Teen
Titans
Avatar
by Cyberwraith Nine
Robin: Punch Line
"I do not understand."
Robin had heard those four words on an almost daily basis for the past eighteen months, since he and the other three Titans had investigated a strange impact north of Jump City. Expecting trouble on a cosmic scale, Robin had instead found a best friend who had also turned out to be the missing part of his soul...or at least, that's how it seemed whenever he felt compelled to wax poetic.
Leaning back in the computer's swiveling chair, Robin nodded up at the golden face looming over his shoulder. He could see her pinpoint eyebrows furrowed over a pair of luminous green eyes brimming with worry. Starfire tended to fret about a lot of things, but in this case, the Teen Wonder was forced to agree.
"I don't blame you, Kory," he sighed as the two-dimensional representation of a pale, grinning face rotated above a set of statistics on the screen. The numbers were horrifying enough on their own-body counts, criminal records, and sheer property damage-but Robin knew all too well the true, sickening dread that they represented. The sheer number of times he had almost wound up becoming one of those statistics was nothing short of staggering. "The Joker's a tough individual to figure out."
Since the disturbing call from Huntress the night before, Robin hadn't slept or eaten. His constant research had been interrupted only to gather the rest of the Titans once they had woken up to warn them of the new development. Now it was nightfall once again, and Robin was going on nearly thirty hours without sleep, meditation or food. Pure adrenaline was the only thing keeping him alert, coupled with the knowledge of what the Joker intended for him.
A snort sounded from the central couch across the room. Looking back, Starfire and Robin both saw Cyborg leaning back into the circular seat's pillowy folds as the television bathed him in flickering light. His metallic components shone with a multitude of colors in the reflected images as he cast a red-eyed gaze over at the pair. "Not that hard to figure out. Dude's psychotic. Should've been put down years ago, and now its up to us."
Despite the bravado in their friend's voice, Robin noticed him anxiously grinding his metallic knuckles into the arm of the couch. Nearby, Beast Boy sat perched on the back of the couch, trying for all the world to look like he was watching the show intently and not being sick with worry, which was as readable on his face as any headline in a paper. Not far from there, in the kitchen, Terra and Raven sat together at the dinner table, each with a cup of herbal tea. Terra seemed unusually pale for a down-and-dirty girl who saw a lot of sun. Raven was pale, too, but that was normal. However, anyone who knew her well could pick up on the subtle hints that betrayed her own worry; the shiftiness in her eyes, the subtle flexing of her fingers. Without a word, the rest of the Titans broadcasted their worry, and that in turn made Robin even more nervous. In a rough and tumble with the Joker, how much could he count on them? They were already psyching themselves out for a loss before the game ever truly began.
A small island of comfort in the sea of rising panic was Starfire; with little experience regarding Earth's villains, the young heroine was having trouble understanding why everyone else was so damned edgy. "I was led to understand that clowns are purveyors of joy and laughter," she insisted as she scratched her head. For a creature powered by emotions, there was no ignoring the sense of dread that this villain instilled in her friends. "On Tamaran, my parents kept a court jester who-"
Beast Boy flipped from the couch and landed crouched on the floor with a hard look cast on his impish features. "You were told wrong, Star," he said with a strangely solemn stare and a spooky voice. His legs flexed as he leapt forward, landing just in front of Starfire. The Tamaranian girl squeaked with surprise as he bared dull fangs and imaginary claws at her, saying, "Clowns are evil, disgusting, awful mutants that lurk in the night, just waiting to get you!"
"R-Really?" Starfire's hand flew to her mouth to cover the terrified wail clawing at the inside of her throat.
Her emerald eyes grew to the size of saucers as Beast Boy nodded. "They wait in the shadows with their balloon animal creatures and a sack filled with bad joke books. Then," he added, his voice growing hushed as he leaned in, "They sneak into your room and-"
A metal hand snagged the collar of Beast Boy's uniform and hauled him into the air before he could bring Starfire's mounting terror to its climax. The shapeshifter soon found himself staring down a cold red-and-blue glare. "Knock it off, Gar," Cyborg said gruffly.
"What?" Beast Boy seemed surprised, even annoyed, at Cyborg's interruption. Starfire, on the other hand, was emitting waves of gratitude for the rescue. The changeling harrumphed, then yelped when Cyborg let him drop to the floor. "It was just a joke. Jeez..."
Cyborg's glare didn't waver. He knew the younger Titan was only trying to ease the tension with a little humor. Unfortunately, Beast Boy's humor could always be counted on to make things worse, not better. "Not funny," he told Beast Boy. "The Joker is a real monster, not some stupid campfire story."
"He's not a clown," Robin spoke up as he swiveled away from the computer to face the rest of the room. "And he's not a monster. He's just a man."
Terra's cup rattled as she set it back on the table. "The worst kind of man," she shivered. Unlike the other Titans, Terra didn't even try to hide how much this new threat had rattled her. "The things I've heard...I never imagined I'd be fighting someone like him. The...The things I've heard..." she said again in a hoarse whisper.
"They're probably all true," lamented Robin. He sighed again as he came to a very difficult decision. Joker was here for him and him alone. It wasn't like their other cases; Jump City wasn't in any real danger, if the Joker's note was to be believed. There was no reason to put his friends at risk. "That's why I want you all to-"
"Forget it."
It was the first thing Raven had said in hours, and it drew the room's attention immediately. Even Robin was a little shocked. He wondered if she had been reading his thoughts. "You don't even know what I was going to say."
Still looming over Beast Boy, Cyborg smiled grimly. "I'll bet we've got the gist of it," he said.
"Yeah." Hauling himself off of the floor, Beast Boy dusted himself off. He hooked his fingers together and made a pretty decent mock-up of Robin's mask, then held it to his face and said in a poor impression of the Teen Wonder's voice, "I don't want you guys getting hurt. This is my fight, blah-blah big words, I'm the leader, blah-blah more big words, sit back and watch as I go off to get torn to shreds by the biggest baddie ever to hit Jump City, blah." He lowered his hands with a triumphant expression.
"Something like that," Raven nodded, then added, "Only less stupid."
Starfire rested her hand on Robin's caped shoulder as Beast Boy shot Raven an irritated look. Her face was sad as she said, "We are a team, Robin. We are friends. Would you let any one of us fight alone, were the situations reversed?"
Robin stared back into the beautiful girl's stunning green eyes and knew the answer in a heartbeat. Never. "You're right."
Trying to square her shoulders and erase the fear from her face, Terra pushed her chair back and exhaled a wave of nauseous tension. "Well," she offered slowly, "No good to sit around and build him up in our heads. Dude's scary enough as it is. I say we find him and kick some pasty clown ass!"
Were the situation less dire, Robin might have smiled. Instead, he simply nodded and turned back to the computer monitor, resting his chin upon his fist in quiet thought.
"Okay," Cyborg walked up behind Robin and leaned on the chair as they stared together at the screen. "So now we just have to find him." There was a pause, then, "Any leads?"
Robin nodded. With a few keystrokes, the screen switched to a scrolling list as long as a Tolkein novel, and almost as confusing. Technical words scrolled by at unreadable speeds, accompanied by corporate names and logos. One in particular stood out from the rest:
"Lexcorp?" Starfire stood opposite Cyborg, leaning in as he did. Between the two of them, Robin was forced to scrunch down or risk slamming his head into Cyborg's armored chest (or worse, Starfire's...delicates...which were distractingly close). "I have heard of this conglomerate before."
"There's a lot of bad blood between Luthor and the Joker," Robin explained. He froze the list and shifted it into a text box on the right side of the screen. In its place arose a map of the United States. An irregular trail of red dots traced a path between Gotham and Jump City on opposite coasts, marking each time the Joker had been sighted. "And he's been spilling that blood all the way here...over three billion in equipment gone from almost two dozen different facilities in the last week alone."
Being a tech wiz, Cyborg was able to identify quite a bit of the stolen goods. "He could level half the city with this stuff."
"And blow up the other half." This drew the other Titans to the computer station in a heartbeat. As the team gathered, Robin called up a map of Jump City. With just a cursory glance, Robin could spot at least a dozen likely places the Joker could have set up shop...and the one thing Robin was sure of was that he had already moved in. Joker liked having a base of operations to work from. Unfortunately, that was his one and only pattern, aside from a vicious streak of cruelty and a sense of irony. "It could take weeks to find him unless we come up with some kind of lead." Robin groused.
A flicker of light drew Raven's attention outside. With an upturned brow, she quipped, "You mean like that?"
All eyes flew to the great bay window, overlooking Jump Harbor and the city beyond. And high in the sky, superimposed over a carpet of clouds, was a perfect circle of pure white. And inside of that circle, a single letter hung far above the tallest skyscraper, burning itself into the heavens. That same letter heaved as Robin drew in a startled breath.
Beast Boy's jaw hung slackened. His wasn't the only one. "Dude's calling us out... He's crazy!" None of them could really believe it.
A hard, bitter look replaced Robin's surprise. "Yeah. Let's go welcome him to the neighborhood."
Lights flashed past, creating a strobe effect on the interior of the T-Car as they raced along the underground tunnel connecting their island to Jump City. Cyborg drove with a sense of grim anticipation that hunched him over the steering wheel. Raven rode shotgun next to him. The dashboard computer had opened up at her behest, and her fingers now danced across a keyboard, accessing satellite imaging to zero in on the origin of the 'Robin Signal.' Behind them, Terra and Beast Boy fidgeted impatiently.
Starfire and Robin were at point ahead of the massive vehicle. The latter was a mere red streak on his R-Cycle, whereas Starfire jetted along, leaving a faint trail of green energy in her wake. Cyborg's attention was divided between watching the two Titans in the lead and glancing over at Raven expectantly. In a few moments, they would reach the end of the main tunnel and enter a series of branch-off points, connecting them to smaller tunnels which would take them to nearly any point in the city they needed to go. Though costly, Cyborg was now very grateful for the feature, for it meant they could get the drop on their quarry without him ever seeing them coming.
Raven ignored the driver's irritating silent question, and tapped furiously at the awkward keyboard set at an angle in the dash. After a moment, she zeroed in on the skylight's source, and referenced an electronic map in another window. "He's right on the waterfront," she announced. "Warehouse Thirteen on Pier Seven."
Unfastening her seatbelt, Terra leaned forward, gripping Cyborg's seat. "Does anyone else have a really bad feeling about this?" she asked shakily.
"The phrase, 'No duh,' springs to mind." Raven muttered.
Ignoring the insult, Terra shook her head and continued, "No, seriously. I mean, this dude's after Robin, right? And he's telling us right where he is. No riddles, no countdown or ultimatum...no nothing!"
"So?" Beast Boy leaned back, pretending to relax when, in reality, it was the last thing he wanted to do. "So we catch a break. Chill and enjoy it, gorgeous."
Terra's teeth ground together. Why are the pretty ones always so stupid? "I'm saying," she growled, "That Wonder Boy is leading us right into a big fat trap!"
Beast Boy immediately sprang up. His eyes went wide as the revelation jolted through him with incredible force. "Huh?"
"Well of course it's a trap," Raven blew an impatient breath, pulling her hood up and masking her features in shadow. "Any idiot could have figured that out right away."
"Uh...yeah!" Beast Boy added, thumping his chest as Terra sat back, blinking in confusion. "But, uh, just for Terra's sake...Why are we plowing nose-first into a trap?"
It was Cyborg who answered, though his eyes never left the road. "Because Robin knows the Joker well enough to know that when he gets bored or impatient, people start dying."
"Oh," Beast Boy said again.
Terra wasn't convinced. "But no plan? No info? This seems kind of stupid..."
A digitized tone filtered in through the T-Car's speakers at Terra's criticism. "Right now," Robin's voice told them, "We don't have enough info for a plan. And the only way to get that info is to scope out what the Joker's got planned for me." Terra was silently grateful that Robin couldn't see her cheeks turning bright red as he added, "The open comm's working perfectly, Cyborg. What've you got?"
Ignoring their newest member's embarrassment, Cyborg punched up the map Raven had been using, marking their destination with a big red 'T'. "Got it right here, Fearless Leader. I'm sending it to you on the wireless now."
There was a pause, then, "We'll take Hatch Two, it opens up about three blocks from the warehouse."
"Roger that."
"Be careful," added Robin. "We don't know for sure if Joker knows about our little tunnels. He might have booby-trapped the opening. Stay frosty."
The comm crackled, and then Starfire's electronic voice butted in. "Were we supposed to decrease our relative temperature prior to-"
"Forget it, Star. Robin out." The rest of them could almost hear the tiny smirk in Robin's words as the communications' channel clicked off.
Terra waited a moment, making sure that the Teen Wonder could no longer hear them. Then, she launched right back to the point where she had left off. "Look," she started again, "I'm not saying I don't trust Robin an' all. It's just..." Her protest trailed off, not needing to be finished.
"Just concentrate on the job and follow our lead, Terra." Cyborg told her.
Raven turned around, looking darkly at the rambling rookie. "Robin knows what he's doing."
Turning back, she added a silent, 'I hope,' that they all shared.
"Well?" demanded Robin.
Cyborg's hand lowered from the metallic plating of his skull. His glowing red eye flickered a moment before returning to its normal scanning mode. "Nothing."
Gathered around the parked T-Car and R-Cycle a few buildings down the long, rickety row of warehouses, the Titans watched their leader arguing with the technical marvel. Water gently lapped against the long support struts of the wooden docks, which were lit by only a handful of fading street lamps and a handful of stars still visible in the city. Aside from the occasional horn or siren from deep within the heart of Jump City, there was no noise, save for that of the ocean. But Robin apparently intended to put a stop to that.
He crossed his arms over his Kevlar-protected chest and shook his head. "Not buying it." A single green glove pointed skyward, where the 'R-Signal' still hung mockingly overhead. "The lights are on, and you're telling me no one's home?"
Setting his jaw in an irritated grimace, Cyborg looked down at the younger boy and forced himself not to lose his patience. "I've run every kind of scan my body can support on that building. I even used the T-Car's sensors to confirm it. We aren't getting anything from that building. No power sources, no life signs...nothing."
There was a long moment of terse silence as Robin's mask narrowed into tiny white slits that threatened to bore a hole through the warehouse in question. Finally, his arms uncrossed, and he began to stride forward purposefully. With a little scrambling, the other Titans fell into step, though none of them looked too happy about it.
"Fine. We'll do this the old-fashioned way." Looking over his shoulder, he glared back at Beast Boy with such ferocity that the green changeling nearly soiled himself. It was only after he spoke that BB realized Robin's anger wasn't channeled directly at him. "Beast Boy, you've got point. Entry Formation Delta." Robin had already drawn his staff, which extended itself to full length with a soft click.
The troubled expression on Beast Boy's face morphed into one of pure delight, even as Terra's expression became quizzical. "I'm a little new to this one, General..." she piped up as Beast Boy strode forward. "What exactly is 'Entry Formation...' whatever?"
Looking back, Beast Boy tossed her a smile. "Just stand back," he said, "And try not to get any splinters in your eyes." With that, his outline began to blur and expand. Rough, scaly skin ballooned outward at such a rate that Terra yelped and took a step back. An instant later, a large, green rhinoceros loomed in front of the Titans, and gave the earthen blonde a randy wink.
The western wall of Warehouse Thirteen on Pier Seven exploded inward in a hail of wooden particles, allowing the fearsome and miscolored rhino to come charging through.
He was quickly followed by the rest of the Titans, who entered in a triangular formation; Raven and Terra took the trailing outer points to cover the rear, while Starfire and Cyborg watched over their flanks in front of the other two ladies. Robin led their formation, with his staff in one hand and a birdarang in the other hand. Beast Boy shifted from a rhino straight into a Kangaroo, and leapt backwards into a double somersault that placed him square in the middle of the other Titans. With all sides covered and all member ready, the Titans were prepared for anything.
And they were met with a great big steaming pile of nothing.
Light filtered in through the 'door' Beast Boy had so generously donated to the building, casting a pale illumination against the blanketing darkness of the warehouse's interior. With the meager exception of the flotsam created in their entrance, the Titans found absolutely nothing else around them. There were no villainous traps, no armadas of henchmen waiting to pummel them into submission...hell, there weren't even any crates occupying the building. It was bare-bones empty.
Everyone save for Robin relaxed a hair. Beast Boy rubbed his nose, which still stung a tad from his previous form's impact. "Well," he groused nasally, "This was certainly worth risking my flawless features over. Why don't I go run through a few more walls just to be sure?"
"Quiet." Robin snapped. His eyes scanned over every inch of the warehouse, looking for something they might have initially missed. "Stay focused. He's here."
"Well, if he is," Cyborg quipped, "He's invisible."
That's when a haunting cackle echoed through the yawing space. A collective gasp arose among the Titans, but Robin kept his jaw clamped and his eyes open. Every muscle in his body was tensed and ready for action as he searched about. "Show yourself!" demanded the teen. "Enough of these games, Joker. I saw the signal, and I'm here. Let's just end this!"
The lighting in the warehouse rose to a more comfortable level, but slowly. It was as if whoever was running the show wanted to give their eyes a chance to adjust. Robin didn't trust the gesture anyhow, and was glad his lenses were resistant to painful levels of light. He blinked as his pupils shrunk, and pulled back in surprise. There, leaning casually in a corner Robin was sure had been empty a moment before, was a pale, grinning figure in a gaudy purple suit.
"Oh, well played, old chum." Joker said graciously, clapping slowly and steadily.
He pushed off from the wall and began strolling forward in a laid-back manner, examining the Titans as if they were a painting hanging in the museum. He would 'hmm' and 'humm' every so often, rubbing his chin and squinting at the six heroes. The flippancy of Joker's gait only set warning bells off in Robin's head. Whatever the Joker had planned, he was in full control, and Robin only hoped they could best him in spite of that.
At last, the Joker stopped a mere handful of yards from the Titans. He shook his head and clucked his tongue like a scolding mother. "This is what you left Gotham City for, young Robin? Tsk, tsk. I really am disappointed, I must say." The clown leaned in and cupped a hand to his mouth, as if to convey a sense of confidentiality. "What must old Bats think of you hanging around with these sordid metahumans? Hmm?"
Teeth grinding together, Robin thrust his staff between his team and the Joker, and declared, "Are you going to come quietly, Joker? We have you outnumbered and outgunned."
"And outclassed," Beast Boy added.
Joker actually chuckled at this. He chucked a thumb in the young Titan's direction and said, "I kind of like the green one." Eyeing the field of glares in front of him, he added, "The rest look like a pretty sour bunch, though. Ah well. So much the better that I get to kill you, I suppose."
"Joker, if you hurt any of my friends because you're after me, I'll-"
"You?" And at this, the Joker threw his head back and roared with shrieking laughter. He actually doubled over, clutching his ribs as the Titans looked on with a mixture of caution and confusion. Finally, the Joker managed to collect himself. He wiped the tears from his eyes and said between chuckles, "You stupid little birdie, you actually think this is about you?"
Robin tried to hide his confusion. He didn't need to lose face in front of his team, to say nothing of this twisted lunatic. "Your note-"
The Clown Prince of Crime sniffed disdainfully and waved Robin's insistences away. "You never were a bright one, were you, kid? None of this is about you. It's never been about you!"
"Then...why?"
"Why, for Batman, of course!" Sweeping his arms in a wide gesture, the Joker looked to the ceiling and laughed. "It's always been about Batman."
"Then y'all are in the wrong city, Chuckles." Cyborg's right arm clicked and mechamorphed into a sonic cannon. The end glowed blue as he warmed it up, already zeroing in his mental crosshairs right on Joker's breadbasket.
The ground trembled as Terra stepped forward. For all her fear, she had yet to see anything that made the Joker so dangerous or demented. All she saw was some pale goofball in an empty building, threatening her friends and teammates. And that didn't sit well with her. "We're fresh out of bats, Bozo."
"But we're having a special on Titans," Beast Boy growled. He crouched low to the floor, ready to turn into a jungle cat or a T-Rex, or whatever struck his fancy when it came time for the dramatic hero/villain fight following their trash-talking. "Six for one, all you can eat."
Starfire's hands came aglow with powerful, deadly bursts of green photonic energy her teammates had dubbed 'Starbolts'. That same power burned in her eyes, sizzling the air as her head shifted this way and that. "You do not come to our city and threaten our friend," she said in a barely-contained snarl. Especially not 'my' Robin, she added in her head.
Raven didn't bother with stupid, clichéd remarks. Stretching her powers out, she grasped at the thousands of tiny splinters at their feet. Immediately, the wooden shards became encased in dozens of individual black fields, and lifted into the air. Cloak billowing, eyes narrowed, Raven brought the shards to bear on the Joker, ready to perforate him at the first sign of trouble.
For all the power standing before him, Joker simply yawned and stretched. "So this is what I'm reduced to? Teenagers in kitschy costumes flexing their big meta-muscles and tossing out tired old banter? How dull." He suddenly seemed extremely preoccupied with his nails, blowing on them and biting at a stray cuticle. "I certainly hope Batman appreciates all the effort I'm going to here."
"He'll appreciate it plenty," Robin growled, "Once you're back in Arkham!" With that, his arm snapped out, releasing a razor-edged birdarang. The colorful shuriken soared true, striking Joker square in the forehead-
-and continuing on, exiting through the back of his green-haired scalp.
For the first time that evening, Robin was honestly surprised. His weary mind drew a blank as his birdarang thudded into the opposite wall. Joker, for his part, didn't seem to have even noticed the blow. He flickered for a moment, and then vanished.
"Hologram!" Cyborg snarled.
A moment later, the Joker, or at least a passable likeness to him, reappeared several feet away from where he had disappeared from. This Joker stood straight and tall, and looked Robin square in the eyes. Whatever equipment he was using, it was certainly sophisticated, enough so to fool Robin's intuition and Cyborg's equipment.
The clown wasted no time, launching right into the matter at hand. "If you're watching this," he stated in a bored tone, "It means you've finally figured out that I'm not there. Naturally, I'm miles away at the moment in my real lair. I sincerely hope, Robin, that you didn't think I'd lead you straight to my actual hidey-hole." With that, he waggled a finger at the Titan and shook his head. "Sloppy."
Robin's dread exploded into full panic. Whirling around, he gestured to their entrance, which would soon be their exit. "MOVE!" he shouted, leading by example as he ran for the hole in the wall.
Continuing on, the recording said, "No doubt you're trying to escape. Now, we can't have that, can we?"
Large metal shutters began descending from the ceiling, covering every square inch of the walls. The rotting planks of wood were replaced with two inches of solid metal. The Titans watched with dismay as their homemade door was swallowed by the dropping metal wall. With a resounding clang, the trap was complete; everywhere they looked, there was a wall of alloy blocking their way; no windows, no doors, and no escape.
"Part of me is a little sorry that I won't be there to see you and your little Teen Twerps bite the big one," hologram Joker continued. Then he shrugged, smiling a little to himself. "But then again, if you're this easy to kill, then why should I even waste my time?"
The air rang with his demented cackle as his projection threw his head back and howled with laughter. At the same time, a section of the floor slid away, and a large, smooth box rose from the concrete floor. Its obsidian surface was seamless and featureless, save for a single digital readout in its center. It was a countdown-
-a countdown on five, and dropping fast.
Joker's image flickered and died, but his maddening laughter remained, taunting the Titans to the bitter end. There was no time to even think about disarming the bomb. Neither Robin nor Cyborg would know where to begin if they even had an hour, much less the four seconds remaining. The Teen Wonder didn't even have time to shout out an order. There was only time to act.
With four seconds left, Terra's eyes glowed gold as she reached down with her powers and yanked up a solid block of concrete. Had there been more time, or had her brain not been so addled with fear, she might have been able to create one big enough to protect the whole team, or even simply encase the bomb within the Earth itself. But there wasn't time. Instead, it was a three-by-five shield created out of survival instinct, which she immediately took cover behind.
With three seconds left, Raven could barely gather concentration enough for a protective bubble big enough to wrap around herself. She vanished behind a field of black, disappearing with an uncharacteristic look of fear on her stoic features. Beast Boy, in the meantime, turned into the most well-protected thing he could think of: a tortoise. Withdrawing into his shell, he braced himself for the worst. With enough time to think, either he or Raven could have busted the walls down. After all, what's two inches of steel to a potent telekinetic, to say nothing of a brachiosaurus? But there wasn't time.
At the two second mark, Cyborg abandoned the baffled jumble he was trying to pass off as tactical planning. Instead, he simply crouched down and crossed his arms in front of his body, ducking his head behind them and squeezing his organic eye shut. With nothing else to do, Starfire mimicked him, and even crouched down behind him for added protection. It wasn't cowardly, just good sense; Cyborg's Molybdenum body was a hell of a lot more durable than her own fairly-robust Tamaranian hide. They, too, might have been able to break through the barriers keeping them in. Cyborg's technical talents could have been put to use disarming the explosive. But alas, there simply wasn't time.
Robin had been closest to the Joker. Now he was closest to the bomb, a bomb with one second left on its timer. His friends were all behind him, and too far away to reach. If only he had more time...more TIME! But there was nothing he could do. He didn't know what kind of device was in front of them; whether it would release Joker's insanity gas, which would drive them mad, or simply explode, killing them all that way. There was no time to figure it out.
With zero seconds left, Robin wrapped himself in his titanium-weave cape and prayed.
To Be Continued
