Teen Titans; ReBeL Yell- If I Had Stayed a Renegade-
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Fan request fir apprentice Raven by Checycherrylily; noted, the last one I did was Slade during the apprentice arcs with Robin and Raven gave him a fright if he didn't let her leader go. After that, was the End so this…. Will be an alt fic universe to keep things from overlapping. Some area of blackmail, only Raven is the one doing the blackmail against Deathstroke! Wait and see. Noir style inspired by Sunnysideup's hiatus fic but on its own plot, just the atmosphere. Nothing more.
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Cloaked in Shadows
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Leads had been popping up all over Jump City at the time of Young Justice's emergence from a quieted invasion plan, even light-years away nothing escapes my inner vision. Robin was bent on locating the Titans Europe to warn them of the newest foe. An organization that could wipe out the heroes, putting us up as a target for all the world to see. He hasn't come back from that mission.
Days, a month. We sent Speedy and Starfire to see if he's still on the grid, somewhere…
I fear, despite our bond…. he is…. not. To be found…
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The dark didn't scare Rachel Roth, a.k.a Raven of Titans California. As Co-head to the team beside Cyborg, they'd let an alliance with Titans California branch out to Star, where Speedy had called in a few hands to help while their allies to the coast were, slightly understaffed. Raven didn't care. Robin, Starfire and Cyborg had vanished all too soon. A wormhole of possibilities as she and Beast Boy tried to hold off the rumors in the States to prevent a current backlash of press releases from going public.
~ He will return, but the threat is still at large. Still a danger, and it should remain that we, the Titans will not stop our current course of action until the one responsible is therefore brought to justice. ~
She'd said all of that a week ago on live television, streaming networks tweeted back at her as stones thrown at teetering landmarks. Landmarks like the tower, which stood for peace, justice and truth above all.
Tonight, there was another sort of threat that took her from her bed. Beastboy was maturing well in his station, yet he still required sleep as she laid a blanket over himself and a main computer consult chair. Letting the door shut, her transportation took no time as across the bay, danger called out. As a beacon to any bird, one to get caught in its messy wires and perish, should it fly without a plan in mind.
Here, she had one; locate the person raising their alarms if not barely, and bring them in for questioning. Without Robin, working like thus at night had fallen onto her shoulders. Rotating shifts with Beastboy's happened on occasion since, yet she was a night owl. A night bird, and mission was clear, she was getting closer to her enemy's hidden foot falls with every intake of breath she left out into the warning night air.
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Rooftops, Nay. Alleyways, where the dark kept her well and in her element. The empath's cloak was darker too, her camouflaged face since fell, a bit sunken…the emotional distrust in Robin's return had ruined the shade to turn…. darker. She worried it could mean another trip to the mirror. She worried that it was a sign, but yet she flew into the darkness to catch a glance –
A touch like a phantom gaze gripped her arm as she fell, the figure before her as much as she'd not imagined, a threat with one eye widely looking down at his catch.
"Hello, Raven." Slade said in a rather distinct purr to the Titan woman. "What finds you here, lurking around alone in the dead of night…"
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She let herself rise and he did not stop her, not from her cloak being dusted of his aura or anything but.
"You're not the lone wolf type from my data, yet that's maybe in need of an update."
"That's none of your concern. I'm after a report in the tech sector, of a thief" She narrowed her eyes, his just seeming bored already by her presumptions. "Not another "Red X?" Sniffed the merc as he turned his head, tilting it before blinking, thinking which…she wasn't keen on him doing around her. Slade's methods were methodical and somewhat selfish as any villain, but he fit the bill. Only thing…
"The reports said, no fingerprints, no image as if. The personal used to way to mask their presence entirely." She let them circle one another, a fight on the horizon but Slade…his steps weren't in a hurry to go as she'd believed before. "Maybe you do need to up your security, the cloaking tech is under your suit."
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She could smash in his head if she wanted to. Unlike Beastboy or Starfire, her fuel however had to limit. She had to be careful, the stretch and rage combined could bring this block back down to meet her father's other children. Slade, he could go there any time. She didn't use her combat moves as much on anyone, yet they had improved once the alliance had made the teams more connected. Robin had shown her as well, Starfire was a great fighter and, she could use the extra courage against this freak in the mirror. He was, still not dead like before, alive and quite strong in his immortal body of a meta project gone far too right. Deathstroke. Young Justice had described him as a threat, and so he was always to the empath. She found her projectiles to form a band as it took him and pinned the snarling villain against a brick wall. The only thing shattered right now was his dignity as she moved with lit eyes to fund out the truth.
"Listen…. R…Raven…I know…how to find your friends….!" He gritted out the crunch of her claw, the first time having nearly put him through well. Hell and back. "How can I trust you, Slade? My team has gone through enough with your lies." She growled in his face. "Listen…this…this us big…bigger, than you or my…. usual…. -
"You can't save my friends, not in the way that doesn't benefit someone other than yourself." Raven cut him off. "Right now, if you can't defend that sentence –
"HIVE! NOW…. NOT…SAME…. WORKS, FOR….LIGHT…." He could have been turning blue, so she turned down the flames of her rage to focus.
"What light?? THE DOC –
"NO! SOCIETY…. DEADLY…. Left…to warn…-
"I don't believe you." She let her fist burn him, not growing tighter as the brand had him screaming. "Why would you save the enemy, what are you trying to start??"
"REVENGE…FOR…APPRENTICE…. TAKEN…." /
She let her eyes suddenly still, hood was up of course yet Raven wasn't the sort of hero Beastboy, Cy or Starfire had been to trust so easily. Slade was within her claws of a half – demonic projection of a Raven's talons. She could twist him and toss him to meet her brothers. To forget about –
She stopped herself.
"Slade." She started, eyes dangerously narrowed at the captive mercenary with his back bolted to a brick alley – way wall. "If you show me…that person, your protégé, then I –
"Go, ahead…" He coughed. "My pleasure, to assist."
She quirked an eye at him. "I won't tell you I didn't warn you about my powers….AZARATH….METRION…..ZINTHOS….."
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~ Dad. ~
A girl in rather solid body armor with a torn cuff and a few bruises came in through the window to a simple apartment, pausing as the resident seemed to know the face of his intruding persons. She had platinum white hair, as did he. The resemblance was uncanny, yet Raven watched in her astrally given presence the scene Slade needed her to know.
~ Rose, back from your play date with your new teammates –
~ It wasn't like that –
~ Damn right it wasn't, child. How would I react to a traitor entering my home, unannounced at this hour? ~ Angry, but firm. Slade, knew her and Raven did too. ~ Dad, I left them. I'm sorry…~
She did, after Raven and Robin had learned of a new HIVE associate that had battled them out for weeks, she'd seen the dark side of Justice when Superman had come by to assist with another threat of the newest team; Young Justice.
~ He….it was like being tortured! I couldn't even trust myself to know if what I was doing…~
~ What about your brother, Jericho. ~ Slade stared her down to answer quickly. She fumbled a bit yet her mouth was dry enough to house a cactus farm. ~ He, doesn't know, he was already mad that I beat that last villain within an inch –
~ You can't help who you are, Rose. ~
It was the same; with Raven, Robin, Terra, Slade always knew how to get them to reflect on their darker faces. Rose was just another victim it seemed. Raven would bitten at her thumb had her body been corporeal. Slade….was, her FATHER.
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Raven had seen that scene plenty, she fazed out of his head as he was no less impressed as she was with him not fearing her next question. "What did you do with Rose."
"That's why I found you." He told the teen. "I needed some help in uncovering her whereabouts and, your friends might also be in the clutches of this exact same abductor of a sort overseas."
"How –
She clamped her jaw shut. "You know a lot for someone who just "supposedly" breezed into this city overnight."
"I'm not any less mysterious than you tend to be, empath." Slade countered with a sigh. "You'll know by now that I have an uncanny ability to bring heroes to crumble, and alliances to form –
"Until you break away the very trust in that relationship, as you had with –
"Rose didn't leave on her own." Slade snipped all of a sudden, his eye tinted lighter in cobalt, with a mad flicker in Raven's direction. She gave his ribcage a pinch to cool it. He did so, but with a wince. "I, didn't drive her away, we were separated….in a raid….ambush…"
"Where. How." Raven didn't let down her guard. Snakes could be charmed, but he needed to stay his venom for once. "How did you become divided; on a mission, a "contract" and ticket to take many innocent lives?? Rose w -
"She was fed up, but regardless…she's my responsibility."
"You put her in danger…" Raven's eyes dimmed.
"I, made a mess. They were not out for blood. Hostages, they'd take. They wore too many masks. I have no idea who would…but these sources I did connect to the incident were to the HIVE. The same monsters that your team defeated, that tried to experiment on her….given the option."
"Brainwashing her." Raven swallowed. "They captured her, but left you?"
"I escaped, right into the glass…" He remembered how many bones and how long it took to find a way to shore. How much agonizing time there was to sleep off the ache in silence. The scent of drugging his veins up and the antiseptic so odorous it burned his eyes, even whilst shut. Bullets had raised hell on him in such a time in Slade Wilson's prime, yet to protect an illegitimate child to a brothel owner – one whom he cherished even when words would not describe specifically how.
"She's strong, but they know her weakness because of me."
"So." Raven loosened her noose as the tendrils slipped, Slade going down the wall while gripping his shoulder to sooth it pathetically. "What are you going to do to get her back?"
"I was going to see if you wanted to work together, not as a charity case of co –
"Why would I agree to that? After all you put us through; if my team –
"Your teammates, could be meeting the exact fate of my little girl." Raven's eyes lit up, this time however she was in control as he put his hands over his face, palms facing up to call off the witch's attack. "DON'T call her that….you're not even worthy of being a part of that woman's life. I knew Rose, we all did. She was lost, nervous and felt compelled to do what was right…we just…didn't understand what she really needed…"
"To put those villains in jail, that's what you thought was all the capes participated in? What about when the mauling began, the interrogations."
"That war made us both look like criminals." Raven readily said, understanding that the "Invasion" of the forces Jaime had been in contact with and Black Beetle especially, all of that was just a mess the JLA had made them see to. All so young, so afraid to be that brutal…
"Alien life like that; putting it in its place…" Slade hissed out the last word slowly. Dusting himself off, he was sure Raven was not going to budge. "Well? If we discover that your heroes are under the HIVE's control, and that Rose is in their grasp, I think you'd owe me –
"I'd owe you nothing ." Raven spat back. "You probably got them mad enough to form a full frontal –
"Don't be ridiculous, my dear." The merc wagged his finger. "They were an organization that studies Metas from the ground up, to use as weapons. That was their main wager in life. A worthier goal in the past, it seems they've returned to their roots, with some much needed help. And I…" He moved a bit, shifting as his gauntleted hands moved to the man's mask, the face plate clicking away with an agitating klink of steel and copper glow. To reveal, the man from the featurette of this man's past.
"I need you to trust me, for Rose's sake. I don't want any harm to come to either of them. So, please. Be my partner and help me infiltrate the base. Take them out and save your friends." He sighed. "My own daughter, my son would hate me if I –
"J – Jericho?" Raven gawked, a hand to her temple. Slade blinked, noticing the switch quite vividly as he snorted a small laugh. His appearance far too young to be his own age. "Who else did you think that was, child? A stranger to my little girl?"
Jericho, it made perfect sense. No coincidence. Joey, Wilson…But Joe went as Kane as his mother, not….
She'd have to have a talk with the mute boy scout in Austria. "I, want to look over –
"There isn't much time left." The man was as needy as during the damned End, as clingy as then. Willing to get what he wanted.
"Look." She put her two cents in with a stomp of her foot. "I'm talking to Jericho and my team, this won't begin with just u –
"If you want to lose them all, then by all means." Slade plucked up his mask and turned to the wall. There in his palm, was an explosive disc.
"Don –
"You have until the day after this, and then our deal is off. I've made up my mind to act quickly, yet do you really need to debate this any further, Raven?"
"This isn't up for debate. Don't use anymore –
"I need to act, but you won't." Slade narrowed his gaze at the empath, her head pounding as the dots became three. His reckless escape attempt would total the entire wall and –
And the people inside must have been fast asleep. This was a rough side of the city, a dead place. Slade had been here starting fires once before, so she crossed her arms over her chest. He saw this and knew he'd won her attention. "The homes here are ready to be bull – dozed. At least you're not flying up to save empty apartments from coming down. So…." He touched the detonation device in his grasp now, the red light waiting to go blank with one tap.
"Will you help me to save them all, without hesitation and as my partner. Learn how I work, how I'll be able to get what you need, if you let Rose come back."
"If that is what SHE wants." Raven huffed out. "If. You could be trying to trick me into thinking –
"The longer you deny what she is now, the greater chance you won't save anyone. Either trust my plan, or don't. Let me find another who is willing to fall in to the fire."
Raven recalled hot and cold, fire and ice. He was definitely heat, pain. Robin had been scarred as lng as it took to let him know that Slade wasn't there anymore. No more bogeymen in the closet back at the tower, no more mirror to wall – to – wall freaks at a carnival for the girl who may or may not have returned as Terra. And lastly, Rose had a choice, even while she felt that her destiny and legacy was…predetermined.
"She'll do the right thing, and I'll help but on terms that YOU will follow."
"Name them." Slade idly had his thumb over the button, tempting the empath to try her luck at making a wager she'd readily regret. "First. My heroes, my friends are off limits. Robin and the others; once we save them, you leave. Like he wanted."
"Good enough for me. Anything else?"
Could be a lie. He'd be back for a job if it came to fill his pockets. Raven wet her lips and thought. "Rose. If she decides to stay with us, you don't try to take her back. No matter what you believe she "is," that is all her choice."
"I see. And if she does not?"
"If she rejects her Titan oath, then you'll both be ordered to never return. Same as before. There will be no justice in letting her off easy, so we'll still be able to attempt if she gets too close to see if she can be, recovered or not."
"She's not a gold coin, Raven."
"She's a hero, deep down." Raven gripped her hand to her chest and pursed her lips. "I know she is, there is no mistake, but that is entirely up to her. Not us."
"You don't trust me to fix that problem." Slade wondered. "Do you."
"No." Raven said in a clipped tone. "I don't, and neither do my friends."
"Then." Slade moved closer as he held out a hand, one to shake with the massive deal maker and breaker in the dark. However, day was showing over the city, it was time to make a plan and stick with it.
"Do we have a deal?"
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