Superboy was watching Wally pace through the lounge and kitchen area, he was furious. He was practically demanding the fridge an explanation for Alex. He was demanding everyone and everything, actually. But nobody knew anything and Batman and Robin hadn't left their rooms yet.
It didn't surprise Superboy that the two of them were still fast asleep. He heard the dynamic duo deep in the night. He had heard Robin cry and Bruce hush. He heard the man whispering that he would fix Robin. He wasn't sure what that meant, but it made him think that Wally might have missed a part in the story he had picked up.
The speedster was the first of the group to be awake and roaming the building. Once the rest started to wake the teen explained partly what happened. The story was rather vague. He explained he had found Robin in a row in front of a hot cocoa stand and brought him home. Though the part where the two returned to Gotham was a bit odd. He didn't really explain why he left Robin after finding Mike. He just said that he was convinced that he really was Alex and not Robin on that moment. He never told the group why.
It was until even the last of the team had finished their breakfast, which was Artemis who has slept in the longest, that Batman entered the lounge area. He wasn't dawned in his black bat suit but wore a simple jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Even still with his exposed face the man seemed to loom over the teens as he approached them. Even without his mask the man was just as much Batman as he was as Bruce Wayne.
"Where is Robin?" Wally's voice sounded low and almost dreadful, he was the first to react on the silence entrance of the Dark Knight as he noticed the lack of his protégé imminently.
"He is still asleep," the man answered shortly.
"You promised to explain everything in the morning!" The speedster shouted, anger clear in his voice.
"So?" the man asked, his thick eyebrows pushed down in a frown. "I'm here to explain."
"Are you here to tell us that Alex was part of that plan of yours?"
"Alex was never the plan, neither mine or Richard's."
The team was silence at that. Bruce turned to face the rest of the group. "We're not sure yet, but we think that Alex was a personality Richard created to protect him from a traumatizing experience. I repeat, we're not sure. I haven't got much out of Robin because of the state he is in. He is stressed, to say the least and very confused."
"Is it possible to see Robin personally and speak with him?" Kaldur asked. "We are all worried about him," he held a silence, eyes drifting away searching for the right words. "And we would like to apologize for our behavior that occurred before this debacle."
Bruce was quiet for a moment and sighed. "I don't think that is a good plan. His reaction on you from last night leaves me feeling that he needs a bit more time to recover."
"Recover from what, precisely?" the redhead asked, arms still crossed and his attitude non the less arrogant as the first seconds.
"From everything that happened to him. His encounter with you didn't seem to help him much. So we'll try to help Richard get in terms with himself before we go for discussions or apologies."
"And with we you mean…?" Artemis asked.
"The league. And maybe even help from outside. Dinah and J'onn will be the main help from the League but when they come short we might have to look up professionals."
"Is it that serious?" Megan was almost too scared to ask.
"As far as I have seen, yes." Bruce's cold eyes shifted to worried ones for a split second as the steel blues dipped down to the floor only to flip back up. "We're not sure what happened for the entirety of his absence. All I know for sure is that I don't like the state I found him in."
"State?" Artemis repeated. "What kind of state?"
"He didn't recognize me, neither one of Batman's gadgets. He even fought me before he came to terms and understood that I wasn't attacking him."
"He saw you as a threat?" The Atlantean asked.
"Yes he did."
Superboy frowned at the little answer his leader got. "You're not going into details, are you?"
A steady breath was all the time it took before Batman answered again. "No," the heavy looking chest of the Dark Knight fell. "And that is mainly because I don't know the details either. This is all I can tell you for now."
With that the man turned around and made his way over to the kitchen. The team watched awkwardly as the man prepared breakfast for two. Somehow it was odd to watch the scary Bat do something as normal as preparing breakfast. The more right after the serious conversation they had.
After Bruce had finished he excused himself before making way to his son. He knocked on the door, receiving a hum that was somewhere between approval and not caring, and opened the door, finding his son lying in bed in a manner what told him the boy had been awake a few times already.
"Never slept in for that long, ha?" The man said, closing the door behind him and taking a seat next to an oddly spread leg.
Dick pulled his somewhat lost limp back under his blanked only to turned his back to his father with a grumpy huff. "I'm still tired."
"You'll probably will be for a few days," the man answered, picking up his bread with peanut butter. "Just stubbornly sleeping won't make you any less tired."
"Could you try and lie to me?" the boy moaned, looking over his shoulder. "Like; 'Maybe if you turn around one more time you'll feel better.' For example."
"Breakfast will solve everything," the man spoke, voice flat and eyes dry as he pointed his sandwich towards the boy, no emotion whatsoever in his movement.
Dick took a big bite out of the bread with a frowned face as answer.
"Why don't you look up the gym, train a little," Bruce suggested, watching the boy sit up and finally eat.
"I don't like the idea of the team finding me there," light blue eyes fell down to the breakfast in the hands below. "I don't think I'm ready to face them"
"Don't you worry," the man smiled. "The team will have a mission today. It's time they get back on track. And the same applies to you."
Richard stopped chewing, head casting down. "W-what if I can't?"
A warm hand settled on top of the boy's head. Robin looked up from beneath his bangs to meet his father's eyes. "You're not alone Dick. I… We, we're all here to help you. Dinah will be here later this afternoon and you can have your first talk with her. And J'onn will be here tonight. We're going to help you fix this, okay?"
Baby blue eye looked up, a soft smile on the boy's lips. "Okay."
-\/-
Dick cramped his right hand around his left fist nervously, eyes casted down to the wooden table. "I do remember a few shatters after the murders stopped," the feeling of that man's lips being forced against his and the rope being pulled around his wrist flashed through his mind. "You can't rape me!" a shudder went down his spine. "And why can't I rape you?" Tears sprung in his eyes. "Because I'm a prostitute!"
A soft an slender hand wrapped around the tensed hands of the younger boy. "Dick," The teen gasped as he snapped out of the memories. In the same second Richard pulled his hands away, afraid he wouldn't be released again.
He rose quickly when he realized that it was Dinah before him. "I," he muttered, feeling and sounding out of breath.
"What did you just experience?" The blonde asked, seeing the boy looking lost. His eyes spoke of panic, panic and wonder to how he got into this room. She had never seen Robin ever in a state close to this. "Dick?"
She spoke up again as the boy didn't answer, neither made any movements suggesting he was about to sit down again. "How are you feeling now? You seem distressed. But there is no reason to be."
The fake blonde suddenly gasped again before making a sharp turn and exit the room via the door what was located behind his chair. Dinah silently watched the boy leave. She had gotten more information out of him than she had hoped for. This would do for now. Though it worried her how the boy showed such strong emotions towards the latter part. The part where he started to lose himself.
She sighed as he turned around to face the small waterfall behind the glass. Maybe this was too much for her skills. Maybe Dick was scarred too badly.
-\/-
Everything was swaying around him as he run down the hallway. Why was he feeling this? Why did it feel like something was trying to crawl out of his heart.
Dick stopped, panting, facing the wall as he leaned his arms against them, head hanging underneath them. Was this Alex? Was this that cocky boy inside of him trying to force his way out?
The boy forces his eyes shut and let out a long and shaky breath. It had felt like he has been running for hours, but he knew better. He barley run for a few minutes. The Cave isn't nearly big enough for an hour run. Maybe five minutes at best. Yet he was out of breath.
After a few minutes of hard breathing he shook his head. He had to pull himself together. Why did he feel like this? What caused that reaction? Right, the memories. Those are and stay memories. They're not happing. He had to calm down and control those feelings.
"You're quite tight right?" Dick let a shriek ring through the hall as a hand grabbed his wrist.
-\/-
"What do you mean 'He ran off'?"
"Just as I said, he ran off," Dinah said slightly annoyed. "Expecting this to go well in one try is foolish. I only called you right away because I want you to go and check on him."
The man was silence for a short moment. "Okay, I'll find him."
"Thanks, I will report to you once I'm done with the notes."
"Please do," Bruce said before leaving quickly to find his son.
This has been worse than he hoped for. He knew Dick wouldn't open up completely at once but to space out and run off was not what he expected.
He first looked in his room, then the gym and after that he was on his way to the hanger when he finally found the boy.
The fake blonde leaned against the wall, arms stretched and his head hanging low. He was breathing like he had a panic attack few moments ago. "Dick?" the man approached the teen who didn't react. "Are you alright?"
As his hand formed around his wrist the boy shrieked. The teen yanked his hand free only to pull it into a defensive position. But when the boy saw his father he lowered his arms. "Dad."
"Dick, what's going on?"
The boy almost seemed to sway on his feet for a second before firming his stand. "I'm fine. I- I just…" the boy stopped, not finding the words. He looked down, his eyes looking lost, as if he didn't know any words for what he wanted to say. "I don't know what happened."
Bruce pulled Dick closer, hugging him. "You seem like you had a panic attack. Did Dinah scare you that much?" The Dark Knight started to lead the boy toward his room.
The young hero shook his head.
"Was it something you remembered?"
Richard nodded. "I don't think I want to remember what I did," a shaky voice left the boy.
Bruce pulled his son a bit tighter against his side. "I can understand why."
The duo entered the room and the father placed Dick on his bed. "Go have a nap. You're tired and I'll be back later with some hair dye. And I help you dye it later, okay?"
The son tried on the slightest tug of a smile. "I would like that."
-\/-
The biggest part of the team had been rather silent after the mission. Wally was the only one to be heard in the bio-ship. The boy was ranting over the fact that Batman had send them on a mission just to get them out of the way. Though Superboy had been rather happy that they got a mission in the first place.
The team had aimlessly been together in Mount Justice more than often and he liked it better when there was actual action. Hadn't those mission not been de purpose of this team in the first place?
The team gathered in the lounge area, for a well-deserved dinner after a successful mission. As Megan began cheerfully on preparing dinner and Artemis helping her, Superboy slipped away from the chatty team.
He walked down the quiet hallways only to find the door hiding his team mate. He gulped before knocking on the door, the advice that Megan had given him a while ago flashing through his mind. He could do this!
-\/-
"With this I have pretty much everything what happened before he started to forget," Dinah said as she looked through the notes. "Three families and one man, with which he had made contact, have been killed. Apart from that was the mass murder in the hotel." She looked up at the unmasked Batman. "That alone could be enough to drive him in this state. The more because of the history he has with murder."
There was a silence as the blonde watched how the cold blue eyes were staring into the table as a pair of folded hands covered the lips of the Dark Knight.
"Bruce," the woman started again. "What was the state you found Dick in?"
She could see the blue eyes narrow in the slightest.
"This is important. I need to know more so I can help Dick to get to this part. You can't keep me in the dark."
"I found him in a strip club," Dinah hadn't thought she would get the answer this quickly. And the answer was something she could have never guessed.
"He worked as a stripper and prostitute at a strip club. He was the main act of that night. He didn't recognize me." Bruce's posture completely changed from cold and resolute to that of a worried father. "He was a totally different person."
Silence returned to the two and the only thing heard was their deep breaths.
"Maybe he should see J'onn," the lady took her notes again, eyes rolling over her own handwriting. "I fear he has created a split personality. That would explain the blank spots in his memories and the fact he didn't recognize you. But I'm not sure where it happened and what the trigger was. As long as we don't know the trigger we can't be for sure."
"J'onn could find it without needing to actually trigger it," Bruce though out loud together with his teammate. "Without getting Alex back up."
"Alex?"
"Ah, err," this was Dinah's first time seeing the Dark Knight fall over his words. "That's… what he called himself when I found him. I think that is how he sees himself. As Alex, not as Dick."
The Blonde hummed before signing through her nose. "It is a big sign, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions before we made sure."
"J'onn will be here after seven," Bruce rose and Dinah followed fit. "Thank you for everything so far."
-\/-
Dick's finger slipped over the hologram, scrolling over the text of the book he had started about three months ago, a few days before he had to flee from his home. He couldn't remember anything from it. He knew he had read the first 5 chapters, his bookmark told him that, but he couldn't place the words. It said nothing to him. It seemed like a completely new story to him.
When had he started to forget things like this? Or was it just lost in the overwhelming times he had gone through.
Ironically enough it was a story about a boy who wakes up with amnesia. Together with the reader the boy rediscover the world around him. Reading the words it somehow felt similar. He was at a place he knew, yet felt so unfamiliar.
The raven haired boy sighed and closed the book on his computer. He was confused enough as it is. He didn't need a new mystery of a boy who didn't even existed.
Dick turned his hands, palms facing him. His hologram automatically closing at the gesture. He flexed his finger slightly. "Alex," the boy whispered almost without a sound. 'A boy who didn't even exist'. That was Alex too, right?
Alex was just a misunderstanding. A tangle of problems coming to an conclusion he couldn't even remember.
A sturdy knock on the door woke the boy up from his thoughts, hands balling into fists. Was Bruce back with the hair dye?
He rose as he watched the door open but gasped as he saw Superboy open the door instead of his father.
He was about to name the boy entering just to make sure he wasn't hallucinating but before the words left his lips the Boy of Steel started. "Robin," Dick closed his mouth at that, watching what Superman's clone would do. "I need to talk to you."
The smaller boy took a step back as Superboy entered the room further, the door closing automatically behind the entered teen.
"I came to apologize," Dick frowned in confusion. Supey came to apologize? "I accidently heard you and Batman talk last night."
The smaller teen could feel his muscles freeze all over. Superboy heard his conversation between Batman and him last night? A shaky "Oh," was all that left the fake blonde.
"I'm sorry. But once I heard the two of you talk I couldn't stop myself from listening in," The Boy of Steel continued. "I," his voice wavered for a moment. "I wanted to make sure that you were okay."
Dick was silence, somewhat shocked by the sincere concern of his teammate. Suddenly the much taller boy towered over him as two strong arms sealed around him, pulling him tightly against his chest.
The Boy Wonder was about to protest against the sudden hug but was beaten to it by Superboy. "Are you 'Fixed' now?"
A pang shot through Dick heart as he heard those words. "I will fix you," Bruce's words echoed through his mind. His heart tightened as he felt the little memories he had flooding his mind and reminding him of those men, those eyes. His knees gave away and his eyes let the tears break free. His arms clamped around the muscled teen and he couldn't help but cry.
Superboy himself was a bit stunned by the reaction. He had expected that Robin would tell him that he was okay, that his mentor had solved all the problems and that he would return to the team once his fight with Wally was over.
"I'm not fixed," hoarse words escaped between sobs as the smaller teen pulled the clone closer. "I don't think I'll ever be truly fixed."
Superboy leaded the little bird to his bed, sitting down with him. Allowing the boy to cry further. He just watched the black locks of the boy jump slightly at the sobs shaking the boy's body. Did Wally know that Robin was in this kind of distress? If he did, could he really be this angry with their little bird. He couldn't believe that the redhead could be this cruel. So Wally didn't know the whole story after all. Just a part of it like he and Megan did.
The two teens sat on the bed for a little longer until Bruce entered the room, eyes growing as he saw the clone holding his son.
"What's going on here?" the man asked, but all Superboy did was shrug. He didn't really know himself. He just wanted to ask if Robin was fixed but apparently he wasn't and it was causing the boy a lot of pain. He didn't meant for the boy to cry.
"Out," the man growled and the Boy of Steel quickly let go of the still crying teen and left, glancing back at the Boy Wonder before the door closed.
Bruce picked the boy up, almost swallowing the small body of his son up in his embrace. "It's okay Dick," the man hushed. "I've got you."
-\/-
This did him good. Seeing his golden locks being covered by black, his black. "Thanks dad," the boy spoke as he watched his hair sticking up in the black dye.
Seeing the blonde gone almost gave him the feeling that his had covered Alex completely up. That he had erased his past. That Alex has never been there. That Dick was the only one there.
But somewhere deep down in his heart he knew that Alex was still there. And just for a second he wondered if Dick ever truly had come back. If he was not lying to himself. If this wasn't his mind creating a world. A world with the perfect outcome, his father saving him, his friends back by his side. Could this all be fake? Could forgetting be part of this trickery?
A hand on his shoulder woke him up. "You're welcome," He could see his father smile in the mirror. "J'onn will be here after dinner," the man started. "Will you let him explore your mind tonight? To find what's going on?"
Dick was quiet for a moment. "Am I crazy, dad?"
He could read the surprise easily from his father's face. "No."
"Okay," the boy turned around and hugged his father. "I'm okay with J'onn searching my mind. But only if you're there too."
"Shure thing chum," the man smiled. "I'll be right there."
Sorry for the late update. I'll try to be faster with updates (because this update was waaaay overdue :O ) I'm still working on rewriting the earlier chapters but the writer's block makes it a pain. Till next time! 3