Teen Titans Presents – Robin; Torn Legacy of a Prodigal Son
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Chapter 14: Two Sons- Spinning Out of Control
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Beaten.
Such raw angst.
A coughing fit splattered the sidewalk in chip of red and clear spittle.
Grant wiped his mouth; jaw still not close to finishing healing where that brat…
He trudged down the strip.
The robots were on his ass…
He had to skip out, be invisible.
Avoid the rats swimming below THIS city.
He fell to his knees and coughed again. The vision of a brutal execution. His death date wasn't now. No. I was…
Was…
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" This is for making me lose my CHANCE!"
The bat's brat lunged onto the chain mail faced assassin's back, his staff cutting off precious oxygen.
"You…are a monster too! I can't take it!"
Slade watched with heated anticipation, waiting to swoop in as the referee to the boy's grudge match.
"You don't know! You can't ever! You….i want it to hurt, like how you tried to shoot me dead! I hate it! You, him….at least I get to try to stay alive for someone!"
Pop !
Grant saw stars as his blades failed to find their target.
Whack !
He was on his back, the staff holding him pinned as Dick grabbed the assassin brat's shoulders and SLAMMED him to the floor.
Grant winced at his rattling skull, not before getting a fist full of what he deserved.
" This was for trying to hit Batman! To hit…me! I! Want! You! Out!"
A face full of one angry bird, the blood on his enemy's jaw caked those black gloves. His red eyes possibly good and tired of being sent to the bac of the line. Tired of being put down by an insect.
Grant could kill him. It was crap but…
Slade. He'd wanted Robin to win.
"Y-
Avch !"
Don't talk to me." Snarled the tainted boy wonder. "YOU decided to play rotten…. I almost lost myself…I'll hate you until they take you away in cuffs…I'll never trust a partner if they'll only want to see me as bait!"
"The…. rest…. cough!...she….."
"Ye, that's right." Slade came up from behind the boys with his hands behind his back.
"She won't take your actions very well. I though, could use someone to keep around for a good "kick" for my apprentice."
"Slade….one shot, this…" Panted the swaying blackmailed hero. "No more…"
"Why not." The man expected a bit of denial from the prodigal child. "You defeated him, Robin. Be proud. This is your legacy, boy." Slade placed his hands onto the kid's shoulders once he was standing over a battered Grant Wilson. "He won't harm your ex – mentor. You did it, you stopped a threat…. but you still need to prove that to me."
Dick looked down at his gloved palms, the blood. It wouldn't wash off…no…no!
"You preserved the Titans' lives, winning your place at my side. You made it, apprentice." Slade congratulated Robin as he began to feel dizzy, his breathing rapid from the rise.
Until he fell back into Slade, knocked out by his own shocking revelation.
He couldn't be Robin with that sort of ruthlessness.
"Hm." Slade snapped his fingers as Wintergreen emerged from the shadows. "See to my protégé returning to us in better, spirits. I'll handle my son."
"As you wish, sir."
The tapping of feet and the bots aiding Robin…
"Wh…the lab?"
"He's not perfect. Not yet for his next job." Slade said once Will and his master's charge were out of plain view.
"You…what are…cough!...*….you gonna do, to em… -
"To you?" Slade seemed amused by the question. "I was supposed to test out the prototype on Terra. However, our plans have changed. Terra, has sided with Robin's former teammates."
"Cough…*…. She…was quackers…Grant spat out a bit of blood from a cut in his mouth.
"You don't seem to understand!"
Grant was kicked unjustly in the ribcage as he curled onto his side. "You're going to replace her. I'll find some better use for that mouth of yours, once it's sewn and sealed shut. You dare talk to me like that again…" Slade hissed and lifted up his fearful child.
"I'll make you wish you'd never gotten those powers, boy. I'll make you BEG for me to relieve your suffering. You ungrateful, useless idiot !"
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Right now, the moon looked so high, so far away. Grant didn't cry. Not since Joey could speak. Not since he'd found out about his half-sister.
Rose…
She'd be here, she'd end up stopping nothing if he didn't get that screwball of a father to cease his takeover of Jump City.
A rattle of tin cans had Grant to throw back on his scowl, slits for eyes as there approached him…
A familiar voice, on a figure that wore a suit.
A red x.
"You remember me, Lancelot?" The kid sounded…how? Wasn't X a Robin thing? Who? Who was –
"Informant." Grant grunted, eventually chuckling as he tried to avoid his broken ribs.
"Yeah, you…. he did this?"
"No…. cough*…. shit!" Grant collapsed and bit on his lip far too often. Pain bloomed through his back and sides. Slade had delivered the final hit. Robin had just tenderized this meat patty lying on the side walk.
"I have to get you help."
"Who…" Grant sniffed and felt the strain only ebb until it left him to jolt upright. "F….."
"Don't cuss it, I can handle this."
Jason Todd sighed and knew one place, but it wasn't here. It was further from the bay. Across the world.
"My old stomping ground has to be where you can r –
"I…won't leave…that prick…." Grant grunted as he tried to grit his jaw. "Is mine!"
"Uhh, not like that, Lance –
"Ravager." The assassin snorted. "Get it right, target – fodder."
"Whoa, you love to twist a person's image." X dragged Ravager to stand, his knees as jello - like as a first timer at the gym.
"So do you, pin cushion, head…"
"You better not fall while we're swinging, dude."
"Dude..." Grant seethed. "Do…I look green and impish….to you..."
X ignored Grant's choppy tirade of insults and took to the sky lines by cable.
"You are a lucky one, Lance." X sighed. "My place is only a few blocks south of here. We'll get Patchy the Buccaneer back." He smirked below the Halloween themed mask. "Hang on."
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Starfire heard a grumble from the covers, as she jolted up in her visitor's seat within the white washed walled, med bay.
"He is "the up!" Starfire proclaimed to her team through the intercom on one of the computers in the room. ~We're on our way! ~
Terra? Was that –
Cy let the doors fly back he jogged a marathon from the garage.
Raven was a few feet lower, she came through the doors lastly, with Beast boy and Terra close to one another.
"Joy! Terra has not…I do mean…she is well??"
"She's better than ok, Starfire." Bb grinned. "Terra's gonna help us to fight Slade."
"And, Robin?"
Raven gripped her skull all too suddenly, a face changing as she saw a vision of…
" Ang !"
"Rave!" Cy ran to her as Starfire watched beeping monitor come to life. "He is –
"Star, get a seat for her." Cy told the princess, who did just that.
"Yes, I shall right away."
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Bruce was waking up, it was true.
"He just got shocked according to Raven and BB."
"Not the same person who was working for Slade?" Terra asked the heroes.
"W…you mean that Ravager guy?"
"Y…yes…. was not…alone…"
"Batman!" Gar bounded over as a chimp and tried to be empathetic to the man's need for boundaries.
"Is, are you ok?" Terra was afraid to get too close, but Batman was a detective with his eyes sealed shut. One of the very best.
"You're the princess…Tara Markov!"
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"I…hi, I yeah…. ah…." She gulped. Now or never.
"I was experimented on in my country by my uncle's hired scientists. I came here and I'm still having trouble with the rest of my memories coming back…I tried to go to the League and they just shut me down. Out! You…you all called me –
"You overturned a city. With your powers." Bruce's brows knit beneath the cowl. "How did you end up in California?"
"I hitchhiked all over. But then this mercenary who was ALSO a part of the project, he found me. He's been after –
"Slade. Wilson. His codename is Deathstroke." Said the bat. "You don't need to know too much. Where is my –
"Robin was taken; it is just as we said." Starfire told him.
"Star?? You went an' blabbed to The Batman about the "you know what?" Gar's hands flew to his hips.
"She got into contact with me a few days after the attack at my office. We, are aware."
"Oh, oh!" Cy slapped a hand to his face. Identities aside…
"Did Robin –
"It was a failsafe." Raven said to the heroes. "He gave information to us secretly in case he was taken or held against his will by a villain."
"Like, Slade." Bruce stated.
"Correct." Starfire replied. "Terra was forced to remain his apprentice. She'd nearly been groomed to do so in destroying us without understanding Slade's true purpose…"
"That he would have kept my powers. Used me to take over the city. I couldn't do it. I know Robin, he's the one who stopped Slade from hurting me…but I was…. he mani –
"It's basic conditioning used to have his captives trust the kidnapper."
"But I shook on it –
"Only because you had no idea who he really is." Cy noted. "Slade is a bad dude. The maddest psycho next ta a ton, and he's go all of us just standin' around the Tower."
"Standing the by" does not at all seem to be truly productive." Starfire agreed.
"But it keeps you out of his way. Makes it harder for you to do your job." Bruce sat up and read the charts as Raven explained what had gone on while Batman had been asleep.
"I only saw a vision of a fight with electric currents. Nothing else, a scream and a laugh."
"Ravager's mind is unstable." Bruce told the empath. "Dick had a device in his ear; Slade was feeding him instructions, making him lash out to keep their deal going. He can't get away now."
"Huh?"
"Why's that, Batman?" Gar and Terra both remained dumbfounded.
"Because, I'm one step ahead of that tactician by default." He smirked. "I've had a face on the inside doing me the honor of copying down Slade's next contract and some of his more advanced plans going months ahead of schedule. He's going to be in Metropolis without Robin in a few days."
"You…bugged his lair??" Gar gasped. "Way to go!! You are the bat!"
"It wasn't that easy, actually." Bruce put up a gauntlet to still the teen's cheers. "I'm working on a device with Palmer at STAR labs to remove the probes from the Titans. The only thing that worries me, is if Slade has something else up his sleeve that he's not sharing, we can't be too careful."
"Like…" Terra gulped. "A new doomsday device?"
"Or, maybe a greater threat to trap us with, should the probes fail this "mad man." Starfire wondered aloud as well. Slade was resourceful and used all of what he had on hand. As did the Bat, they were an equal match.
"Not that far ahead, but maybe he's expecting an encroaching threat to his "legacy." The bat rubbed his chin. "I'm sending a word to Superman to go toe to toe with one of Slade's associates before he can pick his current targets off."
"Death…as in…" Raven was aware of a name, but not of this one. She had a bad feeling as Bruce nodded to her partial question. "He's a mercenary, Titans. He's only kept this up to gather resources, to gain an heir and to take from my family. To show me how much I'm respected."
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Woooow….so, who is Slade's inside ice? We can only guess! Anyway, here into chapter 15: Ice Cold – Return to the streets (stuck mixed in with the before Dick ran away part – Puddles of mud from Rebel yell just before. You'll see.)
Read on and find out!