Well this chapter does have humorous context but it looks like I'm going to have to break my tradition and make 5 the funny chapter instead of 4 since I ran out of word space and a good ending point presented itself. Oh wells!
Last few days have been busy, busy! Went to a wedding and realized I haven't been to one in ten years haha, fixed a fancy birthday dinner of homemade pork ramen and pineapple-upside down cake for my boyfriend, had midterms and did an annual little art project where I sewed a costume for my dog for the Halloween contest at Petsmart. Third place, bah. That's such crap since I'm the only one who conceives original ideas and makes her costumes when everyone else buys one. Indy makes it look really cute; I'll post it on my profile soon. : )
Arual-san
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His three remaining teammates had all their things packed and were all buckled into their sections of the jet patiently waiting for their leader who entered the garage in a huff that he was the last to arrive because of his training. His suitcase was already packed but rather than add anything for the trip he chucked out his academy uniform in the nearest bin to get out some of that anger.
Glancing at the jet, to him it seemed strangely empty without its fifth member and that same feeling seemed to float amongst the others without them saying so. The Titans hadn't thought to fill Beast Boy's empty space with their luggage, going to the extra lengths to strap their things down with rope like they'd done on their last trip, but Robin did throw the imposter's head in there so he wouldn't have to listen to it the whole way.
"Hey there, Mr. Leader Man," Kid Flash said peaceably, pushing off the wall he leaned on in a vain attempt to lift some of the Titan leader's moodiness. "Don't you worry your spiky head one minute about Jump while you're gone. Jinx and I have got it covered top to toe."
"I didn't mean to contact you on such short notice," Robin said, the other boy's cheeriness having little effect.
The pink-haired witch gave a lazy shrug of the shoulders. "We didn't have a whole lot going on anyway. So what's the scoop?"
"As you may have noticed Beast Boy isn't here right now," Robin said with some regret. "He's missing and we're heading over to Gotham to get information on how to track him down. You two can stay in any guest room you want but if you know what's good for you you'll stay out of Raven's room. The den is enough of a disaster as is so please don't add very much to it. The fridge is stocked and I expect Cyborg gave you the tower's security codes and what not. Any questions?"
Already Jinx seemed bored with his long-winded explanation, understandably a little out of it after zooming 200+ miles an hour over the bay in her speedy boyfriend's wake, but Kid Flash flicked his hand in the air.
Robin was straight onto his reply without asking the question. "No block parties…and you can stop crossing your fingers behind your back to negate that rule."
"Killjoy," Kid Flash sighed, though hardly any of his always sunny mood was compromised.
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While three of the Titans had only missed out on a couple hours sleep Robin had hardly gotten any on which to function at all. Still he insisted on piloting the jet back to Gotham City and his determination was a force more powerful than usual. He fronted a stony near silence to any of them that tried to contact him over the intercoms, answering with only mumbles and one-liners, focusing only on the sky ahead that never changed.
It was nothing against them they all knew but moreover their perfectionist leader mentally beating himself about the situation with Beast Boy. Robin didn't want to talk, didn't want to bring up this failing of his, he only wanted to solve the problem and recover their teammate as quickly as possible.
That didn't mean that his friends would permit him to brood in solitude.
"Robin man that was an exact duplicate of B," Cyborg said, pressing the button of the intercom. "Before the droid deactivated it, there was a two-way transmitter chip so that he could access and fake B's memories too."
"Please Robin none of us places the blame on you," Starfire contributed straight after. She looked through the windows to her silent leader to see his eyes hadn't deterred direction and she placed her hand to the glass as if to attract his attention in some other way. He scarcely blinked in that dead-set focus and that worried her. But there were more barriers between them then than just the glass.
"Guys,"
From their next attempts to get Robin out of his funk Cyborg and Starfire were interrupted. When she had cut off those attempts, Raven continued speaking through their wires only. "I really think we just need to leave Robin alone right now."
"But the fault is not his!" Starfire protested. "I would not have known that the Beast Boy imposter was not our real Beast Boy had you not-"
"We all know that Star and I'm not saying it any differently, it's just…" – her violet eyes wandered in Robin's direction – "you know how he is. Robin just needs some time to cool off from this; we need to give him some space. I know I'd be more than a little rattled if what had happened to him happened to me…thinking someone was your friend, treating them so and never suspecting anything different."
"Why's he always got to do this?" commented Cyborg a little moodily. "We're trying to help but he just shuts us out, sometimes I don't know why I even bother at all." He didn't really mean that both of the girls knew but they too had a share in the frustration that Robin could be sometimes.
Starfire again looked away from the dashboard to where Robin piloted the craft. She wasn't sure at the distance but his eyebrows had furrowed beneath the mask...very possibly in guilt.
"If he should ever want to talk…" And as Starfire trailed off without finishing the other two nodded instinctively though the action could not be communicated over the intercom. They cruised the skies in the same relative silence but Cyborg commandeered control of the jet when he felt that Robin had flown enough under limited sleep. Cyborg's hacking abilities dominated Robin's own so Robin could only sit in the cockpit, now with no task to focus on. So long as it wasn't about their current mission, the girls were able to coax some conversation out of him to try to lift his bad mood.
Time passed and Gotham came into view. The dark city didn't seem quite so dark in the prime times of morning.
In the little space the cockpit would permit Starfire jumped to the window where the others didn't to take in the sights of the big-time city that dwarfed their little Jump. Many corporate branches had their roots centered in Gotham and so the buildings were all that much taller and more impressive than smaller cities could boast. So many sights to see flew by so fast that Starfire jumped to all sides of her window just to keep up.
"Ooo, this is most exciting visiting the land of your origin, Robin," she beamed, pressing the button for his line. "What is there to see in this city of Gotham while we are-?"
"But I just got back!" Robin abruptly shot out in a clipped tone, unintentionally cutting Starfire short. When she was sure the words weren't directed to her, Starfire kept the button depressed and listened along to the voice Robin had been talking to, one she didn't recognize.
"And how many times have I filled in for you?" Batgirl returned with the same amount of fire. Exclusively on Robin's screen, she wasn't presently clothed in her superhero attire, had only half of her makeup on and was speedily rushing around her bedroom trying to get everything in order. "Our teacher just got out of a messy divorce so he's taking it out on us out of spite by piling us up with homework." She pulled a mascara brush across her lashes. "Batman's taken off again for who knows where and I've barely gotten any sleep, I-"
"Same here!"
"Oh you're a vampire anyway so what's it matter? Oww!" In yelling at him Barbara's grip slipped on her straightener and she burnt her thumb. "I know you don't have to worry about school anymore but I do. What's so important that you-?"
"I have a very important-!"
But throughout the chaos of Barbara's morning yet another thing came to add to the mix: the cheery tinkling sound of her ringtone. She grabbed hold of her cell phone with her toes and pitched it up where she could grab it from the air. Her stress instantly spiked up into ecstasy like the voice on the other end was a shot of Red Bull.
"Casey! I'm so glad you called!" she beamed while Robin waited on the sidelines. "Yeah, I had a great time last night! You liked my dress? Aww that's so sweet, I just knew I had to get it when I saw it in the store window." Her caller said more and she swooned. Barbara winked at her former teammate and mimed the words "He's hot."
As she chatted with the boy, twirling around and blushing in that he couldn't see her, Robin tapped his fingers on his arm in dwindling patience.
Finally Barbara took a second out from her new love interest to remember that she'd originally called Robin. Her eyes danced mischievously to him and her lips stretched wide with a smile as she confirmed with Casey a ride to school.
"Not now," Robin hissed under his breath so that the other guy wouldn't hear but Barbara listened cheerily to the things the boy Casey said she raised a hand high and waggled it to her teammate in show. "Bye-bye!"
The screen went black and Robin banged his head against his seat.
"Who was that girl to whom you were speaking?" Starfire questioned, the first to ask out of the three when it was concerning another girl.
The way a boy could sometimes, Robin seemed to miss the specific tone she used in that his relationship with her had better be nothing more than friendship. "That was my old teammate Batgirl. She just stuck us with a bank robbery to stop. And since we have to do it now-" – he took a moment to growl over that – "we're going to have to land instead of heading directly to headquarters. Cyborg, reroute direction to Wayne Towers."
"Don't we have one of their branch companies in Jump?" Cyborg asked over the intercom. "Why there?"
"We've got some inside people working for us there," Robin explained, not going any deeper and to head off any further questions he added that Cyborg could finally employ that stealth mode on the jet he'd been waiting to use. Cyborg beamed over that new toy of his and initiated it when they neared the tower.
Robin typed in a number into the jet's communicator that he'd not used in a long time.
After a couple rings a kindly voice answered, "Wayne Enterprises, this is Lucius Fox speaking."
A small rush of good feeling came to Robin when he heard that reassuring voice that could calm any strife, one he'd not been so fortunate to hear on his previous visit. "Good morning," he answered simply, imagining the surprise on the old man's face when the other end went silent. "Do you think you could clear any helicopter landings on the roof for an old friend?"
There was hardly enough time for Robin to let Mr. Fox welcome him back properly if the team was ever going to catch the bank robbers when every second counted. Robin was courteous enough in their short conversation and as he left the keys with the man but even his teammates, who were used to his many eccentrics, were surprised when he ran to the edge of the roof and jumped clear off. Had it been anyone but Robin they might've questioned the person's sanity but with him they were merely surprised and hurried after in his wake.
At some point during his freefall Robin drew an arm back and fired a grappling hook.
Robin had gauged where he'd had to fire when he fell and he hit the ledge of the roof without needing to look. He took the resulting whiplash of the wire in stride and raced down the side of the building like the dangerous activity was nothing more than a horizontal track race. Gravity didn't apply to the girls as it did to him so Starfire and Raven soon caught up to him with Cyborg in tow.
"So where's the bank then?" Cyborg asked with some envy as he was carted along by Starfire like a piece of luggage.
"Gotham First National is on the corner of West 28th and Kensington," Robin relayed and the way he said it he may have also been giving himself a refresher on that note. "It's not far but you can bet whoever robbed it is several blocks away by now."
Raven's critical eyes traveled across the building tops of Gotham to a place in the distance where a number of sirens and lights were flashing. "How ever will we be able to pick up the trail?" She had nothing weighing her back like the others so she was the first to part from the wall and across the air to the crime scene below. The others weren't far behind and Robin fired out another hook to a flagpole on the next highest building abruptly changing direction to keep up. His teammates moved effortlessly but so did he.
By the time the Titans reached the scene they discovered why the squadron hadn't moved from the same street for a few minutes. Tiny metal spikes been tossed from the back of the pursued vehicle. The tires of the police cars were shredded beyond repair and two of the cars had even flipped onto their sides in pursuit. The teens passed straight by the officers when they could no longer catch up and had to call for backup to head the thieves off. A few of them let out exclamations of the return of Batman's former sidekick. This was no longer their game.
Though the accident with the police had been fairly recent by the look of it there were many different routes or back alleys that the pursued could've taken even with the Titans hot pursuit. They'd not gone far past the police when Robin was about to signal them to split up.
"Looks like we don't need to."
The other three looked to where Cyborg pointed to find that an empty convertible had crashed sidelong into a lamppost only after its occupants had just inflicted similar crashes upon the police. A shell-shocked stray dog quaked in the middle of the street like it would never move again.
"It is all right now, dear one," And once she'd set down Cyborg, Starfire rushed to scoop up the terrified animal, dirt, fleas and all, into a hug.
Raven kept a safe distance from the scraggly dog that looked as though it would wet itself all over Starfire's top at any moment. "Well, at least we won't have to add animal cruelty to their sentence."
"This accident is fresh," Robin said, doing a quick analysis of the condition of the car. He retracted his Bo and stepped out a few feet before the others. "They can't have gone far. We'll split up to pursue them on foot, radio in if you're closing in on-"
"Birdie Boy!"
The sudden exclamation shrieked through the air like a hurricane siren but none of the team was as shocked as Robin when he was instantly tackled by a red and black clad form. The female jester wrapped him up in a suffocating loving embrace usually reserved for the relatives no one visited.
"Ahh!" Robin cried out for he could think of nothing else to say.
"Our little songbird is back home at last!" Harley Quinn exclaimed in undisguised joy. "Auntie Harley missed you so much!" And she cuddled the teen closer to her curvy chest, conveniently not noticing as he urgently tried at every opening to escape. She shifted her arms to put Robin into a headlock and still he couldn't pull free as the woman grated her gloved fist into his spiky head with an atomic noogie. "Where have you been, Robbie?"
They'd faced sludge-wielding monsters and demons from other planes of existence but now the other Titans could only stare.
Still Robin struggled to break free from Harley's assault on his scalp and with his friends watching the whole thing in confused disbelief his struggles were even stronger. "Get…off me, you nutcase!"
"Aww, be nice!" Half feigning hurt for the insult, Harley swung him in her arms in a playful manner. "Can't I say hello to my favorite little man?"
Robin was physically stronger than Harley but, rather than employing strength, she knew exactly the stress positioning she needed to keep him where she wanted him. Though she obviously took great delight in hugging the boy after two long years apart she let him go all at once, watched him take off in that same instant, and stood back with a gleaming smile that filled her face.
"Sooo," Raven cracked in her deep voice, unsure of what reaction was appropriate, "she's your "Auntie" then?"
"No!" And Robin inflicted the same infuriated force in his tone to his hair in attempt to tame what Harley had noogied into a raging rat's nest. "She's just some petty criminal!"
"Hey! There's more to me than the quirk, the charm and the number one assistant to Mr. J!"
"Oh really?" Robin came back, still trying to re-mess up his hair to its spiky form. "Then why do you have that duffel bag on your hip?"
"Uhhh…" Harley stalled and she subtly slid that stuffed bag backwards. Her skinny frame did nothing to hide it but when it was partially hidden behind her back she resumed her smile. "I was at the gym! Can't get a hot body like mine without working out!"
"And you go to the gym in full makeup in that wacky-looking getup?" Cyborg questioned of her in a dry tone.
"Sure do, Toaster-Guy!"
Robin was unconvinced. "Then you wouldn't mind me inspecting that gym bag then?"
Acting insulted, Harley pulled back when Robin moved forward to take it from her. "Didn't Bats teach you how to treat a lady? You don't go trifling through a lady's personal effects. And who are all these new faces anyway?" She turned an unimpressed eye over the half-human half robot, the red-headed alien girl and the girl with the billowing cloak around her shoulders. "Don't recognize any of you kiddies from the Justice Lag. You left us all to start your own little rugrat team then, Robbie?"
Every word she spoke, every time she talked down to him a treated him like child, pushed Robin just a little further. He picked up the Bo he'd dropped when Harley had jumped, made to answer but Starfire was the faster.
"You, whoever you might be, must exercise caution when you are driving the motor vehicle down the street." And in her impassioned statement, the beagle in her arms gave an agreeing bark.
"Oh baby," Harley simpered over the animal and her sympathy was for true. "Are you okay? You know I'd never hurt your sweet face."
"And I have a name attached to my new face," Starfire added. She set the dog down and as it scampered away to safety her green eyes grew more brightly in warning. "It is Starfire and you will remember it when this night is through."
"Sorry darling," a sultry new voice disdained from an alley only a few feet away. A slit of earthy green knee-high boots emerged first followed by the rest of the knockout woman clothed in green with flaming red hair to offset.
Poison Ivy gave a poisonous smirk to match her name. "I'm afraid I've forgotten your name already."