Warning: Maybe One Little Word . . .

The coughing woke him up.

Robin's eyes roamed the tiny room in which he lay. He had no idea how he had gotten here. All he knew was that he was warm and dry. This and that he hurt all over.

The room was nothing more than a shack, really. There was one window in the wall next to the door. It was small and there was shutters closed against it, but a small bit of dull light eked through between them. It was daylight, but was it the next day or had days passed him by. That he didn't know told him a lot about his condition. The pain, however, assured him that not too many days could have passed by and his body not have healed somewhat.

He peeked down at his chest. His uniform had been removed at some point, and he could see some bruising along some of his ribs. Dark. Blue and purple, but with hints of a healing green color. More than a day, but not much longer than that.

He saw a table and a couple of chairs, a cupboard, and a fireplace that took up most of the far wall. The space beyond the foot of the bed had a number of stacked cages and a few traps. He frowned, and wondered how Conner had found this place. He had a vague memory of someone feeding him some broth. A grizzled older man, who, as Robin looked around the shack once more, seemed to be missing.

The last thing he could remember clearly was the fight between the team and Sportsmaster and Cheshire. After that, was just a jumble of tangled images and an accompanying feeling of panic. The two criminals had been transporting a scientist and a weapon of some sort. A-A laser rifle that shot a red beam of light . . . Robin caught his breath, and immediately started coughing again. The deep ache in his chest flared, and suddenly the Boy Wonder felt like he was being crushed in a vise.

The door banged open while he was in the throes of his coughing fit. Had it been Sportsmaster or Cheshire, he would have been completely helpless to do more that squint at them through watering eyes. Snow and freezing wind washed over him; stealing what little breath he had left. The bright white light that poured in was abruptly blocked when the door was slammed.

A bear of a man with a heavy beard was stomping the snow from his boots. He carried a load of wood over to the fireplace, and then shrugged off his coat; hanging it up on a wall peg near the door. He walked over to kneel down next to Robin; leaning in close and smiling.

Robin couldn't do more than pant at him. He hadn't any strength before the coughing fit, and now his eyes roamed over the face of his host curiously.

"Who . . .?" The word was as insubstantial as a wisp.

He nodded, knowingly. "Don't remember me, do you?"

It was a struggle to shake his head. God, when had he ever been this weak?

"I plucked you and your brother out of the river night before last," he explained. "Cecil and I were caught up here in the storm, see, and had just burrowed in to wait it out when we heard this awful ruckus." The man nodded sagely. "Needless to say it alarmed the both of us because the wind was a howling to beat the band."

Cecil? Robin tilted his head, but no one had followed the woodsman into the shack that he could see; and he could see practically everything.

The man paused in his storytelling to look behind him and give a whistle. Suddenly Robin noticed movement out of the corner of his eye; a basket in the corner near the fireplace. A white head with big ears popped up; followed by a white furry body as it leapt out of its hiding place and scurried across the floor toward them.

Robin's eyes widened when the fox jumped up onto the bed and then climbed up the woodsman's arm to nestle in around his shoulders; draping down like a scarf. It blinked dark brown eyes at him from its place of safety. Despite his weakness, Robin felt his lips lift in a smile.

"This is Cecil, by the way," the man introduced his pet. He scratched the top of the fox's head and around its ears. The animal practically purred with contentment.

"He's cute," Robin told him breathlessly.

And then something flitted through his mind that the man had said. His brother? Robin abruptly recalled that Conner had been traveling undercover as his brother during their mission. The red beam! It had somehow stolen his powers!

"Su . . . Conner!" Robin gasped; attempting to sit upright. The pain was intense, and he collapsed back with loud moan.

"Easy there, youngster," the man held his shoulders as another coughing jag overtook the boy. "Take it easy, now," he crooned.

"I can see you must have literally just woken up or else you would have realized your brother was just behind you," he tsked lightly.

What?

Robin turned his head and saw that the man had spoken the truth. Conner lay between him and the wall. He looked asleep, but the clone seldom ever slept, and when he did, he woke easily. The boy recalled how violently his coughing had been and how loud the woodsman had been upon reentering the shack. Superboy shouldn't have been able to sleep through all of that!

"Wha . . . What's wrong . . . with him?" He panted.

"Fever," the woodsman told him.

Robin looked back at him. The look on the man's face told him just how serious the situation was. Robin leaned back and raised an arm to touch his friend. The limb lay awkwardly from his position across the bared chest and flushed face of the Kryptonian clone. The heat that arose from the older boy's skin felt almost blistering. Robin pulled away; alarmed.

"H-How?"

"When I found you, your brother was attempting to pull you from the river. Those waters almost claimed the both of you that evening. He must have gotten his cut on the jagged edges of the railcar. I tried to clean it up before I stitched it up, but without antibiotics to fend off infection . . . Well, best I can do now is just try to hold off his fever."

Robin gaped. "A cut?" A mere cut could do this to Superboy?

The laser rifle had stolen more than Conner's strength, then. It had stripped away his invulnerability. And that realization brought back more memories of an overheard conversation. While being affected by the laser; the Kryptonian could not only be injured . . . He could be killed! Conner could die!

"It's worrying, I'll admit," the man was saying. "Now that I no longer have to worry none about his bleeding out all over my floor, I've been giving him aspirin to reduce his fever, but it ain't cutting it. His fever just won't go down but by a degree or two.

"You, on the other hand, are looking downright chipper compared to yesterday." He took an old-fashioned thermometer from the cupboard and placed it in Robin's mouth. "Your fever seems to be much better today. Even your cough sounds less wet than it did last night."

After a few minutes, the thermometer was pulled out and read.

"One hundred," he muttered. "Not gone, but an improvement all the same. Something to be thankful for. If you're feeling up for it, I can sit you over in the chair by the fire. It might make it easier for you to breathe, and I can get you some warmed broth. Now that your fever is down a bit, you might be feeling hungry?"

Robin's stomach rumbled at the mention of food. "Ah . . .I guess . . . so. If it's . . . not too much . . . trouble."

The woodsman laughed. "Boy, if I thought you were too much trouble, I'd have never fished you two out of the river to begin with." He slapped his thighs as he pushed himself up. "No, old Cecil and I would have just been sleeping the storm away, getting fat and lazy."

Robin watched him dig in the trunk at the foot of the bed, and the man pulled out a fur. He draped it over one of the chairs and Robin watched it tip slightly. A rocking chair! He then pulled out a heavy flannel shirt. Shaking it out, he carried it over to the bed.

"I had to take your own clothes off of you when I brought you in. You were hypothermic, you understand," he told him as he tugged the blankets back. The chill raised goosebumps on Robin's skin. "They seem a might restrictive, so I'll let you and your brother borrow a couple of my shirts. I always keep a few up here just in case."

Robin was shocked at how weak he was. The man helped him sit up, but had to hold onto him to keep Robin from flopping back over as he put first one arm through the hole and then the other. He buttoned the front up haphazardly, and smirked at him.

"I think that'll do just fine for this little excursion," he said with a chuckle.

The sleeves dangled far past Robin's fingertips and the bottom of the shirt was bunched around his hips. If he could stand, he wouldn't doubt that the shirt would reach to his knees. Now that he was dressed, the man scooped Robin up as if he were a child, and deposited him in the rocker.

During the transfer, Cecil nibbled the edge of Robin's ear and snuffled him curiously. Robin yipped, startled, and then laughed. It ended in another coughing jag.

"Hey there, now, Cecil. Let's not be rude," the woodsman scolded the fox gently. He put the animal on the floor and tossed it a pinecone that he had carried in earlier. "Go play."

As the pinecone rolled across the floor, the delighted fox scampered after it; pouncing and then tumbling over it playfully. Robin smiled at its antics, and briefly wondered if, when he got out of this, Bruce might consider getting him a fox for a pet.

The man kneeled in front of Robin again and started tugging some warm, wool socks over his feet. They were obviously made for a man with size fourteen shoe, and he was able to pull them up to Robin's knees.

"This old shack really wasn't made for toughing out blizzards, you know," he said making conversation. "Gets mighty drafty up in here. These should help."

"Thank you," Robin wheezed. His eyes drifted over to Conner still sleeping on the bed. It was more of a cot, he thought, now that he could see it. It seemed wrong to see the older boy so out of it; his face flushed with something as mundane as a fever. It made Robin feel more exposed and helpless than he would have otherwise.

As the man wrapped the edges of the fur over the boy's legs, Robin indulged his curiosity. "What's . . . your . . . name?"

He glanced up and grinned. "Dr. Dupree," he told him. "I'm a wildlife biologist living up here in these woods; studying the local wolf pack. Been doing it for the last twenty-five years or so."

"Thank . . . you, Doctor," Robin said, "for . . . helping . . . my . . . my brother . . . and me." He ended with more coughing.

"Nonsense, young'un. It was the neighborly thing to do," he patted Robin's leg lightly. For such a large man, he was surprisingly gentle. "Be a rather shoddy bit of hospitality to have just left you two to die like that. And it's been too long since anybody's called me doctor," he laughed. "You can call me Ramón."

"Ramón?" Robin wheezed. A giggle slipped out.

Ramón chuckled and turned to tend to the fire. "My mother was Mexican," he told the boy. "My father met her on a trip down to study Mayan ruins in Mexico. They fell in love and voila! Here I am."

He picked up a mug and spooned a little broth into it; then handed it to the boy. "Can you hold it by yourself?"

He was shaky, but the warmth felt so good to his hands. "I think . . . I can."

In the end, Ramón had to help him, but it had felt so good running down his sore throat, Robin didn't care. He ended with yet another coughing fit, but this time, by the time he had finished it, Robin felt something loosen in his chest. The vise seemed to ease a bit, and he sighed in relief.

The older man took the mug from him and left him to doze by the fire, as he checked up on Conner.

"How . . . is he?"

Ramón glanced back over his shoulder. "His fever is back up," he grumbled. "I ain't never seen anything like it. His wound feels hot to the touch, but it ain't swollen and it ain't seeping; leastwise not yet. I'd hate to have to open it up again," he sighed. "Stitching it up the first time wasn't a whole lot of fun for either of us. No anesthetic," he clarified.

Robin grimaced. He'd had to have stitches once without anesthetics . . . He really preferred to have anesthetics.

He watched as Ramón tossed a couple of white tablets into a pestle and ground them up. He dumped the powder into another mug, poured a little broth into it, and swished it around as he moved back to the bed. The man shook the older boy several times, and was answered with a low moan. Conner didn't even open his eyes when Ramón lifted his head up and held the mug to his lips.

"Come on, now, young'un. You need to drink this up," he coaxed. "And we'll just pray that this time it works."

Conner choked, and then drank the medicated broth unwillingly. Ramón was not to be denied. He was back to sleep before his head hit the pillow. The woodsman tucked the blankets back up around him, and made his way back to the cupboard; shaking his head.

"Damndest thing I ever saw," he muttered. Then he looked over at Robin's worried expression, and his face cleared up. "But don't you worry none, young feller. He's a strapping lad. He'll lick this thing yet."

Robin nodded. His eyes were drooping, but there was something bugging him; something else that he couldn't quite remember. What was he forgetting? His eyes opened up, startled, when Cecil hopped onto his lap, but the little fox only curled up into a ball there; content. Robin's hand found the soft fur, and stroked it as he drifted off; his breathing improved from what it had been when he had first woke up.

Something . . . There was something that he needed to remember . . .

He fell asleep still wondering what it was.

REACTIONS?

I find myself wondering what Roy and Artemis are getting up to next.

Working on a new short story! Should be out soon. I'm ahead of schedule, so it could be out as early as Sunday. Although it takes place in the YJ universe, it is a Batman and Robin story (full of hurt/comfort and tons of angst). You will be able to find it listed as a Batman/Young Justice Crossover - My first ever, so please be able to find it . . . It's called "Gallows Humor" and yes, it involves our favorite clown. The original team will guest star early on.