Please, for the love of all that is good in fanfiction, write a review. Even better, make it thoughtful and specific as to why you think as you do. Reviews are the ambrosia with which writers sate the muses. I swear on pain of eating Star Fire's pudding that I will personally respond to every review. Note that I reserve the right to base the thoughtfulness of my response on that of the review.

This chapter was written with the help of AlsoSprachOdin, my beta reader. His timely and thoughtful critique plus his knowledge of various superheroes forced me to maintain a higher standard of quality than I would have alone and to think of every angle from a logical viewpoint. You Titan crazies out there can also thank him for not allowing me to turn this into a Batman novella. ;)

-Just a reminder that the fourth chapter has actually been made into a completely separate fanfiction, Teen Titans VS. Justice League of America.

-While I have knowledge of both jiu jitsu and judo, I have very little experience with martial arts more strike and joint lock oriented. If any of you guys have some working knowledge of the other disciplines (karate, aikido, escrima, savate, etc.), I would greatly appreciate any references or explanations you could give me. What I'm really looking for is to be able to sound semi-competent. Anyone can google up some kung-fu moves. I'd like to be able to use the correct moves for the correct situations.

The heart is a unique set of muscles designed for the sole purpose of maintaining a pressure gradient throughout the body's vascular system. Cardiac muscles are unique in that they have an unusually long refractory period designed to prevent muscular summation. Instead of normal synapses, cardiac muscles possess gap junctions, which use direct physical links instead of chemical synapses. This allows for faster transfers of action potentials and far greater synchronization of muscular firings. There are four layers of the heart. They are, from superficial to deep, the peri-

A red light flashed on, followed shortly by the low pulsing of a warning alarm.

Forcing his thoughts from the comforting drone of recitation, Robin's jaw tightened almost unnoticeably as he took a deep breath through the nostrils. Blinking unseen under the mask, the Boy Wonder got up from his place on the bare steel chair to replace the clear plastic bag suspended on a chrome skeleton.

"Careful now…twist counter-clockwise a quarter turn, break the seal and lift…reinsert the catheter, be careful; if there's an embolism or infection, well, that's all she wrote."

Robin's hands were visible now instead of concealed under a bright green, his standard NOMEX based gloves discarded in favor of a pair of clear vinyl medical gloves, carefully disinfected to prevent phlebitis or worse, a potential septicemia. With carefully exaggerated patience, Robin finished reinserting the catheter into its resting place over the subclavian vein. Within seconds, a fresh supply of blood was rushing through the large bore IV and directly into Beast Boy's heart.

The masked vigilante stood silent witness over his friend, who had lain unconscious now for thirteen hours under Cyborg's care before he had finally had to take time to recharge or risk involuntary shutdown.

Robin's gloved hand absently rested on his friend's brow, his thumb working in circles as if he were giving a massage. He felt had a curious numbness since watching Cyborg perform surgery on Beast Boy. Robin's fingers curled into a fist as if he were contemplating ripping out the IV and all the vital tubing running through his comrade.

Weakling. Insufferable little weakling, always grating at their nerves in some plea for attention. He resisted work at every opportunity, subverted his authority, even though Robin had proven time and again it was all for their own good.

He felt his mouth curving itself into a sneer. All Beast Boy'd had to do was listen to Robin when he'd said to train harder so he wouldn't loose his edge. Heck, even looking at the gym would've been an improvement, but nooo.

"Geeze, you're such a tight-ass Robin."

"Cum'ON Robin, we're not all machines. Some of us have, like, LIVES ya' know? Ever hear of that concept?"

"Oh, give it a rest Bat-head. Can't you see that you're upsetting Star?"

The kid was an idiot. They were all idiots. Why couldn't they see? Always, always they wanted to take things easy, to skip out on training, to…to…

Live. Have some sort of heart. Be exactly what he'd wanted to be when he'd fled Gotham.

The consuming anger fled as suddenly as it came, leaving only cold ashes in his mouth. He'd failed. He'd failed. Oh my God, he'd failed, he'd failed, failed!

Starfire hovered above the streets, raining down starbolts like some killer angel, Cyborg and Raven were mowing down the genetically altered moths left and right. The terrible surge of pride he felt watching them was magnificent.

Spin-turn-thrust-parry-spin-thrust-thrust-parry-lunge-die. Twelve freaks down, hundreds more to go. A good night, everything was falling smoothly into place. He was surprised that Killer Moth was so inept at pla-

Cyborg's inarticulate scream carried over the whole battlefield with ease.

Robin turned around to see Killer Moth standing over Beast Boy's pronated form, hand drawing back and dripping red.

He was running towards Beast Boy. Someone had been screaming…? Oh, yea. Him.

Robin would later find out from Cyborg that the changeling had been flying after several of the rogue mutants when he'd taken a corner wrong and plowed head first into a building and plummeted to the street below. Killer Moth had kindly decided to try and wake Beast Boy up by shoving one of his claws into Beast Boy's abdomen. Cyborg's sonic blast kept him from finishing the job, but that was a small blessing. There wasn't much to finish.

Raven immediately teleported to their fallen comrade's side. His wounds had been terrible. The power transfer briefly knocked Raven into unconsciousness, but it didn't matter. Beast Boy would live.

Yea, he lived now by clinging to the ragged edge of life, his spirit so close to departing that Robin could've sworn that the reason Beast Boy looked so insubstantial wasn't the anesthesia, wasn't the blood loss, but the fact that his soul was already partly detached.

"One good gust of wind and poof."

Robin automatically checked the windows to see that they remained closed. They were closed. His eyes ran back over to the IV bag, examining them one last time to make sure the precious blood was flowing in properly and not going to waste.

Beast Boy's blood was unique and they could only maintain a finite supply. It wouldn't be such a big deal if the neurotoxin that Killer Moth used hadn't caused Beast Boy to go into the transformational equivalent of epilepsy. His body kept morphing in a hundred small ways, reopening the wound and driving his system further into shock.

Cyborg had flooded his body with morphine to inhibit the malfunctioning nervous system, but it drove Beast Boy's already depressed blood pressure so low that that his heart had stopped. As it was, they just had to keep him in near coma and pump him with blood faster then he could bleed it out. His body's natural systems were containing the hemorrhage until Raven recovered enough to restore him to full health, but it had been so, so close.

Robin felt himself becoming sick as he stared down at Beast Boy's broken form. Under the endless white harshness of the operating lights, the shape shifter seemed to deflate before his eyes, the grotesque little cannulae tubes snaking into him made all th-

"Shit. He just…mother f…"

Robin started pacing back and forth, back and forth.

"I tried everything, but it won't work. There's always something. A piece of equipment didn't get the right maintenance, a tactic we haven't rehearsed and, hell, ah, I-I don't, raagghh!"

The snarl had barely ended when images of his teammates dying began flitting randomly through his head. Every time they'd been hurt or there had been an argument, every time he'd failed as a leader, "Why can't I just get things right, why couldn't I just get things to work?"

Robin stopped pacing, his face contorted in anger. They'd start training as soon as Beast Boy recovered, no, that would be too long. Tomorrow, no, that was too soon, it would have to be in three days at the earliest, but by God he would make sure they trained until they were ready to drop dead from exhaustion. Robin didn't care how much they hated him, they would get better, they would improve. They would be alive.

Robin stopped, took a moment and really forced himself to stare down at Beast Boy's washed out face, forced himself to memorize the lifeless expression that had come over his once animated friend, the way the temporary sutures stood out like some obscene knitting job gone horribly wrong. His hand instinctively went to his mouth as if to stop vomit from escaping. Robin found himself wishing he could vomit. Perhaps then the sickening feeling would go away.

"M-my, friend. My teammate, my little brother my, my s-"

Ever since he'd first brought them together, they'd been more than his teammates, so much more. He had listened on those quiet, thoughtful days when his friends had talked about being something of a surrogate family. They thought of each in relation to the other as brothers and sisters and, on occasion, love (or maybe just lust) interests. For him, they were even more special, more precious.

The first time he'd laid eyes on the assembled Titans, he'd felt like driving his head into the wall out of pure frustration. Teaching them sound fighting doctrine and teamwork often seemed like trying to get infants to master non-linear algebra, never mind that his ego was just a big a problem as anything, never mind that they were almost his age or older, sometimes wiser and more mature. Frustration had quickly given way to dedication, dedication to passion and finally to love, even obsession. He looked at them and instinctively thought, "MINE."

Was there anything that he wouldn't do to see them be the best, to know that they would come out alive? He knew the answer already and it disturbed him quietly that he was not, in fact, disturbed at what he would unhesitatingly sacrifice to achieve it. Perhaps he was simply selfish. He would ensure their misery at his own hands so he wouldn't have to feel the pain of losing them.

A mellifluous voice echoed into his head, taunting him with his own naiveté. It laughed at his audacity to have dared believe he could've given better than what was given to him, "Betrayal, destruction, revenge. We really do think alike."

His stare never left Beast Boy's ruined face, "That was vicious, dishonorable and ruthless. Excellent work. You're becoming more like me every second."

No, he would not sell his soul as Slade had done. Perhaps, he admitted quietly, perhaps if one day, all of what he counted dear was taken from him, then he might follow Slade to appease the call of retribution. And it would be a cold day in Hell before Robin allowed thing to go that far.

Robin pivoted on his back heel and started pacing the room agitatedly. Hours of pain and exhaustion tinged with the bitterness of knowing he'd never be good enough began creeping up from his memories.

He couldn't figure it out. Bruce seemed to have left all together. It was like someone else was speaking through his voice, "Rule Number One: You give me one hundred percent." The air left Dick's lungs in one painful rush as his right side was smashed against the still too-solid training mats.

"Rule Number Two," he was aerial again. Bruce had picked him up and thrown him like a flyweight, "Then you give me more." Dick was panicking as he tried to figure out what he could've done to earn this sudden shift in attitude.

Dick was already moving into a shoulder roll, legs flung out to halt him in a stable tripod. Something very fast and very, very large hurtled towards him. BAM he was pinned under Bruce's weight as his mentor effortlessly propelled himself through the air and flattened him further into the ground.

"Rule Number Three," There was a disquieting lack of humanity in his guardian's iron grip as the blood supply to his head was cut off, bringing him to within seconds of brain death, "I make the rules."

That had been the beginning of the transformation that would lead Dick Grayson into his current role, that of a supposed hero. Robin remembered very well the reason why he had left Bruce: wrong, imperfect, silent stares, love and devotion rebuffed unfeelingly. He had never been good enough, no matter how hard he tried, how much he broke himself. Complete trust could never be earned. The slightest deviance was inevitably followed by swift recriminations. Even if his actions turned out to be correct, he was lucky to get a simple, "good job".

It hadn't always been like that, but as soon as Dick had taken the mantle of Robin, everything had changed and their relationship slowly declined. Robin had hated him for it, hated him for dragging a young orphan back from the hell his parents' deaths with empathy and love only to dash him against the rocks again when Bruce chose to close himself off to the outside world in order to chase after some puritanical ideal of crime fighting.

He had left Batman's shadow for the Titan's to finally be himself and not worry about his imperfections. Sure, he had wanted to prove himself to the world, to earn his own glory, but it was more than that. Robin would devote himself to helping others, pour his life out in the service of justice, but he wouldn't lose his feeling, his compassion. He had dreamed of a smiling daughter bouncing at his knee, trust and wise console, confessions of weakness and need to his friends.

And now-now he was following Bruce again like the lowly shadow he was. The very team that he thought would allow him to be free to laugh and be human was now the reason that he nightly wished he could sell his own humanity. Humans were weak. Humans were fragile. They had to sleep, had to eat, they got sick, could be offended or hurt, could be killed. So forgive him if he chose not to be so indulgent if it meant something so important as saving someone else.

"Unnngh…," Beast Boy's eyes struggled to open against the anesthesia. The changeling's cloud and bloodshot pupils gazed listlessly into the blank whites of Robin's mask. "Ooohhhh, what, I-"

"Shhh," Robin carefully removed the medical gloves and ran his hand lightly through the grass meadow hair, a faint smile on his lips, "you're fine Beast Boy." Robin watched as his teammate was reclaimed by oblivion.

"You're fine. You'll all be fine."

Red Notes

1) I'm going to go say right off the bat (hah, pun) that Robin is probably OOC for most of you. I realize this, however, I'm trying to convey how I often feel about going into the Army as a lieutenant. I want to try and convey that hollow, raging chaos that I get when I know perfection is needed, while still knowing that I am far from it and my peers and those under me are even farther and that, even worse, they don't care. That's a frightening place to come to, when you realize that your screw up means you have to write home to some parents and say, "Sorry, but your little boy is dead." I sit here and worry about papers in abstract physiology when I could be learning tactics, we BS around when we could be out in the woods practicing land navigation. If I was really going to be accurate to my inner thoughts, this chapter would be far more illogical and there'd be a lot more cussing, something that I rarely do as a courtesy to others. In a way, I'm trying to connect the various portrayals of Robin. On the one hand, we have the never serious little jester who runs around in pixie boots and primary colors. On the other, we have the angry and embittered loner who becomes Nightwing. On the third hand that I have freakily conjured up, we have Robin of the animated Titans, the hard core, Slade obsessed leader who also happens to still be a teenager capable of smiling, dating, laughing, showing embarrassment, apologizing…etc. etc.

2) The medical jargon might be confusing, but the situation is pretty straight forward. Beast Boy is basically receiving a constant, massive blood transfusion via a central IV. This is because his morphological powers have become unhinged as a result of Killer Moth's attack, thus making his body unstable and causing his wounds to be continuously be reopened. Normally bleeding wouldn't be a problem, in fact, I imagine Beast Boy's natural healing ability is extremely good, given his ability to seemingly fit into any shape he wishes. However, the neurotoxin has him all jacked up.

3) I'm not actually sure when I would want to place this story chronologically. Technically, this little one-shot could be just about anytime after the first season. Additionally, the first three chapters could probably be interchangeable. I like to think that the events in this story would happen first, perhaps months or more than a year before the little bit with Alfred. Does it matter that much? No, not really. What's more troubling to me is that I've used catastrophic injury as a major drive in plot. I suppose that's to be expected, given our main characters' occupations, but it is rather annoying to be repeating myself.