A/N)Ok here you go all. Thanks for favoring and stuff, but If it isn't too much to ask, can you all show me that this story isn't boring you? I'd really like to hear from anyone. I feel kind of left out. Meh, even if it is boring you, tell me anyway.

I hope you like this chapter. I'm exploring really far in my writing skill. I really want to see where I can go with this story. I hope you all do too.

P.S. For some reason the break line between Timmy's POV and Dicks wouldn't stay put so don't be confused by the line of A's. Lol.

Searing, burning, raging pain. Nothing like fire. Worse than hell. Images . . . broken, stretched . . .hideous. Smiling blood. Flaming death. Not there. Darkness. Swimming in liquid toxin.

Then . . .Suddenly a pressure weighing down so forcefully it could kill. Wait, no . . .already dead, how .. . ?

"That doesn't seem possible, but it's true!"

Dim sound, through water. Deafening ring.

"What are the side affects?"

Burbling through a thick cracking wall. Slipping through like slime that burned.

"We don't see any yet. Full vitals indicate he's, perfectly . . .alive! Unbelievable."

A agonizing stab through the chest.. . . .

Talia actually felt her body tensed as she watched the now newly reborn body give a convulsive twist.

"Benet." The word fell cold and hard on the shorter mans head, as if she'd pounded it with her fist.

"I. Um, I supposed he's still unstable, his newly reborn mind is trying to remember what it's suppose to do. Such as make him breathe." He shifted nervously, watching the body thrash against the glass case he was in, "The machines will help him though. As you know this is beyond unnatural." He hid the malice in his voice from her.

But Talia heard it anyway, "Am I to understand you think you have a right to disapprove of Father's projects."

It felt like she'd stabbed him. He could sense her looming danger, "N-no Mistress, it's just . .. nobody expected this to happen." He shuddered involuntarily at the same moment as the body they were watching did.

"Perhaps." She turned, "Let me know when he is actually conscious. And Doctor." She stopped at the door, barley tilting her head towards him, "Make sure he stays alive. Understand." It sounded like 'or else I will make sure you die in the most worst way.'

"Yes Mistress."

Then she was gone.

The Doctor looked back at the body, still thrashing sporadically in the case. Terrifyingly alive. A body he'd seen decomposed into almost nothing. Just barley existing in deaths form. Now . . . moving, thrashing, alive.

The bald man couldn't look. He'd done some horrible things working for the Al Ghuls, but this . . . was even more than his stomach could take.

Days, he'd been tracking this mess for days. Still nothing.

Dick leaned back with a small groan and rubbed his eyes, trying to rub the stiffness he felt in them out. He'd analyzed, recalculated, reanalyzed everything. Nothing came up. Nothing.

He covered his face with his hands and curled inward, Damn it. damn it all. He hissed to himself, why wasn't anything coming up to a conclusion. His brain hurt, his body was exhausted, lack of sleep for the past week. His mind wasn't thinking as sharply as it should have.

He didn't want to believe that.

I'm fine.

That's what he told everyone, all the time. And almost, no, EVERY time it was a bold faced lie. Or was it a hard faced lie? He didn't care. The past years he'd been trying to lock away feelings, thoughts, that lead to feelings. Everything that hurts.

He knew it was wrong. He knew he was falling down the line of the very thing he didn't want to become. But something inside couldn't bring himself to care. He refused to feel what it was. It would kill him if he did.

We need you Dick.

Tim needs you.

... I need you. Please.

Babs soft face imploring him to open up. He shuddered away from it.

Come on Dickie, please. We can talk. It'll help.

I never get to see you anymore Buddy. I miss you. Don't leave me hanging.

Not like everyone else.

Wally had practically thrown away his dignity and begged.

He'd locked the door.

Master Dick. Your hurting yourself in a way I haven't seen since . . master Bruce.

Your different. You have people all around you that love you.

Don't lose yourself.

He'd given Alfred his cold back.

So many others, so many of his friends, they had tried, in the beginning. They all had tried. But soon they'd given up. All of them. Well, most of them. But he didn't want to think of those that were still holding out to him. It made him feel worse then the scum he'd devoted himself to fight.

And Batman.

He refused to think of Batman. He couldn't. Not without remembering the older man's face when he'd looked at him after . . . that incident.

He hadn't said it. But Dick saw it. He read it clear as day.

"Why did you let him go."

It had stabbed him like a knife. The first time he'd failed so hard.

Sure, he'd failed lots of times before, but never enough to make Batman look at him that way, that hateful, hateful way. The one time he did. And it took-

"Dick?"

Dammit. He forgot he was still curled up in a fetal position. Instantly he straightened and whirled around to meet Timmy's eyes, wide, worried, innocently questioning him.

"Yah?"

The younger boy shifted nervously. Poor kid. Dick felt his heart give a tweak. He'd brought him into this life, then just left him behind. Like Batman. He fought back a guilty grimace.

"Um. The case your working on." He spoke slowly, calculating the effect of each word, "Do you-are you almost closing it?" It seemed off point, the way he'd asked.

Dick knew he wanted to ask something else.

"No." Then he turned back to the console to get back to work.

Tim stood there silently, he could feel the younger boys eyes on his back. The sadness and longing that came with it. He almost wanted to turn around and give the boy a hug. But . . .

Don't turn around. Don't turn around. Don't turn around. If you do you'll regret it.

Finally, after another breath taking minute he felt the boy turn and disappear back to the manor.

Dick let out a tensed sigh, then, not being able to think anymore, he let his face fall on the desk and everything went black.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

Tim hated it. He hated all of it.

Becoming Robin had been, quite literally, the best day of his life. It was almost all he wanted to live for after his family had died. But then came that horrible bump in the road.

He remembered his first mission. The Joker had escaped. They'd gone after them. Tim noticed with slight worry, how blindly Batman followed what was otherwise an obvious trail.

He'd known it was a trap, he had felt it. But he had been to afraid to say so out loud. That resulted in falling for the psycho clowns trap. Almost killed him.

Then, Tim witnessed the most horrible thing he'd ever seen. Batman loosing his cool. The man went on a rage. Joker had been ready to whack Tim with a metal pipe. Then the Bat turned into a monster.

Tim had never heard, or even thought, that the Batman could go that far. So close. He had been so close to finishing Joker.

Tim saw, with his own terrified eyes, Batman wanted to kill him. Batman was going to cross that forbidden line.

Then Tim screamed.

Stop!

That was it it took. Batman, on the verge of stabbing the clown with his own pipe, froze. Tim swore he had seen some kind of monster melt away from his mentors body that night. It made him sick to the point of puking to think about it.

A stir had risen, of course. Arkum doctors said they had never seen Joker this bad before. Not that anybody cared. Nobody cared for that clown. No, it was for themselves they started to worry. Fear had gripped them. What if Batman was finally losing it? Who could stop him if he did? He had been off lately, more baddies had come barely breathing but this . . .

Tim shuddered in shame.

He had thought the same things. To the point where he actually started to fear the batman himself.

The family had heard, nobody talked about it. Except Babs had tried to comfort him. To tell him it had been building since forever ago.

Since that monster had killed . . . the second Robin. Tim remembered looking at the tattered remains of that Robins suit, still in it's case in the cave. Wondering how old he'd be if he was alive right now, wondering what he would be like, wondering what anything would have been like if he was still alive.

Truth be told, Timmy always felt like a cheap and worthless replacement. He sometimes wished he could have met the other Robin. Who was he? How was he? He must have been pretty darn special for them to still be hurting. But then, these people, including himself, never did take any kind of death well.

"Barbara?" He peered over the older girls shoulder as he reached his room. She was staring at her laptop intently.

"Almost done with my analysis Tim." She stated proudly, smiling at her laptop screen.

Timmy fought sadness in his mind, if Dick had this vial maybe he would have made some important breakthrough and wouldn't have looked so broken like he had.

"Done! Yes, now we just have to . . . what the heck is this stuff?" Her sapphire eyes widened.

"I-" The young boy squinted at the reading of the oozes compound, "Looks like a mix of Bane's steroid serum and . . .something else?" He didn't know what the other molecules were.

Barbara didn't know either.

"Great, so we basically just hit another dead end and after keeping this from Dick too-"

"Keeping what from me."

The both jumped around.

Tim swallowed, Babs looked angry.

Dicks face was emotionless as he looked between them, a white T-shirt in his hand. It was the first time in a while Tim had seen him in normal clothes.

"What are you two doing?!" He demanded a little louder.

Barbara stood up defensively, "Detective work and if you think you can pry it out of us-"

"We found this serum after we fought those guys at the doc and analyzed it but we only know what it's half made of and that doesn't actually help because we don't know who's dealing with this or why." Tim blurted out breathlessly gasping at the end.

"Tim!" Babs looked like she would slap him.

"I-I'm sorry Babs but . . . This isn't a competition. If this is something big. Then we need to figure it out together." He said timidly, not meeting her eyes.

Barbara groaned. She hated it when he was right. She wasn't going to admit it but, she often did let her anger and competitiveness cloud her better judgment.

Dick glared daggers at them, '"Seriously Barbara. You-"

Barbara jumped up, her eyes almost on fire, "Don't you 'seriously Barbara' me!" She yelled, loosing cool, "You can not just stand there and tell me you have a right to reprimand us after what you've been doing you - Moron!"

Tim watched in worry as Dick's face went slack. Barbara looked murderous, standing right in Dicks space challengingly. Oh god, the last time they fought . . .he couldn't sleep for a week!

"Barbara."

Her name came out in a mere whisper. Tim snapped his eyes open to look at his 'older brother.' Shocked to see Dick actually lose his stone front for the first time in forever.

Babs didn't move. She just glared. Waiting. Waiting for what? Tim wondered.

Then, just as quickly as it broke, that stone mask was back up, "Never mind. This is wasting time. Come on then. Spill it out. Then we get going." Dick's voice was hard an demanding.

Barbara wilted, Tim saw, before she covered it up, "Fine. Tim, get the sample. And where are we going Nitwing?" She snapped at Dick.

He purposely seemed to avoid her eyes.

Tim felt a chill run up his spine before Dick even said the words.

"Santa Prisca."