t h e f t & p a r a n o i a[Open]

It had been just another boring day at work.

He had spent the past several hours scrubbing up after families with noisy, obnoxious children ran through the diner. He had washed the floor a couple of times. He had even refilled every single pop dispenser at least three times, making the jobs of the countless waiter and waitresses easier. He didn't make tips, he never came in contact with people who had the pleasure of eating dinner at his place of employment, but the money he did make was what he needed. It was a tedious, repetitive job, but it was difficult for him to come in contact with the cash he needed to pay the rent.

Griffin had taken the elevator to the floor his apartment sat on, unimpressed as it climbed in levels. He shuffled off, carrying the half-apron he was required to wear over top of his white button-down shirt and black pants, and made his way down the hallway. There were three other flats on his floor, three groups of young adults who didn't have enough money saved up to stay at any nicer places. He only came in contact with them enough to know their names and what he could get from them. After all, the people who lived in the apartment next to him rarely had cooking supplies, while the people who lived across from him always had a stocked pantry.

He paused at his door, noticing scratch marks in the wood. Had those always been there? He didn't think so, or if they had, they had appeared recently. He placed his key in the doorknob and quickly allowed himself in. He crossed the hallway in the dark, setting his apron down on the front counter of the kitchen before moving his hand to turn on the lights. He turned around, only to freeze, his eyes wide. He stared in disbelief for a long while, before frantically jogging into the living room space.

"Oh, shit, no," he whispered to himself. The tidy apartment he had left that morning was a mess. The pictures he had placed on the coffee table had been knocked off, glass splattering the ground. An armchair was pushed over. The drawers to his desk were pulled out, their contents splayed across the ground. The window was open, suggesting that someone had gotten in or out through it. He continued to roam around his apartment, finding mess everywhere, as if somebody had been searching through his entire home for something.

And then he found what they had been looking for.

In the furthest room from the door, a box had pried out from under his bed. The box now lay empty, newspaper clippings and other various objects on the sheets. So what was missing? He ran his fingers through the possessions, trying to determine what was gone. His eyes widened once again when he realized what had been taken. The keys to a car with a custom paint job that he had recently gotten back from another transformation, the car he had used for transportation when he was with the Titans. It had been other colors, but was now maroon and yellow, like the costume he had stashed in his closet. The other object was his old communicator. He hadn't used it in two years, and if somebody could break the password he had placed on it, he was certain the current Titan frequency could be reached.

He sunk down to the floor, shaking his head. This couldn't have happened to him. Who possibly knew who he was or where he lived? He hadn't been doing anything serious in two years. He leaned his head back against the wall, sighing, his eyes closed. What was he going to do? Somebody obviously knew who he was and where he lived, somebody who was willing to go through his stuff and take artifacts of his past. He had remained sitting for several minutes before sighing again and making his decision. He had quickly changed into the maroon and yellow outfit hidden beneath layers in his closet, pulled on a black wool jacket, and walked out the apartment with his keys.

Half an hour later, he was standing beneath Titan Tower. He reached out a hand to press the "call" button next to the main doors. As the machine beeped to tell him that it was listening, he leaned forward and spoke.

"Athena, I think you guys are in trouble."

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

Shift had been...suprised by Griffin's sudden appearance -at the Tower. That, and his voice yelping from the wireless headphones she wore straight into her sensitive eardrums. Gasping in pain and simutaneously trying to muffle the sound, she dailed the sound down a few noches and answered, teeth gritted together. "No need to shout, Griffin. And why are we in trouble?"

The shape shifter tabbed through the security cameras - an easy task, since she sat in the living room of the Titans' Tower, on the raised portion of the large room that was where the general camera and speakers linked to. Anything more complicated than that, and she wasn't allowed near it. Blow up one toaster...!

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Griffin bit his lip. How was he going to explain his sudden appearance? Sure, there were tons of strange requests, but this was a bit different. He hadn't been around here in ages, no matter who he communicated with sometimes. "My apartment was broken into. They took the old communicator I snuck out. It's password protected, but if they knew that I had it and where I lived, they could probably figure it out." He paused and took a breath before continuing. She probably had figured out where he was going with the conversation, but he explained the connection anyways. "If they can get to it, they could probably find the frequency you guys are in. Then they'd be able to hear anything you guys talked about."

He crossed his arms, sighing for a moment. He shook his head and smiled grimly. His voice lowers apologetically. "Sorry for yelling. It's been... a while." Two years? Yeah, that was it. He'd caught the drift of the Titans after the entire business with Rena had gone down, and he had been planning leaving for a while. There was no purpose being a Titan when you were a legal adult, now was there? He glanced in the direction of where he thought the camera were still located, wondering if he looked as frazzled as he was. He felt slightly embarrassed to have his maroon and yellow mix on, but it made him feel more powerful, like he hadn't just gotten home from some dead-end job. That, and the material was the easiest to morph with.

His brow creased.

"You guys haven't been sprouting tons of new archenemies, have you? Well, intelligent ones who are willing to go through public records, at least."

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

The short haired female sighed, and clicked a few buttons; one unlocked the doors that Griffin was standing in front of. She wasn't surprised that Griffin had taken the communicator - hell, she'd known about it, and ignored it. At the time, it hadn't seemed like a big deal; she didn't like him, but he was trustworthy nevertheless. And it would be good to have a surefire contact to some outside help, if things got tough enough to call for some reinforcements.

"I unlocked the door.", she stated through the connection. "You remember the way up to the living room?" The Titan leader paused, sorting through the memories that her maroon and yellow clad old teammate had made pop out again. Most of them, with time, were now mediocre; not horrible, not wonderful, just...plain. Stale. That happened when you didn't see someone for a couple of years, she supposed, without any defining moments to keep you connected. Griffin had always had a way of sliding into her subconsious when out of sight; probably a defence measure from when he was on the team way back when, so she wouldn't blow a gasket thinking about all his little quips and penanche for disobeying orders.

"And we haven't had any enemy tech wizards like that that I can think of..." Shift trailed off, one gloveless hand gripping the armrest of her chair so hard her knuckles turned pale green. 'Nero.' The thought bounced around her head, ringing with unpleasant implications. 'No. He wouldn't. Not just because the two of us have fallen apart...', Athena told herself firmly. Her older brother, whatever his other shortcomings, wasn't petty. And why would he gyp something from Griffin, anyway, instead of one of the other ex-Titans, or an honorary one?

Questions, questions and more questions. The shape shifter sighed, running a hand through her short hair. Waiting for Griffin to find his way up to the living room of the Tower - or answer, whichever - had her wondering what he would think of her now. When he had left her hair had been longer, about to her shoulders, and only the green girls' ears had been peirced. A radical change from the way she was now, hair cropped close and eyebrows, lip and nose all peirced.

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"Mhmm, pretty sure," he mumbled back as he took a step forward. Even though he missed his days as a hero, he greatly disliked this being the reason for him to come back. He didn't want to be the one to keep popping up right when everybody had forgotten about him, even though he didn't really mind being in the Tower once again. After all, who wants to tell your former teammates that they could be in trouble because of something you did years ago? He never was one to admit his faults, but this just seemed to push that in his face. He scowled to himself as he shuffled inside and took the first turn.

The hallways seemed slightly different, but that was probably due to several things. A lot could change in two years, especially when the bedrooms were going to different Titans all the time. With the amount of new heroes popping up on the television every few days, he wasn't surprised that things weren't exactly like his memory. He even passed his old room, though he got the feeling it was being used for storage. Or some lazy Titan had taken residence in the, he wasn't sure about that. He finally made his way to the living room.

Griffin stopped for a moment before his running shoes carried him across the floor, the maroon and yellow constrasting with most of the black in his outfit. He tugged at the pair of loose goggles that hung around his neck, the childish impression from moments ago gone for the most part. He frowned slightly as he stepped up next to Shift. He nodded before finally getting a glance of his former leader.

"You've changed."

Not that he was one to talk. He had been clean-shaven when he'd been a teenager. He wasn’t really any taller, but he was leaner, his arms knotted with thin muscles. His hair had been longer, he was positive, despite the fact that it was now shaggy. Still, her hair was practically gone, and several more metal accessories dotted her face. He had known about the hair from the newspapers, but it had never really sunk in. In fact, it had probably absorbed into his mind about as much as having a normal life had after two years. And that was certainly something that hadn’t quite occurred.

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

Shift took a long look at Griffin, then raised an eyebrow when he stated the very obvious. In return, she did the same - standing up and pushing her chair back a little before doing so. "So have you." She paused, raised eyebrow lowering when the Titan noticed his beard thing going on and had to try and not giggle. Still, amusement laced the shape shifters' voice. "Nice peach fuzz, too."

Reaching up, Shift took the earpeice that had nearly deafened her earlier out and put it on the table. Well, what little there was of the table that wasn't covered in paper and little gadgets, not to mention the near-empty salad container shoved to the upper right edge. It looked, to all intents and purposes, as if some of the collasal mess from Athena's room had spilled over into her temporary workplace, including an old handheld gaming system; so simple she would actually have to try to break it, to break it.

Her eyes drifted back up to her former teammates' after making sure her earpeice wouldn't be covered by any loose papers. Athena felt a seriousness settle of her; something that happened because she wanted to counter-balance Griffin's inherint goofieness. "But why do you think some super powered villian stole it? Couldn't you just have been robbed by some crook?", the Titan leader aksed.

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Griffin shrugged, smiling wryly. Was it that bad? He averted his eyes, taking note of the wide variety of mess around the room. Someone had been working overtime, he thought with a slight nod. He just hoped the salad had been fresh, versus sitting out for several days. He kept that remark down and turned back to her, growing slightly more somber in look.

"I got home, and my stuff was everywhere. Like. Shattered vases and the works. The only things missing were the communicator and the keys to my, erm, other car." His cheeks darkened slightly at the mention of his color-coordinated car. There wasn't really much special about it, besides the numerous compartments to hide stuff, the tinted windows, and bulletproof glass. That last one had cost more than he had hoped. But still, the fact that he even owned it made him feel ridiculous. He shook his head. "The car is gone, I didn't just run out without checking."

"If it was just some punk looking to rob someone, he sure knew what he was looking for. That stuff was in a locked box under my bed. Unless he just decided he would take the car because the keys were there." He paused, frowning slightly. "Which would still leave the communicator." He bit his lip for a moment, thinking about the whole situation. "I thought at first maybe it was someone who did their research because my car was gone, but if it was while I was at work, then they could've been wandering around the parking garage for hours."

Video cameras?

He was certain the parking garage had those.

"I should check up with the security footage," he muttered to himself.

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

Athena nodded as he talked, resting her body to one side, hip jutting out on that same side. Listening, the teenager was surprised to hear that her former teammate had actually thought things through. 'Well, he's never been stupid. Just impulsive.', the shape shifter thought to herself, as Griffins' words painted a picture of his apartment in all of its cordial dissarray.

She also heard his mutter; delicate pointed ears came in handy on occasion. "That might help, yeah. Unless whoever trashed your place is a teleporter or speedster. Or inivisble.", Athena said, as the various people she knew who were teleporters and speedsters flashed through her head. But even if that was the case, they had to have left fingerprints or something.

A thought struck Shift, and she glanced towards the camera screens, then back to her beard-wearing comrade. "Me and my team could help you, if you don't want the police tramping around your space for...whatever reasons.", Athena found herself offering. "I'm crap with anything that's shiny and metal, but I've got a pretty good nose in some of my forms."

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[Deleted]

You haven't told our old friend, the best part yet" A voice came from behind Athena, as Rena stood up from behind the couch. "I'm back" she said with a smile, her dark eyes, not showing emotion like the mask they always were. The pupils and irises one at black, no light reflected from either. Her figure was slim and small, and hadn't exactly gotten taller the last 2 years, still sitting at 5'1" with a petite form and a small chest. Almost as if a breeze could knock her over. Her black hair was shorter now, the bangs tucked behind her ears, and in the back only being an inch at the most. It worked for her, despite it being a strange style to wear hair.

"How've you been Griffin?" she asked, hopping over the couch. Rena, a one time Titan for almost 2 years since she was 13. Leaving at 15 with a gruesome betrayal, which left one titan dead, and the current leader a bit injured, but she had been the one to run from the fight, and after her motor-cycle being found crunched and folded beneath a nervous truck-drivers semi, she was presumed dead, though no body had ever been found.

Rena seemed happy, from the rest of her facial expressions and posture, though not her eyes, as with the weird no reflection of light on the pupils and irises, it showed no hint of emotion, and probably couldn't if she tried.

Serenity smiled as she walk in the room and rolled her eyes at Rena's entrance, "Hey guys." she said and placed a disk on the table in the room, "There's the security tapes." she said with a smile, she had taken about twenty minutes to actually do the hacking because trying to figure out the codes necessary to get it had just really required a username and password. After she'd decided to work through it methodically she just looked for what the first one she'd come across was. After that it was easy to find the right file.

Sorina quickly followed her in. "Did you tell them your theorys?" she asked the blond as she rested next to the couch and then jumped as she noticed that Rena was sitting in the room, "SERENITY!"

"Yes yes yes, I know Sorina, oh Griffin Athena, sorry to say but whoever it is who stole those things hasn't decided what do to with them, so I can't id them." she said with a frustrated sigh. And Sorina gave her one last glare before she remembered what the dove was talking about, "Oh and sorry I'm Serenity." she said with a smile at Griffin.

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