Behind the Mask

Chapter 12

“We’ll laugh about this someday.”

There was a bright flash and Artemis blinked as the picture appeared on the phone’s screen. Once she opened her eyes, the small boy was gone. Wow, that was fast….

“Uh, who was that?” She asked, looking over at the blonde girl who’d just introduced herself as…. Dang it, she’d already forgotten her name! How was she supposed to make friends if she couldn’t even remember the name of the first girl she met? Not that she needed friends or anything….

“A freshman. Ignore him.” The girl replied, already leading her away. It looked like school was already shaping up to be weird.

                                                                                                    oOo         

Dick cackled as he walked away, already texting the picture to Wally. Cause really, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. He just hoped Wally wouldn’t slip up and accidently show it to Artemis.

“Dick, what was that about?”

Dick looked over to where Barbara stood, leaning against a pillar.

“Nothing, Barbara, just being friendly with the new girl.”

Barbara just rolled her eyes, probably already familiar with her friend’s sometimes odd actions before walking away, no doubt heading to class.

“Oh, hey, happy birthday by the way!” Dick called after her.

“It’s not until tomorrow.” Barbara snapped back over her shoulder.

“I know! I’m just getting a head start.”

It surprised Dick somewhat to find that their relationship hadn’t changed much since Robin had started training Batgirl except that Barbara had become more secretive, to which Dick was glad, and had less free time, something she attributed to gymnastics season starting. He himself found somewhat difficult to hang out with her, seeing as he had to be careful what he said depending on who he was at the time. Being Robin around Batgirl was harder than being Dick around Barbara, though, and he found that he had to be especially careful to keep his personality in check when training the girl.

As to why he didn’t tell her who he was and be done with it, well, besides the whole Batman secret identity thing, which Robin could hardly care less about, he knew that if she knew that Dick Grayson and Robin were one in the same, she’d be in danger - in danger from insane villains and in danger from ‘Cadmus’ or whoever was behind the kidnapping attempts. The less people who knew his secret identity the better. He may not care about Batman and his rules, but he cared about his friend’s safety so he had to keep Barbara in the dark, no matter how she might hate him for it if she ever found out.

oOo

“-But then maybe I could take her patrolling with me…. She hasn’t really seen any action yet and I know she’s dying to…. But then if anyone sees her, word will spread faster than Kid Flash on caffeine.” He paused as he semiconsciously changed languages. «She could always be covert, keeping a lookout for me…. Still, if she’s attacked and has to fight, someone will see, and most likely get their face punched in by her, and then Batman will know and it’ll all be off….»

Robin paused in his conversation with himself, annoyed at himself for constantly contradicting himself. No wonder he was no good at debate. There were just too many sides to every problem.

Footsteps echoed in the abandoned ally and Robin’s head shot up, his eyes scanning the darkness for the source of the sound. He located a shadow and watched as it grew slowly closer and greener and into-