A/N: Thank you for all your reviews! I'll try to update more frequently than I have been—RL got a bit in the way the last few weeks. Midterms are coming up for me as well, but I promise not to study too hard.

Chapter 5: Dark Days, Dark Nights

I hate chemistry.

Well, I suppose that technically isn't true. I hate my AP Chemistry class. I don't really have any feelings towards chemistry itself.

My teacher doesn't help, just keeps lecturing on hydrogen bonding. Bruce taught me all this a long time ago—it was stuff I had to know and had a handle on years ago. So I nod off.

"Mister Drake!"

I jump and hear my classmates snicker. I can't stand these people, I really can't.

"Yes, sir?" I say, once my heart quits pounding.

"Would you care to tell us what's wrong with the equation on the board?"

I look around him. "It's not balanced."

He kind of looks surprised, but I'm too tired to care what he thinks. He's a nice guy, though, the only teacher I have that's not walking on eggshells around me. "Very good." He goes back to lecturing, and after class, I go looking for caffeine to keep me awake through the rest of school.

By the time I get home, I'm exhausted, but Cass apparently climbed through my window and is waiting for me. "We have a problem," she announces.

I drop my backpack and head for the fridge for a Zesti. Ah, caffeine. I take a sip first. "What problem?"

She's got a box of those sugar Valentine hearts. Damn it, I thought I hid those better. "Penguin put a hit out on us."

I sigh. "Great."

She perches on the top of my couch and munches on one of the candy hearts. "I couldn't find out who it was. Do I have a…listening thing?"

"A microphone?" I ask. "Yeah, I've got an extra one around here somewhere."

"We should bug Penguin's office," she says.

"Yeah," I say, not really listening to her.

She stops talking and hops off the couch. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I say. I've already spilled my guts to her once.

"No, you're not," she contradicts me.

"Still no sign of my uncle," I say. "Bruce and I were trying to figure something out."

She looks at me, then holds out the box of candy. "Have a heart."

I kind of snort and take one. "Thanks."

She smiles, looking over to read the printed message. "Buh-e. Be—Min?"

"Be mine," I say, letting her take another look at it before popping it in my mouth. "I'm going to go take a nap."

"You have housework," she says, pointing at my backpack and I laugh. "Homework," I say. "Housework is chores."

"Oh," she says.

"I'll do it later," I say, shrugging it off. I don't mean to be rude to her about it, but I really have to get some sleep. I didn't sleep last night—too many things on my mind, and I didn't even have the benefit of being exhausted from a night out as Robin.

I wake up, sweating, three minutes before my alarm goes off. I hate nightmares, especially this one that keeps coming back. I had it for a while, but it went away. The night Bruce offered to adopt me, they came back, and they've been worse.

Cass spent the night on my couch again the night before last and I had the nightmare. I had to get up and check to make sure she was still there and breathing—I suppose that's why I went to Gotham yesterday. I could have just called Bruce, but I wanted to see him, and Dick, just to assure myself that they were okay.

I'm not going to be able to do this every time I have a nightmare.

Maybe I need to see a shrink.

Yeah, that'll work. I can see that conversation now. "What can I do for you, Mr. Drake?"

"Well, Mr. Psychiatrist, sir, for one, I'm Robin, Boy Wonder, my current father figure is Batman, who also happens to be Bruce Wayne. My best friends are Nightwing, Batgirl, who I'm teaching how to read, and Oracle, the greatest source of organized information in the world, plus the Teen Titans. My father is dead because a crazy woman hired a two-bit rogue to kill him, and my girlfriend died because she was too damn stupid to listen to Bruce and stay out of the gang war. So I moved to Blüdhaven, the cesspool of Gotham to continue my destructive lifestyle while my stepmother is in a hospital to deal with her grief. So, Doc, can you fix my head?"

They'd throw me in Arkham.

I pull out my costume. The might throw me in there anyway if they caught me running around in this—perhaps not in Blüdhaven, but Gotham certainly would.

Sometimes I wonder if Robin should exist. I'm not talking about giving up crime-fighting, but as I fit my mast to my face, I have to admit that I'm not very intimidating.

I sigh, wrapping my cape around my shoulders. This is still ten times better than that outfit that Dick used to wear with the pixie boots and the short pants. Time to get to work.

Trouble seems to be at my front door as an angry boyfriend shoves his girlfriend up against the wall. I barely even swing on the de-cel line as I drop down. "Let her go."

He sneers at me. Wrong move. I could drop him in two moves, but I have very little patience for abusers. I hit him in the face twice. Pretty boy's nose is broken for sure, and with one blow to his solar plexus, I make breathing even more painful. I grab a handful of his hair. "Let me tell you something. You don't ever hit a woman. If you do, I will find you and you will not get away as easily as you did tonight." I let a bit of Batman's gravel creep into my voice. "Understand me?"

He nods, blubbering, before running off. I turn to the girl. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she says hatefully. "And I would have been fine. Now I've got to go clean him up." She stalks off.

This is a thankless job. I think it again when I stop a drug deal on Ninth Street and the kid pulls a knife on me, when I make my way towards a burglary in progress and get shots fire at me, and when I step into another public domestic violence case. At least she was grateful that time and promised to go to a battered women's shelter. The shelter was on the other side of town, so I strayed slightly from my patrol.

This is Cass' side of town, but I don't see her swinging between buildings. For all I know, she could be somewhere that I usually work.

But her words keep echoing in my head, that Penguin has put out a contract on our heads, and I remember my nightmare.

I can't help worrying. It's in my nature. I don't have my comm with me at the moment—it's been fritzing out and I haven't gotten a new one from Bruce yet. I shouldn't have really gone out without it, but with Oracle not talking into my ear on a nightly basis anymore, I didn't think it would be a big deal. Which still doesn't solve my problem of finding Cass.

I pull out my locator, hoping she hasn't had a fit of rebellion and yanked it out of her outfit. She hasn't, of course—she doesn't have a reason to do so. She's only a few blocks away and I pull out a de-cel line to go meet her.

That's when I see it. A piece of straw, floating down, wafting on the wind.

There is no reason straw should be on top of a Blüdhaven roof in the middle of winter.

Scarecrow.

I put my breather in my mouth, not taking any chances as I whip around to see a flash vanish across the roof with a wicked cackle. Damn.

He's not supposed to be in Blüdhaven. There's been no sign of him for weeks now, and with that damn comm broken, even if Bruce knew Scarecrow was here, he couldn't have told me.

I keep following him—he's got a fair lead on my now, and I've almost lost sight of him. I stop for a second, taking in my surroundings. I rip my locator out. Thank God, Cass is only three roofs away.

"Batgirl" I yell at the top of my lungs. "Look out! Scarecrow!"

I keep hollering the closer I get, but I stop on the next roof in horror.

Cass is kneeling, staring at her hands in horror and I hear her heart-breaking sob. Scarecrow is practically beaming, and he lifts his hand to pull her mask off, the other holding a jagged looking knife.

Bruce congratulated me on my improvement with the batarangs. I pull every bit of skill I can manage, and throw.

Scarecrow drops his hand, clutching it with the other as blood spurts out of it. Nobody messes with one of our own. Nobody. And Scarecrow is about to find out what that means.

I fly across the rooftop, my bo out and ready, and Scarecrow backs up. I see fear underneath that mask of his, and I have no intention of letting his fear abate. I'm too angry now to care about measured responses. He's damn well lucky that Bruce isn't here.

I could have taken his head off if I'd swung a bit harder, but as it was, he was in too much pain from his hand to duck the blow I did throw at him. For one brief second, I considered throwing his body off the roof, but tied him up instead.

I finally look at Cass. She's doubled over in horror, just staring at her hands. Her sobs have quieted, and she's not talking, almost as if she's lost the ability she'd gained.

"Cass," I say, lifting up her head. "Cass. Look at me."

She does, but shakes her head no, over and over again, her focus returning to her hands. Scarecrow is still unconscious, and I gently pull her mask from her face. Tears are streaming down her cheeks, and I see the terror and hurt and guilt in her eyes. She's too paralyzed by whatever it is he's made her see to even move.

I pick her up, cradling her in my arms. Her place is closer for the moment, and slipping her mask back over her face, I swing down to take her home.