Teen Titans Presents; Robin – Torn Legacy of a Prodigal Son – Getting Out
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Chapter 1: Listen to Teacher
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~ The Titans.
Heroes, allies. Do – gooders of the highest caliber?
And tonight citizens, on Jump's own Nightly News - The enemy, one of their very own. A former compatriot known as Robin the Boy Wonder has publicly come out as the supposed new heir to the city's criminal network run by his mentor and forerunning champion mastermind…. Slade, a strategically gifted mad man that came to hold our city of Jump by the bay in his fist. He's announced that no one else may be a perfect fit, and that –
/
His fingers found the button as one of them had bothered to switch shut off the nightly news.
"That's enough of that." Slade gripped a pen in hand as Dick Grayson only mimicked the same. One pen, only a lecture to go until sleep hit him like a frightening truck.
"How did you get them to report that s –
"Not up for discussion." Slade interrupted. "But what is, is the anatomy of what will be…" Slade tried to scratch out a few objects he'd had to draw from memory. A very good memory, actually.
"Your eventual, first kill."
Dick leaned onto his makeshift desk as the gears above their heads whirled and creaked. It was the one distraction he felt would drive him to drink before twenty-one, but Slade would probably know that. He always had his eyes on whatever came first.
"Am I the only candidate you're going to train?"
The pen's workings stopped. Slade lifted his masked eye to seek out the kid, keeping him aware and alert.
"Should there be others, my apprentice?" He raised a brow accusingly, his hidden temper well kempt beneath that metal - faced helmet, none noting the tone of his voice as it had slightly softened. The knight never revealed its struggles to a squire, why should he have to?
"It's nothing, but…. I don't think anyone else could. Or should –
"We've gone over this before, Richard." Slade returned to his make-believe teaching method. This body of a sort wasn't going to draw itself; he still had the whole slide to pull up on screen.
And a very, long pointer to make his point across.
"What's done has been done, and I won't have my apprentice moping over the inevitable-
"But, it's not that impossible."
The startling ccrack* of artificial casings and ink bled freely onto the older man's hand.
Slade, had snapped that ballpoint, with only his hand….in one grip.
"I won't repeat myself." Slade dropped the pen and stood up. Dick shuffled in his seat, not realizing Slade was just going with a less damaging plan B.
"Maybe a wider –
"I can't let that go."
Slade suddenly went stiff at Robin's retaliation.
His armored back to the boy, as the pen remained bleeding out onto the vacated desk. A bloody victim of poor circumstances.
Dick looked up with that spiked domino mask, fighting to speak his mind.
Slade had supposed it was just as simple to be a teacher's pet, before cutting the leash. Robin must had egged him on earlier…
"You think I should let you vent during our sessions, boy?"
"I think, you want me to learn how to kill, but I need a better reason." The ex hero crossed his arms, sitting back and glowering at his mentor. His captor, even if it wasn't even a year at best since the Titans had let them go. Had let Slade win.
"Well." Slade shook his head and set down the device to the screens, only to press an extra button it contained.
Dead and center.
"THIS should be reason enough, I believe."
The probes and the monitors arose in hi -def.
Dick's shoulders bunched, still tense and knotted from the last spar he'd gotten. Mostly to remove that bad juju from his system.
"You became my apprentice, because you had no other choice. You could have left them to perish, but a life you barely know of is apparently far too precious to waste, and now here we are." Slade splayed out his hands before turning around and SLAMMING a set of gloved palms onto Richard's makeshift table top.
"IF you want to keep your promise to those…. former friends of yours, I suggest you get wiser. Learn from me, even the grittier details of my work. Someday, who knows? You might just find a way to get this controller out of my hands." The words were spoken in a hiss, never a promise out of that man, only an afterthought.
"It won't be me. The Titans –
"FRIENDS." Slade raised his tone a little, eye wider than it should have been. Dick forced his seat to remain standing this time. It wasn't October anymore and Slade should lay off the impersonations for a bit…
He wasn't half bad with a Wicked Scary one, either …
Dick narrowed his eyes at the masked maniac that had ruined his life, while one had apparently tried to save it. More than he could say about a fellow mercenary of the end game.
"They don't last up to your senior year. Leave them behind; grow up and move on. This is all yours, or it will be." Slade pulled away from the desk, as slyly as a serpent's tail could swish.
Out of the sight of those poor, human eyes.
Slade was, somehow human. He had to be. It was why he refused to be vulnerable. Why Dick was kept so close that he was never alone for as long as he was…an apprentice. To a respected criminal mind in Jump City.
But, to the rest of the known world?
He was called Deathstroke, and he murdered innocent men and women in cold blood.
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
Point blank, which was what he'd been teaching his protégé for that straight three hours ago!
"You'll learn, that a little bloodshed will keep your heart beating. Without the Bat teaching you how to protect yourself properly," The man nearly spat at Bruce's charity work. His, charity case for a son.
"I'd never have found the perfect student. If you had died, we never would have met." The man walked back over to the screens. His hand rubbing his masked chin, perplexing.
"Then again, I suppose we should thank you "father" for at least getting you to pick up the bare basics. I heard that the old Bat really hit a wall with your replacement."
Another button was pressed as the screen was of a different news channel. Months ago… A death in the family as Bruce and Al, Leslie, they all were burying someone.
Todd; read the elaborately, rose - ridden gravestone and casket.
Dick's eyes grew at the sight and HE knew who that had to be.
"When was this taken?? SLADE?"
"DON'T." The elder turned with fire in his glance. "Interrupt. He's your adoptive brother, isn't he…"
Dick should have said yes, but it was hard to, Slade wouldn't…
"JASON TODD." Slade made his whole voice echo throughout the haunt. Dick grasped his ears, burrowing into his seat, legs pulled up, puffs of air as if he'd forgotten how to breathe.
He felt like a child during….then, when he'd first lost his parents.
"He was like you, but also more unwise." The man quoted Robin's earlier behavior. And now, he was paying for it, ten fold.
"Do you think if you had stayed in Gotham by the Bat's side…you somehow…could have prevented this?"
"That's not…" Dick stuttered, body growing weak. "It's not my-
"Bruce Wayne isn't one for raising brats. I've had kids; two, Dick. I'll tell you. They were both different as night and day, and one of them wanted to be just like me. But…. like your Jason, my oldest wouldn't listen to his teacher….and perished for his insubordination."
Slade put his fore finger and thumb in a gun position and pretended to fire.
"BANG."
Dick jumped.
"J – joker….h-
"He was a bit ambitious, and no. I don't applaud what that clown did. Because you see, Dick…" Slade's two boots tapped on over to his seat, just pacing slowly as Dick learned how to get air back into his lungs. Why? How did that make it right? He wasn't the ok with the Joker doing it……but…
"In our area of employment, killing children is more a preference to each individual. I chose never to do that, as my past permits only so much…your brother wanted to fill those shoes and found out what it means…"
He stepped away towards the screens again. Opening up one more as this basic anatomy course had not finished up yet.
"To become a "heroic" sacrifice. He chose to die, because a hero can't win. Can't breathe. Can't survive, but…what if I told you…"
Dick stared up at the man curiously. What was he doing? More conversion therapy tactics??
"THAT, an anti – hero can participate on both sides of the law. Vigilante and anti – heroes are two sides of that same sphere, my apprentice. There is no cut and dry introduction to this course that I haven't already given." Slade explained. "You learn where to strike, and YOU'LL take the plunge. If you feel like falling, I'll have you back up on your feet so that when I am no longer…here, you'll survive. "
Dick swallowed and sat up.
"And…." Dick tried to speak in a hoarse whisper. " What if I can't kill….what if I fail you, like I did with Jason? My team…"
Slade came to him, dropping an arm over the kid's tight shoulder blades. Patting with as much encouragement as a robot. Slade's reluctant nature was due to his life in the army. A soldier didn't cry, neither would his apprentice. He'd never have to again if all went as well as he'd hoped.
"You won't." Slade was taken by how Dick just stayed with his eyes to the floor, never shut. Always trying to grasp for that metaphorical trigger.
"Because unlike your good old Daddy Bats, I don't chose mistakes. And you Dick Grayson, are not born to fail…"
/
Not born to….but flying?
He was in hot pursuit as a bot lashed out at the characters in his way. Hours ago had felt like another epiphany. Day after day after –
" Gotcha!"
Dick wasn't a fan of bamboozled his former friends in his new gear. Slade had made it public that he wasn't a hero anymore, yet they still didn't give up. They knew about the probes, and were determined to bring Slade's puppet in for questioning.
" Errraaah!!" Cy laid a few beat down in as Bb's snake self boa' d Dick's wrists together, while Cy used some sort of shock device to prevent Robin's communication with his puppeteer.
" Talk! Was it true, Rob? Are you really gonna go through with this?? Slade's usin' you!" Cy pushed a bit harder as Dick only tried to stop resisting a moment to breathe.
" Do you want him to use it?" Growled the man's angered protégé. " If you'd rather he win, then keep trying to put me behind bars, go ahead! If the bots –
Raven and Starfire returned with spare parts from the Slade bots in hand. They'd made sure that it was a private affair between old allies.
" You can tell us." Raven reassured the ex hero as Bb only kept squeezing enough to have Robin's attention.
" Yes." Starfire chimed in. "Why did you make the television station aware of your arrangement with Slade? He knows you are not wishing to be…his hand on the right, but this cannot be true! Why have you lied to the good people of this city –
" He's not the one talking all big, Star." Bb said telepathically by Robin's wrists. " He did it to make sure Robin can't get out."
Dick's fade fell, no gel to keep his hair in order. As Slade had said he'd needed to stop depending on it to keep him from acting, unaware of his own surroundings. And it reminded him too much of the Boy Wonder at the haunt.
"It is :" the correct, then?" Starfire asked her teammates softly.
" He won't talk, but Raven can –
" No." Raven blinked and looked up. " We have company."
/
A large copter whirred from above the team's heads as the one standing there was supposedly a problem.
" Slade …" Bb growled even as a boa with a forked tongue flicking out.
" I was starting to get worried about my apprentice, but I see that it was all for naught."
Robin didn't look up, head down. Face there as his legs remained crossed while his master had come to retrieve his "investment. "
"Hand him over."
" NO." Star's eyes lit up, as did her fists, until Slade bothered to snap his fingers.
A bolt of lightning and sparks trickled down from the copter's side as the heroes got ready to defend one of their own.
And each other, with their city.
Cyborg shouted out their unanimous battle cry, just as Overload revealed itself while Slade hopped down to command the villainous drone on the side lines. His footing was nimble and with the grace of any stunt person – jumping feet from a copter to land in a steady crowd atop some tech giant's towering scraper. Dick just shut his ears, head lowered away and didn't move. He would be punished forgetting to know how to react upon capture….he wasn't liking his odds if Slade decided to use that trigger…
"TITANS, GO!!"
It was too late to turn back the clock, as the battle for Robin's freedom again commenced.
Knowing Slade, this would not be a fair fight as Starfire was blasted, Cy was nearly tossed off of a ledge, and Raven was kicked while she was already down.
" Go help them." Dick muttered to Bb as the snake hissed anxiously.
" They're your team, too!" The snake rebuked, seeing the hero click his tongue and drop his eyes –
Slade had Raven held too high, keeping her feet off the ground as she struggled to catch her breath.
" Go, now." Dick urged the green hero to forget about keeping Robin from running. He had no choice, or Raven…
"No way, dude!"
"He's going to kill her! Don't you –
Slade tossed Raven aside as Cy got up to land a hit. Overload was zig zapping past Starfire as it let off a shot, nearly frying both Robin and Beast boy.
" Look out!" Dick rolled with the boa still round his wrists as the shot whizzed over his head. Gar changed back and gawked at the ex – hero's brilliant move, even with Slade's one eye seeing everything.
"No…" Dick dragged himself to his feet and left to get as far away as he could from the youngest member.
" Robin!"
Bb didn't understand, Slade had told him not to engage, he'd just broken another rule…he could have….
/
A few shell - shocking flash bombs and sparks from Overload had the Titans cut off from each other. Slade moved as a tiger among reeds of bamboo to find what he was searching for, and he did.
Dick was sneakily and quietly making his way over to the copter now it came down lower to let a ladder dangle over the side. He was…
Such, a good boy. But not today. Richard would have to learn better, as Slade moved strategically through those reeds to have his end result for tonight, hoping the kid hadn't lost his much earlier objective he'd been ordered to take.
"It's been a pleasure seeing you all again, Titans, but I'm not staying to settle the score. Not tonight anyway. I'll let my apprentice have the honors, next time, perhaps…" He hissed that threat to Robin's team and set off another flash disc as a warning in hand – he wasn't here to finish them off. Just to retrieve HIS objective before it changed it's mind and decided to abandon ship from that bottled up guilt it now carried.
/
The copter was a ways out by now; Slade sitting on one side and Dick, hunched up across from his master for a few minutes before they 'd return to the haunt.
For his punishment.
Dick could feel the hot and cold reaction of Slade stare. It was something he'd taught himself to avoid countering without a proper few words to goad the man. He'd not gotten his wish, but a few reset teeth in his mouth; after he'd tried to use the probes and infect himself to get Slade to break his word a little.
It had failed, and he'd been sore for a month before finally understanding that…
Dick gritted his fists in his lap, silent as could be.
Dick forced his eyes to turn to the side to stare out what would have been a window, but it was just a wall. Slade didn't want any of his captives to seem too hopeful.
Not, where this one was headed.
"An interesting turn out, but….getting caught and tied down, was that all a part of your brilliant plan to subdue the Titans?"
Dick felt his face flush. He was being kicked while he wasn't yet recovered enough fully to answer that question, but….
He did anyway.
"No."
"No, what?"
"No, Master…" Dick said somewhat dryly, making the other male's eye narrow slightly.
Dick bit his inside of his cheek.
Screw this…
"No….they, just were quicker. They caught me off guard, sir –
"And what do you do when that happens, apprentice?" Slade sat back and crossed his arms.
~ LISTEN TO THE TEACHER….JUST LISTEN TO HIM, WHY MAKE IT SO HARD ON YOURSELF, BOY BLUNDER?? ~
That inner fear, that voice was screaming, but Dick never listened to it often enough.
It was his fear, and not anyone else's.
"They took out all communication –
"And you still failed to get away, even with the training I've given you for this entire month, child."
Dick flinched a little at the remark.
"They just –
Slade put up his index finger to stop his protégé from regressing. "That wasn't all. You also went against my orders to NOT ENGAGE with the Titans." He reprimanded the teen. Eye still as cold and firm as a winter's fjord in the middle of nowhere.
"I…. DIDN'T."
He knew it was bold, brash and a careless thing to argue with a man who'd seen his apprentice saving the enemy from Overload's attack. Slade had left Raven because of that, and it made his master very cross. So very cross, that Dick was never to tire once of having to put up that still "never brave enough face.."
By himself, he was powerless.
By himself, he was as good as dead.
Slade continued, sat back and turned his attention to his communicator, leaving Richard to turn a sickly white.
"I beg to differ, boy." He clicked it on and sharp sounds crackled* before replaying back through the speaker.
~ Talk! Was it true, Rob? Are you really gonna go through with this?? Slade's usin' you! ~
Dick's masked eyes grew wide, his mouth slightly ajar.
"How did…the shockwave…."
~ Do you want him to use it? If you'd rather he win, then keep trying to put me behind bars, go ahead! If the bots –
"Or, maybe this will jog your memory."
Dick shook his head, breathing in as he seethed back. Flushed and head in his hands as it came…his ultimate undoing…
~ Go, help them.~
Dick gulped and felt the panic setting in.
~ They're your team, too!~
~ Go, now . ~
~ No way, dude! ~
~ He's going to kill her! Don't you –
A pause, and another crackle.
~ Look out!~
"No…" Dick gasped as Slade's eye turned to a slit on that last, recorded snippet.
A young hero crying out his name….
~ Robin!~
The device was turned to silence it, as Slade just smugly smirked from below his metal face mask.
"And, I rest my case." He darkly chuckled, Robin finding no humor in this criminal's last words before they'd made it back.
/
The recording went through so clearly….he lied. To me….
We can't be trusted, not as heroes… Robin or this "Apprentice" Slade wants to own.
"Apprentice?"
Dick looked up from his task. He put down a green microfiber cloth, while some unused polish and cleaner was to his other side of the work table. It stunk like hospital antiseptic and chemical residue.
Shoe shining was left to those below the common norm.
Polishing Slade's armor for him, as he worked on a way to take over the city?
A common event in the life of a crime lord's underling.
Robin scowled and placed the heavy vambraces onto the room's work table more so, unceremoniously.
Slade sat at his iron throne, not bothering to ask twice as the boy stepped forth. Slade rotated his seat to face the child. "Have you gotten that small task completed yet that I've asked for? I'm going to need my guards in mere moments."
"Almost, sir…" Slade watched the kid's reaction. He was being obstinate again.
Pity.
"What will you do if you can't save them the next time with a counter – event, such as this?"
Dick chewed on his bottom lip and looked at the floor, but Slade wouldn't have that.
" Richard."
Dick narrowed his masked gaze at the man. "Just because you are in that seat, sir, doesn't mean I have to make exact eye contact. I can hear you, just –
Slade started to rise, and Dick ran to fumble for the man's gear.
"I did what you wanted!" Dick argued, too tired to be this pissed off.
"It's enough! I'm -
" ENOUGH." Slade pressed a button on his throne's arm and five to seven Slade bots appeared from the rafters. Dick was surrounded, and for some reason the grip of that man's metal armor felt heavy enough to attack with.
He yelled out and found that these bots were programmed to grab and subdue, not to hurt him their hardest as they had before with the Titans. He just kicked and tried to claw his way out of their holds, but claws fought back as Slade's boots trudged over with an even harsher tapping sound.
Dick squirmed as the bots brought him to Slade's throne, to face the man up close, to look him in the eye.
Growling with teeth bared, an unruly dog like this needed a leash and a good whack on the nose.
Slade did one better. Even without his gauntlets, he still had those fists of fury prepped enough to pound at Richard's diaphragm .
Again.
And again.
Until white splotches decorated the kid's vision.
Until the punishing of his apprentice, was done.
For now.
Dick coughed and tried to find the air in his lungs, but again, that wasn't up to him as his head fell forward. Slade gripped the boy's unruly head of ebony locks and the man's eye stayed fixated on the boy's pain.
He'd earned it for his back talk. It was totally uncalled for.
" Wrong, apprentice. You'll look me in the eye, every time, and I expect you to finish up with my gear." A bot handed Slade the scuffed metal as it was waved in from of Richard's face.
"I take care of my things…but this?" Slade spat at the boy and then bothered to make his grip on Robin's scalp even tighter. Dick let out a sharp gasp as he gritted his teeth, seething at the rough pull upwards.
"Is unacceptable! You'll be making this up to me, with your hard work." He wrenched at the kid's mane as Dick bit back a whimper..
" Now." Slade hissed to the kid's face venomously.
His scalp was then left alone, as the vambrace Dick had ruined by his tantrum was shoved back into his chest. Dick panted and controlled his breathing long enough to wipe his brow and sit up. Tossed to his lowest level, there sat the metal guard as Slade dusted off his own uninjured palms from above the teen's fuzzy sights.
"Fifteen minutes." He let the boy hear him out, his voice bouncing around to every wall, every crevice within the underground haunt.
Richard got up quietly to clutch the vambrace. He gripped it tightly.
This fire in him, was still not…
Satisfied.
With such force and a cry of defiance thrown in there for good measure, Dick chucked the guard at his crime lord keeper of a master.
As if he had eyes in the back of his head, Slade caught the item, one handed. Dick gawked at the man's feat and his teeth gritted with fists balled up; a boxer coming into the ring.
He wanted to fight?
Fine!
So, like a wild football tackle during the super bowl or no less, the Slade bots did their job to knock out the little trouble maker. Slade didn't have room on his busy schedule spar. Maybe once the kid apologized…
With a lastly, decent whack to the back of the neck, the boy wonder saw the cold floor, eyes glad to finally be free from having to stare down that mad king for a bit.
All before he awoke to another pitch black existence.
/
Chapter one was an introduction. How is it, more to come! This will be in parts as of seasons one and 2. Read in and hope Lucia Chloris the inspiration has enjoyed the very first look! Stay curious for chapter two!