Chapter 4: New

Keith's hearing was the first sense that returned to him, being his default setting. He silently groaned, his speech diengaged and therefore imposing silence upon it. He slowly sat up from the hospital bed he was laid on, expecting the painful pops and snaps that he'd lived with for more than half of his 23-year lifespan. Instead, he recieved no sound, and he felt physically healthier than he'd ever been. He heard a grunt off to the side and his head snapped in that direction, recognizing the heartbeat he was now aware of. "Bruce. How are the pretty bats? I think one of them likes me. I miss Mr. Pinkleton the bat." He made a snarky smirk before he slowly attempted to roll himself off the hospital bed.

Bruce promptly pressed his hand into Keith's chest. "We need to talk." Keith currently had on a shirt and shorts that Robin loaned for him. Keith was a skinny fuck, so even Tim's clothes were big on him.

Keith went silent for a moment before he spoke back up. "Before shit went to hell last night, I had decided to take the deal. Though, given the absence of Rice Krispies when I sat up, I assume it was already dealt with. I'll still honor the deal as best as I can." Keith swallowed, knowing full well that a day would likely come where he would fail and violate said deal.

Batman nodded gruffly. "That's good to hear. But you should know what was put into you." He proceeded to call in the other members of the Justice League who had aided in the magic compounds. Keith felt slightly nervous at meeting such big players, but he swallowed the nerves and stood to shake their hands.

"I suppose thanks are in order. Thank you for getting me back in ah...living shape I guess." When Keith initially stood up, he felt something...off...about his left leg. He looked down and to the others with a raised eyebrow.

It was then explained to him about the full procedure. His left leg was all made of the compound, too shattered by Blackfire to be salvaged. He nodded to it all, accepting it at face value. It was good to know, but as long as he could still fight, he didn't much care. He did, however, sense a strange aura coming from Dr. Fate, as if Fate was currently feeling some form of repressed pity. Keith ran through, in his head, who was present during the procedure and mentally put a mark on Fate to keep him quiet about anything he knew abour Keith's scars.

~~~

About 3 hours later, after a quick bite to eat, Keith was back in his body suit and moving better than he ever thought possible. Once he was up, he left the med bay to be greeted by Batman and Robin both being in the lobby. Batman nodded and left, leaving Keith with the Titans.

Robin proceeded to challenge Keith to a real rematch from 2 nights before, and Keith grinned at him, his red blindfold facepaint reapplied with a spare tube that The Flash nabbed for him.

Robin was the first to charge from his side of the training room. He ran at Keith with his staff prepped to strike, only for Keith to leap into a much more powerful somersault than Keith had ever done, landing directly behind Robin and using his momentum to swing his staff into Robin's back. Keith heard and felt a satisfying crunch under his strike, sending Robin tumbling away. Robin stood back up and held his back for a second. "You're one helluva chiropractor."

They both ran back at each other, trading staff strikes back and forth, until Keith let the end of his staff round off over Robin's to snake into Robin's left hand and loosen his grip on his staff. Keith threw his weight the other direction as a counterweight, sending Robin's staff flying out of his hands to clatter some 10 feet away. Keith followed through throwing his weight and spun around Robin, bringing his staff to a halt midswing a hairsbreadth away from Robin's head. Keith grinned. "I win again, laddie." He withdrew his staff, leaning on it as a cane again.

Robin rose an eyebrow. "Who are you calling laddie? That's the equivalent of calling me a kid, right?"

Keith chuckled. "Basically. It's an umbrella word really." He paused. "Kid." What followed was a brief joking argument, which concluded with Keith revealing his age. "I can call you a kid if I want, I'm 25. You're a fetus 19 year-old."

This gave Robin and the rest of the titans pause for a moment. He really did have more experience. Keith rather quickly gathered what information he could about the titans without being nosy: Robin was 19 and had a hopelessly obvious crush on Starfire, which appeared to be mutual between the two, but they were taking it slow. Starfire, though an alien, appeared to be the same age as Robin. Raven was roughly 23, making her the oldest of them. Beast Boy was 19, and Cyborg was 21. (Cyborg = Drinking Buddy)

Keith quickly sorted out his own sleeping area, fashioning a hammock made out of a spare blanket affixed to his staff. He wedged one of Robin's practice staffs between a couple things so the hammock didn't move and called it a day.

He figured he wasn't really allowed out on his usual nightly shtick, so he spent literally all night testing what his new skeleton allowed him to do that he didn't used to be able to do. What he found out was major-league game-changing.

First off, his left leg was entirely made up of that new material they used for his bones, and it hits particularly hard, putting a dent in the Titans' training room that even Cyborg and Beast Boy hadn't broken yet. He began a series of staff attacks, listening to the air currents he created, and mentally made a guesstimate that his staff swings, not pulled back at all, were 10 times heavier swings than he ever used to be able to muster. He tested a few parkour-based things and acrobatics type shit, and found that moving wrong didn't hurt anymore. Instead, he had perfect freedom of movement and he wasn't hurting himself by just jumping anymore. In fact, he was more bouncy on his feet than he believed any human had a right to be. He grinned to himself and turned in for the night, actually like 4am now, and found a bathroom to shower in.

As always, he looked in the mirror afterward and shivered under his own gaze again, disturbed by the rage and trauma that he saw behind his own facade. He shook his head and put on his long sleeve shirt, his black sweatpants already on. He turned off the bathroom light and turned around, only to be met by the horrified expression of Raven, apparently headed for a shower of her own.

If it's possible, Keith went even paler than his pale Irish ass already was, realizing she had probably seen his back. He instinctively snatched a towel to cover his face but he remembered that Raven already knew who he was. His sight turned off and he immediately began the quiet plead for her to not ask questions.

"Blindside, I've seen some fucked up shit. That takes the cake. What happ-" Keith mentally said fuck it and cut her off.

"My back is fine. There is no need to question what you saw." He poured some charmspeak into it, satisfied when Raven's eyes went blank for the briefest of seconds before she shrugged.

"Guess it doesn't really matter. Good morning anyway." Keith quickly left her to her own devices, retreating to his hammock in a small room at the end of the hall, contemplating how he would continue to hide his scars and his PTSD that he was sure would flare up occasionally while he stayed here.

His pain was his pain alone. No one else needed to know.