Morning in Titans' Tower. Breakfast.

With all the attendant fighting that entailed.

"You got tofu on my sausage!"

"You got sausage in my tofu!"

Robin restrained the urge to bang his head against the table, and muttered, "Do those two realize they sound like a commercial?" Raven raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?" The Boy Wonder just groaned and took another spoonful of his oatmeal, wishing Starfire wasn't sleeping late. She could have helped separate them.

The main viewscreen flaring into life came as a welcome relief. Especially considering that the masked face there was one Robin hadn't seen since he left Gotham for Jump City.

"Batman!"

"Sorry to interrupt your breakfast, but..." He caught sight of Beast Boy and Cyborg struggling in the background. "You two idiots, stop that! This is important!" They stopped. After all, it wasn't every morning they got yelled at by the Caped Crusader. "There's trouble headed your way."

Robin winced. Oh, hell. It's got to be something really bad. "What is it?"

"Doctor Destiny's broken out of prison. And since I put him there, he's probably going to go after you to get at me."

Oh (expletive deleted)! The Boy Wonder spun completely around in his chair, stark terror all over his face. "Raven, go wake up Starfire!" Robin's expression was enough that Raven didn't ask questions, just floated upward and phased through the ceiling.

"Wait, wait, wait! Hold on a second. Who's Doctor Destiny? What's Robin spazzing about?" This came from Cyborg, who (like all the other Titans besides Robin) had never heard of him.

Batman and Robin spoke in unison, "John Dee. Alias, Doctor Destiny. Guilty-" They stopped, realizing they were tripping over each other's sentences, then Batman began again. "Alias, Doctor Destiny. Guilty: One count of murder in the first degree, five counts of attempted murder, and twenty-one counts of assault. Sentenced to 40 years in Arkham Asylum."

Beast Boy piped up, "Skip the charges and get to the important stuff. What can he do? You wouldn't have called us and Robin wouldn't be freaking out if he was just an ordinary criminal."

The Dark Knight looked at Robin. "He's not as stupid as he likes to act, is he?"

"No."

"That's right, buster-MMMFFFF!" Cyborg clapped a hand over his buddy's mouth, nodded politely to Batman. "Sorry about that, sir. You were saying?"

Starfire padded sleepily down the stairs as Raven slid back down through the ceiling, just in time to catch the Caped Crusader's reply.

"To address the little fellow's question, Dee -- or Doctor Destiny, the persona his warped mind's created-- has extremely powerful extra-sensory perception and projection. And what that lets him do is manipulate sleeping people's dreams -- and keep people asleep. He makes them live their literal worst nightmares until they go insane...then die. He killed his ex-wife that way, and tried to do the same thing to the Justice League. Almost worked."

Cyborg's jaw dropped. "Jeez! How do we fight something like that? What'd you do?"

"J'onn J'onzz and I didn't figure out what Dee was able to do until after his ex-wife was hospitalized, and even then it took us until well after midnight to determine exactly what was going on. By then, the rest of the League had gone to sleep. And that let Dee get hold of them. J'onn eventually managed to break his control over everyone but Hawkgirl. I knocked Dee out and that set her free, but it was far too close."

The half-mechanical boy frowned. "That strategy's not going to be much help here. It needs a telepath. Raven's the closest we have, but she's an empath. I'm not sure she'd be able to take him down."

Raven scowled. "Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Sorry, Rae, but this is something we need to be worrying about from the start."

Batman nodded. "Smart thinking. It gets worse, too. Dee's powers get stronger the closer you get to him. Within a few hundred feet, he can affect you even while you're awake."

Every single Titan gulped in unison.

"It's not nearly as strong that way, though. Find some catchy song or mantra that you can focus on, and you should be able to keep him from doing anything truly dangerous to your mind. Frere Jacques worked for me."

Robin nodded. "At least that's something."

"I've got to go. Gorilla Grodd's Legion of Doom is attacking Moscow. Stay awake as long as you can, and sleep in shifts so Dee can't get you all at once. I'll send J'onn your way as soon as possible."

Batman flipped a switch and broke the connection, leaving the still very confused Titans looking at Robin for an explanation.