Chapter 33: Caught in a Moment

Beastboy was early.

He was sitting in the now familiar chair next to the fireplace in the mansion entrance to the batcave. Between the empty chair opposite him that Alfred occupied was a small table covered in various books and literature.

During the first week of Beastboy's stay, Batman had presented him with a thick dossier detailing all the active criminals in Gotham and had told him to have it memorized by the end of the day.

'Sure, no problem!' Beastboy had grinned, regardless of the dread in his chest and the redness of his ears.

Batman had punched him. Hard.

Beastboy snorted gently at the memory, eyes reflecting the flames beside him. Hard to believe that once upon a time he had tried to hide something from the Batman. Of course he knew that Beastboy could barely read; he practically knew his entire life history at that point. It would be obvious to anyone anyway.

But Batman had forced him to lie or confess. Punished him for lying and then set lessons once he had confessed.

Looking back, you could see the systematic breaking down of Beastboy's resistance to him. Setting himself up as the Alpha you didn't cross. Or lie to. Or disobey.

'Which means that this is really gonna suck.' Beastboy thought to himself with a small smile, stretching his arms up above him even as guilt welled up in his chest. 'Wonder how he's going to handle this one?'

"You seem pleased with yourself, Master Beastboy. Care to share?"

Beastboy kept his eyes closed and continued stretching, groaning slightly at the creaking and popping of bones and joints. He collapsed comfortably back into the chair with a satisfied "Ahhhh."

"Not quite yet Alfie old fellow!" he addressed the manservant in his best posh English accent, "I should hope to remain free of punishment for as long as possible old chum, old boy!"

Alfred settled himself in the chair opposite, carefully arranging his legs and smoothing an imperceptible crease from his shirt before appraising the hero before him with a raised eyebrow.

"A ridiculous imitation," he decided, addressing Beastboy's exaggerated and stiff seating position before adding, "Yet I am flattered."

Beastboy laughed, toasting the man with an invisible glass.

"So what are we doing tonight? More quadratic equations? I pretty much got logarithms down."

No one could have predicted how quickly Beastboy progressed through Alfred's schooling. Least of all him. He had been exceedingly nervous when Batman had set him formal lessons. His history with education was pretty much nonexistent. He had been homeschooled until his accident and that had been it until the Doom Patrol and they hadn't put much emphasis on exercising the brain.

Nevertheless, Beastboy had flourished under Alfred's tutelage, devouring subject after subject. Maths being his favorite and best so far.

"Not quite Master Beastboy, we shall be transitioning back to the study of the English language."

"Uhhhhh. Romeo, Romeo, kill me now Romeo." Beastboy moaned, hoping to get a rise out of the stoic butler.

"Spoken like Shakespeare himself," Alfred said drily, unimpressed.

"See? I'm good enough already! No need for it!" Beastboy proclaimed confidently, taking far too much pleasure from his simple rebuttal.

Alfred ignored the teen, "Ms. Cassandra will be rejoining all our sessions again," he said, eyebrow raised.

Beastboy's eyes lit up and suddenly he was standing on the ancient, probably priceless chair, a foot on an armrest as if conquering Everest. "Brilliant! A brave brother to bear the burden of boring books and…blasted eh… blasted-no…" He trailed off, face screwed up in concentration.

"Bewilderment?" Alfred offered.

"Blasted bew-be.. what?" Beastboy asked, a puzzled look on his face.

"Precisely Master Beastboy," Alfred calmly stated."Now would you kindly sit?"

Beastboy grudgingly climbed down, "This is why my rap career never took off."

"If you say so Master Beastboy. Now, on to matters of actual importance."

"Hey, this is important! I'm… reasonably gangster…yo."

"How have you been getting out of the grounds undetected?"

Beastboy sobered instantly. He regarded Alfred seriously. Was this a bluff? No, there was no hesitation or doubt in the steady eyes. Damn.

"How did you know?"

Alfred steepled his fingers in front of his face. "You tell me Master Beastboy."

The hero narrowed his eyes. He hated these tests of critical thinking. They always made him feel stupid. Now was definitely not the time to complain about it, though. It had been awesome while it lasted, now it was time to pay the price. In this case, however, the answer to Alfred's quandary managed to present itself to him.

"It's the only way I could have found out about Batman's thing with Catwoman."

"And, taking into account Master Wayne's extreme caution in all matters relating to his identity, what may I deduce?"

Beastboy winced and exhaled heavily. "That he would never take her here, so I must have seen them in Gotham."

Alfred tone hardened substantially. "When you were taken in here, rules were instated, were they not?"

Resisting the urge to shrink back into his chair, Beastboy tried to reply with some dignity. "Yes."

"And, are you confessing to breaking one of these rules as of now?

'Here we go. I wonder if 'the face' would work on him…somehow I doubt it.'

"Yes, but, in my defense, it was an accident."

Alfred's stare remained hard and Beastboy hurried to explain.

"I was going to sleep one night a few days ago and thought I could smell traces of fresh air coming from the vent. I went to sleep anyway."

Alfred shot him a look of disbelief.

"I may have been planning to explore it in the next morning."

The manservant raised an eyebrow.

"But I never got the chance! A couple hours later I woke up flying over Gotham! I swear, I have no idea how the heck it happened but I somehow sleepwalked…flew, into Gotham."

Beastboy wanted to say more, but the look on Alfred's face stopped him cold.

"And instead of informing myself or Master Wayne of this strange event and potential weakness in the Batcave's defenses, you exploited it to your own selfish ends with blatant disregard to the established rules you agreed to abide by in the days that followed."

Beastboy bowed his head in shame. He had known this was coming, but that didn't make it any easier to take. Disobeying Batman wasn't good at all, but he could take the punishment as he had many times in the past. Disappointing Alfred was far worse.

The butler himself sighed in resignation. Beastboy risked a peek up and was shocked to see him looking older than usual.

"There will be consequences for this. You understand that?"

Beastboy winced. The words echoed around his head, eerily reminiscent of Mento's many years ago.

"Yes."

"Tonight's session is canceled. We shall resume tomorrow night. Return to the Batcave."

Beastboy was the picture of a defeated man on his way to the door; ears drooped entirely, shoulders slumped, eyes flat. Alfred steeled his heart to the sight.

A hand on the door, Beastboy stopped and turned around.

"I'm sorry." He said hoarsely, "I know…I know it isn't an excuse but…I just couldn't resist. I wanted to-I…I missed-"

"We shall discuss it further later Master Beastboy."

Beastboy looked down and left, gently shutting the door behind him.

The dragging footsteps slowly faded into silence.

Alfred closed his eyes, weariness pushing into the crease of his brow and exhaled slowly.

"You have had me do many unpleasant things over the years Master Wayne, but I fear this may well be the worst."

The figure of Batman detached itself from the usual corner.

"It's for his own good," came the gruff response as he settled himself in the chair Beastboy had so recently vacated.

"It's only due to my faith in that statement that I am willing to partake in this torture," Alfred spoke with no small amount of hardness.

"Don't you think that's a little excessive?"

Alfred met his charge's look with a steady eye.

"You of all people should know how badly spiritual pain hurts. You can break that boy's bones all day and he'll keep getting up. A harsh word and he stays down."

Batman paused before conceding/ignoring the point. "It's good he put it down to sleepwalking. I'm surprised he didn't labor the point, however."

Alfred considered the man opposite him. "I daresay he was more concerned with my discipline. What happens now?"

"We brief Batgirl. I'll need her for the extraction."

Two minutes later the girl herself was pulling up a chair in front of the fire, Alfred to her left and Batman to her right.

As usual, the hero didn't mess around.

"We'll be putting Beastboy into a highly volatile situation tonight. We will have contingency plans in place, but there is no way to guarantee a safe outcome."

Cassie remained still, trying to size the man up. As usual, she came up with nothing.

"Why are we doing this?"

Alfred let out a small smile at her language. Constant engagement with Beastboy had really improved her speaking skills over the past months.

Batman replied. "It has been 9 months, 3 weeks since he came here. I came to the conclusion a fortnight ago that I cannot help him anymore."

Cassie started, eyes widening. "But he doing much better," she exclaimed, reverting to simpler language in her stress.

"Yes, he is. But he will hit a wall soon that I will not be able to help him break through. It's an obstacle only he can overcome."

Batman fixed his charge with a stare. "What's the wall?"

The girl met his gaze, thinking hard.

She liked to think she knew Beastboy quite well by now. He had definitely relaxed into his role at the bat cave during the past months. During the first part of his stay here, he had kept up the role of a happy-go-lucky, easy-going youth without a care in the world.

However, the front he fell into so naturally had been eroded over time. Cassie had seen straight through his act from the start and had worked hard to penetrate it. The constant stress and pain that came with a Batman training regime made the smiling veneer he put up completely unrealistic as well.

No one could end 12 rounds with the Batman with a grin.

And without his toothy smile to hid behind, a different side of Beastboy had emerged.

A more grounded, stable, confident Beastboy.

One that didn't shy away from serious or revealing moments as if afraid of being burned. One that could hold an intimate, confidential conversation

Of course, it probably helped that Alfred practically forced such a side out of him with his interviews. Beastboy had been forced to deal with painful, meaningful issues in his past that she was convinced not even Batman was made aware of.

Cassie had been able to grow closer to this new side of Beastboy, and they had been able to learn much about each other over their united struggle against Batman's training and Alfred's lessons.

Which is why she had an inkling as to what Batman may be talking about.

"Himself."

Things kick off next chapter, really quite excited to see what you guy's 'n gals make of it.

Should probably come a week from now.

In the meantime, I'm sorry if this whole chapter seemed a little forced. Like I said a few chapters back, I really got far too caught up in the plot holes and the long, drawn out build ups so I sort of shoe horned a lot in there. Pretty amatuerish I know but I really couldn't be bothered at this stage and I'm fairly sure a good few of you may feel the same way.

Regardless, it's out of the way and things can really get cookin'.

Review Responses:
Nightmare Sired Muse: Well let me have it man, I sorta' deserve it after all this time!

Mr. Anonymous: By far the most... unique review I've ever had. I liked it, the effort involved is appreciated :D Gotta love some Clarkson, but how dissapointing was the Grand Tour though?! Really appreciate the love though Wo/man? (?), glad to know someone is enjoying the story, it's like a shot of caffeine for writer's block. Thanks again and I hope you enjoy what's coming up! And it's definitely dude :)

FF8cerberus: Yeah man, I feel ya. Really has gone on a bit too long hasn't it? But, never fear, things will be changing now and I hope you like how it comes about :)

Hate Eater: Thanks for sticking around dude! Hope your own stories are going well! And Casse is in a weird situation at the moment, but that should change soon!

ThommyPickles: We'll be seeing results. And I think I'll be doing some flashbacks at some point as well. There's a lot of untapped potential there that would be fun to explore. But Beastboy will be changing a good bit very soon.

Haebris: Poor Titans are really missinng BB at the moment, but it shan't last forever. Glad you loved it, hope the next chapters are loved too :D

Jimmy1201: No bodger Jimmy, next one won't be long.

Sperance: I'm glad you're feeling the story. That's a mega win. Also I'm glad you picked up on BB's inner thing. I'll be exposing that link more openly later, but I'm glad it was picked up now. And it was bound to happen, Mento couldn't crush BB's humerous spirit, looks like Batman couldn't either :D

gladv: I've actually got a scene planned that I really like involving Catwoman, but struggling to find a place to slot it in. I'm sure I'll manage it sooner or later though, even if it is a flashback. You're right, much hilarity awaits there :D

newboy: Something is indeed, and I'm really looking forward to it. Haha, you'll be finding out in a week!

jarblewc: Winning! Really appreciate the progression comment, I look back and cringe on the earlier writing, but I'm glad you think I've got better! I'm all up for some critique - I totally get where you're coming from, that scene in particularly never really translated onto paper that well but it could have been done much better. To answer your questions 1) All I can really say is Batman and Alfred knew she was listening in. No real reason how or why they knew, just did. 2) She was trying to hide, she knew something was going on and wanted to see. 3) I actially imagined her in a far corner of the batcave among the stalactites with a listening device. Of course as you point out, none of these rather vital details never actually made it into the text. Pretty unforgivable. And no I don't think I ever addressed them, I shouldn't have to. The story shouldn't need clarification on plot points, maybe if the lore is different then sure. But no, I could definitely do better there and I hear you. Appreciate the honesty, I don't find stuff like that very often in reviews.

1WeirdRuffNek:I'm glad you're feeling it mate! Hopefully you like the direction the story takes now. You ready for the ruffneck bass?

See you in a week.

CJB