ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.
Rated PG
"TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Warlocks, Warriors and Geekazoids
Can barely keep my eyes open. I know Alfred and I were home by 11:45 last night, but that didn't let me get any sleep. Oh, I laid awake all night long worrying about the Joker. I really wish last night was a Friday night. School is killing me. It's seven minutes after eight in the morning, and I really want to be in bed. I wonder how long I've been staring into my locker. I know there's a reason I'm here. I probably need a book. That's usually the reason people go to their lockers. But what class is next?
Trigonometry. Oh yeah. Great. Like I can even spell my own name right now. I hope I concentrated enough this morning to dress right. I don't even remember taking a shower, but I do remember drying my hair, so I know I must have. I'm wearing jeans and Cons, okay, and a black long-sleeved shirt with a button-down red flannel over it. Red. I wear more red vests and shirts and sweatshirts than anyone I know. It's like I'm still partly in costume even as Tim Drake. The little red-breast. It's a wonder no one's figured me out.
What was I looking for in here? Oh yeah. There's that ol' Trig book, huge and heavy. Wonder if I can pick it up. I guess I should try soon. Whoa, feels heavier than usual. Yeah, I beat up bad guys all night, but I can't pick up a book. Maybe I'll just lean here on my locker until I figure out how to spell my name. Let's see...
"Tim! Tim Drake!"
Yeah, that's it. D... R... A...
"Drake, you look wasted, man."
Oh. It's Ives. I shake my head and blink. Of course I wasn't checking to see if I could spell my name. Got to think clearly... I turn to face him. I'm looking straight at a blue wool vest. Ives is that tallest kid I've ever met. He towers over me, and we're the same age. Then again, I'm not very tall for my age. Okay, I'm short. Okay, I'm only five-two.
"Guess I've been pulling too many late nights," I raise my head to see him. Ives wears just about the same type of outfit all the time. He wears vests and button-down dress shirts. He's got big round glasses, little green eyes and red hair. He's got more freckles than anyone I know, too. Not just on his face, but all over. He's string-bean skinny and pale as a sheet, it's the Irish in him. And he's my best friend.
"Guess what the mailman brought, Tim!" Hudson calls. He's cheerful. That could only mean one of two things. He got something from Space Voyage, the biggest sci-fi rage with teenagers, or something from Warlocks and Warriors, the biggest fantasy rage with nerds. Yeah, I play it. Got a problem with that?
"Gawd, don't make him guess, Hudson!" Ives rolls his eyes. Hudson is black with thick, large glasses and pretty tall hair. I keep meaning to tell him that style went out long ago, but I can't bring myself to do it. He and Hernandez, the last member of our group, are the only kids I know who are shorter than me.
"The Hudman got the newest Warlocks and Warriors module," Ives explains to save me from guessing. But hey, I had a fifty-fifty chance, right?
"Yeah?" I'm feeling a little more awake now. I enjoy playing situation role-playing games like W&W. It kind of tests my deductive reasoning. And it's way more exciting than reading a murder mystery and seeing if you figured out if it was the butler before the author tells you. At least, if anyone asks, that's my excuse.
"It's au-day-cious!" Hernandez loves this game more than I do. "Dozens of new traps and a scenario with vampires!"
"So," Ives claps me on the shoulder. The right shoulder. I bite my lip to stifle a yelp of pain. "Think you could make it over to my house tonight and we can--"
"Yo, Drake!!!" I know that voice right away.
"Great..." I mutter. Karl Ranck is heading straight for us. Hope he didn't hear me, not like I couldn't kick his butt, but that would kind of be like blowing the whole secret identity gig. And I hate letting myself get pounded for the sake of secrecy.
"You think they'd make people evolve before letting them into the ninth grade," Ives nails him. I can't believe he said that right into the face of the largest freshman football player in Gotham Heights.
"Keep it up, Ives Four-Eyes," Ranck jabs Ives in the chest with his forefinger.
"That was hysterical. In the third grade," Ives is keeping it up. Way to go, Ives! Show no fear! Then again, Ives is taller than Karl...
I'm still leaning my back against my locker, so I tuck my foot up high against my locker, placing my knee between Ives and Ranck, stopping any further contact.
"What is it, Karl?" and why do you always have to yell and call me by my last name? But I'm not going to say that.
"Well, my parents are away for the weekend, and, like, I'm gonna have a killer Christmas party tonight. You wanna come over?" Karl has an arm around Sylvia, an empty-headed bombshell whom I had never heard speak, only giggle.
"I don't think so," I push off my locker, turn, and close it. I forgot my notebook in there. I'll just take notes in my book in pencil, then erase them later. "I got a lot of things to do after school."
"So, the answer is, like, no, okay?" Ives imitates Ranck's jock talk a little too well. I'm not going to turn around to see what Ranck is going to do to Ives. I'm facing my locker, working on the combination, waiting for the war to end. Maybe I will get that notebook out.
I hear the pound of a flat hand against locker metal. I look to my right. Karl's right hand is against my locker over my right shoulder. Then I hear a similar pound on my left. Me? He's mad at me? I turn around. I'm walled in my the hulking presence of Karl. He bends his elbows, getting closer. I feel myself pressing back against my locker, trying to regain my fighting distance. I can't.
"I don't get you, Drake! You seem like a cool enough guy, but you hang out with these... geekazoids! You should be with a different crowd."
"I like to have friends, not a crowd," I answer, glaring at him, then I push past him.
"Suit yourself, m' man. But friends like that will get you nowhere." Karl is gone. Ives is still here, though annoyed.
"So you are coming to my place tonight to play Warlocks and Warriors?" Ives has that victorious glint in his Irish eyes.
"I... I can't, Ives." Now I feel like a heel. But the Joker takes precedence. I just wish I could explain that to my friends. Or to girls in my class. Or to teachers who think my bruises are from a troubled home. "I have a lot going on at home right now."
I can feel my friends' eyes on my back, but I can't say anything more. Besides, the bell just rang, and I'm late for Trig.
Thank God it's Friday.