Robin had blacked out. When he awoke, it was to the darkness and the quiet, the still and the calm. His head swam and his temples ached; his jaw was pounding with pain that had lasted all through unconsciousness.

Slowly peeling his eyes back was a difficult task. But he managed it. Darkness, stillness, quietness. It eased the discomfort within him. He couldn't feel his body yet, for nothing was registering. He didn't think he could feel anything, but eventually his senses slowly came back to him. The light of the moon returned his sight to him gradually. Beneath him were sheets upon a hospital bed; beside him a drowsy Cyborg who had fallen asleep in a plush chair.

Robin grunted as he tried to move.

Cyborg heard and he lazily opened up his eyes. "You're awake," he mumbled, stifling a yawn. "At last. After that hit, I thought you'd be out for a couple more hours…"

A yawn did stretch across his face then.

Pushing himself to his feet, Cyborg walked over to stand at the edge of Robin's bed. He looked down at him tiredly, trying to take in his physical and mental state simply by the look in his unmasked eyes and the expression on his face. It was clear that Robin was still out of it; his pupils dwarfed his irises, his jaw was slightly agape, and there was a glazed over look in his eyes. He was trying to put things together, but he couldn't.

"Red X knocked you out," Cyborg told him, not waiting for him to remember. "He broke into a jewelry store somewhere uptown, you followed him in, he kicked you really hard in the head, and you were out of it…"

Pause.

"The ambulance actually wanted to take you away, and put you in a hospital for you to recover, but I was adamant about taking you back here to the Tower to get treatment. Can't have your secret identity compromised, now can we?" Cyborg asked him.

The only response Robin could manage was a low, pitiful groan.

With a sigh, Cyborg pulled the chair up to the side of the bed Robin lay on, and sat down once more. He felt tired; so tired. More tired than he had been in days, in weeks. Decoding the water-damaged flash drive was tricky enough, but add this to a short handed team and a team leader who just didn't know when to quit. He felt old suddenly, and someone his age shouldn't be feeling old. That's what he had always believed, at least.

"Your in the medical bay, back home," Cyborg told Robin, his voice soft and somber. It complimented the quietness of the night, and the stillness of the hour.

12:52 a.m.

That's what the clock read.

Robin groaned once more, then tried to roll over. His body ached, and his muscles felt as stiff as wood. Still, he tried limbering himself, making his body respond to his silent commands as he shifted over onto his side. When his temple pushed up against the soft, cushiony pillow, Robin winced in pain, and a couple of tears rolled free from his eyes.

"Careful," Cyborg warned him. "That's where Red X got ya."

Robin made a gurgle of words, but it was all unintelligible. Cyborg wasn't attempting to understand him anyway. He knew that the injured Boy Wonder wouldn't be able to talk, or even function properly, for another few hours. At least he was awake; something that Cyborg had predicted would happen around dawn.

But two words met Cyborg's ears, clear as day.

"Red…X…" Robin hissed out.

Cyborg saw that his eyes were closed. He didn't know if he was talking in his sleep (or even if he was asleep), or if Robin was trying to tell him something, ask him something. Communicate something to him about this villain.

"Red…X…" Robin hissed out again, and Cyborg leaned forward, closer to his face.

I don't think he's dreaming, Cyborg thought to himself.

"Robin…?" he asked carefully, not wanting to wake him should he have dropped off again. Robin slid his eyes open a sliver, something that took far too much effort on his part, and he hissed out the villain's name once more. Cyborg knew then that he was trying to tell him something.

"What is it?" Cyborg asked, slowly, quietly.

"The…the flash drive?" Robin asked with a sharp intake of breath. He couldn't hide his pain or his discomfort, no matter how hard he tried. He wasn't unbreakable, and tonight, he was broken.

Cyborg knew that was the best way to describe Robin, right then and there. Broken. Defeated. Something had gotten to him, broken him up into small pieces, and left him like this. It started with his mind, the way it had snaked into his brain and consumed him until it was all Robin could focus on. And then, once it had infiltrated him on the inside, the final blow was a swift kick to the head, a strike on the outside.

And now, here he lay.

Still refusing to let himself heal. To let the pieces simply lay on the floor for a few minutes, for him to marvel at the beauty of the edges of the shards and study at the pattern at which they lay. He only wanted to put himself back together, as haphazardly as possible, and then refuse to admit that he'd been broken like that.

He was so easy to read.

So easy.

"The flash drive?" Robin asked once more, a bit louder this time.

"I'm still working on it," Cyborg told him. "You need to get some sleep. You aren't even supposed to be awake yet. I'd measured the morphine out specifically so you wouldn't have woken up till morning." He shook his head, and leaned back in his chair. The giant window of the medical bay let in the moonlight in all its glory. "Robin, be honest," Cyborg said, looking only at the moon, "Red X gave you that flash drive, didn't he?"

"Yes," Robin said with a sigh.

He sounded like he was about to fall back asleep. Pulling his eyes away from the pale face of the moon and placing them on the pale face of Dick, he saw that his eyes had closed once more, his jaw had slackened, and the pained look had faded away. He was about to fall asleep again. Cyborg knew this. Reaching up, he gave the morphine bag a minuscule squeeze to fill his veins a bit more, and then walked away.

As he exited the room, he locked the door behind him. Somewhere deep in the back of his head, something told him what a terrible idea that was. That he shouldn't leave Robin locked in anywhere. A thousand different worst-case scenarios raced across his mind as the bolt slid into place, but he told himself that this was for the best–-forced himself to believe it–-and left it like that.

He has his communicator, Cyborg reassured himself. Placed right by his head, where he can easily grab it and call for me. Nothing to worry about.

Still, the words sounded hollow.

A wild idea occurred to him then; the idea of going back and strapping Robin to the bed, just to make sure that nothing worse would occur. But the idea was quickly pushed away; even in Cyborg's fatigued and slightly loopy state, he didn't need to be told that that was an all around awful idea.

The flash drive was now in Cyborg's bedroom. As the mechanical door marked CYBORG slid open, it was the first thing that caught his eye. It seemed to have an evil glint to it, like malice within a villain's glare. Stepping into the room, with the door closing behind him, Cyborg vowed to himself not to touch the thing until morning. The desire to work on it more, to heal if of the water damaged that had seeped into it and ruined it, to hack into it and crack all the codes and tear down all the barriers…it was there, as strong as ever.

But his will was stronger.

He turned to the bed. A plain, simply mattress, covered with blankets, sitting on a bed frame. It would have been normal, if not for the freakish amount of wires that lay upon the mattress, waiting to be plugged into him so the robotics that made up most of his body could be recharged.

But he didn't have time for reminiscing about a once normal life. He was too tired. Slumping into the bed, he clicked the cords and wires into himself, pulled the blankets over him, and flicked out the light. He tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable, trying to fall into a dream. But it just wouldn't happen, no matter what he tried.

Even amping up the specific sleep chemicals in the chips of his brain didn't work; he still laid away that night.

When he flicked the light back on, that same evil glint seemed to come from the flash drive again. It stared at him, as if mocking him, choking him with its hidden secrets. He pouted.

If only I could get that thing… Wait. Don't I have a USB drive somewhere on me?

His fingers immediately went up to the mechanical side of his head, back behind where his artificial ear was. With the slight artificial nerve endings, he was able to feel the indention of the cover over it. He flicked it open, exposing the mechanical sockets. He ran his fingers over the opening once more, just to make sure, and then went for the flash drive.

This could be dangerous, said a voice in his head.

He didn't listen to that voice.

Uncapping the small, black drive, he took it and stuck it into his head. Immediately he felt the connection of more power, of foreign energy, and information that was jutting up against the walls of his brain but not readable. He could feel the flash drive like a thorn in his side, and he shifted it around in his head.

Laying back down, he toyed with it more. Until he realized that it was going to take mental work on his part to break through it. Not anything with firewalls and security codes and encryption keys, but brainpower. Real brainpower from the organic powerhouse he'd been born with.

A smirk crossed Cyborg's face as he slid his eyes closed. He knew that by the time the sun had risen, he would have broken through it, and uncovered whatever secrets lay hidden within the damaged device.


The next chapter will be interesting guys, trust me.