Titans: Rise of Talon

A Not-So-Happy Birthday

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, everyone! I've been crazy busy irl and needed to get the storyline figured out. I still don't have quite everything planned, but I appreciate you all hanging in there and being patient. Thank you!
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The Island
06:33 SST
December 1st
....

Robin's chest heaved up and down as he stared at the man only a few feet away, the man who wore Slade's armor. The man who was Slade behind the mask.

"Good, you're awake. Welcome back."

"Wh-Where am I? What's going on? Why? What?" Robin stammered and pressed a chilled hand to his sweating forehead with a groan. He had one killer headache. He shivered unconsciously and rubbed his eyes, making a startling discovery. He shakily brushed his fingers over the exposed skin around his eyes and looked up at Slade with a sense of dread the mercenary had never seen.

"Why'd you take my mask?" he asked in a barely audible whisper, startling blue eyes dull and lifeless.

"Your survival overruled your silly need of hiding your identity."

"Do you know who I am?"

Slade quirked an eyebrow at that. Now that he thought about it, the boy did look familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen his face. Ever since their rivalry began, the boy had always been Robin. The masks they wore were just another part of their face.

"Should I?" he replied. Robin quickly shook his head, unintentionally signaling the exact opposite.

"Doesn't matter," he answered slowly. If Slade didn't recognize him, then there was no way he was going to help him put a name to the face.

Slade leaned back in his chair and studied the boy, sifting through his memories to find who he looked like. A smirk grew as he put the pieces together within seconds.

    "You're Bruce Wayne's ward. Aren't you? Does your billionaire daddy know you go running around beating up bad guys, or is he the big bad bat himself?"

    Robin's face paled even further. He knew. Slade knew. His hands balled into the blanket covering his torso, fisting the material inside his grip. He sucked in a deep breath. He had come up with a plan for this kind of situation a long time ago; he just never thought he would have to put into action.

    "Bruce doesn't know that I'm Robin," he said steadily, "Right now, he thinks that I'm at a college in Europe. I was actually supposed to fly home for the holidays next week."

   Slade quirked an eyebrow at the boy's lie and decided to toy with him, see just how much the teen had thought about this.

   "Really now? Then how do you bats afford your toys?"

   "Batman has his own fortune, but I've used my trust fund for my own gear since our falling out." A half-truth. He did have to use his own money for certain things, and it helped him branch out and experience responsibility.

   "So you're telling me that Batman helped train a child that wasn't even his, but who was actually the ward of a well known socialite, and added him to his pathetic crusade against crime?"

   Robin glared at the jab to his mentor's mission, "He saw what I needed and pulled me away from warpath I was on. Batman saved me from myself."

    It was easy to talk about Batman and Bruce being separate people, because oftentimes they were. Bruce was the father-figure he needed and the shoulder he could cry on. Batman was the teacher and the one who created the outlet for his pain. Their personalities contrasted so much; it was easy to set them apart.