Those of you of whom read the original - here's the change!

"Master Richard?" Alfred's voice chimed strangely. His voice didn't sound right. It sounded like it was doubled…no, tripled. Dick wrinkled his nose in confusion. It wasn't right. Alfred didn't sound like that but only Alfred could sound so…Alfred-like.

"Is he waking up?" Lucius asked, his voice doing the same thing as Alfred's.

Dick really wasn't getting the joke. It didn't make sense to him. Joker didn't even cross the line with screwing with someone's head. Not this way at least. He screwed with you by words. It was Scarecrow who screwed with peoples' heads chemically. Well, sure, Joker screwed with chemicals but that was mainly to make people smile or laugh for overly long periods. It took serious lengths to get Joker to screw with chemicals focused on the brain.

Wait…No it didn't. He'd do that for fun.

"Wake up," a soft, familiar voice called. Robin's eyes burst open, his heart racing at the familiar sound. It had been years since he'd heard that voice. The problem was, he knew he shouldn't be hearing it where he was; the Batcave.

The looming walls of the cave rose above his head like the looming walls of a jail yard. He wondered idly for a moment weather or not this was how the Birdman of Alcatraz felt when he was alone in a jail yard with nothing but his shadow for company.

Looking about once more, he found he was more alone than he could imagine. The computer, the planes, the cars, the submarines, the museum of crap Batman had collected over the years from his exploits, and the training area of the cave were gone, the clean areas of where they once stood shining like fresh chalk outlines on ebony asphalt. The bed he sat on wasn't even correct.

Instead of the glowing hospital bed that Bruce kept in the cave for any situation that may arise, Robin found himself sitting on the bed he'd had to himself in his family's trailer. His father had gotten it for him so that Dick wouldn't be quite as tempted to sleep with his loving parents as much as he used to. He'd loved that bed almost as much as he'd loved the act of flying through the air.

How long had it been since his last practice? Too long, he thought.

"Dick," the calm voice cooed as tan arms wrapped about his small shoulders like he was made of glass and they were made of stone. It was then he realized he was wearing the old yellow pajamas his father had gotten him years ago. In another month, they'd be far too small; they were already short in the legs and arms and the neck was too small for him to button the top button and still be comfortable. "It's time to get up sweetheart," the voice cooed as a smile breathed over his ear.

"I know Mom," he stated with a strange ease.

Some part of him knew this wasn't happening; that it couldn't happen because she wasn't alive anymore. His mother couldn't be holing him close like she used to, he couldn't be wearing the clothes he was because he'd talked Alfred into burning some of them after he'd put on the uniform, and he couldn't be in that trailer because it was in a junk heap. It couldn't be happening. It shouldn't be happening.

It…wasn't happening.

"Is my little robin ready to practice his flying today?"

He suddenly didn't care.

His mother's cool voice chimed happily as ebony curls tumbled over her shining eyes and high cheek bones. Despite her slight frame, her hands held a beautifully hidden strength as she squeezed his shoulders. He knew that he had more if his mother in him than his father considering his small frame rather than a large, muscle bound one like his father's. He didn't mind though; he had his father's eerie grace as well as his mother's hidden strength.

"Yeah," he laughed, about to leap from the bed when something held him down. It wasn't his mother's hands holding him; they were too big and rough for that.

"Wait a moment Master Richard," a distorted voice chimed.

"Stay still Dick!" another yelped.

The voices meant absolutely nothing to him at that moment though. His father entered the trailer smiling gleefully as he weaved over to his son.

"Look who's up! Finally!"he laughed with a booming voice.

Dick smiled gleefully, leaping out of bed and playfully punching at his father. A few hits connected but he knew he didn't have any real power to take down his big father. He could never hurt his family anyway – though…those hits felt like hit home a little too well.

"Let's go Dad!" he yelled as he charged out of the trailer, his small body weaving past the larger man with aforesaid grace and agility picking up a towel as he went and tossing it onto his shoulder. The man laughed, his face resembling Bruce's smiling one for an intangible second. Dick ignored it though; this was before Bruce was part of his life. This was before Zucco killed his family.

This was a safe place to be.

"I wanna practice!" Dick called back as he nearly bolted out of the trailer. His father caught his shoulder, his hand firm and bigger than Dick remembered. He turned to find Bruce holding him, cowl flopped on his back a like a hood, blue eyes terrified as he looked on his son.

Dick was suddenly in his Robin uniform again, the mask on his face once more but something told him it wasn't supposed to be. He'd been on the gurney. He wouldn't have been wearing the mask on the gurney unless one of the unaware League members were present. He could however remember that there was no way in hell that Bruce would have let someone be around when any of them were injured – except Superman but he would bust down the walls if he wanted to get in.

"Dick…" Bruce breathed, his voice trembling a bit as he stared down at his son. "What are you doing out of bed?" He had to act natural, like Dick was just sick. In his hand was the file on Luthor that he'd been building for the past two weeks. He'd gotten back an hour ago and Lucius had told him to get some rest while he worked up an antidote.

He'd only gotten up from his desk in the nearby study when he'd heard Alfred and Lucius' panicked voices floated up the stairs through the door he'd left open to make sure he would miss nothing. He'd barely heard Dick's one-sided conversation until he'd made it down the steps to find Robin putting on his mask and saying he wanted to practice. However, he'd been more worried about the word that had preceded.

Dad…

In any other connotation, any other situation, Bruce would have thought (happily) that Dick was speaking to him. At the moment however, Dick was under Scarecrow's newest creation, Alfred and Lucius lay sprawled on the floor, and Dick wasn't moving the way Bruce would have expected him to go for a practice drill or three. He was moving with the natural grace that Bruce had found him to have seemingly been born with.

"You said I could practice without the net today Dad," Dick said.

Bruce hadn't really expected to hear that.

"Change of plan," he murmured softly, trying hard to stay calm. "You've got a fever Dick. You need to rest." Going for good measure, he placed the back of his other hand on Dick's warm forehead – inwardly wincing at the heat that edged through his glove.

"But Dad," Dick whined petulantly.

"No," he said. "I don't want you to get hurt because you can't focus.

"But I want to fly like you and Mom," Dick replied. "I want to feel gravity pulling on my limbs as I spin in the air and feel the surge of confidence when I grab the trapeze with just my feet as I swing over the crowd. If I don't practice…"

Bruce cut him off, "There's always tomorrow Dick. First, you need to get better. No need to scare your mother right?"

Dick stared at him for a moment and he watched in horror as something in the pleading expression changed to fear. He was about to open his mouth to ask what Dick was seeing when Dick's right hook nailed him in the jaw; hard.

Dick didn't know what the creature was or how his father had turned into it. All he knew was that he was scared of the leathery wings that stretched from its back and the sharp fangs in its strangely formed mouth. It was some sort of bat mixed with a person – if there were such a thing as a werebat, this would be it. He didn't know where the punch had come from but it had worked; it'd tumbled away from him, dropping the papers in its clawed hand.

He bent to pick up the papers noticing a face he'd seen in his travels before – Lex Luthor, a rich guy with questionable interests. He knew from rumors that Luthor supposedly had a problem with Superman and carried the Man of Steel's weakness with him at all times.

The names on the mission docket however caught his attention quickly. He knew something of the names but something about the name Superboy made him shiver. If this Superboy was anything like Superman…he couldn't be near Luthor. He wasn't sure why but he felt he had to get to Metropolis as of yesterday. He stumbled to the cycle he somehow knew to be his and raced down the freeway to the city he knew was like a diluted version of Gotham.

"Dick?" he mother called from the trapeze landing. His father was next to her and both were smiling widely, their teeth shining eerily. "Ready to fly honey?"

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