FicWad

Chapter Two: Tests And Results

At a time when most people were preparing for bed, Mr. Fixit tightened the last bolts on his newest mechanical creation- a self-repairing robot commissioned by NASA, similar in design to the previous Mars landers, but much more reliable, and much cheaper.

Since he had gone straight (thanks to the Titans, and especially Cyborg, who didn't press charges) a year ago, Mr. Fixit had been a very busy man. Offers of work from as far away as Belgium and Russia, even the International Space Station, had almost swamped him, and although the idea of working in many different countries was attractive, he decided to remain here, setting up his own private workshop in the junkyard depths. It was the place he was most comfortable with, and sometimes the Titans would even stop by and check up on him, driving away the loneliness.

So Mr. Fixit decided to work on a purely commission basis, doing work for anyone who required it. So far, judging by the volume of work he was doing, he could not see the difference between that and a regular job.

Placing the Mars Lander in its storage space, Mr. Fixit turned his attention to his next project: a safer antimatter containment device than the one (or rather, the schematic) sent to him by Dr. Vittoria Ventra from CERN. Looking at the design, he could see the problem immediately. It would take some work, and some rather exotic materiel, but he was sure he could make something much more effective.

Suddenly a bright red light began flashing, and a loud alarm began blaring. Mr. Fixit walked over to a video monitor showing the feedback from several security cameras, and saw a shadowy figure walking through the underground passage to his lair with no stealth whatsoever, activating alarms left and right.

Mr. Fixit breathed a sigh of relief. Probably another junk thief-when will they ever learn? He activated one of his minor defence droids, just to frighten off whoever it was.

He watched the droid approach the trespasser, when the figure, seeing the droid coming closer, seized a length of pipe from the ground and leapt on top of it, where he plunged the pipe into the droid's control center.

Mr. Fixit drew his breath sharply. This was no ordinary scrap thief. He activated a few more droids, ones made out of sterner stuff, and sent them after the interloper. He watched as they proceeded toward the intruder, but before they could do anything, another group of shadowy figures emerged and also began attacking them.

"That's it," Mr. Fixit said to himself out of annoyance, and a little fear. Fear that was amplified when he caught a glimpse of what was just outside his lab. What appeared to be a Chinese man in a grey trenchcoat was attaching something to the door with duct tape, and even from the distance the camera was filming, Mr. Fixit gasped as he saw the wired plastic explosive.

Realizing too late that the intruder had probably snuck in much earlier, and that the alarms were probably to draw the attention of any security the intruder missed, Mr. Fixit barely managed to find some cover from behind a hurriedly upturned metal table as the explosion blew the doors to his sanctum off, and Legion strode in through the smoke and debris.

Grabbing Mr. Fixit roughly by the throat, Legion proceeded to throw him against a stack of spare parts. "Now, you damnable creature, the robots' controls, where are they?" he snarled.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mr. Fixit said through the pain.

Legion pulled out a pair of black-bladed machetes from under his trenchcoat. "The controls for those fiendishly clever constructs outside that I so admire, there, clear enough for you?"

"Burn in hell!" Mr. Fixit spat.

Legion merely smiled as he brought one machete down on Mr. Fixit's arm, slicing it off cleanly at the shoulder. Kneeling now, he held the other machete to Mr. Fixit's throat. "Controls, please? See, I asked nicely," he whispered.

"I don't know who you are, but I'll never allow you to control my machines," Mr. Fixit said defiantly. Thankfully, the arm was a mechanical construct, but although he did not feel any pain, the energy leakage through the stump could be dangerous.

"You won't? Oh well," Legion said cheerfully, "it would have been too much work, anyway, controlling an army of machines. What can I say? I'm lazy."

With that, Legion walked over to the control panel and stuck his machetes into it, dragging them across the metal surface, leaving deep gashes sparking electricity. Seeing Mr. Fixit's expression, he said, "Obsidian blades- it's a kind of volcanic rock," he smirked. "Personally, I find any day where you learn something new to be rather fulfilling, don't you?"

"The droids," Mr. Fixit gasped, feeling his systems reaching an 'emergency' phase, "they'll go berserk!"

"And is that such a bad thing?" Legion asked, placing his machetes back in his trenchcoat.

"They'll rampage through the city! No-one would be able to control them!"

"Again, is that such a bad thing?"

"Your friends outside..." Mr. Fixit said, almost too weak to continue.

"I don't think you know this, Mr. Fixit: I'm not the sort of person to care about what few friends I have," Legion said, walking out the door.

Mr. Fixit crawled over to the wrecked console. Miraculously, most of the communications equipment had not been touched. He pressed a button.

"This is the Titans Tower," Cyborg's voice said from the console speaker.

"Help...me," Mr. Fixit managed to say, before collapsing on the ground.

"Mr. Fixit? Mr. Fixit?" Cyborg shouted from the speaker.

But Mr. Fixit could not hear him.

Listening from just outside the door, Legion smiled. Soon, the Titans, being the noble fools they were, would have to respond.

And after that, a little battlefield analysis.

And after that, Raven.

And after /that/...well, he had no intention of sharing ten million pounds with anyone.

(scene change)

"Hey guys," Cyborg called from the doorway. "I just got a call from Mr. Fixit, sounded real bad."

"How bad?" Robin asked. Starfire, who had been lying down on his lap, sat up sharply.

"Real bad. He barely got two words out before he went silent."

"What, the line go dead?" Beast Boy asked, his bowl of chocolate syrup almost finished, spoon halfway to his mouth.

"No, 'cos I heard explosions in the background."

"Is Mr. Fixit-" Starfire asked.

"I hope not," Cyborg replied.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Titans, go!" Robin shouted.

"Wait, where is Raven and my sister?" Starfire said.

"They went out to the mall on some bonding trip," Beast Boy said disgustedly, "Heck, Raven wants Blackfire to bond with all us. Personally, I don't see me singing Kum-ba-ya with her anytime soon."

"Bonding? That doesn't sound like Raven." Cyborg said.

"Whatever it is, we'll tell them to meet us on the way," Robin said. "For now, we have a job to do."

(scene change)

"C'mon."

"No."

"C'mon."

"No."

"C'mon, just try it."

"You're doing this just to annoy me, aren't you?"

"Aww, you're no fun, Raven," Blackfire said, placing the tube top back on her arm, along with a leather jacket and pair of pants. "Are you like this when you go shopping with my sister?"

"Your sister does not try to make me look like Britney Spears."

"Britney Spears? Who-oh right, Britney!" Blackfire said as recollection dawned. "Now there's a girl with some fashion sense."

"Fashion means clothes."

"Says you."

Raven was about to respond when a gem on her belt started glowing. Taking it out of its socket, she saw reflected in it Robin's face. "Yes, Robin?"

"Raven, we got a distress call from Mr. Fixit and we're going to check it out. Meet us there ASAP."

Raven nodded and Robin's face faded from the gem.

"Is this important?" Blackfire grumbled.

"Maybe."

"More important than shopping?" Blackfire asked. Just then, on the televisions on display at an electronics store across them displayed "Sardi Carr, reporting from junkyard, where a large number of large robots appear to be destroying anything in their path-"

"Sardi, look out!" said a voice from behind the camera.

Sardi looked back, just in time to duck a large car thrown from off screen. The cameraman turned to reveal a large crablike behemoth with a single claw taking up another car and fling in the cameraman's direction. The camera dropped and the screen filled with static.

"Yes, more important," Raven said, launching herself upwards, with Blackfire in close pursuit.

"Hey, you didn't pay for that!" an irate store clerk yelled, as she saw the two go.

In the air, Raven noted Blackfire's stolen goods with disapproval. "You're not giving those back, are you?"

"Raven!" Blackfire said in mock indignation, "Are you accusing me of stealing these? You know I'm one of the good guys now!" she finished with a betrayed pout.

"Where are you going to put them?" Raven asked, not in the mood for an argument.

"I don't know, maybe I'll ask Beast Boy to carry them. There have to be animals on Earth with pouches."

(scene change)

The neighborhoods around the junkyard lay in ruins, the National Guard and police proving ineffective against Mr. Fixit's machines. Beast Boy (in eagle form) and Starfire were the first to arrive, followed by Cyborg and Robin in the T-Car.

"Man, oh man," Beast Boy said as he surveyed the destruction. "What was Mr. Fixit doing with these things?"

"I don't know, but- watch out!" Robin shouted.

Beast Boy turned, and taking the form of a cheetah, ran out of the way as a gout of flame from what appeared to be a man-sized four-legged flamethrower melted the asphalt where he had stood just moments before.

The machine took aim a second time, but as he attempted to run away again, Beast Boy found himself covered in dark energy as twin bolts of violet energy struck the fuel droid dead center.

"Having fun yet, boys?" Blackfire asked as she landed, accompanied by Raven and a very grateful Beast Boy.

"Not half as much since you two arrived," Cyborg said, trying to clear the ringing from his ears.

"What happened?" Raven asked.

"No idea, but it seems Mr. Fixit's in trouble one way or another," Robin said. "Alright, here's the plan: Cyborg, you and Star go check up on Mr. Fixit, while the rest of us take the robots down! Beast Boy, you help evac any civilians still trapped here, got that?"

"Easy enough for even Beast Boy to understand," Blackfire said, to Beast Boy's scowl.

"Right. Titans, GO!"

High above them, from the sixth floor of a book conservatory, Shift adjusted her video recorder's scope. Below her, Legion was on the ground, on a grass-covered hill behind a white fence, using the latest in stolen spy technology to record what the Titans were saying from a distance. Nothing was to be left to chance.

Raven was to be hers, and as for Legion and his money...well, was a man in that fashion wooed? Was a man in that fashion won? She'd keep him, but she would not keep him long.

Trying to ignore the sounds of battle behind them, Starfire and Cyborg proceeded into Mr. Fixit's lair. Despite having been down here quite a few times, and despite the fact that he and Mr. Fixit had become good friends since their first meeting, Cyborg wasn't able to shake the fear that came upon him every time he did so. Some memories were just too hard to dislodge.

Starfire, on the other hand, normally felt quite welcome here. She knew Mr. Fixit, not as an evil man, but someone who was misguided, in the truest sense of the word.

In a way, he reminded her so much of her father.

"Mr. Fixit? Mr. Fixit?" she shouted, to no response.

"Hmm, I guess nobody's home," Cyborg said, when the sound of clanking gears drew his attention to a group of machines clanking slowly towards them.

"Cyborg?" Starfire asked uncertainly.

"Fixit first," he said.

"If you say so," Starfire said. Taking Cyborg up by the arms, she lifted him up and carried him in the direction of Mr. Fixit's lair, easily dodging the slow-moving monstrosities clattering themselves towards them.

Outside, it was a much harder situation for the four Titans still above. Robin barely managed to avoid a swipe from the 'crab', a split second before it ripped through the road, exposing the sewer beneath. In a burst of inspiration, Robin took out some explosives from his belt, but instead of flinging them at the road, he leaped onto the crab's back, and waited for the moment the crab raised the claw to grab the interloper. When it did, Robin flung the explosive pellets into the joint at the base of the claw.

Jumping away from the explosion, he didn't see the massive claw smash into the top of the crab, smashing through into the inside. He did manage to see the force of the claw's fall drive the crab into the already stressed road, sending the crab crashing into the sewer beneath, where part of it exploded.

While all that was happening, Raven found herself surrounded by a horde of humanoid builder droids, all firing iron rivets at her from launchers mounted in their arms. If it weren't for the shield she erected around herself, the droids would have ripped her apart. The fact that they would have ripped each other apart as well was of no comfort at all to Raven.

Suddenly, the firing stopped, just as the sound of the explosion when Robin's explosives detonated rocked the area. Raven barely heard it as she saw the reason the droids stopped-they were pausing to reload their rivet launchers. Raven realized that if there was a time to act, it was now. Drawing in all her reserves of energy, she concentrated on the semicircle of droids in front of her.

Suddenly, bits and pieces of them glowed with darkness; namely the nuts and bolts that held them together. Raven flung her hands, also glowing with her dark energies, behind her. The nuts and bolts of the droids in front of her flew apart and flew behind her; as the droids in front fell apart, the ones behind were ripped to shreds at the same time the crab fell into the sewers.

Blackfire wondered why she was doing what she was doing. After all, she didn't exactly consider holding off the aerial portion of Mr. Fixit's army 'having fun'. The thought was temporarily shelved as a horde of little flying buzzsaws with little red flashing lights flew up towards her, each giving off an ominous 'beep, beep' as they approached her.

Blackfire managed to pick off the first wave with ease, but as even more flew toward her (where were they coming from? Blackfire thought to herself) she realized that she would not be able to fight them all off.

Then she saw Raven surrounded by rivet-firing droids, especially where the droids' nuts and bolts suddenly glowed with Raven's dark energies. Correctly guessing what Raven was going to do (it was what she would do, after all, if she had Raven's powers), Blackfire flew at top speed downwards. She knew that if her timing was even slightly off, she stood a good chance of being shredded by bits of flying metal, but if she tried to stay and fight, she would be shredded by bits of flying metal anyway.

And besides, Blackfire had decided a long time ago that you truly live only when you risk death.

For a moment, as she saw the ground speed up toward her at near-impossible speeds, doubt flashed in her mind. Doubt that swiftly disappeared as she let the sensation take over her, as she made a sharp turn to avoid crashing on the ground and flew on onwards. She did not even notice as the first buzzsaw was destroyed by the flying cloud of debris, followed by the rest of them as they flew blindly to their destruction.

Meanwhile, Cyborg and Starfire reached Mr. Fixit's private workshop. "Cyborg, the doors," Starfire said, indicating the wreckage that was once the entrance.

"Yeah, Star, I see them," Cyborg said. Both of them felt a strange mixture of guarded relief and creeping dread. Guarded relief, that Mr. Fixit did not seem to be behind the attack, at least not obviously, and creeping dread that whether or not he had been behind the attack, something terrible had happened to him.

Entering the room, Starfire was the first to find that horribly, they were half right.

"Mr. Fixit! Mr. Fixit! Oh no...Cyborg!" she called, finding Mr. Fixit's motionless body next to the wrecked communications console "Is he-please don't let him be-" Starfire cried, too distraught to even say it.

"No, he ain't," Cyborg said, relief entering his voice as he tapped a few buttons on his arm console. "His systems have entered him into some kind of suspended animation mode. He's alive, Star, he's still alive."

The sound of machines outside reminded the two of them that there was a slow moving horde of security droids moving toward them. In the small confines of the room, Starfire could not maneuver, nor could Cyborg use his more powerful weaponry, just in case he brought several tons of junk crashing down on them.

A fight would be suicidal, but it seemed that the two Titans had no choice, when Cyborg had an idea. Taking out a small wire from his arm, he found the connection port where Mr. Fixit normally recharged himself. Opening the port's panel, Cyborg attached his own wiring to Mr. Fixit's.

"Cyborg, what are you doing?" Starfire asked him as she saw him do this.

"Mr. Fixit's the only guy who could stop those things, problem is he's asleep, so I'm giving him a little juice to wake him up," Cyborg said.

The jolt he felt as the loss of power hit him was greater than he had expected. Obviously the damage to Mr. Fixit was greater than it seemed. Mr. Fixit's eyes slowly, painfully slowly, opened.

"Cy...Cyborg," he whispered. "The...my...robots, we, have to stop, them," he gasped.

"You got my vote on that," Cyborg said, trying to keep focus.

"Cyborg, they are here!" Starfire screamed, as she launched several starbolts at the approaching horde.

"Star, the damage to Mr. Fixit's worse than I expected; I'm barely staying awake myself," Cyborg said. "You gotta disable the machines."

"But I don't know what to do! And what if the robots reach us before I'm finished?"

"I will give you directions," Mr. Fixit said, sounding marginally stronger now, "and we must hope you're quick."

It was not Beast Boy's day. He found himself in an abandoned basement, filling up with the smoke of countless fires, facing what appeared to be a rapidly spinning upright metal pole with two small wrecking balls attached to it rolling towards him on tank tracks. Tank tracks! Who throws away tank tracks?

And to make matters worse, rubble had covered most of the entrances, and it would have taken far too long to dig himself before the machine reached him. The clinching factor was that if he morphed into any of his larger forms, he would bring the building down on himself. The fact that it was on fire as well didn't help matters.

And he hadn't even found any survivors to rescue before this robot cornered him, just a small baby doll 'That Really Cries!', the reason he was down here in the first place. That was his luck for you.

Outside, the situation for the other three Titans was getting steadily worse. Blackfire was covered in cuts from the buzzsaws that survived, while Raven's head was exploding from the amount of mental effort she was making in trying to both hold off other robotic assailants, while Robin felt his own energy reserves slowly running out. Soon, the three of them found themselves pushed steadily closer by the still-sizeable remnant of Mr. Fixit's machines.

In Mr. Fixit's sanctum, Starfire had, on Mr. Fixit's command, opened the control panel by simple dint of ripping off its wrecked cover.

"Now, Starfire, look for a white wire, see if it's still undamaged," Mr. Fixit commanded.

Starfire looked into the tangled mess of wiring, all too aware that the robots outside were proceeding ever closer. "I see a white wire, but it's cut through," she said despairingly.

Mr. Fixit cursed under his breath. "Very well then, can you see a blue wire?"

"Which one? Which one?" Starfire asked, panic-stricken.

"The third one from the top."

"Third one, third one, er, er-"

"Calm down Starfire, third one from the top, just like the man said," Cyborg told her, in a voice tired but firm.

Starfire located the wire, and pulled. Just then, some unseen force seemed to enter the robots, and they advanced faster.

"Starfire! You increased their security level! Third wire! Third wire from the top, I said! Third! Put it back!" Mr. Fixit said loudly.

Starfire looked back at the console, where to her horror, she saw that in her haste, she had pulled the wire clean out. There was no way she could put it back now.

"I can't put it back!" she screamed.

"What do you mean, you can't put it back?" Cyborg shouted in a voice containing a mixture of shock, rage and fear.

"I can't put it back!" Starfire shouted in the same tone of voice.

Mr. Fixit tried to ignore the argument, the advancing robots, and his own fading consciousness as best he could as he tried to think of a solution.

(scene change)

"Raven, watch out!" Blackfire said, as she blasted a flying buzzsaw that was trying to decapitate her friend. For some reason, the machines seemed a lot more ferocious. Suddenly she ducked as Raven fired a dark bolt of energy over her.

"What was that-oh," she said, as she heard, then saw, a humanoid robot with a chainsaw for an arm fall, a gaping hole in its 'head'. "Thanks," she said

"You're welcome," Raven answered. All of a sudden, Robin's body came flying out of nowhere, to be caught by Raven in a dark net.

"Thanks," he said.

"You're welcome," Raven said. Then she noticed Blackfire staring at something behind them. She turned, and saw a giant hammer on wheels proceed toward them. Looking behind Blackfire, Raven and Robin saw a group of spindly humanoid droids wielding sharp tools proceed toward them. In the direction where Robin was thrown from, what appeared to be an ogre with too many arms thundered toward them.

Blackfire felt tears running down her cheeks. This wasn't the way she wanted to die, this wasn't how it was supposed to end. Although she would have been loath to admit it to anyone, she wanted to spend her last days on a faraway planet somewhere, somewhere no-one would ever find her, in the arms of someone she loved-

-her arms-

-and would love her back. Not like this, covered in blood and sweat and tears, flames and her murderers among her primary companions.

Perhaps Raven sensed some of this, as she said, "Blackfire, I'm not strong enough to fly, but you are. Get away while you still can."

Blackfire turned to her. She realized she was so caught up in her self-pity, her weakness, that she had forgot that other people were going to die there as well.

And while it wasn't the same, she knew that at least part of her dream had come true. She was going to die with someone she loved. So what if Raven did not love her back? Life's never as you dream it, and besides, not only did she had too much emotional baggage to make Raven carry as well, but Raven was probably not that sort of girl.

Blackfire wished she could tell Raven that, tell Raven many things, but all that she would allow to come out was, "Are you kidding? This is too much fun." Then, as a buzzing and beeping filled the air above her, she added, "Besides, what would be the point?" indicating the flying buzzsaws above her.

In the basement, Beast Boy tried to avoid the whirling metal globes as best as he could, when one of them knocked a concrete chunk from a pillar into Beast Boy, sending him smashing into another concrete pillar.

In a daze, Beast Boy saw another robot come in, this one looking like a metal spider with a crooked leg sticking up from its head.

He wondered how it got in when he saw the tip of the extra leg glow and after a delay, suddenly launch a laser bolt at a piece of concrete. It scuttled across to him, tip glowing, as the wrecking ball machine came ever closer.

A similar situation was taking place in Mr. Fixit's lab as the security droids came ever closer, Starfire launching starbolt after starbolt at them, obvious to all that despite her efforts, they would all be overwhelmed soon, when Mr. Fixit was hit by an idea so blindingly obvious that he would have literally kicked himself had he the energy.

"Starfire, the console!"

"I can't put the wire back! I told you!"

"Forget the wires! I want you to destroy the console!"

"Destroy it? Won't that make things worse?"

"Worse than things are now?" Cyborg groaned.

"Just do as I say, Starfire!" Mr. Fixit commanded.

"But what if I make a mistake?"

"STARFIRE JUST DO IT!" Cyborg shouted as he felt consciousness fade.

Turning her attention from the advancing robots, Starfire took aim just as one of the security 'bots raised its arm in a fist to smash down on her.

(scene change)

Raven, Robin and Blackfire stood back to back, ready to make their last stand against the robots, all bathed in a hellish glow.

But it was Beast Boy who could have told them a thing or two about hell, as two metal demons advanced slowly toward him, one preparing to scourge him with iron, the other about to burn him with infernal light.

It was at that exact moment that Starfire's bolt hit home, blowing the console apart.

For one heartbeat, the security droid seemed to be unaffected as the arm grew ever higher, as did its brethren. Then, arm raised high above its head, it stopped for another heartbeat, and then slowly toppled over backwards. Behind it, the slow advance ground to a halt.

Using the last of her strength, Raven erected a shield just long enough to protect her and her friends from the falling buzzsaws, which ricocheted off the shield into the now halted horde of 'bots.

In the basement, the spider's red light seemed to grow even brighter, then rapidly dimmed. The wrecking ball machine's weapons spun to a stop. When it did, Beast Boy got up slowly. He would go up to the surface, but there was something he had to do first. He walked over the baby doll, morphed into a lion, and mauled it like a chew toy. When it was reduced to an unrecognizable mass of plastic shreds, he proceeded in a stately walk befitting the king of beasts, up to the surface.

Walking through the wreckage, Robin and Blackfire who was carrying a tired and headache ravaged Raven in her arms found themselves assisted by the members of a grateful police and fire department who had stayed on to fight the mechanical host. Miraculously, there had been no deaths reported yet, as the robots had seemed to focus on pure destruction instead of directly harming people, at least those who didn't fight back.

A group of firemen, pulling away at some rubble, found themselves surprised by the emergence of a green lion, who quickly changed into Beast Boy. After asking them for directions, he met up with his friends, walking in the direction of the junkyard.

"Hey guys, how are y-Raven? Raven! Blackfire, what did you do to her?" he shouted.

Blackfire, quite calmly, placed the semi-comatose Raven on a nearby bench before walking over to Beast Boy, who quickly backed off. "What did I do to her? Why, let's see, I saved her life and stayed on with her even though I did not need to, because for some crazy reason, she thinks we're friends, oh, and let's see, oh well, apart from that, nothing. So, my dear Beast Boy," she continued, still calm, "shut the frell up before I rip out your jhorblocks and shove them up your-"

"That's enough," a tired sounding Robin said, sitting down next to Raven. "We've had enough fighting for one day."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Blackfire said, still gazing at Beast Boy, her eyes glowing now.

"Are we interrupting anything?" an exhausted Cyborg said, carrying an unconscious Mr. Fixit on one shoulder, followed by Starfire.

"Oh, no, nothing at all," Blackfire said, as she turned to Cyborg, her eyes back to normal again. "So, how did you and Starfire fare?"

"We fared very well, sister," Starfire said. "We found Mr. Fixit and we know that he was not guilty of the destruction here today! Isn't that wonderful!"

"You're forgetting the most wonderful thing that happened, Star," Cyborg said, smiling.

"Oh, and what is that?" Starfire asked, bewildered.

"The way you saved all our butts by destroying that console?" Cyborg prompted.

"Oh, well, Mr. Fixit helped. He was the one who told me what to do," Starfire said in honest modesty.

Robin rose from the bench and caught Starfire in a tight embrace. "You're amazing, Starfire," he whispered.

"Robin," Starfire said, blushing, "The others are watching us."

And indeed they were. Beast Boy and Cyborg were watching them with looks that were a combination of wistfulness and knowing mirth, although an observant person would have noticed Beast Boy's eyes darting towards Raven once or twice, who had turned to lie on her side so that she could see what was happening better, a smile seeming to ghost her lips, while Blackfire simply raised a knowing eyebrow.

"Let them watch," Robin said, eyes closed as he continued his embrace and felt all the tiredness in him evaporate.

After a moment, Starfire, tentatively at first, returned the embrace. For a moment, just for that moment, the world was perfect, not just for Starfire and Robin, but for all the Titans.

"Come on, you two," Cyborg said quietly after a while, reluctant to break the mood, "we gotta take this guy to a hospital," indicating the still-unconscious Mr. Fixit in his arms.

Robin pulled away from Starfire, not a bit reluctantly. "I guess so. Come on, we'll take the T-Car."

Holding hands, Robin and Starfire sat in the T-Car's back seat, the unconscious Mr. Fixit across their laps doing nothing to break the spell, Raven resting in a reclined passenger seat, with Cyborg driving while Blackfire provided an aerial escort.

Beast Boy, on the other hand, was following them as a kangaroo, a female form no less, a tube top, leather jacket, and a pair of leather pants in his pouch. Considering what Blackfire could have done to him tonight, he did not intend to make her angry, in spite the fact that he felt like a fool.

"Did you get all that?" Shift asked as she walked toward Legion, standing next to some burning wreckage.

"Hmm, what? Oh yeah, I got it all, 'cluding the bits with Cyborg and Starfire. Cor, but that wasn't half difficult."

"What do you mean?"

"Mad robots walking everywhere, Starfire shooting like a blind man with a machine gun, it's a wonder I got anything at all!"

"And what about up here? You get all that?"

"Most of it, yeah. The robots were a bit noisy, and there were more explosions than a Schumacher film, but I managed to get some good stuff. David Attenborough would be pissing in his dinosaur skin boots with envy if he could do half the things I managed."

"Your knighthood's in the post. What's the matter, Legion? You seem a bit more cheerful than usual."

"Well, all these fires, chaos, destruction, it reminds me of home." To Shift's incredulous look, Legion said, "I live in Soho."

"Ah," she said as clarity dawned.