First of all, I was in a bit of a dilemma because I thought I had lost my co-writer. She went missing, you see. I was gonna offer a reward, but she came back, so it's all okay… What Narroch doesn't know is that I plan to microchip her. I think she ran away because I gave her too much ficcing work to do all in one week, but more fool her for coming back…
What ficcing work? Aha, well, as if we would let Christmas pass by without doing something for it! First of all, you can expect a long-awaited Small Print update later this week (finally!). That's not really for Christmas, but I'm sure it will make more than a few people happy…
As for Christmas itself, we have been working on something very special indeed. A brand new multi-chaptered fic, entitled Red Rum, will be making its debut on (hopefully) Thursday 21st December – that's this Thursday. For a little taster, I hope Narroch won't mind me dropping a few hints here. It is, of course, Teen Titans, but it has very heavy elements of Batman: The Animated Series in it (kinda like this, in a way). That's because there's a string of serial killings going on throughout Gotham and Jump, targeting young superheroes; the first victim is none other than Batgirl, and Detective Harvey Bullock is on the case. Yes, we're using Bullock – the fic is, in a lot of ways, almost Bullock-centric. That's because the fic is being treated like a murder investigation, and it makes sense to use the detective's side of things. It does alternate between him and the Titans, however, who have a hugely important part (of course, as it is going to be categorised in the Teen Titans section rather than Batman: TAS). Also, forget any comic-relief ideas you might have about Bullock. We are using him as a very serious character, because he's on a very serious case.
Anyway, the main reason for this massive plug is because any of you who have me on your Author Alert list won't be getting an email on Thursday. This is the first co-written fic Narroch and I have done that will be going up on her account rather than mine. It's a big thing, but since any readers of our stuff tend to follow my status rather than hers because everything we have done so far has been on mine, we are having to start a major plug campaign.
So yeah, if that interests you, please, please check out Narroch's profile on Thursday and take a look at the first Christmas-themed chapter of Red Rum.
Red Rum? Spell it backwards, kids.
Anyway, as for the Thankyous:
Quinn and His Quill (pure literary gold, huh? You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen… Quinn just out-right complimented me… O.o); Guardian of Azarath (very sharp, m'dear. Hold on to that thought…); Me (Nyes, oh god indeed, Elusive One…); Ray1 (Slade is in serious trouble, let's put it like that…); Athena's Wings (yay, you're back! Glad you could make it! Yes, see, little Raven fans? It's okay, you'll live without her. Besides, when she does come back, you can bet she's kicking serious ass… Plus I love long reviews! You aren't wasting my time at all!); LoopyLousise123 (yup, Batsy is still kicking around, of course… Glad you liked this and Get Over Yourself and don't worry, Roy will be here soon, okay?); Raven Victoria Grayson (when you've quite finished running around the room like a maniac… Yes, he got Terra pregnant. It's a very screwed up future, okay? VERY.); Poison's Ivy (Yes, I love your reviews! They are mad, though… Um, yes, I avoided your motorbike question. And I am going to do it again. Talia is the daughter of Ra's al Ghul in Batman: TAS. Contraception…? Um… Maybe you should Wikipedia that one… And I'm not telling you anything else! Mwa ha!); TheFallenAngel67 (considering you're Mexican, your English is great! You're forgiven, dude! Glad you like the fic and I hope to hear more from you!); Simmie (Simmie, darling… you ask way too many perceptive questions you know I can't answer!); Half-demon Girl (glad you're enjoying it too! Don't worry, Raven will be back, okay? Jeez…); and TheLoneWolf8986 (Robin is going as fast as he can… well, not really. Gotta stop and have a cup of coffee first…).
And to everyone else… Narroch and, ironically, YamiTai. She's reviewed every single chapter from Asylum right through Black Magic to here, Remember the Titans, and the one chapter dedicated to her for her birthday she doesn't review… makes me laugh, I have to say… :) And Narroch, you runaway…
Yikes, scary AN…
Anyway, on with the NightwingxTerra flashback!
Terra Nova
Gotham City, three years ago:
"You aren't worried about tomorrow, are you?"
Terra turned back to face Nightwing, who had broken the silence encompassing the broken church.
"No," she replied firmly. "Why would I be?"
"You just seemed so anxious at the meeting. You were fidgeting when Bruce was explaining the ground structure."
"I don't need Bruce to tell me about the ground, thanks," Terra answered stiffly. "I'm an earth-mover, aren't I? I know more about the ground than Bruce knows about his precious bats!"
Terra turned away and stalked off down the length of the aisle, surprised and angry to find tears burning in her eyes.
"Hey, don't be like that!" Nightwing called after her as he wandered languidly down the aisle in pursuit of her.
"Leave me alone, Dick!" Terra snapped, pushing the heavy door aside to her chamber. She stormed through and slammed the door just as Nightwing reached it. He knocked on it and she swore at him from where she was leaning against the other side.
"Come on, Terra," Nightwing sighed. "Don't do this. I hate it when you get like this…"
"And I hate it when you won't take the hint!" Terra yelled back. "Just go home already! I'll see you tomorrow. God knows why you had to follow me all the way here from the BatCave…"
"I just wanted to make sure you got home ok."
"Yeah, sure… well, now you know I'm home ok, so you can leave now…"
Nightwing leaned against the door and sighed again.
"You're not gonna make me kick the door in, are you, Terra?" He questioned, his voice taking on a song-like lilt.
"You wouldn't dare."
"Wouldn't I?" Nightwing smirked.
"Dick, don't even think about it!" Terra said shrilly from the other side of the door.
"Then open it!"
"Go away, Nightwing!" Terra snapped impatiently. "Why do you still treat me like I'm on your stupid little team of Teen Titans? That was a long time ago, "Robin". Slade's destroyed it all."
"But we're going to stop him, Terra," Nightwing pressed. "Tomorrow, Slade is toast, I promise…"
"Oh, right…" Terra sounded as though she was crying through the door. "You really think we're going to beat him, Dick? After he killed the other Teen Titans, after he made me kill the Justice League, after he killed Superman and Pallais and Batgirl and Catwoman and Talia and Ivy… oh, this list goes on, Dick. We're the only ones left, and I have a feeling he's going to kill us too."
"Don't talk like that, Terra!" Nightwing said sharply, annoyed.
"Why not?" Terra choked from beyond the closed door. "We can't win, Nightwing, you know that as well as I do. I don't know why you're kidding yourself like this…"
"We will win, Terra," Nightwing promised softly. "Perhaps not tomorrow – although God knows that's the intention – but we will win someday…"
"It's all just vengeance for you, isn't it?" Terra accused, her voice equally soft.
"For our friends?" Nightwing smiled slightly. "Hell, yes. For the Teen Titans, and for Barbara and Clark and Tim and Garth… for them all, Terra. Slade is going to pay, and I'm going to make him."
"No," Terra replied quietly, leaning against her side of the door. "No, Dick; this is for you. I know what he's done to you in the name of that prophecy, what he's put you through… He forced you to be his apprentice, and I remember you telling me years ago, that day in the diamond mine… he raped you, he nearly murdered you, and then he put a demon into you, and then… he killed your friends, he attempted to kill you too… I can understand your anger, Dick, but admit it; this revenge is selfish. It's for you, for everything he's done to you…"
"How can you say that?"
"Because I know it's true," Terra sobbed. "I can understand your pain, Dick; trust me, I truly can. Just don't lie to me about it. You might be doing this to avenge the others, but moreover, you're doing this to avenge yourself."
"Don't you want him to die?" Nightwing asked incredulously.
"Of course I do. He deserves to. He turned me into a murderer, he made me kill the Justice League… but the reason I want him to die is not even because of Beast Boy… it's because of what he's done to this city, and what he did to Jump and Metropolis, the hundreds of innocent people he's killed. That's not want you want, Nightwing. All you want is blood. And I can't respect you for that."
Nightwing was silent for a while.
"I didn't know you felt that way, Terra," he said finally.
Silence.
Finally the door swung back and Terra stepped out from the back chamber.
"I'm worried about you," she said softly. "Dick, you've always been like this, even when you were Robin, when you were a Teen Titan… you dwell on things, you just sink deeper and deeper into your thirst for vengeance…" Terra gazed at him and started to cry. "I know you hate to hear this, but… you're very like Slade in personality. I'm just so scared that one day, you'll just…"
"That's never going to happen, Terra," Nightwing said hollowly, reaching for her and pulling her into his strong arms. She leaned against his chest, emblazoned with that outstretched blue hawk, and sobbed.
"I was born to stop him," Nightwing went on, his voice so quiet she could barely hear it. "There's no way that I would ever become like him. You have to believe that, Terra, even if you can't believe anything else…"
"And he was born to kill you," Terra whispered in reply. "He's one of the Chosen Few, Dick, and you're the Avenger… his whole purpose in life is to unlock the power of the Orb of Azarath after he kills you… you're bound together by a prophecy. It could be why you are similar, but it also means that inevitably one of you is going to have to kill the other; he to fulfil the prophecy and gain the orb's power, and you… to stop him."
"It's going to be the latter," Nightwing promised recklessly. "Tomorrow, that prophecy is going to be broken…"
"Superheroes don't kill," Terra murmured.
"I'm not a superhero," Nightwing hissed, his voice barely audible now. "I'm the Avenger."
Terra shivered in his arms.
"Are you cold?" Nightwing asked, his tone changing.
Terra nodded.
"Yeah, I think… I'm just tired…"
"Ok…" Nightwing released her and took hold of her wrist instead, pulling her through into the back room. He sat her down on her makeshift bed of pillows and blankets.
"You can leave now, Dick," Terra informed him flatly, pulling a blanket around her shoulders.
"I know. I'm just going to make you a cup of tea."
"Coffee. I don't have any tea."
"Coffee," Nightwing agreed, starting up a fire in her self-made grate.
She watched him crouched over the fire with his back to her, seeing his long black hair shining from the orange glow of the fire as it started up properly – she could still remember him clearly as he had been over ten years ago, clothed in his bright red, green and yellow, that same jet black hair much, much shorter, spiky with gel; quite short and skinny for his age, with his round, almost heart-shaped face…
How he had changed now. His entire form was strong and powerful, and he was now very tall, second only to Bruce and Clark in stature. His face had thinned out, his features were more defined, with only the amazing blue eyes concealed beneath the mask belying the otherwise pretty foreboding appearance. And no more spikes now, no neat side-parting or combed-back cow-licked style favoured by Alfred; Dick Grayson's hair now fell in a wave of shining ebony halfway down his broad back, contrasting against his skin-tight black costume with the blue bird spread across the chest.
He perhaps wasn't as impressive or frightening as Batman – who was? – but he wasn't far off the mark.
"Do you still miss Starfire?" Terra asked him suddenly.
She saw him stiffen slightly where he was sitting with his back to her, making two cups of coffee.
"Why?" He replied finally, and she was unable to read the tone in his voice.
"I was just… well, I know you obviously still miss Babs, but Starfire was twelve years ago, and I just wanted to know if… the pain ever went away…"
"My parents died twenty years ago, and I still miss them," Nightwing said coldly over his shoulder.
"So that's a yes?"
"Of course. I miss them all, but… Star was something special…"
Terra nodded slightly, then pushed her blanket off and reached out, putting a hand on Nightwing's shoulder. He turned to face her and seemed surprised to realise that her face was so close to his.
"I just wanted to know if your pain ever went away," she said softly. "Because… mine never did…"
He blinked.
"Beast Boy?"
Terra nodded and hugged him, burying her face in her shoulder.
"I know it was a long time ago, but… there's a terrible aching pain inside me," she whispered. "A gaping hole that Beast Boy used to fill, and it's been there since the day that he died. I… I miss him so much, Dick, I always have…"
"I miss him too. B.B was… one of a kind…"
Terra felt Nightwing's strong arms encompass her once again and nestled against his warm, powerful build. She didn't like Nightwing in a sexual way – she never had – but it felt good just to have his arms around her, to have someone to hold.
To forget the loneliness.
For just one night…
TT
"…It just seemed to progress from there," Terra sighed, swilling her rapidly-cooling coffee around her cup. "There was nothing in it – Dick and I never liked each other in that way. But it happened; he only kissed my cheek, to comfort me… and then we started kissing properly, and then… well, you get the picture. There was no passion in it or anything. But I was so lonely, really aching for that kind of sensual contact, for an escape… and so was he. He'd lost Barbara and Starfire, and I'd lost Beast Boy. It was almost like we'd both forgotten how to love, and what it felt like to be loved."
Terra put her cup down and sighed again, heavier than the previous time.
"He was so gentle, not like when he was fighting, but we weren't careful, we just… you know… and then we fell asleep. I remember being curled up in his arms… I can't tell you how wonderful that felt, to not be alone on that cold stone floor…" Terra looked up at Robin; the expression on his face was one of mingled shock, indignation and hilarity. "When I woke up, he was gone," she went on softly. "I got up and found him in the main church, up playing around with the organ. He wasn't embarrassed, but he didn't want to talk about it either… and we never did…"
Terra buried her face in her hands and started to cry again.
"…Because he died that day," she sobbed. "Things went downhill from there, Robin. I told you before, after Nightwing's death, we disbanded almost immediately afterwards. I came back here, got on with life. I still went to see Roy at his club, and I went to visit Bruce… I didn't realise I was pregnant until weeks later."
"So what happened?" Robin pressed. "You don't have a baby now, do you?" He looked around, expecting to see a baby curled up in a shoe-box or something. But then, if Terra had become pregnant three years ago, wouldn't that make any child of hers a toddler by now?
Terra shook her head sadly.
"What happened?" Robin asked again. "Did you miscarry?"
Again Terra declined her head.
"No, I… I didn't want to tell Roy and worry him, and there was no point in telling Bruce because he's mad, so I just kept it to myself… I suppose it wasn't a bad pregnancy; I mean, I could cope with it okay… but then, one night, I actually made the mistake of going out to one of the clubs, just to break the monotony… trouble is, there's no such thing as maternity wear around here anymore. Everything I have is black and tight, you know, for camouflage… so it was pretty obvious I was pregnant…"
Robin nodded, silently conveying her to continue.
"So I went to some club," Terra went on with a shrug. "Can't even remember which one it was now. It was ok but I got bored so I was going to leave. I remember just getting to the door, then someone grabbing me and pulling me aside into this dark back-room. It was… Slade."
Robin stared at her, half-disbelieving and half-horrified.
"I thought he was going to kill me," Terra continued quietly. "I think that was his primary intention, but he just… when he saw my stomach he completely changed tack. He can be quite charming when he wants to be, you know, although it's all an act…"
Robin snorted.
"The only side of Slade I've ever seen is the homicidal one…"
"Well, he seemed seriously concerned, like he really cared… he said that although I might have betrayed him, he still cared about me and he didn't want me to bring my child into the world to bring it up living in filth…"
"Terra!" Robin was appalled. "You didn't believe him, did you?"
Terra put her head in her hands.
"Robin, I was so desperate and alone," she whispered. "I didn't tell Roy because I knew it would worry him, and he had other things to deal with, problems of his own – I started to avoid seeing him so that he wouldn't see my bump, and I couldn't confide in Bruce because half the time he didn't even recognise me… and with Dick – you – dead… how do you think it feels to be carrying a dead man's child, Robin? One minute I felt proud that I was carrying a living, flesh-and-blood legacy of Nightwing, the next I felt so depressed I felt like killing myself, knowing that the father of my child was dead…"
She sighed heavily.
"But Slade… he seemed to understand that," she went on quietly. "He said he wanted to help… I know now that he was lying, that I never should have trusted him, just like I never should have trusted him that first time, when I was a Titan with you guys… but, Slade… he seems to have some kind of hold over me. He promises me something and I believe him. I don't know why…"
"And did you tell him that it was my… I mean, Nightwing's baby?"
"I didn't need to. He knew already; I don't know how he knew, but he did. Maybe it was the seer that told him…"
"The seer?" Robin repeated.
Today, in the warehouse, when the 16-year-old Terra of his own time had seen Raven's swollen stomach, she had mentioned something about a seer, hadn't she?...
"Slade's best friend," Terra informed him dryly. She quickly explained everything within her knowledge of the seer – that it had been the old woman's idea to fire a demonic arrow into him, that she had told Slade of the prophecy and had put the seed of rape into Slade's mind, among other things.
"She completely manipulates him," Terra murmured, "although he'd like to think otherwise. She's been controlling him for the past fifteen years concerning the prophecy, leading him on wild goose chases… I think she just does it for fun, she probably doesn't have any more of a clue about the key than we do…"
Robin nodded, everything concerning Slade suddenly becoming a lot clearer to him; the arrow, the rape and how he had brought himself to do it, and how the Terra in his own time had known of Raven's pregnancy; it had been her size that had surprised the earth-mover, not the actual fact that she was pregnant.
"So, he told me to come with him," Terra sighed, carrying on with her story. "He said he'd look after me while I was pregnant… and I… I believed him… I don't know why I trusted him, after everything he'd done, and after seven years of fighting against him with Batman's Titans. But… but I went with him…"
"He didn't try to corrupt you again, did he?" Robin whispered.
Terra shook her head.
"Robin, I was stupid not to realise it. The thing was, he didn't try to corrupt me at all, and that was because he knew he couldn't change me back to his little puppet, not after I had seen his reign of terror from the other side's point of view. I used to have terrible moods towards the end of my pregnancy, and I used to shout at him and call him a sick bastard and tell him what I really thought of him… and he never did anything. I think it amused him, because he knew that I wasn't going to kill him…"
"Why not?" Robin demanded. "Why didn't you just collapse the whole building down on him?"
"Robin, I… I can't kill," Terra said softly. "I haven't even been able to kill so much as a spider since that day I murdered the Justice League. It changed me, but not for worse; it didn't turn me into a murderous psycho. I can't kill anything; even the thought of it brings back those screams, hearing Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl and the Flash being crushed to death…" Terra sighed heavily. "And he knows that. So although he still fears my powers, he does not fear me, because he knows I won't use them against him."
"Then you should have surprised him," Robin muttered darkly.
"That's exactly what Nightwing would have said."
Robin looked up at her, scowling.
"I am Nightwing," he reminded her icily.
"Mm." Terra studied him. "And I was carrying Nightwing's child. Slade was seriously sickly sweet to me, giving me everything I wanted, making sure I was comfortable… at first I just thought he'd gone as mad as Bruce, I never suspected a thing, thinking he was trying to coax me back into being his little rock-throwing protégé…"
"And?"
"And I was wrong. Oh boy, was I wrong…"
"What did he really want?" Robin asked in hushed tones.
"I didn't figure that out until I went into labour," Terra replied quietly. "It really, really hurt, and I was screaming and crying and stuff, so Slade said he'd give me something to calm me down. He gave me some injection-"
"And you let him?" Robin burst out.
"Robin, I was in so much pain, I'd have let him do anything to relieve it… so he gave me this injection, and it put me to sleep. When I woke up, he'd tied me to a huge metal electricity catalyst."
"What about the baby? Were you still… you know, pregnant, with it?"
Terra shook her head.
"No. He had cut me open as soon as I was asleep and torn it out of me, then sewed me up again…" Terra smiled grimly at Robin; he had gone so pale he looked as though he was about to throw up. "Don't look so surprised, Robin. I wasn't wrong when I called Slade a sick bastard… he had the baby in his arms, just standing watching me…"
"Alive?"
Terra was quiet for a while, as though she didn't want to answer.
"No, it was… it was all bloody, I don't know what he did to it… Robin, he killed my baby. He killed it because it was Nightwing's child – he told me as he was standing there that the seer had said that it would become the Avenger in Nightwing's place, so he killed it as soon as it was out of me. And I was asleep, I as good as let him murder my child…"
Again Terra was crying and Robin felt terrible.
"Terra, you didn't have to tell me this stuff," he whispered. "I'm really sorry…"
"No…" Terra sniffed and wiped her face. "No, you deserve to hear this, Robin; I mean, technically, it was your baby… I wanted to kill him then, I truly did, after I saw what he'd done to my baby…"
"Then why didn't you?" Robin whispered savagely; the thought now of Slade standing holding that baby, murdered and bloody and defenceless, the child of his future-self – so technically his own – and Slade's once loyal apprentice. The girl whom he had corrupted, turned against her friends, forced to murder the Justice League…
It made him furious.
"I tried," Terra whispered, near tears again. "But the seer was there, she protected him, she put up barriers around herself and him every time I threw boulders and earth at him… Eventually they left, and he just… threw my dead baby down like it was a broken doll… I found it really hard to get free, they'd chained me up so tightly – I had to practically cause an earthquake to get the chains to snap. Once I did I picked up the baby and took it back to the BatCave. Roy was there and I had to confess it all to him; I've never seen him look so shocked, or so hurt that I hadn't confided in him, that I had trusted Slade over him and Bruce. I think he forgives me, but…" Terra sighed heavily, wiping more tears from her blue eyes. "I don't think he really trusts me anymore…"
"What about Bruce?"
"Bruce was on a "bad" day," Terra murmured. "He was just sitting at the computer mainframe typing random keys; I don't think he even realised Roy and I were there, so we didn't tell him. Roy and I buried the baby next to Dick's grave and never said anything else about it."
"Was it a girl or a boy?"
Silence.
"He'd… mutilated it so badly… I couldn't tell," Terra whispered. "I know that sounds stupid… I think it might have been a girl, but…"
"Did you name it?"
"No. It just seemed to… hurt less…"
Robin nodded slightly, feeling guilty; he hadn't meant to uproot such terrible memories, reopen scars that were barely healed…
"Well, in my time," he said softly, "Raven is carrying my baby, and…"
"And you should think about using a condom," Terra finished flatly, a trace of a smile on her face.
Robin scowled.
"Yeah, I've been kicking myself for that since the very second Raven told me. But… we were in Azarath, so I'm not entirely sure that we would have found one…"
"You shouldn't have done it, then."
"I was possessed by a demon that fed off indulgence," Robin replied tersely. "I couldn't exactly help it. Neither of us intended for her to get pregnant, though…"
"Same here. I guess I shouldn't really lecture you, should I? Not when Nightwing… well, the older you and I did exactly the same thing…"
"Mm." Robin gazed absently into the fire. For some reason, he trusted this Terra more so than even maybe the other Teen Titans. Maybe because of the pain she had been through, the crap she had suffered at Slade's expense…
So he told her everything that was worrying him. Seth Elliott, everything he had had known, Raven's pregnancy and how fast it was developing, the fact that even though Raven was dead, when he had placed his hand on her stomach, he had felt the baby kick, implying that it was still alive…
Terra stared at him as he finished speaking; he drained the rest of his cool coffee to satiate his dry throat.
"Whoa," she offered finally, her large blue eyes even wider.
"Well, does any of it ring a bell?" Robin asked, setting down his empty cup. "I know that we've established that this future is a bit screwed, what with me not dying with the other Titans, and then me getting you pregnant instead of Raven, but years later… None of it seems to make any kind of sense. Did I… did Nightwing ever mention anything about his time in Azarath? Anything about Seth Elliott?"
Terra shook her head.
"That's not to say none of it happened," she added quickly, seeing his dismayed expression. "But… well, Nightwing didn't really say an awful lot. There was a lot of stuff that I didn't know about him; I don't even think Bruce or Babs knew everything, you know. Dick was… very good at keeping secrets…"
Robin squirmed uncomfortably at that. Yes, it was true; he was. There was still that one terrible secret he had; something that he had not deigned to tell even Terra, even though he had told her everything else.
That night in Arkham Asylum, before Slade had raped him… they had kissed, touched each other… It made him feel sick every time he thought about it; why had it happened? He still couldn't understand it…
He yawned, suddenly overcome with tiredness.
"Come on, mister," Terra said, her demeanour suddenly becoming "older and superior" again. "You need to get some sleep. You stay there, I'll go and find you some blankets and stuff…"
Robin was too tired to even argue; the caffeine in his coffee hadn't done anything to help him keep awake. Still, it was very late – early, even, if you wanted to be precise – and he'd had a long, hard day, what with dying, being brought back to life, acquiring new powers and then travelling fifteen years into the future, only to be chased by gangsters and then…
He yawned again, just wanting to collapse there on the cold stone floor and sleep.
"Here you are," Terra said brightly, coming back with her arms full of blankets and pillows. She dumped them on the floor next to him and held up something else.
"You can sleep in this tonight," she went on, holding it out to him. It was a big black sweater, lovely and warm and soft, made from a fleecy material.
"It was Nightwing's," she explained as he took it from her. "He gave it to me one time when I complained how cold it could get in here at night. I figured you wouldn't want to wear anything of mine, but this is technically yours anyway, so…"
Robin nodded, getting to his feet. Terra pointed to the far corner of the room.
"There, you can change over there. And tomorrow we'll get you some proper clothes."
Robin blinked and looked down at himself.
"Hey, what's wrong with-?"
"Weren't you paying attention?" Terra interrupted. "Those gangsters tried to kill you because they recognised you as a superhero. You can't wear that pretty little costume around here, Robin; it's a death wish. Don't worry, I've got a whole crate of black leather and Lycra stuff, all cast offs from some chain store. There's stuff for all sizes and both sexes in there; I'm sure we can find something that will fit you."
"Leather and Lycra?" Robin repeated weakly, being reminded of that terrible apprentice outfit.
Terra nodded.
"Camouflage, like I said. Stick to the shadows, and you'll become part of them. And if it's tight it offers you better movement, so none of your little flappy capes or anything, ok?"
Robin simply nodded obediently. Black leather catsuits were so not his thing…
He retreated to the designated corner while Terra made him up a bed from the pillows and blankets; he quickly pulled everything off except for his boxers, his mask and the Blood Diamond, shivering from the cold of the room. This was remedied as he pulled the sweater on over his head; it was very big on him, falling almost to his knees and the sleeves drooping several inches past his hands. Hard to believe that it would fit him in a few years to come. His future-self sounded… big.
It was a nice thought knowing that he wouldn't be this small and scrawny forever.
He wandered back over to Terra, his bright Robin uniform crumpled in his arms. Terra smirked at the size of the sweater on him as she took his clothes from him, and he scowled in response.
"There you are," she said, gesturing to the nest of soft pillows and blankets she had made up for him; he so was so tired that even the amazing bed he had been given in Azarath didn't seem to be as inviting as this.
"Thanks." He gratefully collapsed onto it and wriggled under the layers of blankets, surprised at how warm and comfortable it was.
"Well, goodnight…" Terra walked away, still holding his clothes.
He curled up and started to drift off to sleep, but Terra returned before he was completely sedated. He opened his eyes again as he heard her approaching and sat up slightly, distracted. She too had changed into her night-things – an immensely oversized black T-shirt and navy sweatpants. She dropped a few rocks onto the fire, dimming it right down so that the whole room was only illuminated by the faintest orange glow. It was very comforting, and made him feel even sleepier, but still Terra distracted him as she sat down on her own bed a few feet away from him and picked up a book that had been stashed beneath the pillows.
"What are you reading?" He asked sleepily.
She looked up at him from where she had been flicking through the book, searching for her page.
"Are you still awake?"
"Only just. What's that you're reading?"
She held it up so that he could read the title; Terra Nova. It looked very old, a red leather hardback that was faded and cracked, the pages yellowed and flimsy with age.
"Roy gave it to me because the title has my name in it," she explained, starting to flick through it again. "It's Latin for "New Land"." She frowned at him over the top of it as he yawned a third time. "Now go to sleep, young man, or you're in trouble…"
He grinned faintly and settled down again, murmuring a faint "goodnight". He was slightly surprised when she leaned over and petted his dark spiky hair affectionately.
"'Night, baby," she whispered in reply.
He was too tired to pursue the reason behind this show of obviously-familiar affection, instead curling right up in the warmth of the blankets.
His last conscious thought was that this was a terra nova indeed…
Ah, a nice cosy lil' ending to a rather… um, morbid chapter…
Yes, I know there has been a lot of talking thus far, but this future world did need to be established, and I felt an older, world-weary Terra was the one for the job.
Anyone who cares; in Cardiff Bay, in the big city where I live (Cardiff, capital of Wales) there is a bar called Terra Nova – and this bar is the direct influence on the name of this chapter, no lie.
Anyway, again, scheduled this week; today's Remember the Titans, tomorrow (hopefully) will be Small Print. No promises, since I haven't even seen the edited chapter yet, but we'll sure try. Thursday is Red Rum, and later sometime this week too I'll be updating Nevarmore because it's been ages…
Nearly Christmas! Whoo-hoo!
RobinRocks xXx