Tesseract Child

Bear

Steve was quiet. Robin's behavior was not normal for him. Part of what bothered him was that Robin wouldn't explain why he wanted Bear back so badly. He peaked out of the room to see what the boy was up to. Robin was currently coloring on the window; angry drawings of giant bears roaring at them. The bears were multicolored because Robin kept pressing so hard the crayons would break.

"Have you talked to Batman?" asked Steve.

"I refuse to talk to the man of bats!" protested Thor.

When everyone had left and Thor was busy scolding Robin, Steve went to the Transmitter. It was 4:30 here so that meant it was 11:30 there. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

An elderly gentleman answered. "Good afternoon. How may I be of assistance?"

"My name is Steve Rogers. I think I need to talk to Batman about Robin."

"Is this a matter of some urgency or may he call you back sir?"

"It is important but not urgent," answered Steve. "Who am I speaking to and do you know Robin well enough to know if something was really wrong?"

"You may call me Agent A and yes I am quite familiar with young Master Robin."

Steve told him about Bear and the behavior, the lack of sleep and sudden loss of appetite. Agent A listened and asked how Robin had been behaving before.

"When the young Master is under significant stress, loss of appetite and irregular sleep patterns are quite normal. The remainder of the behavior clearly seems a desperate cry for help. May I speak with the child?" asked Agent A very politely.

"Of course," answered Steve. "According to him he's not talking to us although he still seems to have a lot to say." Steve added.

It took Agent A about five seconds to deduce the problem. "Now young man, what's this I hear about a bear?"

"He was the only one I could talk to! Last month... uh and Red Robin said... uh, the thing... I..." Robin burst into tears. The last semi legible thing he said was, "the temision nod s'cure."

"The transmission is not secure? I see. Well go play for a little while and I'll speak to Batman."

"Now Mr. Rogers this may take some time. I have no wish to unduly inconvenience you. Perhaps it would be best if you were to check back in an hour's time."

The Avengers would probably never understand how big a deal it was, how much analysis, discussion, consideration, planning, conferencing, League medical and physiological experts had already gone into this issue. Bruce had anticipated this issue and was prepared for Alfred's call. The only thing that surprised him a little was the involvement of a teddy bear.

It wasn't quite an hour. "I need to speak with Robin alone," spoke Batman straight to the point.

Robin was currently playing Marbles with Dummy. He hadn't actually gone anywhere. They were using ball bearings from the scrap bin as marbles. Robin had colored chalk targets all over Tony's shop floor. It wasn't like the windows. Tony covered the floor in chalk all the time when he was thinking out large scale plans. He had a little shop bot that could clean it up in minutes.

"Robin can Steve Rogers be trusted with secrets? I want a complete risk assessment." Steve heard as put on some headphones, turned up some music and went to the other side of the shop to give them some privacy. A long while later Robin came over.

"Captain Rogers, Batman wants to talk to you again."

Robin curled up on a comfortable chair and in about two seconds flat was snoring lightly. Steve took that as a good sign.