"Writers! Always going to the same old well again and again. Where's the creativity?" - Joker

What He Said

October 2nd

Afternoon

Jonny's new friend, Kelly, paid for their meal and afterwards led him deeper into Downtown and down into a dark, deserted subway station. Water dripped from the ceiling somewhere and Jonny saw more than a few skittering rats. Soggy green mold covered the walls and the leftover chairs and checking in stations bled rust. Jonny's boots echoed infinitely on the hard concrete floor.

"What happened here?" He asked.

"There was an earthquake ten years go." Kelly told him. "One for the record books, or so I'm told. The city's water supply broke free and flooded the tunnels down here. It took them years to drain it and, when they finally did, they just went ahead and condemned it.""Are you sure?" Jonny said. "Jump City is only ten years old, ain't it?"

"What you know as Jump City is ten years old." Kelly nodded. "But before then, Downtown was a city in itself for over a hundred years. By the time they drained the subway, most of Jump City was built and the trolley and L-track was already put into place. We didn't need a subway anymore."

Jonny just nodded. He stepped forward along the platform and leaned over to look at the tracks below.

"What's your home like?" Kelly asked suddenly.

Jonny peeked over his shoulder at her, but then he went back to examining the tracks.

"Not bad, all things considered." He said. "I grew up on a ranch called Bluestone with my folks and my brother and sister. It was a lot of hard work, but I'm probably better for it."

"Traditional family, huh? I should have known."

Jonny turned and smiled at her.

"Not exactly traditional." He said. "Me, my brother and sister were all adopted."

Kelly stuck her hands deep in her jean pockets, and the pose seemed somehow vulnerable.

"Do you get along with your family?" She asked.

"More or less." Jonny shrugged. "My mom's a saint. My sister Crystal is the smartest girl I've ever known and my brother Tim is a little rowdy, but just a good-natured redneck through and through."

"What about you dad?"

"My dad…" Jonny's voice drifted off. "I don't think me and him ever agreed on anything. It was fine when I was young; he'd just tell me what to do and I had no choice. Once I got older, though, it seems the only thing we can do together is fight. He's the most stubborn, old-fashioned man I ever met."

"That's why you're leaving home to live in the city? To get away from him?"

"Not really." Jonny shook his head. "That's just a bonus, I reckon."

Kelly walked over to stand beside him.

"Then why?"

Jonny opened his mouth to answer, but the deafening sound of a subway train screeching down the tracks drowned him out. He turned to see the long vehicle pulling up to the station. Unlike the rest of the subway station, the car was shiny and new and brightly lit. It slowed to a stop and a pair of double doors opened up for them. Kelly stepped inside and looked back at him.

"Well?" She smirked at him. "What are you waiting for?"

Jonny, who had spent all this time admiring the transport, looked back at her. Then he smiled and happily boarded the train alongside her. Kelly sat down in one of the many empty seats, but Jonny opted to stand. He walked up and down the narrow hallway between the seats, peering into the adjoining cars with a childlike curiosity. He looked around, trying to take in everything.

"I don't have much of a family." Kelly said then. "Just my dad."

"What's he like?" Jonny reached up and rapped his knuckles against the roof of the train, just because he could.

"He's a drunk and a junkie. I don't see him anymore."

Jonny stopped his exploring to give her a sympathetic eye.

"I'm sorry to hear that." He said simply.

"It's for the best. I'm better off." She shrugged. "Besides, I have a new father now. More like a mentor, really."

"That's who we're going to see now, ain't it?" Jonny deduced.

"You should sit down." Kelly told him. "Or at least hold on to something.""Why?"

Just then the subway train lurched forward. Jonny lost his balance, took two, desperate stumbling steps and then fell hard on his rear.

Kelly giggled at him.

"That's why." She smiled.

Jonny stood back up and fixed his skewed hat.

"This is my first time on a subway train…" He mumbled with a red face.

"I would have never guessed."

Jonny gave her a sour, exasperated look.

Kelly laughed and retaliated by sticking out her tongue.

Jonny rolled his eyes, smiled and turned away to gaze out the window. He saw nothing but blurring wet walls of mold and concrete, but he didn't care.

"What's this mentor of yours like?" He asked.

"He's kinda hard to get a handle on." Kelly said it carefully. "He's a genius, so it's a little hard to follow his train of thought sometimes. He's got this cold demeanor about him."

"Does he care for you?"

Kelly took some time to think about that before she answered.

"I believe he does, in his own way. He's not really the affectionate type."

Jonny moved away from the window. The rumbling of the train and the shaking beneath his boots was starting to make him feel a little off center. He chose a seat across from Kelly and sat down.

"So what's this job he wants to offer me?" He asked.

"I don't know if he'll offer it to you, but I think he will." Kelly said. "I've never seen a better judge of character. He can read people in just a single glance."

Jonny leaned back and crossed his legs out in front of him at the ankles.

"And what do you think he'll see in me?" He wanted to know.

"Honesty," she told him.

The subway train shot deeper into the darkness.

TTTTTTTTTT

It was late afternoon when Robin and Starfire walked out of the movie theater. While Starfire seemed unaffected, Robin had to blink away the brightness of the sun until his eyes adjusted.

"Truly a bittersweet ending." Starfire commented as they walked by the lines of people waiting to buy tickets and get inside.

"It was stupid." Robin objected. "Getting shot in the head doesn't kill him, but it gives him amnesia? Either he's got regenerative powers or he doesn't. You can't have it both ways."

"Still," Starfire said. "The part in which he leaps onto the helicopter was, as Cyborg would say, quite frosty."

"I could do that." Robin insisted.

Starfire's hand reached out to take his as they walked.

"I am confident that you could." She smiled.

Robin looked down with some surprise at the amber-colored hand in his, but then he grinned boyishly at her. He was about to reply when something caught his attention in the corner of his eye. He turned and his grin wavered and disappeared. Inside a newspaper dispenser, beneath the main headline about a new bill proposed by congress, was a sub story that burned into Robin's brain.

Batman Has New Robin

Robin's gloved hand went limp and fell from Starfire's gentle grasp. Then, like a zombie, he opened the glass door and slowly picked up the paper. He brought the newspaper to his face and read the headline again.

"Robin…?" Starfire easily looked over his shoulder and saw the headline. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and led him around to the back of the theater. There was an old bench near the fire door. The two of them sat down and Starfire watched as he read the full article. She said nothing and simply made herself available to him when he was ready.

Robin cleared his throat and shook his head as if trying to shake off the shock. He looked at Starfire, gave her a small, grateful smile and then his face grew long again.

"We've never talked about my life in Gotham, have we?"

Starfire silently shook her head and waited. Robin took in a deep, shuddering breath.

"There was an accident nine years ago." He said somberly. "Both of my parents died."

"I am sorry." Starfire told him.

"Batman's alter ego - who he is without the mask - adopted me and took care of me. He wasn't so great at the emotional stuff, but I had a place to live, food to eat and someone to look out for me. I was grateful."

"But then I found out who he was." Robin went on. "It was only a matter of time, really. Batman tried so hard to keep me a normal kid, but he didn't have a chance. After I'd seen what he did, my imagination went crazy and I wanted to do the same thing. There was no way he could stop it."

"So he embraced it." Robin continued. "He trained me to fight and think on my feet and be a detective. He taught me everything I needed to know. And I became Robin."

"Before then…" Starfire started.

"Before then I was just a regular kid. No cape, no mask, no belt. Just…me." He paused. "I fought alongside Batman for three and a half years in Gotham City. Criminals, terrorists and super villains; we dealt with them all, side by side. I was living every young boy's dream of being a hero. And then…"

"...and then?"

TTTTTTTTTT

"It was a night just like any other night. That's what makes it so scary."

Gotham City never saw the sky; not really. There was a kind of perpetual, smoggy haze resting over it, blocking out the stars and dimming the sun. It seemed thick enough to hide the actions of it's citizens from the eye of god, though Gotham City had a new, shadowy idol.

"Joker was up to another one of his schemes. Batman and I had stopped him so many times before that it almost seemed routine. Maybe that's why he did what he did."

There was a flapping of capes and Batman and Robin landed on the roof of an old brownstone building. They crept silently through the slushy gravel and peered unseen through a skylight. Down below was a well-lit movie set with badly-drawn backdrops. The Joker could be seen deftly juggling knives in front of a terrified man tied to a chair. A camera was capturing it all and his assorted goons held the sound microphones and lights.

"It was a stupid scheme, just like always. He had kidnapped a local celebrity who was the judge of a talent show. He had the reputation of being rude and unimpressed by anything. Joker decided he wanted to make the man laugh on live television. We tracked him down easily enough; the television signal lead us straight to him."

Batman and Robin crashed down through the window and landed amidst a shower of glass. Joker, surprised, lost his concentration on the knives and the blades shot out every which way. One of them impaled the neck of a cardboard cutout of a crowd member. Joker gasped and covered his mouth at the sight.

"Heheheh!" He giggled. "Hollywood is a cutthroat business, wouldn't you say?"

"It's over, Joker." Batman growled.

"Aw, come on!" Joker rolled his eyes. "That same old line? You should really stop writing your own material. Maybe my writers can come up with some cue cards for you. Oh, boys?"

The Joker's thugs abandoned their studio jobs, produced machine guns and fired at the Dynamic Duo.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

Batman and Robin sprinted across the room as bullets zinged by them and ricocheted around their feet. They leaped over an old, tipped over column and took cover behind it. The thugs peppered it with gunfire.

"Writers," Joker sighed. "Always going to the same old well again and again. Where's the creativity?"

"I'll take out the goons." Batman said behind the relative safety of their cover. "You take care of the hostage."

"Right!" Robin nodded.

Batman reached into his utility belt and produced an innocent looking black marble. He reached around the edge of the fallen column and rolled into the center of the room.

FLASH!

The goons grunted and covered their eyes from the flash bomb's effect. The gunfire tapered off and Batman and Robin sprang into action. Batman stood, cocked a batarang over his shoulder and let it fly. It sliced through the air in a perfect loop, knocking guns out of four hands. Robin flipped over the column with a batarang of his own. It slashed through the support of a ceiling spotlight and the giant light fell on a cluster of surprised henchmen. While Batman attacked the remaining unarmed goons, Robin went for the kidnapped man.

"Don't worry." Robin said to the gagged hostage as his gloved fingers went to work on the ropes binding him to the chair. "We'll get you-oomph!"

Robin went rolling across the floor. He stood back up and turned to find Joker wagging a finger at him with one hand and spinning a crowbar with the other.

"Nu uh uh!" The clown chastised him. "There's no part for you in this picture! Child stars are such a handful, wouldn't you say?"

Batman back punched one final thug and walked over to confront him.

"Give it up, Joker!"

"Really?" Joker asked. "You know me well enough now that I always have an ace or two up my sleeve…hah!"

He waved his arm in a short, tight arc and tossed a pair of razor-tipped playing cards. Batman and Robin leapt back and the cards stuck in the floor at their feet. It bought the Joker enough time to reach into his purple pants and train a pistol on his kidnapped hostage.

"You're insane, Joker!" Batman barked. "Let him go!"

"Insane?" Joker repeated. "Insane? No, no, no. I'm far from insane, Batsy! I am the possibility that lies inside every single person on the frickin planet! Ha ha ha! Everyone pretends to be something they're not. You must do it all the time when you don't have that mask on. Obeying the rules, being polite, kissing the boss' ass… It's all a sham. You wrap yourself up in order and justice and pretend it's right.""I'm what everyone wants to be!" Joker cackled. "I do what I want, when I want, how I want. I'm the freest man in the world! And everyone….everyone can be me. Everyone has their breaking point. They just need the right push. One day…one moment…one second can change everything forever; make everything you believe in meaningless."

He tapped the crowbar to his head. His white face contorted in thought.

"Okay, Bat-Boy! I'll prove it to you!" He grinned. "Today is your day. This is your moment!"

Joker suddenly aimed the pistol at Robin and pulled the trigger…

…and a colorful flag came out of the barrel reading 'BANG!'.

Robin flinched, but then he shook his head.

"You've got to be kidding me." He was already stepping forward to apprehend him. "You are-"

"And this!" Joker crowed and aimed the pistol again. "Is your second!"

"Robin!"

BLAM!

TTTTTTTTTT

"My training saved my life." Robin told Starfire. "The shot was aimed for my heart. I dodged just enough to take the bullet in my left shoulder. The Joker got away while Batman carried me back to the Batcave. I still have the scar where Al-…where a friend of ours had to cut out the bullet."

"How awful!" Starfire exclaimed.

"It only took me a couple of weeks to heal." Robin said. "But I think the incident scared Batman. He realized how close I had come to being seriously hurt. He ordered me to turn in the Robin suit and be a regular kid. He wanted to keep me safe."

"And you refused?" It was technically a question, but there was no doubt in Starfire's tone.

"Right." Robin said. "He wanted me to be a kid again, and I couldn't do it. Some masked heroes with alter egos become confused about their identity; they don't know who they really are. For me, I have no doubt. I might have been born with a different name but, deep down at my core, I'm Robin. I wouldn't let Batman take that away from me, so I left."

"And you met me here in Jump City."

Robin nodded.

"Batman tried to make me quit because he didn't want to endanger me. Which is why I don't understand this." He gestured at the newspaper in his hand. "What's changed?"

Starfire didn't have an answer for him.

"Batman doesn't change." Robin said. "That means that if he has a new partner…he must be a better Robin than he had. He must trust him more than he trusts me. You know how competitive I can be. I don't like being second best."

"I do not know what the Batman thinks." Starfire said. "But you will always be the best Robin to me." She cupped his face and lightly kissed his lips.

Robin's face softened and he allowed himself to smile. Then, as the sun lowered closer to the horizon, he hugged her gratefully.