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" - A Brilliant Plan

I have no other leads. I'm two blocks and six minutes from where and when I told Alfred to meet me, but he's found me anyway.

"Robin, you weren't on the corner at the appointed time. I came looking for you. You weren't hard to find. I merely followed the tracks of the plow. The Joker?

The plow was the only vehicle on the road all night. He would have no other tracks to follow except those.

"Yes, it was The Joker. I get an A for the detective work and an Incomplete for the follow-up," I don't care anymore if anyone sees me get into the van. I open the door and climb in. It's warmer and drier in the van, but not as warm and dry as I'd be after a hot bath and in my bed. But I can't sleep yet. "He grabbed Dr. Pellinger."

"Don't worry. There'll be more clues."

I snap my seatbelt into place and exhale. Alfred turns to look at me.

"My word!" He touches the fabric of my cape near my shoulder.

"Huh?" I glance at my cape. The bullet-hole. "Oh. Don't worry. They missed."

"Not by a very large margin, Master Robin!" Alfred is alarmed.

"The vest's bullet-proof, Alfie."

"The sleeves are not. A bullet to the shoulder is quite painful as well."

"No one's going to shoot me, Alfred. I promise."

"As you say, Robin." Alfred shifts the van into gear and heads back towards the secret entrance to the Batcave.

At least I hope no one's going to shoot me.

"And now," The Joker grinned at his gang, "I wish to present to you the most dangerous man in Gotham. Next to myself, of course."

Joker flipped a switch on the fall and a funnel of light descended on Pellinger, wrists bound, standing in the center of the room. It was just the showmanship Joker adored.

"Dr. Osgood Pellinger." Joker applauded alone.

"Haw!" a scruffy-faced man guffawed. "This geek? Nice gag, Joker! This guy's dangerous?"

"He looks tough tuh me!" Bones laughed. "Proll'y shoves pins t'roo butterflies! Ha ha!"

"Shut up, you dopes!" Joker whacked Bones upside the head with the baseball bat that was leaning against a table. It knocked the poor man flat, and he'd probably be out for hours. "Dr. Pellinger is not here to amuse you cretins!"

Joker leaned on the bat as if it were a cane. "The good professor is a computer genius. Everything runs on computers these days. Like a genie's bottle. Like a magic wand. If you know your way around a keyboard, the world is yours. Osgood here," Joker stepped over to the tall, this, cowering man and embraced the man's head to his shoulder, "is going to help us turn this city into a circus! And I'm going to be Ringmaster!"

I tear my mask off my face, ignoring the pain. I hear a sharp intake of breath from Alfred. As a veteran of the British stage, Alfred knows what it feels like to tear spirit gum off your face without using spirit gum dissolvant. Alfred sighs and places the bottle of gum remover back on the table. I'm too angry with myself to worry about letting my mask slowly dissolve off.

"I blew it!" I hurl my mask across the floor. "If Batman finds out about this, he'll look for someone else to wear this outfit!" I yank my gloves off and sling them across the room. They smack against the far wall and drop to the floor. Alfred is picking up my mask and heading for my gloves. I lean against the computer console for support. Now I feel doubly like a jerk. Once for letting The Joker get away, and twice because Alfred's picking up after my tantrum.

"Nonsense," Alfred places my gloves and mask on the shelf next to the rack where my costumes are and begins flipping light switches on. I don't feel particularly like working. I feel like sulking. "Master Bruce has been handed his share of defeats at the hand of The Joker. Oh, he triumphs, but it's always a near thing. That madman is the most dangerous foe Batman faces. The most treacherous of all the villains in his rogues gallery."

I look up. Maybe he's right. Maybe I am being too hard on myself. Maybe... "Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Alfred. But not only did I mess up totally, but the next time I meet The Joker, he'll probably kill me."

I shouldn't have said that. Alfred looks pretty shocked. But that's exactly what I'm afraid of. Another Robin bites it at that hands of The Joker. And let's face it, Joker doesn't have a history of being real nice to Dick, Jason, or me.

"I shouldn't think that--"

"What if this psycho figures out that Batman isn't in Gotham?"

Alfred sinks into a chair at the opposite end of the Batcomputer as if he fears he can't stand any longer and might faint. "Dear. That hadn't occurred to me."

"He'll go ballistic." I lean my elbows on the console. I'm just so tired... "He's not afraid of the police. Batman's the only thing that keeps him in line."

I stand up straight. I have an idea! "We have to convince The Joker that Batman is still in town!"

Alfred is not taken by the spark of my idea. "And how will we do that?"

"We'll need a brilliant plan! If you think of one first, let me know."

Alfred was insistent. The boy whose care he had been given was going to sleep and he was going to sleep right now. He would not have Master Bruce returning home to find the boy in the condition he was in now, and quite a state it was. He had hardly slept, eaten, or done anything but worry for the past four days. Joker or no, plan or no, Tim was going to bed. Alfred practically had to push him up the stairs out of the Batcave, and only conceded to let him out of his bedroom to have the hot bath the young man said he was thinking about all evening.

"But I want you asleep by 1:30, young man, no excuses. And you are not to wake before noon tomorrow," which was fine since it would be Saturday.

Besides, Alfred sighed as he made his way back down the stairs, leaving Tim with that final warning, when Master Tim is asleep is the only time I can be asleep.

Alfred listened from before the fireplace in the den and heard Tim draining the bath upstairs, then walking the length of the hallway to his bedroom. Alfred heard the door close and the footsteps cease. He heard a slight creak of bedsprings, then nothing.

Satisfied that the young man was asleep, Alfred brought his empty teacup to the kitchen and retired himself.

I slept till noon, like I promised Alfred I would. Then Alfred and I spent all afternoon in the Cave, implementing that "brilliant plan".

The brilliant plan turned out to be half Alfred's, half mine. Regardless, it was what has us out here on the streets again, ready to find The Joker and rescue Dr. Pellinger. I could think of better things to do on a Saturday night, like standing on line for that new action flick opening at the Bijou two blocks down.

Gotham's coldest winter in a century, The Joker's loose somewhere, and Batman is working a case south of the equator. I'm still feeling very alone, but crime is not going to stop in Gotham to wait for Batman's return because his fourteen-year-old partner's afraid of the Joker. These two dopes, however, don't scare me at all. I don't need the plan on these guys, but I do need to test it on someone.

They don't look any older than me, but they're trying to break into an entertainment equipment warehouse. With a sledgehammer. Geniuses.

They used to call these types juvenile delinquents. Now, in order to be perfectly P.C., they're called youthful offenders. And they're growing dumber every day. Just talkin' 'bout my generation.

I wrap the 'rang around the chimney pipe next to me and slide down from the roof I'm perched on.

"Aw, no! Look!" the kid with the flashlight shines it directly into my eyes as I land at his feet. I blink and turn a little. Good thing I don't have my Nightvision lenses on. They could've blinded me.

"Who's this?" the kid with the sledgehammer looks as if he's never heard of me before. Not to sound egotistical, but who in Gotham City has never heard of Robin?

"It's Robin!" the kid with the flashlight is as surprised as I am that this dope doesn't recognize me. "Y'know? The kid that hangs with the Batman?"

"So what?" the kid with the sledgehammer answers. "There's two of us, and we're each of us bigger than he is."

All right. So I'm small for my age. And you're not amusing me.

"You guys don't look much like professional criminals," I hiss, "let's call it no harm, no foul, and you two take off." I'm holding my bo staff at the ready. I know they're not going to take off. I'm not a big enough threat by myself. But that's all part of "the plan".

"And what if we just whup you one," the kid raises his sledgehammer over his right shoulder, "and then we bust this store wide open?"

Not too sharp, is he?

Dodging this blunt object (or the sledgehammer he's holding) won't be a problem. But I can't scare them off on my own. Gotta try the plan. I jerk my thumb over my shoulder. "Listen to that little voice in your head. The one that's telling you this macho routines is going to end with you in traction."

The hologram of Batman that Alfred and I set up on the top of the building is convincing. They take to their heels and drop the sledge and flashlight.

Batman always told me that all criminals are basically cowards. It certainly was the case with these two. I'm not sure this was worth all the trouble.

"Hologram off," I use that husky whisper voice, the one that Bruce always uses as Batman, to speak into the remote control. Batman's figure dissolves.

Those punks won't exactly be spreading the word through the underground that Batman's been sighted again. Some criminals are easier to scare than others. And some you can't scare at all.

Responses To Reviews:

Susie82 – Thank you! I'm glad my treatment of Chuck Dixon's story isn't too painful. Comic and gothic styles are somewhat new to me, as is the genre, I'm usually over in Anime/Sakura Wars, and started out in TV/Star Trek The Next Generation... so this is uncharted territory! I'll try to update quickly.