Darcy wrapped her sweatshirt tighter around her body as she looked up at the side of the mountain. "What are you doing now?"

"Putting up Christmas lights." Robin told her.

"On a mountain?"

"Why not?"

She shook her head. "Do you want me to hold the ladder for you?"

"Nah. I'm getting down anyway." he said. He turned his upper body, then lithely jumped away from the steel contraption. He stood, surveying his work. "I'm gonna move over, of course." he said, implying he knew she was thinking about how only half the lights were up.

"I brought you some hot chocolate." she said, handing him a mug.

"Thanks." he said, accepting the gift.

"Zatanna made an entire pot." she told him. "I can't get enough of the stuff."

"She's good like that." he said. "Dunno where she learned it all."

Darcy kept the grin on her face even as a small kernel of jealousy settled in her stomach. She supposed if she actually tried, she could make a pot of hot chocolate. It would probably be just as good.

"Okay, now I need to move the ladder." said Robin, tearing her from her thoughts.

"Need any help?" she teased.

"I think I can handle it." he said, grinning as he walked over to the ladder. It was one of those where one could slide the top half up and down depending on how tall they needed it to be. He gripped the sides and lifted, beginning to move it over. Suddenly, Darcy saw what was about to happen a second too late.

"Robin!"

Crash!

The moving section of the ladder came crashing down, right on Robin's exposed arm. He stumbled back as the ladder hit the ground. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." he said, sounding like he was in pain as he held his arm. "Totally fine."

She ran up to him and looked at his arm. "Are you kidding me? This is gonna need stitches at least."

"Nope. Just a band-aid." he forced out.

She shook her head and began pulling him back into the mountain. "Come on. We're taking you to the medical ward."

"What, you gonna have Tornado stitch me up?" he said, desperately trying to make jokes as though he wasn't hurt.

"No, I am." she said. "Who else do you see in this base who can operate on a wound."

"Honestly, I didn't know you could."

"Rob!" said Wally, spotting them as they walked through the T.V. room. "Didya get the lights up?"

"Later, Wally." said Darcy.

"What do you mean, lat-" He caught sight of Robin's arm and his eyes grew huge. "What the heck happened?"

"You're ladder's cursed." she said casually. "I suggest you get Megan to put up the rest of the lights."

Robin didn't even argue. He was trying not to pass out from the adrenaline rush leaving him. All that training with Batman, and he still hadn't mastered the art of being unaffected by pain. He'd never show it, of course. Batman would never respect that.

"Okay, losing consciousness..." Darcy noted, seeing Robin waver as they walked. "Great."

"I'm fine."

"Stop saying that."

"Why? It's true."

"No. You're not fine, but you're not bad, either. You're in that weird place between fine and bad." she told him. "Here. Sit." she commanded, pointing at the bed when they reached the hospital ward. He sat and waited as she gathered medical supplies.

After sterilizing the needle and thread, she held it up and looked at him. "Now, would you like to be numbed, or do you want to do this the old fashioned way?"

He looked at the pointy needle, then at his bleeding arm, and thought, What the heck. One time won't hurt. "Numb me."

She nodded and injected his arm with the solution, then she put a bandage on the wound.

"Aren't you gonna stitch it up?" he asked as the pain started going away.

"This stuff takes a few moments to work, and I don't want you to bleed out." she told him.

"How do you know all this stuff?" he asked.

"Several reasons." she said, beginning to prepare her piece of thread. "I mean, I lived in a place where everyone had medical degrees. Plus, when I was with Selina, it was all part of training. We couldn't just walk into a hospital if we got hurt."

"Don't you have secret identities?"

"Better to be safe than sorry. Okay, I think we can start now." she said, removing the temporary bandages and beginning to create stitches across the wound. "Wow... Batman's protege; fought a ladder and lost." she teased.

"Not fair. I wasn't properly challenged!" he argued.

"Tell that to the ladder." she sorted. "Almost done."

"Good. This feels really weird." he told her.

Suddenly, an odd feeling came over Darcy. It was liken to that of being watched, except now she was in that very rare situation where she knew exactly who was watching her. She looked towards the door and saw Batman standing still as a statue in the doorway.

"What are you doing?" he asked without emotion. He said things differently than most people. Like, when he asked a question, his voice didn't go up at the end. It was like he was always making a statement.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she responded coolly.

"I wasn't asking you."

Robin felt he was the one who needed to save the situation. "I'm getting stitches."

"Why?"

He didn't want to admit that. But Batman would know if he was lying. "I-"

"Saved the day." Darcy interrupted. "Wally decided he was prepared to build a robot, but the thing went nuts and Robin was the one to bring it down." She looked up at the Dark Knight. "It was only an itty bitty thing, yet it caused so much trouble."

He looked from her to his protege, then, miraculously, accepted the answer and walked away. Darcy turned and winked at her patient. "I think that's it. You're all set." she told him.

He looked at her. "You just lied to Batman."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

He shook his head in an almost amused way. "You learned some pretty unconventional stuff with Selina, didn't you?"

"Compared to Batman? Yeah, you're probably right." she said. "Do you want to sleep now, or go see if Megan's putting up the rest of the lights?"

"I think we can go outside." he said. "It's not like this was a near-death experience."

"Right you are. Out we go!"

. . .

This chapter was originally never in my plan for this part of the story. But we were putting up Christmas lights one day and, no lie, this totally happened to my dad. So I figured it would make a fun chapter. I can also imagine Batman leaving the mountain and, as he passes Wally, saying something along the lines of, "Don't make any more robots." Then Wally would get that adorable confused look and it would be hilarious.

But don't mind me.