A/N: Thanks for the reviews TabbyKat405, Bright Anarchy and Blas! Sorry about the rather lengthy delay.
If you thought the goons' names were a little cheesy, they were supposed to be! Chiste, Scherzo and Gracejo are, respectively, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese for "joke". How witty of me, right? (insert eye-rolling emoji). ;-)
Chapter 9:
The Batcave:
Batman, after wandering around Crime Alley for an hour, had returned to the Batcave to do some research. The man was sure that the boy would stay near the area he was protecting; the Caped Crusader just had to find a place where Robin could take shelter. Crime Alley had several abandoned buildings but most of them were occasionally used as criminal hideouts. The young crime-fighter would know that and wouldn't choose to stay in one of them. That would be dangerous and the boy wasn't an idiot.
"I thought he was coming back with you, Master Batman," Alfred stated, his words clipped but his tone politely formal. He was not happy with his charge but he was still the man's butler.
"He's gone, the shacks were completely empty," Batman snapped back, irritated with both the boy's disappearance and his faithful butler's barely concealed anger.
Alfred, his eyes wide with surprise, had nothing to say to that comment.
"I searched Crime Alley but there's no place to make a…" Batman trailed off. 'Make a home' was the wrong phrase; Robin was just looking for a place with walls and a roof.
Stalking to the Bat Research Shelf, the hero pulled out a geography book and placed it – slammed it – on the table. He flipped through it until he found the section that had maps of different areas of Gotham City. Then he flipped some more until he came to Crime Alley and the surrounding area.
Running his fingers down the street lines and around the border, Batman searched for any place that could possibly be used as a small shelter. There was an abandoned warehouse a few miles west of the southern border but that was another perfect hideout for villains. Again, Robin was smart and would stay away from locations like that.
Batman glanced at his Bat-watch – 2:47. It was useless to spend the rest of his night looking through books. He hadn't slept well since he had first seen Robin attack and take down a knife-wielding criminal. Fighting crime required at least a small amount of sleep but the hero didn't want to stop his pursuit, even if it was for a relatively short amount of time.
"Go to bed, sir."
Alfred's quiet but slightly commanding voice came from behind Batman as he removed his cowl. The faithful butler had quietly filled a syringe with Bat-knock out drops, just in case, and was grateful that he had thought of it. Exhaustion was written all over the younger man's face and Alfred knew the Caped Crusader rarely considered his own health when working on a case.
Surprising his butler, a thoroughly discouraged and somewhat frustrated Batman nodded once and strode to his Batpole. Unfortunately, resuming the search would have to wait until tomorrow night; Bruce Wayne had several annoying meetings that would take up the entire day. Flipping the Compressed Steam Batpole lever, Batman shot himself up to the Manor and, reluctantly, went to bed.
Thursday, April 1
Our trailer is still here. The home where I spent the first ten years of my life is sitting all by itself at the old circus grounds. I say old because I'm pretty sure that Haly's Circus is never going to return. Why would they come back to the place where two of their biggest stars fell to their deaths?
Leona left a note saying that she waited for me for two whole days after the rest of the circus left. If I had returned to get supplies during the day, or after the circus had pulled out, I would have been with my friends instead of in this dirty, depressing, crime-filled city. What made me think that I could keep people safe, that I could prevent the deaths of other kids' parents? I help a little, I guess, but Crime Alley will never truly be safe.
I lost a fight last night…badly. Well, technically, I guess I won because the bad guys were unconscious and I got away but it was by far my worst win. I couldn't even go to sleep because of the pain. I discovered that large, muscular men can hit hard when they can keep up with me.
My ribs, the ones Batman and his friend just fixed, feel worse than they did before they were fixed. I have a sharp, pounding headache that I'm sure is from the hits I took to the back of my head, the side of my head and my chin. The intense throbbing hasn't decreased even though it's been several hours.
There were four criminals and I took down the first one easily - surprise is always a great advantage to have. The second man raced out of the building before I had a chance to attack. Of course it would be the skinniest one who would flee, the goon who would have been the easiest to defeat.
The last two worked together and I actually thought about running away at one point. I'm used to fighting big guys but I've never fought one fast enough to be on top of me when I land a trick, much less two! They were brothers so, obviously, they knew how to fight as a unit. I finally knocked one out, after receiving a lot of punishment, but the other guy threw me across the room and then tried to strangle me. My throat is burning and probably looks like a giant blueberry. That's a stupid comparison. I'm pretty sure it's bruised, though.
I broke the last guy's nose and was able to leave before anyone woke up. So now here I am, sitting in the same tree I hid in last year, attempting to get some rest. I don't want to go to the trailer yet because that will probably be the first place they check when they do wake up. It was hard to get everything up here with me but feeling panicked gives me more strength, I guess.
Maybe I should have stayed with Batman for a while longer. Of course, if I had, I wouldn't know about the bank robbery that the men were planning for tomorrow. I don't know who the boss is but the guy who ran away said he was a "brilliant villain". That's awesome (I'm rolling my eyes sarcastically right now) because I am in no shape to take on a regular villain, much less a brilliant one.
Gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. Hopefully I live through tomorrow.
Mid-morning:
Joker strode through the door of his hideout and stopped in shock. Three of his henchmen were sitting on the floor, bloody and holding their heads in obvious pain. The fourth was nowhere to be seen. How was he supposed to rob a bank with three guys that couldn't take care of themselves for one night?!
"What happened?!" he shrieked and heard a low moan. The goon with the red hair looked up and Joker immediately knew his nose was broken. His shirt had the name Scherzo and the villain glared at him, waiting for an explanation.
But the henchman just dropped his head again and Joker growled.
"Some kid…got jump…us," a quiet voice came from near a pile of broken crates. Chiste's head was still down and the words were mumbled so Joker only caught a few.
"A KID?!" the villain screamed, fury filling the words. "How did a kid do this," he swept his arm around the room, "to all of you?!"
"Fast, flips, jumping, strong." The words were muttered and came from all three men.
"Not just a kid, then," Joker commented irritably. "THE kid."
There was a moment of complete silence and then he grumbled, "I'm gonna kill him."
"Can the, uh, robbbbbery wa…wait?" the man closest to Joker, Gracejo, slurred. "Nesssst week?"
"No, this makes it more important," the villain growled furiously. "I need him gone or on my team. This," he pointed around the room again, "can't be allowed to happen anymore."
The men began muttering for a second time but the words were too low to make out.
"Idiots, imbeciles, cowards, weaklings!" Joker shouted the insults and the words echoed around the warehouse. "I'll just have to do it without you then!"
Scherzo was able to get out a laugh. "By yourself?" he chuckled softly.
"Careful now," the villain tsked, an implied threat filling his evil tone. "I'll just test another of my newest bombs tonight; that will probably draw him out. If it doesn't, a bank blows up tomorrow afternoon and I'll be waiting for a little boy who will try to save the day by flipping around."
Joker glared at the men for a moment then added, "You three better be gone by the time I'm done here or you'll blow up with the bomb."
Grinning wickedly, the brilliant villain strode to the back of the warehouse where his most precious supplies were stored. With a loud, diabolical laugh, he began building one of the same bombs he had used on the night he had trapped Batman.
Robin stayed in the tree all day. He was able to take several, twenty minute power naps but he wasn't even close to feeling rested when the sun began to set. There had been no movements, that he had seen anyway, near his trailer or the warehouse. Maybe he could sleep in his parents' bed tonight and wake up feeling better tomorrow. After all, there was a bank robbery he would have to prevent.
The Batcave:
The sun had just set and Batman was preparing to go out. The first place he was going to search would be the area around the gas station where he had found Robin. Perhaps the boy had a safe house near there but hadn't been able to make it because of his injuries. It was a long shot because an inexperienced eleven-year-old probably wouldn't even think about having a safe house. A long shot, however, was better than no shot.
"Please be careful, sir," Alfred said. "He is going to be skittish; he's eleven and trying to hide from everybody right now."
"I know, Alfred," Batman sighed. "You were right last night. I can't force him to come here but maybe I can at least have a conversation and try to convince him to return."
"I think the main thing you need to convince him of, Master Batman, is that he is no longer on his own. Don't push anything on him; just let him know that he can come to you if he ever wants to do so."
"I agree, Alfred. Thanks for your advice, which always seems to lead to the wisest course of action."
Batman strode to the Batmobile, climbed in and took off down the tunnel.
"Anytime, sir," the faithful butler smiled at the now-empty space. "Watching you grow into a strong hero has enabled me to think of a few words of wisdom over the years."
With a soft chuckle and a shake of his head, Alfred walked over to the Bat-camera monitor machine and flipped the levers up so he could watch Batman's back.
Abandoned circus grounds – ten o'clock:
"This is going to be amaaaazing," Joker sang quietly. He placed the small bomb in the middle of the short building and set the timer. Turning around, he raced out the door and headed for the forest behind the building. There was a sturdy tree near the edge and the villain climbed up, settling down on the lowest branch and waiting in excited anticipation. Surely this would bring the boy out and, hopefully, it was far enough away from Gotham City that Batman wouldn't even notice.
Something moved in the lower branches of his tree and Robin, who was lightly dozing, silently sat up and listened carefully. He heard breathing – it was fast and loud and the performer in him recognized the humming noise of excitement. Whoever, or whatever, was in the tree was eager for something to happen.
Without making even a tiny sound, Robin parted the largest leaves under his bed of branches. There, sitting on the short branch closest to the ground, was the green-haired villain who had twice beaten the eleven-year-old. His heart started pounding and the ache in his head began to match the rhythm. Robin was sure the crazy guy would hear the loud thumping so he quickly returned the leaves to their original position. He was hidden but didn't feel safe at all.
There was a loud beeping sound and then a large explosion. Grabbing a tall, skinny stick next to him, Robin gingerly pulled himself up to standing to see the source of the booming noise. His blue eyes widened in shock – there was a pile of rubble where his trailer used to be and a small tire was flying toward the building he had been in last night.
"Wooooooo hahahahahahaha!"
The evil cackling came from below him and something in Robin snapped. The villain had just blown up the young crime-fighter's last connection to his family and the circus!
Robin jumped off the top of the tree and caught one of the lower branches of the smaller tree to his left. Using it like a high bar, he swung around and utilized the arm strength from years of training to stop himself when he flew up to a handstand. Immediately switching his grip, the boy turned in a half circle and swung down the way he had come up. He let go right before the momentum took him up to another handstand, arching into a graceful back layout that returned him to his original tree. The branch he caught was flexible and it bent with his weight, almost snapping as he let go and caught the sturdy branch just above Joker with his knees.
His back was to Joker as he swung down toward the man. Robin arched at the last second, turning himself right side up. Wrapping his strong arms around the villain's ribcage, the boy threw his knees off the higher branch and used the momentum to latch his legs around Joker's waist. The duo began plummeting toward the ground that was only fourteen feet away, Robin hanging on to the villain's back like a monkey.
Robin was used to flying – he was still an aerialist – and knew how to use his body. Releasing Joker's ribcage, the youngest member of The Flying Graysons reached up and grabbed the floppy green hair of the villain. He arched back again and pulled as hard as he could. The man and the boy rotated backwards, spinning like a wheel, and Joker's body hit the ground first.
There was a painful snap in his already sore right ankle when his feet hit the ground but, luckily, Robin's legs didn't end up under the villain's body. Joker was on his stomach, his eyes squeezed shut, his face hideously contorted in pain and his lungs begging for the air that was refusing to enter his body. The boy rolled off the heaving upper back of the man and crawled toward the pile of debris that used to be his home.
Blood was dripping from the deep cut on his forehead that Alfred had stitched two nights ago and Robin felt the dried streaks on the back of his head becoming sticky again. The eleven-year-old reached the smoking remains – nothing was recognizable, the bomb had completely demolished the trailer.
"No," he whispered in despair. "Why?"
Three tears slid out of his liquid-filled eyes but were captured and soaked up by the black material of his mask. He thought about tearing the thing off and running away until he dropped dead from exhaustion. That idea, however, was quickly rendered moot when pain shot through his skull and he tipped forward, landing face first on a piece of fluff that used to be a pillow.
"Now that I have you," Joker whispered both breathlessly and menacingly, "let's have a little chat."
The villain dropped the plank of wood he had snatched from the small building he had just blown up, grabbed the boy by the back of his tunic and dragged him toward the warehouse on the other side of the circus grounds.
Batman was searching around the gas station where he had last seen Robin. All he had found was a puddle of dried blood that he had already known would be there. Somewhere there had to be some kind of different clue that would help him find the boy.
A sudden explosion rocked the shaky foundation of the store on the border of Crime Alley. The Caped Crusader immediately abandoned his search and raced toward the Batmobile. A giant orange and pink cloud divided the blackness of the night sky in half.
Joker. Batman remembered the bomb from the night Robin had rescued him. The explosion had come from the southwest and the shortest way there was through Crime Alley. Gunning the engine to life, the hero eased the Batmobile into the shadows of that section of the city then took off down the main road.
Nineteen minutes and twenty-three seconds later he arrived at the abandoned circus grounds. There was a small pile of smoking rubble on the far side, near the forest. Batman climbed out of the Batmobile and strode over to investigate, pulling his Bat-flashlight out of his utility belt on the way. The wreckage contained several clues: two small wheels that had been sliced open by shards of metal, several piles of lumpy material that could have been part of a mattress or pillow, a pipe that looked like it belonged to a small sink and a plank of wood with a handle attached – maybe it had formed a staircase.
Something sparkly caught his eyes and the Caped Crusader carefully made his way to the middle of the debris. It was a piece of red fabric, made of stretchy material, with several glittery circles sewn on it. The circus grounds, red material, sequins, cloth that had to be flexible – the dots connected. This had been the trailer of John, Mary and Richard Grayson. Haly and his group of performers had left the boy and his home, as if The Flying Graysons had never even been a part of the circus.
That poor child.
Alfred's words echoed in Batman's mind as he pictured young Richard Grayson staring at the smoking remains of his former home. But maybe, hopefully, the boy hadn't even been here. Why would he go back to the place where he had lost his entire family?
Sweeping his Bat-flashlight to his left, Batman noticed four prints – two little circles and two small hands that could only belong to a child. Sighing, the hero squashed the tiny bug of hope - Robin needed somewhere to live and this was a logical place to look for shelter. A kid, quite possibly Robin, had been crawling toward the pile of rubble so Batman retraced the path to a patch of grass. There were clear signs of a struggle and a faint outline of what could be a torso.
This time the trail was two large, very distinctive footprints and the Caped Crusader followed them back to the wreckage. His Bat-flashlight caught the glint of something shiny on a different plank of wood. He crouched over the object: fresh blood. There was another trail and this one was more obvious than any of the others. Joker – the only person who would both blow something up and wear a sophisticated version of clown shoes - was dragging something or someone – probably Robin – toward the abandoned warehouse on the other side of the clearing.
A scream of agony pierced the night air from the direction of the warehouse. Dropping his Bat-flashlight, the Caped Crusader sprinted toward the building that was precisely forty-six yards away.
