Orbits of Glass

[sqweakie]

 

Chapter Ten

“Hey Boss, I think he’s wakin’ up.”

Loud laughter erupted around him, each voice a faceless creature in the black void surrounding him. He winced at the sound, pain beating in time with the laughter and jeers. It felt like someone had kicked the back of his head repeatedly and then stuffed him into the chair where he sat. He opened his eyes but blackness enclosed him, held by the rough fabric of the blindfold cinched tight around his head. He tried to move his hands, jerking when the ropes around his wrists tightened. Fruitlessly, he shifted around but he remained restrained.

“Do you have his ID?” a voice asked idly. The laughter halted. A muffled ‘here’ and the sounds of movement reached his half-covered ears.

“‘Walter R. Price’… sixteen years old, lives somewhere in Gotham and has only a couple twenties and some odd change to his name. Tell me, Walter, how does a sixteen year old kid get his hands on a perfect replica of a Robin costume? Why would said kid wear it under his normal clothes and wander around the city? And how can a scrawny teenager knock out for of my men before he’s brought down? Can you tell me, Walter?”

Robin sat silently. His face a pale mask behind the blindfold as the hidden man waited for his answer. Finally completely aware of his surroundings, woozy sleepiness abated, he could feel a warm breeze across his uncovered arms. When he moved his legs the telltale sound of jeans rubbing together was absent. He knew before he lost consciousness at the bus stop he wore jeans and a turtleneck over his uniform. His street clothes should have hid the bright costume on the bus ride back to Wayne Manor. He didn’t change out of the uniform because exhaustion pulled at him and he intended to collapse on his bed at Bruce’s when he got there, no other detours planned.

“Don’t you have anything to say…Walter?” the man teased, putting an emphasis on his alias. Laughter started up again. Over the noise, heavy footsteps marched towards his spot. Robin smelled something akin to old cigars and whiskey as someone leaned over him, breathing right in his face.

The blindfold ripped way from his face. Light burned his eyes before he slammed his eyelids shut, not wanting to give away one of his last secrets, the eyes his mask covered.

“Shy little bird, aren’t we, Walter? Open your eyes.”

He shook his head silently, not willing to speak. He wasn’t afraid of the man. In fact, he was cussing himself out for being so careless and getting jumped in the first place.

“Joe, convince little Walter here to open his eyes.” Footsteps walked away and a chair creaked under a new weight, the Boss he assumed.

Robin remains stoic. He lived through things unimaginable to the common dredges of Gotham City. Almost nothing they could do to him could really frighten him.

He could sense the quiet anticipation in the air as a new set of footsteps approached the bound hero. Hands grabbed his collar and pushed him back against his chair. His shoulders and back protested against the rough treatment.

“Last chance, Walter.”

Robin shook his head. The Boss sighed and ordered, “Do it.”

With his eyes closed, he expected a beating or something of the like. What he wasn’t prepared for was the sharp agony he felt burned across his abdomen. A cry of surprise and pain passed out his lips as his eyes shot open. A man stood close, one hand wrapped in his shirt, the other loosely gripping a bloody knife. He looked down and saw his torn shirt and the blood oozing from a new wound on his stomach.

“A little crude but he gets the job done.”

Blue-green eyes lifted from the laceration to the room as Joe stepped aside. The boss, a heavyset man chewing on a fresh cigar, sat in front of him. Five or six other men lounged against walls or leaned on a table.

“Hmm…not much to look at. Patch him up and get the word out on the street. We have a Robin to sell to the highest bidder.”

Colors blurred together as he caught his breath and the pain faded. His restraints disappeared easier than the first time. He remained seated as the scene around him dissolved into blackness. He lost all feeling and in the blink of an eye he was alone and somewhere new.

Creaking was the only sound as he swung back and forth, lost in a new memory. Most kids had a swing set when they were little. He had an entire circus.

He sat on a metal bar, the ground stretched out beneath him. His right hand curled around the cable while his left wrapped around his stomach. He slowly swung his feet, his perch one of the trapeze near the top of the tent. He didn’t break the silence with his voice, instead listening to the sounds of the creaking cables and the wind whipping across the tent. He felt no urge to swing faster or try any flips across the expanse. His feet slowly kicked out and his improvised swing moved slowly.

“This isn’t how the tent normally looks,” a voice stated out of the void. He looked around for the first time. The colors were muted, mostly grays and soft greens. The inside of the tent appeared larger and emptier than normal. Dust and cobwebs decorated the platforms, disuse and decay making patters across the circus. In the middle of it all, another figure sat on a different trapeze. Without her cape she fit the theme. Her leotard added another shade of gray to the landscape.

“No, I guess not,” he answered listlessly. “Are you real or just another messed up memory?” Her swing remained still while she took in the view.

“This is a mental representation of your mind, not mine. Why is it darker?”

“You tell me, you’re part of it.”

“That isn’t an answer,” she told him. “Let me ask you this: why are you hiding in the shadows?”

He noticed for the first time that green spotlights illuminating the entire ceiling except the space he inhabited. With a wave of her hand, Raven redirected one of the lights. The green light spilled over him, lighting up bare feet and pajamas. Finally it hit his face and he was blinded.

He startled when a hand pressed against his cheek. His sight cleared and Raven was now much closer. She floated right in front of him, staring at his forehead and face with clinical interest.

“Raven, is it worth it?” he asked her.

She turned her violet eyes towards his. “It?”

“Being a superhero… trying to stop the evil out there.” She didn’t respond so he continued. “If we hadn’t come to Jump City, Slade never would have come, nor the others. There was crime but no actual ‘supervillains’ before we formed the Titans. If we hadn’t played hero, would they have come?”

“Why would they have stayed away? Jump City has large industry, a port, plenty of tech companies. What do you think they came for, us?” She posed the questions, not expecting his answer.

“It’s a balance. Stopping those small criminals made us stronger. Things weren’t in balance so stronger villains developed to fight us.”

“And if we never formed, they would have gone somewhere else…or never have become ‘supervillains’.” Raven’s tone was absolute disbelief.

“I don’t know! Things are so messed up. I just feel… like I failed.”

“When did you fail…” she stopped at his pointed look.  “Bad question. How did you feel you failed recently?”

“Terra.”

“Terra?” she parroted with confusion.

“She’s alive,” Rob said without emotion. “She’s without her memories but with her powers and is very alive. She didn’t want to access her powers, but I forced her, made her move the rocks and stones.”

“If you hadn’t forced her, would she be dead?” she finally asked. He shrugged.

“I’m not sure. There is always the possibility that she didn’t need to use her powers. There’s something else though.

“I… he’s…Alfred’s dead.”

She blinked.

“One of the men who raised you?” she finally asked.

“He’s been sick for a while,” he told her. His eyes traveled the lengths of the high wire so he wouldn’t have to look at those penetrating violet orbs. “Between everything going on I never made it to Gotham this winter. I planned to go beginning of April. I guess I was a little too late,” he said bitterly.

“What brings this line of thought? This is fairly random, even for you.”

“I’ve been thinking about this all week since I wound up here. I got jumped in Gotham.”

“I saw.”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” he continued. “All I could think about was Terra and Alfred, about how I failed. About what you guys would say if I told you. What Beast Boy would do if he found out that I forced Terra to tap into her powers… that I let Slade get a hold of her in the first place.”

“Guilt can be a powerful emotion if you keep holding on.”

“I can’t let go!” he yelled, finally looking at her.

“That’s only part of the problem, isn’t it?” It was more of a statement than a true question but it opened the floodgates.

“Why do I feel this way?” The swing shook with the power and fury of his words. “I try to get near a phone to call you guys and I freeze. I can’t pick it up to call you or the other titans. I can’t go near a door without this feeling that something awful will happen if I pass the threshold without someone there to guide me. This isn’t normal but I can’t figure out what’s wrong.

“Half the time it feels like I have these pieces for a couple different puzzles but nothing fits together. Why would thugs go after me, a harmless-looking teen at a bus stop? Why would a kid claiming to hate superheroes take me in with the idea I might be a super? And why would he have connections to a super or may even be a super himself?

“And what about getting attacked by a ghost. I don’t remember what happened but it has to be important. What is the key event? What is the reason everything is going on?”

“The answers are here. The memory is here,” she tapped his forehead for emphasis. “She trapped it to hurt you more.” He looked into her violet eyes as her voice changed. With a blink she disappeared. Masked eyes replaced her violet ones. Suddenly Robin was looking…at himself.

“It’s all there Rob, figure it out. Now open your eyes…”

“Open your eyes, Robin. Wake up.”

Aqua eyes fluttered open to the real world. Free of the dreams and memories everything tangible and real surrounded him. Around him the sounds and smells of the real world assaulted him. He could see the ceiling above him and out of the corner of his eye he could see a figure next to him. He turned his head and Danny came into focus. He looked nervous, biting his lip even as the boy sat next to him, a hand still on his shoulder from his attempt to wake the hero.

“It was just a bad dream,” he said as he sat up, putting himself eye to eye with Danny.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Dan asked with concern.

“No.” Robin looked away, mentally trying to put some distance between him and one of the puzzles that seemed to be driving him insane.

“Rob, you’ve been here almost two weeks,” Danny said, cutting into his thoughts. “Is there anyone you want me to call to let them know that you’re here? Your parents?”

“My parents are dead.”

“A guardian then,” Danny pressed.

He let out a bitter laugh. “He doesn’t care.”

“You must have friends that are worried about you,” he said.

Robin remained mute. Danny gave him a hard stare before standing up and leaving the bedroom, Damian’s room, where Robin tried to get a couple hours of undisturbed sleep. The door closed behind him but it didn’t latch and voiced carried through the crack to Rob’s sensitive ears.

“How is he?” a girl’s voice, Valerie’s voice, asked quietly.

“Classic symptoms…Nightmares, distancing, and beginning signs of depression. Spectra did a number on him,” Danny said darkly.

“So now what?” was her next question. “We can’t exactly knock some sense into him like we did with you.”

“Keep an eye on him,” Danny’s voice advised. “When he snaps out of it either we call his family or hand him over to the police as a runaway.” Footsteps began and stopped at Val’s final question.

“And if he doesn’t ‘snap out of it’?” Danny sighed.

“Let’s give him a week. If he doesn’t break out of the depression on his own I have to call the Patrol and let them know. The psych ward will take over from there.”

For a brief minute, emotions stirred inside Robin. He made as far as the window before the depression settled down on him and any urge to leave dissolved. His hands paused on the windowsill and he stared out... trapped

Chapter Eleven.