A/N: Another chapter!

Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter! I'm sorry if I didn't get around to replying to all of you. Thank you noaverageangel, Ryir, nad, Zeldalsis, SevenSilences, Charlie Grayson, GRUBStheBESThero, XxNeonShadowsxX, WillowC1, Guest, witchsoul531, KaliAnn, Blue Torpedo, Ravenietta. You guys rock! I got a ton of reviews for the first chapter so thank you so much! It's cool to see so many familiar names and so many new ones! Keep it up!

Here's the next chapter:

Bright lights…. What time was it? Did Alfred open his curtains? Alfred… where was he? If he'd opened the curtains, shouldn't he have stuck around to make sure Dick actually woke up? Why was his bed so hard? And what was that smell?

Dick sat up, eyes flying wide open before suddenly the world started spinning and he thought his was about to explode. He felt his body crashing back down, but only vaguely registered the jar of hitting the hard surface beneath him. His brain felt like it was being deep fried and he couldn't get his vision to focus. Trying to fight down the panic he took a deep breath, only to feel a slight burning in his lungs and throat. A coughing fit soon overtook him and for a minute, Dick was sure he was going to die like that, choking and completely disoriented and he felt a slight twinge of fear.

Wait, slight? And then, as the coughing subsided and he closed his eyes, a few memories trickled back; three people, two doing something to him, the lack of emotion, the lack of feeling in general, being unable to move…. Well, he wasn't strapped down anymore, and he was beginning to feel again. That was good, right? Dick fought to think through the fog in his mind. He wasn't at home, that was for sure, and he was in the hands of unfriendly people, if he was any judge of character (though at the moment he doubted whether he was) and this was all bad. Especially since he had no idea how he got here. Wherever here was.

Dick tried desperately to think through everything – to process everything – but found he couldn't. He knew there were things he had to do. Things he could do to help him determine his location, or at least something of the place where he was at, but he couldn't get his brain to tell his body the actions. He couldn't even get his brain to think it all through. Dick growled, frustrated with his lack of ability. At least some of his emotions were coming back. He knew that was good. He did know that, right?

Suddenly his ears started to pick up sound and he tuned into it, trying to decipher the origin. It sounded like tapping, or slapping, and it was steadily growing louder. Dick wanted to open his eyes and try to locate the source of the sound, but the pain in his head was somehow getting through to his sluggish brain and wouldn't let him. The slapping got louder and louder and Dick began to think his eardrums would explode when finally it stopped and the air was deathly silent for a moment. Then a clicking echoed through his head and a creaking and then the slapping again and breathing and then the motion of a hand through the air and Dick felt his breathing pick up and he thought his head was going to explode and then he felt a prick and –

"A little overdue for that I think."

A voice. A women's voice. Dick recognized it. He'd heard it before….

"Much better, huh? Sixty-two was supposed to give you a dose a couple hours ago but I take that he didn't. Really begins to mess with your mind, doesn't it? The real world. I know how you feel."

Wait, was she talking to him?

"I hate it. All these voices, sounds, all telling you different things. Signs saying 'this way' and 'that way' and up and down. But it's okay. You're safe from that. At least for now. But soon, I guess you won't have to worry about all that stuff at all."

Dick felt a cool hand on his arm, rubbing. It rubbed for a moment before trailing down to his wrist. Then he felt something rough sliding over his wrist.

"I don't think these are necessary. You couldn't do anything any way. But Doctor Donovan insists. Of course he knows what he's doing, but sometimes I think he's a bit excessive. But you did evade him for so long…."

Dick felt the rough… strap? tighten around his wrist and he knew it should hurt, but his brain refused to acknowledge the pain. Unlike his head which… didn't hurt anymore either….

"We're starting the procedures today."

Procedures?

"It's pretty exciting. You probably won't remember much of it, but just think of the end results."

Another tugging on his other arm.

"Hmm, you're arm's not looking as good as we hoped. As I hoped. And the Doctor hoped. I'm sure Sixty-two didn't care. The Doctor never should have let him fix it. He has no heart whatsoever. Just a piece of metal. And it shows. You wouldn't think it would, but it does. Heartless man. Creature."

There were two tugs on either leg. Dick wondered why he could feel them at all.

"Now let's check your eyes. I'm sure they're exactly what the Doctor wanted."

And then Dick's eyes were wrenched open and he found himself staring at a bright, white light. As he looked his head began to hurt again, though only very mildly and in the corner of his discombobulated brain. There was a strange… prodding? on his right and then his left eye and he tried to close them again. He couldn't.

"Not too shabby. The right one's not all there, but that's why we have two."

Somewhere, Dick didn't think that was the reason.

"Looks like we're late. Better get a move on."

The voice…. It was almost, cheery. Strange, and unnatural, but almost… happy. Dick felt his eyes finally shut again and there was a small jolt and then Dick felt himself moving. The slapping noise picked up again, this time accompanied by squeaking and clunking but neither noise was overpowering and Dick was relieved, which he wasn't sure he was actually feeling or not. Even his confusion wasn't really there. It was strange, like a cover up. Like reciting the words from a book, but not actually reading them. Knowing them so well, but not seeing the actual words.

"Merida, let's go!"

A new voice. This one high, but gruff. A man. Again, Dick recognized it.

"What kept ya?"

"None of your business, Sixty-two."

The women's voice was different now. Not the strange, unnatural joy as before but instead cold and commanding, like an officer. Again, Dick found himself reading the emotion of confusion, but he couldn't feel it and let it pass.

"'None of your business, Sixty-two'", the male voice mocked.

There was silence following, whereupon the slapping increased in count, like two new added beats. Dick lay there as his body was whisked along, but because of his lack of feeling it almost felt like he was floating somewhere above himself, watching, or feeling, as his body was carried along. His body? Did the body belong to him? Or was he just riding in it for a while? No, it was his. He knew that. He had to keep a hold of what he knew.

But why?

Because he had to. He didn't know why, but he knew there was a reason. He had to remember who he was. He'd already lost sight, emotion, and most feeling; he had to hold onto what he had. Even if he couldn't remember why.

But wouldn't letting go be so much easier? It wasn't really his body after all. If he just let himself drift away from it, he wouldn't have to worry about anything. He could watch it all from the outside, safe in nowhere.

No. He couldn't let go of his body. He was Dick Grayson and Robin, ward of Bruce Wayne and partner to the Batman. That's who he was. Besides, he couldn't really even feel anything, so what did he have to worry about? He wasn't even feeling worried, though, was he?

Something changed. Dick's brain was struggling to tell him that and he struggled to figure out why. He wasn't moving anymore. The slapping had stopped. Now there was another creaking noise, very subtle, and then he was moving again, but instead of slapping there was squeaking. It was kind of… annoying? Maybe….

"Finally."

"I apologize, Doctor."

"Yeah, it was all her fault."

"Shut up, Sixty-two."

"Yes sir."

The new voice… also familiar. Again, high for a man, but still a male. Cool, but insane at the same time. Was that possible? Dick's brain didn't seem up to figuring it out so he let it go. He'd heard it before though, recently it seemed.

"Bring him over. Let's take a look at him." It was the new voice. The Doctor.

Dick was moving again. More squeaking.

"Your shoes are making an awful screech. Tell them to shut up."

"Sorry sir, the floor is wet outside." It was Merida now.

"Sixty-two, dry the floor."

"But sirrrr-"

"Do it."

More squeaking, fading away, and then a dull slam that echoed around the… room?

"So ungrateful."

"Yes sir."

Merida's voice… it was still authorative, like when she was talking to Sixty-two, but now there was a hint of reverence in it; a shadow of what she'd said to Dick earlier when they'd been alone. "But Doctor Donovan insists. Of course he knows what he's doing…."

"He looks good!"

Dick had stopped moving. In the quiet, his ears began to pick up other sounds. Whirring noises, crackling, small zaps. His brain was trying to tell him something about the sounds, but he couldn't decipher what. It seemed like a warning…. Maybe the sounds were bad. There was beeping as well, multiple tiny beeps, all in slightly different tones, coming from various places around the room they were in. Dick had no idea how big the room was, and he had no desire to open his eyes to find out, but it sounded big. Could he trust his ears, though?

"Hand is reattached. That's good." The Doctor was talking again. "Face is still cut up, but eye looks better. I trust your work, Merida."

"Thank you, sir."

"He looks ready. Get him prepped and set up for the first stage."

"Yes sir."

"You, my little experiment," Robin knew he was talking to him. "Are in for a long ride." And that was his last coherent thought for a long time.

oOo

Bruce was oh so tempted to lean against the wall and rest. To close his eyes for a minute, just a minute, and let his body breath. But that wasn't an option – not now. Robin had been missing for over forty-eight hours already; Bruce knew he wasn't dead, but that was all he knew. The boy was too valuable to his kidnapper to die, but Bruce of all people knew there were far worse fates than death. And he was terrified of those fates. Terrified of everything and anything his boy could be going through while he, Batman, wandered around Gotham aimlessly, having no lead and no idea where to start.

He'd already scoured the city, digging into every nook and cranny, tearing to pieces anything that might lead to anything concerning a man in a red facemask or a mad scientist going by the name of Cadmus. Of course he'd found nothing more than he had before. No one knew anything. A few claimed to have seen the red masked man, but no one knew his origin – where he'd come from or where he might be going. And there'd been no sign of him since Robin's capture.

Not that Bruce really expected there to be, but at this point, he was grasping at any hope out there.

With a tired sigh, Batman finally allowed himself to fade into the shadows and gain a small bit of support from the brick wall behind his back. He was already feeling at the end of his rope, his nerves and temper frayed thin and is body running on pure adrenaline. He'd only returned to the Batcave once since the fight, and then only to gather necessary equipment to begin a search. At that point he'd been certain he'd be able to track down Robin and his kidnapper in a matter of hours – they had, after all, disappeared right before his eyes – and hadn't bothered to eat anything. He'd left Alfred a message the day before, but other than that, hadn't stopped his hunt once.

Bruce knew he was exhausted – beyond exhausted – and was slowly tearing himself to pieces by doing this, but he couldn't bring himself to rest. Not knowing that Robin could very well be in the most pain of his life, prodded and poked and jabbed and experimented on. There was no way he could sleep through that. So he ignored the rational part of his mind, telling him that he was no good to anyone like this, least of all Robin, and pushed himself further and harder than ever before. He would find his son if it killed him.

'And it very well might', he thought to himself, letting his cowled head fall back against the wall. 'What are you trying to do here, Bruce? You know he's not in Gotham, you're just too afraid to admit it, because once you do, you know you're lost. After Gotham, there's nowhere to go.'

After Gotham, he had no leads, no ideas, and for the World's Greatest Detective, that was as good as a bullet to the head. At least when it concerned his son.

"Batman, are you there?"

Bruce put a finger to his comm. "What is it, Clark?"

"I'm just wondering if you've had any luck."

"What do you think?"

There was a sigh, then: "Listen Bruce, we're all doing the best we can, but the fact is, we have no idea where to look."

"I'm not blaming you."

"No, you're blaming yourself."

"I don't need this right now, Clark."

"Bruce, I-"

"Save it. I have work to do."

"Have you alerted the police?"

"No, the world doesn't need to know that Robin's gone." That wasn't entirely true. Commissioner Gordon knew.

"What about Dick Grayso-"

"If I can't find him, neither can the police. I'm hanging up now, Clark. Don't call me back."

"I'm sorry Bruce, I'm just trying to help-"

With a sigh, Bruce switched off his communicator, disabling it so it would only receive emergency calls from the Batcave. He didn't have time for this. Pushing his weary body off the wall, Batman stalked over to where he'd parked the Batcycle and climbed on. He'd sweep the outskirts again. Maybe question some more thugs in the narrows. He'd already targeted most of the major crime bosses, but there were others. It wasn't likely that they would know anything, but, as much as he'd never admit it, he'd been wrong before. He'd find a way to beat this, to get Robin back. He was Batman and Bruce Wayne, the richest, most powerful and terrifying man in the entire city and most of the country. If anyone could do it, it was him.

oOo

Three days.

More like three years. That's what it felt like, spending every minute waiting, wondering if her best friend was even alive. Waiting for a call saying he'd been found, or, after the first day, if there were even any leads. It hurt, sitting at home, twiddling her thumbs, while the rest of the superhero world was out searching. Even if they hadn't found anything, at least they were doing something. Of course, she could sneak out again, swing around Gotham on her own. Even if she wasn't really being of any help, it was better than sitting at home. But she was too scared of being found by Batman – again. She was sure he was still mad at her. If it hadn't been for Alfred's call, she was sure that she never would have known what happened and would believe that Dick and Bruce were off on a ski trip in Austria, just like the rest of the world.

Rolling across her bed, Barbara slowly stood up, stretching her stiff muscles and letting her eyes wander around her room. Her Christmas gifts were scattered around, lying forgotten on the floor. While she'd semi-managed to put on a happy face for her dad (he still didn't know about Batgirl, and Barbara was planning on keeping it that way), she couldn't bring herself to care anymore. Christmas day had started out fine, until she'd gotten the call from Alfred after the annual meal of takeout. Thankfully she'd been in her room at the time or her dad would have heard her crying. She'd cried for Robin and for their last interaction when she'd screamed at him. They hadn't spoken since.

'And might never again.'

Barbara tried to silence the voice in her head, but she couldn't. It was always there, reminding her of what she'd potentially lost forever. Of her biggest mistake of her life.

'So melodramatic, Barbara.' She sighed to herself, turning and walking towards her bathroom, gently pushing the door open. She turned and faced the mirror, staring back at her reflection, but not really seeing her tangled mess of hair or her blotchy, tearstained face. She knew she looked like a mess, but couldn't bring herself to care. She was just scared of when her dad finally started to notice.

He'd been busy recently and Barbara figured he knew what had happened to Robin, but that only made her feel even more useless. The house was lonely and empty and, while it was good for crying, somehow made everything worse. She wanted to be alone, but so desperately didn't. Apart from the few calls from Wally and the one voicemail message from Artemis, she hadn't heard or talked to anyone in the past three days. Her dad had stopped home a few times, but she'd always pretended to be asleep. She so badly wanted to hug him and have him tell her it was alright, but she knew that was a lie and she was sick of lies.

oOo

Four days.

Wally absently rubbed his leg while he sat at his computer, scrolling slowly through document after document of scientific research notes he'd managed to nab off of Robin's wrist computer he'd found abandoned at the site of the… incident. He knew there would be nothing in them, but it was all he could do, and he had to do something. Maybe he could somehow find… something. Some connection to Cadmus or the masked man or something. Anything. He hadn't yet, but he'd only been at it for… fourteen hours? His clock must be off. Maybe.

He really wanted to be out in the field with Uncle Barry, running across the country to possible locations of wherever Robin had been taken to, but he'd been sent home after the second day. He'd apparently hurt his leg in the fighting and the injury had made itself known after a particularly intense run to the outskirts of Orlando and Barry had made him go home. It was only a sprain and the doctor machine at the Mountain had said it would heal in a few days, but nonetheless, he'd been put on house arrest.

Four days.

That was a long time, especially for a speedster. His mind turned seconds in minutes and minutes into hours and when he was anxious, it only got worse. Time could fly by while at the same dragging on for ages. There was no way he'd been sitting at his computer for fourteen hours but at the same time, it felt more like fourteen days. Or years. He wasn't really sure anymore. All he knew was that the entire time his best friend was going through, no doubt, the worst experience of his whole life, suffering through pain unimaginable.

Wally had heard what Batman had said to Flash about what he'd found in Robin's DNA and, while Wally had never spliced DNA before, he knew it wouldn't be easy. Or painless. He'd seen the shock in his uncle's face when he'd examined the traces of enhanced DNA Bruce had found and felt the air in the room grow cold. He knew what was happening right now, somewhere in the world, to his best friend, and it scared him. It terrified him. And so he searched and worked and tried to do something. Anything.

He'd gotten a few calls from the Mountain over the past few days, probably from Conner and M'gann wanting an update, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to answer. He hadn't talked to anybody since he'd been sent home, though he'd almost called Artemis and Roy multiple times for information, only to stop as he listened to the messages his uncle left him five times a day. He'd grown tired of hearing nothing repeated over and over again. He hated the word and wasn't willing to hear it from anybody else.

At first his parents had tried to talk to him, but eventually they'd grown tired of talking to a locked door and left him alone as well. His mom brought him food, leaving it outside the door with a "I'm here if you need anything, Sweetie". Yeah he needed something: his best friend safe. He'd almost cried twice, but caught himself. He couldn't cry. He had to be strong for Dick. He couldn't admit defeat.

oOo

"Yah!"

The thug went down, blood gushing from his nose and mouth, his eyes fluttering closed as he fell unconscious next to his three partners, each sporting the beginnings of impressive bruises on their face and heads. Their weapons lay abandoned, strewn about the alley among the bags of drugs they'd been attempting to smuggle into the old apartment building just five yards to their right. They hadn't quite reached their destination.

Artemis sniffed as she wiped her face with the back of her arm. Rubbing her gloved knuckles she kicked one of the men over, revealing the gun in the waistband of his pants, just above his butt. She reached down and snatched it up, turning it over and examining it for a minute before unloading it and letting the cartridge and gun fall back to the concrete with a dull clatter. She didn't care that it was the dead of night and she was probably alerting every criminal within earshot (there were a lot, she'd heard them) because at this point, she hoped they'd come. She wanted them to come at her, all at once, angry and vicious and bloodthirsty and she wanted to beat them all senseless. Every single one.

"Maybe dad was right after all." She muttered hoarsely, picking up her broken bow from the ground and slinging it back over her shoulder. "Maybe I am no better than him."

She knew he wouldn't agree. The boy that had showed her the better side of herself would argue and say that she was better than she gave herself credit for. He would say that she had so much more in herself than this: beating up criminals for fun; he always told her stuff that like. Used to tell her. He wasn't here now. Not here to tell show her the good side of humanity and herself. No, he was somewhere suffering from the worst humanity had to offer. He didn't deserve it. He didn't any of it.

She should probably call Red again. He'd tried to contact her twice already and she hadn't bothered to answer. He didn't have a lead, so what did it matter? Since when did he start caring about where she was or what she was doing. Before this, they'd barely even talked except for the occasional threat, but now, since they'd spent the past three days running around Gotham together in their tights, he'd taken it as an invitation to be her friend. Or something. But friends and Artemis weren't exactly the most compatible nouns in the world and since she'd just lost one of her first and maybe only friends, she wasn't sure how quick she was willing to get more.

'Wally called too," that little voice in her head reminded her.

"Hah, Robin brings together even more people in his absence than he does he's around. Little freak." Artemis almost smiled as she turned her face to the sky, searching the not-so-dark skyline for points of interest.

The fact was she was scared. Scared of what might happen to the first and only first to believe in her. To really believe in her.

'When did he go from annoying brat to savior?' The archer growled to herself.

But the fact was he had. And now she had to as well.

Five days.

Please Review!

Alex out.