Robin woke up in a dark alleyway. The first thing he noticed was that he wasn't wearing a mask. Secondly, he was surrounded by Joker's thugs, and tied up. "Where am I?"

A chilling voice spoke up. "The last place you'll ever be, bird brat! hahahahahahah! Or should I call you circus freak?"

"No..." the Joker stepped out of the shadows.

"Thats right bird brain! And It's time for a few changes around here! Starting with the overpopulation!" Joker pulled out a gun, and started shooting at people as they passed buy. Each one hit the ground with a sickening thud, a smile frozen on their face. But Robin couldn't move. He couldn't do anything. He could only watch.

"No.. no... please, stop! Please! Don't do this! You can't do this! I won't let you! I'll stop you!"

"Really? Hahahahhahahahahahahha! Now that is funny! You can't stop me. And I will kill everyone near and dear to you! Starting with the lowly citizens! Then your friends! The titans! Then family! Hahahahahah! Ooooooooooooh! Lets start with them!"

Joker had cornered a terrified family of three. A mom, dad, and a son who was about eight years old, with black hair and blue eyes. Robin's eyes widened. "NO!" he struggled against his bonds, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn't save the kid. But that wasn't who the joker was after...

Bang!

Bang!

Robin looked over at the family, tears falling freely when he saw the sight. The bodies of the boys parents, lying still on the ground, covered in blood. The child crying, wishing he could've died too. "No...no! Not again! No!" His parents falling to thier doom played through his head over and over, as he looked at the boy who was just like him.

"You see, boy blunder? You couldn't save his parents! Just like you couldn't save your own! Just like you can't save your friends!"

The jokers face hid in the shadows as a well known one emerged. "Now Robin, how can you save a city if you can't even save yourself?" Slade. "You're worthless! Unreliable! A liar! A traitor! Your friends all hate you! Batman has deserted you! Don't you see?"

"Lies!" The boy screamed. "That's not true!"

"Is it now? Then where are your friends? They certainly aren't looking for you! And where's your mentor? Hmm? He is leaving you here to die, just like he did before. When a criminal as simple as the joker attacked you! Then he fired you! Pitty, you could've been such an aprentice. Now, just look at you. No wonder you got fired."

"No! He... fired me because... he didn't want me to... get hurt... he blamed himself..."

"No boy, that's just what he tells you, what he wants you to think. So you'll come crawling back to him, begging to work with your fearless leader." Slade laughed. "Just like a kicked puppy, hmm?"

Robin glared at Slade. "He is NOT in charge of me, first of all, and secondly, you can't make me believe any of what you said! I trust him! I trust all of them! They'll find me! We'll stop you!"

"And that's where you're wrong." When Robin looked back up standing before him was Batman.

"Batman! Please! You have to help me!"

"No."

"But... why?" He was answered with a punch to the jaw.

"First of all, THAT was a returned favor. You failed your duties as a hero. You failed your friends. You failed me. You are the biggest FAILURE I have ever met! You try, but never hard enough! People get hurt, because you aren't fast enough! You're no hero! You are just a worthless child! You didn't move to this city to do good! You moved here so you wouldn't have to face your problems! You are a coward! You do no good! A quitter! A failure! Nobody wants you around! You are just a child trying to avenge the death of your parents!"

"So were you!"

"Yes, but then I helped people! You've hurt more than you've saved!"

"No... no... thats not true... no... NO!"

"Oh, but it is." Raven came foreward. "You believe yourself to be a role model, yet evil corrupts you time and time again. You want to be a steadfast holyer than god leader, yet can be defeated by one starbolt! You are just a human. You have no special skills or abillities. You're worthless! You aren't an asset to this team! Why do you think we made you leader? We made you leader so you could look all bad and tough, then get out of the way!"

"No! NO! NO!"

"Robin?" Starfire asked him.

"Star?"

"Yes, it is I. I have a confession in which to make."

"What?"

"I do not really love you. I never did. I was trying to be nice and please everyone by pretending it was true. To me, you are a klorbag whose head is bigger than a snarkbar woserton. That is all." She started to walk away.

"Please... please help me, I'll never bother you again, just please help me... please..."

"Richard?" He looked around, seeing no one. Suddenly, the scene changed. He was seeing the day his parents died.

"God no..."

"Coming mom!" A younger version of himself ran foreward.

"Good boy, you're all ready! The show's about to start!"

"Mom, I saw this man talking to Mr. Haley, and-"

"That's nice sweety, you can tell us after the show, ok?"

"But mom, he threatened to-"

"Son, your mother said to tell us later. It's our act! Come on!"

Robin tried to call out to them, "Don't! Zucco took the bolts off of the trapeeze! It's not safe! At least put the net up! Mom! Dad!" He ran up to the circus tent just in time to hear the sickening crack of bodies falling to the ground. He got down on his knees, tears streaming down his face. Please... no, not again... why couldn't I get there in time? Why couldn't I have saved them?"

"Because Richard." The ghost of his mother was now talking to him. "You always tried hard on the trapeeze, but when it came to saving your father and I's lives, you didn't try at all!"

"I did! Please belive me, I tried to-"

"No, Richard. If you had tried, we would have still been alive! It's all your fault! You save countless lives, trying to make up for your first failure. Trying to make up for murdering me! For KILLING your father!"

"No! No..."

"And what do you do as soon as we're gone? You go and manage to get yourself adopted by Batman, who just so happens to be rich and famous! I bet you planned the whole thing!"

"I would never! Please believe me!"

"You're a murderer!"

"NO!"

"A traitor!"

"No!"

"A failure!"

"no..."

Starfire looked through the window of the med bay. "Please, he will be ok, yes? You said you gave him medication for the fear toxin! You said he will be ok! Why is he in such a distressed state? Why is he screaming?"

Batgirl shot her a distressed look. "He will be, these antitoxins take time to kick in! And even so, Scarecrow might've changed his formula. But I promise, I'll do everything I can to save him! And he's like that becuase Scarecrow's fear toxins make your worst fears, and your worst nightmares come to life, but in a way that seems completely real to the person under the toxins."

"How do you know so much about that stuff?" asked a worried Cyborg.

"Because. Dick and I have both been under the fear toxin before. At different times, thank goodness. But trust me. It ISN'T pleasant."

"AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" a blood chilling scream echoed down the hallway.

"That sounded like Rae!" shouted Beastboy, as he took off down the hallway. He found the girl curled up in a ball on the floor, screaming her head off.

When she saw Beastboy there, she grabbed his arm, and screamed, "Gar, make it stop! Make it stop! Ahhhhh!"

"Rae! What's wrong!" after a moment of chanting her incantation, she took a deep shuddering breath, and was back to normal.

"Number one... you're calling me 'Rae'. Two, remember that bond me and Robin have?" he nodded. "Well, I don't know what happens on his side of it, but I can feel his pain and emotions through it. Apparently he knows it though, becuase I barely feel any pain or emotions from him, unless they are extremely strong emotions. Apparently, he represses it so I don't feel it. Actually, come to think of it, I think he might be stupid enough to carry some of my pain. Since he's unconscious, he can't repress it... whatever's happening to him in his hallucinations, I can fee-ahh!" She put her hand up to her face, where a nice purple bruise was starting to form.

"Apparently, I can feel his phisical pain, too."

"What's that mean, Raven?"

She gave him a serious look. "It means, whatever happens to him up here," she pointed to her temple, "happens to me."

"So if he... dies..."

"I die too."