"Robin." Tim stood from the crouched position he had landed in. When Batman had called earlier he had switched channels, not sure he was ready to face an interrogation just yet. But he hadn't counted on Babs and her being able to hack into the cave's systems. He had been finishing suiting up...just donning his cape, the mask still on the table... when the large screen on one wall had sprung to life, portraying the large green Oracle icon. The sound system had started up with a spattering of static, then Batman had informed him, in no uncertain terms, that he was to meet him A.S.A.P. at the old Barklay Ceramics factory.
So he was here now, Batman was melting out of the shadows, and he was sure he was about to get fired or something. He knew that ignoring Batman's first call was not the smartest thing he'd ever done; there could have been a real emergency that needed his assistance. He regretted letting his personal fears interfere. He cleared his throat nervously.
"Batman. I, uh, I can..." Batman motioned for him to quit, so he shut up, beginning to hope, for the first time, that this wasn't about his home life, but rather an honest-to-goodness crime or lead to follow. Batman motioned for him to follow and led him across the roof, down the side of the building and into a dark alley. Tim looked around, years of training keeping him on his toes when it came for spotting danger, but nothing moved in the deserted alley. Batman stood in the shadows, apparently waiting for something, and within moments the Batmobile pulled silently around the corner and eased to a stop.
After indicating that Tim should get in the car, Batman took out a small device, fiddled with it for a moment, and put it back in his utility belt. Tim barely caught a glimpse of it in the moonlight, but he recognized it as a scrambler, a device used to nullify bugs or other communications devices. Batman didn't want anyone eavesdropping on their discussion. Oh. That meant it probably was about his recent behavior. Drat. The car moved forward again, this time in Batman's control, and the streets sped by too quickly for Tim to keep track of where they were headed.
"Do you want to explain to me why your stepmother called the Manor in a panic because you had disappeared?" the question came without warning, startling Tim out of his reverie.
"Well...um, you see my dad...wait! Dana called the Manor?" this was a twist he hadn't anticipated. "What did she say? Was she..." Batman grunted, cutting him off, and threw him The Look. Tim sat back, subdued. He heaved a deep sigh.
"I got in a fight with my dad and ran away." He winced as he said it, knowing that Batman would berate him for any number of things, from running away from something to fighting with his dad in the first place. But no reprimand was forthcoming, and the silence grated on Tim's nerves enough for him to try to fill it with nervous chatter. "He was a little upset at seeing me after last night's encounter with some of Joker's henchmen. He started talking about me quitting being Robin again, ok?" he knew he sounded petulant, but couldn't take it back after the fact. Batman glanced at him.
"I thought that was taken care of."
"So did I!" Tim burst out. "That's what the fight was about. I guess now that the whole city isn't a war zone he doesn't feel like it's required anymore." He fell silent, mulling over the problem. "I ... I think he might have found out about Steph." Stephanie's death had been explained to outsiders as a mugging gone wrong during the gang war. It had satisfied everyone for a while...no one knew of her involvement with the Bat-clan, except her mother. But her mother had thrown out Stephanie's backup costume and Tim had rescued it.
Though the pain he had felt at her death hadn't been as great as it should have been had he really loved her, forcing him to admit, if only to himself, that he had stopped caring about her as a girlfriend long ago, he felt guilt that she had died trying to prove herself. To Batman, to the Birds... to him. So he had kept her mask in his room, a reminder. Unfortunately his dad had noticed it, had started asking questions about it. That had been right before he also noticed the marks on Tim's body and started yelling. Tim only assumed that his dad had put the mask and Tim's girlfriend's death together and the threat of his son dying had sent him over the edge. Again.
"He didn't know she was Spoiler, and I think he figured it out. So we yelled, and I... well, I ran away. I packed a bag and left. I mean, I love my dad...really! But he... he... I can't stop being Robin. I've gone that route and learned that, for now, it's something that I have to do. And he can't understand that." Batman didn't say anything, but the car slowed and Tim glanced out the window. He recognized the neighborhood and groaned.
"Come on, Bruce, I'm still too mad about this! I'm not ready to..."
"You don't have to." Tim waited for him to elaborate, tensing up for an argument. "From what I gathered talking to Dana, your father has locked himself in his room, refusing to..."
"Not again!" Tim muttered, remembering the months after the family had lost their fortune.
"Refusing to talk to anyone." Batman continued as if Tim hadn't interrupted. "He may or may not be willing to talk to you, but since you don't want to talk to him, that point is null anyway. We're here so you can apologize to your stepmother for leaving like that." Tim winced. Dana had always been kind to him...sometimes more of a mother than his own had been before she died. He hadn't meant to worry her, he had only wanted to get away from his dad.
"What if..."
"If you decide you can't stay there, you are welcome at the Manor, but remember, Tim, you are legally underage and therefore under your parent's guardianship. You will have to decide how much and what to tell Dana, but she will have some say in your plans." Tim nodded, recognizing an order when he heard one.
"Will you...are you going to wait, or...?"
"No. Joker's still at large. Take care of this. If you can come back out tonight, do so, but if not, call Alfred so he knows your plans." Tim nodded. He climbed out of the Batmobile and shot our a jump-line. He would have to sneak into his room to change out of his costume before coming back through the front door to speak with Dana.
The apartment was quiet, most of the lights turned out, and he had little trouble getting in and out of his room unnoticed. He was a little surprised to see that nothing had been moved since his disappearance. The lack of a search implied that either no one had thought any evidence of his whereabouts could be found within his belongings, or that no one had cared enough to try. The second thought he could perhaps apply to his dad, especially in his current mindset, but he had trouble believing that Dana would call Bruce inquiring after him if she didn't care. He snuck back out the way he had come in and made his way down to the street level. By the time he reached the apartment door his hands were trembling, albeit imperceptibly, and he was fighting the urge to turn around and run off again. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door, unsure of what he'd find.
Dana sat in an easy chair under a lamp, the only illumination in the room, reading a book. Though her posture was relaxed, Tim could detect a tenseness in her and felt another twinge of guilt at worrying her. As he opened the door and entered the apartment she looked up, surprise quickly fading to relief and then morphing to affectionate irritation.
"Tim! Where have you..."
"Wait." He cut her off, feeling that neither of them needed to go through the anxious parent/ rebellious teen act. She raised an eyebrow, surprised at having been cut off; Tim was usually very well-mannered. He sighed and closed the door, unable to keep from comparing it's soft click to a clang of a prison cell door.
"Are you... all right?" Her hesitancy made him feel even worse, as he assumed it stemmed from the fact that he had been acting quite peculiar lately and that she wasn't sure how to approach him.
"I'm..." he couldn't say he was fine, because technically he wasn't. But he wanted to reassure her. "I'm ok. I'm really...really sorry for running out and scaring you. I, um, wasn't exactly thinking at the time." She nodded. He didn't know what his dad had told her, if anything, about their fight, and didn't want to give away more than she knew.
"I was worried, Tim. I heard you and Jack yelling at each other and then you disappeared and he locked himself up again..." she stopped, looking away. Tim winced.
"You heard us?" She nodded.
"I couldn't understand what was being said, but it sounded... it sounded bad." Tim nodded and sat down on the couch, resting his chin in his hand on the edge of the sofa's arm.
"You're right...it was bad. I said a lot of things I shouldn't have...hateful things. But their cruelness doesn't mean they weren't true. I..." he broke off, suddenly more weary than he had been in a long time. "I'm not sure I can keep on doing this."
"Doing what?" He shrugged.
"Living here, acting like everything's fine. I...you know I love my dad...but all that anger doesn't come out of nowhere. I guess it's been building up inside me for a long time; so slowly that I didn't notice it. Like the proverbial frog in the pot, I didn't notice the rising temperature until it was too late."
"It's not too late, Tim. I know Jack has some... issues, but he's tried so hard to be part of..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know!" She looked hurt at his angry outburst and he took a deep breath.
"Listen, Dana, I can understand your position here, but you have to try to understand mine! My dad basically ignored me for thirteen years, leaving me alone with just Mrs. Mac And I did all right...then when everything went down, what with mom's death and dad's coma, I was still on my own. And then everything changed. Dad woke up, you came along, and for a while I thought we were going to be a real family. Dad actually seemed to want to be part of my life, and I was so thrilled I didn't realize how odd that was. But... the situation was hard to adjust to, because while I wanted him in my life, I had gotten to used to being on my own. Of course, then he sent me to Brentwood, and I thought maybe he was reverting to character."
"Tim..." she tried to interrupt.
"After we lost all the money, I wanted to believe in him, even when he made it hard by locking himself up. He is my dad, after all. Then when he fou..." whoops! Don't bring up Robin, Tim! "Uh, found out that I wasn't on the football team and I was, um, grounded," well, that was one way of looking at it. Dana hadn't known that Robin's wings had been clipped, but she would have had to have been blind to not feel some of the tension. And she knew that Tim had gotten in some kind of trouble, but that they were keeping it from her. "I was mad, upset. But I got used to sticking around here and getting to be closer to him. Now, though, ... I don't know. Every time we start to connect, something happens to drive a wedge between us again. We just can't seem to get over our differences, and all the years of hurt aren't making it any easier." He looked down at the floor.
"Tim, maybe you both just need some time to cool off. I'm sure we can work this out." Tim laughed, somewhat harshly.
"I don't think so, Dana. But thanks. This... this situation isn't something you can help with."
"But maybe if I knew what..."
"No. No. Sorry. Dad didn't want you to know, and this is one thing I can agree with him on, at least to a point. The less you know, the safer...uh...I mean better off you'll be." He nearly smacked himself at his slip. He must be more tired than he thought. He looked up, hoping she had missed his slip of the tongue, but she was looking at him strangely.
"O-kay!" he said with false enthusiasm, "I, uh, guess I'll just be go..."
"Tim." She said his name slowly, consideringly. "Tim, does this fight with Jack have anything to do with..."
"No! Of course it doesn't have anything to do with you! You're probably one of the best things that's hap..." he broke off, flushing as she raised an eyebrow in inquiry.
"That's not exactly what I was going to ask, but it's nice to know." She threw him a half-smile. He grinned back, sheepishly. "Actually I was going to ask if you were fighting about...um... your nighttime activities?"
"..." Tim was sure his mouth was hanging down to the floor. She didn't mean...she couldn't mean...how could she know about....!?
"Uh, Tim, you might want to breathe now." He did so, not having realized he had stopped in all the shock. Common sense was returning, slowly, and he widened his eyes, trying to look innocent.
"Nighttime activities? I don't know what you mean." Her eyes narrowed and he felt the noose tighten around his neck.
"You don't?" her voice was too sweet, too friendly. Warning sirens flashed in his mind.
"Ummmmm. No. I don't." She sighed and, instead of attacking, she backed down. But the look she gave him, one of deep hurt and disappointment, cut to his heart.
"Tim, do you remember my wedding to your father?" huh? Where was she going with this?
"Yeah..." he drawled it out, not sure he wanted to commit to an answer.
"Do you remember the night before our wedding?" she asked more pointedly. He kept his facial features blank, but his mind was spinning. The night before Dana and his Dad's wedding Dana had been possessed by an evil sorceress with the power to control animals. Robin and Spoiler had stopped her, but, while possessed, Dana had seen him as Tim and Robin. She hadn't revealed any recognition afterwards, and he had assumed that she didn't remember. Apparently that may have been a false assumption.
"Are you telling me that you...since then? Why didn't you say anything?" Tim was hoping he could get her to clarify that she was referring to Robin, so he wouldn't blow the secret...again. His dad thought that knowing the secret would "kill" Dana, though Tim had more faith in her than that. He had always just wanted to protect his loved ones.
"Tim, I... I figured if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me. And I didn't think your dad would take it very well." She paused. "He hasn't, has he? That is what this is all about, right?" Tim shrugged.
"Depends on what 'this' is." Dana rolled her eyes.
"Ok, fine. 'This' refers to the fact that you are, and have been for quite some time, I'd imagine, Robin. Am I correct?" The grim look on his face answered her question.
"So...why aren't you upset, like my dad?" She shook her head.
"Tim, I experienced Robin's talents first hand. Though I cared for you and was naturally concerned, I saw that you could take care of yourself. And I knew that you were doing an important job... just look at the situation! I was carrying around the crazy soul of an evil sorceress... if you hadn't stopped us, who knows what would have happened? I have always felt that the job you, and Batman, and whoever else is out there, are doing is important. Besides," she shrugged self-deprecatingly, "I wasn't exactly family at the time."
"But..."
"No, really, Tim. I understood that I was the outsider coming in...I just hope we've moved beyond that stage since then?" He grinned at her.
"Yeah. We have."
"Good. So, are you planning on staying here?" her tone almost implied a threat if he didn't, but he knew her concern was borne out of love.
"Yeah, I guess I can stay." He looked towards his Dad and Dana's room and added, "And tomorrow I'll see if I can't try to patch things up."
"HEEE-heeheeheehee!" The manic laugh echoed through the abandoned mattress factory. In one dimly lit corner, a chemist's table was set up, with chemicals bubbling merrily away, oblivious to the sinister nature of their fates. A crash followed the laugh, and somewhere someone screamed. One shadow, indiscernible from the rest, seemed to flinch, but that may have been a trick of what little light there was. To an observer, one who knew that the shadow was Batman, it might have seemed as if the Dark Knight had finally stumbled upon Joker's latest hideout. Yet to Batman himself, it had all the markings of another of Joker's death-traps. He knew that if he rushed in without analyzing the scene, it could end disastrously.
A chemical analysis of the note left at the Collwell fire had led him to the industrial sector of the city; an area packed with abandoned warehouses and old factories that could easily be transformed into criminal hideouts. Not that there weren't functional factories as well, but the number of places Joker could hide down here were nearly limitless. The sound of footsteps, followed by that haunting laugh, had led him here, to the Comfort-Select mattress factory. He had investigated, noting the many darkened rooms, and found this make-shift lab set up. He had already checked out the supposed chemicals, and found them to be colored sugar and salt waters.
He had been upset at Tim earlier in the evening, which didn't help the situation any. Strong emotions rarely did. He been annoyed that Tim had run away and not told anyone in the Bat-clan that he was having trouble, but more because of the effect it had on his ongoing investigation than because Tim had been covering up his problems. His anger really hadn't been aimed at the youth 's familial dilemma; Tim wanted to stay Robin and his father wasn't sure he was ok with that. Batman could understand the sentiments on both sides.
He himself had many reservations about letting younger vigilantes work alongside him. Spoiler's death had only accentuated the guilt he felt, and made it harder to put his agents in harm's way. Yet he knew that if he didn't they would see it as a lack of trust in them, much as Cassandra had when he hadn't let her help even before she had gotten hurt, and possibly strike out on their own. Again, as this was, in part, what caused Spoiler's demise, he knew he had to tread carefully with the younger generation.
Another crash echoed around the building and the shadow that was the Bat moved fluidly into motion. He slipped through the shadows like a wraith, a figment of any witness' imagination. He followed the sounds of laughter and destruction until he reached the entrance to room filled with old and rusted industrial sewing machines. He was on the second level, with a ten-foot drop over the balcony to the production floor below. Perhaps he had developed a kind of Bat-radar over the years, or perhaps he simply knew his foe all too well. In either case, he knew instinctively that to step forward would be catastrophic.
Instead, he leapt nimbly up into the air, flipping midway through his arc, soaring over the tripline Joker had rigged up. His motion brought him over the railing of the balcony and he threw out a jumpline to slow his descent and change his direction. He seemed to fly over the machinery below, cape streaming out behind him, looking every bit the creature of the night. His feet came up to brace against the wall opposite of the balcony from where he had just come. The impact should have jarred him, knocked the wind out of him, but years of training allowed him to compensate easily. He pulled himself up to the rafters, blending into the shadows to again wait and watch.
His earlier anger had been directed more towards the situation Tim had found himself in the previous evening. Though the encounter with the Joker's thugs had turned out in a victory for Robin, the injuries he had sustained were more severe than those inflicted by your normal run-of-the-mill henchmen. The hired goons were stronger than usual. Different. More disciplined. Yet one more anomaly in an ever-growing pool of anomalies that suggested Joker was into something different this time. And with the Joker, different nearly always meant more lethal.
There was no movement below in the darkened room, and Batman switched the lenses in his cowl to an infared/night-vision combination, allowing him to search the room for the trap he had sensed. There. At the entrance to the room a thin thread, not too different from the threads still wound through the sewing machines, was stretched taut. Had he walked into the room instead of jumping in, he would have stepped right into it, pulling it and setting off whatever mechanism it was attached to. He followed the thin line with his eyes, tracking it over to the wall, up to where it disappeared into the ceiling. He frowned. He wouldn't know what the trap was unless he could find it.
Another crash made him turn towards a door on the opposite side of the room. No trip-wires were laid here, but he knew it was just as much as trap as the first. He switched his lenses back to the normal starlight setting and dropped down among the machinery. He moved swiftly but silently towards the next room, prepared for anything. As he entered the room he heard a nearly imperceptible woosh and ducked, narrowly avoiding being decapitated by the razor-sharp pendulum. He let his momentum carry him down into a roll and came up on his feet, alert.
"HEEE-heeheeheehee!" once again the laugh echoed, sending chills up his spine. The voice was most likely a recording, meant to lure him into the trap, but he couldn't discount the possibility that Joker actually was here. A shadow moved across a far wall and he turned, moving smoothly into a fighting stance. The shadow took on a human form, female, by the looks of it, and then it cart-wheeled away into the next room in this strange labyrinth. He followed quickly; if it was Harley Quinn he didn't want her to escape.
The next room was finally what he had come to expect from Joker. It wasn't any more brightly lit than the other rooms, but the walls were splashed with blinding colors and grotesque clowns and smiles were painted in random patterns across the walls, ceiling, and floor. The room was empty, except for a big purple package tied with a bright green bow and Harley's figure opening a door on the other side of the room.
"Bye-bye, Batsy!" she blew him a kiss and slammed the door even as he prepared to launch himself at her. A blinking red light next to the door, triggered by her closing it, was the only warning he received before the package in the center of the room exploded.
To be continued...
