I'm posting late again, ahh! This is the first time I've been in one place with wifi for more than thirty minutes all weekend, and I am so sorry. I need to plan better next time. I'll still post this Friday, and honestly, the shorter intervals between chapters are kind of beneficial because these next few are going to be shorter.

I hope you enjoy and I hope you forgive me!

"Someone I know of died."

"Were you two very close?"

"No."

"Then you blame yourself."

"How would you know?"

"You wouldn't have brought it up otherwise."

"I don't know. Maybe. It was my choices that led to her death."

"What choices were that?"

"I didn't let Wally go. He got in the way."

It didn't take a detective to realise that both Batman and Bruce were pissed.

And that was a dramatic understatement. Not only had Dick disobeyed direct orders, gone out while 'not fully well', not told anyone where he was going and deactivated all of his suit's trackers, but he had caused one of the biggest taboos in the hero business.

He had killed somebody.

Not directly, of course, but all of the rules that he had broken had led to just that. Somebody's death. An innocent civilian's death. It had been the redheaded woman that had ironically reminded Dick so much of Wally, and seeing her mugshot come up on the news more than once a day; her wild hair, green eyes, freckles and all; made pain burn within his chest. On the third day of not interacting with anyone in the human world after Bruce's thorough verbal whipping, seated on the couch, Bruce passed by with only one more thing to say:

"That's why we never break protocol."

Dick made sure that he didn't again. In fact, he didn't leave the manor at all. He didn't even touch the cave, and if Young Justice asked about him, Bruce never said a word.

Other than Alfred and occasionally Bruce, Dick saw Wally. But Wally never spoke. It was unusual for Wally to be utterly silent, particularly in tense situations, so it regularly caused Dick to think back to what Miss. Frances had said. Did Wally reflect Dick's own emotions? Did Wally do everything that Dick wished he could do himself?

Yes, he did.

On the way to Dick's next visit with Miss. Frances, the car ride was uncomfortable. It would have been far more uncomfortable if Bruce were driving instead of Alfred, but Dick could give positive credit to getting three visits a week for the privilege of Bruce being too busy to pay attention to his ward. "How has psychiatry been, Master Dick? Have you been treated well?" Alfred asked in concern as they pulled up to the front of the quaint house-turned-office, and Dick figured that the British man had been up late reading too many horror stories about misdiagnosed patients again. He could barely bother to express surprise at finding out he was in psychotherapy, either. What did it matter? How was it any different?

"Yeah, it's interesting," Dick responded vaguely as he sluggishly opened the door to the street. Alfred looked like he wanted to ask more, but Dick had turned his back before the man was given the chance.

The waiting room used to be a living room adjacent to the house's kitchen, which was closed off by a screen. There were magazines scattered around with a gallon of water in the corner. All in all, the soft furniture's warm colours and sunlight streaming window was meant to look welcoming, but it only make Dick feel alienated. He contemplated walking directly upstairs to where the office was instead of waiting to be guided. He'd been there enough times. Before he could approach the first step, though, the screen obscuring the kitchen was pushed aside.

"Richard?" Miss. Frances chirped as she peered out. Nudging the screen aside with her shoulder, she presented Dick with roughly a dozen cookies and two glasses of milk balanced precariously on a plate. "Go on upstairs. I'll join you in a minute."

Dick shook his head and instead stepped forward to grab the two glasses of milk, lifting the weight from her arms as he began walking up the stairs. The lady beamed after him. Once in her office upstairs, she set the cookies gently on the coffee table between them. "You're awfully quiet today. Do you want to tell me what's bothering you?"

Dick shrugged.

"What about the person who passed away? You talked about her during our last session."

Another shrug.

Miss. Frances slid the plate of cookies closer to Dick as she reached beside her desk chair for her clipboard. "How's Wally been doing?"

A faint tingling sensation slowly crept down Dick's back and caused the hair of his neck to stand on end as he lazily scanned his eyes across the room. Seeing nothing, he twisted in the couch to look towards the far window, before turning back and folding his hands in his lap. "Is he not here?" Miss. Frances inquired, and Dick winced because her voice felt too loud for a too delicate situation.

Dick forced himself to reach forward for a cookie. He made no move to eat it, feeling the thickness of heavy, sticky saliva coating his tongue and throat in clumps. Instead, he slowly began crumbling the edges of the cookie into his hand. "I'm kind of mad at him," he finally admitted.

"Is it because of what happened last week with that person?"

"Mostly," agreed Dick.

"Is he mad at you?"

Dick paused. "I didn't do anything," he said with certainty. "But I was ignoring him while getting ready for school a couple days ago and he got upset. Then he left."

"Has he come back at all?"

Dick shook his head.

"Does he scare you?"

Dick froze, his fingers stilling over the remains of the broken cookie tucked between the creases of his palm. "No," he frowned.

"He's upset and angry with you, but he doesn't frighten you?" Miss. Frances clarified.

"No," insisted Dick defensively.

"I want you to do something for me," she said as she pressed her clipboard into her lap. Dick said nothing, waiting for her to elaborate, and she did. She put the board aside and walked to her desk, sliding open a drawer and plucking a small packet from within. "I want you to tell me the first thing that comes into your mind when you see these." She was gripping the cards in her hands too tightly, almost shakily. Her body was tense.

She looked excited.

Inkblots. Dick knew what those were. They were a vague test used to help diagnose various mental illnesses, where the way a person thought and felt would be interpreted from their interpretations of undetermined shapes. He knew it and he didn't care. His heart felt heavy, his head felt light, and his limbs felt loaded with lead.

"Can you tell me what this looks like?"

"A bat."

"A computer."

"A book."

"Cave."

"Airplane."

"Bike."

"House."

"The Joker."

Miss. Frances faltered for a moment at that response and turned the picture towards herself. After a brief examination, she silently went back to turning cards. But the Joker was suddenly on Dick's mind.

"Crowbar."

"Mask."

"Rope. Maybe a snake."

"Car."

"Cat."

"Hang glider."

"Pepperspray."

For fifteen minutes it continued, until the therapist - psychiatrist, Dick mentally corrected - set aside the cards and asked him questions. That was really just a nicer way to go about saying 'interrogated', though. Strangely enough, Dick felt too exhausted to analyse them. Finally, when their time was up, shown by a soft knock on the door, Dick couldn't have been more relieved.

"Are you alright to sit here for a bit, Richard? I just need to talk to Mr. Wayne for a few minutes."

Those few minutes stretched into nearly an hour. At one point, Dick had gone to press his ear against the door, but only caught bits and pieces of sentences. The pieces that he did catch did nothing to calm his nerves. "...convinced that everyone...Mr. Wayne…said that no one he knows has died...very vague...depressed...and agitated…" Dick sunk too far into thought about the alarming one-sided conversation he could catch and had to abruptly spring away when the doorknob was suddenly turned.

Miss. Frances entered again with a cell phone pressed against her ear. Dick quickly jumped onto the couch. Instead of Bruce entering as Dick had expected, though, it was Lucius Fox. The family friend greeted Dick with a kind smile and stood against the wall. "It's nice to see you again, Dick," he said. "How have you been?"

"Fine. You?" Dick responded. His palms felt sweaty.

"Fine," the man answered. "Mr. Wayne was too busy to come get you, so I'm taking you back home."

"Where's Alfred?" asked Dick cautiously. He could see Miss. Frances glance at him for a moment at his quick, almost hostile response. She scribbled something more onto her clipboard, quickly, her fingers enthusiastic, and the teenager felt his anxiety rise.

"Calm down, Dick," Lucius reassured softly. Softly, as if he were speaking to a child. "Alfred is fine. Mr. Wayne just preferred that I came and got you."

"Why?" Dick snapped.

"Richard, it's okay," Miss. Frances finally said, speaking up with a gleam in her eye, but she didn't explain what was so okay. Dick watched in silence, back ramrod straight and shoulders stiff as she retrieved something from a bag on her desk. She held up the small bottle to the light. "See this? I spoke with Mr. Fox and your doctor and we have all agreed for you to take this. Just one a day, every morning before you go to school. Can you do that for me?"

Dick eyed the bottle uncertainly. "Does Bruce know about this?"

Miss. Frances smiled. "Of course. You can ask him yourself. It's illegal to give you medication without informing your guardian, you know."

"Does he know what kind of medication it is?" he pressed.

Miss. Frances only slid the bottle across the table toward him. She made sure not to approach him, and Dick didn't blame her. He felt on edge and he couldn't pinpoint why, as if any sound would make him jump out of his skin. "I've been doing this for many years, Richard," Miss. Frances insisted, sitting down and leaning forward with her fingers crossed in her lap. "I promise you, you're going to be getting all the care that you need. You're due for a doctor's visit in one week. This is a trial run, to make sure that this is the medication for you. Don't worry about a thing."

With suspiciously shaking fingers, Dick reached down and lightly folded the bottle into his hand.

Miss. Frances stood up and Lucius seemed to sag a little in relief. Dick couldn't fathom why and was stuck on that thought, so he paid no mind to the adult's casual conversing as he was ushered out the door. Before he left, Miss. Frances gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and a sharp smile. "I'll see you next week, okay?"

"Okay."

The car ride to the manor was as equally quiet as the car ride with Alfred from it. Lucius dropped him off a little ways from the front door. "I'm a busy man and don't want to offend Alfred by not going in for tea," he apologised as Dick shut the door. The teenager chuckled lightly to humour the man as he lazily rang the front door bell, watching Lucius' car pull away.

"Master Dick?" Alfred asked in surprise when the door opened. "Back already? Oh dear, it seems that the time has escaped me. Why hadn't you called?" The butler peered over Dick's shoulder to catch a glimpse of Lucius' tail light. "Was that Mr. Fox?"

"Do you know why Bruce didn't want you picking me up?" Dick asked as he stepped inside for the front door to be closed. Alfred hummed as he took Dick's jacket off and hung it on the coat rack.

"Yes," the elderly man admitted. Dick didn't know whether to give a sigh of relief or be on his guard. There was a muffled jingle from Dick's jacket, and Alfred paused for a moment before going and rifling through its pockets. He brought out the pill bottle with a slightly alarmed look. "What's this?"

"Medication. It's from Miss. Frances," Dick said emotionlessly, staring at the label of the bottle. "Don't change the subject."

Alfred turned the bottle over in his hand curiously, before taking off towards the kitchen. Dick followed at a slow pace. "Miss. Frances and Master Bruce suggested it wise that they see how you react to people you don't see very much, but whom you're supposedly friendly with," Alfred paused for a moment, his fingers grazing the marble counter of the kitchen. "You were friendly, I presume?"

"No," Dick deadpanned, eyes narrowed. "I was worried about you."

The bottle seemed to tighten just the smallest bit in Alfred's palm, and Dick didn't know how to react to the man's uncertain posture. "I assure you, Master Dick, I am perfectly well." He carefully opened a kitchen cabinet and slid the bottle onto a shelf.

Later that night, as Dick sat on the edge of his bed, looking at but not seeing the pile of videogames accumulated on his floor, he felt an unwelcome sensation push the hairs of his arms up.

He thought about the bottle with a label that never left his mind, sitting innocently on a shelf downstairs. Only, it didn't feel innocent. Its presence felt suffocating, as if it were lingering at Dick's door just waiting until he stepped out, to taunt him that he was no different. No different from the crazy men and women that he helped put away. Concoctions of medications like the one he was given were supposed to be in the cave. Examined to determine what might have gone wrong with the people that were given them, to determine if they might have been tampered with, or if they might have been abused. Not in the kitchen. They didn't belong in the kitchen. That was Richard Grayson's home, not Robin's. Those lives didn't intermingle.

Because Dick knew that drug. He'd seen Clozapine many times before. He'd held it many times before.

But before, it had never been meant for him.

A/N: SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT THING YOU MUST READ TO UNDERSTAND ANYTHING AT ALL:

This is GOTHAM. A city overrun with psychotic freaks. It's a corrupt city with laws that are not as heavily enforced as other places, if enforced at all (if anybody remembers, the Gotham police force was a corrupt, nasty and power hungry place before Gordon came around). This goes especially for medication and drugs. For those who don't know what I'm going on about:

Clozapine is an atypical antipsychotic drug normally used to treat severe schizophrenia. It's a drug meant only to be taken if the patient is resistant to other treatments tried before. It can have dangerous side effects and the patient needs to be regularly monitored and tested to make sure that it's going well. It cannot be taken by people under 16 or over 60. It's also very important that the person prescribing it knows the patient's full and total medical history, as well as allergies, blood related problems, etc.

Not only that, there are also far more steps involved in diagnosing schizophrenia than what Dick got. In a good, lawful society, people getting diagnosed with schizophrenia may even undergo brain scans to make extra sure that it's schizophrenia they're talking about and not some other mental illness (because illnesses can be easy to misdiagnose, particularly when it comes to illnesses having to do with the brain). However, just imagine how many schizophrenics there are in Gotham, or people with other varying mental illnesses. A lot. Imagine how many a psychiatrist working there sees, particularly a psychotherapist? Even more. In my opinion, what Miss. Frances did was wrong. But is it justified because it's the normal thing to do? Well, that's up to you guys.

OTHER REALLY IMPORTANT NOTES: If you didn't understand what the whole deal with Mr. Fox was, a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia is just that - paranoia. Extreme paranoia. This includes, but not limited to: believing everyone is trying to kill you, believing everyone is conspiring against you, withdrawing completely from social contact, turning against friends/loved ones, feeling like you're being watched all the time (by the government, your friends, etc.), you name it. It can be so severe that a person suffering could, say, receive water from their mother and freak out because they think there's poison in the water, and that their mother is trying to kill them. There are no limits. So Mr. Fox was there to see if Dick was being unreasonably hostile and withdrawn, and that suspicion and hostility is what Dick ended up expressing.

Many apologies for the long note and the long wait, but I hate to leave any confusion! If there are more unanswered questions, ask in the reviews and I'll address them next chapter. Thanks for reading through all of this, you rock!