AN: Nice long chapter for you guys, thank you all so much for your reviews and your patience, please do review more, I love it when the reviews are specific, encouraging words are great but please feel free to point out the specific parts that you liked or didn't like. It really does help.
On a rather ironic note. I actually tried to make this chapter less angsty but... well... I think I might have... not succeeded...
Oh well, I tried therefore no one should criticize me.
For All the Guilt and Anguish Their Expressions Told
It was August almost September.
That was three run-ins with Titans in three months. At least two times they had seen his face. One time they had caught his smell, they had sensed his powers, one time they could find his blood, one time they had touched his skin. A million chances for them to track him down.
He got scared. That was a million chances for the past to come after him. He packed up his apartment, ditched his job, covered his tracks. He took off into the streets, and paranoia got the better of him when he skulked past a man hole left oddly askew in a back alley.
He descended into the sewers of Jump city. His shoes sloshed through the soiled water so darkened with filth it looked as though he ceased to exist below the shins. Red sneakers dangling from a power line was an image left on the highway somewhere between Cheyenne and Denver. His work boots felt lead lined in the muck and his feet were frozen solid from the autumn chill whistling along the slimy brick walls.
It wasn't long before the tunnel river opened into a cistern, and the once desolate waterways were suddenly bustling with life beyond half drowned rodents.
The figurative underbelly of Jump was flamboyant as it was dark and as notorious as it was secretive.
But the literal underbelly of Jump was just that… the underbelly, the city under the city. A tent city lit by rust oil barrels set a blaze burning refuse from the streets above that hadn't been soaked in sewage, and if it was, then it was burned anyway.
The larger, nicer sheets of cardboard were reserved for a lean-to, the only home continually at risk of being pilfered whilst the owner slept within.
The middle-class of such a township was characterized by a shelter of plywood newspaper cushions. The filthy rich had the luxury of oxidized roofs of tin and scraps of cloth for bedding.
Danny stuck out with his clothes being only second hand as opposed to third or fourth. His hands were still pale and clean and lacked the stains of dumpster diving, the cracked yellowed fingernails of poor hygiene. The looks he gathered were appraising at best and downright ravenous at their worse.
He needed to disappear, and what better way than becoming one of the tens of nonentities wandering the desolating, rotting halls of the subterranean motel.
Fitting in amounted only to the acquirement of some less… affluent apparel, a rusted shank, and a scrap of cardboard, and Danny found that the various drifters were rather agreeable as long as you pretended their rudimentary possessions didn't exist and occasionally 'misplaced' a scrap of food or two. Anything freely offered was met with sometimes… violent… suspicion.
'It was just temporary'
That was his sacrament, his ten commandments for two weeks.
Two weeks rubbing shoulders with murderers, rapist, thieves, and the general down on their luck. Two weeks of dodging down drainage pipes when walls that shouldn't echo babbled after him, signaling the desperate praying on the despairing.
Day and night had no definition under the ground. You slept when you were tired, ate when you were hungry, but only if there was food to be had.
But food wasn't such a luxury since he was only playing the part of the homeless. He had plenty of money saved up for food at the very least. Staying warm however…
He was cold, he was always cold. Chilled from the inside out. Shivering with the damp as he huddled beside trash fires and unwashed bodies.
A gentle breath frosted his teeth.
The fire was blazing, but his arms were wrapped around him, a chill filled his chest and he was shaken with a wracking cough. Instinctively his hands covered his mouth. That courtesy left over from when he felt real.
Pain from the searing cold shot through his hand. Danny gazed stunned at his blue and slightly blackened fingers.
Frostbitten.
His breath slipped out of him in a chilled breeze, he could see the glittering crystals of eyes turn to steam and drift off with the smoke that slipped along the ceiling and escaped through any number of pipes or storm drain.
A wave of a nausea followed by an intense chill washed over him. His vision blurred, before his had time to even begin to feel alarmed his brain shut down and he slipped into unconsciousness were he sat against the cistern wall between two men
September 20th
It was night, it was late. The only light in the Tower common room was the harsh glow of the monitor screen partially obscured by the spiky-haired figure bent before it.
Robin heaved a sigh and sat back in his chair. Automatically his hand went to his eyes and he endeavored to rub away the exhaustion and fatigue.
The clock struck 3 am; he'd been at this most of the night.
He'd been cross analyzing the series of minor anomalies appearing in the city the past few months.
Beast Boy had badgered him about that strange smell he'd picked up in the flower shop, and Raven had mentioned more than once that… presence she'd sensed. From their mutual connection he knew it disturbed her… almost in a supernatural sense.
If it bothered Raven then it was something worth checking out.
He started at 6' o clock that night. Three hours in, he caved, and hacked the police database.
Nothing.
Half an hour later and the closest thing to striking gold he came to, was more like piece of rusted scrap metal in the form of an unidentified blood sample on a shard of glass at the video store.
The blood didn't match anyone in the police database or any of the witnesses who had been questioned and processed by the JCSF, Jump City Security Force. In addition the blood was discolored, altered in some way. The preliminary report dubbed the sample contaminated and was awaiting test results.
His eyes flickered to the clock. 3:02:27
:28
:29
:30
Test results that would automatically upload from the testing center in approximate 30 seconds,
29,
28,
27.
He skimmed the report again, racked his brain, and went over it all just one more time.
Three months, three fights, three different villains. Kitten and Killer Moth, Control Freak, Johnny Rancid.
Three different fights.
But there was something. A face, a person, a presence.
It was a big city, and as it's protectors they rarely saw the same face twice. But there was something.
Nagging him.
A pair of sneakers, a pair of eyes… a jacket in the middle of summer…
:57
:58
:59
"New content available. Open file?"
"Yes."
"No."
A door hisses open followed by a loud clang of metal feet and a monstrous yawn.
"Man you still up?"
The face on the edge of Robin's mind vanishes as Cyborg's voice intrudes and shatters the jigsaw he'd just spent the last 9 hours piecing together.
He sighs, and scrubs a hand through his already thoroughly mussed hair.
"I'm almost there."
He was met with a knowing smirk.
"Sure dude, you said that six hours ago."
"That was before I hacked JCSF."
"Whoa, that serious."
"No… just that close."
"Yes." *click*
The file sprang open on the screen. A complex, organized spread sheet of, blood cell content, iron content, blood plasma content, toxicology,… and contaminants.
The blood sample registered an astounding level of radiation, and incredibly high white blood cell count, and diluted red blood cell level.
The sample wasn't contaminated, it was all but destroyed. Thinned by its own plasma and blasted with radiation.
It didn't make any sense; he was back to square one.
"Damn it…"
The sunrise was breathtaking. The pale yellow orb rising gracefully over the green hills and distant mountains of the southern California chaparrals. Its light gently blanketing the valleys dotted by secluded clusters of private homes and the occasional vineyard.
As the rays stretched west the clusters of homes grew into towns, the shrubs and flowering bushes became stubby trees and the odd vibrant green vine that spilled over the side of a cliff or brick wall, speckled with blossoms of pink or white.
It blazed over a stretched of rocky desert before striking the tops of the palm trees and finally uncovering the streets of the concrete wastelands that stretched all along the coast.
The final structure to be touched by the morning light was the loaming island tower in Jump Bay. Its tallest windows faced west guarded its young occupants from the morning sun so that they might conserve their youth, and beg a few more minutes under the covers in memory of simpler, younger days. Dreams of school buses, and mother's lullabies, and father's arms, lingering cherished just a few seconds longer than the rest of the aging youth in the seaside metropolis.
When they finally stirred, four of five boarders slipped drowsily from their chambers and shuffled, bleary eyed to their common room. Outside the doors they converged from their separate wings, and with sympathetic yawns filed through as the steel pressurized door slid open with a gentle hiss.
The sunlight was struggling to gleam through the westward facing windows. Its beams searched about the sides of the tower for any un-curtained glass or mildly opaque surface that might grant it entrance.
In the mid-morning the light had taken a gentle hold on the common room, warming the last of the five roommates to awaken.
Robin had fallen asleep at the console nestled at the base at the great mural of the ocean now glittering in the sunlight, framed by the grand windows stretching from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Cyborg, though his only human eye was laden with sleep, spotted their sleeping leader and gestured for the others to stay quiet. Beast Boy stifled a potentially disruptive yawn with his fist and let his eyes water as his jaw strained. Starfire brightened at the sight of the sleeping Robin and in a motherly gesture she glided lightly to linen closet and dug out a blanket which she lay gently about Robin's shoulders while he slept.
Even though Robin led the Teen Titans, he was not the oldest, Cyborg and Starfire both beat him in that respect and Raven was close enough in age, but surpassed him in maturity. The only Titan Robin truly outranked in terms of age was Beast Boy.
But if the Teen Titans chose leadership based on age, then the forming of the Titans would have been a moot point to begin with.
But leadership role or no even Robin deserved a few more precious minutes to drift in the land of sweet make believe, before the harshness of life reared its head at the start of just another day.
As quietly as they could Raven, Beast Boy, Starfire, and Cyborg shuffled about the kitchen and dining area of the common room, preparing their breakfast. The smells of cooking were just filling the air and the only sounds were the frantic but gentle hushing of the friends to one another, and the light hiss of batter in a hot pan or the clink of a spoon on a bowl. A peaceful day was taking shape, and it seemed even the dark and the corrupt were to grant the young heroes a brief reprieve.
That was until Robin, mumbling and turning in a dream, brushed the keyboard and life desecrated the screen.
The night before when Robin had been scouring the date bases for anything that might link a series of strange events and inexplicable occurrences.
After hours of searching all he had to go on was a contaminated blood sample. After another or he had a blood sample and a grainy three second clip from a security camera at the video store. A little while after that he had the video clear enough to cross reference with video throughout the JCSF surveillance networks.
Next thing he knew, Robin had a trail of bread crumbs in the form of street cameras and security feeds. Brief images of a young man with shaggy dark hair walking down the street, carrying boxes into a warehouse, or being violently thrown aside as he lunged over the video store counter for the silent alarm.
It was truly the wee hours of the morning when Robin suddenly remembered a distraught and underdressed teen who had bumped into him at the only party he had even not wanted to go to.
The trail led on to a company called Dalv Industries which owned the warehouses the young man had been employed at. Dalv then became the name of the virus which invaded the console whenever Robin came close to uncovering a name.
Then Dalv was the name printed on a letter post marked three years ago and mailed to a one Mrs. Madison Fenton.
Mrs. Madison Fenton led to marriage records and then set of birth certificates.
The birth certificates became Jasmine and Daniel Fenton.
Daniel Fenton.
And the internet exploded.
The stars were just beginning to wink out in the fading blue as the sky turned to blush on the eastern horizon, when Robin finally drifted off to sleep after sifting through countless newspaper articles, police reports and inquiries, amber alerts, and, much to his dismay, a set of obituaries.
The screen lit up and chirped when Robin bumped the keyboard. The crisp tone awoke him from his shallow slumber. He pushed himself up from the console and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. A hand went automatically to his cheek to massage away the imprint sending a tingling sensation across his face.
He squinted at the screen and the fogginess plaguing his half sleeping brain began to lift as he refocused on the most recent file he'd dug up concerning a certain boy, who was a former resident of Amity Park, Minnesota.
A great deal of tireless searching and some his own… "alternate" navigation, was required to dig up what he had. The yearbook pictures confirmed his suspicion that 'Daniel' was the boy he'd run into on the docs the night Kitten and Killer Moth had held the city hostage. Daniel had triggered the silent alarm at the video store when Control Freak attacked, and Robin had a strong suspicion that he was the reason why Johnny Rancid had literally begged for a jail cell.
He sifted through reports about the infamous Fenton family, Amity Park's own resident ghost hunters. Newspaper articles on ghost attacks and anomalies. The "Inviso-Bill Controversy".
And finally, the Nasty Burger Tragedy which claimed the lives of six people and left a fourteen year old Daniel Fenton orphaned and friendless.
The only thing he'd found mentioning Daniel after the local obituaries were missing persons reports as he had seemingly run away from home just a month later. Right before his godfather, apparently the multi-million dollar dairy tycoon, Vlad Masters, could finalize custody of the high school freshman.
And that brought him to the image consuming the mid-morning sunlight that tried in vain to shine through the holographic monitor display that doubled as the central window pane.
The grainy scan of a black and white photograph for a newspaper clipping from a little known town in one of the northern most states in the US, arrested the attention of all five teenage heroes of Titan's Tower who, leaving their breakfasts forgotten, gathered around the console.
A crowd of faces filled the image, all standing against a background in the form of a brick school front. The faces were all the smooth, fresh faces of young high school students with just a sprinkling of the more wizened countenance of the teachers. The general expressions were sad, guilty at best.
At the forefront was a group of five. Four of whom were students. They stood side with a banner held in front.
On either end holding the corners of the oversized sheet of paper, were two tall, strapping young men in lettermen jackets with the CH emblem emblazoned on the right breast. One boy had dark hair with Asian features; the other was blond with a strong jaw and pale eyes. Both had the football player's build and the shoulders of a jock.
But those shoulders were slumped and wounded; their eyes were darkened with guilt and shame.
Between the two boys were two girls. Gorgeous young women ever so carefully put together, with their expensive, designer label clothing, salon cut hair, and meticulously applied make-up. Make up so astutely maintained day in and day out. It was running in stained rivulets down their cheeks as they sobbed silently in frozen despair. The manicured fingernails of the Hispanic girl and her blond companion clung to the banner strung before them.
Both girls had a hand on their shoulder. Hands that belonged to a woman in a dress suit with a professional if motherly air about her own asian features. Hands that held the two girls on their feet more than gave emotional support.
For all the guilt and anguish their expressions told, the banner cried out the most.
Written in bold letters, standing out sharply against the white.
"Danny, please come home."
"We're so sorry."
When Danny awoke, it was quiet.
Eerily so.
The only noise came from the babbling of the tributaries and the gentle roar of the man-made cistern waterfalls. There wasn't the usual grunting or shuffling of human bodies or the skittering of the odd rat.
Not the rustling of torn cloth. Not even the fires cackled as they flustered the damp and thwarted the darkness.
Danny shifted, stretching his neck for a look around. For his curiosity he discovered a cracking stiffness in his back and his toes and finger were utterly number.
The fire had gone out and the ashes were frozen and dry with cold.
He shifted again and something chilled and unbearably heavy fell against him. With a strangled noise he heaved the slumped body of the old man off of him. The old man he'd been sharing the fire with earlier, seemed to have passed out beside the flames the same as him.
Danny supported him by the shoulders and tried without being too rough, to reposition the wizened beggar against the wall so he wouldn't fall over.
But his numb fingers fumbled and slipped as he moved out from under the old tramp. His hand slipped and shot from the shoulder to the man's bared neck.
Danny almost yelped in shock when his palm met clammy, utterly cold skin.
His hands sprang away automatically, subsequently allowing the man to fall over against him once more, this time his head lolling back ever so slightly, so that his ragged cap tumbled from his balding head.
Of all the ghosts, poltergeists, and demons Danny had faced in his short life…
None could compare with the terror in his heart at the sight of those cold, bleak, glassy eyes. Glazed over with a sticky film dulling the color of the iris that wasn't eaten up by the swollen pupils that gaped like black holes in a freeze frame.
There was frost glittering on the old man's grayed beard and his skin was blue with unnatural cold.
A pit began to form in Danny's chest, a bottomless hole filling rapidly with utter horror.
Christ, he's…
Danny scrambled desperately out from under the frozen corpse.
Oh God he's dead…
He clambered away and got to his feet. He stumbled.
A few curious glances turned his way as he clutched at the wall in fear of the blue-lipped body.
I can't have…
Several eyes were turned on him now, someone shifted, as though to rise.
It… It wasn't me…
They knew. They were judging him, accusing him.
I killed him.
And Danny ran, stumbling drunkenly down the nearest tunnel.
A gentle breath frosted his teeth.