It was cold. Damn it was so cold.

Robin didn't know where he was, or how long he'd been running, or even where he was trying to go. He didn't dare look back, not even if he heard something behind him. He was afraid of what he might see.

The wind tore through him, and he was so cold he could barely keep his feet under him. The hail pelted down, settling into imaginary snow, forming a surface more treacherous than any other- ice. Robin was leaving clear tracks wherever he went with it on the ground, in addition to slipping and nearly falling several times. His only chance was to get somewhere before the end of the storm, hoping the hail itself would cover his tracks.

It was strange weather. Strange for the time of year, strange in general. Hail storms generally weren't accompanied by thunder and lightning. This one was. The unusual weather added only to Robin's sense of alienation. It felt like the whole world was out to get him, even though he knew it was just one man. The one man he knew that there was no escaping from. Maybe he could remain in hiding for awhile, but eventually there wouldn't be any more beds to hide under, and then it would be over.

There was no winning a fight with Batman. Robin had already tried.

At last, breathless and exhausted, he came to a stop. Looking around, he found himself to be near Gotham's biggest train yard, which stood at the edge of the city like a sentinel. Robin was long familiar with trains. Raised to the circus, he had often traveled by train. He hadn't been on one in a long time. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd been on a train.

The thought of being in a train car, out of the wind and sheltered from the relentless hail, was a welcome one. He didn't even much care where the train was bound for, so long as it wasn't here. He wasn't sure where he'd go from there, didn't know where he could go from there. He had no home, and there was no one he could now trust.

He slipped into the train yard cautiously. Though it was dark, he could hear the sounds of men at work, hopefully readying a train for departure rather than arrival. Robin had no idea if it was early evening or early morning. His time sense, so acute before, seemed virtually gone, and there was no sign from the sky as to whether it was dusk, dawn, or somewhere in between. Blackened clouds stretched out as far as the eye could see, merciless and unforgiving.

It happened in a flash of lightning so brief that the world hardly had time to even acknowledge its presence before it was gone.

Like a monstrous beast from Hell, Batman came at Robin from above, launching himself from the top of a train car. Robin sensed this, and rolled clear. The lightning flashed as, instead of retreating, Robin took the opportunity lent by the close quarters to snatch a sharply bladed batarang from Batman's tool belt. As the lightning faded out, it cloaked the moment of contact in darkness.

Robin only felt the blade tearing into flesh, the blood of his tormentor ran down his cold numbed hand. Revulsion tossed through him like an angry sea. He dropped the knife and fled towards the sound of the train blindly. If anyone had been watching, they would have seen a young boy wearing a mask and covered in blood stagger against one of the train cars. They would have seen him push the unlocked door aside and crawl in. If they had followed, they would have seen him fall into blessed unconsciousness behind a number of shipping crates.

But nobody saw this. The man that checked the car realized he'd forgotten to lock it, and assumed he'd neglected to shut it all the way as well. He didn't even look inside the car before shutting the door and locking it from the outside. Robin, badly wounded and at the very end of his strength knew and felt nothing more for a long time.


Robin was snapped to reality by a vibrating roar of thunder. That's what it was. Not a rumble, not exactly a clap, a drawn out roar, akin to the sound of a lion, only a hundred times louder.

He opened his eyes blearily, and was immediately baffled. He'd been in the dark for so long that it was confusing to see light. He didn't know where he was for a moment, sat up suddenly, his heart thudding in his chest as he fought to recall what had happened. He found himself looking out of the slats of the train car.

Sunrise had been hidden by the black storm clouds which seemed to follow the train relentlessly, in spite of the fact that the storm itself was now behind it, drifting along at a leisurely pace. Dawn was less of a light show, more of a decrease in the intensity of the darkness. It was long past that now, and the world outside was a dismal, but bright, shade of gray.

Robin was stiff and sore, and bewildered. It took him a few minutes to realize where he was, and for the memories of his recent past to come flooding back. Along with the memories came the sickening fear. Robin had hoped sleep would bring his emotions back under control, but it hadn't. Time had done nothing to lessen the shock of his current situation.

He raised his right hand, the one which had wielded the batarang. It was soaked in blood, which had since dried, perhaps even his own. Maybe he'd dreamed the moment his fear turned to raw and blinding hatred. Hatred so vile that even if his actions had been fully justified, none could condone what he felt when he acted. It was gone now, replaced by an unnamed and inexplicable terror. Batman was gone now, as was his past life. All of it, over and done with, just like that.

And perhaps, the finality of that thought was what most frightened him.

Even inside the train car, it was cold enough that Robin's breath frosted each time he exhaled. He wasn't sure if he felt more or less tired than he had before losing consciousness. Nightmares had plagued him even there, and the frigid air had time and again intruded and drawn him back towards consciousness. It wasn't really rest he needed anyway. It was relief. There was no refuge to be found in sleep, not when his worst nightmare could follow him at will from dreams to reality and back again.

Robin was too cold and tired to shiver, too stiff to try and move. And so he lay in the shadows, gazing into the colorless near-darkness of the train car, not so much allowing his mind to drift as forcing it to think of something other than the fact that he was no longer the hero he had been. The darkness had changed him, and made that change felt in his act of violence. He had not moved to disable, he had acted to kill. Even now, he felt no remorse about it. In fact, he felt nothing at all save for the crippling doubt and fear which seemed now to be as much a part of him as any limb.

It was then that a new feeling of desolation, of desperate loneliness set in. Until now, it hadn't fully dawned on him just how alone he had truly become. He had lost more than his home, and his adoptive father. He couldn't trust his friends, his teammates. He had no one to turn to, and nowhere to go.

A new weariness settled over him, along with a different kind of chill. It was cold outside, but he felt as if ice was forming from within, freezing his very blood. He looked through a gap in the door of the train car, out at the rolling fields. The train had left Gotham far behind, probably passed through a few other cities without Robin's noticing.

It was finally leaving behind the black clouds of the hail storm, only to find a new and different set of clouds. These were heavy white clouds, hanging low in the sky, so low they seemed to touch the ground. Robin realized that he was looking at snow falling. The train had yet to actually reach the snow storm, and the storm was heading away, but the train would soon overtake it.

Robin was tempted to just stay on the train. But he couldn't do that forever.


The train stopped at a station. Robin didn't know why, nor did he care. He didn't even know where it was. He simply looked out, recognized that he was in spitting distance of a city, and decided it was time for him and the train to part ways.

Warily, he opened the door and slipped out, unnoticed by the people in the train yard. A blast of cold wind greeted him, kicking up a swirl of snow. It wasn't actually snowing at this time, but it had done so recently, and the clouds above were threatening to do it again. He didn't recognize the city he was looking at, but that didn't mean anything. Generally when he traveled there wasn't much time for sight-seeing. He'd been to cities that he couldn't find on a map, or recognize a picture of. Below, the city was colorless, as if the very life had been sucked out of it by winter itself. A place of desolation, of death. Good a place as any to be, Robin supposed.


The ache which had seeped out of Robin while he was on the train had come back. It wasn't his joints protesting against the cold, or his muscles resisting movement. It wasn't even the pounding in his head, telling him he was not only wounded but badly in need of real sleep. No, it was the heartache.

This was not his city, nobody knew him here. Not as Dick Grayson or as Robin. There was no one he could turn to, nowhere he could go. Below, a black and white city spread before him like the skeleton of an animal long picked clean by scavengers. The icy streets were snow-covered, no cars crept along them. No pedestrians strode along the sidewalks. There was no sign of movement in any of the office building windows. The city seemed devoid of life. The only illusion of it was some scattered bits of trash the wind was pushing around like puppets on strings, giving the grisly image of life where there was clearly none by making ghosts of paper.

Robin shivered.

He tried to tell himself that everyone had probably stayed home. The drifts of snow were several feet deep. Nobody would leave their house in the weather which had no doubt preceded this. But, try as he might, Robin couldn't force himself to believe that cheery alternative.

Something about the bits of paper drew his attention, and Robin climbed down for a closer look. In spite of the apparently abandoned city, a morning paper was rolling up and down the street. A picture on the front page was what had drawn Robin's attention. The implication filled him with dread, and he hesitated to pick up the wayward paper and even when he did pick it up, he was reluctant to look at it.

The headline read "Billionaire and Son Vanish Without A Trace". This was followed by an article, giving a brief overview of Bruce Wayne, Wayne Enterprises and, of course, Dick Grayson himself. There was a contact number, and a large reward offered to anyone who found either of them.

Not only the bleeding hearts will be looking, but the greedy as well. Robin thought.

Hours. Or maybe a day, if he'd been unconscious longer than he thought. Even so, it had not taken long for the world to become aware of at least a part of the twisted and thorny path which had led Robin here. How long would it take for the League to look into it?. To find Batman dead, and even track Robin here?. Batman was gone, but the world had become Robin's enemy.

Collectively, the world had unlimited free time to devote to seeking him out. He had known this would happen, but hadn't expected it quite so soon. In fact, he hadn't really thought about it at all until now.

He looked at the name of the paper, and almost laughed.

Blüdhaven. Sounds about right.

Then he looked at the date. It was dated December 24th. Robin didn't even begin to form a connection between the emptiness of the street and the date. He probably couldn't have if he'd tried.

Robin let the wind tear the paper from his hands. Had there been anyone on the street, they would have thought it odd that a boy wearing a mask was trudging down the sidewalk, had they been well-informed, they would have thought it stranger still to be seeing Robin walking the street in broad daylight, and right here in Blüdhaven, when his home was reported to be Gotham.

Robin didn't mind where he was going. Just so long as he was moving. A moment of stillness was all it took to drive him crazy. He moved without thought or purpose, save that of preventing himself from thinking. He didn't want to remember his past, nor did he want to consider his future. He wanted them both to simply go away and leave him alone. More than anything, he wanted to be left alone.

It happened that he turned onto a street which was inhabited. Several teenagers were vandalizing a local store. They had broken the front window and were climbing inside to loot the place. The owner had evidently not installed an alarm as, aside from the laughter of the boys, there was no sound.

Robin observed them quietly, but without interest. He barely even noticed what they were doing. There were five in all, and they were older than he was, more young adults than teenagers really. Under normal circumstances, Robin could have put a stop to their activity in a matter of seconds.

But not today. He didn't care today. He didn't have the energy, or the inclination.

He looked for an alley, or some turn off point, so he could avoid the vandals altogether. But the only turning point was some distance behind him. He would have to go back. He looked over his shoulder for a long time, before sighing heavily. He couldn't go back. He wasn't too keen on going forward, come to that, but he definitely could not go back.

He started forward once more, resuming the slow, deliberate walk to nowhere. He made no attempt to evade or hide from the vandals. If they saw him, so be it. If they wanted to do something about it, very well. If not, so much the better. That's all he could think.

"Hey, kid!. What do you think you're doing out here?," one of the boys had noticed him "look here, we've got a kid who thinks he's a superhero!. You come out here to stop us?,"

The reply, when it came, was hardly what the boy had expected. Low, quiet, and emotionless, the reply was this

"No. And, if it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon be on my way."

The boy laughed. It wasn't a pleasant one. He was the sort of person who enjoyed causing others hardship simply for the sake of doing so, and he wasn't above violence. In fact he, and the rest of his gang, were armed with chains and knives.

When he saw that his potential victim had continued walking, he called to his friends.

"Come on, let's get hm!,"

Forgetting the store in favor of something more interesting, the boys leaped out through the broken window. To their astonishment, their would-be victim turned and met them. In his eyes the flame of fury burned so brightly that even they were unable to ignore it.

Yet still there were five against one, and the one was badly injured as well as being sorely out of practice. The five were bigger and stronger, but the one was faster, and fueled by a hatred the five could neither comprehend nor hope to match.

In fact, they would have lost badly, if not for one thing. The defining moment of the fight came when the boy took on the gang leader, wrenching away the older boy's knife and claiming it for himself. Climbing up his opponent like a monkey, he pinned the older boy's arms behind him with his legs, then yanked him over backward, drawing the knife to his enemy's throat.

The leader saw his life flash before his eyes and, for a moment, believed he was already dead. But then he took a gasping breath, and found himself to be free.

The younger boy had scrambled to his feet and stood staring down at the knife. His expression seemed to shift between every emotion imaginable, unable to settle on any one or even a few that could coexist. Then he flung the knife down, and ran.

The gang leader's pride was badly wounded, as was his image where his friends were concerned. He knew, somewhere in his mind, that he should allow this conflict to end here and now, that he should just go back to vandalizing. But there was something personal in it now.

That boy had beaten him. There was also something irresistible about a chase.

"Don't just stand there, go after him!," he shouted.

The others ran off in the direction indicated, but he paused to pick up his knife. He was going to end that kid. They eventually caught up with the masked boy and cornered him in an alley.

It was there that Robin died.


A/N: I know I said you could quit whenever you like, but kindly stand by me for one chapter more. Then, if you're still unhappy, you can stop.