Brotherhood

Chapter 4: Reflections

Robin lay flat on his back, bare chest exposed to the light breeze, looking hazily up at the wooden planks of the room's ceiling and not quite sure what to think. Part of him was still reeling from his resurrection, and a whole different part of him had been completely upended by what he and Starfire had just done. They'd made love twice before, but neither of those experiences had been anything like this. There had been a sense of need in her that Robin had never seen in her, almost like Starfire had been afraid that he would disappear again if she'd let go of him.

Pushing aside his guilt at letting himself even get killed in the first place, Robin rolled back over onto his side and wrapped his arms around Starfire, holding her against him. The Tamaranean didn't say anything for what felt like minutes, until she'd finally worked up the nerve to admit the truth to both herself and to the young man lying next to her.

"I was scared," she said softly, just above a whisper. "I was so scared when I saw your body just lying there, on the floor of the Tower—I thought I would never…" here she paused, losing her momentum. "I am sorry, Robin; you must think I am weak, I suppose."

Robin turned Starfire around in his arms, waiting until they were face-to-face again before shaking his head.

"I know you're not weak, Star," he gently admonished her. "You're one of the strongest people I know. I'm the one who should be apologizing here, for making you feel that pain. I know how much it hurts to lose someone you care about, and you should never have had to go through that because of me."

Starfire could only silently wonder at the emotions that flashed so freely across Robin's face and eyes as he spoke. She had never seen him so honest or vulnerable before, and she could tell that he was suffering from the same pangs of guilt that she was.

"You said just now that you know the pain of losing someone close to you, Robin," the Tamaranean began slowly, watching his eyes carefully for any hint of uneasiness. "If you do not mind me asking, of whom were you speaking?"

Robin fell silent at the question and stayed that way for several moments, until Starfire sighed and shook her head.

"If you do not wish to talk about it," she said, hoping to keep the regret at not discovering more about him out of her voice, "that is fine as well, Robin."

"No."

The Tamaranean's expression became confused at the clipped answer.

"What?"

"No," Robin repeated, stronger this time. "I need to tell someone, and if I can't bring myself to open up to you, who else could I possibly talk to? It's a bit of a long story, though," he warned, "so it might take me a while to get through it all."

Starfire smiled warmly, and Robin felt all of his insecurities melting away. Why had he ever doubted, even for a second, that she would accept and understand him in spite of his past?

"Take all the time you need, Robin," she said encouragingly, pulling him into a hug and resting her head against his shoulder with a contented sigh. "I am not going anywhere."

Robin smiled at her words, before closing his eyes and allowing his darkest memories to come flooding back into the forefront of his mind.

"It all started right here in Gotham," he began. "Eleven years ago, when I was just eight, almost nine years old. My mother, my father and I were a traveling acrobatic act known as the 'Flying Graysons.' We'd travel around Gotham and some of the smaller outlying cities, doing what we loved and making enough to get by in the meantime. For a couple of years, life was great, and we were happy.

"But I was too young and naïve back then to realize that Gotham eventually corrupted everything it touched, no matter how pure or innocent that thing might have been. Eventually, we became well-enough known that a legitimate circus offered to sponsor us as a stable act. Naturally, my family and I jumped at the chance: instead of just skating by, we could actually have the opportunity to live comfortably. Well, as comfortably as someone who wasn't filthy rich or a crime kingpin could live in Gotham, anyway. What all of us failed to see, though, was that this particular circus was under the umbrella of a wide, organized crime extortion racket. And the owner had been especially tardy on paying his dues to some very powerful, very dangerous people.

"One night, the owner was visited by a few low-rung thugs under the control of a mobster named Tony Zucco. I overheard them trying to pressure the owner into giving them the money he owed to Zucco, but he said no way. The next performance was two nights later. My parents were up doing some basic tricks on a high wire, when it happened.

"Someone had sabotaged the wire's anchors and the safety net underneath it, and my parents both fell right through to the ground. They died on impact."

Robin paused there as his voice caught, and Starfire waited patiently for him to continue.

"Back then, I didn't know who'd pulled off the hit," Robin began again after a few more heartbeats of silence, "and in the chaos that followed the 'accident', I almost got trampled by the crowd as they scrambled to get out. When I came back later on, my parents' bodies were both gone, most likely dumped in the river to hide the evidence of the crime. The circus owner showed up floating by the docks with a bullet in his forehead a few days later, and Zucco had the circus itself burned to the ground after he'd put himself in a position to collect the insurance money from it."

"What did you do then?" Starfire asked, and Robin gave a bitter chuckle.

"What I had to," he answered. "Picked some pockets, palmed some fruit from outdoor stalls. Survived. As fate would have it, one of the people I marked one time was Bruce Wayne. He caught me red-handed, but recognized my face from some of the newspaper articles on the circus incident and decided to take me in. Guess he thought we had enough in common that I could help him fight crime here in Gotham, which is how I became Robin. It's also how I wound up here for the first time, in a way."

Starfire's eyes widened slightly at the revelation.

"You have been here before?"

Robin nodded. "I was here training from the time I was twelve to when I was sixteen, Starfire; I came out to Jump City looking for a fresh start after I'd learned all I could from my teachers here."

The Tamaranean opened her mouth to ask another question, but was cut off as Robin rolled away from her and got up from the bed.

"Come on," he said, back in his leader persona, "let's get dressed; there're some questions I want to ask Ra's."

Starfire sighed in resignation, but her attention was re-captured as the dim light in the room illuminated a myriad of battle scars on Robin's back, both large and small. Most of them had turned white and almost invisible with age, but a few retained their darker color, refusing to be forgotten. Feeling something surge up from within her that compelled her to speak, Starfire swallowed her misgivings and did so.

"Robin," she said seriously, grabbing his attention enough that his head turned back over his shoulder to face her, "I cannot claim to know everything of your past, even with what you have just told me. But whatever you might have done during your time here, good or evil, I want you to know that I will not judge you for it. My people are a warrior race, and several of our rites of passage involve brutal tests of strength. I myself have taken part in some of these out of necessity, and my hands have taken their share of lives.

"But I believe that it is the actions we take that define who we are, and I have seen you perform many acts of kindness and courage. I just want you to know that if you were planning on asking me for forgiveness for not revealing sooner some past sin you committed, know that I give it to you freely. I do not love the person you might have been in the past, Robin," she finished, getting up as well and facing him eye-to-eye, "but instead, I love the person I see standing before me right now."

Robin turned the rest of the way around and smiled; a true, unguarded smile that let Starfire know without a doubt that he felt the same way about her. He closed the distance between them in a step and kissed her, conveying more tenderness and love in that one gesture than Starfire had ever felt from him before.

"I love you, too," he whispered in her ear. "But we should really get going, or I don't know if we'll leave this room at all today."

"And that would be a bad thing?" the Tamaranean shot back teasingly, running one of her hands lightly down Robin's chest. The other Titan could only groan as she grazed the weak spot only she knew about.

"You're really not helping," he protested with as much strength as he could, which wasn't very much at all. Starfire relented with light laughter, backing away from him.

"Very well," she acquiesced. "I will follow your lead this time, Robin, but I expect compensation in the future."

Robin caught the implication in her words, smirking as he got dressed in his new League uniform that Starfire had previously scattered around the room.

"I'm sure we can work something out, Star."

Damian walked through the halls back to the main room with a sure, confident stride, flanked by Raven and Beast Boy.

"So, if we were to go along with you on this mission of yours, which I'm not saying we necessarily will," Raven spoke, "what exactly would we be going after?"

"Not 'what', Raven," Damian back, "who. I'm not stealing anything this time; this is a reconnaissance mission. I'm supposed to track down some hotshot assassin and figure out why the hell he's so dead-set on being a free agent. Best case scenario, I can convince them to join up with the League and we all go home happy."

"And the worst case?" Beast Boy immediately followed up, eyes narrowed as he searched Damian's face for the information he was certain the other warrior wasn't telling him. Damian just smirked, totally unmoved by the provocation.

"If push comes to shove, I'm more than happy to shove that bastard's punk ass right off of a roof," Damian asserted. "Hopefully, though, we'll avoid that. An ally is better for business than a corpse, after all."

"But of course," Raven deadpanned, refraining from any other snarky rejoinders as the trio finally came back into the large main room. The scene in front of them made Raven cover her open mouth in shock, while Beast Boy stood stone silent, struggling to process what he was seeing. Damian, on the other hand, was completely unfazed, merely letting out a slow, admiring whistle.

"He took down 14 of them when he came out? Damn, even I have to admit that's pretty impressive, all things considered."

Raven was the first of the two Titans to put the pieces together, and her eyes opened even wider.

"No—" she breathed out in disbelief, shaking her head. "No, you can't be serious. Robin did this?"

"Yes, he did," Talia broke in smoothly, walking over to join the trio. "And it was quite the virtuoso performance, in fact. Even made me slightly nostalgic."

"But Robin would never kill someone!" Beast Boy exclaimed, springing to his leader's defense at once. "Beat them up something fierce, maybe, but he always made a point to never kill anyone! He's not a murderer like any of you are!"

Talia gave a pointed smile at the shape-shifter's blissful ignorance, drawing in a calming breath before speaking.

"The Lazarus Pit has a way of unleashing the worst instincts in a person for a few moments, after they come out of it," she explained. "I've always seen it as a type of balancing, taking a few lives in exchange for the person who just managed to dodge the Reaper. But let me ask you a question, Garfield Logan:

"How many innocent bystanders do you think the heroics of you and your Titan friends kill or maim every time you combat a criminal?"

Beast Boy's mouth set in a grim frown, his eyes narrowing in anger and suspicion.

"How do you know my name?" he half-hissed, but Talia ignored the question.

"Just tell me that much, Garfield: how many lives do you think your collateral damage claims every single mission?" she pressed, her voice increasing in force as she went on. "Every building you knock over is someone's office, or someone's apartment. Every piece of debris from those collisions flies somewhere, boy. Tell me, do you ever go back to look at the havoc your 'heroism' causes? How many mangled bodies get zipped up in bags because you Titans were too busy causing massive property damage to worry about the people being trampled beneath your feet?

"Before you go calling us murderers, Garfield," Talia finished, her voice sharp and pitiless, "take a look at how dirty your own hands are."

Her rebuke might as well have been a dagger rammed into Beast Boy's ribcage. The shape-shifter felt himself slipping into shock as his mind subconsciously recalled all the times he'd attacked an enemy in some monstrous form, unconcerned about the City around him as he rampaged. Talia was right: how many people had he unthinkingly trampled or broken, how many lives had he ruined just because he'd tried to go for maximum power with his transformations? Oh god, she was right: he was no better than Cinderblock, or Plasmus, or any other mindless brute who just lived to smash things into tiny pieces and fragments.

It was like Mallah had said, on top of the Tower that night. Without his fury, Beast Boy was nothing.

Nothing.

Never again… it never happens again...

"Beast Boy, snap out of it! Beast Boy!"

Raven's concerned voice shouting at him was the last thing the shape-shifter heard before he passed out from the stress and exhaustion. A brief image of that face, of those violet eyes, wide with concern, the last things he saw before his vision swam and world faded to black.

She's so beautiful…

Raven felt herself begin to panic as Beast Boy hit the floor, his eyes closed and unmoving: it reminded her far too much of the moments on the roof of Titans' Tower when she'd thought he had died. Her heart clenched up again in fear of the nightmare becoming reality, until she felt a pulse move at his neck and slowly forced herself to relax.

"I guess I overdid it," Talia remarked coolly as she saw the results of her tirade. "Oh well, it's probably for the best; that kid needed a reality check anyway."

As he watched Raven's fists clench tighter and tighter in response to his mother's remark, Damian had never been happier to have the experience he'd gained working as Red X. He knew that Raven was quickly approaching the point of no return: if he didn't act fast, his mother was going to be joining the corpses of the dead ninja on the floor very soon. Swiftly moving in between the two women, he put his hands on Raven's shoulders and looked her dead in the eyes.

"Raven," he said firmly, "it's not worth it. Trust me when I say this. I know you probably want to rip her head off right now, but if you do that I can guarantee you that Beast Boy won't live to see the sun rise tomorrow. Just calm down; if you need some air, come with me on this recon mission. I'm sure it'll be a breeze, and we can worry about Beast Boy once we get back."

The enraged empath slowly came back to herself, the black energy that had begun to crackle around her eyes disappearing completely. But her anger was still simmering, and Raven gave Damian a hard, level look before speaking in an equally stern tone.

"Will he be safe here?"

Damian heard the next words loud and clear in his mind, spoken in a ragged, jagged, demonic voice and meant for him and him alone:

"If anything happens to him, I will rip you limb from limb and feed your body to the dogs."

Barely succeeding at keeping his expression even, Damian nodded seriously.

"He'll be fine, Raven; I promise," he swore, standing up and pulling the empath to her feet along with him. "Now, can we get out of here before you snap and accidentally kill someone?"

Raven blinked once at the question and her pupils dilated wide as she groaned in pain, like she was coming back to herself after an out-of-body experience.

"Yeah," she said after a moment, her voice back to normal. She moved Damian's hands off of her shoulders and focused to the extent that she could at the moment, drawing out her soul-self. "Let's get out of here."

The pair of them were wrapped in the giant black raven's wings and vanished as it did, re-emerging above ground in the slums of Gotham just as the sun was beginning to set.

"Stay alert," Damian warned as he began to move, going towards where the Black Hood had last been sighted lurking around. "Nighttime is when this place really goes to hell."

Raven nodded at the advice and followed, but the only things on her mind were Beast Boy's unconscious form and the way her Rage had so easily wrenched control from her after Talia's little speech. Why was it getting so damn hard to keep that sliver of Trigon under control?

Because my Master is moving again, Raven, the dark, hungry voice spoke out from inside the core of Raven's soul,

And he's coming for you.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this latest chapter! And a massive Thank You goes out to everyone who reviewed last chapter; the spike in support was awesome and really meant a lot. Thanks again to all you guys and gals; you rock. How's about we keep the trend going, eh? Eh?

And now, onto your regularly scheduled Author's Note!

I figured I'd throw in some good old Rob/Star happiness, seeing as how the Boy Wonder could most definitely use some TLC. And I know I'm putting Beast Boy through the wringer right now, but there's a method to my madness; I really am going somewhere with this.

Next chapter, Damian and Raven track down the Black Hood, and then things get complicated. Also, Beast Boy makes a major decision and the Brotherhood begins to move back in Jump City.