Aki- Will you hate me if I say I have had this chapter written for a while and I just needed to edit it? Yup...

Reunions

Madam Rouge had sent some lackeys to retrieve her high backed chair as soon as the fights commenced. She leaned back lazily. This little glitch of having the children follow their parents' footsteps had actually turned out extraordinarily well. She rested her chin lightly on her gloved fingers.

It was difficult to see everything that was going on, with four fights going on at once and with four cages all adjacent to each other. She could still make out of the flashes of moving bodies caught in the rough dance of battle, hear grunts of pain and the clattering of bars of change over the rabble and cheers of her surrounding minions.

She was content.

***

"Mom," Kaden almost squeaked and fell to his knees at her side.

"Kaden," she repeated as he helped her sit up with a hand on her shoulder. She held up her torso with one hand, used the other to rub her weary eyes. "You're okay," she stated.

"Yeah, Mom, I'm okay," he said, the taste of a sad smile on his voice.

Sitting up properly she took both of his hands in her own. "Heal me," she said and before Kaden could question she explained, "To get the rest of the drugs out of my body."

Kaden obeyed, closing his eyes to concentrate, muttering his mantra. The relief he was feeling made the power come sliding out of his easier than he expected and his hands glowed over hers. Raven seemed into inhale his power and then exhale her reignited own.

"The drugs, you knew?" Kaden asked, releasing her hands and opening his eyes.

"I had a few moments of consciousness between the doses," Raven explained, beginning to take in her surroundings. The cage, the villains, the allies, and Kaden.

"What're you wearing?"

Kaden looked down at his body as if he had to check that he was wearing what he thought he was wearing.

"My costume," he answered sheepishly.

Raven bit back a remark, whether scolding or sarcastic, Kaden didn't know.

"How's everyone else?" she asked, her senses were a bit overwhelmed by so many people. She couldn't sift out the individual souls of her friends.

"I—I don't know," Kaden answered, voice cracking. "I told them. I told them we could get you out. All of you. I knew I could save you." Kaden was rambling and shaking. The shock of what had happened— he had fought his own mother for his life— was sinking in now that they action had died.

"I know," Raven told her son. She touched his cheek with her palm. "You did so well, Kaden. But you need to calm down, so we can help our friends."

Kaden nodded and gulped, as if to swallow his nerves. Then he helped his mother to her feet.

***

A moment after Raven awoke did Starfire ceased struggling. Even reduced to her simplest instincts, she could sense that Halle's hold was not hostile. She remembered this. Something more affectionate, more passive, more human than the 'obey, destroy, kill' attitude she was living in.

Starfire recognized this. It was a hug. And in the moment of clarity she recognized many other things as well— the bright color hair, the familiarity of the girl latched around her torso, the words she was saying— "Mom."

Mom, Mother. Daughter. Halle.

"X'hal." It was a Tameranian swear. And it was the first word Halle heard her mother speak since she come home one day to find her home trashed.

"Mom?" came a question of baited breathed. The grip on Starfire became looser.

"What's going on?" Kori voiced. She felt uneasy in her own body. Her vision was fuzzy on the edges. Her hearing was muzzled. Words felt like mush in her mouth.

Kori was released from Halle's tight hug, but Halle didn't remove her hands from her mother's arms.

"What do you remember?" Halle asked.

"The house," Kori said, struggling eyes not quite focusing on her daughters face. "It was attacked. Dick and I tried to fight, but it was an ambush. We never expected it and then…" Kori shook her head. It was all an indiscernible fuzz of almost nothingness.

"And now we're in a cage?" Kori asked. Her head was slowly clearing. This was so odd her, to be missing the connecting pieces from then and now.

"We came to rescue you."

"We? Alex is here?"

"Yeah," Halle answered, eyes flickering over nervously to the cage where there was a fight between her brother and father, hoping things were going okay. "And Cyborg— and Kaden."

Kori's faces scrunched up like she was trying to remember something she thought she had forgotten due to her current confusion.

"Raven and Beast Boy's son. They were captured too."

She accepted it, but there was the inkling of confusion etched in the expression of her face.

"Halle!" The girl turned to see Kaden at the cage wall. His arm was through one of the grates. She approached, her mother following, and took Kaden's hand in hers in a comforting gesture. The top of Kaden's ears went pink.

"Friend Raven," Kori greeted. Halle gave her mother a strange look.

"Starfire," returned Raven, her mouth forming the barest hint of a smile.

Raven reached her own two hands through the bars and Starfire took them silently, knowing what the wordless cue meant from years past. Tendrils of healing magic swirled up Kori's arm and then faded away. Starfire blinked a few times as she adjusted to being hit with the sudden sharpening of her senses.

"It's been a long time," she said.

"It has," Raven agreed.

***

"For what?"

Alex's trembling fist loosened, his grip was lost, and his arm fell. He gasped, blinked, and another tear escaped his wet eyes.
"What the— where am— huh?" Dick seemed greatly out of his sorts. He reached a hand up to his face and felt his mask with his gloved hands. The pealed the mask from his eyes and stared at it as it lay in his palms. Then he looked up at his son.

"Dad," Alex said.

"Alex…are you crying?"

The boy shook his head as he sniffled and replied, "No, Dad." He wasn't embarrassed. He just couldn't find a way to explain his tears. A mix of bitterness and happiness, perhaps.

As Dick took a moment to rub his eyes, as if to banish his poor vision, which was all fuzzy and making his imagine tears. Alex took the reprieve to wipe his face dry with the cuffs of his sleeves.

After dropping his hands and assessing his surrounding he looked up at his son from where he was kneeling on the floor.

"We were kidnapped. Drugged too, if the way I feel is any indication. They knew we were superheroes. And if all the Titans are here…what's this about— revenge?"

"Wow," Alex mouthed.

Dick scrutinized his son. "And how did you get into all of this?"

Alex scoffed, but it was light and lacked the usual scorn carried with it. "I'm here to rescue you."

"We're in a cage."

"There were some technical difficulties."

Dick smirked and almost chuckled. He began to get up and Alex offered a hand, which Dick accepted. But as soon as Dick pulled his weight up Alex winced and wrapped his free arm around his waist.

"Are you okay?
Alex merely grunted in response, bit into his bottom lip, and nodded his head by the merest fraction of an inch.

Dick didn't know exactly what had gone on in the big area of his memories that were blank. He was, however, practiced in the art of deduction. So when he reached out a comforting, steadying hand, despite the fact he was barely maintaining his own balance, to lay on his son's shoulder it was wrong. It was wrong the way his son shrugged away in a movement that was almost a flinch. He knew, he realized, he had hurt his son.

"Alex. Dick."

"Dad!"

He ignored the shouts from his wife and daughter, after a glance to assure they were okay. He had been who he had needed to be for his wife. And he tried to be who he needed to be for his children. For sixteen years he had kept they safe from this world. The world of powers and capes and villains, by forsaking and forgetting who he had once been. It was why Starfire and Robin became Kori and Dick. For the twins. He wanted them to be happy and healthy and safe and not in want for anything they may need. And he had succeeded with his daughter. But his son, Alex, he had left the boy with not much but doubt about how his father was proud of him. How much he loved him.

He hadn't been the man he needed to be for his son.

So he ignored the other half of his family, for just a moment, and reached a hand out, tentatively, until his fingers brushed his son's elbow where he stood half turned away from his father. With a gentle force he guided his son, who was trying to calm his breathing, which was ragged but slowed, towards him and towards Kori and Halle waiting at the cage wall for them.

"You did good," Dick whispered and Alex looked up at his father, who seemed so much taller when standing right next to him, in a weird wonder. And then he began to go red from the neck up because he thought he might start crying again.

When they approached the cage, Starfire tried to take both her son and husband into a hug through the bars.

Halle caught her brother's eye when she heard him sniffle. She smiled a closed mouth smile that was sincere, but didn't reach her eyes. It may have been the first non-sardonic or non-derisive smile she had offered her brother for a long time.

***

Although it wasn't quite a surprise to Cyborg when Beast Boy fell out of the air, back in human form, and keeled over on the floor in crazy laughter muttering about cheetahs. It was a surprise realizing how long it had been since hearing his once best friend's laughter. Cyborg was not sure if it was him, but the laughter seemed to be deeper now. Yet, it was not any less cheerful. Things change and things don't.

"BB?" It was Cyborg's greeting. The man, not quite 'Beast Boy' any longer, looked up at him. Confusion was riding across his green features.

"Cy?"

If Cyborg had thought his old friends face looked confused, that was nothing compared to the confusion in his voice. His eyes skirted around the room like a desperate critter— to his unfamiliar clothing, the cold floor, the cage, the villains outside, his family in the connecting cages.

"Not again," he muttered in a way that said he was much too familiar with this, as he struggled to his feet. He put a hand to his head. He was feeling woozy.

"Well, it wasn't exactly the same, but I figured something corny would do the trick."

"Yeah," agreed Gar around a chuckle. He sighed. This was slightly awkward.

"It's been a while," the green man said.

"True story…I met your kid, um, Kaden, kinda orchestrated this whole," Cyborg looked wearily around the cage, "Rescue mission. He's—" Cyborg paused.

"The impossible mix and me and Raven," Gar supplied. "Creepy, I know."

"Really creepy…Saladhead."

Gar raised an eyebrow before replying, "Garbage Disposal."

And with that they joined the clump of former Titans and their children at where all their cages met in the middle. There were a few uncomfortable greetings from old friends that had long since ceased to play 'friend' rolls. Gar stuck an arm through the bars and ruffled his son's hair. Raven extended her healing magic to both her husband and her former leader. It resulted with bit of them bent double, vomiting on the floor. Cyborg jumped back, as not to get any on his feet, Alex looked repulsed, Starfire was flitting around uselessly in worry.

"I expected they might have some adverse reaction to have the drugs being purged from their system so swiftly," Raven explained coolly and unaffected. "Considering their both human, and thus, most susceptible." She felt it was unnecessary to explain that alien and demon ancestry made the body more adapt at filtering something made in the attempt to control humans. "They'll be fine in a few moments."

Kaden acted like this was no new news, Cyborg and Starfire were a bit reassured, while Halle and Alex shared a glance, obviously not used to this strange woman and her strict monotone.

***

She had first thought it was funny when she realized that the children and that cyborg were pleading their brainwashed counterparts. It was pathetic. So like the goody-two-shoes thinking that they could always save each other. These children, her stomach knotted, and the cyborg, they would either kill or be killed. They were too weak to kill. They would die, and none of their pleading, reasoning, crying, praying could save them. Not know. She laughed, loudly in spite herself, and leaned forward in her chair in anticipation of the worst, the product of her best.

But then things started to change. The fighting stopped, slowed and…She glanced around. Most of the others were busy still exchanging beats, rough housing, getting in their own fights on the catwalk around the room. She stood from her chair, an angry determination surrounding her moments. A moment later she had grabbed the doctor, who had come up with the drug, by the front of his shirt. Rogue towered over the smaller man.

"What's wrong with the drugs? Why have they stopped working?"

"Ah…ah," the man began to stutter, taking a moment to push his glasses up his nose. "Well, th-the mind is strong. It's always possible that—"

"What?" she almost screamed. "What's possible?"

"Possible that the mind would overcome the drugs when the subjects were confronted with a familiar, emotionally evoking stimuli."

"Dammit," Rogue swore, pushing the doctor away from her as she released him. "No, this isn't what is supposed to happen." She went to back to the railing, gripped it tight in her hands as she leaned over it.

"No," she said louder than before, almost a yell. And then again. "No!"

I think I would rather have Madam Rouge yelling the f-word at the end of this story. I figure that would have encompassed what she was feeling more than 'NOOOOOOooo!!!" but, I tried to keep the language rather mild in this, so...no....well, remember, reviews equal love!!!