Author's Note:
Here we go again. Hope you'll like it. Don't wonder about Artemis being mentioned seemingly without any purpose, it's due to the original story. In the very first version, she was the narrator, a silent observer without any influence on what happens. And for Bruce being Bruce, there was no way he wouldn't notice her being there, so I had to bring her in...

For all those of you in mourning for africaflower77: She said she'll probably never login again, so there's no way of getting her stories back. I'm sorry!

Disclaimer: Not mine. Neither YJ nor "Charity Balls and Threats"/"Of Boredom and Threats".

Bruce reflexively put his hand on Dick's shoulder, a gesture of protection he couldn't stop. He was his first and biggest worry, although he knew, that wasn't right. In the moment he had sensed something was wrong, his mind should have switched from Bruce to Batman. But it only did incompletely. Batman's concern pertained the ordinary, the ones who couldn't save themselves. But Bruce's… He worried about his ward above everything else and that was wrong. At least in a situation like this. He should have had the bigger picture in mind but he couldn't help it, he instinctively acted selfish, protecting what meant most to him.

While these thoughts flew through his mind, the black men had moved. One was slightly standing ahead of the others. His posture practically screamed „leader". He took a long look around, taking in everything around him.

„Well, well, well. What do we have here?", he said, a malevolent look in his eyes.

Bruce let his eyes glide over the whole room, noticing everything and everyone. The guests were in some kind of shock, no one moved, no one made a sound, some even seemed to have stopped breathing. He checked the entrances, the obvious ones were all guarded by men in black and even in front of a secret one (a hidden passageway behind a tapestry, leading to one of the less used kitchens) stood one of the intruders. Bruce didn't know whether on pupose or by accident. He hoped for the latter.

He could see Dick out of the corner of his left eye. The boy was looking at him, obviously waiting for an order. What should they do? Stay Bruce and Richard, letting the situation unfold or become Batman and Robin, taking on the intruders. Unfortunately, there was only one possibility and Bruce didn't like it. At all.

He locked his gaze into Dick's and gave him the tiniest shake of his head, it was barely more than a movement of his eyes. They couldn't switch character now. Their identities had to be protected at all costs. They had to find another way out of this mess.

He only hoped, Artemis had come to the same conclusion. He had spotted the young heroine immediately, when coming down the stairway earlier that evening and briefly wondered why she was here. He hadn't invited her. But as she stood beside the daughter of one of the guests, he assumed she was just a guest of one of his guests. That wasn't unusual, people always tried to sneak into his house. Since there was nearly no threat of her discovering who he and Dick really were, he had just ignored her, as he would have every other girl her age that didn't walk straight up to him. But now, this could turn out to be dangerous. His eyes flew back to her and he made sure she stayed put. He could see it working inside her head, her muscles all tensed but her posture spoke of helplessness. She knew, she couldn't do anything. Good.

Bruce turned his gaze back to the other people in the room, they stood there, frightened, with armed men all around them and no way out. He just hoped nobody would get hurt in the upcoming situation.

He looked at Dick again, seeing the frustrated look on his face slowly turning into anger. He knew what was going on inside the boy's mind. He wanted to do something, anything. Not just stand here, at the mercy of these men. He was a hero and he wanted to save the day, that was his job. Although he knew how important it was, he had never liked the need to protect his identity and a situation like this certainly didn't make it any easier. But Bruce was sure he could trust the boy, he had raised him right.

With every second the people were getting louder now, the first shock was over and they started screaming. They panicked, one after another, and it was only a matter of time, until the first one started running for the doors, probably provoking the men to open fire. Bruce thought hard about how he could prevent this from happening when the leader of the group suddenly moved. He was fast that was for sure. In a second, he stood right in front of Bruce, facing away from him and holding his gun up, firing once. Silence was immediate. The whole room froze, everyone was shocked, even Dick beside him obviously hadn't seen it coming.

„That was just a warning shot … the next one might just hit home", the man said with a shrug. Bruce was sure, that guy wouldn't care the slightest bit if he killed someone.

The man slowly turned and looked straight at him. Bruce had seen all kinds of villains and all kinds of eyes on them. The Joker's were simply mad and Harvey Two-Face's spoke of pain that could drive a man crazy. But never, never, had he seen eyes as cold as these. They lacked every single emotion, they just stared, telling everybody that their owner didn't care about anything. It was obvious, this man was prepared to hurt people, even looking forward to it. And that made him ten times more dangerous than an average criminal.

Bruce's thoughts snapped back to his responsibilities. He had to protect these people. But how? He couldn't do anything without giving up his life's mission. And losing his identity would cause that, inevitably. He pushed aside the thought of Dick standing next to him. If he started worrying about him, too, he would lose his sense of priority. So he had no choice but to go with the situation as it was.

He lifted his hands in front of him, palms facing the man opposite of him. He tried to slightly let his body slump to look smaller and less intimidating, his whole posture signaling „I surrender".

„If it isn't the big man himself", the man said, his tone delighted and cruel at the same time.

Bruce didn't really hope for it to work, but he still tried to solve this the easy way. He had to do everything he could to protect all the people here.

„If you want money, I'll give you as much as you want. Just, please, don't hurt anybody." Although the words were what Brucie would say in the situation at hand, the content came from his heart. But as soon as he said them, he knew it was in vain. That man, he hadn't come simply for money. Maybe his comrads had, but the leader? No, he enjoyed the show. Enjoyed being powerful and the feeling of hurting other people. He was the kind of person who would slowly squeeze a slug beneath their foot as a kid or rip the wings off a fly just to watch them crawl on the floor until they died. He had always hated this kind of lunatics the most. Those, who were cruel without a motive, just for the fun of it. What they called fun…

„Hmmm", the man tapped his chin with one finger, pretending to think about it. „I know you're Gotham's White Knight and never go back on your word and all", he said, making quotation marks with his fingers, as he used the unofficial title, the newspaper had given to Bruce. „But forgive me if I don't believe you." The cruel look in his eyes got even more prominent although he smiled. „Just to, you know, make sure you don't go back on your word, I might need a little … I don't know … leverage." And Bruce knew what the man planned, even before his eyes flickered over to Dick and focused on him. His worst nightmare was coming true. He had always feared that someday, some maniac would try to use Dick against him. If they took Robin, it was bad, surely, but then he could save him as Batman, if the boy wasn't able to wiggle himself out of the misery, but if something happened to Dick … Bruce was helpless. All his skills were useless, he could only hope nothing too bad would happen. If there was anything that drove him mad above everything, it was helplessness. He had first felt that when he fell down that well as a kid and met bats for the first time in his life. The second time was even worse, in that dark alleyway, watching his parents get shot for nothing. And now this. It was happening all over again. He pulled himself together. He had to work out a strategy to save his ward, while making sure, none of the guests would get hurt in the process. It wouldn't be easy, that was for sure.

Bruce pushed Dick behind him, his left hand still in the air, his eyes fixed on the man before him. The lunatic raised and eyebrow and smirked, while unobtrusive changing the grip on the weapon he was holding looseley at his side. Bruce knew what this meant, what was going to happen. He saw the muscles on the man opposite him flex before actually seeing the movement. He could've stopped it but for Brucie it would have been impossible. So he only stood there, waiting for the impact, clenching his teeth, so they wouldn't get knocked out.

The gun hit him hard in the face. Still acting, he groaned silently and fell to the ground, ending up on all fours. Blood dripped from his mouth, leaving red stains on the former white marble floor. He knew, he left Dick unprotected by going down and the feeling of abandoning the boy ate him alive, but he didn't have a choice. He could imagine how Dick felt right now, he knew that feeling alone, forsaken, was the worst for him. That it was, what gave him nightmares. But he couldn't change it. The boy had to be strong for now, they'd deal with the consequences later, as much as he hated it.

Bruce wanted to look up and keep an eye on the situation, but that would have been out of character once again. So he only saw the feet of the man, as he walked across him and behind Dick. He closed his eyes, listening hard to sense what was going on. He heard the man whistling lightly, clothing rustle and a movement, then Dick gasped. The man must've put him in a chokehold. His rage grew with every second, he wanted to get up and knock the man down so badly. Instead, he let himself fall on his left side, so he could see what was going on.

The man stood behind Dick, left arm around his neck, the other one holding a gun to the boy's temple. All across the room, the other intruders started moving, too. Everyone of them walked up behind another kid, taking them hostage. Some of the girls looked like fainting every second, none of them had ever experienced having a gun pressed to their head before. Bruce looked at his ward and saw the emotions battling inside him. His face was pure steel but his eyes showed how scared he really was. Gradually, the expression changed. Bruce could almost see the boy's thoughts. He was scared, yes. But he wanted to do something. Wanted to end this, save the people in the room now, even if it meant exposing himself and lose his secret identity. Robin had never been as determined as Batman to risk everything for the mission. He was probably too young to get the meaning. That it was no good saving a few people now but afterwards not being able to continue watching over the city anymore. It was even hard for Batman sometimes, but by now he had lived after this motto for so long, it had become easier to stay strong and not give in to the situation's temptation. He just hoped, Robin could see that, too. Because Dick wouldn't, that was for sure. Hopefully, the boy had mentally switched his identity, too, and stayed with the Boy Wonder rather than getting back to being just a kid. At the moment, it certainly seemed like it. By now, the boy's face spoke of calm determination.

The man behind him started to walk towards the center of the room, Dick still fast in his grip.

He spoke in a cheerful tone, maliciously smiling. „Now, I'm only going to say this once. My men are going to walk around with bags." At this cue, all men not occupied with kids or guarding doors pulled out black trash bags and started walking around the room. The leader kept explaining. „You will put all – and I mean all! – your valuables inside the bags. Failure to do so will result in …" he playfully waved the gun at Dick's head „… well, let's just say, you'll have a mess to clean up."

Bruce felt like he was getting sick only by listening to this maniac. Watching him, unable to do anything, was almost more than he could take. It cost all his self-control not to get up and launch himself at the man. Slowly, he pushed himself in a half sitting position, supporting his weight with his left arm. He wanted to be ready if there should be any possibility of turning the situation.

Suddenly, the leader got angry and barked „Do not make me repeat myself!".

His men started to walk from one guest to the next, impatiently watching them handing over their valuables. The males got rid of their Rolexes, wallets and tiepins, the females lost their jewellery. Some of them actually hesitated. As if a kid's life wasn't worth losing a bit of money. Bruce could have yelled at them! It was his boy, whose wellbeing was at stake here! He could literally feel how his mind gradually switched back from Batman to Bruce completely. It became harder not to do anything by the second.

When the first man got to Ms. Mulberry, everything went wrong. Really wrong. Bruce didn't notice what was happening at first, his eyes were fixed on Dick, but when a deep voice said „Boss!" he turned his head. He knew the women who had caused the interruption, she was a vulgar person who liked listening to her own voice far too much. He had never liked her, even less than most of the other VIPs he had to constantly deal with. Now, he saw his point proven. She actually tried to defy the robbers by simply not handing over her necklace and earrings. The leader slowly looked at her, smiling.

„Problem, Dear?", he asked, his voice perfectly friendly. She just stared back, neither answering nor moving.

„Do we have a fighter now?" The man kept smiling at her. Then his features changed the tiniest bit and Bruce knew what was going to happen next. It was hard to stay put. He couldn't even warn the boy. Suddenly, the man switched his gun to the left hand which was still around Dick's neck and pulled out a knife in what looked like the same instant. Still looking at Ms. Mulberry, he lifted the knife up and then playfully pulled it over Dick's face. He trail of blood appeared on the boy's cheek.

Bruce could see him close his eyes, trying to keep the the pain from showing on his face. He really tried to appear strong, but he couldn't beat an observant viewer, especially not his guardian, who knew him for five years and probably better than anyone else. He had seen Dick grow, he had watched him struggle after his parents death, woke him every other night from nightmares and calmed him down, so he could sleep again. He had tought him how to fight and he had patched him up when he was injured. The boy couldn't hide anything from him, try as he might.

Bruce felt a wave of sympathy washing over him, watching his ward struggle, but there was this layer of still growing rage above it. Probably stronger. He had a hard time focusing on acting reasonable and not letting his instincts take over. If he'd give in, the man a few feet away from him wouldn't stand a chance. But he couldn't. He had to stay low. He had to remind himself several times, before he could think straight again. But as soon as he had accomplished that, events evolved further and he needed all his concentration not to roar.

A/N: Well, that escalated quickly! And it will continue to get worse... Poor Dick!