titans are finally getting the message that maybe I'm not their leader. I can't be clone boy for forever, you know. And Jessica is a pain in the ass! I don't want her working by my side when I steal! She is too much of a handful and more of a nuisance than help." He paused before saying boldly, "I want to talk with Val."

Ding, ding. Slade looked up to Robin before telling Jake sternly, "No." Ding, ding, ding…Ding, ding. Slade glanced at Robin and gave him a glare to stop flicking the glass as he tried to reason with the teen taking Robin's place at the Tower. Robin ignored him as he kept flicking the glass in a pattern that repeated after every nine pauses.

"Why can't I?" Jake asked. Slade saw the teen's face pale as a thought came to him. "Don't…don't tell me you killed her!" he said in barely a whisper. "Please don't tell me that!"

"She's alive," Slade answered as he rolled his one eye, "For now. That can all change if you don't do exactly what I say." Ding, ding, ding, ding…Ding, ding, ding. Slade glared another time at Robin to shut him up, but the kid was ignoring him and staring boringly out the window. The man didn't think much of what Robin was doing and threw his actions away as just a simple nervous or bored habit of his.

"Whoa! What's going on?" Jake asked Slade, slightly confused. "The plan is actually working? Are we really going to blow it up?"

Slade wanted to bash Jake over the head with something hard when he said this. He noticed that Robin had stopped his flicking for a few seconds and was looking his way with wide eyes of horror. The captured teen finally put his head back together as he continued to flick his glass. It was then that Slade caught onto what Robin was doing. He was doing that action on purpose.

"The plan is going smoothly," Slade told Jake. "You and Jessica are planned to meet me at the warehouse where you and Robin were switched, tonight, at midnight. Bring the things on my list and I'll take it from there. Just think, Jake, you and your little sister will be free at exactly midnight. You're so close to getting what you want, don't mess it up now."

"You mean that you'll let us go at midnight?" Jake asked him hopefully. He gave a relieved sigh before saying, "That sounds really good. I'll tell Jessica where to meet and we'll see you then."

"Good boy," Slade said slickly with a wicked smile on his lips. The screen then went black as Jake hung up on the other end. It would be easy to finally kill the teen. He was too clouded with hope to realize that he was walking right into a trap.

"This is unbearable!" Robin yelled suddenly while brandishing the glass cup in his left hand. His fake anger outburst ended quite suddenly when Slade grabbed his wrist tightly before the boy could smash the crystal. Robin tried not to wince as he felt his wrist being crushed in the man's hand, but he was having a difficult time holding in his pain. The defenseless teen looked up to Slade's face that was only inches away from his own.

"You had me going for a while there, Robin," Slade said venomously into Robin's face. He squeezed the teen's wrist some more and watched as Robin grimaced in pain. "But that phone number didn't respond to you before, what makes you so sure it will answer for him even if he does get the message?" Robin didn't answer. He only frowned intensely up at his adversary. It was all he could do.

-Jake-

"Crap, crap, crap!" Jake muttered again as he replayed the conversation with Slade over and over again. At midnight both he and Valentine were going to get killed if he didn't come up with a plan. He knew Slade too well by now. He knew that the man wouldn't keep both of them around. The problem was that his head was getting overwhelmed and was shutting down. He couldn't think straight!

Jake rewound the recorder another time with a shiver going down his spine. Slade could be so creepy sometimes. Around halfway through the recording his mind finally caught onto something. His eyes flew open as he heard the pattern of dings. He quickly rewinded the tape again with a smile flashing onto his lips. He scribbled down the numbers and right away saw that they were really a phone number. It was pretty far fetched, but it was worth a try.

When glancing up to a clock on the wall, Jake winced when seeing that he had been in the room thinking for over an hour now. Raven must have been worried sick. Quickly, the teen gathered the communicator, tape recorder, and piece of paper with the phone number on it together and headed for the sliding metal door with hope in his wide blue eyes this time.

As soon as the door swooshed open, hands grabbed onto Jake's shoulders and shoved him forcefully forward and into the hallway. Jake let out a yell of surprise as he lost his balance and whacked into Cyborg's huge chest. Everything in the teen's hands spilled to the floor with a crash as Jake tried to get away.

Cyborg was quick this time, though. Before Jake could run out of his reach, he grabbed the back of the small teen's shirt and reeled him in with an evil smile. Speedy, one of the newly arrived Titan East members, handed Cyborg some rope and watched with a satisfied smile as they tied up their poorly accused victim.

"Let me go!" Jake yelled while shooting Cyborg a disgusted look. He growled his frustration over the matter as his hands were tied behind him. Jake managed to wiggle out of Cyborg's strong grip and ran to the doorway that went into the living room. He didn't make it far because Cyborg was still holding onto the rope that bound the teen's hands together.

Suddenly Jake found himself having his feet slip out from under him and he landed painfully on his butt. He gave a small groan as his spine tingled in pain. His eyes went wide with surprise as he started to get dragged backwards by Cyborg. It was times like these when Jake wished he went and pumped iron at the gym more often. His strength compared to the half robots' was like comparing a bug's to a bear's. Very quickly Jake was back in Cyborg's strong hands. That fact didn't stop Jake from protesting physically and vocally.

"I'm on your side now!" Jake yelled at the Titans East and Cyborg. He noticed that Starfire, Beast Boy, and Raven were no where to be seen at the moment. "Let me go!"

"Well, X, this is what you get for being Jump City's top thief," Cyborg said to the teen with a smug smile. "I think you might want to get used to being either tied up or handcuffed. Jail tends to keep you bound up like this."

"Where is Raven?" Jake yelled. "I want to see her! Didn't she tell you that deal we made?"

Cyborg ignored the question as he asked the Titans East, "So what do you make of him, guys?"

"Man, he sure does look like Robin," Speedy said while tapping his chin in thought.

"What am I?" Jake asked them with distaste, "A show dog?"

"Right now consider yourself just that," Cyborg said to him.

Jake growled in anger while glaring dangerously back at the Titan. He glanced down at Mas and Menos and barked down at them, "Take a picture! It will last longer!" The two Spanish speaking twins quickly backed away from the thief from the scare of his sudden anger outburst. They then started to rapidly converse to each other about the teen. The boy didn't seem to get any happier when he caught a few bad words shared between the twins. He hadn't taken three years of Spanish for nothing.

"Hey!" Cyborg shouted at Jake while turning the teen toward him to stare down at him, "The Titans East are our friends. Have some respect for once. 'Kay?" Jake for the first time held his usual colorful tongue and only glared back up at Cyborg.

"I don't know, Cyborg," Bumble Bee finally spoke up for the thief. "I mean, if the most opposite people on your team say he's actually an okay guy right now, I would think it would be true."

"Plus," Aqualad added with a shrug, "If he's smart enough to trick even Raven with her whole mind and vibe reading magic to believe he's Robin, he's smart enough to know Slade doesn't want him after this."

"What makes you think Slade wants to kill him?" Cyborg asked the Atlantian as he shoved Jake into the circle they had created in the hallway. "He might just be on Slade's side!" Jake rolled his eyes in aggravation as the group fought over what to do with him. He thought it truly unjust and wanted to go to court where true, sensible adults argued over his life. But then the teen decided there really was no difference and that this way was faster, so he accepted his tough situation.

"True," Bumble Bee said after a pause for thought. "But what Aqualad is trying to get at is the fact that Slade knew that for Red X to be a great Robin, he would really have to befriend all of you guys. And what good is he later on, when he tries to kill you? He's spent months with you guys and I'm sure he's bonded closely with at least one of you. He would hesitate if Slade told him to kill one of you, and Slade wouldn't want that."

"I like this girl," Jake said to Cyborg with a wry grin just like Robin's. "You should listen to her more often, you know? She knows the truth." Jake paused as he changed his mind. "Well, most of the truth," he said. "But she's making a whole lot of sense. Just add some blackmail and everything will be a-okay."

"You have no opinion in this, X," Cyborg snapped back. Jake frowned and tried again to slip out of the knots in the rope binding his arms behind him. Suddenly the door to the living room swooshed open and Raven stormed into the hallway with a black mass of anger burning around her body. The Titans East watched her with either winces or bitter smiles as she walked up to Cyborg. Beast Boy and Starfire hesitantly followed after the girl.

"What are you doing, Cyborg?" she asked him with as little emotion as she could muster. "I thought you said you were only going to wait at the door for the Titans East. I didn't want you to go ambush Jake."

"You're head isn't on straight, Rae," Cyborg said to the Goth girl. "This is the enemy and you know it. Something is just clouding your better judgment." Jake opened his mouth to shout a protest, but Raven got their first to defend the thief. Everyone else just watched in silence as the two Titan members argued.

"I'm completely fine!" Raven retorted. She gathered all of Jake's things he had dropped on the floor. She looked at the piece of paper with the cell phone number and shot Jake a questionable look. He wasn't looking at her at the moment, though. He was staring at Cyborg and looking extremely pissed off. He had a right to be. Raven was just grateful that he was holding in his anger. She didn't know how long till he would explode, though.

"Well, how long ago was it since you meditated?" Cyborg asked her. Everyone looked over to Raven, expecting a good answer to come from her. So far Cyborg was making more sense to the other members.

This seemed to fluster the Goth girl as she frowned up at her friend for a second or two as she tried to pick her next words wisely. She finally shook her head with frustration and said, "That doesn't matter right now!" She shoved the tape recorder into Cyborg's face and said, "The reason I'm angry right now is that you went against my orders and you're accusing Jake once again. He was only in the other room because he was checking on something."

"Really?" Cyborg asked her as he grabbed the recorder out of her hand. He pressed play before Jake could yell a protest. Slade and Jake's recorded voices filled the room as everyone froze to listen.

"The plan is actually working? Are we really going to blow it up?"

"The plan is going smoothly. You and Jessica are planned to meet me at the warehouse where you and Robin were switched, tonight, at midnight. Bring the things on my list and I'll take it from there."

Cyborg stopped the tape there. The half robot heaved a heavy sigh before saying grimly to Raven, "He was checking on something alright. He was checking up on Slade."

"You guys don't understand!" Jake yelled at all of them suddenly. "I called him to see if he hadn't found out about me. Everything you just heard was me being a fake! I don't want Slade to know that I have the Titans East here right now or that everyone knows that he's planning to blow this whole city up. You guys need to believe me! This city is at stake."

"Yeah, well, you could still be lying to us," Speedy said while folding his arms in front of him. His masked eyes narrowed as he explained. "You could be trying to lure us away as Slade easily does something else to destroy the city or to take off with Robin." Mas and Menos nodded to back up their teammate.

"I say we throw him in jail and go out to find Robin," Cyborg said to Raven. "That would be the smart thing to do."

"Midnight, people!" Jake shouted at them. "Slade, Robin, and my little sister will be here at midnight! Slade said so himself on that tape. Replay it if you want to. I don't give a rip! The point I'm trying to make at, though, is that we don't have much time to put a plan together. Trust me for a few hours and you might just get a city to wake up to tomorrow morning."

"Yeah!" Beast Boy finally spoke up. "Jake and I have been planning this for a week now! Trust him, dudes! The guy is as smart as Robin about this. We have a plan!" The thief and green teen shared brief eye contact as Jake thanked Beast Boy with a faint smile.

"At least call this number I found when last calling Slade," Jake said while pointing to the paper with the cell phone number in Raven's hands. Everyone gave the thief an odd look, but he quickly started to explain. "Someone was tapping something in the background the whole time Slade and I talked. It kept repeating the same pattern of numbers. When I replayed the tape I realized they were a phone number. It seems like a good start for anything."

There was silence in the hallway for a few seconds as they all looked at each other with confused or frustrated looks on their faces. Finally Cyborg muttered, "This is crazy." Jake couldn't help but nod his head in agreement. He had to admit that he was being a bit on the brash and crazy side.

"I would like to try it," Starfire spoke up quietly. Everyone looked to her with surprise. She blushed slightly under the pressure of all their stares, but she quickly recouped and said in her innocent voice, "You are very unwise to deceive my friends." She stared at Jake this whole time. "But you helped save our city once and I think you could do it again." She then looked to the others and said in a louder voice, "I wish to call the number he found."

"Majority rules," Cyborg said after a slight pause. "We call the number." All the Titan East members simply nodded as they kept their opinions to themselves. Beast Boy and Starfire shared smiles while Jake and Raven exchanged worried glances. Both had the same question going through their heads. What if the number was just a dead end?

The group all walked into the living room in a hurry. Cyborg kept a close eye on Jake as he had an arm on the boy's shoulder the whole time they dialed up the number. Jake's arms were still tied behind him, but he didn't notice the rope cutting into his skin when the group listened to the phone ring. Sweat ran down his forehead and stung his blue eyes that were glued to the screen above him. Cyborg tightened his grip on the teen's shoulder when they heard the other side finally pick up on the fifth ring.

"Robin?" a girl's voice asked them suddenly. Her voice was filled with concern and worry. It took everyone off guard because they weren't expecting anyone to actually pick up. The few Titan East members sitting on the couch quickly flew to their feet with wide eyes of surprise.

"This is Raven from the Teen Titans," Raven spoke for the group because Cyborg wasn't quick enough because of his shock.

"The Titans?" Sam asked with astonishment in her voice this time. "Where the heck is Robin? How did he give you this number?"

"We will answer your questions once you answer ours," Raven said as nonchalantly as she most possibly could. She was having trouble keeping the hopeful excitement out of her usual monotone voice.

"What do you mean by 'we' and 'our'?" Abe's voice suddenly came to the group. "Who is with you, Raven?" The kid was smart enough to catch the smallest words sometimes.

"The rest of her team, the Titans East, and a captured fake Robin," Cyborg answered for Raven this time.

"You mean Jake is there with you?" Abe asked with anticipation. They heard him call to someone in the background. Then Valentine's voice filled the room as she yelled, "Let me speak to him!"

Jake was speechless as he stared up at the screen. His thought he felt his heart skip a beat. He hadn't heard that very voice in weeks. It was the spotlight in every dream lately. The person wanting to talk to him was his passion in life that he had to give up just a few hours ago. He didn't think that he would ever have that voice fill his ears ever again. Tears threatened to escape his eyes as he knew she was okay and still living. Joy overcame him.

"Val? Is that you?" he asked with his voice unsteady. Tears started to roll down his face and he sniffed a little to try to keep himself from sounding like an idiot to his little sister. He smiled faintly at the thought.

"Jakey!" Val yelled into the phone happily. Jake gave a small sob as glorious relief in ages washed over him. "Are you crying, freak?" Valentine asked him with a giggle.

Jake laughed out loud while trying desperately to dry up his tears. "No, of course not!" he answered. "Why would I cry? How have you been, dork?"

"Thanks to the Hess family, I'm not with Slade anymore," she said. "But Robin still is. The problem right now with us is that we don't know where Slade is taking Robin."

Jake nodded as his emotions were sorted out inside of him. "Good, great news," he muttered. "I know exactly were the madman is heading. Look, Val, I have a plan to save this city from Slade and help Robin get back to his team…"

"No!" Val yelled back angrily. "You promised, Jake! You said we would survive and we would move into a big house because of the money Slade said he would give you for your job! Why are throwing it all away to try to save the stupid city only to get yourself killed?" Now she was crying. "It's not fair, Jake!"

"I know, Val," Jake said quietly.

"Don't be an idiot, Jake!" Val screamed at him. "You don't have to do anything! Please, don't. I already lost my parents. You're my only parent and brother now. If you die I'll have none left."

Everyone watched Jake as his insides were torn apart. Starfire had tears in her eyes because she had just seen the teen go from so much happiness to sink to an all time low. Raven felt Jake's feelings and she desperately wanted to help him, but this issue was all up to him.

"I'm not going on a suicide mission, Val," Jake said sternly to her. "I'm the only one in this city who knows what's going on and knows exactly what to do about it. I'm not going to simply back out now and say I quit because I don't want to get killed or hurt. I have one more thing to do before we can go back to normal, but I can't promise our lives will be the same after this.

"Now, I need you either sit tight with the family your with till this is over, or you can join this plan of mine and we can work it out together. But I don't need you to be worrying about my worthless life as a whole city's worth is in danger. What's it going to be, Val?"

There was a pause on the other end. If anyone doubted Jake before, now they fully believed he was on their side. Some in the group let out small smiles at Jake's selfless actions. Raven thought that maybe they were getting to the teen somehow, and she couldn't help but smile along with the others.

"You're sounding more like a dad than a brother," Valentine finally said with a sigh.

"That's the point," Jake said with a wide smile coming to his lips. "That voice is the only one that sounds the closest to dad's. It's the only voice you actually listen to. Now give the phone to someone you're with, okay?"

"Don't you want my answer first?" Val asked.

"Shoot, kid."

"I'm with you all the way, freak, but I expect you to have a really good plan. I don't want crap from you. You hear me, Jakey?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

A/N: This looks like a good place to stop off before I get carried away with myself. I'm getting a bit excited for my ending! I hope you liked this chapter and please give a review! Thanks!