Robin's POV

I walked slowly once out of sight, nerves settling on me hard. This was not good. Someone I'd hardly met knew my identity and knew Will. There was no way this could go right. I honestly dreaded returning to the Batcave where I'd have to explain this. At least it may distract from what happened to my pole. I glanced back at it to find it rather obvious what had happened. I really wasn't scared of Batman, just disappointed in myself. I should have noticed them there...Why were they there at all!? That's when it hit me, this is why they were there...I was nearing my destination faster than I cared for and started thinking of ways to slow it down, but nothing reasonable come to mind. In the distance I saw an abandoned Dollar General surrounded by absolutely nothing. I knew why it was abandoned. No one came down here. Which is why it was a perfect location for the entrance to the Batcave. I walked in as I had many, many times before, the dim lights flickering overhead. As I walked through what used to be aisles, I barely scanned the items still on shelves. It was sort of creepy when I thought about it too much. I reached the back wall where, without looking down, I slid my boot toe on the baseboards until I felt part slide. A small part of the wall slid directly afterwords, and a small black screen came out in front of me. It lit up with yellow numbers, which made me smile a bit to myself. For some reason it pleased me that even this screen was in color scheme. I typed the code without even thinking about it, and it returned to its space in the wall without a sound. Then the floor began to move downwards. I still remembered many of the times I had stood here, sometimes by myself, other times with Batman, or occasionally with Nightwing, who always insisted on seeing who could put the code in first. It was usually fun, until the time I was sure we'd broken it. Fortunately, it had just locked us out temporarily, but no one else was in the Batcave, so we had no way in, delaying everything a little. Although Nightwing oftentimes seemed like a chaotic younger brother, he was actually significantly older than I was. He was still a bit chaotic, though in a really wonderful way. I looked into the Batcave which was a very large...cave that actually ran almost to the Wayne estate, where we both lived. This was just a second entrance, not the main one. I was not hiding, by any means, but I was attempting to be subtle as I walked through the dark tunnel-like structure that led into the main area of the Batcave where all research and planning took place. I suddenly realized I may be alone in here. I sighed a bit of relief at the idea of putting the explanation off even just a little longer. "Robin?" I heard as I rounded the corner away from the almost glowing eyes of maybe five-hundred bats who also called this place home. My shoulders dropped in slight disappointment, as I realized I had been wrong. It was honestly less of a question, and more of a confirmation, but I responded anyway, "Yeah". I stepped fully into the most well-lit part of the entire cave, where Batman looked as if he'd been waiting for me, which slightly unnerved me until I realized why. I had been on a specific mission; it would be reasonable for him to wait for a report on it. That eased me a bit, as I realized his look was not from knowing I had bad news to report. That changed shortly after. "What happened?" He asked, barely sounding concerned, "Are you ok?" I wasn't particularly bad at keeping my thoughts hidden, but he was particularly good at finding them out anyway. "Umm..." I started looking away from direct eye contact, "Not really."

He simply waited for me to continue. To a random person watching, it would probably look as if he didn't care at all, but I could see the slight increase in tension.

"I messed up. When I was with Flash, Will and someone else from school had followed me. After Flash left for home, I switched to my suit, and she noticed." He nodded and waited to see if I cared to add anything which I didn't really, but I knew I needed to. "She's new to school, but she's been hanging out with Will, and I think they suspected something."

"Why would you think that?"

I paused to think through why exactly I thought that. I didn't have a great reason, but I responded with what I had, "Why else would they have followed me?"

"Have you been spending any time with Will since Flash?"

"I can't. Flash seems to hate Will, like more than normal, and he doesn't really appreciate me hanging out with him either."

Batman seemed a little disappointed already, which confused me. Disappointed that I messed up and spilled my identity to a stranger, understandable, but disappointed that I hadn't been talking to Will, was a bit odd. Maybe it's just the whole situation. He looked back up and me, and this time, I met his eyes. "This was never supposed to completely disconnect you from Will. He misses you. That's reason enough to follow you."

I stared directly at the ground suddenly feeling pretty terrible. Will really had no idea, and I didn't know what to do about it. "Did you find out anything else about Flash?" He asked after a minute, coming back to the topic we were supposed to be discussing. I shrugged, "He doesn't live alone with his dad. I think he has a sister. And he definitely has a dog."

I thought I might have seen a smirk, which I had to return.

"That's what happened to your pole?"

I nodded, glad that was how that news came out. I didn't want to straight up come out with "I threw my pole to a dog which tried to eat it."

"Did you see his dad?"

"No," I recounted remembering the scene over, "I heard him though."

He nodded, processing the information in silence, which was definitely his way of thinking things through.

"Do you believe her knowing will be an issue?"

"I don't know" I responded honestly, "I barely met her."

I thought for another second before adding, "She didn't tell Will though, so that's something."

"What's her name?"

"Christie," I responded extremely glad it had finally come to me. I would have hated to have to admit to not even knowing her name.

"Why do you think she didn't tell him?"

The question itself confused me. I don't know! I didn't say that though. The point was probably that I should've thought it through. I thought about for a solid minute increasingly hopeful he would just tell me what I was missing, but there were definitely times when Batman had too much patience for my taste. "I don't know" I finally admitted. Much to my surprise, he didn't give me any answers. Just seemed to quietly consider it himself. "How did she notice?"

"I think she started suspecting something when Will explained how I'd been acting with him and Flash. Then they both followed me and Flash to the gym, and she must have noticed that Tim disappeared right where I appeared from."

Talking in third person was still rather uncomfortable to me, but it was almost an unspoken rule that served a few purposes. One, it was good practice for not retelling a story as "I" should you be talking to someone about your other self. Two, it helped separate personal life with...work life? I wasn't sure I'd call it work life, but there wasn't any better way to describe it. Third it helped establish that a disagreement between Batman and Robin didn't have to carry over in Tim and Bruce. I was pretty sure that became a thing more after Jason, the second person to hold the title of Robin, left from some serious disagreements.

"That's fairly observant..." Batman looked at me like I was supposed to answer what wasn't exactly a question, "Yeah..."

"Do you disagree?"

"No, I just don't know what that has to do with anything."

He paused only a second before adding, "And it was a conscious decision for her not to tell Will."

He was hinting at something, and I was starting to get an idea of what. "Yeah, it was." I added, getting a tiny bit excited about what I started to think was coming. When he failed to say anything else, I did, "You think she could help? Like, if she wanted to?"

A slight pause was followed by a nod paired with a slight smile.

Am I about to have a partner?!