Terry turned up his collar as he stepped onto the street. It was late. Summer seemed to be almost upon them even though it was only early May, but even so the night held a chill. The nightlife was waking up and getting ready to play and never mind that it was the middle of the week. There had been a time when he would be out there roaming the streets, looking for trouble, and cheep thrills. The perpetual lone wolf who picked fights with anyone who even looked at him wrong, even if they had a gang of friends. That had all stopped when he got the job with Wayne of course. Now though, he found himself missing it. The freedom and the rush of danger narrowly averted had been addicting.

He easily fell back into the 'don't mess with me' way of walking, keeping his shoulders hunched and his eyes dancing from shadow to shadow. Even worried about Matt, he was enjoying this. Terry had always been a night person, and Gotham nights were in a whole other class. How had he managed to give this up? It wasn't that he didn't like the old man. In truth he respected him greatly, but there was nothing that came to mind when he asked himself why that was. There was their first meeting, the old man had more then held his own, but if it had been anyone else that would have inspired caution not respect. Maybe it was because his dad had died that night. Wayne had certainly helped him find closure, though he couldn't quite remember how.

Matt wasn't at his arcade, which was busy closing up for the night. Terry took the next left planning on circling around past the community center and the only decent park in the neighborhood to end at Cheesy Dan's. If he hadn't found Matt by then then he'd check the beefy burger and a few friends that lived close enough that Matt might go over after school. They were in the opposite direction and farther off.

Terry didn't like the idea of his kid brother off somewhere in the middle of the night. Matt was supposed to be the good son. His grades were good and he didn't hang out with the wrong type of kid. Not that Terry really knew much about his brother. He worked too much for that. But that only meant he had to be there all the more if, when, something like this happened. If he couldn't be the cool older brother that Matt deserved then he could still be the protector that he needed.

He came to the community center which was still open since night classes for the college were sometimes taught there. A few quick questions of the clerk confirmed that Matt wasn't there and indeed hadn't been there for several days. A lead weight settled into Terry's chest. If his brother didn't spent the afternoons here then what was he doing with his time? Suddenly his disappearance took on a slightly different tone. Terry checked back as far as two months in the logs the Center kept and what he found made his heart sink even farther. Matt hadn't been in more then once a week in that whole time.

He smiled at the clerk and thanked him before going out into the Gotham night once more. He headed for the park, muling over the possibilities. Matt had only just entered middle school and on top of that he was small for his age. The gangs normally didn't go recruiting people that young, not unless the kid had an older sibling in the gang. Which meant if some gang was interested in Matt it was probably because of Terry. Given Terry's reputation they almost certainly weren't planning anything good.

Terry pulled out his phone as he came in sight of the park. Max answered on the first ring.

"Terry, good news?"

"No, no sign of him." There was no need to tell her his suspicions before he had any proof. "Do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"Mom keeps a list of numbers for Matt's friends; start calling people, but don't let them know Matt's missing."

"Kind of a, 'he went over to a friend but didn't say which', thing?"

"Let me know if he turns up."

"Same to you."

Terry hung up the phone as he surveyed the soccer field. Someone had forgotten their coat next to one of the goal posts but otherwise it was empty. The play structure was empty as well, no one was in the park at all apart from a lone jogger circling the block. Terry quickened his pace as he headed for Cheesy Dan's.

Terry entered the restaurant slash arcade quietly. There were maybe two dozen people around his own age scattered around the various vid-games in small groups. The tables were mostly empty except for one group of about six or seven who were huddled around someone's laptop watching the latest Knights game using the free wi-fi. A pair of employees were cleaning up the debris from what appeared to be a kids birthday party. Terry didn't envy them; the amount of glitter on that table could keep a flock of pixies going for a year. Terry didn't see his brother. He went through the arcade and the tubes again, just in case, but his hopes weren't high. He knew he hadn't missed anything.

Stepping out onto the pavement he let the night calm him. The chill leached over his skin solidifying into steel at his spine. Matt wasn't the kind of kid to go looking for trouble, which probably meant the trouble had found him rather then the other way around. If anyone had hurt him, if there was so much as a scratch on Terry's little brother, those responsible would be made to regret it. It wasn't a decision, it was a fact.

That was when the hairs on the back of Terry's neck stood on end. Someone was watching him. That couldn't be good.

The sound of old-fashioned gunfire forced Matt to pull the Robin persona over himself again. He fed the anger all his fear and somehow forced himself to move. This time he didn't bother trying to be quiet, he just scrambled up over the pile of ruble trusting that whoever was shooting was going to be otherwise occupied. He slid down the opposite side of the pile just as an explosion blossomed up from the first floor. The world shown in monochrome for a heartbeat as the flash threatened to blind him. The mask saved his eyesight but even so the afterimages were imprinted on his brain.

The images had to scream at him for a full five seconds before he realized what he was seeing. Silhouettes and shadows from more then one person between him and the blast. His ears complained again as the sound of screeching metal and glass faded, and the gunfire returned along with Mad Stan's incomprehensible shouting. Robin pressed himself agents the nearest wall as something that wasn't an explosion made the ground shake with a near deafening crash. He dropped the glow stick and in rolled away across the floor as Robin fought to stay upright. There was more shouting and suddenly the volume was turned way down leaving Robin's ears ringing at the lack of sound.

Robins eyes finally adjusted and with the floor currently steady he chanced creeping forward. He crouched, keeping low next to the wall until he could see the center of the building. When he saw what was happening he nearly panicked.

Dan was leaning over the railing seemingly about to fall and gripping desperately not to. Behind and slightly to one side was Mad Stan, still shouting and waving what might have been a shotgun or a grenade launcher or something in between. His hand was gripping a handful of the back of Dan's shirt and the fabric looked like it could rip at any second. He was threatening someone out of Robins sight on the first floor. Dan was half hostage, half human shield and clearly terrified. Someone shouted from down below and Robins ears had cleared enough for him to get the gist of it. Cool commands to let the hostage go and surrender. The police then, which meant that Gordon was doing something if nothing else.

Soft almost black on black movement caught his eye. He tried to catch it again and blessed the mask that was still making it possible to see even if Robin had no idea how it was still working when everything else was dead as a doornail. Beyond where Mad Stan was in full rant mode someone was definitely moving. Robin tried to picture the whole situation from a different angle running through the possibilities of who this new party was.

He was crouched at one end of the hallway running the length of the building on the east side of the open central space. Mad Stan was about half way down the hall leaning over the railing and still threatening Dan who had managed to pull himself back out of danger of falling. Between Stan and Robin were the nonfunctioning escalators that Dan had called the front stairs. Behind Mad Stan was the elevator, or what was left of it. Something had torn or blasted the box off it's rails and set it plummeting to the first floor where it now lay in a twisted heap of glass and aluminum. It was past that, that Robin had seen movement. At the far end of the hall was a T junction and there were at least two people hiding behind the storefront at the corner.

It took him only a moment to rule out anyone other then the cops. Apart from the fact that Gordon was too smart to send in just one teem without backup there was no way they could have gotten in apart from a way similar to his own. The back stairs might have been accessible from the first floor but to get to them someone would have to pass through the open space that was currently a firing zone. It was possible that they could have been civilians but Robin doubted that the bat's censors had been wrong when he originally scanned the building. Plus they weren't acting like civilians; they weren't panicking.

Beneath the Robin persona Matt wanted to grit his teeth and scream. He had managed to stumble into what seemed to his armature eyes to be a good position and he had no idea what to do. Terry would have known what to do, Batman would have acted without hesitation. Even the other Robins would have been able to do something. But Matt was just a scared kid in a stolen costume with a belt that could just as easily blow him up as help him. Being out of his depth was an understatement. By all rights he shouldn't be here. All the other Robin's probably had months of training before they were let out of the cave and even years before they were allowed to go solo. If he got out of this alive he vowed to train until he was half dead. He didn't want to feel like this ever again. He didn't want to feel like this now.

He came out of his thoughts in time to see Mad Stan lean over the railing, and shout "-that, you filthy government trash." and pull the trigger of his weapon.

This time Robin managed to grab the wall before he was thrown off his feet. Grenade launcher then, not shotgun. Dazed, he watched what happened next unfold without realizing what was going on.

A section of the walkway opposite Mad Stan collapsed into rubble sending the cops on the first floor diving for cover. Mad Stan started shouting again, taunting them. Then the cops at the other end of the hall either saw an opening or decided to give their counterparts some cover because one of them started firing. It wasn't the rapid ThrapThrapThrapThrap of automatic fire but the slower Thrum... Thrum, of aimed shots. Robin saw the spark as the first shot hit the railing between the cops and Stan. The second hit Stan's shoulder as he turned towards the sound. The vest caught it but even so he was knocked back, the impact spinning him half around. Dan cried out in shock and as if it had been a signal Robin moved.

He watched in what seemed to be slow motion as Mad Stan pulled the pin on another of his signature grenades (just how many of those things did he have?) and sent it flying down the hall towards the cops. Shrapnel exploded in all directions, and Mad Stan started laughing.

By that point Robin was already moving. He had launched himself forward, cape snapping back like a flag. As his shoulders pressed forward his arms came back and his fingers brushed the Batarangs clipped to the belt beneath the small of his back. Two of them unclipped from the belt and slid into his hands in one smooth motion. He brought his hands forward releasing them one, two, in time with his running stride.

And missed completely.

One went sailing out into the empty space to his left. The other embedded it's self into the wall. They only barely managed to act as a distraction. Stan glanced at the one batarang in the wall and turned towards Robin drawing a breath to speak. He never got that far.

Robin barreled into him at a full run, ramming his shoulder into Stan at about the level of the larger man's navel. There wasn't a lot of weight behind the move but he had enough speed to make it worthwhile. Mad Stan was caught off guard and finally released his hold on the stunned Dan. The two men stumbled apart. Dan managed to catch his balance before he fell down one of the escalators. Mad Stan was propelled into the railing where he managed to catch himself. The momentum carried Robin a step past Mad Stan before the Man grabbed him and lifted him off the floor.

"Dan, Run!" Robin shouted as he began to struggle. Dan was past the point of thought and simply did as he was told, turning and nearly falling down what would have been the up escalator if it had been on.

Mad Stan had a firm grip on Robin's cape and pulled. For a moment the boy couldn't breath as the fabric tightened over his neck and shoulders. Instinctively Robin's hands came up to his throat. The costume had been designed for quick removal as well as combat, and the clasp came apart with a touch. The boy fell to his knees and gasped in before he was once more pulled into the air.

Stan had him by one shin. Robin tried to kick at the man but he didn't have the leverage or training to make anything painful. He did manage to annoy the man who was forced to take a few stumbling steps before he could grab the boys other leg. Robin found his head swinging between the level of Stan's crotch and his knees. There was no way he was going to win a fight, so he took the only option that was open to him. He started playing dirty.

For the moment he ignored the fact that he was hanging upside down. He reached out for his attacker and when his hands found one of the clasps to Stan's vest he snapped it open. The next things his hands found were the man's belt, and in a moment that too was undone. Stan cried out in what might have been shock and was probably rage, swinging the boy in an arc that turned him slightly green. Mad Stan released one of Robin's legs in order to grab the fabric of Robins vest and yank him upright. Matt silently added possible whiplash to his list of injuries.

"Fragging brat you're going to-" the end of Mad Stan's sentence was cut off by the roar of a handful of different colored pellets from Robin's belt hitting the floor at the same time. There was a cry of shock and pain as Robin was blinded by a flash that even his mask couldn't fully handle. His ears were ringing again. For a moment there was smoke and the hairs on his arms were standing on end, then he hit something hard.

He was unconscious before he had time to register the pain.

Well there you have it. Things are heating up. Hope you like this chapter and sorry if it took longer then normal to post. I am trying to keep a schedule even if life can be hectic this time of year. The next few chapters should see some more action followed by the long awaited Plot that you all have been asking for. I do promise that everything will eventually make sense, or at least I hope it will.

This chapter hasn't been bataed but I have looked over it several times so hopefully there won't be anything too bad.

If you like then please review, and if you don't like review and tell me what I should be doing better.

:)