It felt like I had cried every tear I had in my body, though I was careful to make sure my captors never saw any of them fall. In some ways, I wasn't surprised I had failed. I had no skills, no experience, nothing that would have prepared me for what I had to do. I had tried though. When I had gotten home from Wayne manor, I had immediately looked up the blueprints for the building where Namazu Inc. had their headquarters. I tried searching to see if they had any other properties but if they did, they were owned by shell corporations and I didn't have time to dig around and figure out what they were. I just had to hope that the machine was where I thought it was. It didn't seem like a very good place to start an earthquake that would destroy Gotham, since it was far from the city center, but it was possible they planned to move it before they started it up. I hoped they hadn't done so yet.

I knew my plan was a tenuous one, relying on so much hope so I had almost expected to be captured, though in my mind, that wasn't supposed to happen until after I disabled the machine. I never even got the chance. I couldn't find it, though I didn't discover why until later. I searched every room in the building and was in the process of rechecking when they finally captured me. What did surprise me, however, was the fact that they didn't kill me, although they talked about it. Tied up and gagged in the basement of the building, I listened to two men and a woman frantically discussing what to do with me and what my presence meant.

"Who do you think he is?" the woman hissed. They had removed my mask but, since I made sure my picture rarely appeared on the internet and I gave them a fake name, they had no way of knowing who I really was, at least not without a lot of digging. I had hoped that would protect dad, although I didn't know for how long. "Do you think he's affiliated with the bat? He is wearing a Robin costume." One of the men snorted.

"That ridiculous thing isn't a costume. Besides, if the bat knew what we were up to, he wouldn't send the kid here by himself. You don't think that consultant Drake blabbed to someone, do you?"

"No way," the other man countered, "he was only at one meeting, he has no idea what he heard or why we fired him."

"He should never have been at that meeting in the first place," the woman hissed, "it was your stupid secretary that sent him to it. Who knows what documents he ended up with or if he shredded them like he was supposed to."

"You were the one that fired him," the man growled, "that looked more suspicious than just keeping him on and bribing him."

"It doesn't matter," the other man interrupted, "if he did talk, the police would be here, not some dumb kid. Anyway, who cares why he's here, what are we going to do with him?"

"We have to kill him," the first man insisted, "the plan is almost complete. Any interference at this stage could destroy us!"

"He's only a child," the woman cried, "we can't kill him."

"Don't be so sentimental," the first man growled, "thousands of children will die if we can get this quake to work. Let's just kill him and frame someone like we did with that internet reporter."

"No," the second man said slowly, "I have a better idea. We talked about needing a lure for the Batman, this boy could prove useful for that. We can accelerate our timeline a little, draw the bat in at the end of the week. We only need to keep him alive until then."

"But, what if someone comes looking for him," the woman countered.

"They have no reason to suspect what we've done. We can just move everything to the other location and shut this place down. They can search all they want, they won't find any evidence of him."

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Much of the rest of the week was a blur for me. They kept me blindfolded and in the dark the whole time, even when they moved me. I was horrified at the thought of being bait for the Batman but there was nothing I could do. I had a small glimmer of hope that maybe he wouldn't come for me, since he hated me now. I was scared to die, scared of what they'd do to me if he didn't come, but I knew I wouldn't be able to live with the guilt of being the one that caused him to die. Guilt was a constant companion over that week I was kept, guilt that I had failed to stop the machine, guilt that I hadn't been a good enough detective to convince Batman to look into what I had found and guilt that I hadn't convinced Nightwing to come back and be Robin. All this was my fault and now, I wouldn't even live long enough to try and make any of it right.

When the day finally arrived for the trap to be set, the only thing on my mind was that I had to find a way to warn the Batman. The video was filmed and broadcasted, me writhing against my bonds the entire time to try and figure out some way to alert him to what was going on, and when it ended and I was unsuccessful, silence dropped over the whole factory and I was left alone. Miserable and exhausted from lack of sleep, I slumped in the chair they had me tied to, lacking the energy even to struggle anymore. My head hung low and I fell into a kind of dream-state, almost awake but not quite. In and out of that I dipped, my heart aching, until I felt hands on my arms. I started awake, my eyes flaring open. I was shocked to see that the blindfold and gag had been removed and I was looking into the face of the Batman, who was focused on cutting my bonds.

"Batman," I yelped, stumbling over my words but he slapped his hand over my mouth.

"Quietly," he said gently, "hold on, I almost have you loose."

"Stop," I hissed, "please, you have to go, it's a trap."

"I know," Batman said, "listen, do you know where the earthquake machine is?"

"There is no machine!" I cried. He looked up at me, frowning.

"But…in your research…"

"It's you," I yelped, cutting him off, "it isn't a machine, it's a person, it's you!" Before I could say another word though, gas started filling the room. Batman stood up, alert, and quickly pressed a button on his gauntlet. A mask covered his mouth and nose in an instant.

"Go," I coughed, feeling tears of desolation well up in my eyes, "they've studied your costume…they know your mask can't…protect against this kind of…gas." The words had barely left my mouth before Batman collapsed unconscious beside me. I succumbed only a moment later, my eyes smarting from the gas and tears streaming down my cheeks. Unfortunately, it seemed Batman didn't hate me as much as I had thought.

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The machine was a person, that was why I couldn't find it before, why pieces of a machine had never been found at any of the companies where earthquakes had originated. Namazu had created a serum that gave a person the power to cause earthquakes. Originally, it had been intended as an aid to help with mining but preliminary tests proved that it was fatal to the test subject, the strain of it snapping every bone in their body, so the project was abandoned, at least until recently. The only problem was that the serum interacted with a specific sequence on a person's DNA and, if the sequence was not optimal, the earthquakes the person could generate were not as powerful. In Namibia, they had finally found what they were looking for. As it happened, they found that Batman's DNA had the exact sequence they were looking for. Since Batman literally bled all over Gotham, his DNA was not exactly challenging to come by. So, a plan was hatched, a plan that I had uncovered and then inadvertently become an integral part of. All of this I pieced together during my long week of captivity, listening to the conversations my captors had with one another.

As my eyes slowly blinked open, the first thing I saw was the Batman, strapped to a vertical table with an I.V. running into his jugular. He still had his costume on; I suppose they figured there wasn't any point trying to figure out how to get it off, soon enough he would be dead and it wouldn't matter. I couldn't tell if he was awake yet, but I suspected he was. He was probably thinking, trying to figure out how he could escape. I wasn't optimistic. The transfusion had already begun. There were three nurses surrounding him, taking vital signs and tending to the I.V.. Soon, the earthquake powers would overtake him and there wouldn't be anything he could do to stop them.

I was lying on my side, still bound to my chair, apparently forgotten. The room we were in was large and full of tables and chairs, some turned over on their sides and others half-destroyed. The table closest to me had probably been used for blackjack, at least I thought so. My eyes caught the sight of a busted neon sign with the word "burg" still legible. A flicker of recognition ran through me. We were at the top of the Cobblepot building in the old Ice-burg club. Years before I was born, it had been destroyed in a battle between Batman and the Penguin and the whole building had been condemned, though no one had ever gotten around to destroying it. It was very near the center of Gotham, the perfect place to start an earthquake.

Everyone had their back to me, rushing around and preparing for the seismic activity they were about to inflict on Gotham. There were probably ten people in the room total, counting the nurses tending Batman, the three people I had seen before who presumably planned the whole thing and four armed guards, standing around looking bored. I was just starting to give into my hopelessness and fear when, shifting my weight, I felt the ropes that bound my arms snap. I froze. Batman had been sawing at them when he had fallen unconscious and I guess no one had noticed just how close he had gotten to freeing me. My legs were still bound but, maybe…

All hope was not lost, not if I could do something. Batman may already be succumbing to the serum but I knew that there was an anti-serum and it had to be somewhere nearby. Apparently, in Singapore, where one of the tests had been completed, the company's plans had almost been found out when a team of officials had arrived for a surprise inspection of the facilities just after the I.V. had been started on the test subject. They had only barely managed to escape the facility before the earthquake destroyed it, but if they had not, the resulting investigation might have unearthed Namazu's plans. To keep that from happening again, an anti-serum had been developed to rid the person of the earthquake powers in the event of an emergency. If I could only find it and give it to Batman, we might still be able to keep the earthquake from happening! I had to be careful. If I was caught again, there would be no hope left.

I started to free my legs as quietly and subtly as I could, keeping my eyes fixed on my captors. When I had finally loosed the bonds, I slowly got up. I had to think, where would the anti-serum be? The three people who were clearly the masterminds of the plot were all standing near Batman, watching as the last of the I.V. finished running into his body. There was a helicopter atop the roof to take them to safety, but they preferred to stay and make sure everything was past the point of no return before they got on their way. That was smart, since from what I could tell, the villains always left too early when they did these kinds of Batman-killing plots. Today though, their carefulness would be to my advantage because I knew the anti-serum was probably on one of them.

They were standing towards the edge of the action, discussing their plans as far from the Batman as they could, their backs to me. I crept carefully behind them, my heart beating so hard, I was afraid they might be able to hear it. Dick had me practicing pit-pocketing techniques two weeks prior but I didn't think I was close to being a master. I slipped up carefully to the left-most man, who I now saw clearly for the first time. He was tall with red hair, pale skin and a smattering of freckles across his face. I slid my hand as carefully as I could into his first pants pocket, hardly daring to breathe. He didn't notice, but the anti-serum wasn't there. I bit my lip in frustration and tried his other pocket. Nothing.

Batman was starting to writhe on the table, panting heavily. The I.V. had just finished. A nurse wheeled it out of the way while another started undoing the straps that held him up. When she had released him, he dropped to the floor, trembling violently. "Is it done?" the red-haired man called from the sidelines, "is it working?"

"I think so," the third nurse called, stepping close to Batman to press his fingers to the Dark Knight's jugular. "His heartrate is beginning to accelerate." While they watched, I went on to the next man. He was about a head shorter with dark skin and hard, dark eyes. I tried both his pants pockets but found nothing. A shudder went through Batman and, a moment later, the building around us began to shake. The tremor was small, causing the instruments to rattle but nothing more than that. I knew it was only a premonition of what was to come. The dark-haired man looked down at a device in his hand. "We'll stay until the tremors reach a stage two. That should be enough to make sure his body will perform adequately. Should be only a few more minutes."

The woman was last. She was somewhere in between the heights of the two men with dark hair and pale skin, Asian by the look of it though I didn't spend very long pondering her appearance. I slipped my hand into her first pocket. Nothing. She shifted her weight, turning her body slightly and I moved on silent feet to one side to stay out of her field of view, crouching low. All I had been able to check was pants pockets. There was no way I would get the chance to check shirt pockets or briefcases, both of which they had. What was I going to do if they had the serum somewhere else? I couldn't think about that now though, I had one more pocket to check.

Another tremor went through the building, this one much stronger than the first. The I.V. pole toppled and one of the nurses had to grip the table Batman had been strapped to so that she didn't fall. The dark-haired man looked down at the device in his hand again and nodded to his companions. "Harvey, tell the pilot to begin takeoff preparations," the red-haired man called. One of the nurses started out a small door across the room from us. It was now or never for me. I slid my hand into the woman's pocket and my fingertips brushed something, a small glass vial by the feel of it. My hand closed around it and I was just starting to withdraw when I felt a vice-like grip on my wrist. The woman had grabbed me, eyes blazing. "What are you doing?" she cried, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Just then, another tremor tore through the building, almost knocking us all off our feet. I took the opportunity to wrench myself from the woman's grasp.

"Get him," the red-haired man called as the tremor subsided, "shoot him!" The guards turned their guns on me and opened fire. I rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding getting shot, and scrambled behind a nearby craps table. The building shook violently, sending almost everyone to their knees. I had to get to Batman, that was the only way to stop this, although I had no idea if I was too late. The red-haired man was screaming for someone to grab me. One of the nurses seized my ankle as I was darting out of reach, but I managed to wiggle loose. I made a mad dash towards the Batman, but bullets peppered the wall behind me and I had to dive for cover. There was no way I was going to reach him.

I hunkered down for a moment as another tremor shook the building, for the first time looking down at the vial that I had. I realized then that it wasn't a vial at all. Instead, it was an injection system like the one used to give people epinephrine. It would be so easy just to jam this into Batman's neck if I could only get close enough. I was so close already! I sure hoped it was the anti-serum but I didn't have time to verify or look for anything else.

Another nurse darted up to me just as the building shuddered again. It was like the world was moving in slow motion. The Batman was still so far away, about the distance of a…flip. Probably a triple. Well…I had been practicing, time to see if I was made of the stuff Dick seemed to think I was. I backed up from the nurse, feigning fear and then charged her. Before she could react, I leapt as high as I could and grabbed her shoulders, using them for leverage to launch myself into the air above them. I spun high, narrowly avoiding a spray of bullets, and twisted my body into one, two, three forward flips and a twist at the end. I twisted nearly enough to get my feet underneath me but not quite. I landed awkwardly on just one and hit the ground hard on my side. It didn't matter though, I was right next to the Batman now.

He looked over at me, his chest heaving like he was trying to outrun the Flash and I jammed the anti-serum straight into his neck. The Asian woman howled in frustration. "He gave him the serum," she shrieked, "we have to go to the helicopter now!" Batman slumped to his side, still panting, and the building rocked violently. Was I too late?

"Tim," he croaked softly. I shimmied up to him as the rest of the people started to flee, my side smarting from the hard fall. "Tim," he grunted again, "Tim, I'm…I'm sorry." I bit my lip, feeling tears well up in my eyes.

"It's ok," I said, I'm sorry…I thought I could save you but I couldn't I…" A tremor cut me off but this one was…smaller. I felt hope spring up in my chest. Batman's breathing started to slow. Another tremor came but this one was even weaker than the one before. They were subsiding. Everything was going to be…ok! It was then that the door through which everyone had escaped burst open and police officers came streaming in, Nightwing at their head.

"Batman," he called frantically, rushing up to the Dark Knight and I and dropping to his knees in front of us. The commissioner was beside us in another moment.

"Are you alright young man?" he asked me.

I nodded and, using my best little kid voice said, "Those guys…they kidnapped me! But the Batman saved me!" Nightwing gave me an amused and appreciative look as he slowly helped Batman up.

"Did you capture the people responsible?" Batman asked, his voice weak and wavering but still full of authority. Gordon nodded.

"We caught them just in time, they were about to escape in a helicopter. I must say though Batman, this is one of the more outlandish plans I've ever seen. I almost wouldn't believe it if I hadn't felt the tremors for myself. Seems we got off awfully lucky." Batman nodded silently and allowed Nightwing to help him slowly towards the door, still speaking with the commissioner as the police combed the scene, collecting evidence. I stayed where I was for a few moments, breathing deeply.

I had done it, I had actually done it. It was all over, Gotham was safe! I almost couldn't believe what had happened. Of course, things hadn't gone like I had hoped they would. I still felt terribly guilty that I wasn't able to convince Batman to heed my evidence but he wasn't dead and right now, to me, that was all that mattered. Shakely, I got to my feet, my whole left side on fire from my hard landing on the concrete floor. For a moment, I considered going after Batman and Nightwing but they were busy and anyway, they hardly needed me anymore. I had studied the battle between Batman and the Penguin that had happened in this building so I knew there was a back exit. Quietly, I headed towards it and, in the chaos, slipped away.