"Who is he?"

Robin continued to stare down at his reflection in the badge as he answered Danny as they walked down the sidewalk. "I know his name is Slade. But you know as much about his identity as I do."

Danny was confused. "That's it? You don't know who he is, where he's from, why he's after you?"

"He's an insane megalomaniac with eyes and ears everywhere and a superiority complex worse than Napoleon." Robin looked up and off into the distance, a habit the secretive hero had when opening up to someone. "At first, I was just a subject for him to tease and tantalize with sarcastic messages, baffling clues, and cryptic crimes. I guess I passed the test because he decided I'd make a great sidekick, since I reminded him so much of himself." It was the first time he'd spoken about that out loud to anyone since a sentence or two with Starfire. Flashbacks overcame him like a flood: Everything you care about, you destroy. I know you hate losing almost as much as I do. Excellent, Robin. I think your skills are improving. For some time now I've been searching for... an apprentice. Someone to follow in my footsteps. I've chosen you. Sooner or later, you will see things my way…That voice! The memory hurt like a blow from a two-by-four.

Something in his voice must have given him away. The boys stopped in unison. Robin continued vocally reliving some of the worst moments of his life between heavy breaths. He described for Danny the time Slade saved his life as he was about to fall off a building and then saved him again when Robin threatened to kill himself if he harmed the Titans whom Slade had used to pressure him into serving him. He couldn't bring himself to talk about Terra, but he did explain that Slade disappeared after a battle in an erupting volcano and that he was the only one who didn't believe he died… until a week ago when he had the second-closest call he'd had yet with death, at the hands of absolutely no one and nothing, just the power of his own obsession.

"Once I heard Cyborg say that someone needed to trigger it, I panicked. Only for a millisecond, but… I had finally let it go." Robin threw his hands up in exasperation and started walking again, faster this time.

"It wasn't your fault," said Danny.

"It only took an atom bomb's worth of abuse before I remembered that people get wet in the rain, what's invisible to one person is invisible to everyone, and I not once connected with anything solid," said Robin.

"That's the idea behind an illusion," said Danny. "You see what you want to see."

"You know you're addicted once you've crossed the line between wanting and needing," said Robin. "My friend Starfire had an arch nemesis, too, her older sister. When their Battle to End All Battles finally came, I could see the anticipation in her eyes that had been mounting for sixteen years. She won without going crazy."

"A control freak who considers psychological warfare fun and games is not the same as a rival," said Danny. "This is different."

"It's not the mind games, it's not the rivalry, it's not even that we are so much alike" said Robin, shaking his head and holding Slade's badge up again. "It's the secrecy that drives me crazy. Not exactly a breakthrough there."

"As hard as it must be for you, look on the bright side," said Danny. "You might not know his secret, but at least he doesn't know yours."

"I've been Robin for so long, it's hard for me to remember my secret identity sometimes," Robin answered as he pocketed the copper disk. He paused mid-gesture as something clicked. He finally looked over at Danny. "Wait a minute. You're not saying…" Now it was Danny's turn to look away as he flashbacked to the pain of his first encounter with Vlad Plasmius, only physical pain in his case but even more intense. "You know his identity, too, don't you?" Robin wondered out loud, realizing he might have wrongly assumed that just because he knew next to nothing about his arch nemesis, neither did Danny.

"Ever heard of Vlad Masters?" Danny said as he turned back to face Robin.

"No," Robin answered.

"Big time billionaire. Went to college with my dad when he was already obsessed with ghosts. Same experiment, same explosion, same powers."

"Doesn't necessarily mean it made him half-ghost."

"He told me the day after he nearly killed me," Danny assured Robin. "Once he found out whose son I was, he decided he'd rather recruit me."

"When you can't reach the father, pick on the son," Robin mused sympathetically. "It's a curse."

"Actually, it's more about my mom now," said Danny. And he continued to fill Robin in on Vlad's fixation with his mother, twenty year strong grudge against his father, and his two narrow escapes at the college reunion a few weeks ago.

Robin finally stopped him. "Sounds like you were the only one who could stop him then. What makes you think he's still after you?" The truth was, the whole thing bored him when he thought about what seemed his eternal psychological struggle with Slade. It was nothing like he'd been expecting.

"Hello, you saw the camera, didn't you?" Danny answered, annoyed at sensing he wasn't being taken seriously. "You think it's a coincidence that ghosts didn't start invading this town, and might I add only this town, until after I got my powers? I don't even know how long he's really been spying on me or testing me."

"Being an obstacle between him and his goal doesn't make you his goal," said Robin.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Robin said a little too patronizingly. The boys stopped and faced each other. "Look, it's my fault and I'm sorry, but I jumped to the wrong conclusion."

"What are you getting at?" Danny demanded, crossing his arms.

"I thought you were being targeted by a psychopath just like me," said Robin. "No offense, but compared to what I've been through, you've just taken a stroll in the park."

"I'm telling you, you've got some nerve, all right," Danny snapped.

"Oh, come on," Robin said, now not only angry that he had spilled out his secrets to a kid but just plain bored with the conversation. "We're talking about entirely different scenarios here. You've been fighting this Plasmius for a few weeks, I've been fighting Slade for over a year. I gave up my conscience, almost lost my friends, almost lost them their lives, and ran away from home again just to find out who he is, but there's no mystery about Plasmius. He picked you because of your parents. Slade picked me because he sees himself in me."

"We have the exact same powers!" Danny interjected.

"What? Ghost powers can turn you evil beyond your control if you're not careful?"

"Yes!"

"You don't know what you're talking about. I've seen someone lose control because she couldn't control her emotions. I've lost control because I couldn't control my emotions..."

"You want to talk about losing control of your emotions?" Danny snapped, his thoughts turning to the last ghost he'd sent to the Ghost Zone, Ember."You have no IDEA what I've been through this past week!"

"I know more than I want to now," Robin coolly responded, turning and walking away haughtily.

Danny followed him. "I get it. You think just because I have super powers, and my arch enemy ranks lower on a scale of Insanity, which I disagree with, by the way, you have it s-o-o-o-o much harder."

"I know I have it harder than you!" Robin stopped in his tracks, turned completely around, and stopped holding back. "Even though I can't fly, and I'm not invincible, all I am is a superhero. There's no room in my life anymore for school, sports, dating… anyone who I could call my family is either dead or hates me…" Robin suddenly stopped and turned away as if he didn't know what he was doing. "I chose this life, and I'm not complaining. But I was wrong about you," he said as he started walking again.

Danny ran up in front of him, his flaming green eyes staring down the masked, silent ones. "If it makes you feel any better, the feeling's mutual. Gotta admit, you really had me impressed for a minute. Saving the world sure would be a lot harder if I was human, I'll give you points for that…"

"Save the world from what?" Robin interrupted. "If you really are a target just like me, anything ghost-related that's ever happened around here's all been on your account, right?" Danny didn't have an immediate response to that one, so Robin continued. "I do sympathize with your secret and your problems with your friends, but I don't have time for this. I have a score to settle, a serious one."

"Does that mean you're running away again?" Danny asked him as he started to move away.

"No. That's the only good thing that came out of wasting all this time here. I've caught up with him. I'm the one hunting again."

Robin kept walking, leaving Danny behind, who kept talking. "Just how long do think it'll be before you catch another break?"

That thought had occurred to Robin long ago. "It'll be worth it," he said, half to himself, not looking back.

"This has got to be the most ridiculous plan I ever heard of," Danny mumbled but loudly.

Robin stopped and turned halfway. "I'm not going home defeated, and I'm sure not staying here."

Danny called after him this time. "Yeah, it's not like I could be some help or anything!"

Nobody spoke to Robin like that! He marched back down the street as he yelled, "You don't get it! We have nothing in common here! I don't want help from you, and I don't need help from anybody!"

Danny turned his back on him this time as he said, walking away, "Hey, if these guys don't want to be found, you're not gonna find them. Vlad's already hired someone else to do his dirty work for him. You're right. What was I thinking? Like you'd know what it's like to have your arch enemy turn a distraught, outraged, slightly crazy girl into an assassin…" By now he'd caught Robin's attention enough to earn a raised eyebrow. "…and make you think that it was all your fault when it was really a set up all along…" made Robin freeze in his tracks and pivot around. "…and your best friend just won't listen to reason because he has a crush on her."

"WAIT!" Robin dropped all pretense and ran back to Danny. "What did you just say? Come on, what were you saying about a distraught, crazy girl…"

"Who my arch enemy's using to get at me after making her hate me?" said Danny, who wasn't following Robin's sudden interest and what actually looked like fear.

"But who's not just another villain but your friend's girlfriend," Robin finished, in complete shock. However trivial he found Danny's conflict compared to his own, this was one coincidence that thoroughly creeped him out.

His reaction creeped Danny out, too. "Uh, you okay? Hel-lo? Rob-in…" he tried prompting him when he stared out into the distance again.

With a sigh of resignation, Robin faced Danny eye to eye as they started walking back the way they'd come. In the same grave tone he used delivering catch phrases and from throwing the light switch a week ago from the catacomb of a basement of Titans Tower, he calmly said, "Let's talk."

"You're kidding?" was all Danny could gasp, what could have been minutes or hours later, where the two were now sitting at a bus stop bench. Robin couldn't reply. The only thing more sad and more mentally exhausting than hearing the story of Terra was telling the story of Terra.

"I probably don't want to know, but… what happened to her?" Danny asked next.

"She's dead," Robin said before Danny finished the last word, just wanting to get the answer over with. Robin stood up and paced to relieve the jitters in his adrenaline-filled limbs. He took one deep breath. "I guess that's the first time any of us have admitted it."

"This is bad, isn't it?" Danny mentioned pointlessly.

"Consistent so far, that's all I can say," Robin said in a contrastingly dry voice, panning his solid gaze from the ground to the dusky, twilight sky. "I never expected anything like this. I never thought there could be someone else out there just as psychotic, just a selfish, just as evil as…" He switched mid-sentence as his brain switched mid-thought. He walked back to the bench. "I never thought that somewhere, someone else was dealing with the same thing."

Danny stood up so that they were (roughly) eye to eye. "Does that mean you think I'm good enough for you now?"

"It means that this is much more serious than I thought," said Robin, no trace of humility or apology in his answer. "I want to help you, before this gets even worse, but…"

Danny cut him off before he could finish the thought, having already learned the impulsive hero wouldn't go back to it. "Like I said before, you skip town now, how long do you think it'll take for you to catch another break?"

Robin found himself crossing his arms and actually pondering the suggestion. "It could put you or your friends in danger."

"They got used to it," Danny found himself joking.

"I can trust you won't advertise where I am on tomorrow's front page?"

"If I can trust you to forget my name around everyone besides Sam and Tucker."

"Deal," said Robin decidedly, and the two shook hands in traditional old-fashioned friendship.

"I pitched camp over in the park," Robin informed with a pleasant smirk. "You know, where you two, how do I even put this? … 'accidentally' kissed?"

"If you promise never to mention that again," Danny warned as he unfolded his cell phone, "I might be able to get ya' something better." Robin waited without a clue as Danny made a call. "Hey, Sam, good news. You finally get to make that contribution you've been looking forward to."

Robin was back on the R-Cycle, his pack strapped to his back, Danny flying above him, in invisible ghost mode, guiding the way, though he still hadn't said where they were going.

"Wait. Stop here." Danny turned visible as he landed in front of a very attractive house on a corner and waited for Robin to remove his helmet.

"Wow. Who lives here?" asked Robin.

"Sam," Danny answered, lifting off just a few inches from the ground. "Okay, this is gonna feel weird," he warned as he grabbed Robin's shoulders, focused, and went intangible.

"What are you doing?" Robin asked. The next thing he knew was a cold prickle spreading from his shoulders to his head and the rest of his body like a winter breeze, right before his body and then his motorcycle turned completely blue and transparent. "Hey!" His surroundings suddenly went dark like pulling a shade up from the ground instead of down, and it felt like he was moving, down and forward, but he only felt the motion, no connection with anything solid, either the street or the wall or the earth. 10 seconds later, the motion sped up and switched to directly forward. As he burst into a light filled room, his coloring not only returned to normal, but his weight returned, too; he leaned forward to support himself and held his head up with his left hand as if he had just fallen down a staircase.

"What was that?" he said as he turned around, gasping to find a very solid wall where he knew he had just been.

"It's called intangibility," Danny proudly clarified as he reappeared, hovering in ghost mode, next to Robin.

"Could have used that for sneaking in after curfew," Robin said.

"Comes in handy when you want to make a quick getaway, too," added Danny.

"Or for sneaking in to my basement," came Sam's voice from across the room, where she descended from a staircase with Tucker.

"Basement?" Robin said, bewildered. The room they were in was bigger than his entire Operations Center and contained a big screen t.v., stereos, and a movie theater concession stand. Adjacent open doors led into a gym, a bathroom, a walk-in closet containing not clothes but CDs, DVDs and video games, and a room where he could see full bookshelves and two computers. "I guess your parents are out of town, huh?"

"This is my basement," Sam explained, leaning against the wall and frowning like she couldn't be more bored. "It doesn't matter that they're home; they never come down here. Of course, they find it atrocious that I reasonably prefer one room upstairs, but alas for them, I do. This floor was going to waste, so I offered it to Danny as a sort of safe-house we could use in case of an emergency."

Noticing the dazed way her guest stared around the room, Tucker pointed out, "Don't try to understand it. There are no answers why a girl can't stand coming from one of the richest families in the world."

"What? Just how rich are you?" Robin asked, looking at Sam. The thing that shocked Danny and Tucker and made them exchange looks was that he didn't sound impressed or surprised or jealous but… pitiful?

"Richer than any decent human being has a right to be," Sam answered, blasé.

Robin shuddered as he said with disgust, "Really grates on your nerves, doesn't it?"

"Well, would it kill them to live in a house you can't get lost in?" Sam answered, finally showing some feeling.

Their conversation continued as Tucker and Danny stared on, baffled. "I guess it's an acquired taste," said Robin. "But once you get used to the life, you can't go on without it."

"Why? It's all hypocrisy and business and taking advantage of others!" Sam responded.

"I guess that all depends on the person, but it's a pointless, miserable existence all the same."

"My point exactly."

"Time out! What is going on here?" Danny broke in.

Robin seemed at a loss for words. He finally just stated, coolly, as if it were such a trifle not worth mentioning, it never even crossed his mind to point it out, "My old guardian is a millionaire."

Sam raised her right eyebrow as she looked at him with a new sympathy, Tucker's jaw dropped as he recoiled from the shock and the obvious insanity of the speaker, and Danny just shook his head as he watched their new friend head into the gym. As unbreakable and unfeeling as rock, impossible to understand, as full of as many reasons to hate him as he was to admire him, and brimming with no end of surprises was his assessment of Robin. Maybe he was right. Now he's something. I really am nothing like him.