This story will contain adult themes

Starting off the day with a hostage situation was not Robins idea of a fun Saturday. He'd honestly rather listen to Wally and Artemis fight over a remote for hours, then try and take down armed nut jobs at a party.

It really wasn't fun...obviously.

And the poor civilians cowering in the middle of the room with guns pointed at their heads weren't having any fun either. Obviously. Robin stared down at the poor people, at least the guy who owned this mansion had an obsession with beams in the ceilings. It helped with the whole staying out of sight thing. Too bad it was the middle of the day though.

"Hand over all your jewelry and money people!" A tall man with a ski mask yelled, shooting a bullet into the wall causing a few people to scream in terror. "Hurry your asses up or I'll shoot you all!" He grabbed a lady who screeched in absolute terror and he put his gun to her temple and put his hand on the trigger.

Robin really wanted to go down there and beat the crap out of that guy but Batman would kill him. He had strict orders to stay up here as backup and wait. And he wasn't really happy with that, he wanted to be down there helping. He didn't want to just sit here.

He felt useless.

And that feeling only grew when multiple batarangs flew out and hit the weapons out of the men's hands and the guy holding the gun to the lady's head dropped his gun and ran for his life. Robin smiled as he watched the guy run through the door while Batman was occupied with the others.

He'd get the bad guy fleeing... And maybe that would make him feel useful.

Within seconds Robin was down on the floor and he was in the hallway that he saw the guy flee into and he smiled when he heard a door slam shut down the hall. This was going to be a piece of cake the guy was a complete idiot. And after quickly making his way down the hall he came across a few doors that most likely led to the bedrooms or something. And it really didn't take a genius to figure out which door was the one that slammed... Since all the doors, but one was open.

Why were Criminals so stupid?! They all made this way too easy... Was it really that hard to want a bit of a challenge?

Robin sighed and quickly opened the door and saw the masked guy cowering behind the window curtains.

Robin raised an eyebrow, "Seriously?"

"Why did I agree to play chess with you again?" Artemis muttered rubbing her temples. She had only been at the mountain for two hours and Kid idiot had already pissed her off by being incredibly annoying, broke the remote, called her a llama, and for some reason she agreed to play chess with him...even though neither of them knew how to play.

Has this happened when extreme levels of boredom have been reached?

"Don't act like I know," Wally replied, staring at these chess pieces extremely confused on how the hell this game worked. He already tried to google how to play, but that was confusing, and Artemis kept nagging at him. "Not like I forced you to..." Wally groaned and rested his head on the kitchen counter. He had expected to have a fun Saturday at the mountain... Maybe go on a mission or something. But Aqualad, Miss Martian and Superboy were gone to star city after Batman had sent them to stop some drug deal. And to top it all off, Robin was gone. Apparently he had been here earlier, but was called off to Gotham.

Bet he was having fun...

Robin B01

Oh, speak of the devil, jeez, it was like he knew he was missed. And just had to pop up. Wally sighed a breath of relief, "Finally! I don't gotta play chess with a llama!" And before Artemis could hit him with the chess board, he was already at the zeta-tubes where Robin was. "Dude, thank God you're here!" Wally cried out.

Robin looked at him confused, "What'd you do this time..?" Robin asked.

Wally smiled sheepishly, "Well I called Artemis a llama-" and before he could finish what he was saying a chess piece flew across the room and hit him in the side of his face. "OW!"

"STOP CALLING ME A DAMN LLAMMA!" Artemis screamed.

Robin watched Wally scream as more chess pieces flew at him and he quickly zoomed the hell out of here. Robin turned to Artemis, "A llama...seriously?" He asked his eyebrows raised.

Wally really had to stop with the elementary school insults. Pretty lame choice for an insult...

Artemis just scowled "He's immature," She grumbled quite irritated. She didn't appreciate being called a llama.

"Says that one who threw stuff at me!" Wally screamed showing up next to Robin, he then immediately dodged this time the entire chess board. Where the hell was she hiding that?!

"Well you called me a llama first!" Artemis hissed.

"I'm starting to think I'm insulting llamas when I compare them to you," Wally smirked.

"I'm going to shove an arrow so far up your as-"

"Hey!" Robin yelled getting the two bickering teens attentions. "Are you guys serious...?" He wasn't too amused by this...maybe dealing with a hostage situation was better than listening to these two bicker. "Couldn't you two at least come up with better insults?" He asked walking to the living room. He just wanted some peace...but then again maybe he shouldn't have come here. Not like there'd be any peace and quiet here.

He sat down on the couch and sighed when Wally and Artemis could be heard bickering from the other side of the mountain.

Sometimes he felt like he needed a vacation...

A long vacation away from everybody...

"Did you hear about what happened to Evelyn Myers?!"

Dick looked up from the lunch table and looked to Barbara who had just sat down next to him, "Uh who?" He asked eyebrows raised. "What'd she do...break a nail or something?" He really wasn't sure if he should care. Girls at this school were almost all obsessed with their appearance and how people thought of them. So he was kind of used to this by now.

"What!? No!" Barbara hissed punching his arm. She always took school gossip very seriously and what she had just overheard was huge news. "She's gone."

"What do you mean gone?" It was a Monday...people were gone all the time. "And who is Evelyn? Some friend of yours!?" He asked. He was not really in the mood to listen to Barbara's wild and probably exaggerated story about some girl he had never heard of.

"She was kidnapped!" She cried out her eyes wide, "Look I don't know her that well...I've seen her in the hallway a few times and had her as a lab partner, but I heard some of her close friends saying that they hadn't heard from her all weekend," She explained. "A-And apparently she went to Blüdhaven for the weekend with her parents and went missing there."

Dick leaned back in the chair he was sitting on. "And you're certain she's actually missing?" He asked. This was slightly worrying but then again why the hell would her family go to Blüdhaven? That place was plagued with creeps and criminals. Although he doubted she was actually missing, girls overreacted sometimes...right?

"I heard her friends say that her parents hired a private investigator," She paused and bit her lip, "Or well...uh something along those lines."

Dick just sighed, "It's just gossip Babs. Nothing to worry about," He replied standing up when he heard the bell ring signaling lunch was over. Nearly done with the done...thank god.

Barbara groaned, "This is serious!" She hissed following him into the hallway. "What if she really was kidnapped?" She asked.

"Then the police will find her..." He replied grabbing some stuff out of his locker.

"What If they don't!?"

Dick took a deep breath and closed his locker and turned to her. He was getting slightly annoyed by all of this, every week she had some wacky story either about something that she claimed to have happened. Or something that would happen. "Barbara you're overthinking this..." He said scowling. "I promise that this is all just some wild rumor and no one is missing.."

Barbara just huffed and walked away leaving Dick alone at his locker. He just sighed a breath of relief and made his way to class, Barbara was an amazing friend and he loved her (Not in that way) but sometimes dealing with her was torture.

Dick tossed his bookbag aside and plopped down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. All day he had heard non-stop gossiping about the supposed kidnapping of Evelyn Myers so during the ride home he'd looked it up and found absolutely nothing to prove that it actually had happened.

But he had a tiny feeling that maybe something could be up?

Although that wasn't likely since this had to be some wild rumor. Wild rumors happened all the time at Gotham Academy, it was a regular thing. Like the rumor that one of the science teachers was a psychopath and that the skeleton in there was an old student that pissed the teacher off...now that was a funny rumor.

He scowled when his phone went off and he sat up and grabbed his phone and looked at it and groaned. It was Barbara and she was spamming him with links to some website. "What the hell.." He muttered clicking one of the links, he was then sent to some half assed website that had an article about...Evelyn Myers being kidnapped.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Barbara was Hellbent on this being real and not some rumor. Well she was stubborn. Dick eventually gave in when she started spamming him with read it, over and over again.

And after reading the badly written article he was more convinced that this was a rumor that was going way too far. Evelyn went camping on Friday and the article went on about how her parents were trying to keep this from the media and they hired a private investigator.

"Bullcrap," Dick mumbled tossing his phone aside. Rumors were fun at times but this was way too far. He sighed and made his way downstairs to get something to eat, Alfred made cookies the other night. And maybe after that he'd go to the mountain since he had no homework.

His thoughts were interrupted when he nearly ran into Bruce, "Oh crap sorry," Dick apologized. He really needed to pay more attention to where he was going, he'd been all over the place lately.

"I was just going to look for you," Bruce replied.

Oh crap...what'd he do this time? He had already gotten in trouble awhile ago for setting off fireworks in the bathroom with Wally. Yeah...not one of his brightest moments.

"We were just invited to a dinner party," Bruce didn't seem to be too happy about it.

"With who?" He asked, did a chick invite Bruce out or something? And why the hell did he have to come along?

"Daniel Crawford. He was the host of the charity ball that was held hostage over the weekend. He's redoing it tonight," Bruce explained.

Dick sighed, "Oh...do I have to go?" He asked. He really didn't want to go...

"It would be rude if you didn't show up," Bruce frowned.

"Fine...so it's tonight?" He really hated all this fancy stuff he had to go to every once and awhile. It was incredibly boring and to be completely honest most of the other people there were complete assholes. All more concerned about their image and money...ugh. Those were his least favorite people.

"We'll be heading out in two hours," Bruce then walked away and Dick groaned.

He hated Mondays a lot more now.

Dick followed Bruce into the large building and he tried not to scowl. He probably already looked like he was dying inside...he felt like he was dying inside to be honest. Loud crowds of gossiping women with strong and disgusting smelling perfume he could smell from miles away, ugh headache in the making.

And it was so crowded in here. Instead of being held in some sort of venue this fancy get together was at the guys house, sure it was big. But not big enough for the amount of people that were in here. There had to be at least two hundred people in here.

"Ah! Mr. Wayne!" An excited voice cried out, "It's so good to see that you've made it!"

Bruce seemed to have to force a smile out, and he shook the man's hand. The man was quite...interesting looking. He was quite tall and he was...a larger man and he had no hair. But the weird thing about this guy was that it looked like he had scratch marks on the side of his face. Like he pissed off a cat or something and then afterwards tried to hide the marks with makeup or something. He didn't do a good job, "It's a pleasure to be here, Mr. Crawford," Bruce replied. It sounded like an obvious lie and he could tell by the awkward handshake they had...that they didn't like each other too much. Or maybe that Crawford guy was just awkward?

Crawford smiled and showed his yellow teeth (gross) and turned to Dick and his smile only widened. "Hello, you must be Richard!" Crawford grinned and instead of being a normal person and giving him a handshake he pulled Dick into a really uncomfortable hug.

Dick was kinda creeped out and the hug was incredibly uncomfortable so he pulled away and noticed that Bruce was gone and across the room mingling with some ladies. Damn you, "It's a pleasure to meet you...Sir," Dick replied looking back at Crawford who seemed to have gotten closer to him. Oh god he could smell the guys breath whenever he opened his mouth. That was gross.

"Oh the pleasure is mine," Crawford responded his smile was at jokers level now. "I've always wanted to meet you, I've heard quite a bit about you." Dick just awkwardly nodded greatly uncomfortable. And kinda creeped out. "It's so nice that Mr. Wayne took you in after what happened to your parents." Crawford then put a hand on his shoulder, "If I had been in Gotham at that time I would have loved to take you in."

By now Dick was used to hearing people say how lucky he was that Bruce took him in. And it really made him feel like a charity case. But this guy...holy hell. This guy was incredibly off and he could tell it wasn't genuine. The guy was probably disgusted that 'Circus trash' was even near him. Because Dick was kinda starting to think that was why this guy was so weird.

Most definitely a rich snob.

"I'd love to get to know you better, but I've got more guests to greet." Crawford frowned, "I hope to see you again soon Richard." He then gave him an unsettling smile and walked away and Dick sighed a breath of relief.

This night just got a bit more bearable now that he was gone.