Summary:Tim's math grade had been slipping, because he believed that Calculus was not needed for the future. Well, that is until he went patrolling later that week.
Author's Note:So, my Calculus teacher wanted us to write a story after we took our AP exam, so this is what I decided to write about. Just so you know, Tim's friends are his actual friends from the comics. Read and Review please. I do not own Young Justice or Batman.
The school day had been boring, at least compared to what happens during the night. Tim was sitting in the middle of his calculus class while staring out the window wondering when it would be over.
"All of you guys really should listen more," Mr. Horus, the calculus teacher, told all of his students. "You never know when you will need calculus."
"Right, like I will need to remember how to take a derivative while I'm shopping," someone in the back of the room muttered. A few other students giggled. After a few minutes, the bell rang, symbolizing lunch.
Mr. Horus let out a sigh. "Class dismissed," he added as a final note while walking back to his desk.
Tim slowly got all of his things together and walked out of the door. He went to the cafeteria, got his lunch, and sat at the table his friends normally sit at.
"I hate calculus," Tim's friend, Ives, said as he pulled out a chair and placed his tray of food across from Tim.
"Is that because you're failing?" The boys heard a girl ask. They turned their heads and saw Ariana and Hudson with their lunch joining the table.
"Not everyone can be perfect in everything," Ives replied while taking a bite of his sandwich. "Besides, when are we ever going to use calculus in life? Do you see Batman or Superman using calculus to help them save the day?"
Tim raised an eyebrow; he does have a point, thought Tim. I may not have been with Batman for a while, but I haven't seen him use any math equations to solve a case. Well, at least not calculus.
"They're superheroes, they don't need math."
"Really Hudson? You're agreeing with him? How can any of the heroes not use any sort of math skills while out fighting crime? Right Tim?" Ariana asked, looking hopefully at Tim.
Tim shrugged, not really wanting to side against Ariana. "Not sure, but it does sound silly."
"Yea, riddle me this, how many cakes do I have left if you took one and I started with three?" Ives sarcastically said, "The answer is still three, why would I give you one of my cakes?"
Ives, Hudson, and Tim started laughing, while Ariana looked upset.
"You never know!" exclaimed Arianna.
"Why does it matter anyway, Ariana? It's not like any of us are going to be superheroes," Ives said while trying to control his laughter.
Man, I wish I listened to Ariana, but I wouldn't realize that until later that week.
Robin could be seen jumping from building to building. Finally! The weekend! Robin could feel the wind running through his hair.
"Robin, why are you on patrol?" Robin heard Batgirl's voice through his intercom. "Didn't Bruce ground you for some grade you got?"
"It's the weekend BG, settle down. Besides, Batman is out of town at the moment and someone needs to watch Gotham." Robin could practically hear Batgirl rolling her eyes.
"That's why he told me to come," said a voice not over the intercom. Robin stopped dead in his tracks and turned. Standing right behind him was Nightwing.
"Aren't you supposed to be in Bludhaven?" asked Robin.
Nightwing raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to be grounded?" They looked at each other for a minute before a beeping noise interrupted them, "Batgirl, what is it?" There was silence over the intercom. "Batgirl?"
"Give me a second..." Batgirl answered, "Great..."
"What is it?" Robin asked excitedly, hoping to get some action tonight.
"Why didn't our security systems pick it up sooner? Especially since it's at Wayne Tower," Batgirl said in a concerned voice.
"BG, what are you talking about?" The boys had already launched off of the building they were standing on, and were now headed towards the said tower.
"Laughing gas." The boys became intrigued with every word Batgirl said, "Joker has been releasing gas into the vents at Wayne Tower for the past nine hours. A backup system opened up that is removing the gas, but that fan turned on one hour after the gas started entering the building. But that does not explain how much gas is already in there..." She said muttering the last sentence.
"What? Can you figure out the rate at which the amount of gas has been increasing?" Nightwing asked while getting closer and closer to their target. That's a strange question to ask, Robin thought.
"About 5000 over the amount of time cubed plus 50 cubic meters per hour."
"Is anymore gas getting in?"
"No, I just closed the vents that were letting the gas escape." The boys stopped and stared at the tower, thinking about what their next move should be. "And workers are still in the building. They would probably be laughing their heads off." Batgirl whispered the last part. "I'm not sure how to figure out how much gas is left in there at the moment since the fans turned on."
Why does this seem familiar? The rate at which this all happened... "Wait," Robin said while still thinking.
"What is it Rob?" Nightwing asked the boy wonder, a little worried that they were caught.
"We can find the volume of the amount of gas that was let out into the building." Nightwing curiously looked at Robin. "Batgirl, take the integral from 0 to 9 of the rate at which the gas has been entering the building."
Batgirl smirked a little, but she knew they could not see her.
"Put it into your calculator, it would be the fastest way," continued Robin. 30 seconds later, Batgirl said something.
"Okay, it's about 415.420 to 415.421 cubic meters."
"Alright, so that's the amount of gas that was put into the building," Robin said while putting more pieces together. If she, knew the rate at which gas was put in, maybe she knows... "Do you know the rate at which the fans are pulling the gas out?"
"Yea, it's at 23.9665 multiplied by the square root of the time in cubic meters per hour."
"Okay," Robin thought for a few more seconds before the way to get the answers came crashing down on him. "I got it. Batgirl..."
"Yes...?"
"To find the amount at the end of the day, take the integral of the rate at which the gas is being pulled out from 1 to 9, right? You said the fan turned on an hour later."
"Yea."
"Okay, great. Then do that." The boys waited another 30 seconds. "What did you get?" Robin asked trying to speed Batgirl up.
"About 415.41833 cubic meters."
"Kay, now take the answer to the second integral and subtract it from the first."
"Give me a sec. The answer is .00158 or .002 cubic meters of the gas."
"That should be the amount of gas that is left."
"So that means almost all of the gas is out of the building already," Nightwing said wanting to be a part of the conversation.
Robin nodded his head in agreement, "Alright one last thing to do." Nightwing's eyes widened as he saw Robin jump off of their current building and run towards Wayne Tower.
"Robin, wait!" Nightwing shouted after Robin. "Uh, Batgirl..."
"You didn't stop him, did you Nitwing?"
Robin heard Nightwing and Batgirl, but ignored them. There are people in danger inside the Tower. This thought crossed Robin's mind as he was running. It also crossed his mind that Nightwing did not follow after him, but he could not think about that at the moment. The people inside probably have been affected by the gas. Robin charged into the building, passing through all of the security, but stopped dead in his tracks once he got to the front desk area. He looked all around and noticed no one was laughing like crazy. Everything seemed normal, except that the workers were just staring at Robin wondering what was going on.
Nightwing casually walked in following Robin. He went up to Robin, grabbed him, and dragged him out. "Nothing to see here," Nightwing said as he pulled Robin outside.
"Hey, let go of me!" was the last thing the people in Wayne Tower heard come out of Robin's mouth as the doors closed behind the two.
"Why did you pull me out? Why wasn't anyone infected? What's going on!" Robin asked Nightwing and Batgirl. Nightwing had dragged Robin all the way back to the Batcave.
"It was a test," Batman said as he walked towards the group.
"A test? Why...?" Robin asked, surprised to see Batman.
"Your calculus grade was dropping. You needed something to show you that you do need to know math."
Robin made a weird face, but a thought hit him. "So... How did I do?" Robin asked afraid to hear the answer. It took a minute before Batman said anything.
"You could not tell this was a set up, you did not do the calculations on your own…" Robin's face started to fall with each failure. "And you ran into action without a plan." Batman paused, "Other than that, well done." Robin's face instantly brightened up.
"Yea, he's right. You knew exactly what to do," Nightwing commented.
"I'm impressed, if you keep it up, you will get the mathlete honor award that Dick got so many years ago," Batgirl said with a smile.
"That small trophy? I think I could do better than that," Robin taunted.
"Hey! That trophy was huge! It was half my size back then!"
"Well, you were kind of short..." Batgirl said, thinking back. Batgirl and Robin burst out laughing, while Batman was shaking his head and hiding a smirk. Nightwing tried to convince them otherwise. Throughout all of this, Robin did have one last thought about the situation. Maybe calculus isn't as bad as I thought it was.