| STAR CITY
| July 17, 11:26 PM

The adrenaline from the battle is still running as high as their hopes, and all three teens look to Roy expectantly. Their team's been together for almost two weeks, but there's just one person missing. Robin is the one to finally pop the question.

"So, Speedy, you in?"

"Pass." Roy's eyes narrow, and his voice is angry, harsh. After the battle with Brick, he's more confident than ever in his choice to step away from his former identity. "I'm done with Arrow and the League telling me what to do. I don't need babysitter or a clubhouse hangout with the other kids. Your junior Justice League is a joke, something to keep you busy, and. In. Your. Place. I don't want any part of it."

Robin frowns as his oldest friend walks away without even looking back. His mind recalls to the data files Batman has given him access to; they had been a dead end, despite the hours of work he had poured into tracking the villains' movements prior to Independence Day. Batman hasn't mentioned it since, and that has only increased Robin's suspicions. Did Batman give him a literally cold case? Left out information? Let him dig in, but not dig too deep?

He wants to pursue Speedy, to get his opinion on the matter, because if anyone knows anything about suffocating billionaire guardians and their tactics to distract their wards, it's Roy. But just as Robin reaches out, a wave of dizziness hits him and he has to support himself against a wall to keep himself from falling over. Suddenly, he's not feeling the aster anymore.

Wally, even in the dark, notices immediately. "Rob? You alright man?"

Robin feels a worried hand on his shoulder and that seems to be enough to whisk away his temporary disorientation. He recomposes himself and stands just a bit straighter, because there's no need to get his best friend worried over nothing. "Yeah, just a little dizzy. Must be the lack of sleep."

"Batman's working you hard on patrol?"

"Yeah." Except not really, but Robin doesn't want to tell Wally that he's actually been working on his own covert case the last few weeks. It's his case, and he wants to settle it alone. Even if Batman thinks he's given up on it and has regulated it to a lower priority level.

"Well, my friend, I know just what you need," Wally begins in a grand voice and a devious smirk on his face. The speedster pulls Robin away from the crime scene, arm wrapped casually around the younger boy's neck. "I heard Star City just opened a new ice cream shop, 92 flavors!"

The boy wonder chuckles, because he doesn't need to be psychic to know how this would play out. "I'm paying, aren't I?"

| GOTHAM CITY
| AUGUST 3, 9:51 PM

Robin works slowly, but intently, on making sure Amazo is definitely turned off. He does his best to swallow down that nausea that has been striking him a bit too frequently, and wills his body not to sway in front of his teammates. At the first sign of illness, he knows Batman will bench him, and he can't allow that. The team needs him. Bruce needs him.

And perhaps he has had a bit too many late nights, because he doesn't even notice when Superboy turns to him and says, "I'm feeling the aster."

There's something like a heavy thick cotton dulling his senses. It's getting harder to even concentrate on the wire that has somehow stubbornly duplicated itself in his spinning vision. Superboy frowns, but luckily the team interprets his distraction as deep concentration and they soon leave him to do his work. Wally, however, stays.

"Dude, are you sure you're alright?"

Robin hears this time and looks up. He immediately regrets it, because the nausea hits him harder than ever. Biting back a groan, Robin looks back down and hopes his best friend doesn't notice his trembling hand. "Y-yeah."

He's really off his game, because the tremble in his voice is horribly obvious and it only made the speedster more concerned.

"Oh really?" Wally challenges, "Then how come you missed when you threw those batarangs at Amazo? You never miss."

"Just an off day, we all have them." Robin is getting irritated now, because he knows his performance tonight was shoddy. Shoddy enough that his best friend may have gotten hurt if not for the interference of the mysterious arrow. He needs to get over this sickness, he needs to be better, stronger, faster if he wants to protect everyone, if he doesn't want to feel the pain of losing someone all over again. It only takes one fall, after all.

"Rob-"

"Look," Robin snaps, pulling at the wire to the point that it snaps and electricity hisses under his palms, "I'm just human, when I get the stomach bug, it lasts for days, not just hours like for you."

Wally frowns and approaches his friend like he would a cornered animal. He notices that Robin is more out of breath than normal and even a bit paler, but it's hard to tell in the dark. He doesn't need to see through the domino mask to know that his friend is frustrated, and Wally realizes a bit too late that maybe it isn't the best time to blurt out, "then why were you doing missions if you're sick?"

"Because, if Batman finds out, he'll bench me for a month." Robin is about to pull another wire, but thinks about it for a second, and releases it instead. His voice becomes softer. "Wally, I just…I can't be benched for that long."

Robin is as much his identity as Dick Grayson is. The thrill, the strength, the satisfaction he feels as Robin is what helps Dick Grayson fall asleep without dreams of snapped wires and falling bodies. And on nights that he's absent, Bruce comes home just a bit more rugged, a bit more torn from braving the dangers of Gotham alone. Dick refuses to stay at home only to wait for Bruce to come back, and he refuses to wait uselessly for the day that Bruce doesn't come back.

"He'd bench you for that long?" Wally asks, slightly surprised. He realizes that he's never seen Robin sick. Ever. The younger boy always appeared so carefree, so invincible, that they've never really talked about it until now. "I'm sure it's not that-"

"He's done it before, although he tried to do it permanently that time."

Of course, there is a vast difference between getting beaten half to death by one of Batman's rogues and getting a stomach flu, but he desperately needs Wally to not tell the team. This is nothing worth depriving Batman of a partner and the team of their resident hacker for a month.

"Fine," the speedster finally says after a tense silence. Robin lets out a small sigh, and Wally crouches down next to him with a playful grin.

"So, need a hand? I've always wanted to try to disassemble a super robot."

| GOTHAM CITY
| August 21, 1:05 PM

"Mr. Grayson."

"Mr. Grayson."

Dick flinches upwards, spine straight, with eyes still half-lidded with drowsiness. They eventually focus in on the slightly annoyed face of his math teacher. "I…uh…hi Mr. Henderson."

"Mr. Grayson, I'm glad you have decided to grace this class with your attention," the teacher begins, contempt evident in his voice. He has never liked Dick's stellar test scores despite his long-standing record of having the shoddiest class attendance.

"Sorry," Dick apologizes honestly with a slight blush. It's rare that he ever sleeps in class, because he doesn't want to bother Bruce with school issues on top of the other cases the dynamic duo tackle. He's slipping up more and more, and it's beyond embarrassing that even his civilian teacher notices.

But the teacher relents, as expected. He's Dick Grayson, and that gives him an almost automatic pardon on all issues that fall short of assault. When the teacher turns his back, Barbara leans towards him with a judging eye.

"Dick, are you still sick with that stomach flu?"

"Nah, just a late night Babs."

Even though he has temporarily shelved the ice villain case, he's still only getting six hours between pulling off the Dynamic Duo combo with Batman and helping out the team on their missions. It used to be enough, but his body is getting too tired too quickly these days, and he doesn't know what's wrong. Maybe he's doing too much, maybe it's one of those growing phases that Alfred mentions from time to time.

Whatever it is, he just hopes it'll pass, like the nausea that is now once again on remission.

"You know," Barbara is leaning very close to him now, uncomfortably close, "your eyes are getting a bit yellow."

She's frowning, and Dick automatically knows what she's thinking; yellow sclarea, jaundice. But it can't be true, because the stomach flu is gone and despite his fatigue, he is better now than he was a week ago when he was begging Bruce to let him patrol individually so that Bruce wouldn't catch his sudden fits of dizziness.

He backs away. "You're imagining things, it's just the lighting."

Barbara is about to protest when Mr. Henderson lets out a loud cough. They look to see that he's staring at them, and both smile sheepishly. Dick avoids talking to Barbara for the rest of the day, a feat that he pulls off easily considering they only have two classes together.

When he returns home, he locks his door and leans close to his mirror, examining his own eyes. He sees light yellow and frowns. The next day, he asks Alfred if they can replace his bathroom light and dismisses the detail once again.

| MOUNT JUSTICE
| August 27, 6:17 PM

It isn't even a week later when the illness strikes again, much to Dick's dismay. The mission against Clayface has been an absolute disaster, heavy on the dis.

"I need to talk to Aqualad. The rest of you hit the showers and head home."

To Batman's surprise, his ward doesn't even linger and immediately takes the opportunity to disappear around a corner just as Superboy spits out a sarcastic comment. He files the odd behavior in the back of his mind for later. For now, the Atlantean has his attention.

| GOTHAM CITY

| August 27, 6:27 PM

Robin is extremely thankful that he has managed to crawl into his shower at Wayne Manor before he hurls the contents of his lunch out into the drain below as the water washes it away along with the mud on his body. His hands are trembling again and the disorientation comes back in waves, but he knows that it'll disappear again if he waits long enough. He didn't expect it to be back so soon (or ever). It had been gone for a whole week, but it returned with a vengeance when Clayface appeared.

He counts his breathing, and tries to focus on the tiny etchings on the tiles that line the shower wall instead of the impressive display of acrobatics that his stomach seems to be doing. Eventually, he feels well enough to stumble out of the shower. Dick is glad that his room is the one place Bruce and Alfred do not monitor, because it would be beyond mortifying to let his guardians see his sorry state.

It's frustrating - how weak his body feels, how he's holding his team back to the point that they are now failing missions, how he can't even find the energy to work off these frustrations in a gym. Instead, he throws on some pajamas and crawls into bed. He doesn't want to face Bruce, and he definitely doesn't want to face the possibility that he may actually be seriously sick. It's been over a month, and he knows he's not at peak performance. Something's off.

But he doesn't want to think about it now. All he wants to do is sleep. So he does.

| GOTHAM CITY
| August 27, 8:04 PM

Bruce is further baffled when he fails to find Dick at the gym as he had expected. He searches the batcave and finds it empty as well. He tries the entertainment room, the outside courts, and even the kitchen with the same results. Finally, Alfred calmly informs him in a slightly irritated voice that Master Richard is in his room and had fallen asleep through his dinner call.

He slides into the dark room, quiet enough not to wake Dick who is as light as a sleeper as he is. The boy's pillow is damp, and his blankets lay half-hazardously scattered all around his bed. Slowly, he re-arranges the blankets to cover Dick's entire frame and frowns when he notices that the boy has gotten thinner. Alfred has good reason to be displeased with Dick for missing dinner, but the boy looks so tired that even the dark knight doesn't have the heart to wake him.

Replacing the damp pillow with a new, dry one finally wakes up the sleepy boy wonder despite Bruce's efforts to be discreet. "Bruce?" Dick murmurs, eyes still closed. "Is it time for patrol?"

Bruce puts the new pillow in place and then places a comforting hand on his ward's shoulder. "No, go back to sleep Dick," he lies.

Dick settles into the new pillow, seemingly content. Then, he shifts his face closer into the pillow before he softly mutters, "Sorry...about the mission."

"The team was disorganized when going in. Aqualad's inability to pay adequate caution to the situation was hardly your fault."

The words seem to pass over the now sleeping boy though, and Bruce quietly leaves the room. Afterwards, he makes a note to Alfred to buy the absurdly sugary brand of cereal Dick likes for breakfast. The boy needs to gain some weight, and a treat wouldn't hurt once in a while.

A/N: Sorry that it's still progressing a bit slowly and with little action - these things take a little time to kick in. There will be much more significant things happening next chapter with a bit of a more obvious break-off from canon. I actually planned to update this next week but I was blown away by all the responses I received, so I decided to edit and put this up early since I do have quite a bit of this fic already written out.

Thanks for all your support! And as always, any feedback whatsoever is appreciated, even gibberish. I'm totally fluent in gibberish (not really, but if you want to try, COME AT ME BRO)