Teen Titans; ReBeL Yell; If I Had Stayed a Renegade-
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HAIRCUT
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Chapter about how Renegade in pre- Nightwing (AU) days has longer than average hair from the 2003 series. May be pony tail and will explain why.
/
"Good job tonight, apprentice."
Praise.
Dick Grayson let out a dreary sigh and cleaned the blood from his blade, as the man beside him only taunted his young pupil with those four words. Those hopelessly dead eyes behind the mask had a harder time finding any empathy for what these men and women had gone through.
He'd said a decade.
Ten.
Ten years to learn the man's exact trade and it wasn't even two years yet. He'd decided to see if this man, Slade really would care about one other menial thing besides Dick's killing streak.
His appearance as an assassin.
His now shoulder length black locks, grown out of his depression over those two years.
You'd think the white spiked male known as Slade would finally care that he'd shown the kid his face one night at the dinner table. That night, they had killed a guest as a contract of Slade's personally.
Lethal poison in the wine. No one spoke about much that night on.
Tonight, was a simple ambush on a man who owed too much to one of Slade's clients. Dick had taken his knife to cut the man's throat as planned, making it look like a simple mugging.
He however, knew how to have his space. Slade had said that his pupil Dick Grayson, knew better than to distract himself by growing out his dark ebony hair. Dick curtly told Slade it made him feel like someone who wasn't his old alter. That he didn't want to look in the mirror and see Robin staring back.
So, after evaluating all of his reasons, Slade did allow the boy now at sixteen to wear his hair a bit longer. As long as it was tied up during a fight or in his master's presence.
Dick had accepted and, by those terms, he brought to the table his own extra ultimatum.
"If I mourn the loss of a client at all, I'll cut my hair short, to show that. You can have me keep it that way until I do it again, and if I don't…then you can have your apprentice. A killing machine, just like you always wanted."
Slade wanted a drone, so then Dick would have himself lose the bet to tick Slade off. He would not cry for a victim that they killed or even if the targets were innocent and begging for their lives to be spared.
It turned out to be that Dick had locked away a good chunk of his emotional side after the third year, yet Slade had not double checked in that time to see how much so the kid had cracked.
"Load up the vehicle and alert Fran that we'll be staying the night."
"Yes, sir." Dick walked on as his head bobbed obediently, muttering the rest. No tears. Not even for his friends who were still alive. The probes waiting to strike if he got too misty eyed in front of the mad man.
"Oh, and apprentice?" Slade had the male turn to face him. Skepticism painted across his masked features like in his early time as Robin. Slade wanted to see that glance go stoic one day as well.
"If I were to eliminate a Titan, would you weep for them."
Dick turned to see what the man was…
"That's what I thought." Slade waved the kid on, not expecting him to know how to handle the threat.
"Go. Before I consider no longer honoring my decision."
/
Dick paced around his guest room and felt something stir from his consciousness. His memories as a Titan were still so real and new to him. Slade had mentioned that the trauma would rebuild him as something better, but it felt incomplete. Whatever he was, it still didn't feel like he was in his own skin. Dick looked up at a window ledge. He had the urge to climb. This was Bruges. He couldn't stay cooped up with that killjoy!
/
Dick felt lighter as his hands moved through his mane very smoothly. He'd gotten it long enough to tie up, but still he felt out of place. An identity that was forced onto him. Slade being there way too much, breathing down his neck. Asking to be heard out.
When was it ok to keep pushing?
He looked past the nighttime roofs of this lovely European city and wondered if he'd ever feel a part of any country or home – with Slade carting him back and fort so likely by tomorrow to jump again through political hoops. An assassin is what he was to become because he'd waited far too long to flee. A man who could pull his hair and twist without ripping at the roots, even though he could to some other foes…he never tried to really do like before to his pupil to humiliate him.
As Robin, he did it daily since the boy fought to be freed from his apprenticeship.
In Asian culture in the past, warriors and even widowed women would cut their hair to show that they were in a deep mourning. For others in many nations elsewhere, cutting off your beard was a loss of status and power. Long hair was symbolic to one's youth or beauty and vitality in a woman's case. Yet, Dick grew it out so he'd one day have to cut it off. To show Slade that he still cared for other's lives. That he wasn't cold hearted, but…
This time, he'd do the opposite, because Slade was threatening him with them.
With the Titans.
~ They were here in Belgium, looking for fellow heroes to stop a criminal organization…~ Dick had found from flyers in the town down below his feet. ~ Raven was spotted too. They even have a watch on her in the police station. ~
The Brotherhood of Evil.
Did not sound hat terrible to him, as Dick flung himself from the first chimney, he saw to a window ledge to catch what he could before their flight in the morning.
He almost lost his edge as a grumble son distracted the boy.
He looked at his gullet and groaned to himself.
"I sure could go for a late-night snack…"
He zipped on down to a bar and walked right in.
Best time as ever to give Slade the bird.
/
All eyes on him, he stayed in his thick trench an had kept his mask off before going in. The lights, jazz sounds and warmth swept him to his table as the staff came by to see if they'd spotted a minor.
" Goedeavond. Welkom; wat kan ik je brengen...naar...?" (My source couldn't find Flemish!) He knew some Dutch, but not as much as French so (in this we will be sure to mix in Dick speaking it and it being translated between speakers.
"Gewoon hier voor het eten." Dick did his best to keep it short and sweet.
" Just here or the grub." The boy used a gruff sounding tone and acted older in his stance to trick the bar keep.
"Yes, and I'm not worried for " Stront" that I'll get in trouble for this…." The waiter shook his head and Dick just let out a breath. "The soup of the day if you have it."
"All?"
"Yeah."
"In about a few, anything else."
"Water."
The waiter looked at him as if this were a place to let down your, ehem…. hair.
It had a bistro section. Dick just acted unfazed by the waiter's dirty looks.
Until that person brought the food much sooner, and then headed to the kitchen. Whispering to –
"Hallo!"
Dick had his spoon in hand, just ready to eat and get up to go…
Yet he was rather popular with the flashiest locals.
"You were late to meet! I was so worried." She was blonde, not at all Dick's type and….
She was shushing him, with a full kiss.
"Let's go get some air! I will not sand to be stuck inside when we –
"Is this person bothering you, sir?"
The owner had come in with two of the staff from the front by his table. Blinking owlishly up at the workers from his side of the booth, her arms swung round him tightly. "You are being watched. Don't say yes." She whispered as if Dick could and would listen. In his logical mind, she was strange for trying to keep to a false cover. The staff had in fact acted strange before, and they had brought him the soup too quickly.
Who did that?
"She was meeting me here." Dick admitted to the staff. "We had a date planned and I totally forgot." A part of his charm was all falsely written, yet it wasn't to be as the couple paid quickly and thanked the manager, before a hand rested on Richard's arm.
"You're coming with us –
" Unhg!"
The bowl from the soup had ended up smashed onto the male's head by none other, as Dick stood blak faced at…
This brazen blonde nightmare.
"Come on!" She pulled Richard up after she and he easily swerved close for it, and dashed for the exit door together. Arm in arm, he'd just met someone he'd not soon forget.
/
"What….!" Dick panted, not looking back as bullets shot after the two teens. She was young like him, but why so crazy to…oh.
So was he for fleeing without notifying his master dearest.
/
When the streets had gone quiet and the trail cold, the two returned to speaking. Softly, she giggled and seemed very funny to him in a culturally biased way.
" Amerikaanse jongen?" She waved a set of fingers in front of Dick's face. Her own look was now, very confused.
"Did my actions startle you? I was only trying to help."
"You…knew what those men were –
"You work for someone respected by this country and also, feared by it as well." She said in a solid tone unlike the one she'd faked from before.
"Was that all an act?" Dick changed the subject, AWAY from Slade for once. Slade was, a carrier of such ills unto any nation. Wherever he was, there was destruction. Mayhem… Political unrest….so many lives…
"I am a very good actor; did you not think so too?" The blonde asked before gasping, as she recalled one mistake she'd just made.
"Oh... herm… I am called…" She pursed her lips together and began to let off an aura of indecision right away.
Dick pulled away and tried to grasp her shoulders. He wanted to be sure she wasn't a spy. That was the last thing on his mind, getting napped by the enemy while being tailed by the local authorities in another country!
He asked, finally curious to know.
"Who, are you?"
"I…" she took in a breath to answer.
"I…"
He leaned in a bit.
"Do not know yet!" She grinned nervously back at her newest accomplice's bewildered blue eyes.
/
Dick eyed the peculiar ditz that was now calling him an…accomplice??? A threat, BECAUSE of Slade??
"Umm…you've got the wrong guy, Miss –
"Nightengale!"
She shouted as he fell over, she clasped a hand over her lips anxiously with a blush. "Nightingale, or…. Oriole? I was not able to decide?"
Dick rubbed his temples and sat back up. "On what?" Sir pessimistic, grumbled.
"A code name, silly!" She chuckled and held out another hand.
Dick this time, was reluctant and didn't take it as he rose all on his own. He reprimanded her, seeing as they were not far apart in age but mentally?
She wore a mask; he realized as her sighing now brought down those walls. "Oh….it is hopeless!" She said and looked really to weep as her nose ran and cheeks grew a brighter ted than before. "I wanted to be good to someone, but this happens…. oh!" She groaned and moaned, expecting this simp to try and console her.
"Uh….hey…what…dod you say your…sigh….name was, again?" Here, he was. Being super nice to someone with – god forbid Slade find them, a "code name." She was either an amateur super or villain wannabe or….
Or?
A spy. Which meant the jig was up.
His brain turned to pudding as she dragged out a handkerchief from one of her coat pockets and blew fiercely into it, handing the thing to him as he tried his best to seem, less a threat.
And gross, it wasn't the worst time.
Bb had been twice as-
"You….look so sad too…" She suddenly had fingers to the side if his unmasked cheek.
Dick pulled away, ignoring the fact that she didn't wash her hand but…
It wasn't that.
"You see me now crying and you yourself wish…?"
"NO." Dick backed away. "No, I…" He rubbed his neck and gulped. "Just…thinking about, stuff."
"American, stuff?"
God no…. she sounded, dare he say…
Blue eyes and a kitten's pause at his words.
"Yes?"
~ Like Starfire…~
He put together two and two and slumped by that set of baby blues.
"You have a knot!" She tugged a little on his pony tail. "Let me apologize. I have a clean comb!"
And so, in a back street in Belgium, Dick was repaid for being startled by this strange and bubbly local…
In she brushing his slightly more than shoulder length black hair.
"It was not hard to start once you made it so luscious?" She took her time and used great care on each stroke. A massage as Dick felt he mind get too used to doing things differently more often with his new cover.
"I used a lot of time off. It wasn't too much time. Since I was fifteen." He sighed a little as her hands came to his neck.
"My mother used to call my hair something of an envy…" She smiled as she combed. "I was born up in times that…were hard for us. Mother, my father no longer woth us – until I was forced to stay in a home with other children without parents."
"I…I'm…sorry for your loss…"
Dick tried to let her still, but thus Nightingale in his ear refused with a pat on his cheek. "Your still very coarse." She said as he relaxed under her hands. The story continuing. "Mother hated how I looked like father's late mistress and said my hair was proof so she threw me away. Like this comb, I was discarded until they found me."
Dick went still. "They?"
"This agency…called, Spyral… I believe."
Dick tugged but she wouldn't budge.
Oh no.
He felt his lip tingle.
Not good.
"I…am glad you're so open but, I really have to get –
"Ow!" He yelped as she tugged out...oh, he did have a knot.
"You won't go home with messy hair like that." She chided him softly. "Mother was no concern and I found out the real reason I was hated…
Her eyes dilated as her voice; a song fell from her lips.
In the form of a threat so sweetly spun.
~ There is a reason I am called the name, Nightingale….my song turns those I meet to fall beside me, humble. As you have been. I am very sorry…I cannot lose you. They want me to return with, proof. ~
He was feeling fuzzy, lightheaded…
"You…you…r…V…voice…" He grunted. "All…this…time..."
~ It was a curse that told my father to leave my mother all alone. ~ She dragged the comb to scrape him, to make a prick upon his fine head of hair. Hers even so, far more angelic, as Nightingale only kept grooming him. Keeping him from running.
~ Long hair is what men take and drag to places where I went to…when I was not good. When they did not yet bring me to work as a human without a conscience. ~
"But…y…you…s…saved…. -
~ THOSE men were from Spyral. ~ Nightingale made his heart race, and not in a very good way. She was an assassin? He couldn't get free in time.
~ You think that you may wear it on your head as a crown, yet trouble will find it…your youth. You must not let it down. You must always watch for danger; must always stay alert – for that trouble…is not only from me. ~
Dick tried to stand but fumbled as she tugged this time, and hard! He went down, her blue eyes on him, face getting far too close as he breathed in short puffs from the poison on his scalp –
A whizz flew through the air and a…
SPLAT .
Resounded.
She fell in a heap at his side. Lifeless. A bullet to the brain. Blue eyes wide and just as owlish as before, even in death by one stray a shot.
A not – so – lucky - aim as Slade arrived from the street with a revolver in hand.
He wasn't wearing a mask either.
"Are you ok??" Walking briskly over to the drowsy boy, Dick's glazed eyes had started to water. He didn't get to let them fall shut as Slade dragged a gloved set of fingers to look over the boy's scalp. "Nerve toxin." He muttered under his breath. "I need to have you treated. Whatever you're going to tell me, save it."
Was he…smirking?
"You lost the bet and, by the way. I haven't seen you cry since your last encounter with that alien."
Dick gurgled as Slade hoisted him up over the man's shoulder. He took out the bullet with precision from Nightingale's bleeding skull. Not even bothering to shut her eyes for the dead child he'd murdered so quickly. Taking out a lighter from his coat pocket. Slade did send the body off.
Into ash.
Her blonde, blushing light of day now in cinders by both color and claim.
"Spy…. ral…" Dick rasped and coughed in Slade's grip. He must have understood, because the man's grip tightened suddenly. As if he'd not let his apprentice out of his sight for a very long time.
/
On the jet, he awoke and found that they'd not been up in the air for too long. Slade was by his laptop and he'd looked up this face of an angel and had sent an anonymous scathing, insulting email to Spyral to thank them for wasting his shells.
And for almost harming his protégé without the man's consent.
"Are you awake?" He turned his attention to the boy on the seat across from him. In a perfect setting where he could be sure that Richard was not going anywhere.
"Yeah…" Dick sat up and coughed with a weary nod.
"That girl was a junior agent to a spy agency. Spyral. Did she tell you?"
"She did." Dick breathed a sigh and rubbed his face. Letting out a yawn, it was almost one am.
"How long was I out…"
"Two hours, nothing more." Slade replied and shut his device with a soft snap.
"Is she –
"Dead? Maybe." Slade looked out the window as they reached a higher altitude now. "We'll be in London soon." Slade told the boy. "I've had intel that the girl was going to come after us eventually. It was my fault. I'd not said anything or stopped you from running away."
"I needed some air."
"You also made it clear that your face should be hung up on a wanted poster now in Bruges, right beside my own." Slade snapped at the teenager, frustrated that he now had to avoid seeing Fran for a while.
"We…were laying low? There? You?" Dick gawked at the tension as his questioning didn't help matters. "In my line of business, no place in the galaxy is ever safe to turn to." He spoke as if knowing from experience what that meant. "Friends become your enemies; families attack each other. Co – workers want you behind bars or with a bullet through the skull. She would have been punished if she lost to you. Yet you would have been treated to being possibly used and brainwashed by that incredibly illusive organization if she took you out. Maybe they would have gotten to me with you as live bait." He rubbed his chin, thinking up all sorts of cruel ways and scenarios that Spyral might have put Dick through to pick Slade out of the crowd. Such idiots.
"You said I lost."
"Ah." Slade bobbed his head, recalling his own comment in the alley. "You did. You shed tears, so you'll have to honor our deal."
Dick put a set of cold fingers up to his face. Still streaked with…
Crust.
"It was, from the toxins –
"Regardless, you still did exactly what I expected."
Dick furrowed his brows at the man. "What?"
"I didn't tell you?" Slade shrugged and got up to move and stretch his limbs.
"Nightingale was a junior agent." Slade went on to say. "She had an anonymous tip that we'd be arriving in that city, on a contract from her… employer."
"I…so?"
" So…you were out for a night on the town and she miraculously knew where to find you. Tell me, Dick." Slade placed his hands to his knees and knelt just a tad so that Richard would answer his question.
A single grey – blue staring back into a concerned and worried baby blue set of orbs.
Slade blinked his one eye, batting it with a pout. "Figure it all out yet, boy detective?"
With a blink and a gasp, Dick clenched both fists at his sides. Frame shaking, unable to stop putting it all into perspective. His brain had already gone into auto pilot as he roared out.
Dick launched himself at the man.
" You set me up ?! You…. you cheated!! –
"Cheat?" Slade scoffed and caught the kid's fists, easily. Enjoying his apprentice's reaction as that snarl didn't allow for any tears to fall, there was no room when Dick would never openly cry for the man that had changed him into this!
So violent and clever as he already had been, the boy would learn that tears blinded any hunter. That his "hair" was the problem and it had to go. By ANY means necessary.
"I won." Slade simply stated the obvious to his cohort. "There was no rule about using whatever it took to have the other party fail at their task. You shed a tear for that lying brat. Get over it, already."
Slade dragged out a small blade with a medium length handle from his pouch and handed it up to the boy, clasping his fingers around Dick's shaking set for him to make the choice. He'd not kill Slade with it. He already knew that nothing that small would do much harm to the super soldier.
"Those were your terms. Honor them and cut it back." Slade commanded. "You can always grow it out once you can handle a bit of flirting in the future."
"I…let her die…"
"She was an eyesore." Slade frowned; the grip still icy as Dick was forced with his chin claimed to look up at his master's impatient gaze. "Do as you are told. Cut it. Forget her. Move on."
Dick's eyes narrowed as her story; her touch resonated….
Just like Kori. She was a fan of how his hair was so different from her own. She'd even offered back then to wash it as a peaceful gesture since her Earth knowledge was somewhat lacking.
He'd only said no after she'd nearly made him blind with her "imported" shampoo. Or was it homemade….
How he'd wished their hands hadn't felt exactly the same…
"Well?"
Slade cocked his head, silver hair falling over his one right side. No eye, but a patch was clearly hidden there.
Just as cold.
Just as empty and hollow.
Yet Slade had very vibrant hair, Richard somehow noticed.
So did he, once…
Her words echoed as Dick took in a stale breath. The cabin smelled of that "new car smell" as Dick Grayson held it there. The blade in his right hand.
Her words had him pause before the object drew closer to its target.
~ You think that you may wear it on your head as a crown, yet trouble will find it…your youth. ~
His vitality. His strength, as Dick tugged and twisted his strands to do as he wished. Hands carding through to collect a good bundle.
Even as he held onto the sharpened blade in his right hand.
~ You must not let it down. You must always watch for danger; must always stay alert – for that trouble…is not only from me. ~
And what she'd not said so that Slade could eavesdrop with more than a tear being shed, she has said soft and sweet as dripping nectar from some magical flower in a nighttime forest.
~ For men like Deathstroke; if they take your name, your power. Our youth is all we have left…while men like him will always be forever strong. You cannot hope to escape…leave it behind. And, I will join you…~
A twin suicide was what she had planned. Her depression was masked by her demeanor of someone who could never focus on another's pain, but…
In some twisted way as he cut his locks off, partly scalping away the length until it was just brushing past his ears, she was some demented and unwanted version of his Florence Nightingale.
Come to help soldiers on the battlefield in a fight for freedom. A fight to be alive once more.
In death, he'd never get that chance as the deed was done. His eyes could see, and not a strand to bother his vision covered those stunning blue, shocked orbs.
Which was exactly what Deathstroke had wanted.
"You set me up, but she wanted to die." Dick finally spoke once the boy's ebony hair was in his own hand. All of the length he'd grown was now being taken away and… in some haunting part of what she'd spoken to him, he did feel powerless against his captor.
Against his master.
"She was going to do it either way. Spyral would have found out about her suicidal tendencies and erased her from their company." Slade held out his hand as Dick reluctantly looked at the last of his worth, his youth in one bunch of fine dark fibers.
"I'm going to dispose of this properly." Slade told his apprentice. "It would be a shame not to donate this much to a worthy cause, don't you think?"
"It could be counted as evidence-
"Don't worry about that now." Slade shook his head to the boy's fears. Though, it wouldn't be to a national charity that these locks would go to. Far too priceless for that.
But to a similar setting for the one who needed it most.
"I want to trust that it will." Dick frowned and never got to say goodbye to his long years of tortured strands; of his efforts of having grown out so much…. would he even notice a difference? Would any of Slade's recurrent clients?
His body doubled up with anxiety.
He'd said, every time…
Dick went pale as Slade noticed right away.
"Next time, you may want to hide your location better." He pointed to the boy's chest. "That "S" has a tracker." He smirked. "It was easier to sew into your clothing than by using any extra resources from within the haunt."
Dick's face fell as he sat back down into his seat. "You just don't care…but I do –
"And I don't believe growing out your hair and having a rebellious stage is all the rage these days." Slade sardonically replied. "You have a role to play, and she failed in getting to her objective – while you would have never lived it down if I had left her, even without her legs. Or her eyes. She was not meant long for this life, but you are."
"What if I don't agree, sir." Snorted the boy wonder, expecting a slap in the face for his backtalk.
He received nothing.
Nothing, but a few unkind words to drag him back into fettle position for later's healing session.
Slade chuckled and expected this to pass as it already had. "She told you I was a threat? To your youth? Your strength? Was that it?" Slade sneered at the dead child's fibbing. "Oh, it's easy to drag others down, yet it takes twice one's strength to pick them up from ruin. If she'd been worth saving, you would have had nothing left to give. She was the one who wanted you to die, Renegade." Slade hissed to the brat in his seat.
"She would have never taken on a bird's title…since she envied another's. A red – breasted poster child she'd heard of a long time ago…it just took some gentle coaxing, but?"
Dick felt his eyes prickle. How could Slade do this to him??...
"Was it worth it to make her cry like that? Did if feel wrong, somehow?"
"I…"
"You don't know her past, only that she had her pity talk and sweet words to lure you in. The truth is, apprentice…. a Robin ruined her life."
"No…. that…that's not!" His heart hammered on. Slade knew how to push and push until Dick was pulling his hair out from sheer distress. He'd not do it…the man was just egging him to show his master how weak he truly was.
How weak Robin was.
"She'd seen your show in Germany as a child." Slade pulled out his laptop to show the headline of the child's mother's murder at the hands of her father. The man had sold her off to use her hair as a lure wherever they wanted her to go…
Before Spyral.
And how he shook, and the tears started to fall.
"She was safe with no one, so it simply was a mercy killing. In the end, you've already saved her life."
Slade's grin was pure agony as Dick got ready to hide his eyes from the man beneath his arms. He felt like a child being cornered by an adult.
Mercy?? That was….
"Congratulations…"
A murder. Of an innocent victim of circumstance.
~ And I will join you…my brilliant, boy wonder…~
She had known, pieced it all together just by her own data and from his maybe familiar eyes. She was fan, a dead one now. Bpuried by Slade's methods while he'd done nothing…Could do nothing but let his hair fall out as he'd been taken away from that lifelessly torched and cindering body lying face down in the streets of Belgium. He'd never have the day again to see her off…
Slade would ruin his head before it could be scalped at this length now. He owned that boy's very spirit as the kid's head dropped astronomically lower to recede for the rest of their flight to merry old London.
~ My brilliant…Robin, for we are always one…. always meant to live…. eternally flying free…~
Letting his hair down, he'd never live down the killing of a child. Never again, as Renegade drifted back off to sleep at ten – thousand feet above sea level.
His scalp belonged to no one else…because now, there was nothing left to take.
Not a hair on his head that that didn't belong to one; a Slade Joseph Wilson.
/
AFTERWARDS
/
A week later a package in some other part of the globe, had arrived at the door step of a precariously placed – T – Shaped tower.
The doorbell was rung, yet the delivery person was no sooner to be tipped, for they were not present at all! The one to bring the item inside was a still hopeful heroine; Starfire, the powerful alien princess who right now was still moving on from a terrible loss that had shaken her outright for three years too long.
"C'mon star! Let's see what they sent us!" Beast boy; a green shaded hero who could morph into any animal in the entire animal kingdom (and off of earth as well some undiscovered species,) tagged along and sniffed at the package the red-haired princess held onto with a grip like steel.
"No, friends! We must do with the opening the gift, together! I will not do "the peeking," Beastboy and you should not also!" She pulled the box away from her snout and did not bother to push as another older and taller hero entered the picture through two sliding doors. Right beside another two, Terra; an earth moving heroine, and Raven who had many gifted abilities that were downright intense, all of them saw the box and oohed over the idea of a fan being so bold as to deliver it to their happy…tower.
"Cool! Is it free stuff?" Terra bounded over to the sofa where Starfire was busy keeping the gift safe from more peering gazes that were her impatient teammates.
"We should just get it over with." Raven frowned and looked at the time. "We have a briefing in ten minutes."
"I get that Rae, but when do we ever get fan mail li –
"The puppet king."
Raven replied with an honest eye roll.
"Or one of Mad mod's crazy illusions." BB chimed in.
"And to not forget the Hive children would be most rude."
"They've been impossible to track lately too..." Terra agreed, watching with wide eyes how BB just sniffed his way up the closest to the gift, the one addressed to everyone in the room.
"So??" Bb finally was wagging his Scottie tail excitedly.
"Can we, Cy??"
"Let me scan it first."
"I can read the aura of the person who had it sent here."
"But…but that takes all the fun outta! –
" Listen." Raven stopped the whining pup from whimpering his way to an invalid answer.
"We lost a part of our team trusting a message without checking over what could have harmed both us and Jump City's population of…citizens."
"In the JLA, are they like this all the time too?" Terra asked. "Being all careful and "super" paranoid because of Batman?"
"They have their reasons to use the utmost of the caution, Terra." Starfire did understand as she handed the box to Raven first.
The look the empath gave the package was something off, but then she shook her head. "Nothing showed up. As if I'm unable to read it somehow…"
"My turn!" BB sniffed the item and then sneezed. "It's organic, like…. paper?"
"Cardboard, ya dope." Terra did a face palm to her temples. "Cyborg? You're up."
"Way ahead'a ya." He scanned it down and for some reason BB's check, was the closest to his own analysis. "He's right. Paper, and something else…."
" Open it already!"
" Wait!"
Before Raven could stop the green teen from undoing the very ordinary seal, Starfire and Cyborg with Terra "pile drove" the toad to let off with the too sudden, unveiling –
Starfire finally dug through the scrap and snatched the box away from everyone as they tumbled in a tumble weed style, off of the sofa and onto the floor.
"Look what you did, BB!" Cy scolded the kid as he became a big eyed, floppier eared puppy.
"You, did only manage to damage the container, yet not the con-
A flutter as the paper fell to the floor softly, Starfire bent down to pick it up and to read what looked to be a letter…
That was with a familiar written hand that….
~ Dear Titans; I've not gotten to thank you for all of the wonderful years we've spent butting heads and stepping on each other's toes, so I'll do so here. In this letter to you. I've been busier more and more often. My schedule is completely booked and I even made a change in careers as of late last week. If you want to see me, you can't. I'm afraid. My work has me too busy to settle down and the amount of paper and time to write a single sticky note costs more than my fare for the bus here where I am today, to say my farewells and thanks for all of the time we've spent together in the past. Maybe in the future, ad of course you probably won't even recognize me. I'm everywhere but no where at all, so this may jog your memory. Inside is a small token and a memento of what we had. It was fun while it lasted, right? Thanks for the best years, and to pleasant and new memories to be made on ahead.
~ Sincerely, Robin ~
/
Starfire plucked up a laminated wanted posting of a both masked and unmasked, dark haired character with one of long hair and the other…no longer with spikes in an up do swept motion.
Terra looked at the team, trying to figure out what was going on.
"Our…" Starfire's lip wobbled as she dropped the box with a high gasp.
"He…. did…"
"That, is his hair??"
/
"You did say…organic, but…was this a serial murderer's clue –
"This is not the movies!!!" Starfire's eyes lit up as she picked up the hair in the bag that the strands had been kept safe in.
"It is…. this is not "the right!"
"I'll check."
"Me too." Raven nodded to Cy.
"Me three. C'mon, you guys!" BB woofed, and they all got to work.
/
"Confirmed it. The DNA from every part of it is an exact match." Cy swallowed as Starfire couldn't stop staring at the wanted image of her former leader of the Titans.
"His aura does check out too, but not in this note." Raven frowned and made sure to cleanse her fingers of the dark emotions that piece of paper could trigger.
" Slade!" Starfire growled. "He did this to mock us! He forged a false letter of "those whom appreciate" and dared to do with the delivery of something as criminal as…AS!"
"Slade did write the note…" Bb sniffed, sneezing since gunpowder surrounded Slade's obvious stink. "But, can we track it back to the source, Rae?"
"We can't." Raven shook her head. "It was a delayed package so any information about the hander won't match. It's been out of the hands of the original sender for too long to tell…I'm sorry."
"They must be outta the country, that's why you can't. Like how long viruses stay on cargo an' stuff?" Terra wondered, still not sure who Slade was.
Wondering if it would be wrong to ask, for her own safety.
"You make a good point there, T." Cy nodded. "But if the hair an' the date on the notice Star is lookin; at is legit…then Rob's gone –
"No!" Starfire protested to her friends. "Your findings are not the "accurate by their series of depictions." She nervously tried to deliberate in her own words. "Robin was taken and was threatened by that mad man to become what he wants….it said assassin and I do not believe that Robin has ever –
"But it says he's on the most wanted list and Interpol is after em! He's gotta be training with Slade, Star!" Bb fought back. "We didn't get him out in time, so Slade took his time changin' everything about Rob." Cy gripped the bag of hair and snarled at their luck. "Dang! Slade is makin' this look impossible! I wanna hope he's not being brainwashed, but is he just goin' along with it to be safe? We can still pin this all on Slade."
"We will, but it's been two years and no leads as to where they –
"Whoa! You guys!" Terra had Bb beside her as her hands couldn't hold him back from the ruined cardboard box. "He's going crazy! It's gotta be something huge –
"Well, must we?"
"I'm on it." Raven let her arm raise the box by levitating it to search and for sure, she let out a gasp.
"There's something inside the paper folds!"
"Smuggled goods ??" Bb turned back and hiccupped loudly.
"I, don't know." She looked over where her powers were telling her.
"A flash drive." Cy picked at the fold of the brown package and belived it to mean nothing.
A clue and maybe, a way to do what they could to find the answers that had evaded them for two whole years now…
Right before Slade had left with Robin to take on the entire globe. A trotting he'd not wanted to commit it. Still, Cy booted up his tech and let a face show up on the screen inside what looked to be a computer café.
~ Testing…Ok. We have a connection. Long distance in Singapore today. ~
Starfire held a hand over her mouth. Robin…without his mask?
~I took a walk and ditched Slade until…Until he finds me, then I'm never safe for long...~ The kid hugged his arms to his chest and shivered. ~ He's got eyes everywhere. But this is nothing new for Batman. I'm used to it.. Not a first. ~
Raven frowned and knew he was afraid. Running from a hunter, hiding out with cup noodle on his side and a hoodie to stay hidden in that dark café. ~ The date right now is April the forth, two- thousand and four….I wanted to say more but I bought a cheap file from a hawker…This is the only one I can really record on and my time slot is closing soon… Slade is not who we thought, he's worse... ~
Bb bit his nails and knew that he would be having bad dreams tonight.
Cy raised the volume, the screen getting fuzzy before reverting in clarity so that everyone could see the boy wonder out of his usual element. Helpless.
~ He goes by another alias; Deathstroke. He's a world wide famous mercenary who's got a kill count that would make you sick to your stomach and…he wants, me to learn from him. He knows who Batman is. He KNEW my secret identity and…I'm this close to shutting down. I want to save you and take the man down! Not myself… Slade's probes are what's keeping me from saving, my friends…~
"The probes…" Raven's eyes widened as she recalled the Titans and STAR labs. They still had yet to remove the little pests for good.
~I tried to get the trigger but it's impossible. He's also a part of some army experiment. Korea war. That old but he hides it. He is a master of disguise, military background and training…Even with the League of Assassins…He wanted me to consider a summer there….and he got a serum back after that war given to him that made him impossible to even take down lethally…I have to try to get on his good side. For now, I'd rather run and hide, but I'm not being selfish. I never was…I'm sorry, guys. Star…Bb…Rae? Cy?..~
He was tearing up as Raven caught the sight with her own eyes.
~I…can't stop…I won't….he was right…we are alike…I even grew out my hair to piss him off – but I saw an old photo and he already did that…~ He sniffled and shook in his computer chair. ~ I'm a hero, right? I have to make others happy before I help myself..I…Don't want to see any of you get hurt. Is Star still wishing I'd never gone to look for Slade? So am I….He got me, and now I'm stuck until one of us… -
"The thing died??" Terra and BB both shouted at the eldest.
"The time limit ran out, or…"
"He was caught slacking off…" Terra gulped. "This mercenary who took your leader, I think I know that name from a long time ago."
"You do??" Bb gaped and let Terra talk and take her time.
"Yeah, before I got my powers, he was hired to watch us and determine what the military wanted Brion and my parents to do…I ran away and Brion…I never saw him ever again."
"WE shall find both your missing sibling and our dear friend Robin.:" Starfire declared. "Slade had been careless and now we know what to look for if we do again need to travel in our quest."
" Quest….D and D, anyone?" Gar chirped while the team groaned at the jest.
"As with my brother Wildfire.." Starfire wiped a tear from her eye and sighed. "I shall never give up hope. As long as he still is thinking of us, we cannot lose."
"I'll try to see if Cy and I can dig up more on ole' DS." Terra added as helpfully as she could.
"I'll try to see if I can gain entry into Robin's mind with all of this evidence." Raven said.
"And…umm….Star and…."
"You and I will just be, friend Beast boy." Starfire coaxed him to return as a kitten onto her lap. His sullen little face was nearly lost in her sorrowful glance at her eyes nearly shed light tears onto his green tabby coat.
~ Star….I'm…sorry…~ Bb was surely true to her as Terra saw two old souls reconnecting over the loss of a dear ally. She wondered if he would ever think of her as not just a Titan in training.
"Be good you two!" Terra called over with a wave as the doors slid shut, dividing them all to move forward in separate directions.
All while they were moving closer and closer to meeting one day, across the waves.
~He'll be back, won't he? ~
"I, do not know for certain….dear ally…" Starfire looked out at the shore line. How they had done so atop the tower, to see every sun set as well….
~ He's Robin, he can do anything….he just has to trust us again. ~
"He never will forget, just as you and I know that Robin will always be there."
She let a heartfelt sigh brush over the kitten's fur. "Always…we will never stop searching for a way to find him…"
~Never ever. Cause' we are so never gonna be like those dumb Rekmas you told us about last time….~
"And yet…" Starfire froze up as planets stopped shifting. The sun would never set on this brand new realization as her hands flew up to cover her face.
"I fear that it has already come to pass!"
/
Dreary stuff, no sooner must humor infect this one shot collection so tell me what's what! Read on and stay curious!
