It didn't matter how many you saved, the ones you didn't, stuck with you forever.
Robin pulled the helmet off his head, a few beads of sweat ran down his face. He dropped the helmet on the ground as the lights on his bike flickered out, casting the area into darkness. The boy trudged forward, his boots dragging through the grass and breaking the soft silence around him.
Moonlight hung over his path as the boy made his way through the graveyard, memories washing to the surface. Unknown tombs called to him in the quiet of the night. Many were names he didn't recognize, but two were names he knew by heart.
Robin sighed, continuing through the maze of green grass and mindlessly tracing a path he had walked many times before. He should have changed out of his uniform and back into his civilian outfit before doing this, but he was tired. The ride from Jump had been more strenuous and exhausting than usual.
Besides, it was the dead of night and no one was awake to see.
There's always someone who sees.
The boy shrugged off the thought, keeping his eyes glued to the ground. Tonight, he didn't quite care. He needed a break. The stress from Jump was eating him alive. These past few months had been more demanding with criminals coming out of every decrepit nook and corner to test the 'power of the almighty heroes of Jump City.'
It was getting quite old, quite fast.
So, he had snuck away. After tossing and turning for an hour, he had simply gotten up and left in the vain attempt to find some respite from it all. He hadn't meant to drive here, it had just sort of happened. His mind had been on autopilot, so it had fled to the one remaining place where he could find refuge. The full moon loomed over him as he continued his trek up a low hill.
If Bruce knew he was in Gotham right now and didn't come to visit, the man would literally kill him. Scratch that – Alfred would kill him. Robin sighed. He could visit them another day. Christmas was coming up, wasn't it? Maybe this year Bruce would let the Titans stay with them for once.
His thoughts trailed off as he came upon the two, solid, marble gravestones.
It didn't matter how many you saved…
Robin closed his eyes letting a long breath pass through his lips.
…the ones you didn't…
He stepped closer to the tombstones, dropping to his knees in front of them.
…stuck with you forever.
His hand smoothed over the surface and wiped away traces of dirt that tainted its polished image. Robin's eyes flickered shut as his fingers traced over smooth, curly letters.
Mary Grayson.
John Grayson.
His hand fell into his lap as he sat there, motionless under the soft moonlight. A bird chirped in the distance, drawing his eyes up and towards the expansive sky. Robin took a deep breath, washing away the thick emotion that hung in his heart. The night they had died, Bruce had told him to find peace.
Peace…
Such an elusive thing. He had spent years chasing after it, only for it to always slip from his grasp and flee away into the ever-daunting abyss of life. The night still haunted the elusive emotion, and it plagued him in his darkest hours. He should have done more. He should have stopped it. He shouldn't have let them die.
His thoughts splintered off as his gaze returned to the motionless tombstones. A gentle breeze floated over the ground and fallen leaves rolled over his knees.
"Sometimes it all gets too much," Robin whispered while pulling his knees to his chest.
"Sometimes I wish you were still here, Mom, and you were teaching me how to walk on the tightrope. Or that Dad was showing me around the big circus tent. Or that…"
Robin trailed off as the memories began to fill his mind. He was seven again, watching his parents flip and twirl through the air. He was hiding on top of the large barrels of hay and watching the knife thrower practice.
He was walking through the great, big tent, munching on fresh popcorn.
He heard yelling.
He heard shrieks of terror.
The popcorn bag slipped through his fingers. He ran. He remembered the snap and the screams….
A stinging sensation filled his eyes, and the boy stood, shaking away the pain.
He still remembered the headline. How could he forget the painful irony that was etched within the words?
The Flying Graysons fall to their deaths.
Robin turned away and trailed down the hill, fighting away the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. A deep pain filtered into his heart as he collapsed to his knees, his mind silently crying out in agony. He thought it would have helped being closer to his parents. Instead, the sudden closeness made his pain so much worse. It had been a mistake to come here tonight.
Silence encroached upon him, an uncomfortable reminder of where he was. Tall trees casted faint shadows on the ground and blocked out the thin threads of moonlight that tried to break free from their grasp. Robin looked up at the sky, his hands falling to his sides.
Death was his only companion tonight.
A noise, soft and faint, reached his ears. The boy turned as a figure began to materialize from the shadows. He squinted his eyes as a shape began to take form.
"Who's there?" the boy asked as he slowly rose to his feet. Many thoughts raced through his head as his hand reached down to his utility belt. The boy swore. He should have done a thorough scan of the area before entering, especially at a graveyard in Gotham…
Robin pulled out his bo-staff, mentally bracing himself. Batman would kill him if something bad happened –
"Just old Mr. Robinson visiting my wife," came a shaky voice as a hunched over man appeared from the shadows, hobbling along the pathway with a cane.
Robin sighed in relief as the frail figure materialized and lowered his bo-staff.
"It's a little late to be out sir," Robin said as squinted his eyes at the man. Long wrinkled and sagging skin ran the length of the elderly man's face, but his eyes held a warmth and a youthful gaze that the man's body could no longer keep up with.
"Could say the same for you," the man said as he paused along the pathway. He adjusted his coat over his shoulders as a cool breeze whipped by. "But I suppose one can't help it when loneliness comes calling."
Robin shook his head at the truth buried in the statement. "Yeah, I suppose not," the boy said softly.
The older man smiled, his eyes twinkling in the moonlight. His gaze lingered on Robin, and he opened his mouth as if to continue the conversation. However, something stopped the man, and instead a look of sympathy washed over his face as he merely nodded at the boy and continued along the path. His footsteps crunched on the pathway as his small form hobbled away.
"Do you need help getting home?" Robin called after the man. This was not the time of night for an elderly man to be out and about in Gotham.
The man waved back at him, hoisting his cane in the air. "I don't carry this thing around only for convenience you know. I'll be quite alright."
Robin considered arguing with the man, but he let his breath of air leave his lungs without protest.
Ol' Mr. Robinson, like himself, just wanted to be alone.
The boy sighed and turned around, kicking a leaf into the calm air. He supposed that was why he had come here tonight. He was lonely and tired, and this was the closest he'd ever be to his parents anymore.
The moonlight shone down on his thin form, and Robin let out another sigh. He didn't want to go back. Not yet. Not now…
Not ever.
The thought scared him, but it also gave him a shred of comfort. No responsibilities. No pain. No panic. No nothing.
Just himself.
A pang of guilt shot through him for such a thought. He couldn't do that, and he wouldn't do that. Not to his team. Not to his family. They deserved better than this pitiful excuse of leadership.
Robin closed his eyes and let all his thoughts wash away. He allowed the moonlight to stream over his arms and breathe into him a peace he hadn't had in a very long time.
For a moment, all was calm.
"Does the night scare you, Robin?"
The boy froze.
The familiar voice sent claws of chills dragging along his back. He shut his eyes as the eerie night pushed into him, driving into his mind with a sharp edge. Why couldn't this day just be a bad dream?
"I don't know," the boy said as he turned around, "Does it scare you, Slade?"
There he was. The epitome of a figure exempt from the laws of time – untouched and unchanged after all the years. The powerful man was leaning against a tree, and while Robin could only dimly see the outline of his black and orange mask, the air around Slade felt very much the same. The cold chill of darkness wrapped around the ground, snaking its way to the boy.
"I wasn't the one about to beat up an elderly man."
Years ago, those words would have been enough to ignite the flame of anger in Robin.
But now…
Wind brushed around the boy's fingertips as he followed the current's path down to the trail the old man had taken. Robin's shoulders slumped as a cold breath of air bled past his lips.
Now those words only intensified the emptiness around him. A few dead and crumpled leaves rolled by his legs.
The boy's eyes remained trained on Slade's form, warily watching for any signs of attack. It had been years since he'd seen the man, and it was odd for him to show up now, of all times. He had searched for Slade for a while, after the whole 'end of the world' disaster, but the man had simply disappeared – vanished without so much of a trace.
"Where've you been?" Robin asked as he stared at the man.
Things felt different. Two years ago, he would have immediately launched into attack mode and called for back-up, but now…
Robin didn't quite know what to do. Things had changed. Two years was a lot of time. He was no longer the childish hero who made it his mission to bring down all evil in the world. He was older, stronger, and wearier. Villain after villain had worn him down, pummeled his rock-solid determination into a pile of gravel. His eyes had been burned with images he could never forget – images that haunted him when darkness fell.
And after years of fighting, there was still one villain who possessed the power to grind the pile of gravel into dust.
The dim figure pushed itself off the tree and stepped forward into the light. Two years and the man hadn't changed. Somehow Robin wasn't surprised.
"Had some loose ends to tie up…"
Robin raised an eyebrow at the vague statement. "Two years' worth of loose ends?"
Slade cocked his head to the right as his gray eye ran up and down Robin's form.
"Among other things."
The boy shook his head, not wanting to think about what those other things might have been.
"Can't say you've been missed."
With Slade back, all his problems now complied into one massive mess. Robin rubbed his head with a sigh. He now had to worry about a criminal mastermind running amuck in Jump city among all the other hundreds of petty villains.
Great.
Just what he needed on top of everything else.
"So, what's the next plot?" Robin asked as he gestured around, his voice cracking with weariness. "Destroy Jump city, enslave the population, and make me into your perfect apprentice?"
Slade's shoulders lifted into a shrug.
"If that's what you want."
"You're joking, right?"
"I never joke, Robin."
The Boy Wonder rolled his eyes as Slade took another step forward. He was well within attack range by now, and the boy didn't doubt that Slade could incapacitate him in the span of a few seconds. Robin plucked a piece of grass from the ground and rolled it between his fingers, watching as the moonlight twisted its green color into a faint shade of blue.
"What are you doing here, Slade?" he asked as he tossed the piece of grass to the ground.
"I could ask you the same thing, but we both know the only answer we would each receive would be a lie."
Robin didn't know what he expected, but the man's blunt answer was disconcerting. The boy rested his eyes on the grass but kept Slade well within his peripheral vision. The figure hardly moved, and Slade's lines slightly blurred against the faint shadows cast from the looming trees in the background.
The boy inhaled. "Are you here to fight?"
The man turned. "Are you?"
Robin raised his gaze to the sky, letting the silence seep into him. Black and orange hovered around him. "Do you always have a conversation in questions?" he asked.
"Not unless it's an important one," Slade said as he tugged at his gauntlets. With a snap and a hiss, a latch released and with a swift tug, the man's glove dropped to the ground. He set to the task of pulling the other one off, repeating the process.
Snap hiss.
The boy raised an eyebrow, his eyes flickering to the man.
Thud.
Slade felt the boy's fleeting gaze and chuckled, walking closer as he rubbed his hands. It was a haunting laugh that matched the whispering echoes of death around the pair. "Don't tell me you've never seen hands before, Robin?"
"Not yours," he responded as his eyes settled on his thick, pale fingers. It was odd to finally see the hands of the demon who kept him awake at night. He had been expecting long, deadly claws coated with dripping blood from its victims…razor-sharp, thin talons…or maybe even wolf-like paws with eight-inch nails. Absurd, yes. But these were the images his mind had conjured over the years.
Fingers were…odd but nonetheless welcome.
Robin looked away. "You'll leave fingerprints."
"Even with fingerprints, I'm still untraceable," Slade replied, nudging his gauntlets with the tip of his boot.
"Yeah," Robin said with an annoyed huff, "trust me, I know. I've had two years' worth of time to figure that out."
The trees rustled as another gentle wind passed through the cemetery. Here he was sitting in a graveyard with a ghost, with a man who seemed to constantly float between the lines in the world…
"How'd you find me, Slade?" Robin asked as he pushed himself off the ground.
… with someone who would always haunt his life.
The man's gray eye ran up and down the boy, assessing, calculating, evaluating.
"You've gotten taller, stronger too," Slade said as he cocked his head, pressing his bare hands behind his back.
Robin shook his head, trying to deflect the ominous, gray eye's attention away from him. "And you haven't changed at all. Stop avoiding the question."
A brief silence flickered by that caused the boy to look up at the man.
"Everyone's lost someone, Robin."
It took a long moment for the words to soak into the boy. The still air bled into them, pushing the vast emptiness deeper into Robin as he gazed at the man before him with clear eyes. Slade stared steadily back at him, standing among the words, undaunted and unaffected by the gravity they held. Robin opened his mouth but quickly shut it, turning away.
"I'm-m sorry. I didn't…" the boy trailed off, his words falling away into the silence that like the moon hovered over the pair. Was he really apologizing to Slade? Of all people? He shut his eyes as another breeze washed over him, running over his face and crawling up his arms. Death's hand reached all, even those who seemed immune to life.
Slade was human too.
"It's a mere coincidence I ran into you here," the man said as his feet crunched over the fallen leaves. "I came back to Jump a few months ago. The Titans…" Slade paused, the silence leaking into the air again. "They're a formidable team now. You've done a good job."
"Sometimes I think I haven't done enough," Robin mumbled as Slade's words washed over him.
Slade's footsteps raked against the fallen leaves.
Crunch.
"You've been watching us."
"I have," Slade said as he continued forward, the leaves crumbling under his boots.
"And what have you seen?"
"You've changed."
"So, have you," Robin countered.
Crunch.
"Two years is a lot of time."
"It gave me a lot of time to think too."
Crunch.
"About what?"
Robin opened his eyes as the coldness of the graveyard seeped into him again. His eyes drifted around. Looming trees and dead grass melted away into nothingness.
"Beast Boy had come up with a whole theory on how you died. He even based it off all the shreds of clues I had gathered from your departure." A thin laugh escaped the boy. "He said the only thing left of you, would be a ghost.
The boy inhaled a shuddering breath.
"I didn't believe him, but part of me wished it had been true. I wanted you to remain a ghost."
He felt death. It hovered around him. All those lives he couldn't save. All those voices he heard scream into nothingness. All those people he failed. His eyes traced up the hill, all the way to the very top where two gravestones sat like beacons in the night. Their dark silhouettes bled into Robin's heart, and the boy looked away as a deep pain washed over him.
"Old wounds are better left to rot away in memories," Robin whispered bitterly.
"I've had a lot of time to think about that. I've had a lot of time to think about a lot of things. And you know what I've figured out, Slade." A second, dryer, thinner laugh escaped the boy as he bent over. "I couldn't do it."
The words tasted foul in his mouth as he dropped his head to his chest. He felt the man's towering presence behind him and dropped his voice into a whisper. "If you ever came back to Jump, I told myself I couldn't do it."
Crunch.
"I wouldn't be able to beat you, not again."
The words were a deep slice into his chest that Robin had unsuccessfully tried to cover during the past two years with endless layers of victories and conquests. No matter how many times he had put a criminal behind bars, this fear had loomed over him, followed him, and tortured him, but he had never told a single soul – not Batman, not even the Titans. He had let it rot away inside of himself, a festering psychological torment. There was one criminal he would never be able to destroy. He wasn't strong enough, smart enough, or fast enough. He wasn't cold, calculating, and heartless. He didn't have a superpower to protect himself from the being who haunted him every hour of the day and night.
Robin's fingers ran along his bright uniform pausing at the 'R' stitched over his heart.
Crunch.
A hand fell on his shoulder.
"I didn't come back to Jump to torment you."
Robin tensed, an icy coldness running through his body from the man's touch.
"You'll always torment me, Slade."
"I could say the same about you…"
…Apprentice.
Robin slammed his eyes shut and clenched his fists together, the unspoken word blaring through his mind. "Two years and nothing has changed," he whispered feeling his final dregs of energy leave him.
The hand fell from his shoulder as the man took a step forward, coming to stand by Robin's side.
"No, I suppose it hasn't."
An eerie silence fell between the pair as they stood next to each other. His arch enemy was standing inches away from him, and yet oddly Robin didn't feel threatened. Slade wasn't here to fight, and Robin wasn't here to find one.
Another gentle breeze rushed over the silence of the graveyard, rising over the unusual pair. The boy exhaled with the wind, feeling his pain wash away and blend with the forgotten souls around him.
"Have you ever wanted to quit?" Robin blurted the question out before he could stop himself. A deep flush reached his cheeks as he turned away, biting his lips. Why of all people did he ask that question to Slade? The masked man would probably laugh at him for such a question. Why would Slade ever want 'to quit' being a criminal mastermind? The man practically breathed evil.
"This kind of life won't let you quit," Slade said after a moment's pause. He shifted his focus back to the boy; his black and orange mask glinted in the moonlight. "After a while, the mask isn't just a mask anymore."
Robin's hand automatically went to the domino mask plastered over his eyes. When was the last time he had taken it off anyway? With the Titans he was always Robin, always the Boy Wonder, always their fearless leader. Richard Grayson only existed in gossip magazines.
Which person truly wore the mask?
"I want to quit," he whispered as he touched the black and white facade. To escape from the hundreds of villains who wanted him dead. To be relieved of all responsibilities. To truly become a robin, undaunted and unfettered by any chains of the world.
To leave Jump.
To leave his team.
To leave Batman.
To be free.
"No, you don't."
The words snapped the boy out of his musings as he glanced up at the man next to him. Slade was shaking his head as a gentle laugh escaped his lips. Robin stilled at the surprisingly warm noise as it was so different from the chuckle he had heard moments before. The boy furrowed his eyebrows.
"Slade-"
The man pressed his hands against his back and turned slightly. "Robin wants to quit. The person under the mask doesn't."
The boy paused at the words, considering the perspective Slade offered. His arms hung like anchors at his sides. He reached up, tugging against their weight, and rubbed his cheek, pushing away a stray strand of fallen hair.
"Batman wants me to come back to Gotham."
Robin felt the words rush out of his mouth before he could stop them, but once they were out in the open, the boy felt lighter. Batman had been hounding him to return home for a few months now, and the boy just didn't know what to do – nor how to tell the Titan's about the Caped Crusader's demand. So, he had buried it away, allowing another aspect of his life to gnaw his sanity away.
Until the pressure from all the problems he had pushed away grew too much and he ended up here – confessing his innermost fears to his greatest enemy.
Sanity indeed.
"You don't want to?"
"I left Gotham years ago to get away from Batman."
That seemed like ages ago now. A youthful and rebellious little boy breaking out of the Bat Cave and speeding away to Jump City, desperate to prove himself to his mentor. A lonely boy living alone in a great big city, pulling together a group of misfits and forging them into a team. Training them. Making them better. Robin had poured all his energy into building the Titans and keeping Batman away. Blackmail had worked for a while, but after a few months, he hadn't needed blackmail anymore. Batman had stopped calling…stopped caring…
"Yet you've never quite gotten away, have you?" Slade asked as he faced Robin, his eye running up and down the boy's uniform. "As long as you're Robin," he said while tapping his finger against Robin's sleeve, "you'll always be a part of Bats."
The boy recoiled, crossing his arms over his chest. "I choose the name because of my parents," his eyes flickered to the hillside next to him, "not because of Batman."
Slade shrugged, a simple action for an intensely complicated man. "People don't know that. They see the traffic colored costumes and think of Batman's sidekick."
Robin rolled his eyes with a low growl. As much as he hated it, the man was right. Reporters in Jump still after all these yearsasked him about Batman, compared him to Batman, and talked with him about Batman. He couldn't break away. As much as he fought it, the shadow of the bat would always loom over him.
Slade stared at the boy for a long moment, his gray eye seeing, assessing, fixing. He turned and walked towards a path that branched off from the clearing and was covered by towering trees. Robin felt the man's presence move away like a specter ghosting between worlds.
"Perhaps it's time to move on," the man said.
Robin raised his hands in the air, a sigh of frustration escaping his lips. "To what?"
Slade paused at the foot of the path, his dark armor blurring against the shadows cast by the trees.
"My offer will always stand."
Chills raced down Robin's arms as he took a step back, shaking his head. "And my answer," he began while leaning down and brushing off some leaves that had landed on his boots, "will always be no."
He stood up, looking into the tormenting, gray eye. "I don't want to be a villain, Slade."
The man shrugged again as a devious glint entered his eye. "A villain to some is a hero to others."
The boy snapped completely upright at those words. He shot the man a wicked glare. "I hate you, you know that, right?"
A deep chuckle escaped the man, the noise echoing in the emptiness around them. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
Slade began to walk down the path, his frame a mere silhouette against the gloom of the night. He raised his bare hand and called after the boy, his words piercing through the air.
"Live your life, Robin. Before you end up underneath a stone like millions of others."
The boy watched as the man continued to walk along the flat ground, his powerful form mellowed by the peaceful quiet around the pair.
"Slade!"
The man turned and the moonlight caught the depths of his gray orb.
"You're not going to disappear for another two years, are you?"
They both stood, the withered grass and dead leaves separating them. Their eyes locked. A cavernous gray and a brilliant blue.
"That depends," Slade said. His voice was smooth and melted away into the night.
"On what?"
An unfamiliar glint entered the man's eye, and Robin swore Slade was smirking under his mask.
"On whether or not you can trace fingerprints."
Robin furrowed his brows, glancing around. "What do you mean-"
His words were washed away however, under the noise of crunching leaves as the man began to walk, following the winding path through the empty graveyard.
"Slade!"
But the path was suddenly empty, and like a ghost, man was already gone.
Robin glanced back along the ground, his eyes tracing over the footprints he had left imprinted in the grass. Fingerprints? Slade didn't touch anything except –
His eyes snapped around and fell on the gauntlets.
Robin whirled around, and a sudden stillness overtook the graveyard. His hand reflexively dropped down to his bo-staff, his mind alert and ready for danger. But everything around him was empty. The path Slade had been walking along moments before was dead of all life.
The man had disappeared again.
His hand tightened around the cold metal of his staff as he approached the gauntlets warily. Slade wouldn't be the type of person to rig them with explosives…would he?
The boy crouched down and picked up a thin, wooden stick. He twirled it in his hands and tossed it at the gloves.
Nothing.
Robin signed in annoyance and walked forward. He should probably go back to his R-cycle and grab his scanner and make sure there wasn't anything radioactive or some dangerous poison in the gloves. That's what Batman would want him to do.
He looked over his shoulder, back at the path where Slade had disappeared.
Perhaps it was time he finally stopped worrying about Batman…
He nudged the gloves with the tip of his boot, examining the smooth, black finish. Robin crouched down and picked one of them up, turning the surprisingly light piece in his hand. So these were the gloves of a madman.
He turned them over in his hands, feeling the smooth, light material slide between his fingers. His eyes traveled down the seamless metal as he pulled and twisted the glove, feeling the flexible metal bend under his command. Robin pulled out a bird-a-rang and ran the sharp edge down the outside of the gauntlet. The soft material suddenly hardened against the force, causing Robin's eyes to widen when he pulled his bird-a-rang back. Not a scratch. His eyes flitted around the small clearing, but there was still no sign of the masked ghost.
Fingerprints.
Slade had left behind his fingerprints.
But Robin knew it wouldn't matter. He could analyze every fingerprint and shred of DNA left on these gloves, but he still wouldn't be able to track down the masked man. Slade would only be found if he wanted to be found. He had left these behind for something else…a different reason.
An impulsive rush filled the boy as he rubbed his hands on the outside of the glove. He glanced around again, but only a soft breeze answered his searching eyes. The cool light of the moonlight washed over him as he slowly pulled his green gloves off his hands and dropped them to the ground. Their bright material called out to him from the dead leaves around his feet, but he pushed them aside with his foot.
His hand slipped inside Slade's glove. The surprisingly soft cushioning conformed around his hand, shirking smaller so that it matched his hand size exactly. The boy flexed his fingers.
It fit perfectly.
He held it up in the night, the moonlight running over it.
So these were the gloves of a madman.
He flexed his hand into a fist, admiring the way the material bent and twisted to his command. If he could somehow study this design and recreate the type of material…
Robin looked down at his uniform and sighed, pulling at the fabric. He had often argued with Batman about his choice of attire. The man had always tried to shove him into a thick, protective suit of armor, claiming that Robin was suicidal wearing his traffic colored uniform. The boy had always fired back, claiming his flexibility and mobility was the greatest defense he could have.
And on many occasions, the boy had been right, dodging and flipping through a labyrinth of dangers and coming through relatively unscratched. But on the rare instance, a blade sliced through the material and came too close to his heart, forcing Batman to bench Robin and argue him into submission. A few pieces had been added after each event – a thin chest plate worn under his uniform, metal braces on his legs, a thin mesh fiber woven into the material – but nothing ever sturdy enough to protect him under a barrage of bullets. Robin flexed his hand.
This, however, could.
Perhaps it was time for an upgrade.
He glanced down at the bright green gloves and sighed. When people mocked him for his traffic colored costume, maybe they had a point…
Perhaps he needed more than just an upgrade…
Robin sighed as he leaned back and sat down, the leaves crunching under his weight. His eyes lifted to the top of the hill and to his parent's gravestones that stood like two, dark beacons in the night.
Slade's words echoed in his head.
Perhaps it's time to move on…
Robin inhaled a shuddering breath. But how could he be something else, something other than the identity he had used to shield himself from the pains of his past? How could he be something other than the Boy Wonder? His eyes dropped down to the glove on his hand.
A mask defined his life. It ruled over him, covering him from the cruel and heartless world. It was all an act, a show, a lie. Dick Grayson hid under his mask because he was too afraid to fight the pains of his past.
His parents defined his life. Their deaths haunted his dreams, never letting him move on. Every day he donned his uniform, he thought of them, he thought of the innocence left in the world he had to protect, he thought of the cost of failure, he thought of their faces…
His mentor defined his life. His shadow loomed over Robin's shoulder, judging him, critiquing him, analyzing his actions…never good enough…never strong enough…still more work left to do…
His enemies defined his life. Their threats pushed him to extremes and forced him to adapt, to constantly be on guard, to constantly be searching, to constantly be improving. Every spare moment was spent researching, studying, and memorizing his opponents.
But he had never truly defined his life. Robin had done his job. He had protected a little boy, giving him the strength to overcome his past and strike out on his own. He had given the boy time to grow and to blossom into a man. And now…
Richard Grayson sighed as he rubbed his face with his bare hand.
Now…it was time to move on.
What exactly that entailed, Richard didn't quite know. Wherever he went, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Raven and Starfire would always be his family. The Titans would always be a team in his heart. He wouldn't leave them, not yet, not while there was still work left to be done in Jump.
But he needed time. He needed to sort through this mess and find himself – find the person buried under his mask.
The boy looked down at the glove, turned his hand over, and watched as the metal faded away into the shadows casted by the trees around him. His fingers curved and twisted, moving into the moonlight and through the dim lighting. He picked up the other glove, sliding it onto his free hand and felt it conform to skin.
Richard frowned as he felt something fold under his hand. He took off the glove and a thin tore piece of white paper fell onto his lap. His eyes narrowed as they scanned across the clearing.
What game was Slade playing at now?
He unfolded the thin paper, his eyes scanning over the hastily scratched words. Richard shook his head and rose to his feet while sliding the second glove back onto his hand. He bent down and picked up the bright green gloves from the ground, the fabric falling limp in his hands.
His feet pushed through the dirt and leaves, trudging up the hill and moving though the calm quiet of the graveyard. As he approached the two gravestones, the green gloves grew heavier in his hands. He clenched them tighter, climbing higher. The two dark silhouettes had a soft glow around their edges, and Richard paused before them.
For minutes, hours, days, years, he stood, letting the memories wash through him. He kneeled and set the green gloves between the two stones. He paused, his hands resting over them as words rushed to his lips and faded away, a mere whisper that rushed away and blended into the night of the graveyard.
"I'll always love you both."
Taking a deep breath Richard rose to his feet and turned, flexing his hands in the unfamiliar gauntlets.
It didn't matter how many you saved, the ones you didn't, stuck with you forever.
The moon was high in the sky as he made his way back to his R-Cycle. He started it up, the gentle, reassuring hum of his bike drumming in his ears. The boy sat for a moment embracing the deep calm around him before he pulled his helmet over his head. He took a deep breath and glanced behind him one last time.
Richard lifted his feet and sped off; his bike roared against the night. His hands grew tighter around the bike handles as the thin sheet of white paper slipped from between his fingers and floated to the ground behind him. The paper shifted in the breeze, the unspoken words shining in the moonlight.
I'll be waiting.
The silhouette bent down and picked up the green gloves, shaking his head. All it took was for the wrong person to stumble through this graveyard, find the gloves, scan the fingerprints, and make the connection. It was a very slim chance of that ever happening, but it was still possible.
Someone had to look after the boy, after all, and it certainly wasn't going to be the Bat. The man paused, his eye running over the gravestones. He nodded his head and turned away, trailing down the hill. Richard's past was not his concern, his future however…
Hopefully, he had shoved Richard in the right direction. Slade had kept up with him over these last two years, watching him slowly outgrow the persona he had created as a boy. It was time for him to move on.
Nothing would change between them of course. Slade knew within a few weeks, Richard would be back, very different, but still very much the same. Still a hero. Still determined to bring the Slade down. Still fighting for the good in the world.
Slade looked down at the green gloves in his hands, folded them up, and tucked them away into his utility belt. He shook his head as he moved into the shadows of the trees, darkness wrapping around his form.
Didn't someone ever tell the boy?
It was never good to leave fingerprints behind.
A/N: So that's my little plot-bunny on how Robin eventually turns into Nightwing. Slade's a bit OOC but i still ran with it. Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think!