Batman glanced over at Robin as they broke into the clearing and the boy laughed. "...What is it?"

"The plane." A green-gloved hand pointed at the sleek black craft in the middle of the field. "We really could have hijacked your airplane to escape!"

"Hijacking the Batplane," Flash mused out loud. "Now there's a dangerous proposition. What've you got waiting in there for anyone who were to try that, anyway? Electrical shocks, ejection seats...?"

"There's something for everyone," he glowered back. He knew the question hadn't been a bald-faced attempt to work around his defenses, but he still didn't like it. Just because the other man was an ally and, as he'd been forced to admit this weekend, a...friend...didn't mean he was going to start spilling secrets left and right.

"Except me, right?" Robin grinned up at him.

"...Except you," he allowed. "But you wouldn't be hijacking it if you were to use it."

Something in the tilt of the child's lips told him that he was thinking of instances that would be exceptions to that rule. Don't, he begged silently. Not now. Just...just keep quiet about it. "Go play," he ordered before capture, torture, and other forms of duress could be brought up. "You're burning away your free time."

"Okay. C'mon, KF. Wanna race?"

"There's a fair activity," Flash joked.

"I wouldn't use super-speed against Rob," Kid Flash frowned at his mentor. "That wouldn't be any fun." He turned to the other boy. "Ready, bro?"

"Ready-set-go!"

They took off, both already giggling as they tore through the grass. Batman watched them for a long moment, marveling at their ease. Robin and Kid Flash had known each other six months, and were the best of friends; he and Flash had fought together for six years, and yet he was still hesitant to answer simple inquiries. It was through no fault of Flash's that that was the case, either, and they both knew it. "...They work well together."

"Well, we knew that, didn't we?" The speedster shook his head. "They're something else, Batman. Separate, together...they're something else." A beat passed. "While we're on the subject, you know they're going to ask when they'll see each other again."

"Saturday, as usual."

"To which they'll reply, no doubt in those voices they have that manage to be both adorable and annoying as hell at the same time, 'but what about more camping'?"

"Mm..." The idea he'd been formulating since the topic of a future trip had first been broached was still only half-finished, but he supposed it wouldn't kill him to share that, at least, with the other man. "When does Kid Flash start school again?"

"I'd have to check. Probably either right before or right after Labor Day. What about Robin?"

"The same, I believe. Find out and get back to me. If they both start after Labor Day, the long weekend might ideal."

"A three-day weekend? Careful; people might start to think you had fun out here in the wild."

"Mm. What I have in mind is more wild than even this place."

"Really?" Flash shifted to face him, his expression intrigued. "Spoilers?"

"Alpine tundra."

"...I know I asked for wide open spaces, but you want to climb mountains in September? You realize we'll come back as popsicles, right?"

"That's the point. There was no real challenge in terms of temperature this time. If they are ever truly stranded, what are the odds that they will experience comfortable day and night-time weather? Extreme cold or extreme heat are likely to be more dangerous to them than any pursuers. They need to be trained to deal with it." He paused. "We will obviously have more emergency supplies available in September than we did for this outing. My intention isn't to actually allow them to freeze, just to make them feel as if it's a distinct possibility. That's why we aren't going in January." This time, he thought.

"...I guess I can see that. Well...where are you thinking? You said it was wilder than here, but this is pretty damn middle-of-nowhere."

"Alaska."

"A-" Flash sputtered. "You want to take the kids to Alaska for Labor Day weekend?!"

"Yes. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Not necessarily, but...jeez. Damn. Have you been there?"

"Yes. Haven't you?"

"...No. All I really know about it is that it's a long run from home. That's what, twice the distance of coming here?"

"Roughly. But I don't expect you to run if you don't want to." Pausing, he steeled himself for what he was about to say. "You and Kid Flash could fly with Robin and I in the plane."

A low, impressed whistle escaped the man beside him. "Really?"

"I offered, did I not?" he replied tetchily. Don't make me repeat it. I won't.

"You did. I have to ask, though...will you even turn off all of the little traps that would normally shock, eject, or otherwise incapacitate us?"

Fortunately for Flash, Batman glanced over and saw his jesting grin before he rescinded his offer in a fit of pique. "Don't touch anything I tell you not to, and you'll probably survive," he answered, his lip almost twitching upward.

"Great. Although if you happen to have chairs that make your passengers uncomfortably hot, leave them on. We'll probably want those to work after we spend three days on the side of an Alaskan mountain."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"Man...Alaska. That could be fun. Educational, I mean," he backtracked. "Very...educational."

"...Flash?" Batman peered at him, slightly boggled that he could not only tolerate such a personality without snapping but occasionally even find himself amused by it.

"Yeah?"

"Give it up."

"Heh." The speedster reached up and scratched the back of his head as a faint trace of embarrassed color rose into his cheeks. "...Okay. I wouldn't want you to 'forget' to take me home on our next trip."

"It would be pointless. You'd just turn up again in a few hours and whine about your legs being sore."

"You're not wrong, Batman," Flash chuckled. "You're not wrong."


Forty minutes later, Batman looked up from the cockpit controls to find Robin staring out the window at the receding Rockies. "...She would have been proud of your performance this weekend," he said in a low voice. I wish I had known beforehand, his mouth tightened. There were plenty of other remote forests they could have gone to instead, but he'd had to choose one that would cause his son pain. Damn my lack of foresight.

"...Really? I mean...I know we did good, like at the end and stuff, but..." Robin turned from the glass to stare at his knees, which he'd pulled to his chest in an unconscious defensive position when they'd come back into view of the mountains. "There was a lot of stuff we could have done better, you know?"

He wasn't going to argue with that assessment – there had been things that could have been done better – but neither was he going to let the boy beside him end the weekend thinking he'd done poorly. "Yes," he began, "but that is the point of training, as we discussed. You can't know what areas you are weak in until you put yourself to the test, and when you did find something you were less than expert at you were quick to try and think of ways to improve. That's progress, Robin, and progress is the route to perfection. I stand behind my earlier statement; she would be proud."

"I...thanks." His voice was still downcast, but Batman glimpsed a tiny smile from the corner of his eye.

"You're welcome."

"Um...Can I ask you a question?"

"So long as it isn't going to be about the next training trip, then yes." The boys had, as Flash predicted, pestered them to know if and when they would get to spend a whole weekend together in costume again soon. The adults had revealed only that another plan was in the works for sometime before the start of school, and the dual groans that their refusal of any further information had drawn were still echoing in Batman's ears. He had no wish to hear a solo repetition of them now.

"It's not. It's...you had a funny look on your face earlier, after I caught you. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"...No. What look?"

"Baaaatman..."

"Fine," he capitulated, well aware of what Robin was referring to. "Yes, I recall that look. What about it?"

"Well...you said mom...mom would be proud of me for this weekend. So I was wondering if that look was there because you were proud, too? Maybe?"

There was a hopeful note in that last word that forced him to tear his attention away from the dashboard and turn it fully to the youth. "How else do you think I could know how she would feel?"

"Because you're smart."

"...Because I felt the same as she would have, Robin."

"Oh." A happy smile wiped the last melancholy off of the pointed pixie face. "I'm glad I made you proud. And her, too."

"As am I."

"I had fun this weekend, too," the boy commented. His legs slid back to hang from the edge of his seat, and he kicked them idly in the air. "And we learned a lot. Like, a lot a lot."

"Good." He left it at that, expecting the conversation to turn back into a quest for information now that his partner seemed to have gotten over another emotional hump.

"Um...I know you said not to ask, but..."

"Robin," he sighed, exasperated. Then he paused, reconsidering. I don't want another tearful memory to intrude on our next training session if it can be avoided, he considered. What better way was there to ensure that than to ask if there were any plans or memories tied to their future destination? "...Your mother mentioned the Rockies; did she have plans to visit Alaska?"

Joy and heavy thought mingled on Robin's face. "No. Not that I remember. I mean, we didn't have plans to go there or anything the way we...the way we did with here." His lower lip vanished between his teeth for an instant, then popped back into view. "But is that where we're going? Alaska? Cause that would be cool, Batman. Except that they have really big bears there...I watched something on TV about that before. What about that?"

"We'll discuss bears more thoroughly before we go," he promised. "You'll mostly be worried about a different kind of bear than the one you saw in the forest yesterday, but we'll talk about it later."

"Polar bears?!"

"No. Not polar bears."

"But they have-"

"It's a very big place, Robin," he cut him off as gently as he could. "We aren't going where the polar bears live. And that's the last I'll say about it."

"...Bummer. Okay. Buuut..."

"Robin," his voice carried a warning.

"It's just that that's a long way for Flash and KF to run, honest!"

Batman sighed. "I've offered to fly them."

"Really?! No way?! Sorry," he apologized as the man winced at the noise. "It's just that that's awesome! I...I almost can't believe you did that, actually. Especially after what you said when Flash talked about hijacking this thing."

"Yes, well...it's done." For better or worse.

"You know, you're a good friend when you're not being a jealous jerk."

The assertion was made with such a high degree of childish honesty that he couldn't quite manage to doubt that it was true. Friends, he groaned. Damned friends, always trying to get to know a person and lend them a hand... "Your training would be fairly useless if KF was too exhausted to participate," he tried to brush the compliment off. "This way that won't be a problem."

"Okay. But you're still a good friend, and not even just to me anymore."

Batman knew a losing battle when he saw one, and let the topic drop. Thirty minutes went by, and when they passed through some light turbulence without any comments or exhortations that they pretend they were on a roller coaster being made he assumed that Robin had fallen asleep. That belief was proven incorrect shortly thereafter, when the boy spoke his name.

"...Yes?"

"I was thinking about something. Not about Alaska, but...about something else."

"What is it?"

"Well, the plane wouldn't hurt me, right? The same as the car?"

"Correct." His shoulders tensed as he anticipated the direction the query was heading. "So if someone bad had me – like if they'd kidnapped me or something – couldn't they use me to steal your secrets?"

This was the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about, or even to think about. Still, it was important that his protege know where the line lay on the issue, especially since he would soon be facing more and more dangerous adversaries. "Yes," he replied tersely. "They could."

"I thought so. I was thinking about it before, too, when we were back at the field. I was thinking about it, and I wanted to make sure that you knew I wouldn't ever help the bad guys if they caught me. I'd just wait for you to come save me."

"I...appreciate...that, but I want you to do something different."

"Huh?! Why?"

"Because the sort of people who would make you use your access to get them into the Batmobile or this plane are the sort of people who will not hesitate to hurt or even kill you if you refuse. There is nothing in either vehicle that will reveal either of our identities, and I trust that you could sufficiently lie to them about knowing how to set the autopilot to the cave, where they might do real damage. If it comes down to it – if someone puts a gun to your head and says they will pull the trigger if you don't open the door – then you open the door, Robin," he whispered harshly. "Do you understand?"

"But they'd get all of your technology! All of your info!"

"No. They wouldn't. Once you were inside you could reasonably claim that you know how to do very little, that I always drive or pilot and have never shown you how to do much of that. In such an instance your youth will serve you well, and the built-in defenses should do the rest to neutralize whoever the problem is. On the off-chance that they did get something out of it...well. I can replace technology. That's not as difficult as everyone seems to think it is." I can't replace you, though, hung in the air between them. Let's just hope that the people who would want my secrets bad enough to go after you never capitalize on that fact.

They held each others' gaze for a long moment. Then Robin, who was still frowning but seemed to be reaching an understanding as to why his mentor would issue such an order, nodded. "...Okay, Batman," he agreed. "I'll...I'll do what you said."

"Good," he answered, relief swelling in his chest. "But...just because criminals will think that you can't fly is no reason to not learn how. So..." He pushed a series of buttons on his side of the dash, causing the panels in front of Robin to begin rearranging themselves. A second steering apparatus locked into place before the open-mouthed boy, and Batman couldn't restrain a smirk. "...We might as well start training you now."

"I...I get to learn how to fly the plane?" an awed sigh came. "Like, for real?"

"Yes, Robin. Like for real."

"...This is the best weekend ever. You're the best partner ever." Small fingers wrapped eagerly around the yoke. "I'm totally ready when you are. Teach me everything!"

...I'll teach you everything I possibly can, son, Batman swore. I promise you that.


Author's Note: I think we've only got one chapter left now, dear readers!

I have every intention of making the boys' next training trip into a story. I've been wanting to write something featuring my home state for a while now, and this seems like a great way to do it. However, be advised that it won't be nearly as calm a weekend as this one was, as there will be baddies to be busted!

Happy reading!