Gotham City
Down town; 12:30 EST
Friday

A small figure hopped along the rooftops above the bustling streets of Gotham. Below, no one paid attention to went on in the buildings above, save for a few dedicated reporters who kept their eyes out for the mysterious Bat and his bird. Still, even then, Robin kept his presence silenced.

Another gap between the buildings and the Boy Wonder flipped over it with ease, landing on his two feet like a cat. He continued his sprint across down town, towards the clinic Leslie ran. Although, it was a given she wasn't going to be there, Robin had a gut feeling she'd be close by. And no, it wasn't the bomb.

And when he said close by, he meant all of down town. Leslie's office was just the start of the maze, the center of the perimeter.

"Have you found anything yet, Alfred?" Robin asked after tapping his earpiece.

"Yes. I've found the van in the traffic footage during the time of Miss Thompkins' kidnap." Alfred informed him. "The van disappeared in the Life Lite tower parking garage, but I haven't seen any signs of them since."

"My guess, they're still there." Robin replied. "Thanks Alfred, I'll call you when I have Leslie."

Robin landed on the clinic's roof, halting in his run to glance around. He walked over to the edge, kneeling down so his head was closer to the siding, and pulled out his binoculars. Zooming in on the parking garage, he checked the entrance/exit. No one but regular civilians and one angry looking guard.

Note to self: Watch out for the guard.

"Right, bottom floor in one of the bathrooms." Robin said with a mischievous smile. If Wally were here, he'd be all over him with questions asking how he knew that. The answer is, he's a detective.

With that, Robin replaced his binoculars with his grapple gun and shot off towards the garage with a cackle echoing down toward the streets.


The SMG slapped against the callus palm of it's owner. Five armed men occupied the men's bathroom, and one woman tied up in the corner. Leslie Thompkins kept her eyes down on the floor, her wrists tied behind her back and tape placed over her mouth. She glanced up at the men on occasion, still wondering how they figured it out. How could anyone figure it out, really, unless you absolutely knew the two.

"It's quiet." One of the men said, his deep voice echoing heavily in the room.

"It's a bathroom." Another retorted.

"Shut up!" the deeper voice replied enraged.

"Calm down." The overseer of the group said. "Someone go out and check the area." He said whilst motioning his gun at the entrance. Three of the lackeys glanced over at the forth and the man sighed. He held his gun tight and walked out, disappearing around the tiled, maze-like walls. The group heard the door open, then silence. Suddenly, a grunt echoed in the room, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. Then silence.

"Jess?" one of the lackeys piped up, but got no answer. The leader narrowed his eyes and motioned for two others to go investigate. The two from before looked at each other before heading out. After rounding the first corner, they peered out around the second. 'Jess' was laying on the ground unconscious, feet in the bathroom and head out the door. The door per say was left ajar due to the man's body blocking it. The taller of the two, the one with the deeper voice, went first, carefully approaching his friend's unconscious form and peering out the open door.

"I don't see anyone." He said to his comrade. Suddenly, Robin swung down from his position above the doorway and, in a single swoop, kicked the man hard against the tiled wall not far behind the guy. The other man flinched from the sudden appearance of the hero and, out of pure reaction, fired his gun. Robin narrowed his eyes and disappeared out the door again, all the bullets embedded in the wall.

"It's the bird…! Robin!" the man shouted back to the rest of his conscious comrades. Leslie struggled a bit in her binds, hearing the gun shots and hoping none of them hit the boy.

The other two men left her side and joined their friend by the entrance, the leader taking a step forward before speaking.

"Hey, kiddo. We've been waiting for ya." The man only got silence. "Why don'tcha come on in, and we can have a little chat." Still no answer, or sound for that matter. All was quiet, save for the slight clattering of the gun the shaking lackey was still holding, aimed at the doorway and trigger finger ready to let bullets fly... again. The leader glared at him and hit the gun, effectively making the former lower it and relax a bit.

"Don't worry, we won't shoot ya." The leader took another step, turning around and whispering something to the non-frightened lackey. The man nodded and pulled out his taser. He glared at the other guy and hit his arm, the man quickly responding and pulling out his taser as well.

"I heard you swallowed a bomb." The leader went on, carefully taking each step toward the open door. At the statement, Leslie's eyes grew to the size of saucers. She mumbled something incoherent under the tape. "You must be surprised that we know. I'll admit, it was hard to come to the truth, but it really helps when the device you ate has a built in tracker." By this time, the man was next to the doorway, peering out into the parking garage, but seeing only a few parked cars.

With added courage, he bolted out, ducking, and rolling into position. He aimed his gun, looking everywhere: left, right, in front of him, behind him. Nothing. His tense stance only increased as only silence presented itself.

"Where are you?!" the man shouted, his voice easily bouncing off the walls of the parking garage.

Robin closed his eyes and shook his head at the idiocy of these guys. High above the man's head, Robin was spread star-like in between one of the riffs of the ceiling; his weight distributed evenly to his limbs to fight against gravity. He slowly dropped a hand from the concrete support and took out a flash bomb. He didn't bother throwing it, just dropping it straight down toward the guy.

Said man kept looking around before his attention was turned to a small metallic object coming down not an inch from his face. Then…

A big bang and a flash of blinding light sent the man reeling backwards. Robin dropped down from his spot, landing where the man once stood as the guy fell backwards, hands over his eyes.

"I'm sorry, I clearly had you guys all wrong." He chuckled out, "You're stupider than I thought." Footsteps from behind alerted him to the already known, and Robin quickly dodge to the side just as a strand of wires shot out. Instead of hitting him, they hooked onto the leader's prone form, jolts of electricity running through and shocking the guy.

"Really stupid." Robin retorted as he watched the leader flinch in pain.

"You little rich twerp!" one of the lackeys hollered as he came at Robin with his gun. Robin ducked the swipe of the gun that was meant for his head and punched the man in the gut.

"Correction, I'm not rich. Bruce is." Robin countered nonchalantly as he flipped the guy over himself and threw him down onto the leader. "I get a pretty good allowance, though." He finished with a smile and innocent shrug of the shoulders.

"D-Don't move! Or I'll shoot!" the last of the lackeys stuttered out, his gun shaking in his hands. Robin's eyes looked behind him as his body turned around. He just stared at him, his expression half-hidden behind the mask.

"You're clearly not feeling the aster. How about this. If you let me and Miss Thompkins go, I won't hurt you." Robin compromised.

The man's shaken appearance seemed to ease up as his eyes widened at the boy. They darted to and fro before his mind finally made up a decision. He threw his gun down towards the boy and ran off.

Robin watched him go whilst shaking his head.

"I guess he was the only smart one." He commented, looking down at the gun and kicking it away before walking into the bathroom.

Leslie looked up at him with relief as the Boy Wonder rushed over to her, clearly uninjured. He worked on her bindings, successfully cutting her free for her to take the tape off. Unsurprisingly, what came out of her mouth wasn't a thank you.

"YOU SWALLOWED A BOMB!?" she half yelled in astonishment.

"It's a long story, but I promise to chew my food next time." Robin replied in defense.

"What?!" Apparently the promise didn't help for the old doctor was still outraged.

"Listen, we need you to do surgery to get the bomb out." Robin informed her, the two making their way out of the bathroom and through the garage.

"I can't do surgery." Leslie confessed in a more controlled tone.

"What?!" It was Robin's turn to wear the saucer eyes.

"My clinic got trashed when they kidnapped me, the equipment we need is ruined." She explained.

"There's nothing we can salvage?" Robin questioned, but the doctor shook her head no. His hand went up to his earpiece.

"Alfred, can we use—"

"I'm afraid not sir." Alfred cut him off. "I overheard, and it's another reason why I didn't want to do it on top of my skill. We have the proper equipment here, but the time not all the essentials…" Leslie walked up to the boy and took the earpiece out of his ear. Robin protested in response.

"Alfred? You can't tell me Batman doesn't have the tools to do this in the Batcave." She said.

"Of course he does, but our supply stock is low and Master Bruce has yet to restock it."

The doctor growled, "And here I thought Batman was the most paranoid guy I knew."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, it all sucks, but we really need to get going." Robin interrupted, taking back his earpiece before replacing it in his ear.

Suddenly, car shrieks echoed down the ramps. From the sound of the engine, the driver didn't sound like he had all the time.

"Backup's arrived..." Robin stated whilst grabbing Leslie's arm and ushering her forwards. "To the stairwell, quickly!"

Leslie burst through the door and quickly climbed the stairs, Robin following closely behind her. They ascended past section F, then E, and then up to D to which was the ground floor. The doctor, out of breath, stopped for a bit before Robin grabbed her arm again and continued to run.

"We can't stop now." He told her as they ran towards the entrance where that mean looking guard was posted. He shouted out, but not at them. A vehicle speeding through the lanes of the street didn't bother with the guard as the van crashed through the stop bar and stopped in front of Robin and Leslie's.

"Run to St. Maire's Hospital, I'll meet you there!" Robin ordered as he shoved the doctor towards the street.

"But what about—"

"I'll be fine, just go!" he commanded with urgency as the armed men started filing out of the vehicle. Leslie made her escape just when the men cocked their guns at Robin.

"Don't move, Boy Wonder!" one of them commanded. Robin narrowed his eyes and quickly threw a load of gas pellets. They each bounced a few times before exploding, filling the area with light grey smoke.

Some of the men started to cough while others kept their cool and scanned around. Out of nowhere, Robin jumped in and kicked a guy in the face. As he fell down, the boy turned to the next guy and kneed him in the jaw. Three more fell after that, then another two. One of the men listened to the bodies falling and took out a device he had on his belt.

"This should take care of ya." He said, turning the dial to the on position and a diagram of the neural photon accelerator popped up.

Robin ducked a swipe of a gun before throwing a punch at the goon. He blocked it, but didn't block the next hit that came all too fast. His head flew to the side as Robin's fist landed a hit to his cheek. The man fell down, hand on the side of his face. The Boy Wonder was about to finish him off with a kick when a shock of pain erupted from his stomach. He cried out and clutched his abdomen, stumbling backwards.

The man on the ground grinned with malice, getting up and charging the boy. Unfortunately for him, Robin saw it coming, ducked, and flipped him over; the man face planting into the concrete ground. Robin's hand never left his stomach as he stumbled forward before falling down onto his knees. He didn't stay like that though, soon getting back up on shaky legs and continuing forward.

His pace was slow, extremely so, but the smoke still concealed his location, so he didn't try to hurry. The pain in his stomach was unbearable, every step bringing shocks of pain. It felt like the Joker stabbed him twice in the same spot, then left the knife in there.

But the pain didn't stop Robin. Even though each step only increased his agony, he started running. Even though he was running, he only made it 10 yards before he collapsed on the concrete. He lay there in a fetal position, moaning uncontrollably from the pain. He needed to get up, he needed to—

Hands grabbed his shoulders in an attempt to lift him up and Robin instinctively lashed out with a free arm. The gasp that came after surprised him, not at all a muscular but feminine.

"Robin, it's me!" Leslie shouted cowering from the attack while still trying to grab ahold of his wrist. He stopped and looked at her.

"I… told you… to—"

"You really think I'm just gonna leave you?" she replied, not letting him argue any further as she helped him up. "I know you too much to think you're like Batman." She said as they made their way out of the garage. "You don't need help, Robin. You want it." She said, the two escaping the garage and heading off towards the hospital.


Okay, so, I said the next update would probably be soon. When I said soon, I honestly didn't expect the very next day. But hey, who's complaining? I got a lot of free time today and so I took it. Let's just say this can make it up for the long delay. I'm not promising any dates for the next post, just keep a look out for my updates on my profile page.

Thanks!