The sun was beginning to set over the horizon. Nightwing was stuck on a jet over the Pacific Ocean with Harley Quinn bound in the seat behind him. The sight of the never-ending ocean was starting to annoy him, and that annoyance was amplified by Harley Quinn's constant tirade. She kept telling him that her puddin' was coming to save her and that after he had dealt with Batman, he was coming for the Boy Wonder – or as she referred to him 'Boy Blunder'.

Nightwing engaged the autopilot, stood up from his seat, and grabbed a device from under the cabinet. It was a muzzle. He slapped it onto her face and it extended around her jaw and head, gagging her. Nightwing folded his arms and leaned against the back of his seat. "You know, that nickname – Boy Blunder – it doesn't really work anymore, because I'm not Robin, I'm Nightwing now." She mumbled into her muzzle. Nightwing shrugged. Talking to this psycho beat staring at endless oceans, so he undid the muzzle. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'What kind of lame name is Nightwig?'"

"Nightwing! Night… wing."

Harley spat at him. "It doesn't matter. Plus, I know you're not Robin anymore, Nightwig. After all, we both remember what happened to the last Robin." She started cackling maniacally.

"That's enough from you," he said before slapping the muzzle back on. Harley screamed into the muzzle. She kicked and screamed but her wrists were bound, her ankles were bound, and the seat had extended to wrap around her. She was firmly locked in.

She had to be. It was a long flight from Tokyo to Gotham. Harley Quinn had a bomb inside her. The Clown had made her swallow a proximity device that would explode if she was within a certain distance from him. According to Batman, he was trying to use Harley as bait so he could escape, but luckily, Nightwing was on the scene to help out. Unfortunately, that meant Nightwing was stuck transporting Harley alone while Batman took the Joker in a different direction. Alone with Harley Quinn over the Pacific Ocean, it didn't get more boring than that.

"But at least I get to use the bat-jet," Nightwing said to himself, moving around the small cockpit. It was one of Batman's older bat-jet models, but it was better than flying commercial back to the States. "And with that muzzle on your mouth, I don't have to listen to you–"

The jet shuddered. Nightwing rushed to his seat. Multiple lights were blinking and numerous panels were fading. Nightwing pulled on the stick as the bat-jet began to tilt forward. It was going down.

The hero's eyes darted from side to side. So many warning lights were screaming at him to do something but none of them made sense. It was as if the jet was falling asleep. There was nothing on the radar – no storm, no turbulence, and no rogue supervillains. It was just Nightwing, the bat-jet, and millions of miles of ocean. He yanked on the stick once more but the jet refused to comply. He was certain now. He was going down.

He fell through the clouds and saw an island coming up. It was better than landing in the ocean, he thought. He tried to steer towards the island. The jet meekly complied. He quickly realised that if he crashed onto the island, the jet was going to disintegrate and him along with it. He needed to land beside it. In the water, but close enough to swim out. "Come on!" he gritted his teeth and lifted the nose as much as he could.

The jet did a semicircle around the island before crashing into the water. It rolled over a few times, losing its wings, but it came to a stop near the shore. It was taking on a lot of water very quickly. He'd landed close enough to jump out so he did.

He landed on solid earth but he had water up to his midsection. Slowly, he waded out onto the island, leaving the sinking jet behind.

"Oh shit!" He quickly remembered why he couldn't leave the sinking jet behind. He waded back onto the jet, pried a loose wall open, and reached into the water to pull Harley Quinn out, still bound and gagged. He dragged her through the water onto the beach.

The sands were white and the waves were lovely, but Nightwing didn't have time to appreciate them. He was exhausted and water was pouring from his suit. His body felt heavy. He dumped Harley onto the beach and fell onto the sands beside her.

"Are you okay?" Nightwing asked.

Harley attacked. She headbutted his chest, knocking the wind out of him. He rolled onto the sands. She hopped to her feet. He jumped to his, and knocked her out with a single punch. She hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Nightwing asked, massaging his knuckles. Harley landed on her back. He lifted her to make sure she hadn't hit her head or anything. She looked so peaceful in her sleep. Her face was half-white and the rest of her makeup was running down from her face onto her neck and shoulders. She looked at peace. You never would have guessed that she was a psychopathic maniac – but that's how she got you.

The bat-jet sank into the seabed, but at least half of it was still visible, so Nightwing waded back out into the ocean and jumped in to try and see if he could contact Batman. The cockpit was quickly filling with water but he knew that Batman would always add emergency signals under every chair in his bat-vehicles. Nightwing managed to reach the only chair that had yet to be submerged. He flipped the chair over, exposing all the wires – but most importantly – revealing the bright yellow button with Batman's symbol on it.

"Look at that, the Boy Blunder still needs the Bat to rescue him from even the slightest inconvenience," Nightwing could hear Harley Quinn's grating voice from behind him. He hesitated for a moment. The bat signal blinked – it was losing power. He looked up and around at the bat-jet, then down at himself, at his suit – a black and blue suit designed by Batman, built with his funds, in his factories – along with his utility belt. "As much as you claim to be your own hero, you can't escape the Bat's stench!"

Nightwing climbed to the back of the cockpit and pushed his upper body out of the bat-jet. "Will you shut the fu–" Harley was unconscious. She wasn't pretending either. She looked exhausted and that punch he'd given her had cleaned her clock. Nightwing stared at his hands. Was I hallucinating, he asked himself. "Shit," he fell down into the water and dug through to pull the chair back up.

The sea water had gotten into the wires and destroyed the button. Nightwing still tried to slap it a few times to make sure it wasn't working.

"It's cooked," he said. He stomped on the chair, sending it deeper into the water – which was now up to his waist. He needed to get out. Nothing was working. He tried to twist a few more knobs and flip a couple of switches, but to no avail. He climbed out of the ship and waded back to the land for the last time.

It was only now that he finally understood the gravity of this situation. He was lost and alone (aside from the infamously psychotic killer next to him) on a desert island with no way to get in touch with Batman. The Pacific Ocean was a massive place. Finding him would be a tough task, even for the world's greatest detective. Nightwing breathed heavily as he looked across the island. He saw nothing but white sands ahead of him and a tall green forest behind him.

"It's okay," Nightwing told himself. He wasn't Robin anymore. He was Nightwing. He didn't need Batman to save him. He would get himself out of this situation, he thought. "But, man, am I tired," he said. He lowered himself to the ground and lay down.

Very quickly, Nightwing was absorbed by the sounds, feelings, and sights of the island. The sounds of the waves crashing against the island's white beaches, as well as those of the wind flowing through the trees. The feeling of the soft dry sands beneath him. The sight of the clear blue sky above him. He was exhausted. Mentally and physically. "I'll just… close my eyes for a moment…" he told himself. The world faded to black.

Nightwing didn't awake until the next morning.

He woke up to the same sounds of waves and winds, but they were intermittently broken by gagged screaming. His eyes slowly opened and his senses returned to him. He fell asleep to soft, dry sand, but awoke to a hard and damp bed. The water was coming up to his shoulders.

"Shit!" He sat up.

Harley Quinn growled and screamed as wave after wave pulled her deeper into the water. She had to tilt her neck to avoid letting the surf wash back into her nostrils as it retreated past her into the ocean. She shook violently and cursed at Nightwing to get him to wake up. He jumped to his feet and rushed down the beach. The tide had risen.

He grabbed her by the restraints and pulled her back to the beach. She was wearing a full-body red and black suit so he pulled her jester hood down to let her blonde hair breathe. He stared at her for a moment. It was the first time he'd ever seen her both makeupless and with her hair exposed. She looked different. She was still snarling at him, so he took a few steps away from her and let her simmer for a moment.

"I'm not going to leave you on the beach," Nightwing told him. He worried about her getting sunburnt so he pulled her further up the beach until they got to the point where sand turned to grass. He propped her up against a tree, making sure to keep her in the shade. He crouched down to her level. "Now, I'm going to ungag you. But, don't bite me, okay. I'm doing you a service here. Don't bite me."

She nodded.

He pulled her gag off. She bit him. "You fucker!"

Harley cackled at him. She started cursing him out again, this time without the restraints of her gag. He was willing to stomach it. It felt more humane to have her able to communicate, especially considering the circumstances. Harley Quinn went off about how 'Mr J' was coming for him.

Nightwing needed time to think about what to do next, so he stood there and entertained her. "Oh yeah, and how's he going to do that if he's currently rotting in a cell in Arkham Asylum?" Nightwing went through his utility belt in search of helpful tools.

"You're acting like puddin' ain't never escaped from Arkham before," she said. "He'll just break out again. Kick the shit out of that Bat, then come rescue me from this stinkin' place. And when he does… oh, you'll be in a lotta trouble. We'll do you like we did the other Robin."

"Mhm. Is that so? You know if you keep spamming your Jason Todd card it stops being as effective," Nightwing said, pulling an extendable knife from his utility belt.

"So Jason Todd was his name, huh? You know, Mr J gave him a good wallopin'. He hit that little bird until he couldn't sing no more. I bet the thought of that keeps you up at night, don't it, Nightwig. Don't you wanna know what his last words were at the very least?"

He approached her with the knife in hand. She tried to maintain a facade of composure, but he noticed her flinch at the last moment. Nightwing moved her slightly. The sun was starting to move across the sky and she needed to stay out of the sun. He pulled a Swiss army knife from his utility belt before correcting her, "Nightwing." He waded through the waters once more and started to try and repair the jet. Every fifteen minutes he jumped out of the jet to move Harley another centimetre – almost using her as a makeshift sundial. He dug around for any tools that would help them survive.

A lot of the supplies had been ruined by the crash and the seawater, so he only managed to pull out two canteens full of freshwater and three survival meals. He laid them beside Harley and told her that those should keep them going for about a week if they rationed them appropriately. "Do you understand?"

"Fuck you?"

"I know you're probably thirsty," he told her as the sun was going down. He unscrewed the canteen's lid and told her to drink. He tilted it into her mouth and she gulped down about half a litre. He drank half a litre too before screwing back up. He'd recovered the other eight canteens too but their contents all tasted too salty so he had to pour them out onto the beach. He then had to feed her gruel. The survival kit meals tasted horrendous but they were packed with a balanced dose of all the vitamins they would need to survive. Harley Quinn spat the first spoonful out, so – like a child or a dog – he had to shut her mouth and force her to chew the gruel until she swallowed it.

She spat at him.

"You've just lost your mouth privileges," he told her before reapplying her gag.

He zipped the bag up and took the items deeper into the forest. He emerged with firewood and used them to start a fire on the edge of the forest. He sat in silence with Harley for a few minutes, watching the sun set over the horizon. His eyes slowly shut and he drifted off to sleep. It was their first full day on the island and Nightwing didn't want to admit it, but he'd broken something in his attempts to fix the jet and get it back into the air.

Their mission had quickly shifted from getting off the island to surviving for as long as possible. Or at least, his mission had shifted from escape to survival. Nightwing still wasn't sure what Harley's mission was. It was strange. They were both trapped on a desert island with no other humans around them for miles yet she was insistent on being antagonistic. At times, he wished he could grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. But it was in Harley's nature. There was no point in trying to reason with her. He would have had better luck trying to draw water from a stone.

He yawned. "Goodnight, Harley Quinn…" He opened his eyes to check on the woman. She was out cold, leaning against a tree for support. Her hair had dried but it'd clumped and tangled into a frizzy mess. Her makeup was all but washed away from the seawater and constant sweating, leaving her pale but fair face exposed to the elements. Nightwing lay there for a few moments staring at her face. "Hm…" He had to repeat it back to himself. She looked at peace. You never would have guessed that she was a psychotic maniac – but she was and that's how she got you. Don't let her get you, he thought.