What?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Waking up, I go to work immediately. I have robots set up cameras in all of the right places and the signals begin to come in. Wintergreen tells me when we have the Titans' communications undetected. I smile. Good.

"I'll be right back, Wintergreen," I say.

He says nothing, but I know he hears me. He can be bitter all he wants. It won't change how I train Robin. I open the door to Robin's room. I look around. The smashed cube lays in the corner along with the ripped fabric. Annoyed, I make a mental note to make Robin fix it all later. I go over to the bottom drawer and pull out a syringe filled with a sedative.

Robin lies on his bed, asleep. I see the goose bumps on his skin and notice that the sheets are wet around him. Pulling the sheets back so that I can grab his arm to find a vein, I notice the ice packs that he has surrounding him. At least sleeping with the packs got rid of most of the bruises that would have appeared.

I pull Robin's left arm out and easily find a vein. I get the needle in, only making Robin twitch slightly but do nothing more. Yesterday was enough for him in terms of physical pain. I wasn't going to use this to punish him. If that was the case then I wouldn't have been so careful. Robin's breathing relaxes a bit. I get up and leave, my job done.

I walk back to the main room and Wintergreen nods in acknowledgment of my presence. There was no time to waste. I hack into the main frame of Titans Tower and put it on screen. They get up and get ready for the day. I half-smile. I'll make sure that it will be a day they will remember for the rest of their lives, not in the good way, of course.

I check the settings of everything. The robots that will be keeping an eye on my apprentice are ready to do their jobs. The ones there to make sure nothing goes wrong are fine as well. Them not needed? I don't take risks, so yes they are needed.

It's a question of pure loyalty and trust. The fact remains that Robin has yet to become loyal to me in the genuine way. His loyalty has ways to go. On the matter of trust. That goes both ways. I trust that he knows the consequences. He trusts me to keep to my end of the bargain. However, I will not be around him when he makes his debut. That is a situation that has to be controlled. And controlled it will be. The day passes as the preparations are made.

"Wintergreen, get his guards," I tell him.

"Guards?"

"Arm and chest guards."

He comes back with the items, "Thank you."

He remains silent. The clock ticks away. It's around 8:45 PM. I realize that Robin's sedative should be wearing off and so I nod to Wintergreen towards the door. He knows what to do. I wait about 30 minutes and then go back to the console. The screens turn to the blood streams of the Titans and their soft talk die down to nothing. I wait watching the screens. It can never hurt to have reassurance nearby. I know what I'm going to do. I know what my apprentice is going to do. All I have to do is wait. I hear the door open and the shaky steps that follow. I turn to see my apprentice in the half done up uniform. His masked gaze keeps dashing from the screens to me.

"Well, how did you sleep, my apprentice?"

Getting things out of the way he says, "Fine, but Slade... please, I didn't mean yesterday for any of this to..."

"Don't worry about yesterday, Robin," I start toward him. He begins to scrunch himself. I can't help but smile looking at him. He doesn't know anything about tonight and it's rich. Just like he didn't know the day he became my apprentice...

He panics, "Look, Slade, I'm sorry for yelling and..."

"What did I say, Robin?" He lets me finish, "I said not to worry about it."