Teen Titans #37: "The White Rose" Pt. 1

Dick Grayson cradled Koriandr in his arms, half asleep and weary, himself. But he could not sleep. Not even all their exertions together could give him the rest he needed.

He was tired all the time now. Tired to his bones in a way he hadn't been since the night his parents died. Maintaining three lives at once will do that to a man. Even a man trained in the arts of superheroics has limits, and his current circumstances approached them.

At least when he was Nightwing, when he was with the Titans, did he feel like himself again - he felt alive again.

Forgive me, Bruce, for not being Batman all the time, like you were.

He hoped his mentor would understand.

Slowly he disengaged himself from Kory, looked down at her sweet face, kissed her forehead once, and stumbled away.

He could not sleep tonight, for all his aching body would welcome it.

He would walk the Tower's hallways. Dagon was usually up at this hour, and was a good listener.



Tara Markov could sleep just fine. She had an entirely different problem.

She disentangled herself from Gar Logan in a much more hurried and awkward manner, rushed into the bathroom and threw up... three times.

When this particular ailment had started, she had, for a terrifying and frozen moment, thought that it might be morning sickness. Though she loved Gar, she wasn't ready to be the mother of his child just yet.

There was also the fact that her own mother had died giving birth to her.

But she and Gar had taken all the appropriate precautions, and her natural body cycles had continued; and the vomiting had gone on and on, for days stretching into weeks. And also her powers had started acting strangely at the same time. She could still control the Earth with the flick of a finger, but she could no longer “feel” the Earth as she had once been able to. It used to be that using her power had felt like flexing a muscle; that it was a part of her. Now, it felt like using a tool, and manipulating rock and mud felt like reaching out with a finger to touch something. Her power was no harder to use but it felt....distant. Cold. Impersonal.

Donna knew something about it, had told her of Gaia's...disconnection....from day to day events. And then there had been that business with Kronus.*

So Tara knew something of what was wrong, but knowing didn't make her feel any better about it. Gar wanted her to see Doctor Caulder, of the Doom Patrol. Tara was not looking forward to that. But it was probably going to be inevitable.

Gar was half-asleep, looking blearily at her.

“Shh. Go back to sleep, Beast Boy-toy.”

“If you're sure,” he said blurrily.

“Yah. I am.” She kissed his forehead, and his eyes closed.

Sighing, she wandered over to the little kitchenette and began to make tea for herself. There would be no more sleep for her this night.

*See recent issues of Wonder Woman



Deathstroke, the Terminator stalked quietly in the general direction of Titans Tower.

Finally. The beginning of the end. Finally, he would take the Titans down once and for all, close the book on the super-brats, and move on with the next phase of his life.

Oh, to be sure, once they were dead or imprisoned by the HIVE, their mentors and allies would be calling. But he was prepared for that. He used more of his brain capacity than any person alive, including the oh-so-pretentious Luthor.

He looked behind him, and saw a short, girlish silhouette approaching. Underneath his mask, his lips spread into something that wasn't exactly a smile, and he prepared for combat.



“I don't know what to say,” Dagon said unhappily.

“Nothing to say, my friend,” Nightwing replied.

They were sitting on top of the Tower, legs dangling over the side. It was a clear night, the moon half full, the sky bedecked with the glittering diamonds of the constellations.

“Will you have to give up being Nightwing?” Dagon prompted, after a pause.

The vigilante shook his head, and managed a weary grin. “Believe it or not, I'm happiest as Nightwing right now. Wearing this....being this person....it's what I'm most comfortable doing. Being Batman is a duty, being Dick Grayson just means I'm...tired.”

“I'd have thought you'd want to be Dick most of all. To switch off, like.” The vampire raised an eyebrow at him.

“Ah, but Dick Grayson's gotta deal with Wayne Enterprises. Dick's gotta deal with finding out all the stuff Bruce kept from him....from me...all these years. Dick's the one that has to deal with the logistics...and the pain.” Nightwing sighed heavily and looked out at New York City's lights, not nearly as glorious as the skies above, but entrancing in their own way. “And, after all, Dick's the one who lost his parents so young.”

Dagon's second eyebrow joined the first. This was a problem he didn't have; he had been a normal person, and then he had become a vampire. In both his old life and his new one, he had only one identity to deal with at a time. But he had noticed how each of the others, to varying degrees (Dick the most and Raven the least), effected a sort of.....deliberately induced schizophrenia. He understood the necessity, but that was not to say that he thought it was the healthiest thing in the world.

“Perhaps the split personality thing has it's own cost,” the vampire suggested.

Nightwing nodded. “Oh, no doubt.”

“It seems that your Robin handled that mission to Zandia fairly well,” Dagon said, trying to change the subject.

Nightwing's mouth thinned into a line. “Yes, he did. And really, he couldn't have just stayed here while the rest of you went. But all the same I'd like to have a long talk with Roy about the fact that he brought that mission to the Titans at all. Especially when I wasn't around.”

Whatever Dagon might have said at that point was interrupted by vibration underneath, in the walls of the tower itself. They could dimly hear the sound that went with it; a deep gonging. They looked at each other.

“The proximity alarm!” Nightwing rolled away from the edge and came to his feet.



Tara swore and gulped down the last of her tea as the alarm resonated into her skull and around the room.

Gar sat up in bed and blinked. “You gotta be kiddin me,” he complained.

“No such luck,” she snapped, throwing off her nightgown and grabbing her costume where she'd tossed it on the floor before bed. “Time to kick some butt.”



She was young. Her hair was naturally white and flowing. Seeing it made Deathsroke's heart ache.

Oh yes, he had a heart. It was quiet, shriveled, and very selective thing, but he had one. And fighting this girl was something he did not want to do.

If only that fool girl Markov had accepted his offer, this would not be necessary. He brushed the thought away. Losing focus on the moment was a dangerous mistake.

The girl was skilled with the quarterstaff, and she anticipated most of his movements. Precognition was one of her gifts. He spent the first few minutes blocking her strikes with his sword, and when he finally was able to counter thrust, she either parried or spun away.

The second time she spun away he pulled one of his hand guns and fired. She began to crouch even as he pulled the trigger; the bullet went high and wide, burying itself into the brick wall of a house. It wasn't an armor-piercing round, so there would be no civilian deaths to further outrage the Titans.

He would, of course, have to face them; the girl was maneuvering him towards the Tower, exactly as he had expected she would.

He unleashed a high kick. She not only dodged the blow, she whacked him in the knee with her staff, an attempt to break his leg. His defenses held, and he would have healed quickly anyway, but he had to admire her tactics.

The main difficulty in fighting was not so much the location—urban combat areas were nothing new to him, and he was vastly more experienced than her—it was the time. Night ops were also nothing new; but these were the small hours of the morning. The occasional lighting—especially in a big city like New York—from someone up late or getting up early made night vision goggles worse than useless.

But, again he had the edge in experience. Deliberately, he allowed her to get two strikes in on his chest. Her eyes widened as he kept coming. But to her credit she deliberately fell on her back and lashed out at him with her feet. He staggered back, but as she nipped up, she again retreated towards the Tower, refusing to be lured away.

“You have a grasp of tactics,” he conceded. “But I know what you're trying to do.”

“Doesn't matter,” she shot back.

“We'll see,” he answered. He allowed her to dictate the direction and flow of the combat, for bringing the Titans into this was part of his plan anyway. But even so, he admired her determination, her spirit, and her intensity.

She was, indeed, worthy.



Kid Flash, of course, got there first. Nightwing and Dagon followed immediately behind.

They saw Deathstroke fighting a young girl with white hair. Clearly Deathstroke was serious about this battle, but the girl was holding her own. He pulled a gun but she knocked it away with her quarterstaff, then jabbed it into his chest. His body armor held. But then she was distracted by the arrival of the Titans, and he kicked her away.

“What are you doing here,” Nightwing demanded, “And what are you up to this time, fighting an innocent girl?”

Before Deathstroke could answer, Kid Flash blurred in, and hammered Deathstroke with a super speed flurry of punches. The world-class assassin staggered back, absorbing the hits, then slashed outwards with his blade at just the right moment.

Kid Flash went down, holding the gash in his side, grimacing. His metabolism would heal him quickly, but it gave Deathstroke the time to face the others.

“As usual,” Deathstroke answered, “You have no idea of what's going on,” Deathstroke countered as he blocked several blows from Nightwing. “But....you're tired, aren't you, vigilante? Things not going well for you?” While not entirely certain what Nightwing's trouble was, Deathstroke had some idea that things were not going well in Gotham.

“Shut. UP!” Nightwing scored a solid punch in Deathstroke's masked face and was rewarded by hearing his nose crunch. Deathstroke responded with a straight kick that sent him sprawling.

The grounded erupted. “Hey you one-eyed loser!” Terra screamed in rage. “Remember me!? I told them all about your little offer!”

Deathstroke back flipped away from Terra as Kid Flash struggled to his feet. “Of course you did. I anticipated as much when you made the mistake of rejecting me.”

“The only mistake is y-” Terra began, but Deathstroke flipped a capsule at her, which blasted her in the face with some kind of powder and she fell, choking and spluttering. Beast Boy caught her, his face frantic. The changeling's own attack had been negated by his concern for his lover, as Deathstroke had anticipated.

Dagon leapt onto Deathstroke, his fangs seeking the mercenary's throat. “Wonder how you taste,” the vampire said.

“You're not going to find out today, leech,” Deathstroke responded, and tazered the vampire, who fell in a heap.

Flash came in again. As both super speed fists connected with Deathstroke's head, the mercenary's left fist impacted with the speedster's solar plexus, and his right foot flew up into Kid Flash's groin. The speedster went down again, but he would heal quickly once more, just as Deathstroke was healing from Kid Flash's strikes to his face.

The white-haired girl was there again, jabbing her staff into his face, aiming for his remaining eye. “Not today, daddy!” she screamed. “Not this time and not ever again!”

Nightwing and Beast Boy whirled and stared at her. “Did you just call him....?” Nightwing began.

“You always lacked potential, Rose,” Deathstroke answered. “Too much time spent with your mother, I suspect.” He gave a harsh, unhappy laugh. “But then, I still can't believe she actually wanted to pretend that Deadshot--”

“Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!!!” Rose screamed, and smacked him in the face with her staff... hard.

He reeled back, dropping his sword and pulling two guns. Kid Flash was getting up and now...

...now Cyborg, Wonder Girl, Starfire and Raven had arrived.

Raven teleported in. He fired, but her soul self absorbed the bullet. So he pistol-whipped her across the face, and she stumbled back. She crumpled into Kid Flash's arms, and that dealt with that trouble for a while. He'd be too busy mooning over her to fight. Not the first time in this fight he'd used that particular tactic; the Titans' very interdependency, which they prided themselves on, was in fact a weakness he was only too happy to exploit.

But now Cyborg was blasting away at Deathstroke with his white noise cannon. Deathstroke flipped away, and also away from Starfire's energy blasts from on high. But sooner or later one of them would get to him. He raised his guns and aimed at Starfire....

....and that's when Wonder Girl came in and punted him like a football.

Deathstroke went flying up and over the skyline. He was actually somewhat impressed; not only had Wonder Girl been genuinely angry at him, but also they by now knew how well he could heal from most any injury, so they didn't have to hold back so much. And Wonder Girl had been through a lot lately, by all accounts.

Even so, he was a little worried when he came crashing down into Manhasset bay. He hit the water hard, and was actually stunned for a moment. He knew Wonder Girl—and possibly Starfire and Kid Flash as well—would come looking for him, so as quickly as he could, he swam away. Not straight inland, which was where anyone would expect him to go; but rather around King's Point and on under Throg's Neck Bridge.



The Titans sat Rose down in the main lounge of the Tower. The girl seemed sad and withdrawn. She was thin but wiry; agile and slightly muscular, but it didn't show much. She wore a simple white t shirt and jeans under a black jacket. Starfire brought her a soda.

“Is he really....” Beast Boy began.

“Yeah,” Rose nodded unhappily. “But I spent most of my life with my mom....it wasn't that long ago that dad kidnapped me.”* She laughed bitterly. “I didn't even know he was my dad, until then.”

“Not exactly father of the year material,” Beast Boy murmured, but there wasn't much humor in it.

“So why did he take you, then?” Nightwing asked.

She shivered. “He didn't even know about me. Mom kept me a secret from him. But eventually, he found out. This other guy, Deadshot, was the one who actually took me from mom's house.”

Nightwing's expression grew sour. “I know that name.”

“Yeah? I guess you would....anyway; daddy took him down and then snuck me away so mom couldn't find me. He started...” she lifted her quarterstaff unhappily. “Training me to fight, and stuff. Found out I have like...um...pre....precognition. I can see stuff a few seconds before it happens. Makes it easier for me to fight.”

“What did he want of you?” Raven asked.

“Originally he just wanted me to be his daughter and help him with stuff. But then....well, he tried to bribe one of you guys or something, and it didn't work.”

“Yeah,” Terra said. “Me.”

Rose looked at her a long moment, one pair of blue eyes staring into another. There was a real link of understanding there. “So....after that didn't pan out, he wanted me to infiltrate you guys. Show up and go 'Hi, lookit my powers, can I join you?' and stuff. To do what I guess you wouldn't do.”

“Again?” Nightwing shook his head. “Amazing. I'd expected him to be smarter than to try the same tactic twice. Too obvious.”

“Well it figures his own kid would be a good backup plan, ya know?” Terra mused, frowning. “Plus, he doesn't have to pay her, like he would have done with me.”

“Why does he need to infiltrate us at all?” Cyborg wondered. “He and my dad helped build this damn place. What more inside info does he need that he didn't already get from that?”

“Daddy helped build your tower?” Rose frowned.

“Yeah, he's a crazy strategist like that.” Cyborg laughed, but it was not a happy sound.

“Well, anyhow. I told him I wouldn't do it. We started to fight, and then I ran....all the way here. He's got a couple safe houses in New York, so it wasn't that far.” She sighed. “I guess you'll want me outta here now. Can't have me around, I'm a liability, and all that. After all, me being here is what my dad wanted.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Should we take her to the cops?” Kid Flash asked uncertainly.

“No way we hand her over to Checkmate, Speedy or no Speedy,” Beast Boy chimed in.

“Speedy isn't exactly in my good graces right now anyway,” Nightwing added darkly. “Regardless of what he's doing in San Francisco, or perhaps because of it. Besides, this presents us with a unique opportunity. Deathstroke wanted to use his own daughter against us; I see no reason to turn that around and use it against him. But the choice, ultimately, is yours,” he turned to Rose.

She shrugged uncomfortably. “I dunno if I'm cut out for the hero gig. And I'm not sure you'd want me here, really.”

“If you want to leave, that is of course your choice,” Nightwing nodded graciously. “If you would at least tell us something of your father before you go?”

“Oh sure, I can tell you whatever you need to know about him,” she agreed. She took a deep breath. “His name is Slade Wilson...”

*Rogue's Gallery # 2



After Rose told the Titans some significant information about her father, Nightwing took the others away for a moment and they held some sort of private conference. When they came back, Rose was completely unsurprised that they once again asked her if she would at least stay for a few days, to protect her from her father and try to find long-term accommodations for her elsewhere....and, yes, as a trial run as a Titan, if she would consider it. The vote, they told her, was unanimous.

She told them she would think about it...but at least would stay in the Tower tonight, if nothing else. Pleased with her decision, they promised her that she would train with them tomorrow, if she stayed after breakfast.

Now she sat in the spare rooms they had given her, a nice little apartment with all the trimmings, and smiled to herself in the dark.

It had all gone exactly as her father had told her it would.

It wasn't exactly a Machiavellian ploy, but very close to one. The most effective lie is one so close to the truth that the truth could hide in its shadow.

It had all been carefully orchestrated, and gone exactly to plan. In retrospect, father said, he probably should have given her this task to begin with, rather than trying to buy the Markov girl's loyalty. But he had wanted, he said, to spare her this charge.

She had assured him she was more than ready, and he had smiled a little. It always did her good to see her father smile.

But, he had added, the Markov girl, the dark magic child, and the vampire might all yet come around. If Rose could win over any of them, without coming out and revealing her true intentions, so much the better.

Rose wasn't too sure about that, but she promised her dad that she would do everything she could to help take these stupid Titans down. Ever since he had rescued her from both Deadshot and her lame old life with mom, she had been grateful to him. Oh, she had been a little scared, at first. But life with dad had been so much more fun! He let her do what she wanted, so long as she took care of herself and followed his training courses, which enabled her to kick butt. Mom never let her do anything like that. Sure, she was into dangerous stuff, but she never let Rose play those games.

They had trained and rehearsed that fight for weeks, but still they couldn't actually go ahead with it until he found a way to protect her. Eventually, he had.

She reached into her shirt and fingered the Amulet of Sutekh that hung on a chain around her neck. It was an ancient defensive magical ward; daddy had to go into Egypt to find it, and getting it had not been easy, he had said. But it would protect her from Raven probing her thoughts, or Wonder Girl's lasso. And it would also protect her from any magical attacks from enemies the Titans might face while she was amongst them.

Her smile grew wider. They had totally fallen for it. They didn't suspect a thing.....

...and they would have no clue, until it was far too late.

Continued...


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