Through the course of a week, Cyborg and Starfire tried to bring in shipments of oil five times. Every single time, Sladebots intercepted them. After a fierce battle on their fifth try, they managed to deliver one oil tanker and its cargo to the city. However, this was not good enough for the mayor.

"We had a deal." Said the mayor firmly. "If you didn't bring in three oil tankers worth of oil into the city within a week, I'm doing away with the titans."

"Please give us a chance! We did bring in the last oil tanker." Cyborg pleaded.

"Do you think this is my decision?" asked the mayor with a harsh laugh. "The people don't want the titans anymore! They want a group of superheroes that are actually competent to protect them! Not a bunch of scraggly teenage kids! If you really want to protect the city, you'd relinquish your roles to someone who can actually do the job!" Cyborg hung his head and stared at the floor. He knew that the mayor was right. The titans had failed the city too many times. Seeing that he was getting through to Cyborg, the mayor continued. "I've already commissioned another group of heroes. You'll have to vacate the tower in three days."

"What? I built that tower with my own two hands!" yelled Cyborg. "You can't kick us out of our home!"

"Have you forgotten that you built it on an island owned by the state?" the mayor spat out. "Ultimately the state owns the tower and if you're smart you'll move out as you're told! Now, get out of my office!" yelled the mayor.

Cyborg and Starfire returned to the tower deeply depressed.

"Don't worry, Star. We'll pack up, go someplace else and find another way to defeat Slade." Cyborg promised. "Now let's pack."

With that, they got to work. Cyborg was in charge of his things and Robin's things. Beast Boy was carried to his own room and he told Cyborg how to pack and arrange his stuff. Tearfully, Starfire packed everything she owned into boxes, before going to Raven's room to help Raven with her things. Since most of Raven's things comprised of books, they were quite easy to pack. Starfire could not believe their fortunes. In such a short period of time, the titans had gone from being the city's beloved heroes to being rejects from hero school. Cyborg had found for them a relatively large, empty three-story house at the edge of town. With Starfire and Beast Boy's approval, he purchased it under an alias using the titan's remaining financial supplies.

The titans spent the next three days moving all of their belongings into the house. However, to avoid detection by Slade and the media, they moved according to Cyborg's plan. He created holographic rings for each of them, disguising them as movers. At night, Cyborg drove the moving truck to an abandoned warehouse with Starfire. There was a trapdoor that led from the floor of warehouse to an abandoned subway tunnel below. After bringing their things below and loading them into empty subway cars, Cyborg then coaxed the machines to life. The old subway station at the edge of town was so rundown and dilapidated that no one paid any attention to it. In this way, the titans hoped that they would be able to move undetected.

The large cream-colored house did look quite grand. It had a spacious garage attached to the house, a generous yard enclosed by a wooden fence and a nicely paved driveway. The previous owners had built the house as a holiday retreat away from the city. The large, dark basement of the house was used as a storage area, where everything the titans had collected over the years was chucked. The first floor housed a living room that lead to a large kitchen, a dining room, and a laundry room along with a spare room. Cyborg converted the spare room into a gym.

There were five similar-sized bedrooms on the second floor, which Cyborg designated one for each titan. Since Starfire, Beast Boy and he were the only ones left, they got to choose their rooms. Of the two remaining rooms, the one whose window was shaded by a large tree was given the Raven, since it was the darkest one in the house. Robin was given the last one.

The third floor contained one large room and two smaller ones. The largest one was used as the main room, where Cyborg installed the large TV and all the other equipment he had taken from the tower. Even if they had to leave their home, they certainly were not going to leave their gadgets behind. The two smaller ones were converted into the titans' med bay and evidence room respectively. Cyborg parked Beast Boy's B-mobile in the garage next to Robin's R-Cycle. There was no space for the T-Ship, so Cyborg was forced to split it up in its five respective subcomponents and stash them in the toolshed in the yard.

On their first day living in the new house, the titans faced their first problem. The tightly knitted community they had moved into noticed their new neighbors and proceeded to line up at the titans' door with baskets of muffins and goodies. Starfire wanted to open the door for them, but Cyborg vehemently protested. He had covered every window in the house with curtains for a reason. Since the titans had failed the city, they would not be welcome anywhere. Cyborg wanted some peace for once. The last thing they needed were angry citizens banging on the door. Poor Starfire was forced to sit in her room while the neighbors rang the doorbell repeatedly. Finally, they gave up and went away.

Cyborg on the other hand, was busy in the garage, where he had brought all his tools. He was modifying and adjusting the holographic rings he had made for each of the titans. With the rings, he could change their outward appearances completely. Cyborg intended to use them to make himself and his friends look normal. If he could convince the neighbors that Starfire was his "wife" and Beast Boy was their "son", they would trust them and leave them alone. Already the neighbors were becoming suspicious since no one had come to receive their muffin baskets. Cyborg knew it would only be a matter of time before they noticed that their new neighbors moved in just when the titans left the tower. If they kept hiding in the house, it would make it easy for their neighbors to guess that they were the titans. In order to defeat Slade, they had to lie low for a while. Without Raven, Robin and Beast Boy, they did not stand a chance.

"I will not pretend to be your wife!" yelled Starfire as Cyborg desperately shushed her.

"All we have to do is to go to church with Beast Boy!" He retorted. "It'll only take one public appearance for the neighbors to trust us!"

"I am Robin's girlfriend." She said firmly.

"And you are not my parents!" interjected Beast Boy.

"Fine, we'll pretend to be siblings!" conceded Cyborg making some adjustments to the rings. "Happy?" he hissed as he tossed the other two their rings. Putting it on, they were all shocked by the transformation. They certainly looked like a lovely bunch of siblings with blond hair and blue eyes. Cyborg figured that Beast Boy and Starfire would never be able to pull off an African American front. "Now," he continued taking a deep breath. "Let's go to church!"

The "siblings" took Beast Boy's B-mobile to church. Cyborg repeatedly cautioned Starfire not to say anything. Of the three of them, she was most likely to blow their cover. To Cyborg's dismay, the pastor of the church insisted that the siblings introduced themselves during the church service.

Hesitantly, he walked to the front of the church leaving Starfire in the front row, next to Beast Boy in his wheelchair.

"Good morning!" he greeted them. "I'm Timothy Johnson. I'm nineteen." He lied. "She is my younger sister, Theresa and he is our younger brother, Thomas." He said pointing to Beast Boy. "Our parents will be out of town for a few weeks." He added before anyone could ask any questions.

"Oh, you poor thing!" cried an old lady when she saw Beast Boy's casts. "How did you hurt yourself, sweetie?"

"Thomas decided that it would be a good idea to try skateboarding down a steep hill." Cyborg interjected quickly.

"Oh! That's too bad. Get well soon! We will all be praying for you!" said the old lady sweetly. Cyborg heaved a sigh of relief. The church had bought their masquerade.

"We are so going to hell." thought Cyborg.

Cyborg and Starfire spent the next few weeks worrying. Before they moved in, Cyborg set up an electrostatic shield of sorts that would prevent anyone from tracking or monitoring them. Now that they knew that they had taken precautions to prevent Slade from finding them, they had to worry about Robin and about making ends meet. Starfire was becoming very depressed lately. She was downright miserable and spent whole afternoons locked up in her room mourning and moping because Cyborg would not allow her out of the house to search for Robin. She knew that keeping a low profile was important, but Robin was more important to her.

Beast Boy spent his afternoons reading comics and finding things to amuse himself with. He never knew it was possible to be so bored. Lately, Starfire often refused to stay in his room to keep him company. Instead, after taking care of his needs, she would retreat to her room and lock the door. He cried every time she rejected him, not because he felt hurt by it but because the way she rejected him reminded him too much of the way Raven used to reject him.

In contrast, Cyborg was a whirlwind of activity. Since oil and electricity were getting expensive, Cyborg installed as many solar panels on the roof as he could. He also hooked up every exercise machine in the gym to a large power cell, so that whoever who was working out would charge it. Starfire contributed a lot of power when she started working out her worries away like Robin used to. Being the current leader of the team, Cyborg took it upon himself to get two jobs to support the others. Now that the titans no longer received money from the city, they needed a viable income. Cyborg did double-duty installing solar panels for neighbors and working as the local mechanic's assistant. He was actually making quite good money doing that, since even people from neighboring towns solicited his services.

Robin opened his eyes and stared blankly at the now familiar walls around him. He was gradually losing perception of time, though he figured that he had been in Slade's headquarters for about a month now. As his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room, he wished that this were all a dream. Hearing the echo Slade's footsteps as he paced around in the next room, Robin sighed. Slade had kept him tied to the bed for weeks, not even allowing him to get up to stretch. Unable to exercise, Robin could only watch helplessly as his muscles wasted away. To make matters worse, for the past few days Slade had force-fed him nothing but junk food. Robin now understood what Slade was doing to him. Slade was trying to turn him into a fat, unfit couch potato. Since Robin had no superpowers, he would be rendered useless if he were to become unfit.

As he lay alone all day, his mind wandered to the far corners of the earth. He wondered what his friends were doing. He wondered how they were faring. There were so many unanswered questions in his mind. How badly injured was Beast Boy? Was Starfire able to fight off the Sladebots that intercepted her? Was she able to save Cyborg and Beast Boy? Did they drown? If they lived, what happened to them? How was his precious Starfire? He could only imagine the pain she must be in now, if she still lived. How he hated himself for allowing himself to get captured. He tried every day to escape, but as the days passed his efforts proved to be futile.

Robin wondered if Raven had returned. His better judgment told him that she would not return so soon, yet something within him continued to long and hope for her return. He hoped that if she returned and the others lived, they would be able to rescue him. It seemed selfish to want so badly to be rescued seeing that the people in the city were probably suffering without power and fuel; yet Robin could not help himself. Every day, Slade taunted and tortured him. Robin was being bombarded on all sides and this torture was rapidly becoming unbearable, even for him. He was fed fattening foods, mentally tormented all day and physically beaten. From every angle in every waking moment, Slade made him suffer. Physical pain only hurt him that much. What hurt him even more were Slade's mind games. Slade would tell him different things on different days, making him so confused that he felt as though he would lose his mind. Today, Starfire lived, tomorrow she was injured and still tomorrow she was dead. After this cycle was repeated several times, Robin had no idea if she was dead or alive and it hurt him to the core not to know. As he desperately rolled his eyes at the ceiling, Robin felt waves of desperation overcome him.

"If there's a wishing star out there," he said to himself inaudibly. "I wish for Starfire. I wish for my friends. I wish to save the city. I wish to rejoin the titans. I wish for their safety." As he heard Slade's footsteps approaching his cell, he closed his eyes and bowed his head.