Peter awakened one morning to the sound of a loud horn blaring in his ears. He shot upright and immediately fell to his floor with screaming thud. He winced in pain as the sound stopped and looked up to see Cyborg and Robin standing over him with nobody else in his room.
Not even Raven
"What the hell, man?!" Peter groaned as he sat up on the floor, his blanket still draped over his lap.
"It's called a wake up call!" Cyborg grinned holding up an air horn in one hand. "We waited for Raven to leave, of course, but today is your first day of Robin training!"
Peter raised an eyebrow at that with a confused grin and looked at Robin who rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Robin training?" He asked.
"No." Robin replied with a shake of the head. "You're not training to be Robin." He chuckled in amusement. "But you DID say you wanted to start taking your training more seriously. The first part is waking up early." He waved Peter to them as they backed towards the door. "Get up."
Peter let out a long yawn and slowly picked himself off the floor. "Okay. Let me just grab a cup of-"
"Today..." Robin cut him off and folded his arms with a serious smirk. "Training will be your coffee. Come on."
Peter groaned at that and pulled out a pair of black training shorts he wore during his work outs. As the two other Titans watched him turn around, Cyborg's jaw hung open with shock.
"Yo, bro!" He exclaimed.
Peter quickly turned around with confusion and Robin shook his head, holding in his laughter. "What?" He replied.
Cyborg pointed to him, still in shock. "What the hell happened to your back?!"
A slight chuckle escaped Robin's lips, but he maintained his restraint. Peter looked over his shoulder to see the long red scratch marks running down his back from his previous night with Raven. His eyes widened and his face immediately flushed beet red.
"Oh! Uhm... It was uhm... Ya know." He stammered, struggling to figure out an explanation. "Those... Things we fought?"
Cyborg raised an eyebrow even more confused. "What the heck are you talking about?"
Robin was on the verge of bursting into laughter, so he immediately broke the conversation up and stepped between the two.
"Alright alright." Robin waved them both out of the room. "We're wasting daylight hours, here. Training room. Pronto." He ordered.
Peter internally breathed a sigh of relief and followed the two of them to the lower levels of the tower, where a large mat had been rolled out across the middle of the floor in the training room. After stepping inside, Robin walked over to a nearby table and promptly removed his cape and utility belt. He turned back to Peter, wielding a large colorful staff that looked like it was made of soft foam material, twirling it in hand with a daring look on his face.
"So your training is obviously gonna be a lot different from mine." Robin explained. "Needless to say, you're conditioned PLENTY."
"Aw, come on, Robin!" Cyborg replied. "Don't tell him that, he can still go WAY further. I wanna see how strong we can make him."
Peter chuckled at that and he and Robin shook their heads in amusement. "Not today." Robin replied. "Proper fighting technique and defense is where he needs the most help." He shrugged. "That and battle IQ."
Peter scoffed at that. "My IQ is higher than YOURS, bird boy."
"Ooh!" Cyborg chuckled. "He got you there, Robin!"
"Battle IQ is different." Robin explained. "You can be the smartest man in the world and still not know what to do on the battlefield."
"That's pretty much how Slade's lasted this long, isn't it?" Peter shrugged.
Robin nodded at that. "Among other things, but yes. And if we're gonna take him down, we need to ALL be ready for him."
Peter nodded at that, then flashed him a smirk. "So I take it, Beastboy is next?"
Cyborg laughed aloud at that. "That boy DOES get thrown around a lot. Not a bad idea."
"Just you, for now." Robin shook his head. "Batman thinks you have... Potential."
Peter's eyes widened with surprise. "He does? Even after he beat my ass like that?"
"You got electrocuted into submission." Robin shook his head. "You honestly landed more hits than he did. He just out-smarted you. Like I said, battle IQ."
"We just gotta figure out how to give you an actual challenge." Robin shrugged
"Without you cheating with that sense of yours." Cyborg snickered.
Peter furrowed his brows at that. "Spider Sense isn't cheating..." He looked to Robin. "Is it?"
Robin shrugged at that. "It kind of is." He replied, then held up a small yellow tennis ball. "Which is why you'll be dodging these instead." He shrugged. "Normally we'd use something a bit more dangerous, but evidently that just makes things easier for you."
The boy wonder handed the ball to Cyborg, who loaded the tennis ball into his arm cannon, that attached to a hose that led to a large bin, presumably filled with even more.
"You guys are making me look like a total whimp with the equipment you're using." Peter chuckled as he backed onto the mat.
"I need to be able to teach you proper form and you actually have to pay attention." Robin explained as he took his spot on the other side of Peter. Cyborg stood on the outside of the mat, readying his tennis ball cannon. "I'm gonna show you proper defense and I want you to stand your ground. Don't let us move you from your position."
"That means no dodging." Cyborg smirked, taking aim at Peter
"But that's what I'm best at." Peter replied with a shrug.
"We know." Robin nodded, "but based on personal experience, acrobatics has a way of draining your energy fast. So imagine how long you could go if you conserved your energy."
Peter looked off for a moment and did a rough calculation in his head, before looking back to the others with a shrug. "I don't know. Like ten hours or so?"
"That was a retorical question." Robin chuckled with a shake of the head, before twirling the staff in his hand. "Okay. Ready?!" Peter immediately readied himself with his fists up. "Begin!" The boy wonder shouted.
Robin immediately swung for Peter's head, which he immediately leaned back to dodge, before taking a tennis ball to the side of the head.
"Deflect the attacks with your forearms." Robin instructed.
"I can't see his attacks from that angle." Peter argued.
"Shouldn't be a problem." Robin replied with a smirk, before twirling his staff again and lunging forward to strike.
Peter raised his arms and deflected each attack, before hearing the sound of Cyborg's cannon again as he hurled several more tennis balls his way. Peter then pushed Robin back several feet, before deflecting one of the projectiles, before ducking the other two. Robin charged in again, twirling and striking at Peter even faster this time. Peter raised his fists to deflect the attacks, before catching a blow to the side of the head.
"No spider sense this time!" Cyborg snickered, before firing at Peter again, while Robin continued his advance. "Better start paying attention!"
Peter deflected two more strikes from Robin, before pulling the boy wonder to the side, causing him to take the barrage of projectiles to his back.
"Good." Robin nodded. "Again!" Then he looked to Cyborg. "This time hit him from all different angles... And don't hold back."
The three of them continued their training like that for a few more hours the same way. Peter would do his best to defend against Robin's attacks, but because of how safe and simple the training was, his spider sense ended up being of no use to him whatsoever. This brought a strong sense of unease to him, making him feel more vulnerable than ever.
Even with his tingle working perfectly, it could still be out maneuvered by people like Batman and even his fellow team mates it seemed. By the time the sparring session was over, Peter had taken far more hits than he had actually deflected, leaving him feeling defeated, yet invigorated to learn more. Robin took him aside afterwards, showing him step by step methods of not only proper defense, but also proper offensive form. This much came easy to him, but it wasn't enough for Peter. Even after five hours of training, Peter felt like he had gotten nowhere.
"Okay." Robin nodded with a smirk as Peter slowly lifted his leg and stuck it out with great focus, before repeating the cycle over and over again. "That's good enough for today."
Peter groaned at that. "I only blocked twelve attacks." He replied, causing the leader of the Titans to chuckle in amusement. "I KNOW, I counted."
"That's okay." Robin chuckled with a shake of the head. "Believe it or not that's a good thing."
Peter furrowed his brows at that in confusion as the boy wonder put his cape and belt back on. "It IS?!"
Robin nodded. "Yeah. Failure is the best teacher." He explained with a shrug. "If you're struggling, that means I'm doing my job."
Peter nodded his head at that. "Yeah I guess you're right."
"Ooh! I'm so excited to be training Spidey!" Cyborg said with excitement as they walked out of the training room and headed towards the elevator. "I feel like a mad scientist creating a MONSTER!"
"If we do it right." Robin chuckled as the elevator started to rise.
"So is training gonna be like this every day?" Peter asked.
Robin shook his head at that. "I want you practicing proper form on your own time. During training we're gonna work on implementing what you learn and change it up whenever it gets too easy."
"Gonna take some CREATIVE ass thinking, I'll tell you that right now." Cyborg chuckled. "AND you'll be working with ME too." He grinned proudly. "Gonna work on getting that max weight up."
Peter's brows furrowed at that. "Max weight?"
"The maximum amount of weight you can lift." Robin informed. "It's sort of his thing."
"If you can lift one-twenty-seven tons NOW. And you've NEVER done weight training?" He replied before letting out a mischievous chuckle. "Shiiit! Imagine how much I can GET you to lift."
Peter's eyes widened at that and he bobbed his head. "Wow, I never even thought about that."
The elevator opened and Cyborg was the first to exit. "I don't know about y'all, but I'm hella hungry!" And he immediately beelined across the living room to the kitchen.
Robin patted Peter on the back. "Good work today."
"Thanks." Peter replied with a sheepish grin. "And thanks again for training me, this is AWESOME."
Robin smirked and gave him a nod. "Not a problem at all." He replied as he started into the living room, before looking over his shoulder at Peter with a knowing grin. "I'll let you go collect some more scratches, now."
Peter's face reddened at that and he pointed back at Robin as he walked down the steps. "I have NO idea what you're talking about, for the record."
"Yeah, that's REAL convincing!" Robin called back and waved over his shoulder.
Peter chuckled and shook his head before turning and heading straight for his room to change out of his training shorts. He pulled out a pair of grey sweatpants and a black band T-shirt and was half way through putting it on, before he heard his door open behind him.
He looked over his shoulder and grinned with delight to see Raven standing there with her arms folded.
"Hey, Rae." He chimed as he pulled his shirt on the rest of the way. "What's up?"
She shrugged her shoulders at that. "I was just reading and I heard you come in." She replied, floating over to his bed before sitting down at the end with one leg over the other. "How'd Robin training go?" She asked with a sarcastic smirk.
Peter chuckled at that. "You know, you're the SECOND person to call it that today." He replied. "But it went okay... ish." He shrugged. "I mean I took a lot of hits, but Robin says that's a good thing. Plus it's probably best if I don't NEED my Spider Sense, you know?"
Raven nodded her head at that. "Makes sense."
Peter then paused and looked at her with a guilty stare. "Also..."
Raven noted his look and peered suspiciously back at him. "What?"
"Robin kinda... Noticed the marks." He pointed over his shoulder. "You know... My back?... So, he knows."
Raven groaned and rolled her eyes at that. "Ugh! Really?"
"J-Just him though." Peter stammered, trying to be reassuring. "Cyborg didn't seem like he caught on."
"Nice going." She groaned.
Peter chuckled with a wide amused grin after that. "Hey! That was you!" He replied teasingly. "Little miss cat scratch fever."
"I guess I'll just have to stop, then." She replied nonchalantly, leaning back on his bed.
Peter immediately bolted over to his bed and sat down next to her. "Woah! Hey hey hey!" He said with a wide grin. "Let's not be too hasty now."
Raven nodded. "Now that's what I thought." She replied, gaining a chuckle from him, before they both met in a passionate kiss that slowly lied them down into his bed.