Robin had been working furiously, as well as the rest of his team. They were looking all over for any signs of Beast Boy. Raven and Starfire had even moved their search out of the city limits, with Star heading north and Raven heading south. Cyborg had tried to scan for any signs of who or what was in the tower last. His scan showed nothing but Beast Boy, then he was just gone. No other thermals or intruder alerts were available for the team, making things extremely difficult to know who had taken Beast Boy.
Robin had tried to look at the security cameras, but it seems as if whoever had taken Beast Boy had hacked in to the system and either erased or found a way to replace the footage with a loop. He slammed his hands on the keyboard in frustration. He took a moment to gather himself before he caused anymore damage to the innocent computer.
He heard a beeping and looked over to see what the commotion was. Starfire was trying to reach him with a message. Pressing a button, her dejected image popped up on the screen. He didn't need for her to say anything to know that she didn't find him.
"Yes Star?"
She gave a sigh as her shoulders slumped before delivering his message.
"I have found no signs of friend Beast Boy. I've searched everywhere that I can."
Running a hand through his hair, he let out a frustrated sigh.
"Alright. Make your way back here and we'll worry about searching for him tomorrow."
She nodded her head and the signal cut. Leaning back, he rubbed his temples as a headache was beginning to form. This day was becoming more and more disastrous.
He watched a teammate beat a villain within an inch of his life. Then, he snapped at said teammate and called him something he has really come to regret. And now, he has disappeared and left without a trace. His worries about what the media would say about Beast Boy snapping were the last thing on his mind. Now he was concerned with how they were going to find Beast Boy and what the media would be like if they find out what's happened to him.
As he was in his thoughts, another beeping sound was emitted. Picking his head up, he checked to see who it was. Raven was trying to get in touch with him now, hopefully with some good news. Pressing a button, her face appeared.
"Have you found anything?"
She shook her head and Robin let out another sigh. If he wasn't near here, he could be on the other side of the world right now. This couldn't get any worse.
"Alright, come on back to the Tower. We'll regroup and try again tomorrow."
She gave a nod and the communication cut out. He rested his elbows on the computer and put his head in his hands. His emotions were all over the place. He was upset at himself for causing this mess. He was mad at Beast Boy for running off and not letting them have a chance to apologize. But mostly, he was disappointed at his team. He knew their actions were the cause of this. Constantly belittling him, telling him he wasn't cutting it, and never taking the opportunity to help him become better.
As he was sulking at the computer, Cyborg walked in looking for him. He noticed Robin at the computer and saw he wasn't in a good mood. Taking a chance he walked over to him to check and see if he received any news.
"Have the girls found anything on B?"
He heard a muffled reply that sounded like a "no", and gave a sigh. Cyborg himself was becoming frustrated at this mess. Who knew that this day could become any worse. He couldn't find anything and it looked like nobody else could either.
As the two of them were contemplating everything that had happened throughout the day, another beep was going off on the computer. Robin perked his head up in confusion, and Cyborg was looking to see if he could tell who was trying to reach them. Looking over at Robin, Cyborg could tell that he wasn't expecting another call.
"You said you already checked with the girls right?"
Robin furrowed his eyebrows and gave his answer while still looking towards the computer.
"Yeah, I just spoke to them a couple of minutes ago."
Cyborg rubbed his chin and was trying to figure out who else could have their signal.
"Well, let's check and see who it is."
Robin nodded and pressed the button on the computer and both went into shock. On the screen was the Justice League. To say this was unexpected would be an understatement. They could see that the League seemed to be in the same mood as them, most notably Batman.
"Robin."
Batman spoke and Robin immediately collected himself. For his leader to send them a call meant that this was serious.
"Yes Batman?"
The Caped Crusader stepped closer to the screen to speak to his former protégé.
"I'm calling to inform you of an issue that has come up."
The two Titans immediately perked up at this. Robin was right; this was serious. Batman wouldn't be calling them if he thought he could handle this himself.
"What's going on?"
Batman took a breath before he spoke again.
"About three weeks ago, I went back to Gotham to check on the city. As I took a look around the tower, I noticed Batgirl was missing. Alfred said he hadn't seen her for a few days and thought she was training."
Robin's jaw dropped and Cyborg froze. This sounded as if she too just disappeared. They were hoping they weren't jumping to conclusions, but Batman's tone sounded like they were on the right path.
"I went to her room and found it to be empty, other than the bed and stuff I left for her to use when she came her. I've tried looking for her but so far I've came up with nothing."
The boys dropped their head and swore. Batman and the rest of the team seemed to notice it.
"What is it?"
Cyborg rubbed a hand over his head and looked to Robin. Robin noticed it and dropped his head again. He really didn't want to tell Batman about it, but if he was facing the same thing as Robin was, they might be able to work together on this.
"We're facing the same issue with Beast Boy right now."
This seemed to shock the League. They murmured about for a bit while Batman rubbed his chin. He wasn't going to immediately associate the two incidents together, but he knew how Cassandra and Beast Boy got along together. The two had seemed to become good friends and the two of them leaving their teams so close together in time couldn't be a coincidence.
"What exactly happened with Beast Boy?"
Robin rubbed the back of his neck before answering his former mentor.
"We had a situation at the bank with the HIVE. We made a plan and went in to stop them. Gizmo ran his mouth and caused Beast Boy to let his anger out. He ran towards Gizmo and ran him through a wall."
He had to swallow back the lump in his throat before he went on.
"We fought the remaining villains and wrapped it up pretty quickly. We noticed that Beast Boy hadn't returned from his fight with Gizmo, so we went over to check what was going on."
He took a breath, running his hand through his hair before continuing. This was more difficult than he thought.
"We saw him beating the life out of Gizmo. He didn't have a scratch on him, but Gizmo looked like he had been through hell. We finally got him off of Gizmo and I went to access the damage."
Batman narrowed his eyes as Robin continued with the story.
"I'm sure Beast Boy knew not to kill him, but he was very close to doing so. My head started to get filled with thoughts on how I was gonna have to do damage control and I snapped at Beast Boy."
Batman watched as Robin hung his head. Reading his body language, he could tell it was affecting him. He watched on as Robin continued to struggle. Finally, he decided to push the issue and get whatever it was affecting him out of him.
"Go on..."
Robin took a breath trying to calm himself. Cyborg watched on as his leader was trying to compose himself, knowing he had been beating himself up since they had come back and found Beast Boy had left. Keeping his eyes down, Robin finally spoke.
"I told him that I would have to cover his ass and asked him why he had to act like such an animal."
He heard some of the League members gasp and knew that Batman was looking at him with disapproval. It seemed like the League thought the same as Batman.
"What the hell, kid?"
Flash spoke up first. Robin was expecting a reaction like that. He got some more rebuttal from a couple more of them, but oddly enough, Batman was silent. Looking back up, he saw the man's steely eyes boring in to him.
"I take it he had a bad reaction?"
Robin shook his head and began to elaborate.
"He made his way over to me and had me repeat myself. I knew I messed up and tried apologizing, but he just waved it off and made his way back here."
He rubbed his forehead for a moment before continuing.
"Once we got done at the scene, we came back here. I tried to see if I could speak to him but when I got to his room, his communicator was outside his door. Once I stepped inside, it was in the same condition as you found Batgirl's."
Batman nodded his head and began to think. There has to be something going on. For two people to leave their team in such a close amount of time, it was looking like it was planned out.
"Had he showed any signs before about leaving?"
Robin began to think, but Cyborg had jumped right on it.
"I wouldn't say he was leaving, but he had started to distance himself from us."
He saw Batman narrow his eyes. He didn't know if he messed up with what he said, or if he was starting to hypothesize. Finally after a few seconds, he spoke again.
"For him to start distancing himself means that he had begun the process of leaving. He was disassociating himself with you and pulling away so he wouldn't have any attachments."
Robin swore under his breath and ran a hand through his hair. At this point, his typical spiked hair was all askew and going off in different directions. He could feel his headache getting stronger and wished this was all just a dream.
Cyborg could tell his leader was having a hard time staying composed. Trying to see if he could lessen the load on his leader.
"We'll look for any clues out here for where Beast Boy may be. If we find anything, we'll let you know and see if it correlates to Batgirl's disappearance."
Batman gave a nod and cut the feed. Just as the screen went black, the common room doors opened to reveal the girls walking in. Both looked tired and dejected. Raven looked up to meet Cyborg's eyes, and could tell something had happened. She looked over to Robin and saw that he was in a mental hell storm.
"Did something happen?"
Cyborg nodded his head and made his way over to the girls.
"Batman called. He said that Cassandra disappeared about three weeks ago."
Raven's eyes widened and Starfire gasped.
"Is friend Cassandra okay?"
Robin picked his head up and addressed her question.
"We don't know. It seems like she left the same way Beast Boy did."
The room fell silent for a second as both girls processed the news. For two people associated with each other to leave their teams couldn't be a coincidence. Raven finally spoke up once she got her head wrapped around everything.
"I'm guessing that we're going to be helping Batman find any clues about where Cassandra went, if Beast Boy and her left to join another team?"
Robin nodded his head to confirm her suspicion. While the girls had been trying to process the news, Robin had been thinking about his leadership abilities. For him and Batman to have a member of their respective teams leave, it was never a good thing. He had left Batman to step out of his shadow, not to end up becoming just like him.
Cyborg could see everyone was stuck in their own inner turmoil. He was tired of having this grey cloud hanging over this tower. Deciding to lighten the mood, he decided to get their mind off of everything for the time being.
"How about we cook up some food? I'm starving and I think right now it would be best for us to get some food."
Receiving a nod from the girls, he turned to Robin to get his reaction. Robin was still silently staring at the computer and in his thoughts. Walking over, he placed a hand on his leader's shoulder.
"Hey man, let's make some food. I think we should give it a rest for now."
Receiving a nod, Cyborg walked into the kitchen to start cooking up some food. Raven decided to meditate to gather herself until dinner was ready and Starfire decided to watch something on the television about fungus. Robin however, just kept quiet and stared out towards the ocean, silently questioning how he was going to get his team member back if it was even possible.
Author's Note:
Hey guys, just wanted to let you guys know that I didn't mean to upload the last chapter twice. My laptop freaked out and I thought it didn't upload the first time. Thanks for your continuing support and I promise to update as soon as possible.
