Because the inability to open a pudding cup can occasionally reduce even the most mature of 5 year old to tears and the best grown ups can do is try really hard to make everything better.

With a route planned, their progress sped up considerably and in a matter of minutes they were ducked in a storage closet waiting for a large armed contingent to run past. Hiding was definitely out of Thor's normal modus operandi. As the door closed, Thor looked at the small child with them and tried not to glare.

"I do not hide like a sniveling coward!" Thor snapped at Captain America with in a harsh whisper.

"Is it really cowardly to outsmart the enemy?" asked Robin sounding oh so sincere. "Batman always taught me that bravery is about doing what is right even if it is something you don't want to do."

Captain America looked at Robin's blue guileless seeming eyes and then looked over at Thor. This kid was scary smart; that bravery bit was said with an incredibly sincere sounding delivery. Would the God of Thunder catch that the kid was playing him?

Thor looked at the little guy's wide unblinking eyes for several long moments. "No tiny warrior, your man of bats speaks truly."

Nope thought the Captain, thankfully the big guy fell for it.

"I can go back out there if you think it's the right thing to do," offered Robin almost too softly to be heard. "I know your allies are depending on you and I don't want to be the reason someone gets hurt."

Okay, thought Captain America blinking stupidly. Now I can't tell if the kid is playing us anymore.

Robin looked around the storage room and then went to a pair of plungers stored in the cleaning supplies and started unscrewing the wooden sticks from the rubber cups.

"What are you doing?" Captain America demanded in a whisper that came out a little harsher then he'd intended.

Robin looked him straight in the eyes, then whipped the sticks around in a twirling ninja display that ended with the sticks crossed over his head. "Arming myself. Batman won't include escrimna sticks in my kit because he generally disapproves of anything that might encourage me to favor hand-to-hand, over ranged attacks but I'm missing all my kit and my body armor, not to mention nearly a hundred pounds of mass."

"You are not going into battle!" interrupted Captain America determinedly. "Kid, you can barely stand!"

"I won't be defenseless. I refuse! Can you even guess how many times over the last four years I've been kidnapped or tortured, in some creep's attempt to use me against my allies, friends and family? I get it! I get that small and cute, means that I look like a walking dollar sign or the weakest link in a chain of secrets or just a fun way to make the people I care about go completely off the deep-end with grief, anger, distraction and worry but I won't willingly be a party to it. I won't do that to you and I won't do that to myself." Robin was not smiling now. He was red-faced with anger and frustration.

"I think you should let the tiny warrior keep his sticks," offered Thor sounding uncomfortable.

"I want him to hide here," clarified Captain America to Thor angrily. "We'll go secure the base then come back for him. There are too many soldiers now."

When he turned back toward Robin, the child had disappeared.

"I don't think yelling at him was a good idea," offered Thor.

Robin supposed Wally would have said he just went ninja. He knew loosing his temper and taking off had been immature. The problem was he was five with some extra thrown in. Robin stayed in his hiding spot, silent hot tears dripping down his face. He couldn't have even told you exactly what he was upset about. He watched as the two big warriors looked for him. They hadn't introduced themselves yet. Alfred said good manners meant you introduced yourself. In his head he decided to call the Viking, Sven and the patriot could be umm... Jefferson.

I am hiding but I don't think this is what Jefferson meant thought Robin. Robin thought of his mom and dad for a little while, wondering what they would think he should be doing. The memories of his parents were clear. He knew that his mom and dad had died years ago but at the same time, just a few hours ago hadn't they'd been horsing around in the center ring with him. He remembered the grill cheese sandwiches he'd had for lunch. The trailer had run out of propane, so the sammies had only been grilled on one side. Dad had been helping him work on his tumbling. It seemed more real than Batman, Martians and dimensional portals; those memories seemed like crazy dreams. Were his parents really truly gone? If I close my eyes and sleep, will everything be better in the morning wondered Dick?

Robin calmed his breathing and forced himself to use some deductive reasoning. When I was five, I did not know how to use a computer, fight or escape from confinement. When I dream, I don't think I smell sweat, tears and dust. Do I feel pain when I dream? I don't think my head has ever hurt this badly in a dream before. My whole body feels worse then when I had the flu real bad. Doctors put people to sleep for operations. Therefore, in theory, sleep should not contain pain. Batman is real. I have a duty, to do everything in my power to help.

Robin smeared the tears off of his face with a dusty dirty hand, picked up his makeshift escrimna sticks and silently followed after Sven and Jefferson. The two big warriors were like bulls in a china shop plowing through opposition. Even the white bed sheet he was trailing as he followed after them failed to catch their attention.

"We'll just have to shut this place down and find him later!" Captain America shouted to Thor as they slowly fought through the halls to the large warehouse storing the Tesseract portal generator.

Black Window dropped from the ceiling throwing Captain America his shield, then tossing both of the warriors, new communicators.

Thor looked over to Mjolnir. The hammer still sat weighting down and jamming the main activator on the portal generator. Thor decided to leave it there for now.

And then…

"Mr. Robot Sir?" Robin's young voice came over the com-link channel. "If you could take out the second and third bunkers in the west field, the umm, disruptor cannons for lack of a better term, will shut down. You see, they seem to use a modification of the same tech as the portal generator but the cannons aren't self contained they just redirect energy."

"Who the %$# is on the com-link?" demanded Ironman. "Are the Avengers employing chipmunks now?"

"Mr. Robot..." Robin started.

"His name is Robin. Just do what he says!" interrupted Captain America looking around to see where the child was.

"Purple Archer do you copy?" Robin chirped.

"…Yeah?" Hawkeye replied confused.

"The radio towers around the property are powering the smaller disruptor guns, if you target the reflectors at the very top they should be reduced to using ordinary weapons.

Err, Thomas Jefferson go help your green gummy bear please, he's being overpowered."

"Who's Thomas Jefferson?" asked Captain America.

Black Window snickered, "I think he means you."

"Mr. Viking? I could use some help. They're going to break into the control room any minute now."

"How'd he hack the com-link?" demanded Ironman.

"I guess I'm chopped liver," laughed Black Widow who'd not been given a task.

"N, ..um, no pretty lady," stuttered Robin. "You can take out the um, well if you want to keep everyone contained umm, rather than just dispersing the soldiers, um, a low yield explosive on the small propane tank to the left of the air strip will help both stop aircraft launches and probably melt the main access road but I um,…can't remember for sure what the explosive potential of that much propane is."

"You don't need to give me a job kid," Black Widow answered running off. "I'm going to capture the ring leaders. They're more important than the foot soldiers."

"Oh, okay then. That's a good idea."

There was a disrupter explosion from the main control room then Natasha aka Black Widow, saw a very small form in white climb out one of the windows in control tower. It scaled the wall resulting in a white sheet fluttering to the ground. He had what looked like a pair of sticks tucked under his chin.

"Was that a naked kid?" asked an incredulous Black Widow.

"We'll explain later!" Captain America barked over the com-link.

The small form shimmied up the power conduit and out onto the rafters.

"Robin?!", bellowed Thor who'd broken into the control room trying to rescue the child.

"He's out. He's clear!" answered Black Widow. "Look up!" She decided to leave the kid to Thor and continue with her original objective.

Thor looked out the window and up, before ducking back in for a moment to take out a soldier toting one of the smaller disruptor guns. Ugh, it was one of those things that took him out last time. When the room was clear again he looked back out the window and up to the ceiling. A small head looked out over the rafters smiling at him. Robin waved down happily.

Thor groaned then bellowed up, "Friend Robin is sixty feet in the air truly the safest spot?"

A tiny hand reached out past the rafter and gave him the thumbs up. Robin kept crawling out further into the room.

Thor jumped down from the control room landing heavily on the main floor of the warehouse. A soldier targeted him point blank with one of the disruptor guns but it just fizzled.

"I've got the last of the radio towers," reported Hawkeye.

"It succeeded in taking out the disruptor guns," Thor confirmed as he decked a suddenly terrified looking soldier.

"Hulk and I are incoming. Ironman how are those bunkers coming?" asked the Captain.

"I've just about got the one to the left Mr. Jefferson," replied Ironman snickering

"Shut up and fight! Hulk and I will get the other bunker."

The first bunker went up with a near deafening boom. Thor looked up to confirm the shockwave wouldn't dislodge their small friend. In only a few minutes more they had moved on to clean up.

"Friend Robin do you require assistance getting down?" Thor called up when it seemed things were calm. Apparently the child was part monkey as he scrambled down from the rafters effortlessly. Thor handed him his sheet. Robin giggled.

Ironman landed heavily beside Thor. "I'll just vaporize this brute of a Tesseract."

"No!" shouted Robin, Thor and Captain America, but the unibeam from the center of Ironman's chest had already fired out.