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" - Jingle Bells, Batman Smells

An hour and a half until the truck is due on the bridge for The Joker. I don't know why I'm here. I need someone. I need a shoulder to lean on. I wish I was allowed to have a shoulder to cry on. But I can't cry anymore. I haven't since I first wore this costume.

"I'm alone. Batman is gone. He may be dead for all I know. The Joker's running wild, he has the city by the throat. I'm the only hope that Gotham City has. On top of that, I think I'm failing World Cultures."

The room is dark and I can feel the cold near the window. I cross away from the window and sink into a little metal and vinyl yellow chair in the corner and look at the floor.

"I don't know who else to turn to. I don't know Alfred too well, and he really doesn't know me yet, and he's sleeping anyway. I've been keeping him up late recently. But I needed to talk to someone. I'm going solo against The Joker tonight. He killed Jason Todd, the kid who was Robin before me. Sure, I'm scared. I haven't been able to sleep since The Joker delivered his ultimatum. But what scares me the most is failing. Failing Gotham, failing myself... failing you. But mostly failing Batman. All my friends are worried about their grades and dating and fitting in. Normal teenager stuff. I've got all that and the burden of being the Boy Wonder."

I slump down into the chair and my cape falls over my shoulder, surrounding me in an almost protective motion. It's a good thing no one else can see how pathetic I must look. If only Mom had lived...

"I try to remember that I wanted this. But I never thought of how lonely it would be. I never thought of the price I would have to pay. That's why I came to you."

I'm coming close to crying now. I can feel that tightening in my throat. I kneel at his bedside and take his hand in mine.

"Part of me wishes I could talk to you like this while you were awake, Dad," and I stare at my comatose father, half dead after his brutal torture at the hands of The Obeah Man, breathing intermittently, a monitor beeping next to him with every heartbeat. I think about Mom, lying in her coffin, so quiet, so still. I almost couldn't believe she was real. I kept expecting to see her breathe. I kept remembering waking her up mornings for this or that, and her smiling at me. I kept thinking if I could just wake her up now...

"...and part of me is glad you won't know what happens next."

I shake myself free of my wallowing in self-pity and reminiscing in days that are dead now. I have a city to save.

"Are you certain of this, Robin?" Alfred is unloading holographic equipment into the Cave. We won't be needing it tonight.

"As certain as I can be, Alfred. Any plan we use has to be flexible. We don't know what The Joker has up his sleeve. We have to be ready to shift when he shifts." I've got two laptops in my right arm and a modem in my left.

"This is going to be a rather late evening, I suppose."

"It's going to be busy, anyway," I hand the laptops to Alfred. "It's all in the timing. You'll need the laptop, modem and printer."

"I'm not terribly computer literate, I'm afraid," Alfred's staring at the equipment as if it just might bite him if he touched it. I'd thought of this problem already.

"You won't have to be. Just hook up to the payphone like I showed you and run this program," I press the disk into Alfred's hand, "I told you what to look for in response. Now remember that you might have to move around from one payphone to another."

"In the event The Joker and his villains should trace me," Alfred always makes everything sound so classy.

"Exactly. The ransom will draw The Joker out. I'll need you to track down Osgood Pellinger and the hidden cold room. The professor just can't be a willing partner in this. I believe The Joker is using some of his patented psyche-sculpting drugs on Pellinger. I'm really taking a long shot, but that program should get Osgood's attention. Whether he's in any shape to react to it is another problem..."

I enter another section of the Cave, where all the supplies are kept. Alfred is tagging along behind me. I can tell he's feeling a little left behind by all this techno-crime.

"When you get a bite, you relay it to Gordon at Gotham Phone. He'll be waiting to hear from you."

"He and the police will take it from there."

"Right," I assure him. Alfred doesn't want to have any more to do with this than absolutely necessary. I don't blame him. "Then you can wait at our rendez-vous to pick me up." I wish I could drive I wish I could drive I wish... "I'll need one of these costumes," I point at the Batsuits. There's dozens of them. He'll never miss one. Especially not if I save Gotham with it.

I can't disguise myself as Batman, I'm half his height. And Alfred is half his width. And that rules out all the people who are in on our little Bat-secret. I had to come up with a slightly more dangerous plan. A dummy. Then again, if The Joker's plan is what I think it is, a dummy is the safer plan.

"...Siberian Express forcing a storm front ahead of it that is bringing more snow to the greater Gotham area. Look for at least twelve inches overnight. A white Christmas for sure, folks..."

Mayor Hill was leaning against his desk in his dark office late at night, massaging well-earned knots in his neck muscles while staring at the TV news.

"White Christmas, my aching butt. Look at the smile on that idiot."

The phone rang. "Now what?"

"Mr. Mayor, this is Gordon," Commissioner Gordon's voice came over the staticy telephone line. The Mayor could hear the sounds of a truck engine in the background, along with muffled voices. "We have the truck ready and the driver's set to go. We wait an hour after drop-off and then you radio The Joker."

"Jim, tell me this is going to work out," the Mayor was tired of not running the city anymore. He wanted reassurance. He wanted a guarantee. He knew Gordon couldn't tell him with any truthfulness that he was sure it would work out. Right now, Mayor Hill would settle for a lie. "Tell me Batman can handle this creep and I can get back to the normal craziness of running this town."

"Just think of how much you'd have to worry about if there was a billion dollars of the city's money in this truck. Batman can do this. He's taken The Joker down before."

"Be careful, Jim," and the Mayor hung up the phone.

Commissioner Gordon snapped his cell phone shut, pocketed it, and turned to look at the snowflakes falling onto the red truck they were filling with newspaper clipped to the size and shape of money. The Mayor didn't know Batman was nowhere to be found. He didn't know that the Commissioner was leaving this up to a fourteen-year-old boy. He didn't know that Robin had never fought The Joker before. He didn't know that The Joker had already killed a Robin. What the Mayor did not know could not hurt the Commissioner.

"Don't let me down, Robin," he whispered to no one at all.

"You sure? I don't see anybody on the street," the cop in the driver's seat is glancing nervously around the alleyway they had steered the big red rig into.

"This is the place."

"I dunno..."

The officer driving the rig flings open the door and hops down from the cab of the truck. "You expected him to be sittin' in the Batmobile eatin' doughnuts and waitin' on us? Come on."

"I just feel funny leavin' a billion dollars on the street in this neighborhood," he follows the driver to the waiting police car a few feet away. I guess the Commissioner didn't tell everyone involved that it was only newspaper, not money. Smart move.

"He's here, don't worry about it. He just don't like people seein' him, is all."

"I guess."

I hear two car doors close and the motor sounds diminish. I peek over the edge of the rooftop. There's my truck. I drop the case full of tools and wiring to the snow near the cab. In a second I'm next to it.

I wonder if that cop would be so confident if he knew that it was Robin who'd be watching over the city's money. I don't think so.

I pull the door open and toss the case up onto the driver's seat. The seat is as high as my chest. I hoist myself up and into the cab. The penlight between my teeth is barely enough to light my work as I hook together metal bars and wiring that will operate this huge rig remotely. It's finished in a matter of minutes. Am I good, or am I good?

I scan the skyline for a good anchor for my 'rang. Batman says I'm an equal partner. He believes it. Everyone else but him and Alfred sees me as just a sidekick. Just a kid. The list includes The Joker. He underestimates me. That's my only edge.

I'm above the rig now. Time to take my position near the bridge. The truck will follow me. I hope.

Of course, The Joker's underestimating me is an edge only if I'm not overestimating myself. Way too late to worry about that.

Bones sat in a folding chair in front of a wall of television sets in The Joker's new hideout. He held a beer in one hand and a greasy buffalo wing in the other.

"Mmmmm.... beeeeeeeer..." the surround sound on the televisions made Homer sound like he was in the room with them.

"We interrupt this program to bring a special address for The Joker."

"Boss!" Bones called for The Joker. "You oughta maybe have a look at this. Must be real important. They in'errupted The Simpsons for it!"

Joker froze in front of the screens, anxiously awaiting the message.

"Boss, you think they're--"

"SHHH!"

"I am authorized by my own office and the city council to concede to your demands. As specified, a red truck has been loaded with one billion dollars cash and is awaiting further instructions from you." the Mayor's image disappeared and was replaced by the face of Lisa Simpson.

"Oh frab-ju-ous day!" Joker spun around and danced over to where the drugged datacrunching doomsayer was still roped to his chair. "Did you hear, Osgood, my man? Our brilliant scheme has come to fruition!"

Osgood drooled.

"Oh dear. You don't look pleased at all. Perhaps an increase in your medication, hm?"

Bones clicked off the sets. "They dinnit mention no Batman, boss. You wanted Batman there and they--"

"--wouldn't dare leave out part of my demands," Joker finished Bones' sentence for him. "If I am disappointed in even the slightest of my demands, then the good doctor and I have a last bit of nastiness for Gotham...a virus program that will be dumped on the city at midnight. This little germ of ours would plague the city for years! Batman will play delivery boy or I will see Gotham City a ghost town! Oh yes."

I'm on a roof in a blizzard again. Commissioner Gordon's on the CB. I've got my remote for the truck. I think I'm set. I sure as heck better be.

"He's given us the exchange point, Robin. It's East Harbor Bridge," Gordon's voice comes through the communicator. "The Joker wants the truck in the center of the span."

"Keep your men away from there, Commissioner. I can handle this end. But keep them ready to move when they get that call."

"I have SWAT teams stationed all over the city and we have the traces set up."

"Okay."

There's a pause as I wait for Gordon to yank this whole thing out of my hands once again. "Good luck, son."

Well. Maybe he does trust me.

"Thanks, sir."

Now to get in touch with Alfred.

"Robin to Operator One. We have the drop-off. Are you situated?"

"Certainly. Not much competition for public telephones tonight."

"Let's get started. Just get on line and run that program. It'll run on every e-mail and interactive public system. I figure The Joker has Pellinger monitoring all of them. He's at the center of The Joker's whole scheme."

"It's running."

"As soon as you get a response, phone Gordon on the cellular and give him the payphone number. They'll trace the call from the phone company and then locate The Joker's mainframe."

"Before you go, sir. I just wanted you to know that I know the pressure you're under, and that I doubt Batman could have done any better than you have done."

I'm suddenly feeling a bit more confident.

"Coming from you that means a lot, Alfred. I only hope I've done enough."

I push the antenna in and snap the plastic case closed around the communicator. Then I extend the antenna on the remote control and click it on. The red indicator light comes on. I can see the smoke rising from the truck's exhaust pipes and I could actually hear it start, even though I'm several buildings away. The snow sure does quiet down the city. I move the gear to drive and the rig starts rolling. This is a bit more complicated than the remote control cars I played with as a kid. My remote is set up almost exactly like the truck controls are. It has a little steering wheel, a gas lever and a brake lever that work almost like the pedals do, a gear shift switch, and a few buttons for lights, wipers, things like that for realism.

I drive the rig as far as I can see, then I idle it and swing over a few more buildings, then drive it a little farther. It's slow going with how icy it is down there. I already heard the tires spin once. But that was about seven brakes ago, and I think I've got the hang of it. This is a little treacherous. Keep it slow.

I can see the bridge. The truck is approaching it now. I slow her down. We're getting more than the foot of snow that the weatherman promised. The big rig would be hard enough for me to handle on dry roads. Just my luck.

There, it's in the middle of the span. Gear down and apply the air brakes evenly. Don't want to jackknife here.

Now the worst part. The waiting. Praying the remote control unit linked to the truck doesn't jam.

I can see the truck clearly from my perch. And I can see Batman behind the wheel. Hm. I'm almost convinced, myself.

The giant clown face had a clock for a nose, and it read 11:27pm. Beneath the face was the pyramid of monitors, but only one was lit. Dr. Osgood Pellinger was lashed to the chair in front of the bottom center monitor, humming mindlessly. The screen blanked and the status checks he was running disappeared. The screen began assembling, slowly at first, pixel by pixel, a picture of a dog. The assembly quickened and the picture was complete. Osgood had stopped humming.

"Pixie?" Osgood croaked. It was the first word he'd spoken in days and days. "Good girl..."

"My kingdom for a steaming cup of Earl Grey..." Alfred muttered, shivering in the cramped phone booth on the corner of 65th and Lex. He'd already had to switch telephones three times and he hoped this was the last. His socks were wet and cold, and the bottoms of his pants legs were frozen solid. His wool cap was doing him no good at all and he wasn't certain if his gloves were making his fingers warmer or colder. And this booth didn't even have a door. Ripped off by hoodlums, I suppose.

Then Alfred's laptop screen began scrolling. "Hello?"

"Where are you, Pixie? Come here, girl. Good girl. Come to Ozzie."

Alfred grabbed the phone from the van. "Commissioner...it worked. Doctor Pellinger responded to the image of his childhood pet. I have a response. The payphone number is 555-2008. He's still online. Hurry and you'll catch him."

Alfred hung up. The only thing he had allowed the Commissioner to say was "Yes, this is Gordon." The less he was on the phone with Gordon, the slimmer the chance he would be recognized as the same voice that answered the telephone at Wayne Manor. Now it was time to go home and wait for Master Tim to contact him with good news.

"Five squad, this is the Commissioner. The target house is in your sector. The number is registered to the Jack Of All Trades Employment Agency. Ninth and Diamond Streets. Be careful. The Joker's had weeks to set up traps."

Before he could finish speaking, trucks with flashing red and blue lights were rolling all over the city, silent as the snow.

"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" The Joker screeched as a fleet of snowmobiles roared across the frozen surface of the river beneath the bridge.

"Is the tr-tr-truck up there, Boss?" Bones, driving the snowmobile Joker was standing on the back of, chattered with cold and fear. Batman could be up there.

"Lester's been watching the bridge all night. He said someone drove it up and parked it and hasn't moved from the cab ...THAR she blows!" Joker pointed. "And it's a pretty red one just like I asked for! Let's see if I got all my Christmas wishes." Joker held out his hand as Bones skidded to a halt just a quarter of a mile from the bridge. Bones reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of binoculars. Joker focused them on the bridge. There, sitting in the cab of the red truck, The Joker saw Batman waiting. "Hoo hoo! So the Birdbrained Boy wasn't left by his lonesome after all!" Joker handed the binoculars back to Bones. "Now it's time for Mister Batty to go bye-bye. He gets to ride ten sticks of dynamite into Gotham Harbour!" Joker pulled out a radio-detonator.

"But," Bones whined, "what if there really is a billion dollars in that truck?"

"Tax deduction," The Joker's grin wasn't disappearing. "Business expense. It would be worth a trillion dollars to know that Batman is finally dead!" Joker pressed the button and the bridge exploded. Actually, to say "exploded" was to euphamise. The bridge erupted with the power of a star gone nova. Robin swung unseen off the roof of a nearby building. "See you on the other side, Long Ears! Wouldn't it be just perfect if Boy Blunder were in there, too? I'd kill two Birdboys with one stone! Ha!"

Burning paper began to rain down on Joker and his men. "See, Bones? Newspaper. Just piles of smoldering newsprint. The city is flat broke, just as I told you.

"Batman" fell to the ground in a comet's tail of flame not far from The Joker. "Oh, this is too lovely!" Joker ran over to the burning figure. "I actually get to see Batman shuffle off to his final reward! So choice! So apropos!"

It has to be now. Now before The Joker gets too close. Now while they're still surprised. Now while they're off balance.

Now while I still have the guts.

"No..." Joker saw the burning face... of a dummy. A grinning plastic face that was not Batman at all. Time seemed to stop, everything moved in slow motion. His victory party had been ruined. And now it was about to be crashed.

My knees connect with the center of The Joker's back, just under his ribcage. I've knocked the wind out of him. He crashes to the snow. His men are closing on me. I gain my footing and extend my bo. I take out one semi-automatic rifle and one .38.

I feel a chill that has nothing to do with the cold. It's fear. I'm riding it -- using the adrenaline rush that it's giving me.

One swing of the bo takes one man up, one man down.

I've dreaded this moment, facing The Joker and his gang. But now that it's here --

I pull the metal R off my costume and hurl it. It stabs into the hand of a sturdy, bearded blond man with a handgun. He drops it.

-- it feels right.

"All my wonderful plans... my sublime machinations... it wasn't supposed to go like this... Batman was supposed to die..." Joker jumps up and starts running. The man beneath my foot is stirring. My bo connects with his temple and he's down for the count. Now I'm after The Joker. He's heading upriver into the city. I can't lose him now. If he escapes, this starts all over again.

I jump on a snowmobile and start after him. The jerk's got ice skates. I should have known...

I'm closing on him. I can hear him yelling something.

"Jingle bells! Batman smells! Robin laid an egg! The Batmobile lost its wheel and The Joker got away!"

I hate that song.

"Jingle bells! Robin smells! Batman's gone away! It'll be a merry Christmas 'cause The Joker's here to stay!"

Not if I can help it. Though I must admit I've never heard that version.

He's headed for the city sewage treatment plant. I can hear him cackling madly. Do I have him on the run, or am I being suckered? Not that it makes any difference. Once I catch up with him, it'll be the same fight.

I jump off the snowmobile and follow him up the ramp to the top of the tanks. I could think of much less foul-smelling places in which I would rather fight The Joker, but I don't think a change of venue is something The Joker would agree to.

The steam from the waste tank hides him. He could be anywhere.

It's perfectly silent. I'm holding my bo defensively. I hope he can't see that.

"Ungh!" suddenly I get a knee in the center of my back, exactly the move I'd just used on The Joker, and I fall on my stomach.

"You know, I always though the robin was supposed to be the first sign of Spring!"

"Uff!" he kicks me in the ribs and I teeter dangerously at the edge of the tank.

"Looks like this little birdy got here a tad early! Doesn't it?" He kneels down straddling me, pinning me to the deck, and clamps his right hand around my throat. "Batman's going to have to get choosier with his next sidekick," he jerks my head. I have one tight fist around his wrist, the other on a handful of his long scarf. "Their lifespans get shorter each time." I try flipping him over my head by lifting my legs, but he pins my leg down with his shin. It doesn't help that he's much taller than me, if not heavier. "The last Robin couldn't have been seventeen." He pulls back his left hand like he's going to punch me, but instead he pulls my hand away from his scarf and switches his grip on my throat to his left hand. "You don't look fourteen! You may set the record," two blades project from his bunny mitten on his right hand, "for the shortest lifespan of them all!"

Now he goes for the punch, but with two long blades pointing from his glove. I grab his arm and try to divert his punch from the center of my face. I succeed. It gets me across the shoulder instead. It cuts through my Kevlar cape and tunic, and my skin. Lose the pain. Keep my mind on my next move.

The thrust put him off balance. Now I can kick him forward. Over my head. Into the sewage tank. And down he goes.

"AAAAAGGHHHHH!!!"

I roll over on my left arm, conscious of the pain in my right shoulder, and stare down at The Joker flailing in raw sewage. How often would I get this opportunity? I know there's a snappy line I could say here. Some remark to humiliate The Joker even more than he already is. Something in the "Dick Grayson" style. Or in my own style...

I'm just too tired to think of one right now. I pull myself up on the railing on the opposite side of the deck.

The cops show.

"Is he here? Did you get him?"

I've wanted to say this for two weeks: "I got him."

Men in blue are swarming around me. I grip one of them by the shoulders. "Dr. Pellinger? Did you find him?"

"Tactical has a location. They're rolling on it. They should be on the scene by now."

"FREEZE!!!!" the SWAT team burst through the doors of Joker's hideout.

"Pixie... good girl... come to Ozzie..." Pellinger was barely conscious.

"At ease, guys. He's not going anywhere. This is what we've been looking for. But I don't know what to make of it..."

"Good girl... C'mon girl..."

"Isn't there supposed to be traps here or something?"

"No time for that. I say we just waste the whole thing. Lock and load," he rolled Dr. Pellinger's chair away from the system.

"...Pixie?"

Automatic gunfire shattered the relative quiet Pellinger had been living in for two weeks. And the system was destroyed.

It's over.