A/N: Thanks for the reviews Batman Dude, Blas, Carl and JokerFan2011!

Batman Dude - thanks for noticing the lack of length. I went through the last couple of chapters and found a different spot to end them which made them longer. :)

JokerFan2011 - the darker one is not ready. I'm having trouble finishing it because of its substance. The only reason it even exists is because I kept seeing images that I didn't really want to see and the only way for them to leave my mind was to write them down. Then they turned into an extra part of this story but I didn't want to drive anyone away with what, to me, is scary darkness. That's why there are two versions. It's worse than "Seven Days" and you might remember how much trouble I had with that one! I'm pretty sure I have a messed up mind - normal people probably wouldn't go to such lengths when writing about their favorite hero! But I said I would post it so, when it's ready, I will.

Chapter 9:

"Batman, can you hear me?" Chief O'Hara shook the hero's left shoulder but received no response. He waved several officers over and together they lifted the body of the Caped Crusader and placed it gently in the back of a squad car. Siren wailing, the car sped off to Police Headquarters, where Commissioner Gordon was talking to the mysterious man who usually answered the Batphone.

"He's knocked out and not responding," the commissioner was describing what he knew of Batman's condition. "Yes, he's breathing. Chief O'Hara also said his right arm was rather bloody. Yes, I understand, I'll wait."


On the other end of the Batphone, Alfred was close to thinking about panicking. Robin was gone and now Batman was injured enough to be non-responsive. How was he going to get the hero home without giving away any clues as to the identities of the Dynamic Duo?! The commissioner was waiting for instructions and Alfred didn't have any ideas!


"Yes, I see," Commissioner Gordon responded after several minutes of silence. "You're right, they do have mutual respect. Okay, I understand, thank you." The commissioner shook his head as he hung up the Batphone.

"The man, whoever he is, wants us to leave Batman at Wayne Manor. Bruce Wayne and Batman have crossed paths before and Mr. Wayne will understand the need for discretion in this matter. The man is going to call the Manor to work out the details with Bruce."

Chief O'Hara nodded. "Let's go men," he stated, waving the same four officers over to carry the Caped Crusader back to the squad car.


The Batmobile glided gently into its parking spot in the Batcave and the butler was relieved. That problem was fixed and Batman would be in Wayne Manor in about fifteen minutes. Alfred decided to prep the medical area; he would need to get straight to work.


Pain. That's all Batman's mind could register at the moment. His back, which was being bounced up and down, felt like a solid ball of cement pounding against his ribcage. His right arm was throbbing and his face was stiff with dried blood.

He was suddenly being lifted and his eyes flew open, startling the police officers who were carrying him to the front door of Wayne Manor. They almost dropped him but were quick enough to help him land on his feet. Batman was dizzy and confused and almost went back to sleep. There was a ringing noise in his ears and he realized, when a familiar face opened a long object in front of him, that the sound was the doorbell and Alfred was inviting them in to the house.

"Just lay him on the couch in there, officers," Alfred stated, gesturing toward the living room with his right arm. "Thank you for your help."

Nodding in understanding, and with a quick glance at the man they had just laid on the couch, the policemen left. Alfred waited until the sounds of the cars had disappeared before sitting on a soft chair just left of the couch, carefully examining his patient with his eyes. Batman was lying on his left side with his right arm thrown across his eyes to block out the light. The position had forced the dried blood from his wound to crack, allowing a trickle of fresh liquid to travel down his body and drip onto the rather expensive piece of furniture.

"Sorry 'bout couch," Batman whispered painfully and Alfred shook his head.

"There is nothing to be sorry about, sir. But I would rather look at this down in the Batcave, if you feel you can move."

"Okay," Batman replied quietly and attempted to sit up. Alfred grabbed the less-injured left arm and draped it across his own shoulders. Wrapping his right arm securely around the hero's waist, the butler pulled him to his feet. Slowly they made their way to the service elevator, nearly stumbling to the ground twice.

"This was easier when you couldn't try to help," Alfred whispered under his breath.

They finally made it to the medical area in the Batcave and Alfred sighed in relief again. Batman's head was lolling around on his shoulders and the butler quickly but gently laid him down.

"Can you tell me how you are feeling, sir?" Alfred inquired just loud enough to keep his charge awake.

"Like a two-ton truck ran over me then dropped a wrecking ball on my back," came the quiet reply.

"We'll start with the back then, sir. Roll over, please." Batman flopped instead of rolled, groaned in pain and fell asleep.

Alfred carefully slipped off the large utility belt then began cutting through the material of the Bat-suit. The man's back came into view and the butler winced in sympathy. The right arm was steadily bleeding again and Alfred quickly wrapped the wound with Bat-wrap. That injury would need to be re-stitched when the blood stopped. Alfred shook his head; the hero needed to be grounded but that certainly wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Moving swiftly around the medical area, he gathered the supplies he needed and went to work.


Several hours earlier:

Robin lifted his head when he heard a commotion. Kirik was playing some sort of video and the Boy Wonder rolled his eyes. Since watching would be useless, Robin stared up at the rope again, still attempting to find a weakness.

"He looks pretty good, doesn't he?" Kirik asked. When there was no reply, he turned back to Robin. "Knock it off, kid," the villain growled when he saw the boy tugging on the rope again.

His attention was drawn to the voice of his nemesis and Robin glared at the man. "No," he replied defiantly. "If you want me to 'knock it off' you'll have to kill me. I will fight until I'm dead and there's nothing you can do about that. Unless, of course, you kill me."

Kirik had paused the tape and was glaring back. "You can't fight if all of your bones are broken into tiny little pieces," he snarled.

"Do it then!" Robin taunted. "I know your weakness: physicality. There's no way you could force yourself to even begin trying to break my bones. You shocked yourself when you let your anger out earlier. I saw it in your eyes. You obviously don't like blood – how many times have you washed that hand?" Robin's smirk had returned even though it sent continuous sparks of pain shooting through his cheekbone and extending into his head.

"WHAT?!" Kirik exploded. "Wash…what are you…I don't have a weakness!" he sputtered, upset that the boy knew something that Kirik hadn't told him.

"The skin on your right hand," Robin replied, "is dry. Much more dry than the left. Isn't that the one you used on my face?" The Boy Wonder paused to catch his breath; it was still difficult to breathe. "It also has a pinkish tint to it. Blood doesn't come off very easily, does it?" A raised right eyebrow joined the smirk and the villain's jaw dropped in shock.

"SHUT UP!" Kirik yelled, his body trembling with fury. Grabbing the remote, he rewound the tape again. "There's someone on here that you might want to see," the villain snapped as he pressed play.

Someone? Robin was a little confused and slightly worried. Alfred would be the only other one looking for him and Kirik didn't know about Alfred. Or did he? The teenager squinted at the television, trying to identify the human silhouettes. There were at least seven or eight, all of them big and powerful. One was flying around the room, alternately attacking and dodging. That figure was already injured, though; Robin could tell by the unsteady weight of the man. A fighter that good, at full strength, wouldn't be stumbling around. And the guy was definitely good. Almost as good as Batman, if Batman had an injured torso and a wounded arm that was now bleeding heavily. Wait…no, Batman was dead – blown to pieces because of his stubborn partner. The man was about to lose. All of the other shadows had been ganging up on the one guy. He had taken care of most of them but was now down on the ground, watching a large hand descend towards his face.

Three gunshots, three men on the ground and the video moved closer to the pile of human flesh. Robin's eyes widened and hope whizzed through his body when he saw a cowl. But it was too dark to make out any of the features on the half-hidden face. He quickly realized that it wasn't because of the darkness – the man's face was bloody and already slightly swollen. Then he saw familiar blue eyes, a shade darker than his own, and he gasped in both shock and disbelief.

"Batman?!" Robin suddenly shouted and Kirik turned to look at him with a cruel grin.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, sidekick. Did you think he was dead or something?"

"I…but you…the bombs," Robin was too stunned to release a coherent sentence.

The video had been paused and Kirik waited patiently. It was important for Robin to see the next part. But the boy was struggling to escape again and Kirik sighed. Would the kid never learn?!

"There's a little more to see, kid," the villain yelled and the movements ceased. Robin stared at the screen, apprehension filling his wide eyes.

Another gunshot – this time the bullet was flying straight towards Batman's head.

"NO!" Robin screamed in horror for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. Batman wasn't moving now and his eyes were closed.

"Goodbye, Batman," came the quiet whisper and the video went black.

"No," Robin whispered in defeat. Had he really seen Batman? No, he knew that his partner had been blown to pieces. But the blue eyes belonged to Batman; the emotionless eyes that concealed everything, all the time. Nobody else had eyes like that.

"Yes," Kirik corrected. "You see, the warehouse was a game. One that Batman was obviously able to survive. But, as you saw for yourself, nobody can survive a bullet to the brain. Nobody, not even Batman, is indestructible."

Too many things were happening. Batman was dead, Batman was alive, Batman was dead again, maybe it was another trick, nobody gets shot point-blank in the head and lives to tell about it, Batman is dead. Robin felt like his brain was going to explode, to burst right out of his aching head and splatter itself all over Kirik.

The sidekick wasn't responding and the villain grinned. The kid was in shock and overwhelmed. Kirik rewound the tape, only a little bit this time, and put it on a loop from a certain spot to the end. Robin would recognize the face and watch the man "die" over and over.

"Chin up, kid. I'm looking forward to your escape so you can hunt me down and kill me," Kirik laughed and pressed play.

Robin's eyes widened again as his attention was drawn back to the television. The same moment began playing over and over and the Boy Wonder closed his eyes in despair.


Present time:

"Sir, I must insist that you lie still!" Alfred exclaimed with as much patience as he could muster. Batman, still lying on his stomach, was attempting to push himself up off the medical table and the butler was becoming a little irritated.

"Robin," Batman stated, both pain and distress surrounding the single word.

Alfred sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time. "We will rescue Robin, sir, but you won't be able to help him if you can't even walk. And that's what will happen if you continue struggling against me while I'm trying to stitch your arm and ice your back!"

"I'm fine," the words were growled this time as Batman gently pushed his butler away and forced himself to sit up. Dizziness assaulted him, waves rushed across his eyes and a hammer began hitting him in the head. He suddenly found himself lying down on his aching back with a strong hand on his chest.

"I can see that you're fine, sir," Alfred declared with an uncharacteristic tinge of sarcasm. "Especially since you nearly toppled to the ground and almost passed out."

"I can't just leave him, Alfred," Batman whispered in despair. "He probably thinks I'm dead! I need to find him before that man finishes whatever it is he's been doing!"

The butler was slightly confused. "Why, sir, would he think you were dead?"

Batman had neglected to tell Alfred what he had discovered in the warehouse – the cameras, the traps and the large explosion that had allowed him to escape. Then, at the end of the most recent fight, he had seen Kirik with a camera – one that housed a videotape that Robin was undoubtedly going to be forced to watch. The entire story came out and the butler's eyes grew wide in astonishment.

"Everything I know about Master Robin tells me that if he thinks you are dead then the words in that note are absolutely correct." Alfred's voice was shaking as he thought of his younger charge, alone in captivity and thinking that he was no longer one half of the Dynamic Duo.

"He'll be dead, Alfred," Batman replied quietly. "His light will be extinguished and his soul will be numb. I can't allow that, I just can't…" the hero trailed off and his thoughts returned to Robin's frame of mind fourteen months ago. It had taken almost two weeks for the boy to return to his normal self. But he had returned. This, however, was going to be much worse. Robin was strong but Kirik was using his emotions against him. The emotions that made him Dick Grayson; the passion that made him Robin. Kirik was about to make Robin, the heroic Boy Wonder and always positive bright light of Gotham City, disappear.


The next morning:

Hope. It was a tiny spark but it was flying throughout Robin's entire body. Since the villain was playing that one section on a loop, the teen had decided to examine it more carefully. It hurt to see his partner lose a fight then take a bullet to the head over and over. It hurt a lot, more than anyone should ever have to hurt. But, now, Robin had hope.

There had been a 'ping'. It was soft but it was there. Heads, when hit with close range bullets, don't 'ping'. Bullets that hit cement or brick or something else equally hard, do 'ping'. He could be reaching for straws and causing himself to imagine the sound but he had thrown that thought aside long ago. That sound, that virtually inaudible noise, had granted him hope.


Kirik stood in the doorway on the opposite side of the room. From what he had seen on the camera hidden near the ceiling, the sidekick had been awake all night and watching the video. Robin was repeatedly seeing his partner die but had not broken into wailing sobs of grief. Maybe the kid was too traumatized to react. Maybe it was time to stop. But the villain really wanted to use his last death trap; the one that truly would kill Batman.


Quiet footsteps. Robin's ears had been listening hard all night and instead of a 'ping' they were hearing shoes gliding softly along the floor. The new emotion was not going to manifest itself on his face, the Boy Wonder had decided. If Kirik knew that Robin had hope, he would find some way to use it against him. And Robin wasn't going to let go of that little flame dashing around inside him. So, instead of the smirk that wanted to burst onto his still-aching face, Robin drew a curtain across his eyes and allowed his throbbing body to control his expression.


The villain strode past the young hero and turned off the television. Pivoting to face the sidekick, Kirik was ecstatic to see blank eyes and a frown of despair and pain. He briefly wondered again if he should stop, the kid probably wouldn't even know what was going on, but rejected the idea for the second time. His last trap was ingenious and he was excited to see what would happen.

Robin the crime-fighter was dead but Batman had to physically die. Kirik couldn't take the chance that the razor-sharp intellect of the hero would actually enable him to find the boy and attempt to rescue the kid from his mind. Shrugging, he ignored the former sidekick and left the warehouse to set up the final trap.

The blue eyes cleared and Robin smirked.


One hour later:

It wasn't working; the trap wouldn't stay together. No matter how many times he set it up or how many different ways he tried to connect the pieces, it just didn't work. Parts were breaking and screws were popping loose and the whole thing was all…wrong! Kirik angrily threw the remaining unbroken pieces across the room with a yell of exasperation. How was Batman supposed to die now?!

Frustrated, he sat down on a small green box and dropped his head. He pulled at his hair and screamed at the ground. Kirik was not used to dealing with failure; it was something he had only felt one time before – fourteen months ago, when he was lying on gritty asphalt and watching the kid smirking at him. He stood up again and started pacing, his hands clasped behind his back and his face screwed up in concentration.

Okay, calm down, think. The man's genius-level brain began sifting through all the traps he had learned about while researching the Dynamic Duo. Sinking cakes, echo chambers, spinning wheels, vacuum tanks with reversing bellows; they had escaped from every single one! The worst part was that Batman was always the one that figured out how to free them from the traps. And Batman was the one Kirik was trying to kill!

Seriously?! The kid is right; you are an idiot sometimes! Kirik's thoughts returned to his foolproof trap of last year. How could he be so stupid?! The only reason Batman had been able to escape and rescue his partner was because of Jack and Jason! It had been the perfect trap; it was human error that had ruined it. Everything he needed was available at any hardware store. Choose a small one, too small to be able to afford cameras, and grab what he needed. Easy enough.

Grinning, Kirik walked out the door of the memorable warehouse and carefully shut it behind him. He thought about checking on the boy but he had a lot to do and the kid wasn't going anywhere anyway. A checklist; that's what he needed. Climbing into his old brown vehicle, Kirik pulled out a paper and pencil from the glove box and began creating a short list of supplies. That was followed by an even shorter list of what he needed to do. Satisfied, he tossed both the paper and pencil onto the passenger seat and drove off in search of a hardware store that was too poor to buy surveillance equipment.


A/N: I'm pretty sure that tapes from video cameras can't be played on a loop but just roll with it. ;-) Also, disclaimer, there are several traps from the actual TV show mentioned so those ideas belong to the creators/writers/producers of the show. I'm not making any money off of them. :)