As if I didn't already have enough to deal with, one young Miss Christina Salvatori began making my life very, very difficult.

She somehow kept popping up everywhere, asking—no, demanding—to be taken on as my partner, or sidekick, or apprentice, or "whatever I wanted to call it", as she said. She was bound and determined to help me, even though she just got in the way more often than not. Not that the poor girl could really help it. She'd never been formally trained in anything except acrobatics, and she was really only fourteen or fifteen years old, no idea how bad things could really get out there. Just thinking about it hurt, because that was just barely than Tim when he first started out. Even worse, she fancied herself the new Spoiler. She'd even gone through all the trouble of making her own purple-and-black costume, and she only tweaked the uniform slightly so that when I looked at her, I had to suppress the urge to call her "Steph" or "Stephanie". The grim reminder of the ex-Robin and the deceased Spoiler, all wrapped up into one person, made me finally understand what Bruce must've gone through with Tim. It was difficult to keep her down for long, to deter her from this life that she so badly wanted.

But she was naïve. I guess, in a sense, we all were when we were that young. Christina really had no idea how horrible it could be out in the field, how scary and dangerous things could get. She wasn't prepared to face death and keep pushing. Not to say that I couldn't prepare her, but, after seeing what happened to Tim and Stephanie and Jason and so many others like them…I just couldn't chance it. I couldn't gamble a teenage girl's life on a few months of training that wouldn't prepare her for things like fear gas and psychotic killers and ninja assassins. I couldn't do that. I couldn't bet Christina's safety on shaky semi-security derived from something that may not hold her. And I wouldn't take the blame if something terrible happened to her. So I kept refusing her, over and over again, denying her the chance to become a part of the Bat-family. It sounds cruel, but it was the only way.

"Why?" she finally demanded one night, after being refused for the umpteen-millionth time. "Why won't you let me join up with you? I could be…I could be, like, Robin's best friend! I could be Batgirl's partner if I have to! I don't care if I'm not working with you directly; I just want in! So why won't you let me, Batman?"

It still sent an odd chill up my spine, being called Batman after being Nightwing for so long. It might've just been because I was unused to it. But it was probably because, even after two months of having the mantle all to myself, I could never forget what Bruce had made it into, what he'd fashioned it to be from day one. This was his moniker, his symbol, and there was a still a small part of me that whispered: What do you think you're doing, usurping the Batman identity like this? You don't belong in his shoes. You can never fill out his cape and cowl, his legacy. The only person who deserves the right to be called "Batman" is Bruce Wayne, and he's dead, and you're nothing like him. You don't deserve this, and you don't belong. I swallowed the feeling and stared hard at Christina, trying to see through the plain black, full-face mask into her eyes, but finding it extremely difficult. I could still remember when I first met Tim, his heartfelt, wide-eyed pleas that I return to being Robin, not long after I'd become Nightwing. Why did all the younger ones have to go for the "sad teen" approach?

"Because it's too dangerous," I answered her before I could stop the words from coming out of my mouth, and I immediately realized how lame it sounded, especially coming from me.

"Robin's, like, a whole ten years old, and he's out there, fighting crime! I'm sixteen, so why can't I?"

"I guess you could call it a family business." It wasn't a lie. At least, it wasn't completely a lie.

"And you don't want to share it with anybody outside the family? How selfish is that?"

"That's not how it is. It's just…there are a lot of dangers out there. There are so many things that could go wrong, so many things that could happen to you on the first night. Not everybody who tries out for this kind of lifestyle is meant to handle it. I don't want you to have to pay a terrible price in order to find out if you can."

"But I'm ready to face it! I'm ready to face the dangers and train with you and work with you and give up my nights for the good of the city! That's what this is about, right? Please, just…just give me a chance, okay? All I want is a chance."

I sat back on the fire escape in the alleyway, thinking. I'd meant what I said to her. I could tell that, despite what she thought, she really wasn't all that ready to face the dangers of the hero life. She had no business being out here at the moment. I needed some way to make sure she knew what she was getting herself into.

Then it hit me.

I motioned for her to follow me, and then I led her into the Batmobile. "Buckle up," I advised her, fastening my own seatbelt as the car closed over our heads.

"Where are we going?" Christina asked, obediently (for a change) pulling on her seatbelt.

"I'm going to show you the worst thing that can happen to somebody your age in this business."

Imagine her surprise when we pulled up at Arkham Asylum. I tossed her a spare grapnel gun, and we shot up to the next-to-highest floor, perching just outside a window whose curtains had not yet been pulled. I put a finger to my lips and pointed inside at the black-haired figure lying on the bed, covered by the sheets, fast asleep, but most likely only lightly sleeping. Christina cocked her head, not understanding. "Who…who is he?" she whispered.

"That," I murmured in reply, "is Tim Drake, formerly known as Robin." She turned her head quickly to look at me in what I can only assume was disbelief behind the mask. "He became Robin when he was thirteen years old—not much younger than you. He received months upon months of training, traveled all around the world to learn everything you could ever possibly need to know, but that all came down to nothing when he started losing everyone around him. First, he lost his mother, and then, three years later, he lost his girlfriend, father, best friends, and stepmother. Just recently, we all lost somebody very close to us—the original Batman. And then, Tim snapped. He started to go insane, so I had him admitted to Arkham Asylum, for his own protection." And the city's, my mind added, making me wish it'd shut up. "He'll stay here until the doctors are certain the treatment has been fully successful, and then it'll be…questionable whether or not he can return to the life."

Christina was silent for a long time. Then, she said, quietly, "Why did he go insane? I mean, what caused it?"

I shrugged, turning to face her. "We don't really know," I told her truthfully. "We think it had something to do with the fact that he wouldn't ever talk about losing people. He just bottled it up inside until he couldn't take it anymore. Of course, he also saw a great deal of crap in his lifetime."

"Is that the technical term?"

I glared at her, and she fell silent, watching and listening to me. "My point is, even if you don't die, you're always risking something like this. Would you be willing to end up like Tim, having lost everything, including your own mind, your own sanity?"

Christina didn't answer. She just looked down at her bent knees. After a while, she looked back up at me, her determined resolve obviously faded somewhat. "Do you think he knows? Do you think he knows that he's not…you know…?"

I shook my head. "He doesn't."

"Do you think he'll ever get better?"

"I don't know, Christina. I don't know."

We turned back to the window—and nearly fell off the building. Standing there at the glass, staring out at us with hollow, vacant blue-gray eyes, was Tim. He looked slowly from Christina to me, then back to her, and then back to me. Our eyes met for a moment, and I could see the expression of betrayal in his, betrayal that I was letting her run around as Spoiler (even though I technically wasn't). Then the curtains snapped shut so fast that Christina jumped. My hand shot out involuntarily to steady her. She and I exchanged a glance. "Do you have a family?" I asked her.

She nodded slowly. "Gotham…Gotham City Orphanage," she replied shakily. "C-can you…can you take me back there? I…don't really want to go alone."

So I took her back, just like she asked. If nothing else, what she'd seen that night would be a stark reminder of the consequences of getting involved in the hero's world. Hopefully, I wouldn't have to take her to see what other "worst things" could happen to her…

Looking back on it, I wish I hadn't taken her there. I'd been so wrapped up in making sure Christina got the message that I didn't think about what it would do to Tim to see a different Spoiler outside his window, watching him. Maybe, if I hadn't done that, things wouldn't have taken the turn that they did.