Before Bruce even pressed play I felt dread creep over me. Joker left me a message? The game was over. He had been caught and recaptured. What more could there be?

"Brace yourself," Bruce muttered. Oh good, it's worse than I thought.

He tapped the enter key and the screen went black. In the background there was a wet thumping sound. A shiver ran over me as it tugged at a memory.

"Little birdie red and green." Joker's voice whispered over the speakers in a singsong rhythm followed by the whacking sound I had finally identified. "Little birdie hear it scream." The screen brightened to reveal me strapped to a chair with blood covering every inch of exposed skin through the Red X costume. "Thought that he could run away..." Flashes of Jump citizens gassed with Joker Venom cut over my torture scene. "Gotham is where birdie stays." It showed a tombstone with ROBIN spray painted across the front in red and green paint. Joker erupted into laughter.

I assumed that was it. A death threat was nothing new to me. It was creepy, but he was behind bars. Then it got worse. It got so much worse.

There was static and then the video switched in style to a handheld camera. Someone was walking down a sidewalk on a bright sunny day in a shopping district in Jump. I recognized the pizza restaurant the Titans and I liked on the the right. The cameraman crossed the street and walked up to the window, pressing the camera up to the glass. There were the Titans, all squeezed into our U-shaped booth. We were laughing as Cyborg and Beast Boy raced to finish their pizzas in one of their usual contests. The angle zoomed in where under the table Starfire put her hand on my leg as she laughed. Then it panned up to her face where she turned to look at me and the look in her eyes said it all. I hadn't noticed or reacted. Starfire was touchy-feely. In the beginning I would have moved away, but I'd gotten used to it. Heck I liked when she touched me.

Abruptly the scene shifted to the park. We were playing frisbee with Beast Boy in dog form. Raven sat under a tree reading a leather bound book, and I walked over to talk to her, my ritual attempt to include her every time we went out to have fun. I always asked, and she always turned me down. Hope leapt inside me that this time the cameraman was wrong and was making more out of my friendliness with Raven than there was. But then the bright blue frisbee soared over my head followed by Starfire. She caught it just over me and I tipped my head back to congratulate her on a great catch. In the video and in real life color flooded my face. Well at least I knew where Bruce's miniskirt comment came from. I'd had a clear view that day straight up her skirt, all the way to the lacy pink panties she wore underneath. At least the camera hadn't gotten a good view of that too.

There were more scenes, but they were all the same. Group shots of the Titans that focused in on a single telling moment of me and Star. Me explaining different foods to her at the grocery store, her insisting that I try the grape, lime, and strawberry swirl with orange sprinkles flavor the local ice cream shop had invented with her name on it, us at the movies during Wicked Scary when she grabbed my hand and didn't let go, and finally us walking together at the carnival the night Harley attacked. God, were we really that transparent? Was I? I'd thought I'd kept my feelings hidden better than that, but having it blown up in a video I felt stupid for not realizing I'd made her my girlfriend long before I asked her to be. And everyone else knew it too. Who had been filming us? How had they gotten so close without me noticing?

Bruce's disapproval was a roaring beast in an aluminum cage. I deserved it. God did I ever deserve it.

"Hurry up, Robin," Joker said as the video cut to an insane close up on his face. "There's a shooting Star in the forecast. I'm sure you wouldn't want to miss it."

A shooting star? It wasn't even subtle. I didn't hold out hope that his incarceration meant his plan wouldn't go through without him.

"I warned you what would happen," Bruce started, but I made a slashing movement with my hand to shut him up.

"Every moment on that screen happened before we were ever a couple. That was me following your orders and trying to just stay friends!" If my face was burning I preferred to think it was anger and not embarrassment that he had seen so much of my failure to hide my affection for Star. He lifted an eyebrow.

"Well thank God you hide your identity better than you hide your feelings."

"Yes, heaven forbid anyone ever threaten you because of me."

"Are you forgetting the events of the past few weeks? You think that wasn't directed at me?"

"And what about Babs?"

"Unless you took time off from undressing your teammate with your eyes to have a few private sessions in Gotham without my knowledge I'd say she's safe enough."

"Why was she targeted in the first place?" I said loudly. The theory that Joker was attacking the Commisioner when he went after Babs was flimsy at best. Everything he had done was aimed at Batman and me, but Barbara Gordon was not connected to Batman and Robin. That's what secret identities were for.

"I have no reason to suspect that Joker has uncovered her alias," said Bruce dismissively.

"Then why?"

"I have theories." But he wasn't going to share. "But you might reveal them in your pillow talk."

My ears burned I was so angry. Bruce swiveled away from me in his chair and began typing. The video closed, leaving my screen blank.

"I just thought you should be informed. You can run along to Starfire now. Warn her to stay out of the skies."

I was going to do one better. It was time for the Titans to take control of this situation again.

"Titans!" I barked into my communicator as I threw open the door to my bedroom to snag an extra uniform.

"What's up?" Cyborg asked, curious.

"Get ready. We're paying Joker a visit."

We met up in the game room. Beast Boy and Cyborg looked apprehensive. Starfire smiled brightly when I walked in the room, but I didn't smile back.

"Raven, are you up to teleporting us to Arkham?" I almost regretted asking her. There were dark shadows under her eyes, leftovers from her massive healing sessions. I hadn't realized just how much of herself she'd given to saving me and I knew she didn't count the cost.

"Stand close," she instructed as her eyes glowed white.

I didn't want to bring up the videos, not until I'd looked Joker in the eye. The journey had to be quick because Batman would definitely have hacked my communicator signal and known what I was planning to do. Naturally he wouldn't approve. It was ten miles from the Manor to Arkham, straight line distance. I figured we had twenty minutes before Batman could catch up with us.

Raven dropped us off right in front of the check-in counter. The clerk shrieked and fell out of his chair. I crossed my arms and tried to look as intimidating as possible.

"Where's Joker?"

"R-Robin? What are you doing here?" stammered the college student behind the desk.

"Joker left a message for me. This is me returning the call." It sounded nice and intimidating. The Titans struck their defensive poses out of habit, but I could tell that they were startled to hear that Joker had contacted me.

"Uh...sure, Mr. Robin, Sir," stammered the guard. He eyed the Titans with equal awe as they filed past. Gotham is nothing like Jump City. Batman and I aren't welcomed by the general public the way the Titans are. It helps that Starfire and Beast Boy ooze friendliness and approachability. She smiled kindly at the guard and he practically melted into the floor.

I knew my way to Joker's maximum security cell. I shouldered past the guard, aware of every second that ticked by, mentally mapping out the course Batman was inevitably carving straight toward us.

"Joker!" called the guard with more gusto than he'd shown me. "You got a visitor."

"Someone to see little ole' me? Who could it be? The Bat or...Birdie!" He turned his head to look at me and his yellow eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. They had him in a straight jacket, but it only added to his insane appearance. He shuffled to the bars.

"Welcome to my home away from home," he said, managing a sweeping bow. I glared.

"You came to my city."

"Yes," he breathed.

"You hurt the people I care about."

"And will again."

"You threatened my team-"

"Ah ah ah. I don't care about your team. There's only one member I've got my eye on..." He let his eyes stray to Starfire with leering intent. She lifted her chin and held his gaze. Rather than the pride I might have felt, I thought of the way she had learned tha defiance and I felt a pang of regret. I opened my mouth to direct Joker's attention back to me, but a shockwave of black energy knocked me out of the way so that I bounced off the wall.

"You think it's funny?" Raven demanded in her multi-layered voice. "I'll give you something to laugh about. Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" She brought her hands together and clapped. An enormous raven appeared behind her, sank inside her and shot straight from her clasped hands into Joker's chest. He bent double, wheezing. But Raven wasn't finished. The edges of her cape began to billow.

"Feel it!" She commanded. "Feel what they felt!"

Joker flung back his head and let out a bone-chilling scream.