Teen Titans – ReBeL Yell – If I Had Stayed A Renegade –

/

CLIPPED MEMORIES

This is brutal shit. Woke up and had plans for something more subtle and foreshadowing violence then realized I have four different versions of the same scene! What's the fun in that? So, violence warning and death by murder without nanoscopic probes. Scene is when Robin does not catch the leg that Slade tried to kick Robin in the face with. He actually SUCCEEDS in this and instead of letting the probes do all the work, he satisfies his displeasure, with killing the Titans, all while Robin lies unconscious and only wakes to find pools of blood in his wake.

All aboard the …sadist express? JUST waking up here, sheesh!

/

The boy doesn't see it as Slade's boot hits its target dead on; he goes down, the crown in need of stitches while Slade looks on at a winded Starfire first. His knuckles want to show them why he's not to be misunderstood. That even with his ingenious back up plan blown to pieces at his wrist, he still has power over the fate of a few weakened brats.

"There is nowhere left to go. Hand him over, Slade." Cy rose, and Slade decided to blow off some steam on the steamroller first. The mastermind's extra staff came out from behind his back as he pressed a hidden button on it. Dark blue sparks made it so he's nearly untouchable. He centered in on the kill, but his eye catches a rat instead.

Beastboy is sniffing his apprentice, Robin still will hold to their contract, as he zaps the brat, making him leap away from the merchandise. The teen can't transform yet. Starfire threw her fist, yet his staff twirled to separate and deflect the blow. He kicked her back in the chest and she shouts, falling into Cyborg as he warmed up the god-awful cannon that was once flesh and bone. Slade grins below the mask. He used to love being a center of his enemy's attention. Retreating to tallest catwalk, he pressed another switch on his own arm and the rest was then secured. Raven headed over with Starfire holding Cy up, yet she had to rest to regain her strength.

While Slade? He has plenty to spare. The green clambered up to Robin to touch his shoulder. He let out a shout, catching the attention of his team.

"Ah – ah – ah. ~" Slade wagged a finger with his staff still in hand in one piece this time. "No touching. Wouldn't want you to wake him." He hissed, triumphantly.

"You aren't gonna get ta' see him. Behind bars, or in your demented dreams, creep."

"I'm dreaming of a much longer time apart, actually." Slade let Cyborg come at him as he parried, the cannon too off center to hit a walking shadow. "Of what this city will be like, without him here to help save it…We won't stay –

"You won't leave, either." Cy grunted. "Cause none of us are gonna let that happen."

"Oh, really?" Slade cocked his head to the side and egged the Titan, a plain and simple "why not."

"What you did," Raven rose to join in, yet Slade made sure he was literally, out of sight. Cloaking tech in his suit and the timeless data Robin had wiped from his mind during a little interrogation made sure Slade would not be found. Nor one step behind as an electrical disc had Raven falling, not flying. Starfire rushed out to catch the empath and when Cy's one cybernetic eye was off of his foe…

Slade struck him, right where his beating heart should have been. Cy gasped, choking as the man's staff stayed inside that cavity in his chest, twisting and making him scream, screaming while he then stumbled. Starfire never had time to catch him as Raven came out of her shock to hear Star's battle cry. "MONSTER! You shall not heed? Then you shall make this dwelling your final resting place…I shall avenge my comrade!! How dare he!!"

"Pretty words for an ugly face." Slade scathingly responded. "Tell me, did that sibling of yours slap some much-needed sense into that inflated skull of yours, child? That maybe it would be best for him…"

She gasped as he seemed to be everywhere, the screens with his voice and face. Creating a literal hall of mirrors that drove Starfire into a frenzy. Raven used her magic to try and find a way to deactivate the shockers on Robin's suit. There was nothing where she came to a stark conclusion that it wasn't the suit…

But under skin and wiry muscle that Slade had implanted his failsafe. "No…no…." Her hands shook as Slade bots flew out of the shadows to surround both Raven and to startle the now green wolf teammate. The bots didn't aim poorly this time. One laser at BB was enough to have him whimpering into a mass as they hit again twice, Raven's eyes darkening before one zapped her, she was using power – power she hadn't claimed well to yet to help Robin. Utterly weakened she fought, but the bots….

With one item in hand as they held her down, blood seeped through her stomach as they carved her open, letting her to bleed as Robin didn't catch the gurgles of blood spilling between her chattering teeth. She was half demon. The other side, could experience death….

"A sacrifice." Slade appeared with his hands behind his back atop the dais floor. The light streamed down onto Starfire's friends as she floated lower, until she was at his eye. That one cruel, twisted smirk seeming greater than it had ever been. "Release them…please…"

"Will you beg?"

Starfire's mouth opened in protest. "Ye –

His gloved hand shot out, then the second as her strength was drained by the violence. Getting choked by the enemy, he swapped to killing her as she kicked back, the throne that was supposed to belong to his apprentice, being her tombstone. She cried out breathlessly, while Slade took one finger; his pointer, as a small prick landed at the back of her neck. A drug laced within it? She started to kick even harder, but her strength failed. Her promises all had failed her, as with streaming eyes filled with stars, he gripped harder, finally hearing a satisfying…

CRACK .

He young head lolled off to one side as Slade laid the beauty down gentle atop the stone and metal hybrid – throne seat. After admiring his handiwork, the man made his way to the groaning boy wonder. He motioned to a bot to leave Raven's dead body. Her eyes were so very wide, open in shock while she'd suffocated on her own blood. Calling out to her dead and wounded teammates, he smiled. Organs falling out of her stomach's lining as he waited for the biggest unveiling to occur, yet ...

/

Slade sat on the ground with an arm rested on one knee, cleaning the blade the bot had used to gut open the empath. When, he heard a small moan from by the tip of his boot.

Robin's head with first to move, then his hands. He winced in pain at the bump. Slade had generously taken to stitching the scar into view while the kid slept. Still, he'd not risk a concussion as the man had a water bottle placed right beside the body.

Intently, Slade saw how his disoriented apprentice clunk for his thirst to be quenched, then the rest would follow suit.

Robin pulled back his hand, the puddle of Raven's blood already having spread to seep through his gloves. "s….no….no…no! Sla –

"At ease –

"I can't ! I…H…How –

Either furious or not, he looked to see it, the four dead bodies.

All strewn conveniently across the haunt.

His dead friends, all lifeless. While his pathetic life had been spared.

"You...no…. how…. the deal –

"I didn't need the probes to punish you, not even close. Dear boy." Slade rose speaking almost fondly, and pocketed the knife back into its holder. Robin's heartbeat, he could hear it rumbling as a jet engine. Rising off in the distance, until it signaled the approach to take cover and duck from enemy fire.

Robin launched himself at the man, his eyes wet enough that the mask couldn't hide his budding defeat.

"You… killed them…. you killed my friends!! NO! NO M –

" ANGCH!" The boy's wrists were twisted from behind and Robin's splitting skull made him bow it even deeper. Shuddering into miserable sobs that echoed through the haunt, the screens showed each Titan. How they'd died. How he'd been too useless to stop what his fault to begin with. "This will mark your transformation, my apprentice. Now, you can never forget what YOU have done today."

"ME?''

"You let me kill each and every Titan, even when I gave you a chance to stop this. You instigated it, Richard." Slade crawled upon the boy's lobe as he breathed back an acrid scent. Death. Their deaths, in his hands. Robin was hit by a new wave of guilt as he fell to his knees and cried even harder. Hugging his arms to his chest, Slade's apprentice didn't wait as he soon went quiet, a harsh whisper in the form of a command tumbling from his lips.

"Master, please kill me –

"No." The man rejected.

"Hurt me, then! Do what you…. what you did to them, so I can get over this…. I …. it's all my fault…" He sobbed, shaking his skull in his hands.

"Maybe, but dear child? Are you really willing to be so damned selfish?"

Dick hiccupped out another sob, turning his back to the man over his shoulder before he was shoved down with a boot on top of his spine. "If you want pain so badly, allow me to make this apprenticeship into a more formal one."

Dick's body stiffened. What did that mean? Whipping? For his insubordination? Even as the pool of blood had finally stilled, the sparks from Cy's armor turning to a full shale grey, Robin pursed his lips and dipped his head into a short nod. "Do, what you have to." What choice did he have, he was the murderer as much as Slade was. Carrying the knife that had sliced open the team's only healer.

"Mm…maybe I shouldn't then." Slade nearly sighed out his nose. The crack in his mask now gone Robin realized with a tilt of his neck since he'd possibly had a spare lying around. "Maybe I should force you to lie here, drink it all in until I'm satis –

"No, m…master…. please….do, do whatever you want…I won't try to stop you…please, Slade…"

Robin bowed his spine (NOT A SLASH) and curled his fists beneath him. "I can handle it; I'm not going to fight you again…I'm sorry…"

Slade looked over the kid, then a hand went down to undo the neck plated armor as Slade's greedy fingers tore at the back of Robin's suit, just by his hips, the perfect place to brand this uncoordinated stray. "Now, you won't move a muscle. The same blade that tore open your third in command, is now your reminder; a scar is there long enough and I'll be generous with its application, because did ask so nicely."

Robin braced himself as Slade set the silver object to flutter across – to hover over where he intended to honor Robin's wish. To see him bleed was no great triumph, not while the screens played over and over above them the screaming and gasping eyes and mouths of the fallen heroes.

Their prince didn't want to come home to his subjects. He was a rogue soon, a villain as Slade made the first cut as precise as his earlier stitch work. Just above the surface, yet easy enough so that anyone could tell that a giant S insignia with curved points as his mask, as the S Robin had ripped from his chest, now stayed in place upon his wilted flesh.

Slade didn't talk as Robin gritted his teeth and let the man finish. He went on each curve as feverishly slow and careful as it needed to happen. He saw upon the nearly beginning of the third curve of the jagged S, that Robin's arms were starting to tremble.

"Hold it." Slade commanded as he returned the blade and left room for his last, prick of pain to inflict upon his groaning apprentice.

/

"You did well, let me see it." Robin sat on Slade's throne as his lightheaded state had been remedied, while the man blotted the scar with a now bloodied, filthy rag. Wintergreen came in with plenty to replace the first, and that was when he felt the needle go in and the painkillers.

"Hold still, I went deep enough to make it permanent."

Robin bit his lip, whining as he nodded and twisted his face to let the drugs work their magic. The eerie sense was also in how Slade never removed Starfire's body from his own seat, the seat that had readily remained a grave. "The bodies will need to be disposed of." Slade told the boy as he bit back a gasp. "Will you finish what you started, Robin?"

/

Seeing them burn, incinerated. The bile grew worse as he vomited all over the floor. Slade didn't so much as bat an eye, while he walked off and left the teen to try to keep the last electrolytes he'd consumed in one location. Sadly, it hurt too much and an hour later, an I.V was shoved into his arm. Finding himself on a gurney in the man's medical room. He got hurt, but rarely need as much care as his apprentice. The fluids helped his weak stomach, just as the man only waited off to the side while Richard's eyes opened for the first time in a long time, no mask. No fear of anything he had to protect.

"You'll recover. That happens in the beginning to most of my caliber. There is still the matter of your identity."

"You…" Richard swallowed dryly. "You always knew, who Robin was…. you…always tried to –

"The bat is an eyesore. You weren't fit to die early." The man cut the ex – hero off. "You would never have done as you did if you HADN'T been more like me than him. You can't deny it. Can you, anymore."

"N…no." The boy rasped and shook his head with an intake of stale, underground air. Even if the room was completely sterilized, it still felt unclear to him. Toxic, as Slade moved quickly to adjust the drip. "Would you rather forget their faces?"

Richard's eyes trained themselves to stay open. "I…don't understand, sir…"

"I have access to many resources. Ones that can implant new memories, or. Erase old ones. If, you'd like, I wouldn't mind sharing that last option." The man didn't look fierce, but serious in his word. To forget...to leave Robin alone and be, someone else. Not snooping around to be interrogated anymore, no more sad faces asking him for an explanation…. or, or HIS face. Richard paled at the sight of his own father, he and Slade fighting over a boy that had made the choice to forget all about their past. About that fight, and the team he'd let suffer under this mad man's own hands. Because he had allowed it and then had burned the evidence. But to forget, he'd lose hope. Hope of ever having a normal life, normal…

He, just wasn't. Trouble nipped at his heals and to be honest…it only got those around him hurt. Killed, as he remembered Raven's dead stare, blood caked all over her body. Beastboy's charred flesh, Cy's exposed circuits. Star's…. last…warm breath that she would ever take.

He'd never even apologized before he'd burned her to ash. Along with his sin, Richard deserved to disappear. He didn't –

"Sir."

Slade let his eye cast across the hero's tempted blues. "Make me forget. I'll do it. This city…can't have their Robin back. There is nothing left to save."

"A life, yours." Slade lifted up the despondent eyed child's chin as he asked, "Isn't that something worth, salvaging?"

/

In Gotham as of those few times over, Richard wanted one thing; to hate his father for leaving him all alone in the world, and to forget all about the Titans for good. It was so cold here in January. He wanted to go back to the haunt soon. Thankfully, Slade had honored both of those requests and soon, the contracts got easier to manage. Still donning his master's insignia, he'd chosen a new moniker. His hair was let down and he didn't try to tame what couldn't be caged any longer. As his master had told him before, they were more alike than he had once cared to admit.

His face right now was all over Gotham's airwaves as Dick looked over at the sky line above his rooftop rest and smiled. "You came. Rare that you'd want anything to due with a mass murderer."

Batman's cowl dragged the ground and Richard remembered being carried from harm right beneath it. (This is before Jason. Dick is still underage, not even a year. It is winter.)

"Or, a thief." His eyes narrowed under the mask. Slade had used a special solution to erase his stitches as the boy tolerated the mad man even more to take care of his injurie while he recovered from an even deeper wound.

"They gave me the name, Blackguard, here." Richard grinned below the cocky and casual banter as Batman never took his hooded eyes off of the boy. "I think I'll keep it. How about it, Bats?" The kid put his hands behind his back, out pacing the strategist in his way. "Did you call lil' old me out to Wayne's building to "just" have a chat and give me a slap on the wrist? Seems like you're losing your touch."

"You don't remember, do you."

"Remember what?" The boy scoffed and shook his head a bit at how he DID remember. Remembered how much he hated that man for casting him out – for forcing the kid to make himself a walking target…. how he'd failed at everything. He remembered enough of what Slade wanted him to, to keep that bat from flying too close. To just undoing his good work. No working number of reversals could save what had been preordained. The bat shouldn't have tested the master, yet the master had sent his lap dog to cause some internal damage. To make it hurt, like Robin had for losing his one last lifeline to his old life.

"Dick." The boy's breathing hitched. "That's who you are. I know all about the Titans. You don't have to run, we can –

"No." the boy pulled out the only thing that truly had tortured the bat for years.

A gun, as he fearlessly pointed the guilty piece of metal at his sworn enemy. He, was. And once he was gone, there was nothing to hold Richard back from burning Robin in those same fires that had killed -

Dick's eyes shut as he put a hand to his temple. "Fight it, whatever Deathstroke is doing…. I know you can overcome –

"Shut…...up!"

Dick didn't WANT to remember. "That was my choice, I let him change who I was. I can protect myself…. because you would have let me die!!" He fired the shot, the bat evading as he flew in to use his batarangs to disarm the unkempt hand.

"Blackguard…I'm not him anymore – you won't –

The gun was pulled away as Richard's scalp was grabbed to land him with a push into the man's chest. "I can't stop. I lost you once, to a mercenary. You didn't do anything to deserve this…. or me…" Slade had those shockers in his suit. Why weren't they turning on?

"No….no…. stop…stop…why…. why?!" He couldn't pull out of Slade's grip, let alone the bat's. His heart hammered and he was sure his master was aware. Where was he? He didn't want to be taken back! He didn't want to be reminded of all the deaths he had settled on…

"I wanted you to find me, so that I could help. Anyway, that I failed to before…I'm so sorry, Dick…please, believe me –

Robin would have. The boy scoffed as he let his boot ram into the man's calf. The blade tucked away inside it retracted as the teen shoved the bat back and took a step over to where his master stood, looking concerned.

I…."

"We're leaving, apprentice."

"S…lade!" The strangled cry would end in a bit. He had to have an anti-toxin for the blade's poison. It was starting to leave the man –

Bruce pulled back his hood, begging at this point, not yet on his knees. Damn rat, just wouldn't take a hint! Go, down already!! Richard growled as he moved from Slade, the man knowing every move the boy was intending to make. He kicked the man, shoved him down and laid punch after punch until the signal on Bruce's comm in his bat insignia started to light up, flickering an S.O.S. Richard didn't look at his hands this time. Not like all of those nameless faces Slade had made his apprentice dispose of as soon as possible. "He'll live. We'll fight soon, another day. Wayne."

"W…il…son…." The grunting vigilante gritted between clenched teeth.

Richard came as Slade motioned for both to take their leave. Seconds later, the bat mobile opened and a youth in a red mask and similar Robin costume traveled up the side of the building where the dark knight was awaiting his pint-sized savior. Fourteen-year-old (to match X's age) Jason Todd pulled out a dose and an injector air gun from his stash of things he'd needed to handle. He took the vial and used the right amount, seeing Bruce's deathly blue lips soften to a tan and near untraceable peach.

Jason exhaled as his chest didn't seem to know how to slow down. Bruce put a hand up as Jason gripped the glove. His sobs relaxed by the anger he was growing to carry. "B…Who did this to you?"

The man didn't speak until he knew that the cost was clear. "Someone, I couldn't save in time…"

As snow began to encase the roofs around every square inch of the city's backdrop, Dick held a hand to his lips and sobbed. The man beside him bringing a soothing hand to boy's unsettled, shaking shoulder. "H…he… - he said it…. I ….he couldn't do it…." The bat never would have won, so in that they were both failures and more alike that Slade was willing to hear out of the teen's mouth. "Come. The weather is getting worse to see through at night, our ride won't hold. Before long, this city will be buried under ten more inches." Slade speculated from the amount of cloud cover stretching overhead.

"Make that, five more…" He sighed in a grumble. Richard dragged himself up from the small pile that had accumulated at his feet. He watched as the eyes of a small doppleganger of his youthful birthrite – His rite, had been so wrongfully reclaimed by a child only wanted to use that look to gain attention. How he'd come to realize what a target on your back actually felt like. All of those watching eyes, waiting to rip your identity to shreds –

Slade had already succeeded months ago, the one thing that man wanted was his. The things that stood in his way, useless facts. Useless, like that bat's new addition. His new ward, from the papers it stated. The child stared up as Dick ducked behind the billboard his master had blended into already.

Jason shot the board a look, not seeing eyes but sensing that he should not let it go.

"Apprentice." Slade hissed in whisper. "Now."

"Not yet."

The man grumbled something as he pulled out an air gun identical to the bat's. "Now, or I'll drag you."

"Hello?"

The man tugged the kid to stay quiet, his blade coming out with a hand over Dick's mouth to create a speck of light onto some other roof top, a glimmer. The youth was drawn to the chase as he set off a grappler into the air, just below, the apprentice getting a dose of the sedative that his master had intended on using if the kid went out of line once.

Jason checked the roof, while the two got away and down to the alley by way of a stray fire escape. Wayne's building was a decoy. This was just a place to pluck up his protégé and mess up what was never in need of fixing in the first place. If Slade had killed that replacement, would Richard have defended him? He didn't look angry, but….

They left the city, and by morning next day, the billionaire had unveiled a generous pot of money for a familiar children's home as Dick stayed quiet the entire time that jerk's face was aired.

Slade had his apprentice pack about two days later, the pain in his back like the Titans' death was starting to find its way to the surface. The boy returned to the medical bay, his palms shaking and his eyes too wide to be natural. "It's back, Master… please…" He begged in a whimpering, pathetic voice.

Slade coaxed the child to sit on the metal medical table as he administered a stronger dose of a solution that erased half of the boy's pain. Sadly, he was becoming resistant the longer he stayed in this country full of so many triggers to their memory. The boy had been forced to overcome a withdrawal from the solution, and Slade wondered if a mixture of the serum that had made him might alter any…. future complications. The scars, like his eye would never go away. The scar upon his temple was one example, so why not a good chunk of the child's past?

Slade got to work and settled on a solution that would take time to build. A formula to keep the pain in his mind at bay, while Slade let his seasoned little killer drink in his new life and with a new name.

"Blackguard. It suits you, but personally, I think you are far too well trained to be called a rascal or a troublemaker. Do you think you should agree with me, Dick?"

The man used his words to craft a web, one that Dick could try to drag himself from at any time he wanted. "I, think wherever I go, I am trouble. To someone else." The boy said in an emotionless bit of dialogue. "Master. The kills, I'm not getting worse at what you do…am I?"

"You haven't been chosen as my protégé for nothing, dear boy. The seasoned assassin and student to the fearsome Deathstroke?"

The boy let the man cup his chin and lift it to speak again. To breathe truth into his rotten sense of right and wrong – already adulterated by his decision to lose all hope. This was his life now, his home. He'd stay forever if it meant…

"What, if I could stay with you, help you. Even after…"

Richard –

"Blackguard. I'm keeping it." The boy replied. "Sir, would you leave me too, if you…. thought I was ready?"

Did he mean….

Slade realized those eyes now. Glazed after drug use many times and still soft enough to want to know a connection. Yet, he refused to get close to anyone that mattered. Slade had made the boy in such a short time, dependent on his answer. "I cannot leave this world, not like you or the bat might. It would take much more than a stray bullet to see me shatter. But…" The trial was too soon, he was still too weak…

"If death is all you still crave to avoid, I can make that happen; any pain won't be guaranteed over and done. You're still going to feel plenty. But. If you should allow me to try a trial of the serum that saved your face –

"I'LL DO IT." Richard clung to the man, his hands and knees raw as his fingers dug into the man's upper wrist. "If you have the cure to really and truly forget about them, I don't care. This memory, of my fighting…I need to just, let it go."

The man coaxed the boy to look at him. Hope. Survival was best for them both. "I promise. You won't even feel a thing, dear apprentice." The thank you from Dick's chapped lips was enough of a pact between this Mastermind and his forever - apprentice.

Robin was dead in face, this one. The next time he fought, he'd be ruthless. Cull the whelp from out below the Batman's beak. Black guard. Forever.

/

EPILOGUE

The percentage of those that had died being made immortal, Slade wouldn't count on how Richard took the miracle cure daily as the size increased. He looked haggard, even being shut in his room in the haunt the day before the big procedure. The day, when he'd finally stop feeling as low as dirt below his feet. Slade told Richard to simply not question any of what was going to be. That he'd been through it, that he could do the same if he listened to every word. Tunes and wires layered the lab room as hired hands from the same project shuffled out equipment as if they were performing brain surgery. Was it a way to experiment on him physically like that? Richard was put under as the rest of himself stayed aware; the serum not able to work without him being some ounce of at least, self – aware hart everything was going to change.

"Should we strap him down, sir."

Slade saw the boy as Dick scrunched his brown, gritting teeth as he was given another injection. Only an hour through and he was sweating. Slade started to become prepared for the worst as he nodded for another doctor to turn up the dose. He needed to endure it longer. Not so soon.

Dick screamed, about an hour more. He was holding. A few more and yes!

"Get the restraints ready. NOW!"

The staff and surgical team all scrambled to bind down the boy. The damned teen who had such rage beneath his blood and-

Slade saw the child's blood red veins and he relived the memory in his own mind. It was close. "Don't stop the process. It's nearly –

With a near roar, the surgeon looked at the medical table with a sheen of sweat upon his beaded brow. "We, can't continue -

"Do you want to kill him?? Finish what you started!"

They were terrified, some were new and any staff Slade had hired from the project were used to the biting and clawing of mental future nutcase. They were getting paid big bucks to keep the boy alive. Slade would be sure to shoot or behead the ones that didn't pay attention to his warning.

"FINISH. Or I won't LET you leave until you do."

/

Sweat, blood, a panting sight. Slade put his head down. Was it….

Was it worth so much lost?

"I guess you really did want to die by my hand after all." Slade had allowed the men to go, some didn't end up so lucky as William Wintergreen did the usual messy cleanup of dead bodies without shame. He couldn't show it, not while his friend was so attached with saving that young boy from himself.

Richard coughed, the injection to prevent a fever in him was keeping his body alight. He had to be weaker than before. Starving himself, the lack of color on his cheeks. This, was only the beginning, as his eyes fluttered wearily open to view the only person he could turn to. The man that had given him death and taken even that away.

"It's done." Slade put a hand atop the boy's head as he softly, then woefully sobbed. But it was not out of sorrow, it was out of relief that he had kept his promise. That he would never remember anyone else as a friend, a foe. Only, for his master to always be there.

"Thank you……. thank…. thank you!" He sobbed into the man's hand, the only blanket he needed to send himself back off to sleep.

/

Slade puzzled over nothing. The chills, the crawling sensation under the boy's covers as he screamed half the night. The veins popping up and his impending doom syndrome? By the next few months of rest and reprogramming to the new him, Blackgusrd would be ready to make a new appearance in Star city.

The new Robin had decided to start up his own little team of heroes to keep the Titans' memories alive. Slade was still not enchanted by the idea of another Robin living up to the dream of becoming an icon. Richard had seen the image in a run around town on a big digital billboard. His eyes got stuck in time as Slade let the teen decide if it was worth a fuss. Later, the boy outright told his master while they had supper…

"I want to go with you on that Bolivia case. I can handle a clean-up. Sir."

That was only the beginning of how ruthless the boy wonder wanted to become. He'd already learned that and scratch healed yet contusions and broken bones took time to reset themselves. He still needed painkiller if it hurt as badly as Slade had warned; this was no suicide attempt at all. Slade carried a contract out like this as Deathstroke. Yet he refused, saying Richard had to stay behind to watch the city while his master was gone. Dick threw and honest fit while Slade had finished the last bite of his sirloin on the plate. The boy had barely touched his, the idea of facing danger a perfect excuse to get distracted. Or, to test his new found abilities.

"Why can't Will do that? No one has come after us since –

"Are you going to test me, after all that I have done to promise you what you wanted, apprentice?" The man firmly let the child know that he was not a pushover for the games this kid played. He was only allowed to heal up. Going out there, unguarded as he never saw it? Richard's ego could get the best of him without a formal bit of discipline beforehand hand. They had no time to debate. The boy was sent to his room with blueprints to work on. Seems Slade trusted him to locate a valuable piece of technology. A prototype and Squire Industries just down into the business area of the city of Jump. Richard never refused. He had to stretch his legs, and this little task could prove he'd come this close to getting his wish. To getting what he wanted for himself.

/

Slade came back days later, the trip being droll and as to be expected. William was outside by the dais as the boy lounged there, his hand balancing a knife on his pointer like some silly acrobat. A knife was thrown in that posture, yet the teen only smiled and pocketed the thing, setting himself to sit up and lean into his hands with a less than welcoming grin.

"Welcome back, master. I took care of that heist you wanted. Go see for –

The mastermind went up to the boy and pulled him by the shirt collar, dragging him to the floor and stomping down, preventing the teen from leaving where his boot stayed solid. "m…sir??"

"YOU MURDERED . A GUARD ." The fumes puffing out of his grates as the masked man pulled it off. His hatred for what had happened. His own apprentice had purposely shown off like that!!

"You're to be punished for your transgressions. No more solo events and NO." His eye looked dangerously overhead. "No more roaming these halls without my say."

The punishment was a few beatings in. He deserved it as crying and laughing through the stress, the boy finally broke down and apologized. He even hugged the man's armored legs and begged for another chance. Slade said it harshly the first time, and for whatever purpose that sentence then did, the boy knew his transformation was not over.

"IF you want to kill, you have to save your energy. Conservation of your stamina and skill it crucial. You know wjat I do. What my true goal was in coming to Jump. You got in my way, I recruited you away from the bat and you allowed it."

"Yes master…. sir…I'm s –

"FURTHERMORE." Slade cut Dick off. "How you deliberately brought the blaster along was another stunt that I cannot tolerate. You were supposed to remain unseen, and what did you do ?? Explain to me, here. What ." The man pulled his leg away, the gratification lifted as Richard clutched onto nothing. He hugged his arms round himself and looked at the ground until Slade moved his chin to see upwards at his keeper again.

"I expected a less sloppy response than this. I thought you'd be a perfect right hand but….it seems giving you that much freedom comes with a price. You want to be a full-fledged assassin, boy? Is that why you dod what you did? Or, could you not control it. Did I fail to apprehend that; the fact you'd turn raven on –

"NO! H- he…he was angry. Called…called me things…. he saw. They did…."

"They?"

Slade's fists clenched at his sides as Richard told the man the entire story. About Jason's new band of heroes that had replaced the former. All while Richard avoided falling apart at their mere mention. "I don't want them here. This is ours; we have it and I just…."

"Who attacked you. Tell me, Dick." Slade knelt down and put a hand to the crying kid's face. This version of his apprentice may have been unstable, but why did he act so sure of his minor kill streak? Who was he trying to intimidate?

"Jason, that Robin is…he knows who I am."

/

A part two is in the works. Lemme know if this should go into the fic Our Time in reverse to cement the fact that Richard gets his first kill in and goes nuts. I might do that anyway. Slade takes advantage abd regrets it. Robin is super yandere in this later. Find out!