Chapter Eleven
The Titans stood in front of what was undeniably an ancient, unsafe apartment building. The place appeared to no longer be in use, the front porch sagging down to meet the street and the shutters pealing away from their respective windows.
"Dude," Beast Boy said, "It looks like a house in a horror movie. Or the kind of place Raven might live!"
Raven, who had just exited the car, slapped him sharply in the back of the head. "I would never live in a place that was falling to the ground."
"Ouch!" Beast Boy cried. "I didn't mean you wouldn't take care of the house! I was just talking about the creepy factor, you know? 'Cause the house is creepy, and you're kind of creepy, and…"
The second smack seemed louder and Beast Boy, now aware he was verbally digging himself into a hole, shut his mouth and clamped his hand to the now-forming goose egg on his skull, deciding against continuing whatever he had been about to say. Raven smirked, having accomplished her sole goal in life- shutting Beast Boy up-, and turned back to the house.
Despite the warm night, she shuddered, thinking about Tyler. Is he really here? She wondered. If so, why would anyone want to keep a baby in such an awful place?
The same thought had apparently occurred to Starfire. "Are we sure that the father of Tyler lives in this very scary place?" She asked Robin, clinging to his arm for support. Raven smiled; at least the happy couple no longer appeared to be fighting. Her smile was short-lived, however, as she remembered what they had come to do.
"Pretty sure," Robin replied, squeezing her hand in support.
"How are we going to go about getting him out?" Cyborg asked. "Explosives? Missels? Should I ram the car into the side? Maybe we could go for a full-scale attack!" His eyes seemed to be growing bigger as he talked, fantasizing some kind of raid on the building.
"Just like in World of Warcraft!" Yelled Beast Boy, who seemed to share Cyborg's raiding fantasy. "Maybe we'll even collect gold at the end…"
Robin clapped his hands sharply, drawing the two back into reality. "There's no time for that. Besides, any of those plans are going to bring the house down. We either need to sneak in or…"
"Or we could just knock on the front door," Beast Boy suggested, snapping out of his fantasies. Both girls nodded eagerly, smiling. Raven touched his shoulder lightly, as if apologizing for smacking him in the head.
"Everybody wants to do things the easy way," Robin muttered in disappointment, following his team up the crumbling sidewalk to the crumbling building.
Raven looked down at the paper Robin had handed her, trying to figure out the apartment number. "It should be the first door on the right on the second floor," she said quietly. "Everyone move quietly, and lets try to act as non-descript as possible…"
Her words were cut off by the sound of chattering teeth. Behind her, Beast Boy stood staring up at the apartment in horror. "I can't do this," he said. "Dude, this is too creepy. Its worse than being in Raven's head. And that's like, really bad!"
She smacked him again. "Are you a super hero or a mouse?" She demanded.
"A superhero who can turn into a mouse!" Shouted Cyborg, and started laughing. His voice rang off the alley walls and the nearby buildings of the deserted street.
"I assumed we were to be 'quiet', yes?" Starfire said with a sharp edge to her voice, glaring at the three of them. Raven sighed; she felt ashamed for having contributed to the chaos. "I would very much like to see our baby again."
"Let's go," Robin said, and Raven pushed up to join them, leaving Beast Boy silently fuming at Cyborg behind them.
Robin reached the door and threw it open, looking left and right in the empty, narrow corridor. The place was dirty and the lobby, if it could be called that, contained no furniture. The sign on the desk read 'Back in Five', but was covered over in cobwebs.
"I am most worried for our baby!" Starfire whispered. Robin rubbed her arm gently and Raven felt the same dread Starfire had expressed rising up at the thought of Tyler being in such a terrible place.
"We'll find him," Robin whispered, and crept forward, his hands raised. The others followed suit, edging towards the narrow staircase that was lit only by the red glow of the 'emergency exit' signs on each landing. Their progress was slow, and the sound of Beast Boy's chattering teeth- and the occasional loud boo from Cyborg to cause him to jump- were the only sounds that followed them.
"I don't understand why nobody has stopped us," mussed Robin to himself. Raven had to agree. They were dressed in their super-hero garb, and in the dead of night were making enough noise to wake the dead.
"Maybe there's nobody here," Cyborg suggested. "It's not exactly homey."
Robin glared at him. For once, it worked and they were silent until they reached the door clearly labeled '2'.
"Well, here we are," Raven said. "Push the door open already."
Robin reached to his belt to ready his bo-staff. "I don't' want to go rushing into what could easily be a trap."
Suddenly, Starfire grabbed his arm with a crazed look in her eyes. "Robin, I would like my baby NOW!" Her nails dug into his arm and he flinched, pushing the door with his shoulder.
"It's locked."
"Who," Raven asked, "Locks an entire floor of an apartment building?"
"Someone who doesn't want to have visitors," Cyborg said, having pushed his way up from behind. His sonic cannon stood ready on his arm. "Stand back, everyone." The other Titans scattered and the door blasted to bits.
"Very subtle," Raven noted sarcastically, wiping a bit of plaster from her hair. "Next time, just take the other three walls out with it." She stepped through the opening, leaving the other three to run after her.
There, as if by fate, was the other door. The door appeared normal and non-threatening, but all of the heroes stood as though on guard. Each looked at the other, and suddenly knocking on the door did not seem like the best idea.
Starfire sighed loudly and dramatically, tired of everyone's indecision. "I will do it!" She shouted, and threw herself at the door with force. In a flash of green bolts and red hair, the oaken door fell in on the floor.
"…Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination…" Suddenly Tyler's father stopped singing, holding his son aloft, who was laughing.
"I demand that you give me back that baby!" Starfire shouted before anyone else could recover from the sight of a full-grown man, supposedly a criminal with visitation to his child suspended, prancing around singing the Barney theme to his young son.
"You're that babysitter!" He yelled. "Look, you go back and tell my girlfriend…"
"Your girlfriend?" Robin asked stupidly. "Babysitter? Did you guys actually offer to babysit this kid?" He felt as though he could punch something again, thinking of the rubber ducky still swimming with his underwear and his important files all over the room.
"No," Raven snapped at him. "She just kind of dropped him off, asking us to protect him. Although after seeing that little dance, I'm not sure what we're protecting him from."
"You've never had kids!" The man screamed, taking offense to Raven's comment. "You don't realize how hard it is to entertain them!"
Before anyone could speak, little Tyler turned in his father's arms to look at Raven. Raven looked back at him, her heart full of a kind of painful emotion she could not quite explain. All at once, she was flooded; safe that he was here, angry with his father for taking him, upset that he did not appear to notice her, and ready to snatch him back.
"Mama!" Cried the little boy.
"Give him to me right now," Raven said, stepping forward to stand beside Starfire, "And nothing will happen except he'll go safely back to his mom."
"What are you going to do if I don't?" He sneered. "I'm not giving him up. I refuse to let you take my baby from me."
"Just give him to me," Raven hissed, feeling the anger building up inside herself.
"No!" The man said, and tried to run. Quick as a bolt of lightning, Starfire flew to his other side and grabbed onto Tyler's hands. The man elbowed her in the stomach, causing her to fall backward, and Raven saw her chance. The emotion she was feeling allowed her to release her powers with more control than usual. A large black hand shot towards the man and he fell down as though pushed. The same hand then caught Tyler.
The baby started to laugh, and it was the most beautiful sound in the world. Raven pulled him towards her, and he held out his little arms.
"Mama!" He cried again.
"Tyler!" She said back, and Starfire came running over to hug them both.
All three boys closed their mouths, having been standing there dumbfounded. "In the name of Jump City, you're under arrest for kidnapping!" Robin yelled, although he was missing much of his usual passion from it.
"We didn't even get to play," Beast Boy complained to Cyborg as they watched Robin cuff him and the girls cuddling the baby.
"What can we say? Never get between a woman and her baby," Cyborg said softly, smiling at the sight of the girls and Tyler, who was now clinging to Starfire's hair with one fat fist around Raven's neck.
"We've got to get him back to his mom," Raven whispered to Starfire, and the other girl nodded.
"I have a feeling she will be back looking for him," Starfire whispered back.
"Robin, we've got to get Tyler home and give him a bath," Raven said. "We'll take him back if you take the dad down to jail."
"Let me go!" Cried Tyler's father. "You can't do this to me! I was separated from my father! I grew up with daddy issues! This is not dadbatable! You can't take me any father!"
"You, dude," Beast Boy said, "Have seen Austin Powers too many times."
"Go ahead," Robin said. "Actually, hold on one second." He walked across the room to where Raven stood with Tyler, and bent slightly to look him in the eyes.
"I hate you," he said to the baby.
Tyler kicked him squarely between the eyes and no one, even the boy's father, could breathe for the next five minutes.
"Son of a bitch! I hate kids!"
"I used to think that too," whispered Raven, brushing Tyler's hair away from his eyes. "I love you though, Tyler."
Only Starfire heard, and she smiled before the two walked out with him, Cyborg trailing behind them, leaving Beast Boy and Robin to haul his father off to jail.
To Everyone,
Thank you so much for waiting so long, and for all the lovely reviews. (Hint, hint.) On a side note, i think I may have dreamed Tyler into life. There's a little boy that looks a lot like him running around the summer camp I'm co-directing... Anyway, review please, last chapter upcoming. I have another idea for a second humor piece running along these same lines, but more on that later. :)
-Goddess-
