Please, for the love of all that is good in fanfiction, write a review. Even better, make it thoughtful and specific as to why you think as you do. Reviews are the ambrosia with which writers sate the muses. I swear on pain of eating Star Fire's pudding that I will personally respond to every review. Note that I reserve the right to base the thoughtfulness of my response on that of the review.


"YEAAARGGGH!!!//AHHHH!!!"

BOOM!

RIRKKKCTINNG CRASH

"Dead."

Cyborg was pissed. It's hard to tell sometimes with him sometimes. He is half machine and it makes it much harder to read his body language, but Robin had had a lot of practice at reading the metal man: five years, three months, two days, and nineteen hours to be exact. But at the moment, Robin didn't need experience.

It was expected given that Robin had just used his Bo staff to impale Cyborg through his vulnerable shoulder joint, not mention nearly ripping off his head with a back handed strike to the occipital lobe. And it especially didn't help that he stood on top of the partial human with the splintered remains of his staff only millimeter's from Cyborg's neck.

"DUDE, THAT WAS LIKE…LIKE…" That was Beast Boy. He was much easier to read.

"Unnecessary." That was Raven. She was a great deal harder to read than all the rest combined.

"WAAAY OVERKILL!" Beast Boy again. The corner of Robin's right eye twitched involuntarily and he was suddenly presented with a very wide and very appealing array of options of how to shut the little changeling up, most of them involving swift violence applied to pressure points. You know that you're in a bad mood when your first thoughts involve involuntary tracheotomy…damn, he really was in a bad mood.

Robin sighed. He couldn't be indulging in pointless anger. It was childish and he was their leader. Right, Leader…he had to fix this quickly. Stepping back off his friend, he collapsed the remains of staff and hooked it back into his utility belt before reaching down with both hands to the still supine Cyborg.

He glared at Robin a little bit before accepting the gesture. With an almighty jerk, Robin did his best to help as Cyborg stiffly sat up. Robin vaguely regretted the offer to help as he felt something twinge in his back. Cyborg was heavy, very heavy, and it really didn't help him any when Robin pulled. Still, it was the idea that counted.

"That was a good fight…you almost had me there with that last sonic blast," Robin said as Cyborg absently dusted his outer steel shell off, "I got a little carried away…it was a good fight though." The repetition was a little lame.

"Yea, I'd say you got 'a little carried away' there," Cyborg looked up at Robin before his expression softened slightly and he said, "but it was a good fight…something eating ya' Fearless?" Robin recognized that expression. "Hey man, lets just forget this whole thing happened. Say, ya' wanna go work on the T-Car?", it said.

Not wanting to risk any more drama when he'd already had more than enough, Robin took the surest route he could think of to cement the peace. He told the truth or a piece of the truth anyway, "Family trouble."

"Oh, uh ok…" Cyborg's artificial eye seemed to flicker slightly in his puzzlement before he replied, "Well, I need to get back into my shop. Can't have my arm messed up if the alarm goes."

Glad to have avoided any further conflict, Robin silently allowed the half human to stand up without him futilely trying to help. He'd played on Cyborg's appreciation of honesty and his guilt for joining in on tormenting the Boy Wonder for the past two weeks.

His "paranoia" had become something of a joke among his friends as the crime rate reached all time lows and his teammates had often ribbed him mercilessly about his insistence on continued alertness. Cyborg, being the most mature of all of them in some ways, had felt guilty the most guilt for teasing. Besides, it was naturally understood that family problem could put anyone into a foul mood.

"Great, now I'm manipulating people like Bruce…just wonderful."

His foul mood took another turn for the worse when he came to that unpleasant realization. He would have to go running now or maybe lift some weights…at the very least smash something that wasn't one of his teammates. The punching bag, yea, that'd be good.

"I think we've earned an early break today team. Training is canceled for the rest of the day." There, that would make them happy and get out them of his hair at the same time.

For a brief moment, his teammates gaped at him. Robin, calling training off because he'd thought they'd earned an early break? Impossible! "I call Gamestation!" Or not. Beast Boy was already racing out of the sparring room and into the hallway. Cyborg forgot all about his busted shoulder and ran after the green shape shifter.

"No way, Beast Boy! I just rented Super Grand Prix and if I hear that stupid monkey game of yours one more time, I'm going to blow a circuit."

"Wait for me friends, I wish to join you on the station for gaming!" The metallic clanks of Cyborg's metal boots receded into the background noise even as Starfire literally flew out of the room.

Robin allowed himself a brief smirk as he said, "Some things never change."

"-but others do. Since when do you call off training early?" Robin turned around to see Raven still firmly planted where she had been standing during Cyborg and Robin's sparring match. Robin wasn't surprised. She knew him and his tricks far too well.

"I wanted them out before I said something I'd regret," he answered simply, turning back the man-shaped training dummy. As he went through some simple repetitions of various crippling strikes to the brachial plexus, he began to explain the situation to her.

"I've been in a bad mood lately," he began.

"That much is obvious." Raven, as usual, had no patience for it.

"You've been on edge this entire week and you risked putting Cyborg out of action for who knows how many hours when you nearly shredded his arm. What aren't you telling me? Is it Slade?"

Robin couldn't help, but cringe slightly at the mention of his nemesis and at the implication that he was still dangerously obsessed with the sociopath. He wasn't angry though.

When the full meaning of Raven's prophecy had finally become clear to him, he'd been crushed with guilt. Too late, it seemed, did he understand why Raven was, well, Raven. As a leader and a friend, it nearly drove him mad to think that they had left to her to deal with unimaginable horrors every day, every night.

He simply couldn't be mad at her. Besides, even with the defeat of Trigon, Raven remained abnormally unemotional and trying to be mad at her was like trying to be mad at the paper a letter is written on. Still, just to be safe…

His hand shot out and caught the dummy on the side of its jaw. Robin followed by grabbing the mannequin's opposing hand and performing a one-armed shoulder throw. He followed through to the ground before executing a simple, yet effective arm bar.

"It's just like I told Cyborg: I've just got some family trouble." Robin hoped that would satisfy her, but he doubted it.

"Right" she drawled, "I'm too tired to wring the answer out of you know, but don't think I'm dropping this."

Robin watched her head for the door. She would be back later and she would figure out what was going on. She always did. They all would eventually. He just had to decide how long he wanted to drag the process out.

"Bruce is going to have a son; a real one."

Oh well, if she was going to find out, then he might as well have it on his terms. "Things you can control," and all that. Raven looked appropriately shocked by his statement. She knew who Bruce Wayne really was and what he meant to Robin.

"What do you mean, 'a real one'? Did you suddenly cease to exist?" He was really having this conversation, wasn't he? Yes, unfortunately, he was. Robin really hated talking about his personal life. Robin walked out of the training room, making his way down through the hallways as the sounds of the Gamestation ran passed them.

He may have committed to telling Raven what was eating him, she was an empath and would find it out anyway, but he certainly wasn't going to risk the rest of the Titans finding out before they needed to.

As Raven fell silently in step with him, he said, "He'll have his own biological son from the wife he married, not some kid he adopted."

Their footsteps were now the only sounds besides their voices and the distant echo of Starfire celebrating some achievement on the station of games.

Raven's response once again demonstrated her knowledge of his personal life, "So? Bruce considers you his son doesn't he? Why are you worried?" Her eyebrows knitted together as she listened to the Boy Wonder's reply, "That's the thing Raven, I don't know what I am to him."

"Don't you get it Raven?" Robin asked as they neared the elevator doors. The was an electronic ding as the doors to the Tower's elevator slid open for the two young heroes.

"It's almost like I'm being replaced. Hell, I am being replaced." The doors slid back together and the elevator smoothly began climbing upwards. Robin pressed the button for the roof.

"Why do you say that? If your parents had lived and you'd had a little brother, you wouldn't be saying the same thing." Robin grimaced slightly out of irritation. She just didn't understand. The elevator dinged again as they reached the roof of the tower and the doors slid open. Together, the two Titans walked towards the edge of the roof and sat down with their legs dangling over space.

"You're right that I wouldn't care, but these are hardly normal circumstances." The sun just beginning to head down to the ocean from its peak in the sky and it was hot enough still that Raven dropped her hood. "Bruce adopted me, trained me. We've saved each other's lives more times than I can count. As much as I sometimes hated, still hate, how he did it, he raised me. Eventually I even considered him my dad." Robin paused to shield his face from the sunlight reflecting off the waves, "but he never tried to officially adopt me. I was always, his 'young ward' or 'charge' or 'that poor boy'…never 'son', not even in private."

Raven didn't respond to that and Robin didn't ask her to. He knew she'd have some well-thought out advice or question for him later. That's one of the things about their friendship that he valued most and it was part of the reason that there was very little he held back from her when the rest of the world saw only his mask.

Cyborg was his firm grounding in the everyday and the quiet contentment that spilled out onto the rest of the team. Beast Boy was in many ways his conscience because despite his years and hardships, he still saw very little beyond what should be right. And Starfire, she was beautiful and not just physically. Her genuinely pure joy was awe inspiring and it made the rest of the world beautiful. Robin had seen too much in his life not to need that. And Raven, she was his second in command, his sounding board, objective reasoning; thus the reason he felt no need at all to ask her what she would think.

For now, he was content to sit and enjoy the heat as it soaked through the poly-synth fabric and laminated body armor of his costume. He absently noted that his hair gel was starting to melt a little.

"Perhaps he was simply afraid of your own parents. Maybe he thought he couldn't measure up to them." He cocked his head towards the dark empath. It was a good guess he supposed, but it didn't fit.

With a slight snort of disbelief, he said, "Raven, this is Batman we're talking about. Why would he care about my parents when they're dead?"

She shrugged, "Why don't you ask him?" Robin simply shrugged himself and went back to staring at the waves as they broke on the rocks. There were some vicious currents in those rocks and a really killer rip-tide about fifteen meters off to the left. He knew: he'd tried to swim in the area shortly after the Tower had been set-up.

"Well…?" He turned back to Raven to find her staring pointedly at him. Robin was vaguely surprised. He'd thought she'd been asking a rhetorical question.

"Uh, Raven, you can imagine how well that would go over. 'Say Bruce, I just heard you're finally happy and even managing to have a son of your own. I'm really pissed off about that and I'd really appreciate it if you would officially name me your first born instead of the new guy.' So, what d'ya say, eh?'"

Robin finished his acting and turned back to Raven to see her response. Her left eyebrow was cocked up to the side as if she didn't have a clue how his defective brain functioned. For some reason, the expression was priceless on her: classic Raven. Maybe it was because she always managed to look like she was questioning the sanity of her fully mortal counterparts. He started laughing and was rewarded with an eye roll. Robin suddenly felt much better.

They sat there for a while in companionable silence, both of them content to simply enjoy the view and mull over their own thoughts. Silence had been the norm between the couple for most of the time they'd know each other and it was still a comfortable routine.

"Why not talk to Alfred?"

TTTTTTTTTTTTT

Robin couldn't believe that he was calling Wayne Manor without being called first, especially when he should've been trying to snatch a few hours sleep before night patrol.

"You seem to be doing a lot that you can't believe lately," his inward voice said, "besides, since when did you start sleeping?"

There was a brief burst of static before Alfred Pennyworth's strangely timeless face appeared on the view screen in front. Robin almost asked how he was doing when he remembered that he hadn't taken his mask off. It was in his room and it was a secure line. No big deal.

"Ah, Master Dick, what a pleasant surprise. Shall I wake up Master Bruce?"

Now this was a big deal. Bruce in bed before the morning hours? "He's actually asleep? But it's only 11:30!"

"Why, so it is."

Robin could've sworn that Alfred smiled slightly at that, but he couldn't be sure, "he and Mrs. Wayne retired to their room at around ten. They're sound asleep."

Robin couldn't quite believe this. Trigon's return to the physical plane had been less a sign of the Apocalypse than this.

"Alfred…why did Bruce never decide to make me his son? Why am I being replaced?"

The Apocalypse had to be coming. This was the second time in one day that he was honestly discussing intimate details concerning his personal life, never mind that it was with Alfred and Raven.

Alfred was absolutely shocked, but true to form, his discomposure lasted only a moment before his faultless "Butler" expression was back in place, albeit with a much keener stare.

"Is this because of Thomas?" Robin's eyes narrowed at that, "Thomas, Bruce's father…of course he'd name it that."

"He is not an it Master Dick." Robin suddenly realized that he'd been thinking aloud. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Alfred suddenly looked very tired, something that was uncharacteristic of the seemingly unchangeable butler, "If I may ask Master Dick, why are you so worried about your standing with Master Bruce when you've made it clear you want nothing to do with anything connected to him?"

Robin managed to keep his face blank at the underlying rebuke, but it wasn't easy. He'd hurt Alfred and Barbara too when he'd left like he had. He'd been so angry and hurt that he'd said and done many things that he'd wished he could take back.

"I'm sorry Alfred." He knew what Robin was talking about.

The aged servant's face creased in a slight smile. All was forgiven. "I know dear boy, I know…"

Robin's eyes were starting to hurt from staring at the screen. He glanced at the clock. It was getting close to patrol time and he still hadn't resolved anything here.

"Master Dick…" Robin looked back up; Alfred had a very curious expression. "Master Dick, please come back home; just for a visit."

"I am home," he regretted it instantly, even if it was true.

Alfred's kindly expression dissolved back into sadness again. "Yes, of course Master Dick…I need get to bed myself: early morning driving the Masters to their work."

"Alfred, I…"

"Try to get some sleep in Master Dick."

"Alfred, wait!"

"Master Dick?"

Robin frantically searched his memory for some excuse to go to Gotham. He had to make things right, if only because he'd been such a colossal jerk. If he didn't go and apologize, at least to Alfred, he'd be no better than Bruce.

"Wasn't Bruce holding some sort of charity fundraising ball at the Manor this weekend?"

Alfred was clearly puzzled, but he went along anyway, "Why, yes there is: 8:30 this Saturday. Are you thinking of attending?"

"Yea…yea, I think I will."

The face on the screen smiled at him once again, the old Alfred back where he belonged.

"Good night, Master Dick."

The screen winked out and Robin was left alone in his room with only the faint, phosphorescence from his alarm clock as illumination.

TTTTTTTTTTTTT

"---and now with a new and improved formula! Just once daily applic---"

Click

"---but I love you Kari! I'm sorry Richy, but I must go. My coun---"

Click Click

"If what you said was true, the sword is a powerful symbol: one that---"

Click

"---'night at---

Click Click Click Click Click

"Impossible."

Robin's gloved hand stood poised over the remote, almost as if afraid of moving from the daily cooking show special, Adventures in Thai. The hesitation only remained for a second though. His finger moved to the back button.

Click Click

"---used armor-piercing rounds. Here you can see a picture of one these. Notice the distinctive tip. They're actually fairly common, especially in Army bases that house Stryker brigades."

Robin unconsciously leaned forward in his seat. If his mask were removed, his eyes would have been in danger of popping out. There was suddenly a slight tinkling noise as the glass in his hand shattered. Robin didn't notice. His total attention was on the boldly outlined title next to the talking head's ear.

Batman Dead?

No, they had to be mistaken. Batman couldn't be dead. Bruce was too good. He was one of the best, no, he was the best; better than Superman, Wonder Woman, all the rest of the League combined. Bruce couldn't be dead because Bruce hadn't decided to die yet. It was that simple.

Robin abruptly realized that the talking head was still talking and, no, he couldn't be seeing what he was seeing. "I never even got around to talking to him."

"---and here again, this time in slow motion, is the actual shot. Even with the poor quality of a hand held digital, you can make out the slight jerk Batman makes when he gets shot. There, there's the second. See, you can see his hand moving towards---"

"Hey, Robin, we're all out of food! When are you going shopping?!" Beast Boy had picked a very unfortunate time to walk in. He rounded the corner just in time to see Robin's mentor take the second round to the gut.

"Holy," he breathed out. For a moment, he too seemed unable to take in the drama that was playing out before his very eyes. It was only for a moment though.

"Guys, guys get down here! Batman'sbeenshot, Batman'sbeenshot!!!" He was off and running through the Tower before Robin could grab him. It wasn't too long before the rest of the team arrived. Starfire arrived first, her speed causing the mound of pictures she'd been going through to be sucked in behind her in a swirling vortex. Raven was next, teleporting to his side even as he was screaming at Beast to just come back and shut. Up. Now.

"---goes Hawk Girl. She was almost hit too, but she manages to dodge it. Vance is lucky he wasn't killed. As it is, he'll never walk again without a limp, if he walks at all that is. Now here to answer the question of, 'Did the Batman survive long enough to get a hospital?' is former combat veteran and Chicago EMT medic, Isaak Sears."

All of the Titans were clustered around him now, jabbering away about what was on the news or their concern for him. He couldn't make sense of a single thing they were saying and he didn't particularly care either. All he wanted was to be able to understand the blasted commentary. No go though, his teammates were making too much noise.

"QUIIIEEEET!"

His throat and lungs were raw, but it had the desired effect. The entire Tower was quickly silent except for Mr. Sears and his live analysis that was being broadcasted into the Titan's living room, courtesy ATC News.

"Jerry, I'll tell you again, there's no way to know for certain. First off, we don't know what kinda damage those two rounds did. Normally getting hit with that small of an AP round is like getting hit with an ice pick. In and out. As long as you don't get hit somewhere vital, you're hurting, but you're good. Trouble is, we know Batman wear's body armor. That could've fragmented. It might've caused the bullets to bounce around inside him, all sorts'ah stuff. We know he was carried away by Hawk Girl and that he wasn't checked into any nearby hospitals. It all depends on whether something bad got hit and how fast the Justice League got him somewhere they could treat him."

As the anchor thanked Isaak for his commentary and prepared to go into re-reexamining the tapes, the Teen Titan's stood in muted shock amid the scattered piles of old pictures and random trash that Starfire had dragged down with her rushing down.

It was Starfire, once again, who reacted first, "R-Robin, I am sure that the Man of Bats will be ok."

Robin nodded mutely as the rest of the team returned their attention to their distraught leader. Several attempts to speak were made, but they all died before any sound came out. Robin could see their mouth's twitching. Pretty soon, they'd be talking again, trying to comfort him. He didn't want their comfort. He didn't want anything.

"Guys, I'm going to be gone for a little while."

TTTTTTTTTTTTT

Numb. That's what Robin felt: numb. That was wrong, wasn't it? You didn't stare down at the broken body of the man who had been your father and not feel something.

Bruce Wayne lay in a coma in front of Dick on a large, mechanized bed. Numerous tubes and IV's snaked in and out of his body, connecting him to the machines that had taken over his vital functions. Despite his bulk, Bruce seemed to visibly deflate under the harsh glare of the light.

It was so painfully obvious that he was nothing more than a mere human that Dick almost couldn't believe that it was Batman who lay without waking in a coma. It was as if by stripping him of any place to hide the doctors had also somehow exorcised Bruce Wayne of Batman.

"One day, that will be you," Times such as these tended to awaken those mean little voices that he normally squelched under his iron will and cocky ego.

"I know, I know." He wasn't going to bother this time though.

Was he simply in a state of shock? He dearly hoped so. Logically, he knew that something like this was a long time coming. Through his years with working with Batman, they'd had numerous brushes with death, but somehow, he'd managed to continue believing in their own immortality.

If anything, their seemingly endless string of victories in the face of death and dismemberment made the lie easier to believe in. Sure, the first few times he nearly falling off a high-rise or strangled by some thug had kept him up at night, but eventually-eventually it just made him feel more alive.

The Joker changed all that, the first supervillian to go after the Boy Wonder instead of his mentor. Neither of them had expected the shift in attention until it was far too late.

Dick still had nightmares, probably would until he was dead. He'd been on a routine beat when he'd heard the all to common cry for help. He'd looked down from his perch to see two thugs cornering a pretty blond in a trench coat, the usual. So, without thinking, he jumped down to the rescue. Next thing he knew, he was lying naked on an old operating table, leather straps biting into his skin. And there was that laugh, that horrible, horrible laugh.

It took Batman and Batgirl four agonizing days to find the Joker's hideout in the old Arkham Asylum building and they only managed that because of Harley Quinn. When she'd learned about the Joker's plans of breaking his mind and mold him into a "son" of sorts, she had grown jealous.

It was only because of her deranged possessiveness that Batman and Batgirl had swooped in on an unsuspecting Joker in the midst of one of his "cooking sessions" (the Joker was extremely fond of sulfuric acid derivatives) and proceeded to beat the madman senseless. Ironic, considering Harley had played the bait in their little trap.

Those four days of living hell were when he fully realized his mortality and now he truly knew that Bruce was mortal too. Only, instead of ruined skin and sleepless nights, would a life be the price?

Inexplicably, he felt of a rush of hot anger licking at his insides, even as he began to sob uncontrollably.

"Damn you Bruce! Are you going to die here and leave the guilt on me when it's you who deserve to feel guilty over me?"

Dick was vaguely aware that someone was standing behind him. Alfred, he knew. He'd worn the same style of hand made Forzieri leather shoes for the past eighteen years.

"How is he, Alfred?" As if it were possible for him to not know.

"The doctors…they believe there's a good chance that he'll wake up in the next week or two." It almost did him in to hear the kindly butler so scared. He had thought, a little callously, that the elderly man would've been used to this sort of thing by now.

"You really are an idiot sometimes Grayson."

He owed Alfred more than he could ever repay for all the nights he'd spent gently caressing his hair, for the reminding Bruce of his birthdays and that he hated broccoli, for all time he always spared for "Master Dick". Life, he mused, was truly unfair if it was going to hurt someone like Alfred after how much he'd given.

But then, it'd already demonstrated its cruelty with Bruce. The poor bastard had finally, impossibly begun to move towards some semblance of a normal life and then, oh, I'm so sorry, but now you're in a coma.

Gently, Dick placed what he hoped was comforting hand on Alfred's shoulder. For the first time in his life, it was his on hand on the butler's immaculate coat and not the other way around, "He'll be ok, Alfred. He'll wake up, he'll wake up."

Oh God, he hoped so. And not only for Alfred, he realized, not only for his new wife and for Gotham and the whole world, but for himself.

---The fourth chapter has been made into a stand alone fanfiction titled Teen Titans VS. Justice League of America---

Red Notes

1) So far, deciding what events to actually write about has been a real challenge. I keep finishing a page or two only to end up thinking that I should've left out what I wrote and instead write about something else. It's very frustrating to say the least and I loose a lot of work.

2) As many of you know, Dick Grayson was never captured by the Joker. That was Tim Drake in The Return of the Joker. Dick experienced his first loss of confidence due to a failed hostage rescue attempt involving two face. Later, he was shot by the Joker through the shoulder.