Tuesday, 22 December ~*That *~

There were two things Robin hadn't trained for. The smell and the dirt.

They had arrived at the building at around eleven PM, and made sure everyone's coms worked as they should. They had earpieces in and microphones on their collars, that they just needed to press once to activate or deactivate. Selina was set up on the next building over and would move around to other locations if necessary.

They all had belts with anything they might need, although Robin's belt was currently in the bag of explosives. He couldn't risk it getting stuck on anything and wouldn't put it on until he was through.

It took Slade and Batman a depressingly short time to remove the hood from the ventilation, and the small, black rectangle was suddenly staring at him. And now it went down into a building, it wasn't free-hanging, like the one he had practiced in. That one he could have been cut out from, if things went really bad, but not now, not in this.

He was going down feet first. They had tried head first only once, but the teen had panicked so badly that they had had to get a rope around his foot and pull him out. He had just been unable to move. That couldn't happen now. It couldn't. He felt himself starting to hyperventilate, but he tried not to show anything. He had promised himself that morning, while drinking a horrible bergamot- and orange flavored black tea, not to let his nerves show. So he didn't. He hoped.

He and Bruce had masks that covered their whole face, and so, of course, had Slade, although he was wearing his usual two-toned one. Robin's was off right now, as he adjusted his earpiece. Slade lifted his up.

"You ok?"

"I will be. When we're home again," Robin muttered, finding it pointless to pretend he was happy about this, although he didn't want them to know he was terrified.

"I didn't thank you for doing this, did I?" Slade

"That's the thing with us stupid heroes, there's no need to thank us," the teen drawled. Slade then pulled him close and kissed him. Right there, in front of Batman. And it wasn't a quick kiss either, it was long, hot and passionate and, once it ended, it left the hero a bit dizzy.

"You- you're welcome," he stammered as Slade let him go, and then laughed a little. It had been exactly what he needed, he had to admit.

"Quite done?" Batman asked dryly. When Robin passed him, the man clapped his shoulder in passing, a gesture of encouragement as well. Both men, in their own way, showed him that they knew they were asking quite a lot of him.

Robin put on his mask again, made sure everything was in place, and then slowly lowered the bag into the hole with a rope, which had been the easiest way of doing it during practice. The rope had a clamp at the end that could remotely be detached like his grappling hook, so as soon as the bag softly landed at the bottom, Robin detached the rope and pulled it up again. He didn't need that thing down there, getting in the way.

Slade acted as a step ladder to help him climb into the thing and supported him while he started to make his way down. As soon as he was on his way, he looked up and nodded, the signal for the other two to go. They did, and he was alone.

No. not alone, he mentally reminded himself. I have the com. If I need help, I have the com. The fact that it might be difficult to actually help him, was something he had to push out of his mind.

Almost at once, he noticed the dirt and the smell. It smelled of dust and old building. Not a stink, by any means, but one that made his nostrils want to close up. The sides were grimy, like the ventilation above a stove. He didn't know what this building had originally been used for, before it had become a temporary base for Mr. Freeze. Perhaps it had housed a restaurant? Maybe the greasy feeling was just a natural build up of dust, it didn't matter. What did matter, however, was how slippery it made the inside. He needed to go vertically down the first part, after all, and had to stop himself from simply falling by pressing against the narrow sides as much as he could. He still managed, but then, suddenly, he came across a joint in the metal, and it was many times sharper than the ones in the model, making him instinctively pull his hand back up and hiss. And he slipped. It was only a couple of feet and he hadn't caused any noise as far as he was aware, but it was a warning to take things more carefully. Not expecting things to be as practiced.

"We're in position," Bruce voice came through the intercom.

"Confirmed. Guard in the area, stay put." Catwoman replied.

Robin wasn't expected or supposed to say anything unless necessary, due to the fear of sound carrying. It was good to hear their voices, though. It reminded him again that he wasn't alone.

He reached the bottom of the shaft, felt around carefully with his feet before putting them down, pushing the bag towards the opposite side to where he was going. He needed it to be by his head to be able to reach it later. He then stood there a moment to catch his breath and focus on the very difficult task ahead. This was the worst part, the part that made the panic well up the most inside him.

He had already learned that the metal seams were sharper than expected, and he winced as he got caught on another one while lowering himself down. He pushed on, however. And then, when he had entered the duct with his lower body and had his head and chest still bent in the vertical part, he got stuck.

His clothing had stuck on yet another joint, just over his knee. His suit was supposed to both protect him and help him push along the duct, but it must have been damaged or it had been snagged on a fold, because he couldn't move that side any more into the duct, leaving him folded from his upper abdomen and up. His chest was pressed against the wall in front of him, as he had to lie down so he ended up on his stomach. He needed to move up to unhook himself, but he couldn't get any traction, he couldn't lift himself. He started to sweat and his heart was racing. He couldn't move. He couldn't. He was stuck. There was no way out.

"Clear. Go!" Selina suddenly said in his ear. He knew it wasn't to him, but he took it as a sign. He couldn't go back, so he had to push forward. Well… actually, backwards, as he had to crawl that way, but still. He knew what he meant. He kicked and pushed down with his leg with all his might, twisting as much as he could in the process. He felt fabric tear, a bit of burning pain and suddenly he was free. And now he had to move. The others had started, the guards in the building would hopefully be distracted and run to protect the samples, ignoring the servers. That was the plan, anyway, and he had to hope it was correct.

He shimmied on, like had had been taught. As fast as he dared, while still being as quiet as he could, and dragging the bag with him. He wasn't nervous at all about the explosives, he knew they were perfectly harmless unless they were armed, and arming them took a bit of doing, so there was no way they could be triggered by accident. He tried not to think or feel, just push on. Suddenly his feet hit something. He panicked again for a moment, thinking the shaft ended, but it was simply the hatch. Finally. It was a little bit taller than they had expected, however. He pulled himself over it, noticing extra sharp edges here, and then reached for the bag. He rummaged around for his belt in the dark and found it. For the first time, he had a little bit of light from the heat of the cutting tool. Strangely, doing all this in the dark hadn't bothered him at all. He hadn't even thought about it. The dark he was okay with. Cramped spaces he was not.

Eager to get out, preferring real live guards to the ventilation duct, he started cutting through the screws. Once two were done he used one hand to hold the hatch so it wouldn't fall down on the floor, causing way too much noise. When it finally detached, he angled it, pulled it up through the hole and placed it inside the vent. It was a bit tricky to do without hitting the sides and creating a ruckus, but he managed. Then he had to go forwards again, back over the now open hole, pushing both bag and, carefully, the hatch in front of him. The reason was that he wanted to go down feet first, or he might end up dropping from the ceiling onto his face.

It was finally time. The hatch was slightly narrower than the duct, and it scraped against his sides, but as soon as his hips were through, he was able to change the angle slightly and he just, barely, got through.

After landing on the floor below, the teen allowed himself three seconds of just breathing, before pushing his com.

"I'm in," he said in a low voice.

"Good job, kid! The boys are busy downstairs, don't think they have time to chat," Selina let him know. "Everything is going according to plan, though."

"Good to know, thanks. I'll let you know when I'm done here," Robin replied and then immediately got to work.

The server room was big, but very much like they had expected. He quickly placed every explosive. He hadn't turned on the light in the room, but was using a dimmed flashlight to move around. The servers themselves had lights, creating a sort of ambiance lighting that was more than enough for him to navigate in after being in almost pitch blackness for a while. It all took some time as there were a lot of servers humming away but all of the charges now had a red light glowing. Once done, he pushed the com again. "All done here, run the virus," he said.

"Roger that," came Selina's voice. "Hold on."

Robin did, moving towards the door. One of the things they weren't sure about, was if it was going to be possible to open from inside without a code or key of some sort. It should be, according to safety regulations, but who knew in a building with this kind of history. If not, they had prepared gadgets, but he was relieved to see that it had a simple turning lock on the inside.

"Virus sent. Activating charges, let me know," Selina said next. They both, of course, knew what they were supposed to do, so no further explanations were needed. Robin watched as the little lights on the charges, one by one, turned green. Now they were dangerous. Now they were very, very dangerous.

"All green. Leaving."

"Roger that."

Just as Robin left, he heard gunfire from somewhere in the building. It was his job to ignore anything else but leaving, however, so he ran on silent feet to his designated exit point, a stretch of windows facing a nearby building. He attached one of his favorite new gadgets to it, something he had come up with himself. It fastened with a glue that originally came from the sticky X'es in Red X's arsenal, and created very strong vibrations that found and resonated with the glass, until it shattered. Robin attached a wire to the thing and pulled on it as it did its work, and there was a good reason for that.

The window shattered in a million pieces, but the security plastic layer of it kept the pieces together. Now, however, it was easy to pull out of the frame, it simply folded. By pulling, Robin didn't have to risk it falling outwards, which could mean unwanted attention, or possible hurt someone on the ground. He kept an eye on his surroundings as he did, but there was no one around, just like they had hoped. He pulled out his grapple gun, and pressed the com one last time.

"About to fly the nest."

"Activating in ten," Came Selina's voice

Just before he leaped out, the building shook slightly from an explosion. Not from the server room, but from downstairs. Seemed Slade and Batman had reached their own target. Robin swung through the air, stifling a whoop of joy, and, as soon as he landed on the opposite roof, he took off running. They had a rendezvous point a few blocks from here, where they had a car waiting. They would meet on the roof of that building, and Robin was the first one to arrive. He had barely taken a breath before Selina came for a slightly different direction. The woman lifted her mask and grinned at him.

"Did you have fun?"

"Immensely," Robin said dryly, but he was a bit proud of himself.

"You're dirty. Your suit looks more gray than black," the woman teased him.

Robin chuckled, looking down at his chest and seeing that she was very much correct.

"Yeah, I'm soaked too, he said, and absentmindedly wiped his side, just as Slade and Batman landed on the roof close by. He could literally feel sweat run down his sides, back and chest in rivulets.

"Everyone ok?" Batman asked, looking, of course, only at Robin, who was the only one who might not be, after all.

"Yes, I'm fine," the teen said, wiping his brow. "Are you? I heard gunfire?"

"Oh, shit," Selina whispered, her eyes getting big. Batman and Slade had tensed as well.

"What?" Robin said, and then happened to glance down at his hand, just as, from a distance, the bells of Gotham Cathedral started to strike midnight. It was red.

He touched his side again, and it came away even redder. It wasn't sweat making him feel soaked. It was blood.

To be Continued…