"Can I just say how glad I am that we were on the same page a little while ago?"

"...What are you talking about, Flash?" Batman growled at the woven branches in front of his face. It had taken three more stories to get the boys to crawl under their blankets, and another half-hour had passed after that before they'd finally settled down and gone to sleep. Only then had he and the man whose back was mere inches from his own been able to turn their attention to the logistics of fitting themselves into the second bivy. They'd managed the feat without too much awkwardness, and had this been a real emergency where heat sharing was essential the shelter would have been perfect. As things were, though, it was simply uncomfortable.

"The whole fast healing conversation. I was afraid you'd want to...you know...go into details."

His lips pursed in irritation. "I don't consider Lazarus Pits to be an appropriate topic for a ten- and a twelve-year-old." His son had enough nightmare fodder without introducing resurrection and insanity into the mix. "Do you?"

"Nope, and especially not right before bed time. But...well, you have an odd way of determining what Robin should and shouldn't know, so I wasn't sure. I'm just glad we agreed. That would have been one knotty philosophical discussion for around the fire."

"Mm." Knotty, indeed, especially for a boy who had lost his parents and a beloved pet all within little more than a year's time. "Don't mention it again," he warned. "Lack of discussion may suffice to let the question die and stay dead."

"Heh. I get it."

"...That wasn't funny."

Flash sighed. "Yeah, I know. But I had to try."

"Try sleeping instead."

"After we brought up the insane undead? Great. I'm really looking forward to that."

"They're not really unde-" He broke off with an annoyed hum. "Never mind. Just go to sleep, or at least shut up and let me do so."

"Okay, okay. G'night, I guess."

Batman didn't answer, too busy dwelling on the future problem of Robin and resurrection. It had never before occurred to him to be worried that the boy might resent him for having knowledge of the restorative potential of the Pits and not using it. Side effects and moral quandaries aside, what orphaned child of good, loving parents wouldn't want to see them brought back to life? ...Bruce, he murmured grudgingly.

You can't seriously think I would ever consider that, with his parents or mine.

I know your answer as an adult would always be no. What I'm curious about is whether it would have been different when you were a child. If you had known that such a possibility existed...

For a moment there was no response. I like to think it would still have been no, at least if I'd known the costs.

You sound hesitant. He paused. You sound as if you don't believe that would have been your answer.

Look, when you're a little kid who just wants his parents back...well. I don't know, Batman. I just...don't know. But I do know that I'm not ready for him to hear about the Pits. They're both too young, and-

-And the loss is too recent, in Robin's case.

Right.

Do you believe he would hold it against us? It seemed a distinct possibility, even for such an understanding child as theirs was. We knew about the Pits, and could technically have accessed them if we chose. We had his parents bodies very soon after-

-but after the Medical Examiner-

-which will be our excuse if does take the news badly someday. Although I don't know that that couldn't have been worked around.

...Let's drop it. This is awful.

It's important.

It's disgusting. Besides, the biggest hurdle we would have faced is the one you keep avoiding.

Batman frowned in the darkness of the shelter as Flash began to snore behind him. ...That being?

That being us. How could we have, honestly? Even for him, I...I don't know that we would have crossed that bridge. There wouldn't have been any going back, you know.

You're saying you don't know that I would have crossed that bridge.

I'm saying it would have needed to be a joint decision, and...and that I hope one of us would have been strong enough to say no.

It was more than that, though. If we had – if he had known, and asked, and we had complied – he wouldn't be with us.

No. Unless they were so altered by the experience that he couldn't be returned to them, no, he wouldn't be.

Mm. Somehow that was as unpleasant of a thought as the idea that they would cross such a major ethical boundary as using a Lazarus Pit was. Is that the real reason you wonder if we would have done it?

...Maybe. I hope not, I wish not, but I can't deny that his going with them instead of staying with us crossed my mind. Neither spoke for a minute. ...Can we stop talking about this now? Because it's threatening to make me sick.

I noticed. They might have been of two minds, but they still shared a stomach, and that organ had been giving out stronger and stronger warning signals the longer they went on. Fine. It was purely hypothetical, anyway. It did raise the greater question of just how far one or both of them would go for the child sleeping in the next-door tent, but he let the point lie for now. Crawling out of his close quarters to puke would have been miserable on more than one level, and he didn't want to push it.

Despite his upset digestion and the ruckus his bunk mate was filling the air with, he managed to fall into a light sleep before much more of the night had passed. No dreams came, although there was a constant threat that the vague shapes hovering above his unconscious mind would descend to wreak havoc. He held them off for several hours, only jerking awake when Flash gave a mighty snort and kicked out with one foot. ...Damn restless speedster, he cursed silently as he suppressed the urge to launch a return blow.

It had begun to rain, just as he'd suspected it would, and for a while he lay listening as the forest drank in its fill. A distant crack of thunder reached his ears, followed by the low, rustling rumble of it rolling overhead. He dwelt for a moment on the possibility of a wildfire, then pushed the worry away. If one was struck, there was nothing he could do about it; they would cross that bridge if and when they came to it. It seemed unlikely that anything close by would light with as heavy as the downpour was getting, and that would suffice for now.

As minutes ticked by, however, he realized that something was off about the storm's score. It was too human in nature, carrying a whining note that he'd never heard a mere thundercloud make before. He wondered if nights like this one, full of strange noises that would have been inexplicable to men of bygone eras, were what had given rise to the sorts of stories he had been telling the boys earlier. Why not, he decided, when it was managing to rouse discomfort in his own chest despite his knowledge of the science going on around them?

"...Mama..."

The timing of Flash's rambunctious inhalations was such that Batman's ears picked up on that tiny, pitiful whisper. ...Robin, his eyes widened under the cowl as he suddenly recognized the source of the storm's more 'human' tones. Don't. Not like this. There's nowhere dry for me to comfort you...

He had to try anyway. Even if he couldn't find an easy solution, there was no way he could lay a few feet away and listen to his partner squirm and moan through the rest of the night. Maybe, he grimaced as he slipped carefully into the torrent coming down from the sky, a touch or two would be enough. If he could just reach in and brush a hand across his forehead, neither of the others would be awakened, and the nightmare might flee...

The chance for him to find out vanished as he stepped out onto mud. "...Rob?" he heard Kid Flash's bleary voice come from his destination.

"Mmnnph...mumma..." The younger boy shifted, making his bed crackle.

"Rob. Bro? Hey...wake up."

Batman hesitated. The other child was no longer ignorant of the issue, and more importantly he seemed to be trying to help. As much as he wanted to take the two steps that would plant his boots squarely before the opening of the other bivy, he held himself back, curious where this conversation would go.

"Mumma...wha...mmph..." There was a pause. "...KF?"

"Yeah. Are...are you okay?"

"Um..." The syllable sounded more watery than the rain, and the man standing just out of sight shivered under the pain it carried. "I..."

"Do you want me to get Batman?"

"No!"

His foot had lifted halfway into the air in the space between the question and its fervently voiced answer, and now it hovered. 'No'? he repeated, hurt. ...Why not, Robin?

"Are you sure? You're crying."

"'M sorry...just...not him. Not Flash, either. I...I can't cry now, I'm...I'm okay..."

No, Batman winced, you're not. I can hear that you're not.

"Well...why, though? Batman could-"

"It's civ-v-vilian stuff, KF. I can't...I can't right now. It's just...masks. We're in masks."

"Oh. Okay, but...Flash-"

"Will feel like he h-has to tell Batman. 'Cause it's me. No."

"Yeah..." For a moment neither boy spoke. "...Could you tell me? I won't tell, and I don't mind civilian stuff in masks as much as Batman does. I mean, it's all rainy and junk outside, so someone would have to be, like, right there to hear us."

"Um...I don't mind telling you," Robin replied, sniffling. "But...look first? Outside, I mean? You could go fast and not get wet, maybe."

"Sure!"

It was sheer luck that Batman was able to crouch down in the blackness between the shelters before Kid Flash steeled himself to stick his head into the rain. A shivery 'brr!' when the boy pulled back told him that he hadn't been seen, and he settled down to listen.

"It's clear. So...what happened that made you cry?"

"It was a...a dream. A really, really bad dream..."

"Oh...I hate those."

"Yeah..."

"Was it...you know, your parents?"

"It...yeah. But not, like...well, you know, the falling dream I told you about?"

"The one that happened for real?"

"Uh-huh."

"So what was it, then?"

"It...it was a lot of stuff, I guess." A sigh that Batman recognized as Robin's sounded. "You remember what I told you about Gobbles, and the Project? The stuff that Br-Batman and Superman told me?"

"Sure. How could I forget?"

"Well, I...I've been having nightmares about Gobbles. Where he's...bad. Not bad, but...one of them. One of the Project, but like in charge. Where he tells the other animals what to do, but he doesn't tell them to do nice things."

"Ooooh..."

"Uh-huh. So...so there was that, and...well...it was a plane crash," he blurted. "It was the survival scenario we're doing, only...only I was with my parents instead of you, Flash, and Batman. But we weren't sad the plane crashed. We just did all the sorts of stuff like...well, like we did today and yesterday. We had a big shelter we all slept in, and we made a fire, and ate berries and fish...it was nice. We didn't even care about the plane, we were just happy, because we were all together and okay and in a pretty place. Together," he sniffled. "All together, right here.

"It was really nice for a while. It was nice, and we...we were happy again. We were in the field – you know, where we 'crashed'? – and m-mom and I were laughing because dad...dad was hanging upside down from a tree limb and pretending to be a monkey. He did that sometimes," he said wistfully. "He was good at it. So we were laughing and we...we heard this call...and it was Gobblehead.

"I knew him. I don't know why I knew him, 'cause obviously I wouldn't have my...my parents...and Gobbles, but I did. He called to us, and I got excited. I wanted him to meet them, and for a second it was so great because it was like...like my two families were gonna meet. I dragged mom to him because I wanted that so bad, I wanted them to meet, and...and..." A fresh sob tore from his throat. "I just wanted them to be friends, KF, but he bit her, just like he did to me!"

"Whoa, whaaat? Ah, dude..."

"He bit her, and then...and I was so mad. I yelled at him, but he just looked at me like he didn't even know me. Like he didn't know me at all. And I know it was Gobbles, KF, cause I'd know Gobbles' gobble anywhere, but...he didn't know me." He coughed. "Then...then I saw them."

"Saw who?"

"All the other animals, back in the trees. Turkeys and ducks and horses and...and the bear...our bear, the one we saw today? He was there. He was there, and...he was listening to Gobbles. They all were. They were all listening, and Gobbles told them to...to..."

His voice trailed off, then came back so miserable that Batman nearly punched through the brush-lined wall to get to him. "...They looked just like that night at the show, KF," he warbled. "The animals made them...made them look like when they d-d-d-died...I know it was Zucco for real, but in my dream...I know it's dumb, I know, but in my dream...

"...In my dream," he finished in one long moan, "Gobblehead killed my parents."