Wooooo, 2 chapters in one go. :DD

(Robin POV)

The only thing I could hear was Richard's slow and paced breathing next to me. He was already asleep by the time I entered the room. The scenes from earlier constantly replaying themselves over and over again, it was all I could think about and it was forcing me to stay awake. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something definitely seemed off somewhere. I mean the Joker seemed like himself, but that wasn't it, there was something else. It was like a feeling in the air, it couldn't be seen, but it could be felt. I'm sure Richard could sense it too, but if he did he never mentioned it to. It may be because he was thinking about it as well, or it's just because he hasn't gotten around to it. Then again he did take a pretty heavy blow to the head, so there was the chance that he didn't remember at all. Either way we would discuss it tomorrow, if he was up to it that is.

(Nightwing POV)

Intense sunlight broke through the windows and engulfed the room in sunlight, waking me from my slumber. I took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the change of brightness before I could open them up completely. In return the light brought along the throbbing pain with it. At least is was no where near as bad as it was last night. I lightly grazed my index finger over the inflicted area and felt the slightly protruding stitches as well as the beginnings of a scab. At least it was healing rather nicely. I thought I would push my luck in testing out my motor skills with the ultimate challenge. I would attempt to stand up. I decided it would be wise to take this one step at a time, first was sitting up, which went rather smoothly. Next was putting my feet on the floor, again, that went as desired. The finally step was to bring myself up to full height. That's when the room chose it wanted tilt a bit, but I wasn't going to let it have it's way as I forced myself up anyway, giving the room a chance to calm itself, and it did just that.

"That took you long enough." I carefully rotated my head towards the location of the voice. There I could see Tim standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with a smirk on his face. "Didn't Alfred tell you to take it easy?"

I let out a heavy sigh, "Last I checked, standing up isn't exactly the most excessive of exercises. I'm pretty sure I can handle it well enough. Wait, how long have you been standing there?" I don't remember seeing him there a moment ago, and I know I never heard him. Either he was getting good at this, or I was still off my game.

"Not all that long, about two minutes maybe."

"Mmm, that's two minutes too long then. So, did you need something, or are you just doing your thing, which is a creepy thing I might add."

"Bruce wanted me to come see if you were awake yet." I waited a moment for him to continue, until I realized he wasn't going to.

"Is that it? Did he want anything if I was awake, or did he just want to know that I was?"

"I didn't say anything else, that's all he told me. I guess he just wanted to know that you were ok and not dead." Well that's awfully nice of him. "Well, I guess I'll be leaving then."

"Wait, I can tell something else is wrong. Don't think I don't notice. So tell me, what's bothering you, and don't say it's nothing because that won't work on me and you know it."

He finally stepped into the room and sat on the bed, I hesitated before sitting next to him. "Well it's kind of about last night. Something didn't feel right. And it wasn't a that something felt off about me, or you, or even the Joker for that matter. I don't really know what it was, but I didn't like it. Did you feel anything last night, or is it just me."

"You mean something other than gun powder and magnesium? Because I felt a lot of that." Ok, bad joke, I should feel bad about that, but whatever. "I'm not sure if I did or not, it's still kind of fuzzy for me. Though I did have some pretty alarming hallucinations, if you can call it that."

"What do you mean?"

"Ah, it's nothing." I just said what I told him not too, what kind of hypocracy is that? Hopefully he want notice.

"And you think that answer is going to work on me?" Dammit.

"It's not very clear, like a nightmare if you will. I just saw some peculiar things while I was blacked out, you know, the usual." The images were becoming clear in my mind once again, images that I had hoped would have died out by now. They were so vivid, I had actually believed them to be real, usually I have a good sense as to what is reality and what is not. Even now it still seemed so sane, almost like it was a former memory.

"Hey, you still there?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah." I realized that I had been staring off at nothing. "Sorry, kinda got lost in thought there for a moment. Guess I'm still not all there, huh?" I said with a smile as I got back up to my feet. "Come on, we should go let Bruce know that I am still in fact walking among the living." He nodded as he joined me by my side and we both made our way down the stairs, thought I hate to admit, my steps were placed with a bit more care than I would have liked them to be, but what could I expect? "Ok, where is he?"

"He's down in the cave, still trying to find leads as to where the Joker might be. I think he was up all night searching."

"How about we give him a hand with that, it is kind of our fault to begin with that his location is unknown to us. It's the least we could do." I couldn't help but feel completely at fault for his escape. There was no changing what had happened, so I would just have to do what I could from here on out until he was once again under security at Arkham. "Since I'm not 'allowed' to go out and find him myself, I'll do what I can from here."

"And I wonder just how long you are going to obey those orders." I'm not sure if I was supposed to hear that or not, as it was mumbled under his breath. Either way, I didn't respond, didn't feel like it. "You really should listen to the advice you are given more often, you know?" This was said quite a bit louder, so I could only assume he was waiting for some sort of response.

"I do listen to it, I just don't always carry it out. Probably not one of my best qualities." But I still get by just fine in my opinion. "I add my own touch to the advice more or less. You know, my interpretation of it."

"Sure, advice isn't exactly the type of thing that can be improvised, but whatever you see fit I suppose." Through all the conversing, we seemed to reach the cave a lot faster than I had thought it would take, and sure enough, Bruce was heavy at work at the computers, his cowl was removed, but he was still wearing his Batman costume. So, he never even changed his clothes. Now I felt even worse than I did earlier about the whole situation.

"Richard, what are you doing down here? Tim, I just wanted to know if he was awake, I didn't request his assistance."

"Yeah, I know but-"

"I came down here of my own accord." I cut him off. If Bruce was gonna blame someone, it should at least be directed at the right person. "This is partially my fault, so it's only right that I aid in the search for him." He said nothing in response, which is sort of his way of say, 'Very well, do as you wish.' or at least that's what I always thought.