Teen Titans – ReBeL Yell: If I Had Stayed a Renegade

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Locking Eyes

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The alarms set off by the dozen. The great thirty story could have been a fortress; and for what it held, the crowned jewels themselves couldn't hold a candle to what marvels were being carefully pilfered by a serious thief.

A con man's protégé.

In this night – time world, the buzz of adrenaline and the fizzle and pop of all moral attitudes was done.

Gone, were the nights spent on patrol, as he ran. Bracing against the laser shots set at his head.

The staged combat practice sessions, the lesser figures of combat, as the protégé of the con man he worked to appease only flew in for an opening.

Explosions fizzled and crackled alight in the night, like sparklers in the streets at summertime.

The wind to his neck and shoulders, ten stories didn't frighten the daring protégé –

Maybe not him, but someone wanted to see those eyes look away. Only once.

A blur of green sped after him into free fall, falling, not flying as he dodged, looking down as the sky jump jammed his communications. The weeping blur dragged out its lanky arms to seal them round his torso, to pull up as the protégé struggled beneath arms of titanium.

"Let…. go! Get off! No!"

The student's begging did even less for his case as the protégé to the con man bit down, finding no victory in the blood on her wrist that he tasted and spat out. As it went up as they did, the world as obscured as this free - fall in reverse.

"You are safe…safe, at last…please do not leave…. Please…" She; the blur had a name; it was Starfire in the language of this planet. The protégé knew her, and for tonight, he had wished to have the ability to disappear.

The protégé shook, his eyes willed shut to look away as she gripped him tightly to her chest. They were at the top, the very top. Away from the tower's guards for a while, away from anyone else…

Even the con man who was sorely disappointed, though slightly amused by this development.

Enough to take his anger out on someone, as the student again tried to beg. To warn.

"Stop…you'll only get hurt…I don't want to be here… please…"

"You cannot! We shall face him, together…do not leave your friends…. we will not go anywhere…" She reassured him. They'd never leave, never fall.

Tonight, he'd failed.

This could only continue for so long.

"Let me go, please Starfire." The boy in her arms left his eyes to turn around to her, masked of all other sympathies. It was there, though. The fear of having been right.

"You almost died. I can't protect you if…he'll know. He always finds out…"

"He does not rule you. Just as Robin is still a part of you, there is a way. There is one, I believe that he has not yet won…"

"So, then let me go. I won't let that happen. Like this time, and before. He'll keep you alive if I tell him…"

She kept her arms there, clutching her beloved friend even as a gust of wind from a roaring copter had come.

To retrieve some missing property.

The robots at the controls stood and showed their faces. Masked, as his was.

She felt her arm strength weaken, the sun in her heart slowly fading. He left a hand to her arm, a kiss to her cheek as her grip slackened. He left, the whirr of the copter now untraceable as rain and fog in the night left the sky all a new void of unresolved tensions. The girl as a blur, did not rush and instead let the rain wash over her scalp. Her empty arms, it now draining her strength as her hands clasped a metallic device; round and etched with a black T as its emblem.

She flipped open the device to reveal its screen, a face staring back. Not at all uncaring of her plight.

Feeling her pain as he should.

"Our friend is again lost to us… I was unsuccessful and am returning home, shortly…"

~ Star, we got it covered. Don't hurt yourself over this. Cyborg; out. ~

The rain trickled down, even as it had begun to undo its spell over the blur of a heroine, who gained all of her power from the light of the sun.

Her sun, was now much dimmer.

And ever would it be? Would she see his smile again, someday?

/

Dick sat in the seat the bots had herded him to, only to find another calculating flesh and bone figure, sitting right across from him.

Partly encased in shadow, barely hiding his one tiresome eye.

"You lost the objective."

"Yes, sir…" Dick lowered his head, afraid to make contact. He'd lost much more than that.

"You still cared for the Tameranean."

The protégé blinked, his hands shaking as he recalled her warmth. The stillness and the cold of this future was too bleak to fathom. He stared up slowly at the man who'd come to call him by name.

"So, Dick…"

The teen raised his head all the way with a gasp, masked eyes widened in terror.

"Should I finally just, get rid of her?"