There were a few things built into the routine of the tower, done without thought. Robin was meticulous about cleanliness, and instilled it into the team. Everyone had their chores, but the 15th of the month was a deep clean day. As long as a villain didn't occupy the calendar at least.
The first month they had been in the tower, Robin had warned them what would happen. On the 15th, anything that wasn't in its place and he didn't know where it belonged, it would be trashed.
While the rest of the team assumed it was some sort of intimidation tactic, Robin made good on his threat. The next day, the tower was spotless and the rest of the team spent several hours going through the trash.
It was a lesson that never had to be taught again.
Now, two years later, the routine was the same. Even if Robin wasn't there to supervise, the tower got a nice deep clean.
While Starfire was in front of the windows squeegeeing them clean, Gizmo's ugly baby face popped up on the monitor.
"HEY BUTTSNACKS!"
The yell threw Starfire off balance and she tumbled through the air.
"Are you crud sniffers home? I know this is your underground access tunnel. Let us in!"
"What does he want?" Raven asked, cleaning the sink.
Cyborg tied off a bag of moldy food. "I needed some help with those videos."
"So you asked Gizmo?"
"Relax. I made copies." He called over to Starfire. "Let them in."
Starfire begrudgingly opened the tunnel access and went down to escort the Hive Students up to the ops room, while Cyborg went to Robin's office.
In a moment, Mammoth, Gizmo, and Jinx entered the ops room.
"Huh, hasn't changed much from the last time we were here," Jinx said.
"You mean when you kicked us out?" Raven corrected.
"Eh, semantics."
Gizmo helped himself to a soda from the fridge. "So what are you snot blowers doing?" He jumped and sat on the couch, placing his can on the table.
Raven made a coaster appear under the can.
"Today is the 15th," Starfire provided. "Robin always deep cleaned the tower on the 15th."
"A clean environment is a productive environment," Raven added.
"Eh. I just do it out of the goodness of my heart," said Beast Boy.
Cyborg returned. "Alright. Three Hive student files. You got the card?"
Gizmo held it up. "Yep. A deal's a deal."
"And you recovered all the files?"
"Eh…mostly. The metadata wasn't salvageable. So like…you can't see where it was recorded."
"So this has all just been a waste?" Starfire cried out.
"Not necessarily, let's see what's on them."
Gizmo held out the card, while he held out his other hand, waiting for the files.
They exchanged them at the same time.
Again, Cyborg checked the card for viruses, but it didn't look like Gizmo had sabotaged anything. "I don't see any corruption or viruses. You held your end of the deal."
Gizmo crossed his arms. "Begrudgingly."
Jinx added, "When Gizmo told me what he was doing, I told him to behave for once."
"Yeah, so I behaved. But I'm not leaving until I get to watch those videos!"
Starfire took the SD card from Cyborg, eager to watch herself. "That is fine. I do not care if you all stay, but you must be quiet."
Mammoth groaned, "watch some dumb boring video? No thanks. Hey, are you throwing all this out?" He pointed to the bag of moldy food.
"Knock yourself out, big guy." Cyborg smirked. "Gizmo, I'm surprised you didn't watch them when you recovered them."
"I watched the first few seconds and then scrubbed through them. Again, Jinx made me behave."
Mammoth tried to control the volume of his scarfing as Starfire popped the card into the computer. Once everyone was paying attention, she clicked on the third video, the one that was corrupted the first time they watched. Then she quickly returned to the couch, pillow clutched to her chest.
The video turned on, the camera under the bed again, same as the second video. Immediately in the frame was Robin's chin. He quickly got out of the way, and allowed the rest of the room to be in the shot. It was a medium room, bare, pale walls. There were three beds. A bunch of young men sat around the room, wearing hospital gowns.
Most of these details were not noticed right away however.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT! I CAN'T TAKE IT!" A young man was shouting across the room. He was thrashing about, holding his face. "IT BURNS! OH GOD!"
"Oh shut up!" Someone else yelled at him, before hauling off and punching him.
"MY FACE! IT HURTS! IT HURTS!"
"Hey!" Robin's voice cut through the screams. "Just breathe, okay? It's going to be alright."
"You're wasting your breath, 8. They poured acid on him. He's just gonna scream 'til he dies." This was said by a young man, maybe a foot taller than Robin. He looked like he had seen several fights in his life.
"I…I know."
"Then I say we just cut to the end!"
"Wait 5!"
The Titans and their guests watched in horror as one young man tried to kill the other, while the third, presumably Robin, tried and failed to save him.
"What is your problem!?" Robin cried, on the ground, holding the body of the young man that was strangled to death.
"My problem?! What's your problem!? I just put 16 out of his suffering! Something you clearly have the ability to, but not the guts!"
"I would never kill a person."
"Well, then you might as well let one of us kill you now." He punched Robin in the arm. "Tell you what. You're clearly the smartest and sanest person in this room. So let me clarify what's happening here. We're not escaping, we're not getting rescued, despite whatever hare-brained scheme you've got with that shitty robot under the bed. The Masters want an apprentice, and they want the best. The last one alive in this room gets the title. Half of these psychos are going to go within the month because of withdrawal. It's up to the rest of us who makes it out."
"How are you so sure of this?"
"They told me. They have high hopes. And you're my competition. So why don't you just crawl back under that bed, sing your little songs to feel better, and then give me a real fight when the time comes."
Robin stood there, fists clenching and unclenching before he turned and started coming back to the bed, leaving the body on the floor.
"What kind of hell hole is this?" Gizmo asked.
"I hate this, I hate this," Robin said, crawling back under the bed, and quickly out of frame. In the main room, some of the other boys were crawling across the floor, examining the body of their cellmate.
"Hey!" Someone else shouted at them. "Leave it alone!"
The boys scurried away like insects.
Robin's voice came quietly again, right by the mic of the camera. He was singing softly.
"And if I'm gonna talk, I just wanna talk. Please don't interrupt. Just sit back and listen. 'Cause I can't face the evening straight and you can't offer me escape. Houses move and houses speak. If you take me there you'll get relief."
"Now he's singing?" Gizmo scoffed.
Starfire immediately turned to him with glowing eyes and shushed him.
Gizmo shut up.
Robin took a long breath, then started a different song. This one was at an eerie cadence, and his hand, in frame, tapped out a slow beat. "Are you hungry? Are you sick? Are you begging for a break?...Are you sweet? Are you fresh? Are you strung up by the wrists? We want the young blood." Someone started crying in the background. "Are you fracturing? Are you torn at the seams? Would you do anything? Flea-bitten, moth-eaten?"
Raven stood and went to get a notebook. Perhaps this was a secret message?
Another young man leaned over the bed, presumably on top of the mattress. "Hey, you singin' again?"
"Yeah. Sorry if it's bothering you."
"Nah. I was going to say you could probably sing louder if you want. Drown out some of that."
"I'm not very good."
"At this point, I don't care."
"Thanks…it makes the time go faster."
"Yeah."
There was a pause before Robin started singing again. The song changed, again, to one not so eerie, but still sad. "And it wears him out…It wears him out…It wears him out…It wears…" He sighed. "She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love. But I can't help the feeling. I could blow through the ceiling. If I just turn and run."
"You getting all this, Raven?" Cyborg asked as Robin paused again.
"I'm doing my best."
"All the right moves in, In the right places. Watch me dance, I'm a puppet you can almost see the strings."
"Puppet Master?" Beast Boy said quietly.
"Give me an answer. Give me a line. I've been climbing up this ladder. I've been wasting my time."
When he came to a pause, the other boy leaned down again and asked. "Hey, you take requests?"
"Uh…not, not right now. I'm trying to think of something."
"Oh. I gotcha. But you should sing some Billy Joel or something less…grim, you know?"
"I'll try to think of one in a minute."
Raven narrowed her eyes. "The songs he's singing are on purpose."
Robin hummed a few notes from the last song he had just sang, almost as a reminder, and then sang, "There's always a siren singing you to shipwreck. Steer away from these rocks, we'd be a walking disaster. Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there."
"I've heard these songs before," Beast Boy said, mostly to himself. "Robin must listen to them."
Then Robin took a deep breath, and whispered. "Okay." Then he sang another song, this one fast and he patted the floor with a much faster tempo. "Jigsaw falling into place, so there is nothing to explain. You eye each other as you pass, she looks back, you look back. Not just once, Not just twice. Wish away the nightmare, wish away the nightmare. You've got a light, you can feel it on your back, a light, you can feel it on your back. Jigsaw falling into place." He hummed a bit at the end, presumably an instrumental part, then whispered. "I hope you got all that," and the video ended.
"What the hell was that?!" Gizmo shouted, "Was Bird Brain supposed to be in there somewhere?"
"I bet he's the one that got hit with the acid," Mammoth said, heartlessly.
"Wow, for a boy genius, you sure are stupid," Jinx said, smacking his head. "The guy that was singing was Robin."
"What? No way! That didn't look anything like him!"
Starfire let out a sniff, drawing attention to herself. Her face was covered in tears and snot, her eyes still on the screen.
"Ah! Star!" Beast Boy jumped to try to comfort her, but his hand hovered over her shoulder. Eventually, he just transformed into a cat and bumped against her arm.
This seemed to jolt Starfire out of her shock as she scooped Beast Boy up into her arms and cried in earnest into his fur.
"Is that normal?" Jinx asked Cyborg.
"Nothing around here has been normal for months."
Gizmo crossed his arms and pouted. He wanted to see what was on the rest of the videos he recovered, but honestly didn't know if he should stay.
"Starfire," Raven said calmly. "Can we watch the next video, or do you need a moment?"
Starfire released a soaked and snotty Beast Boy and nodded. "I shall be alright. It is just…hard."
"I know," Raven said tightly.
Cyborg placed a box of tissues next to Starfire, as Beast Boy remained a cat next to her.
"I'll start the next one," Cyborg said solemnly.
The video started with a crackle. That same perspective from under the bed. The room was still a stark, cold empty place, but looked even more empty, as there were less boys now. Maybe less than ten.
Robin started singing. The room was quiet, so his voice was pretty clear. "You can keep what you want. I want none of this. They're just bad memories I don't want. In my sunshine. You can pack it all up and be gone…and be gone."
"Turn it up, 8." Someone said from the room.
"Yeah. It's too damn quiet!"
Robin shifted and partly emerged from under the bed, laying on his back. He sang louder, in earnest. He seemed to be mimicking the vocals of the original artist. "What did you put in that syringe? Whatever you really said to him? Is sitting there, inside of me and you bother me, You possess me. You're there again, ahead of me and I won't let go. I won't let go. You're inside my head…inside my head…inside my head…inside my head."
As he sang, another boy, who looked very unwell, crept across the floor, staring at Robin in an unsettling way. His movements were inhuman, as he prowled on his knuckles. When he reached Robin, he plopped down on the ground.
Robin didn't move or stop singing as the new boy touched his face, pushing on his skin with a finger to make it squish.
"What're you doin' 2?" Someone asked as the song broke.
"I…I want his face," said the strange boy. "It's a nice face. I'd take care of it."
"I'm sure you would," Robin said, calmly, and not at all disturbed like most people would be. "But I am using it. So I'm afraid I can't give it to you."
The other boy pouted and then laid down, mimicking Robin's pose on the floor. He reached over and held Robin's hand. Robin, in turn, just let him do it.
"I've had these jeans since I was born and now they're ripped and now they're torn and all my friends have skateboards. I want the toys of other boys. I want a knife and a gun and things. But mom and dad will not give in…and I can't put the needle in."
Robin sighed, his chest visibly moving from his place on the floor.
"Now will you sing some Billy Joel?" Someone asked.
Robin sat up, crawling back to the camera. "Yeah, buddy, I'll sing some Billy Joel." And the video ended.
"I knew these songs were picked specifically! But why?" Raven looked over the lyrics.
"Perhaps it shall be clear once we have the full message?"
"Well, there's four videos left."
"I dread them, but we must power through." Starfire blotted her cheeks.
"This is the worst thing I've ever seen," Gizmo said. "And I did prison time."
"Kinda makes you rethink being a criminal, huh?" Suggested Cyborg, "there might be worse things than prison."
"Nah. Robin was a hero and look what happened to him."
Starfire stuttered a sob.
"Look, if you don't have anything remotely kind to say, you can beat it."
Gizmo pouted again. "I'll shut up."
Cyborg gave him a withering glance before turning on the next video.
The camera had moved. It was on top of the bed now, looking over the room. The two beds fully in view were occupied by a couple boys each. Some sitting and leaning against the wall, some curled up on the mattress. But all six of them were looking to the left of the camera, where Robin's voice started to sing from.
"I see you in the dark. Corner of the street, calling after me, yeah. Headlights on full beam, coming down the fast lane, coming after me. You follow me around. You follow me around."
One of the boys curled up let out a scream of pain.
Robin stopped singing, "hey, are you okay?"
The boy leaned over the bed and vomited on the floor, and all the others groaned. In the black and white footage, the vomit was suspiciously dark.
"My tummy! My tummy hurts!" He cried.
"I know buddy, it hurts. But you're…gonna be okay…"
The boy started coughing, hanging over the side of the bed and vomited more dark material. Then he fell limp.
"12? Can you check him?"
A boy on the same bed pressed his hands on the boy's neck, then looked over to Robin, and shook his head.
Robin swore.
"Oopsie! He died, didn't he?" Someone to the left of Robin asked.
"...yeah." Robin breathed. "Just like the others."
"Can I have his face, then?"
Robin was quiet for a long time, then responded. "You don't have any way to get it off though."
"You're so smart, 8!"
"So 5 was right?" The boy labeled 12 asked, as he and another boy heaved the dead body from the bed and dragged it over by the door. "We're all going to die except for one of us?"
"...it seems that way. That poison they're giving us is speeding up the process."
"I hope I'm next," said 12. "This is hell."
Robin didn't respond to that.
"Sing more songs, 8! I like that pretty voice!"
Robin shuttered, like a chill went down his spine. "Okay."
"Yay!"
"Where was I?" Robin asked more to himself.
"A following song."
"Ah, yeah." He hummed a few quick notes to find the melody. "Please forget the words that I just blurted out. It wasn't me, it was a strange and creeping doubt. It keeps rattling my cage. There's nothing in this world will keep it down. Even though I might, even though I try, I can't." There was a distinct warble in his voice, indicative of grief. "Even though I might, even though I try, I can't. So many things that keep, keep me underground. So many words that I, that I can never find. If you give up on me now, I'll be gutted like I've never been before."
The video ended.
"That poor boy," Starfire wept. "All of them. They are so young…"
"...I had wanted to find and rescue Robin, but…"
"Kid has patience I never would have thought," Gizmo said. "I would have shanked that weird face obsessed kid."
"That's probably what the people behind this whole thing want. They want their captives to narrow down the pool. But Robin was raised to not kill people. He's trying to save them."
"Well, he's not doing a very good job. Two people have died on screen!"
Starfire stood, tears still flowing from her eyes. Before she could hurt him, Jinx smacked Gizmo hard.
"Ow! What?!"
"Shut. Up. What if this was your family you were watching, huh? I know you have a hard lump of coal where your heart is, but read the room, twerp."
Gizmo looked around, noticing the death glares the assembled Titans were giving him. He shrank into his seat. "...sorry."
Starfire's glow faded and she dropped onto the couch, sullen, defeated. "Cyborg, please play the next one."
"You sure?"
"I must find closure."
"Okay…" Cyborg started the next video, and by god he wished he hadn't. Immediately, it was clear some time had passed from the last video. The walls and floor were covered in shadowy handprints. There was no one in the room, except for Robin, who had his head in his hands, sitting on the floor in front of the camera. He was sobbing, openly weeping. But, by some strength inside, he sang his song, desperate to get out whatever message he was trying to hide.
"I will…Lay me down…In a bunker underground. I won't let this happen to my children…" He croaked.
"Hey buddy, why you crying?" A familiar voice asked to the camera's left.
Robin didn't answer, still singing. "Meet the real world coming out of your shell, with white elephants…Sitting ducks."
"Cause it's just you and me now. And we're going to have fun!" The stranger's hand reached out to pet Robin's head, the flesh dark and stained.
"I will…Rise up."
"You don't really like me so much, do ya? I get that. Had that problem before!"
Robin looked up at the camera, for the first time revealing his full face. But he looked so different, so wrong. His cheeks were gaunt with hunger. Dark bags under his eyes, and sagging eyelids that made his eyes bulge. His black hair was stringy and greasy. Worst of all, dark veins stood out on his face, neck, arms, anywhere his skin was visible.
He stood, his face moving out of frame. Awkwardly, he started pacing back and forth across the room. As he walked, he sang in a tiny, soft voice. It was hard to hear. "Don't hurt me…don't hurt me…don't hurt me…don't hurt me."
"I don't like that song. Sing a different one, 8."
Robin stopped moving. He rubbed a hand over his face. "Limb by limb and tooth by tooth, tearing up inside of me."
"You should stop crying. Makes your skin all blotchy."
"Every day every hour…I wish that I was bulletproof."
"Hey 8! Did I show you what I found? It's real nifty!"
Robin shook his head. "What?" He turned to look at his cellmate. His eyes went wide and he shouted profanity.
The other boy leapt at Robin with a laughing shriek, knocking them both to the ground and out of the frame. There was a sound of struggling, kicking, punching, screaming…horrible screaming.
"It's mine! Give it to me!"
A ripping sound, choking noises…then silence.
A bloody hand weakly reached up from the floor and grabbed the camera.
The video ended.
The room was silent. Even Gizmo was quiet.
"I…I don't want to see the rest," Beast Boy said, shifting back into a human.
"He…he must have survived?" Starfire asked hopefully. "That was not the last video, correct?"
"There's two left," Cyborg breathed. "If we can get through them?"
"I'm not going to be able to sleep for a week," Gizmo muttered to himself.
No one would say it, but they shared the sentiment.
As Cyborg clicked on the next video, a giant red exclamation mark came up on the screen. The file was corrupted.
"Nutsacks!" Gizmo shouted, while Starfire simultaneously leapt to her feet and yelled something violently in Tamaranian. Then she whirled on Gizmo. "You have 30 seconds to fix this issue or I shall obliterate your lineage!"
"It was an accident!" Gizmo protested, also leaping to his feet. "I thought I fixed them all!"
"You did not! And now you shall pay!"
Before Starfire could kill Gizmo, she was encased in a black aura. "Starfire!" Raven yelled. "You need to calm down. Peace, quiet, tranquility."
"There shall be no peace until my Robin is home!" She yelled back.
"I'll fix it!" Gizmo promised. "I just need more time. I promise!"
Starfire extinguished her bolts. "A promise means more to me than most Earthlings, be smart to keep it."
"That's weird that I didn't pick up the corruption the first time," Cyborg noted, looking over the file. "And it looks fine until you go to play it."
"It's probably a more complex issue. But I will figure it out! So don't–don't shoot me!"
"I shall not—for now," Starfire's eyes sparked with danger.
Gizmo had never been so scared of the alien in his life.
"Not to be that guy…but isn't there one more video? Is that one corrupted too?" Asked Beast Boy.
The team all looked at the folder open on the computer. Yes, there was one more they hadn't tried. The last video. Either the end of the mystery, or just the beginning.
Cyborg clicked on it.
They were not in the room anymore. The camera swung rhythmically back and forth as the wall moved. The wall wall was made of gray cement blocks, and was dimly lit from below. Whoever was recording was walking, and giggling.
"What's so funny?" A new man spoke, on the right.
The giggling continued before they sang, "If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe, I'd been married long time ago. Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?"
"That…is not Robin…" Starfire breathed.
"Oh I like that little diddy," said an older, grungier voice from the left.
"Shut up," said the right man.
"What's crawled up your butt, Harv?"
"This whole thing was a complete waste of time. I have no idea why I agreed to work with you."
"Because you knew it would be fun?"
"You promised me an apprentice!"
"And here he is!"
"No, this is a lunatic! I almost had him perfect—but then you had to go and–!"
Not-Robin giggled again. "Mommy and daddy are fighting!"
Right man groaned, "that, right there."
Left man chuckled. "I don't know, I think he's perfect."
Not-Robin started singing again, a little too loudly, obscuring the conversation between the two men. "Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths, he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio."
"––do with him then? Kill him?"
"After all the work? Nah."
"Karma police, arrest this girl, her Hitler hairdo is making me feel ill and we have crashed her party."
"Well I'm not taking him."
"I already have an annoying sidekick."
"This is what you'll get…This is what you'll get…This is what you'll get…When you mess with us…"
"––just let him go? He won't survive."
"I'm sure he won't."
"Karma police, I've given all I can. It's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll."
"––give the Titans a few problems."
"They're around here, aren't they?"
"This is what you'll get…this is what you'll get…this is what you'll get…when you mess with us."
"––doing with that old Slade-bot head?"
Not-Robin stopped singing. "Who? Me?"
"Yeah, why are you carrying that thing around?"
"Oh! My buddy back in the cell really liked this thing, so I'm taking care of it."
"Your…buddy? Do you mean patient 8?"
"Yep yep yep!"
"See?" Said Left man. "It worked."
Not-Robin belted back into song as he pulled the camera up. "For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself. Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself."
The video ended.
Beast Boy sucked in a huge gasp and said, "DUUUUUDE!"
"What? What is it?" Asked Cyborg.
"That was Black! This is his origin story!"
"What?"
"Yeah! I bet he was the face-kid in the cell with Robin! And Robin is how he got the scar on his face!" He used his finger to draw a line on his cheek, just like Black's scar.
The Titans exchanged glances. If Black was responsible for Robin's death, and they had been so chummy with him…
"It's…possible."
"Are you barf brains talking about that weird goth kid vigilante downtown?" Gizmo asked.
"Yes! Have you seen him?"
Gizmo scoffed. "Seen him? He gave me a concussion! Called me a 'Kewpie doll', whatever that is. Next time I see him…" He punched his fist.
"You ain't gonna do nothin'," said Mammoth with a chuckle. "He scares the willies out of you."
"Does not!"
"Cyborg," Starfire asked, like Gizmo hadn't said anything. "Is this not more of a reason to bring Black in? If we can jog his memory, maybe he can tell us who did this to him. To both of them."
"Yeah, jog his memory so that he turns into a face stealer! Great idea!" Said Beast Boy.
"I am not afraid of a human boy with no powers. He may be good, but I am stronger. I will do what it takes to avenge my Robin."