Robin dodged left, parried right. He was fighting the Joker, along with several of the Joker's goons. After the Joker kidnapped him during patrol, Robin had woken up disoriented and woozy. Despite the aftereffects of whatever sedative Joker had used, he had managed to break loose and run for the exit.

It was only a split second, possibly even less than that, that he lost focus. Before he knew it, several of the goons had pinned him down, more taking hold of him by the second.

Joker approached him slowly, a knife in hand. "Why are you running away, little birdie? Don't you want to play?"

Robin struggled harder.

"Come on, play with me! Let's play… Marco Polo!"

Robin didn't know what he meant by that, but he knew it wasn't good. He tried to break loose, but the goons strapped him to a table.

Joker grabbed his head to keep him still. "But in order to play, we have to make a little change."

Robin struggled. However, the goons combined with the restraints made it almost impossible to move. As such, he couldn't prevent it when the knife came swinging towards his head.

"ROBIN!"

Dick awoke to the sound of a heart monitor. The room was pitch black and the upper half of his face felt like it was on fire.

He looked around the room. Nothing. Not even shadows of objects. However, he could hear several noises: the heart monitor, the writing of a pen on paper, and a couple of people breathing beside him. He could also feel several things, two hands wrapped around his right hand, what felt like a blindfold wrapped around his eyes, and the blanket pulled up to his chest.

He was awake for a few minutes before the clicking of heels and opening and closing of the door indicated someone coming in.

The person holding his right hand shifted.

"Please tell me you have good news." That was Bruce's voice. He was probably the one sitting beside Dick.

A woman whose voice sounded a lot like Leslie's responded. "You want the good news first or the bad news?"

"Bad news."

"His eyes are damaged beyond repair. He'll never see again."

Dick's eyes widened, pain accompanying the minor movement. They weren't talking about him, were they?

"And the good news?" That was Alfred. He was sure that was Alfred.

"That's his only injury at the moment. And he should be waking up soon."

Bruce squeezed his hand. "The injury he got is bad enough. He'll probably never be able to go out into the field after this."

Oh god! They were talking about him!

"I wouldn't say that. He'd just have to adjust to fighting without seeing. But that's if you plan on letting him out at all. You'd have to train him all over again, so, ultimately, it's up to you."

'Please, please don't ban me from being Robin!' Dick prayed silently.

"It will be a long time before I will even consider letting him out as Robin again. But whether or not he goes crime-fighting later in life is uncertain." Bruce decided.

"I agree." Alfred added.

"Do… do I have a say?" Dick whimpered.

He was pretty sure he'd startled the three adults by speaking up.

"How long have you been awake, Master Dick?"

"... long enough."

"How much did you hear?"

"All of it."

"This isn't quite how I would've liked you to find out…" Bruce began.

"Oh yeah?! Then when were you gonna tell me?!" Dick could feel the bandages around his eyes grow wet. He was crying. "I'm freaking blind!" A sob. "I'm blind… I can't see… I… I'll never see..." He was full-out weeping now, and imagining all the things he could no longer do now that he was blind.

He could feel Bruce pulling him into a hug and stroking his hair while mumbling meaningless apologies.

He wanted to wake up to find none of this had happened, to open his eyes and still be able to see.

"Just out of curiosity, what are you going to tell the media?" Leslie asked, bringing up an important question.

"I was kidnapped and my kidnapper did this to me. Don't specify and nobody will question." Dick mumbled. "And you never saw the kidnapper, so you don't know who it was."

"Dick, I..."

"I don't want to hear it." Dick stated. "Save your apologies for someone who actually cares. J-just take me home."

"Leslie?"

"He's clear to go. Drive safely."

Bruce carefully helped Dick out of bed, and led him slowly out to the car, making sure he didn't trip or fall.

Dick leaned his head against Bruce's chest on the car ride back to the manor.

Halfway through the ride, he mumbled. "I wanna talk to Wally."

"Okay." Bruce said. Dick was about to speak again when he heard the dial tones indicating Bruce was calling someone.

Someone picked up. "Hello?" Dick had heard Wally's voice over the telephone enough times to know it was his best hero friend.

"Batcave. Five minutes." Bruce hung up before Wally could answer.

"Are you wanting him to freak out?" Dick asked.

Bruce shrugged. "It's fun."

Wally West, Kid Flash, got changed in the blink of an eye and ran as fast as he could to the Zeta Tube.

His Uncle Barry, the Flash, noted it and caught up to him. "Where are you going in such a rush?"

"I have three minutes left to get to the Batcave or Batman will grill me!" Wally replied.

"You sure? He seems to like messing with you." Barry said, amused.

"If it wasn't important, why wouldn't he have had Dick call me?!" Wally snapped.

Barry didn't have a good comeback for that. "I'll come with you then. Maybe he can use an extra hand."

They arrived at the Zeta Tube and Zeta'd to the Batcave.

"What's up, Bats?" Barry asked as soon as they appeared. "Wally seems to think it's important."

"Oh. Dick just wanted to talk with him." Bruce replied, still in his civies.

Wally balked in surprise. He was just messing with him? It wasn't important?

"Told you he was just messing with you." Barry murmured.

"That doesn't mean it's not important. Change quickly. You know Alfred's rules." Bruce said.

"Wait! Why didn't Dick call me if he just wanted to talk to me?" Wally asked. He noted the subtle hesitancy that entered Bruce's stance when he said that.

"You'll find out soon enough." Bruce replied, heading up the stairs to the manor.

Barry and Wally exchanged glances and then quickly changed out of their costumes.

Upstairs, Dick was sitting on one of the couches, an untouched plate of cookies on the small table beside him. Bruce could be heard talking to Alfred in another room.

He turned in Wally and Barry's direction when they came into the room. Wally noted with a start that there were bandages around his eyes.

"Dude, what happened to you?" He sped over to his friend. "Why are you blindfolded with bandages? Shouldn't you take them off? You can't see with those on."

Dick was silent.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Wally repeated.

It was Bruce who finally answered, entering the room in time to hear the question. "The Joker harmed him."

"Again? Man, that madman just won't stop. Can't he take a hint?" Wally joked.

Dick choked out an attempt at a laugh.

"Seriously though. Usually you have bandages everywhere when the Joker gets you. And you still manage to get up and grin and do that creepy cackle of yours and…" Dick punched at Wally, but missed due to not knowing exactly where he was.

Wally took a step back. "Okay. I get it. I'll stop talking about it." He noticed the bandages around Dick's eyes were wet. "Hey. Were you crying? Are you crying?"

"Yeah. Cuz apparently my tear ducts weren't destroyed along with the rest of my eyes." Dick snarled sarcastically.

Wally froze. "What?"

"Barry." Bruce said, making it clear he wanted to leave the two of them alone.

Dick waited for Bruce and Barry's footsteps to recede before turning to where he thought Wally was.

"He wanted to play 'Marco Polo'. He must've thought it would be more fun to play without me being able to see." Dick grumbled. Wally touched his shoulder from behind him. "Great! I don't even know where people are!"

Wally winced. "I'm sorry, Dick. Tell you what, I'll work with you. I'll help you learn Braille and figure out how to do the flippity flippy thing without your eyesight. We'll learn together. You don't have to be alone in this. And there are tons of other people out there who have this problem. You're resilient. You can overcome it."

"You really think so?" Dick whispered, somewhat calmed by the words.

"Yeah! Like I said, we'll learn together! I'll be with you every step of the way!" Wally was relieved his words were making a difference.

Dick felt in the air for him.

"Heh. I'm right here." Wally touched Dick's hand and was surprised when the smaller boy pulled him into a hug.

"Thank you, Wally. I'll hold you to it." Dick murmured.

"I'll come over every day. If it's okay with Bruce, that is. And I'll notify you if I can't make it so that you'll know. And a flip phone that has the numbers in Braille would probably help once you learn them."

Dick was grinning now, happy he had a friend like Wally to help him out. The grin faded, though, when he thought of something.

"Um… what are you and Batman gonna tell the team? I mean, I obviously won't be joining you on missions anymore."

"Good question. We'll think of something. He'll probably have me act like I don't know anything until he tells the team whatever."

"Yeah…"

"Alfred left you some cookies. You want any?"

"Help yourself. I'm not hun…" Dick was interrupted when Wally stuffed a cookie into his mouth mid-sentence. "Mmph."

"Chew and swallow!" Wally said cheerfully. "You can't reject Alfred's cookies! It's not in the realm of possibility!"

Dick swallowed hard and managed a small smile. Wally sure knew how to cheer him up.

Barry and Bruce came back into the room.

"The league's been called for an emergency meeting." Barry announced. "Wally, stay with Dick."

"Got it!" Wally saluted.

"Alfred went out to get some books for learning Braille." Bruce informed them. "He'll be back in a bit."

Dick's smile faded once more.