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Stay with me now. After this first part of the prologue, there's way more Robin+TT and dialogue/action vs. exposition. Just be thankful I trimmed this section by about five pages ;)

Although born as a city of the day, Gotham had long since become a child of twilight. All through the afternoon, its barren concrete and dreary industry lay quiet as the teeming masses go about their lives. Lines distinct and clear divide the have's and the have-not's. Tall sky scrapers of glass and steel gleaming stand mere steps away from patches of corruption and decay, the rotting corpses of apartments and skeletons of warehouses. Walking side by side together on repetitious grids are the wealthy aristocrats and sons of whores, princes and paupers existing together, but never acknowledging one another.

Such is Gotham by day: an eclectic mix to be sure, yet hardly unique. However, as the sun's golden red rays gradually recede from its streets, something uncanny happens. Darkness creeps in through the east, covering everything in black oblivion. For a few moments, what had been solid and real simply ceased to exist. Then, one by one, the lights came on, following the retreating following darkness, blending with it, never dispelling it completely.

Fluorescent, LED, Halogen, Neon, all were there, swirling in endless variance. And as they come alive, so does the city. Gotham is no longer simply a construction of steel and stone, it is a living thing, pulsing with unsteady life, its sentience marked by twisting shadows, its bones with the weirdly gothic structures, its blood in those strange souls who trust themselves to wander its paths.

Yes, Gotham is alive in a way that no other city has been and probably ever will be, yet for a long time, it was alive only in its corruption, like a man slowly dying of plague with no friends brave enough to put him out of his misery. There were many poor souls who had lived and died in Gotham, seemingly trapped in the warped streets its twilight and corruption grew. For them, there was nothing other than the endless despair of trying to get through the next day, the next night, with their lives intact. Sometimes they didn't even get that.

That was, until HE came. Over a decade ago, when crime had reached its zenith, Gotham was named the murder capital of the world and the city finally began to succumb to its own disease. Just as it seemed as if the city had finally tumbled too far, there were suddenly whispers in the shadows, whispers of hope, wonder, and a little bit of fear where before there had only been despair.

For over a decade, the Dark Knight had waged an unceasing war against the city and for the city, striving to keep it from killing itself and dragging its people down with it to Hell. For a decade, Bruce Wayne, happy child turned pathologically obsessed avenger, held the city suspended over a yawning chasm by the strength of his own will.

However, the same obsession that gave him the strength to hold the city also made him incapable of holding onto anything else. As he held city, the weight only got heavier and its corruption slowly made its way into his own heart and mind.

Others tried to take some of the burden from him, but Bruce could never really let himself rest, not even with Alfred, not even with Dick, the boy he'd adopted and honed into Robin. Ten years after he first begun his war, he seemed to damned to die before he was dead.. The Bat was the only true thing about him. Bruce Wayne had disappeared long ago and with him was any chance of reconciling any of his old relationships. Surely, it must have been thought that he doomed to live life only alone and anguished, if he lived at all. So it was thought.

TTTTTTTTTTTTT

Peace. Thankfulness. Love. To Alfred Pennyworth, it seemed as if he were suddenly bathed in them. Those were the closest things he could compare to what he felt as he opened the oven door to pull the apricot and honey glazed ham out. Alfred loved feeling of warmth and smell rolling out in waves. It felt like Heaven, which was good, because Heaven's blessing was especially wanted tonight. Tonight, Mrs. Ariel Wayne would try to convince her husband to reconcile himself with the boy he had raised, Dick Grayson, Robin.

With practiced deliberation, he easily placed the ham and still bubbling sauces on a bed of stuffing. Yes, everything had to be perfect. Sweeping his hand under the heavy load, he balanced the groaning silver tray expertly on the palm of his hand and walked the marbled path towards the master dinning room. It would have been a surprisingly long walk for someone who was unfamiliar with the Wayne Manor, but to aged butler, it seemed no time at all before he was suddenly in a cavernous room full of chandelier light, flying arches, and a table that appeared to stretch forever.

"Your dinner, Master Bruce, Mrs. Ariel."

It may have been impossible, but the monstrous table actually seemed to sag under the immense weight of Alfred's creations. The ham was only main course with sides of rich French onion soup, crisp beans and tomatoes, topped off with a bottle of fragrant raspberry liquor that had cost a small fortune. Never mind desert…

"Alfred…." An annoyed voice grated.

"Hmm?" The keeper of Wayne Manor glanced down at the cocked eyebrow of his charge. "Something wrong, Master Bruce?" Of course, he already knew. Batman may have been famed for his seeming omniscience, but when it came down to certain things IE knowing himself, the World's Greatest Detective had nothing on Alfred Pennyworth.

Bruce simply gestured out to the lavish spread overflowing the edges of the table in front of him. "Isn't this a bit…much." Indeed, there was enough food to feed a family of five plus all near and distant relations, but then, Alfred never believed in being niggardly, especially not tonight. No, not tonight.

For a long moment, he and his son in all but name held one another's gaze. Alfred had never backed down from looking Bruce in the eye. Alfred was one of five who could claim that distinct honor, and Thomas and Martha Wayne were long dead. Still, it sometimes hurt to stand up so to Master Bruce, even if he would never allow himself to show it.

"Bruce, stop badgering Alfred and dig in. These green beans are delicious." Bruce's attention was immediately shifted away from him to the woman comfortably sitting at his right.

"You haven't eaten them yet."

No, she had not, but Ariel Wayne wasn't about to let this little fact get in her way. Being another one of those privileged five (now three) who could look both Bruce Wayne and Batman in the eye, she calmly held up a finger before explaining, "One: I read the grocery bills and if they taste half as good as they cost, they must be wonderful. Two: they look and smell delicious. Three: Alfred made it."

A nod graciously given, graciously received. "Thank you, Mrs. Ariel." Although Alfred often received compliments on his cooking, it wasn't everyday that your culinary genius was declared to be natural law.

"You're welcome Alfred," came her purposefully overly emphasized politeness, "and drop the 'Mrs.' "

With a tacit nod, the venerable servant uncomfortably sat down at Bruce's left. It wasn't natural: butlers sitting down at their master's table, especially not when that butler was Alfred Pennyworth. Unfortunately, as she had just demonstrated, Mrs. Wayne had no compunction against rewriting natural law.

One of her first edicts was that Alfred would sit down and eat with them. It was a fight every meal, but she had begun to win with increasing regularity. Alfred had not fought her this time either. Nay, he had eagerly given in; anything to give her an extra edge tonight. She would need it.

The couple had almost finished their main meals. Alfred watched as Bruce and Ariel seemingly communicated through the tiniest gesture. A tip of the head here, a request for the pepper, a muttered, "thank you." Alfred, as had been the sad case for the past five years after Dick had left, was reduced to being little more than a helpless observer.

Although he had never stopped being proud of what his "son" was doing, he had grown increasingly worried as he seemingly became more and more like the criminals that he fought. Oh, Batman would never reduce himself to killing, to crime himself. That would be anathema; wrong on an almost spiritual level.

That didn't stop Bruce from becoming increasingly cold and distant, locking away his humanity in the dual fear that he would be hurt or his humanity would cause him to falter in the critical moment. The culmination of his efforts to isolate himself came when Master Dick broke off contact with Bruce, leaving both sides furious and hurt.

He had been dying by slow degrees ever since. That was, until a year ago, when several miracles occurred almost simultaneously and he had somehow ended up marrying the Ariel Holloway, former foster parent, unofficial head of Gotham's child care services, and part-time Sunday school teacher at Jubilee Church.

Batman had broken a kiddie porn ring and overnight there were thirty-four minors who desperately needed new homes. As Bruce Wayne, he'd contacted Ariel and together they'd found them those homes. She proved extremely proficient and Bruce, impressed with not only her intelligence, but her passion for her often thankless job, had continued to call on her.

Ten months after Batman delivered thirty-four terrified children into the arms of Gotham's Police, Alfred received the biggest surprise of his life. He was bringing in the groceries when he noticed the entrance to the Cave was open. Walking down, he saw Bruce and Ariel standing hand-in-hand over the massive abyss that took up so much of the Cave. Two weeks later, the celebrity world was turned on its ear when the couple publicly married. The uproar was unbelievable, given the wildly different socio-economic positions of the two and it was only made worse when the press discovered Ariel had once been suicidal.

Until he'd walked in on them in the Cave, he'd never even suspected the courtship. This alarmed Alfred, far more than Ariel's old scars. If anything, her own hardships would allow her to understand Bruce. No, the problem was that it seemed too reminiscent of his previous loves; fires burning hot in the dark that scorched him even as they warmed him. Selina, God help her, was a perfect example of this.

Ariel, however, was a firm anchor and Alfred had a strong suspicion that Bruce had finally realized that it was either grab onto something real or lose himself completely. At times Alfred felt a hint of jealousy that it hadn't been him that Bruce had finally reached for, but he didn't begrudge them that. There was no great passion and there might never be. After all, Bruce was forty-five and Ariel forty-nine. However, in saving one another they were saving themselves.

Alfred couldn't help but rejoice as Wayne Manor gained a life that it hadn't seen since a certain young acrobat had first stepped through its stately doors. "Speaking of a certain young acrobat..."

"How's Dick doing Bruce?" Ariel had finally stopped beating around brush.

"He's fine." Alfred recognized that tone. "Drop it now," it said.

"How do you know? I don't think I've ever seen you talk to him."

The silence, to use a perfectly appropriate cliché, was deafening. As the newly minted Mrs. Wayne, She had eagerly joined with him in his quest to reunite the two estranged heroes when he had first told her the tale. They'd schemed for the past week to get Bruce sufficiently committed to this dinner that they could finally confront him with fixing his broken relationship with his old crime fighting partner.

Alfred sighed inwardly, vaguely aware that voices were being raised. The real fight to make one more attempt at Robin was about to begin. Alfred suddenly felt very tired. He hoped he hadn't ruined one miracle by reaching for another.

"I wonder how it will end?"

Red Notes

1) As I mentioned earlier, I've cut a ton of stuff. Much as it killed me to do it, I axed about 3500 words worth of content from this chapter. The cut section dealt specifically with how Ariel met up with Bruce. The reason being I realized that no Teen Titan's fan was going to sit through that much detail when it doesn't have the slightest hint of the Titans or action. However, if you are interested in reading that cut content for enjoyment or for ideas, feel free to message or email me.

2) Some quick factoid checks… As you may have noticed, I'm not really following any one continuity, though I do try to keep it grounded in Batman: The Animated Series and Teen Titans the cartoon. I also try to be accurate when possible, but telling a good story is my main concern. I'm not sure about the Jan 15th date or about the exact number of years that Robin stays with Batman. Thankfully, I'm using the animated Teen Titan's Robin, so I can afford to fudge a little. Just a quick clarification: ROBIN IN THE TEEN TITAN'S IS NOT ANY ONE OF THE ROBIN'S FROM THE COMICS! It has been stated by the creators of the show that he is an amalgam of the three, though he appears to take after Dick Grayson more than anyone else, hence why I use that name. Finally, Stonegate is the substitute name used by the Animated series for Blackgate. I use it because I think it sounds a little less cheesy.