Well, I was having some writer's block with this one and I had finals too but here you go guys. This was another one of my late night possessed write-a-thons so don't be surprised if there are some errors my sleep-depraved mind didn't catch, haha!

Extra long chappie! Read and review and enjoy!

Arual-san

At once Robin's angry thoughts were sidetracked when his friend was in danger. He flipped on his communicator at once to find that Batman was nowhere on the radar and that Batgirl was of course still in school. He didn't have time to see if she'd answer it or not while in the middle of class so he did a quick manual override of the communicator's tame vibrate mode to one that would most likely shock her out of her seat.

Robin didn't leave her message but a text when there were ears everywhere in the school.

Seconds ticked by and the tendrils curled further and deeper along into Cyborg's system. He stared dizzily into nothingness as the other Titans used Robin's fine tools to stab and kill the vines from penetrating anywhere important like his central processing unit. They all worked feverishly to keep the deadly plant at bay, when it re-grew and snapped at them, for as long as they could but when seconds turned into minutes worry began to set in.

"She'll come!" Robin said to convince his teammates when the situation was dire. "She'll come!"

"She's here." And Batgirl came to an Olympic landing right behind them. Trained like she was, she didn't waste a second to wonder over what trouble Robin had gotten himself into this time or who the new faces were. "What do you need?"

"Plant killer now!" Forgoing manners when the plant was rapidly turning his friend's blue circuits green and cracking the gears, Robin held out his hand for it without looking back. The instant he got the tiny vial he opened the core drive in Cyborg's chest and dumped its contents. He snapped the lid back shut and held Cyborg down as the antidote began to spread.

"Okay you two," Batgirl said at once to the female Titans, "Ivy's plants always go down kicking and screaming so be ready to hold him once-"

Before she could finish a horrible screeching filled the air, what could only be the sound of the genetically altered plant, and the force of which it rocked Cyborg's body nearly sent Robin crashing into the nearest wall. The girls all grabbed a limb before that could happen and held tight. The plant thrashed in pain inside the metallic teen but throughout its pain had the intelligence to see that it couldn't throw all of them at once. It redirected its strength from all over to its roots in a single arm and used it to slug Batgirl. She got back up just as fast and the sudden change of view made her notice something else.

"Watch your leg, Red!" she warned, pinning the flailing arm down again.

In that same beat Starfire noticed and blasted the tendril that had been curling around her long purple boot. She blasted a couple more of the sneaky roots that had been wrapping around Raven's cape and every other one that tried the same on the others and as she did Cyborg's struggles were winding down.

"All right," Robin breathed out when the vines finally grayed and withered. "We got to it in time. I'll start up the reboot." He busied himself with that while the girls let go of Cyborg in relief. When Robin wasn't going to make introductions Batgirl gave the other two an inviting smile.

Starfire took that invitation as soon as it was made. "Greetings Batgirl, friend of Robin. I am most pleased to meet your acquaintance." She took up Batgirl's gloved hand and shook it with vigor. "There is the custom of hand shaking to be done, correct?"

"Um…sure," Batgirl said and, although it was a little weird for her, her smile continued on. "So the Jump City Gazette says that you were…err…Stormfire?"

"My name is Starfire," the girl corrected, finishing her handshake and trying to hand it off to Raven.

Unable to resist some curiosity, Batgirl asked, "Your parents aren't hippies or something, are they?"

"Hippie? I am not familiar…Raven, will you please tell me the meaning of this word?"

"You're not a hippie love-child, Star," Raven assured, not completely humorlessly. She turned her attention to Batgirl. "It's a direct translation of her name from her native Tamaranean into English."

"And you must be Raven," Batgirl continued when Raven accepted her hand from Starfire and gave it a quick shake. "You don't know how surprised I was to see Robin's signal in range. He must've forgotten his suitcase full of hair gel." She chuckled at her own joke. "So what brings you all to Gotham? Not that I don't appreciate the help but…hey wait, where's Greenie?"

"You just answered your own question," Raven answered. "We're trying to find out the same thing."

"Huh? But I just saw Beast Boy the other day. The jet didn't have an ejection seat malfunction, did it?"

"As if it would ever be that simple," Raven sighed, vaguely wondering what was the worst regular high school students would've had to deal with. "At some point when you met him he…wasn't himself."

"Wait – what? When?"

"That's a lot of W's," Raven said but before she could begin to say Batgirl had already reached that conclusion. Blue eyes went wide beneath the cowl and she started up, "You…you mean when he came back from investigating the girl's academy?" It was the only logical conclusion but she still said it with surprise. "He was…when he was acting all nauseous and – ooo where's that droid, I want to pound it!"

"Back in the jet," Robin replied when everything was going smoothly with Cyborg's reboot. "What's left of it anyway."

"Well now that you've decided to join the conversation you've reminded me that I want to pound you too." She clenched her fist but didn't move to do it after such a dire situation. "I swear, I swear to any god out there that's listening, you and Batman have a sixth sense for the absolute worst times to call me! Every time! Do you hear me, Robin?"

"Yeess," he dragged on, hopelessly awaiting the start of another chew out.

"Don't you take that tone with me! I was sooo close, Casey had cornered me into the lockers, he was finally going to kiss me…then your little call practically electrocutes me! Do you know how hard it is to get a date with Casey Newman?"

Without anything else to do, Starfire and Raven just hung around on the sidelines as Robin and his old teammate made conversation. It wasn't exactly under the nicest conditions should they meet up again but although they were fighting none of it was all that serious.

"Not really," Robin said with some sarcasm. "Is it hard?"

"As a matter of fact-"

"As much as I enjoy listening to this…" Robin held a hand for Batgirl to stop just as Cyborg's reboot completed. His system flashed its bright blue hue throughout the cracks in its components. Everything had appeared normal thus far but the Titans only knew all too well that any serious internal damage may only show itself presently. They waited silently, half-expecting sparks to fly from some damaged part only Cyborg himself knew how to fix. His artificial red eye flashed on first, his real one a moment later, and he vaguely surveyed them all.

"Cyborg?" Starfire said when she couldn't stand to be silent. "Cyborg…you are…undamaged?"

So fast that it seemed to flash, Cyborg's face broke out into a wide and glowing smile like nothing bad had ever happened. "You know, I'm really in the mood for waffles right now! Belgium waffles…with strawberries and whipped cream! Gotham got any good breakfast joints?" he asked of Robin and Batgirl specifically. "You guys get a superhero discount here?"

Batgirl stifled a little snort in her hand. "You know, I must be losing my touch to have this surprise me. Your guy got hit with some of Ivy's dust so he's going to be decidedly uh…cheerful until it wears off."

And, as Batgirl had called, Cyborg was in plenty good spirits as his immune system worked off the remainder of the spores. Listening to him jabber away over the intercom, the girls slumped in the seats of the jet for a few minutes to recover as he routed their path to Birnamwood Academy. If it were at all possible, Robin became more silent than before, stewing in anger about how things had gone down, how Harley and Ivy would never let him live that failure down and spread the tale down to the last lonely sewer rat of Gotham.

Although to a lesser effect, he was his mentor in that his silence could be more intimidating than anything he could articulate into words.

They could only expect to draw attention when they'd stepped through the double doors of the academy but what they didn't quite expect was just how starved the boys there were for the appearance of the opposite sex.

"Hey, Bright Eyes," said one, making puckering motions with his lips to Starfire. "Love that short little skirt of yours."

"I'm in love! I think that dark-looking one cast a spell on me!"

"How about a date baby? I've got a great ride!"

"Did it hurt when you two fell from heaven?" The boy made like he was fainting from the sight of them.

Nothing diminished Cyborg's cheer but Starfire was confused and tried for courtesy when the boys were crowding the halls and making it difficult to walk. Raven for her part seemed merely annoyed at all the catcalls. A nerve started to jump on Robin's forehead when the boys hitting on his girlfriend was endless on top of everything else. The Titans kept their distance when he could finally boil over at any second.

"Come on, Star," Raven said when their presence there was causing Robin's temper to rise. "Let's check out the girl's academy."

The girls headed out despite how the many academy boys pleaded against it but it only did a small thing to make Robin feel better when the crowds cleared and they were allowed free passage through the halls.

"Ha, hah, isn't life grand?" Cyborg said loftily without expecting an answer as the spores still continued to wear off. "Nice sunny weather without a cloud in that blue, blue sky right Robin?" He looked to the wide windows to that sky and a couple of spring bunnies and gave a content sigh. "Yo, Robin?"

But Robin had gone too long with his anger rising up to dangerous levels and when he saw the opportunity pass his way he relieved it right there by driving his fist into Regis's smug face. The boy was sent reeling into the wall.

"Hey man," Cyborg pulled Robin back after he made a fake lunge forward just to see the bully squirm, "you can't just go around hitting people!"

"Oh, he deserved it," Robin said darkly, looking down on the bewildered boy and his cronies that had made Beast Boy their new punching bag during their stay. Those pampered wastes of space deserved to be missing more than his friend and slugging the leader for it siphoned off a great deal of his anger, though plenty still remained.

"Reg," Bradley asked with the same bewilderment his friend showed, "what on Earth did you do to make Robin mad at you?"

"I don't know!" Regis cried out in perfect honesty when he'd only had a line of exchange with Dick Grayson's alter ego. The hit on his eye would surely go black but he quivered in fear as if expecting the famous Robin to finish him off there like he knew he could.

"Go crying to Daddy and sue me," Robin finished, never once caring that some of the crowd that had been present before had returned at his action. It was his last mocking statement to Regis and the boy got to shaking legs under that glare and made a break for it.

His friends, Chad and Bradley, made run after with him.

"You two aren't going anywhere." And Robin didn't even have to raise his voice or turn their way for the two larger-set boys to stop in their tracks. "You're witnesses to the operation that went down at this school. You're going to tell me everything you know."

With Batman gone on whatever mission with the League, Robin had decided to assist Batgirl in patrolling the only city he knew more thoroughly than Jump, anything to keep himself in motion and reinforce the fact that although his team's recent failure would be spread faster by word of mouth than any newspaper could boast those who overheard had only better ever repeat it in hushed whispers he would never overhear. The supercomputer back at the cave was fully manned with the others as they searched for leads on the whereabouts of their fifth member. The first time Robin heard his communicator go off he assumed was about an update on that subject.

He blinked when he read the text "LMBO!" from Aqualad.

But then the texts of the same ambiguous nature started pouring in from Titans all over the nation never giving him more than an hour's rest. He put up with it longer than he should've had to but finally, when Robin couldn't stand one more call interrupting him in his work and making him look like a fool in front of the GCPD and crooks, he called back the last person that had texted him.

"All right, Melvin, what's going on?"

"Hrrkk!" At the sight of him the small pigtailed girl tucked her hands behind her back and gave a sheepish smile.

"You know that this is a secure line and is only supposed to be used in emergencies," he continued patiently, trying to enforce proper behavior to a future Titan even if the present Titans were currently breaking character to act like immature teenagers.

"I know Mr. Robin sir. I'm sorry," she said but her posture was a little too straight and she shook slightly.

"I thought I told everyone not to call me "sir"." He took in the strained expression on her face with some scrutiny. "Is something funny?"

Robin just saying that aloud was enough to let a few giggles escape from the little girl. Melvin however was the leader of the kiddie Titans so that was all she permitted herself, an effect somewhat ruined by Timmy and Teether going off in laughter in the background.

"Uh…uh…no! Bobby's just trying to make balloon animals and they keep getting popped on his claws."

"Then why the text? Why is everybody-?" And as if to prove his point, his communicator went off again with a message from Argent saying she'd just squirted cherry cola out of her nose from laughing so hard. He was beginning to get annoyed at being left out of the loop.

"Gotta go!" Melvin said, ill-equipped to think of an excuse on such short notice. "Timmy's having another tantrum!"

"But he's laughing."

"Nuh-uh, he's just – he's – it's reverse ci…simology! He's trying to trick everybody! It's the fearsome fours! Bye!" And before he could get a straight answer out of the child the screen went black. It had been a slow night just taking down a handful of no-name thugs and it seemed that without Beast Boy there to proclaim the remainder of the night was to be spent with pizza and movies the universe didn't seem inclined to throw anything terrible and unexpected his way. Approaching the cave, he dialed Cyborg's number on his cycle's screen.

Instead of being greeted with a face when the top was flipped Robin saw quick, slanted flashes of the three of them run by as they argued and tried to force the communicator on the other. He nearly got motion sickness from how often they nearly dropped it.

"Guuys?"

"Ah, weak! I thought I told the others to keep this under wraps! Here, you-!"

"I refuse!" Starfire cried back. "I cannot possibly!"

After taking much longer than it should've taken to answer a phone, Cyborg and Starfire simultaneously ganged up on Raven, easily the most stoic of the group, grabbing up either arm and forcing her into the chair that Cyborg had previously occupied. The two then disappeared from sight.

"Umm…hey," Raven said with some hesitation, her poker face betraying her slightly by her lips tantalizingly trying to keep from smiling. She couldn't look directly at her leader and instead focused somewhere around his chin.

If there was anyone that would give him a straight answer it was Raven and Robin pressed on in waning patience, "Is there something going on that I should know about?"

She seemed to have the exact same, albeit much more toned down, strained expression that Melvin had worn and it was as if simply looking at him was causing her to react as such. Raven hesitated to answer but then sidetracked the question to more important and sobering matters. "We've been tracking Beast Boy's location for hours and we've narrowed it down to a small quadrant of space. We're ready to go when you are."

"Good work. Any further information you've uncovered?"

"These don't look like particularly welcoming planets so it would be best if we didn't split up," she said. "You really shouldn't be looking at a screen when you're driving and no I don't care how well you know the road. We'll talk when you reach the cave. Raven out."

The three were alone again but nevertheless Cyborg felt the need to look around his shoulder in the cave that held nothing but darkness and shadows when they were doing something they shouldn't.

"So what do you say ladies?" He flexed a finger over a certain web tab. "Ninth time's a charm?"

"Yes, yes," Starfire cheered like the footage was new, "please proceed once more!"

Cyborg clicked it open and the map of the solar system that was their next mission flashed away, something they'd worked on for so many hours that the image burned into the backs of their eyes, and Cyborg's YouTube account appeared with a copied surveillance tape that skyrocketed in hits every time they clicked the refresh button. He tapped the full-screen button. Full-screen always seemed to make it funnier.

A black and white feed of a warehouse lit up the computer screen. There were several long shelves that lined the widely-spaced warehouse all with crates of varying sizes, some too big for four grown men to carry. Poison Ivy lovingly packaged plump orange pumpkins and gestured for full boxes of them to be loaded onto a truck by her hired thugs and the male couriers that bore strangely vacant expressions. The two female employees, who her spores did not affect, appeared to be tied up and gagged in the supply closet.

"A gas that mercilessly attacks the circulatory system," Ivy said of her newest creation as she caressed the cheek of a worker who was ironically like a zombie on Halloween night. "It's really a shame the board recognizes my face far too well to ever let me past the front gates even in disguise. You'll be a dear and deliver these, won't you?" She shrugged when he was too dazed to respond.

A couple of her hired help who seemed to be friends spared her a look as they loaded the pumpkins.

"Sooo…we're kinda used to working with Two-Face," the squatter of the two started up in favor of getting some information. "You know, the usual old rob the banks and the life and death flip the coin thing with Bats."

"Yeah, so what's the cash out on this one? Any "tips" beyond the normal salary?"

"Harvey's an awful boring piece of work, isn't he?" She gave a dignified huff. "Kill off so many boards and there's bound to eventually be one worth the pretty penny they cost, one that won't bulldoze the last stretch of wildflowers in this dying metal heap of a city."

When Ivy didn't elaborate further the two exchanged dubious looks when their boss's only motive for her crimes appeared to be killing off those who had first decided to kill off her precious plants. Gotham criminals weren't known for being of sound mind.

"The Heart of the City Garden is no longer enough to satisfy you?"

With a sulky expression crossing her fine features, Ivy crossed her arms and looked sidelong to a point of the warehouse where shadow was cast. Batman seemed to materialize out of that blackness and a ten-year-old Robin came to stand at his side.

Looking in from the cave, Starfire gave a tiny squeal. "Aww, small Robin is a most precious little heart of sweetness that I wish to hug!"

"Shhh!" the other two hushed at her and Cyborg turned up the volume.

"How long until that garden is plowed to the ground as well?" Ivy questioned in a wry way of the superhero. "How long until every tree in this urban jungle is gone and you all choke on the smog this city has created? It's a wonder why I don't just leave Gotham all together."

"No one is getting out of this warehouse with those pumpkins," he told her when he'd deliberately placed himself between Ivy and the only loading dock exit. "It would be in your best interests to stop this now."

"Yeah!" Robin seconded and the young boy was restless, bouncing on his feet like staying still was an impossible task.

"I didn't go and break out of Arkham just to be sent back without a fuss. It's rather dull in that place-" – she slipped out vials from the invisible folds in her leotard and cracked them open underfoot – "when my babies can't spread their roots to their heart's desires."

"I gave you fair warning," Batman said in a low rumble, reaching for his utility belt.

"Yeah, we warned you, plant-lady!" Robin echoed with pent up energy winding him up more every second and now even the little movement of bouncing was unbearable for another second. "Hai-ya!" Like a loaded spring, he was a flash of light onto the nearest bad guy.

Watching him pack ten punches into two seconds, Ivy's eyebrows rose a little. "Just because you're the almighty Batman doesn't mean you're too good to pick a copy of Good Parenting Weekly. It's a very bad thing to let your kid eat all their Halloween candy for dinner."

The smile Raven had been trying so hard to hide surfaced once more.

Batman narrowed a critical eye in the boy's direction but his new partner seemed oblivious when he was whizzing through all his trained routines in fast forward as the grown men all struggled and fell over themselves to keep up. Batman hadn't the time and Alfred hadn't the spare youth in him to keep up with an already energetic ten-year-old when there was free candy to be had in only one short night spent trick or treating. He wouldn't have been able to pick Robin out of all the scores of other children in the Scarecrow costume he'd worn that night if not for their communicators. It was just an undoable task to monitor the boy's every move that whole night.

And because the Bat hadn't been able to control every little thing he was stuck with a junior partner on a sugar-high.

Poison Ivy gave a smile that made her red lips glimmer in the lamplight. She lifted a pumpkin high so that it seemed to replace the head on her shoulders and she teased, "Fear me for I am Jack, the Pumpkin King."

Batman's hand was still on his utility belt and when the poisonous gas was inside the pumpkins he couldn't reach for his signature Batarangs. He knew well that her offing him was always the higher priority over some stuffy suits. He might've had the one exit blocked but Ivy had several boxes of pumpkins she could rupture with a simple push. The vines engorging at her feet and the plant lady herself had to wait.

He threw out a scattering of gray pellets her way.

Ivy remained in place, unimpressed in those few seconds. "Don't you know by now that I have an immunity to tox-?"

The greatest detective would have never overlooked such an integral detail. Ivy had a second of surprise to register before she found that they weren't the same knock-out pellets he'd used on other criminals but ones that exploded into blinding flashes of light.

Ivy cried out in temporary blindness and the pumpkin she'd been holding went flying. Her vines screeched and limped out of the way beside their master and Batman swiftly improvised with a small tranquilizer dart to pin the pumpkin's stem to the door of the truck. His way was clear to the rest of the pumpkins. If he couldn't destroy them then he could only make them inaccessible to the enemy.

It had been a prototype back then but Batman let his Ice Batarang fly.

Once it hit the bottom of the trunk thick ice crystals swallowed the cartons into great boulders of ice. There was no Firefly to melt it or Bane to crush it so that was how the pumpkins were going stay and Ivy scowled throughout her clearing vision that she'd not taken either of them on as a partner.

"Cool!" beamed Robin at the sight, taking a second out from his manic fighting. He checked all over his belt's compartments. "Where's mine?"

"I've only developed a small batch of them," Batman explained, projecting calmness into his voice he hoped his partner would pick up on."They're not a completely stabilized chemical mix." He let loose another Ice Batarang, aiming for the wheels of the truck just to be safe. "I still need to put them through a few more trials before I-"

"Ha-ha!" Robin exclaimed, with his amazing reflexes springing up and grabbing the weapon as it whizzed through the air.

As Batman looked on in rising irritation his partner threw the Batarang in the exact same place it would've landed had it been Batman's throw. Still, since it was him that made the wheels ice up, Robin became his own cheering section before he went back to beat up on some more baddies.

"Robin…" Batman said lowly, warningly.

Poison Ivy had recovered and attacked Batman and her vines slammed into Robin from behind, sending him reeling across the floor. It was a heavy hit to his small body but Batman couldn't help when he had his hands full with Poison Ivy. Robin groaned on the floor and crouched into himself as if it could make the pain go away and in that moment of weakness the sentient plant unbuckled his belt.

"That's mine!" he cried out in anger and he snapped back to his feet. "Give it back!"

The vines slithered away but nothing could be faster than Robin that night. He ducked in and out of tendrils that tried to stop him and he blocked blows like he was fighting any other opponent, none quite as skilled as he was at present but well on his way. Robin took down any vine that got in his way until he reached the one that had stolen his belt and he hacked it down.

The belt dropped to the ground below and Robin dropped from the mutilated plant after it.

One of the thugs was closer and he grabbed it up first but before he could begin to taunt Robin whacked his smaller Bo into the man's knees. Again he tried to catch his belt but another thug was taller and beat him to it. That one got slugged in the gut. Finally the dim-witted hired help thought to hand it off to the largest one of them all that was built like a human tank. The large thug didn't need to shift position at all. He only needed to hold the belt above his head and it was far out of reach to the junior crime-fighter.

That didn't stop Robin. He jumped after it in the air several times more than needed, never tiring or running out of insults for the mammoth thug. Just when the thugs had started to chuckle at his efforts Robin improvised with something he never could've fit into his belt.

He hurled a wooden crate into the thug's ugly face and sent him to the ground with a crash.

"Who's the tough guy now?!" Robin demanded of them for daring to treat him like an ordinary kid and not the apprentice of the Bat. He released similar capsules to Batman's that instead expanded into entrapping nets on contact on those that remained standing. Before the largest one could get back to his feet, Robin pounced on him with a flurry of punches to his already crate-impressioned face.

By now, though they had seen it so many times before, Cyborg and Starfire, even Raven couldn't keep her emotions bottled up tight, were rumbling with laughter over how their tough and serious leader had been as a child. Once upon a time he'd just been as normal and fun as the next one.

The fight wound down until it was only Batman and Robin against Poison Ivy and with all her plants mutilated at her feet and her plan trapped in ice that refused to melt, with her wrist crossbow as her only means of defense, she was declawed. The police soon filed into the warehouse, only ever seeming to catch up on the leads when the show was through, but they cleaned up and did the paperwork that Batman didn't.

"We'll find some method of disposing of those little plants of Ivy's safely," Commissioner Gordon said as he waved his men to back the trunk out of the loading dock with caution. "How did you manage to track her down so quickly?"

The two men went over the specifics of the case and what else they could do to strengthen the lax security on Arkham Asylum that seemed to lose its inmates almost as soon as it had obtained them. At first Robin had stood tall beside his mentor but as the conversation dragged on the inevitable crash came and he noticeably drooped in both expression and posture until he completely dropped out of sight.

The commissioner paused in his next statement to see the soon-to-be-famous Boy Wonder passed out on the floor and snoring. He was on duty but he gave a small chuckle. "Rough night for the little guy? You know, I have a daughter about his age."

Batman had relayed information when it was concerning business but he was silent now.

"We're…never talking about this again, are we?" the commissioner assumed when Batman gave him no reply about the subject and refused to let a single tick of embarrassment show on his face over the less than flawless performance of his new partner.

The funny parts were through and where Starfire had rolled her head back laughing she opened her eyes then to take in the final scene. Before that though she saw the upside-down image of the current Robin standing silently on the steps that led to the manor. He'd returned via an alternate route so he could see what they were up to and he was seeing it now, Starfire just didn't know for how long.

Robin hadn't noticed her moment-long attention and in that moment Starfire could see his thoughtful expression as he stared at the screen.

With a certain gentleness that was difficult to envision on such a dark and imposing superhero, Batman gathered his sleeping ward into his arms without disturbing him. He gave a slight nod of the head to the commissioner and walked away from the scene.

When Starfire hazarded a quick peek back to the stairs Robin was gone.