A/N: The prompt for this story is, obviously, 'No One Mourns The Wicked'. I have no excuse for this. Kyd is one of my favortie characters so this was very fun for me to write. I have a problem with that, I think. I always fall in love with the characters that have no screen-time! My X-Men stories should be an example of that...
No one mourns the wicked. That's just something that, as a 'villain' and a 'bad guy', you get drilled into your brain from the get-go. If the good guy dies or looses or gets hurt, you can expect the whole town to rally around him until he's fit and ready to protect them again. But it's different if you're thought of as 'evil'.
Elliot let his hands fall limp at his side, red eyes giving the Titan in front of him a hopeful look. He wasn't sure if the older man in front of him could understand what he was signing (he didn't know actual sign-language, after all, so everything he said was just made up of vague gestures) but he had high-hopes that he did. Cyborg was smart-like that.
The cybernetic man seemed to understand what he'd signed, though judging by the confused look on his face he didn't get why he was being 'told' that. Not now and not by him, a villian that he'd never personally fought before. Raven was always Elliot's oppenment in fights.
We're left out, in the cold and rain, because of you though! You think that we're the bad guys, don't you? Did you ever stop to think though that maybe, just maybe, we're like this because we have to be? No. What a stupid question. I know that you haven't.
It took a moment for Cyborg to figure out that one, more complicated motions than the ones he had used before, but when he did a look of confusion spread over his face. "What are you going on about? No one's making you be bad! You just do it on your own." A pause. "Don't you?"
Snorting, Elliot raised his hands to start signing again. Then he stopped and grabbed at his cloak with one hand. He wrapped his arm around it, pulling the cloth closer to him before angrily motioning with his other hand.
Of course that's what you think! I keep forgetting how simple-minded you heroes are. Just like the people back home. You set your mind on something and that's that. It's the truth to you even if it's a let me tell you something, Tin-man. Everything that you know about us is a lie!
You think that I want to be a thief? That any of us want to be the bad-guys? Jinx's family gave her to Brother Blood because she wasn't 'co-operating' with how they acted, how they stole and thieved and cursed and killed who-ever they wanted too.
Billy's pop killed his mother in front of him, blew her head to smithereens, and then tried to kill him. The guy's only out here now because it was this or a mental institute. Not because he chose to be here.
Did you know that Mammoth grew up in Starr Labs? With test-tubes and needles shoved into his arms and legs; it was him or his sister and he wasn't going to let them anywhere near Shimmer. That's why he was with Brother Blood too. Because Blood had his sister.
See-more was just trying to get away from it all, too. He was born on the streets, raised on the streets, and he's going to die on the streets. This was just how his life turned out; the only chance he'll ever have of getting away from the thugs that raised him.
And Gizmo...Born into the business, he was. His family's all dead, every last one of them. All killed in front of him. There just wasn't anywhere else for him to go after they died, no where but straight to where he was trying to avoid.
Elliot let his head droop down towards his chest and pulled his cloak even tighter to him. The black material was stained dark red and the mark was slowly spreading. His normally pristine appearence was growing more ragged the longer that he stood there (leaned there realy, because it was the alley wall that was keeping him standing) but he didn't look like he was done yet.
The larger man in front of him narrowed his eyes slightly, though it didn't hide the look of almost-sympathy and almost-regret in his human eye, and he reached a hand out to Elliot. It wasn't a threatening gesture, he was clearly trying to place a hand on his shoulder, but the gray-skinned boy pulled away all the same. He let out a sound-less snarl at Cyborg and stumbled to the side, the brick wall behind him his guide and the only thing keeping him standing.
There is no way that I'm letting someone like you any where near me. I'd rather die here! Besides, you can't do anything to save me now. I was already hurt (really he'd been hurt and sick. tuberculosis, old injuries, a cold, it was all causing him problems.), this just pushes it over the edge.
I don't expect you to feel guilty for me though. I've been the 'bad-guy' for years. I know what's expected of me. Cause you all problems, fight you, and then die like the good little 'villian' I am. That's just how it goes. And no one will care. Sure, Jinx and the others will, but that's it. They won't be able to do anything about it though. No where to ship me off to, nothing to do with me, I'll just be an un-named body in the city morgue.
Silent coughs racked Elliots body here, blood splattering the pavement at his feet, and his hands once more grabbed his stomache.
And Cyborg couldn't do anything but stare. Stare as he crumpled to the ground, his locaters telling him that the rest of the Hive (and just them) were making their way towards them; his internal moniters telling him that Elliot's heart-beat was slowing down rapidly.
The metal teen stood there for a few more seconds, waiting until he could hear the Hive Five's foot-steps coming from the other end of the alley, before he started to back away. Cyborg could just barely make out surprised gasps and worried shouts as the group of villians found their team-mate, the fight with the rest of the Titan's completely forgotten, before he turned the corner and was making his way back to his own team.
He felt guilty about it (leaving Kyd Wykkyd there like that to die) but there wasn't anything that he could do about it. The younger boy was right after all, nobody mourns the wicked. All you can do is try and figure out what made them snap, made them turn, makes them fight.
But that didn't stop him from visiting the name-less grave, because nobody but himself and Elliot's team knew what Kyd Wykkyd's name really was, the first time that he got away from Robin's training schedule. Not to mourn, no, but because it felt right (he couldn't leave the grave un-visited and he was the only one that could go there).
Cyborg never forgot the lesson that he learned that day though. And knowing it, knowing that the Hive wasn't evil because they wanted to be, made fighting them that much harder.