06:30 AM

Robin's retreat had taken Batman by surprise. The darkness, accompanied by short but frequent flashes of lightning, made it easy for Robin to disappear into the night. He wanted to make a beeline for Mount Justice, but he knew Batman would predict that.

Something had changed. The instant Batman had gone for him, Robin knew that whatever relationship they had once had was gone. There was nothing left to salvage. He also was forced at last to face the truth about how much danger he was in. Batman had managed to kick him only once, but he could feel a pain in his shoulder that suggested it had been cracked. And that, he knew with a sick certainty, was not even the worst of it.

He had to take a less obvious route. In fact, he actually circled back to get the R-cycle, in spite of the potential for Batman to be there waiting for him. It was a gamble, one that Robin won, though he observed that the batmobile was missing from the cave.

That meant that the race was already on. Somehow, Robin had to get to Mount Justice first. He didn't know why, but he had the awful feeling that, if Batman got there before he did, there would be no safety to be had. It was the first time the feeling of fear crept through him. He didn't even realize he was afraid, the feeling was so vague and intruded upon his subconscious in silence, like a thief, stealing away his confidence without his knowledge or consent.

Mount Justice was quiet when he arrived. It was almost always quiet, but not like this. Most of the Team would be at home this time of day, except for the ones who actually lived at Mount Justice and possibly Aqualad, the place was likely to be deserted. Robin felt like the quiet shouldn't bother him, but there was something wrong in it.

On entering the room where they usually conducted their briefings, Robin knew for sure that Batman had beat him there. Superboy, Miss Martian and Aqualad were all there, and looked as if they were expecting him. They looked unnerved by his presence, and their looks of wariness only increased as he got closer. Had they turned on him too?. What had Batman told them?.

"You should come home now, Robin," the voice behind him startled him.

He whirled to find that Batman had come up behind him. His tone of voice caused some uneasy exchanging of looks among the Team. Whatever fear Robin had felt was gone now. He was angry, more angry than he could ever remember being.

"I'm not going back," Robin said, keeping his voice level.

His fists were clenched, he was tensed for a fight, but trying not to show it. He met Batman's gaze steadily, even as a warning prickle of the hair on the back of his neck warned him that this was a dangerous road to go down. This would not end well for him. But he was done being understanding, he was through being walked on. This had gone far enough.

"Really," Batman drew the word out like a sentence.

"Really," Robin replied mildly, even as every muscle in his body drew taut, preparing for fight or flight, knowing even as he refused to admit it consciously that this is what it would come down to.

"I think you should," Batman's tone held warning, a thinly veiled threat.

"I don't care," Robin spat, destroying any illusion that he was willing to be coerced into going back.

He backed up a step or two, pure animal instinct warning him that he didn't want to be in range of an attack. He didn't know if Batman would hit him here, in front of the Team, but he wasn't taking any chances. He knew the danger, even if they didn't.

"Why don't you want to go home, Robin?," Miss Martian asked gently.

Robin's eyes flicked to look at her, but he could see in her face that she was trying to talk him down from whatever mental ledge she believed him to be standing on. She wanted to help him, but she didn't realize the help she was offering wasn't the sort of help he needed.

The others stood silent, perhaps shocked, but more likely simply unwilling to get in the middle of whatever this was. This was clearly between Batman and Robin and the Team wanted no part of it and were, quite frankly, surprised that the issue was being publicly aired like this.

Robin found Batman's eyes again. What he saw were the eyes of a monster. A flood of terror crashed over him, overwhelming and wholly unexpected. It crushed the rage which had formerly being fueling him, shook him to the core. He was not used to being afraid, and didn't fully understand why he was feeling fear now. His instincts had realized something that his mind had yet to accept. If he went back to that house now, he was not going to come out again.

Consumed by terror as he was, Robin didn't notice that someone was reaching out until they touched him. His fight or flight response kicked in and he lashed out, turning to face what his instincts thought was an enemy. He found that he'd kicked Kid Flash in the ribs. He hadn't even noticed Kid Flash arrive, and had no idea why he was there.

Kid Flash gasped and dropped to his knees, and it was a good thing for him that Robin had not followed through on the assault, because he was not positioned to defend himself. Horror stricken by what he'd done, Robin started to back up, forgetting that Batman was behind him. Batman grabbed him by the wrists, crossing his arms in front of him and lifting him off the ground.

"No!," Robin threw his head back, but hit only air "I won't go back!,"

He knew he'd reached hysteria, but he didn't care. He couldn't take any more. He'd had enough. Twisting, he managed to free one of his arms, hitting Batman in the ribs with his elbow. Batman dropped him and he slipped away, but now everybody was trying to stop him. They only wanted to help. They didn't understand, couldn't possibly, not even if he tried to explain it to them.

Was he just being paranoid?. He hesitated. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe this was just a delusion. Maybe the danger was all in his head. But if he accepted that explanation, then he'd be spending the rest of his life questioning everything he did and saw. And that would drive him crazy, if he wasn't already. The second it took him to decide this was a second too long.

Superboy had him by the arms. Aqualad was attempting to reason with him, to calm him down. He didn't hear the words. He felt something prick his neck, and the words suddenly seemed to fade away into the distance. Vaguely, he realized that Batman had tranquilized him. And his team didn't just let it happen, they made it happen. He wondered if they would ever find out. Wondered if he would ever even see any of them again.

Was this it?. How had it come to this?.

Even in his drugged state, being dragged down into darkness, he felt fear. He didn't understand it, didn't want it, but he felt it nonetheless. Paralyzing, all consuming, without restraint or rationale. Inexplicable, yet inescapable. Choking him, driving him further into the dark. He bitterly realized that, for the first time in his life, he was afraid of the dark.

And then he knew nothing more.

"What was that all about?," Kid Flash demanded, once he managed to find his voice.

He'd arrived only in time for the actual conflict, and nothing he'd seen made the remotest amount of sense to him, least of all Robin's attack on his mid-section. Once again, he was grateful for his accelerated healing ability.

"Robin has become mentally unstable," Aqualad explained quietly "he has become a danger to himself as well as others. Batman has been closely monitoring him, but lost track of him this morning. Why he came here, I am not certain,"

"Are you sure?," Kid Flash asked in disbelief "he looked hurt to me,"

"Self-inflicted wounds," Superboy supplied "that's what Batman said,"

"I...what... no," Kid Flash couldn't understand, or accept, this explanation "there has to be some kind of mistake or... I mean... he was fine last time we talked... just... fine," his tone lost its conviction as he thought about his most recent encounters with Robin, which had been unusually few and far between.

"Did he look fine to you?," Superboy snapped "because he didn't look fine to me,"

"Did you read his mind, or anything?," Kid Flash asked, turning to Miss Martian.

"Why would I have done that?," Miss Martian asked "if there's really something wrong with him mentally, the last thing he would need would be me messing around in his head,"

Kid Flash opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it again. Miss Martian was right. Aside from which, if Batman had said it was so, then it must be. Kid Flash's sole reason for protesting was his own refusal to admit that Robin might not be as invincible as he'd always seemed. And he did have to admit that Robin had looked pretty deranged. He'd even looked at Batman with eyes that conveyed nothing other than terror, which was strange by itself, but also completely out of character as well. Kid Flash couldn't remember a time he'd seen fear in Robin's eyes.

There was a long, awkward silence as the Team tried to think of something they could say or do besides just sort of walk away and resume whatever they'd been doing before Batman and Robin's unexpected entrance and subsequent dramatic exit. Finally, Kid Flash said the one thing he could think of.

"I always thought he'd be here, long after the rest of us were... you know... gone. I mean, it's not like he founded the Team on his own or was the leader or anything. It's just... he... made the Team. What will we do without him?," Kid Flash hadn't yet told anyone that he was planning to leave.

After this, he was no longer convinced that he should leave.

"He is not dead," Aqualad said calmly "he may very well recover. And, even if he does not, we shall continue with the mission as we always have,"

"It's not like we've got any other choice about it," Superboy added "Crime's not gonna fight itself,"

Kid Flash had no response to this. After all, he couldn't just slip in that he'd been planning to quit the Team for months now, could he?. Now he had to rethink things. He felt like he couldn't just leave, not with the Team in tatters as it was now.

Rocket and Zatanna had both moved on to other things, leaving only the original handful of former sidekicks. Now they were short a ninja hacker as well. He couldn't just leave. And he especially couldn't leave and take Artemis with him, which was the only way he could go at all.

The Team needed him, perhaps now more than ever before. And, in spite of his own personal feelings and the overwhelming need to get out, he couldn't let them down. He had to stay, at least for now.

09:30 PM

Awareness came grudgingly. Robin first became aware of a cold stiffness in his limbs, followed by the hard smooth floor he was lying on. He felt... well... drugged, out of it, not entirely sure of reality. In his mind were many images, chaotic and unrelated. Most were memories, his brain was slowly piecing itself together. But some were nightmares, though memory and nightmare were not mutually exclusive concepts. He wasn't sure what he was remembering, whether it was all real or partially imagined.

He'd been betrayed. He remembered that now. His own Team had, for some reason, turned against him. He didn't remember exactly how or why it had happened, his mind was still too foggy to recall that. But he did remember that he'd come to them for help, and they'd thrown him to the wolves. He just didn't recall the specifics yet.

Why had they turned on him?. Or had they turned on him?. Maybe he'd done something wrong. Something so bad that they could do nothing but turn against him. He didn't feel like he'd done anything wrong, but he couldn't really remember, so how was he to know?. He had to have done something awful. Why else would his Team, his friends, the people he trusted most in the world, have not only allowed this to happen, but cause it to happen?. Whatever it was that had happened.

These were things he wasn't able to answer. He decided to try opening his eyes, to see if that would help him get oriented. It was pitch black. Either that or he couldn't see. Unnerved by his inability to find anything familiar about the darkness, Robin tried to sit up. It was at this point that he realized his hands were tied behind his back.

His confusion was temporarily shunted to the back burner as resentment welled up in him. He didn't fear being captured so much as despised confinement, of any kind. In trying to free himself, he realized that he'd been stripped of all his equipment, including gloves and cape. A spark of fury grew in him, and he fought the ropes that bound him more to vent it than actually try and escape.

Finally, he took a deep breath and began to work his way free in earnest. He didn't just resent captivity, but had the skills necessary to actually do something about it. Even without the tools he kept in his gauntlet for just such an occasion, he could fairly easily slip free of simple rope.

It was only when he stood up that he felt the draft. The chill wind that gusted past brought with it a flood of memory. For this was not just any draft. It could only be generated in precisely this way, in exactly this place. He not only felt it, but heard it as the air whistled past objects long familiar.

This was the batcave.

Robin should have felt reassured by this. But in realizing where he was, his mind was forced to remember everything, including this afternoon. Knowing where he was and what had happened made him more uneasy than before, and his fury began to fade back into fear.

He wanted out. He wanted out now. He wanted out of the batcave, out of the dark... possibly even out of the mask. The thought shook him to the core. Not long ago, he would have laughed if anyone suggested he would ever want out of the life. He had accepted long ago that it held absolute power over him, that there would be no escaping. Not for him, anyway.

That knowledge had not changed. But, for the first time, he felt trapped.

He closed his eyes in the dark, realizing that he was not alone. Though he could see nothing, and there was no sound to indicate a presence in the surrounding blackness, Robin could feel it just the same. He was being watched. A malevolent phantom was circling him, a nightmare creature every bit as real as Robin himself. It was a familiar presence, but one that no longer brought anything but horror with it.

The person Robin had once trusted and loved as a father was gone. But Batman, or at least the shadow of him, remained in the dark. Irrationally, Robin's mind flew to the famous horror novel Cujo.

It brought to mind a grotesque image of a bat-dog. A mangled mess of slavering jaws and razor teeth, set below blood-colored and sanity-stripped eyes. A monstrous hell-beast which wore the skin of something beloved like a ragged and ill-fitting mask.

"Nope. Nothing wrong here" was one of the lines from the book. A line which repeated. Each time it was said, it was more and more absurd. The true horror of the book lay in the characters denial of things, the things they chose to do or not do, to deny were issues at all...

Robin should have run when he had the chance. But now that chance was gone.

"The business of irrevocable choices began. Doors slipped shut with a faint locking click that was only heard clearly in the dreams of later years" that's what the book had said.

There was a noise behind, like the sound of a shoe coming down on a stone floor. Or something that had been thrown in order to generate that illusion. Robin turned away from the sound, realizing too late that this was what he had been trained to do. And he'd been trained by Batman.

The monster in the guise of Batman descended upon him with alarming speed. Something hit Robin between the shoulder blades. As he staggered forward, he felt a hand close around his left wrist and twist it behind him painfully. He was shoved forward and down, his arm still behind his back. He tried to catch himself with his right hand, but there wasn't time for that even. He hit the floor hard, and stars danced before his eyes, though he still couldn't see anything else.

A rope was noosed around his left wrist, then looped around his neck. As this was happening, he was pinned to the ground by a knee in his back. His free hand was captured and twisted back like his other one, then bound painfully. Then both hands were released, held only by rope in a position that hurt a lot. But if he tried to change their positioning, the rope would draw tight across his throat, choking him.

He was then yanked roughly to his feet by his hair. A small gasp of pain escaped him as he tried to find his balance without lowering his arms and choking himself. Hot pain ran up and down his arms and across his shoulders and the skin at his neck already burned from the rope rubbing it.

He was propelled forward in the dark, blind and not trusting his guide to keep him from falling off into the deep bowels of the black cave. After a short time, he was pulled to a halt so abruptly that he staggered and fell to his knees. He heard the creak of a door opening. Before he could react to this, he was kicked in the side so forcefully that he slid sideways and hit against a wall. The door closed, and a lock clicked shut. He knew where he was. There was a small room off to the side in the batcave, which wasn't really used for anything. Or, at least, it hadn't been.

Now it was a prison.