[IN THE END] - DICK GRAYSON - YOUNG JUSTICE

CHAPTER 11C

Hey so originally Iwas going to post this tomorrow, but I feel like you guys desrve it now.  Thanks for all the votes and comments!  Keep doing that - haha - it makes me feel happy and want to give you more.  I hope you enjoy this!  Comment and keep reading!  Thanks! 

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The sentence kept replaying throughout Robin's head.  The Joker... killing his... was it possible?  Robin's eyes were opened wide behind his mask.  His teeth clenched as he kept thinking the whole thing through.  Tears began to form in his eyes as he tried to understand.  But the more he thought, the more he began to think the comment had to be a ploy.  Perhaps to find out who he really was.  The Joker barley gave any information, no time period, and he never mentioned any names.  He wasn't the only one in Gotham without his real parents.  Dick was in complete denial.  "That's not true."  The Joker laughed knowing he hit a nerve.  "It's funny how something you have believed for a long time can become your ethical way to live.  Yet it can be so easy to change that.  How those certain morals can come to an end.  And this shall be yours.  I will make you want to seek vengeance Robin."  His voice venomous and more severe than ever.  "Never."  The young boy argued.  "Even if you commit your revenge on me..."  His voice commanded the large warehouse.  "But I won't.  Because I know that you didn't kill my parents."  Richards tone became just as solemn.  "It was worth a shot.  It's crazy to think that injecting a small dose of drugs into someone's body can make them talk.  Perhaps rambling on about how their parents died.  It's ashamed we had to wake you up before we could get to the good part of the story.  But a person of my caliber would understand that operations like this, are not to be trifled with.  So we woke you up.  I'm embarrassed that your trained conscious allowed you to refute my claim.  However I never said that your parents were the ones that would make you want to kill me.  Because as we both know it's a lie... And one wouldn't want to seek revenge if the reason behind it was complete falsehood.  So how 'bout we make a truth?"  Robin sat there in complete shock as he listened to the words of the Joker.  He was caught up between all the sentences that just spilled out of his mouth.  The effect of the drugs made him talk.  The Joker was trying to turn him into a murderer, even if his first kill was the Joker himself.  And worst of all the Joker wanted to accomplish his goal by creating a truth that would leave Richard heartbroken yet again.

"I'm sorry that the world is so cruel.  It's just a place that fails us all."  The Joker finished.  He then left the boy alone, with his body now tied to the chair.  Thoughts creped through his mind as the reality of the situation kicked in.  These past hours opened his eyes to many things.  Some of a competence that he couldn't understand.  And so for ten minutes he sat there puzzled, over analyzing every thought as he worried for what was next to happen.  Without a soul providing laughter to the mostly vacant vicinity, the warehouse was completely silent.  And that's when a constant, though subtle noise began to sound.  Robin searched the room confused, wondering if his mind was deceiving him.  And that's when his eyes located a small glowing light that provided a decreasing time.  As of now, it read a minute and forty-seven seconds.  Though each time Richards eyes opened after a blink, a second had passed by.  At the fifty-six second mark, Richard accepted his reality.  He didn't even know help was on the way, wherever Superman was.  He thought about all the things he had yet to do.  All the things he had yet to say. 

Suddenly one of the large rusted windows shattered as a man in a blue uniform arrived.  The sight of Richard like this made him stop for a second, wondering what happened.  And then he saw the clock, and understood what would happen if he didn't get the boy out of there.  So he raced towards him with twenty-nine seconds left.  Ripping apart the prickly rope, freeing the damaged body, Superman grabbed him in his arms and began to run.  And suddenly with eighteen seconds to go, the Joker appeared in front of them, with a gun in hand, aimed at the pair.  And soon enough the trigger was pulled, nailing Robin in his lower left abdomen.  He screamed from the unbearable pain, and glanced back at the clock which now read ten seconds.  When he looked back the Joker was gone and already running out the door.  The bastard could escape the hell he put others through.  And with that Superman took off through the window flying as fast as he could.  However when the bomb went off just four seconds later, Robin was still affected by the explosion.  Burns now covered his back as he was yelling from the ache of two separate injures.  Superman flew a couple blocks farther and then landed on a rooftop to aid the young boy.  He set him down on the gravel surface examining the abused body.  The first thing he did was locate the bullet and attempted to remove it.  After a few minutes of carefully trying to extract the pellet from his lower stomach, he successfully got it out.  Robin looked up to Superman.  "Thank you."  He said trying to catch his breath.  Superman gave the boy a second before he responded.  "No problem."  It was a hero kind of thing to say.  Robin then though about what Batman would say.  That he wouldn't be allowed to play the hero anymore.  Which in Richards book was not acceptable.  "If that's not a problem, than can I ask of a favor?"  The young boy questioned.  "Sure."  Superman responded, curious to know what he would say.  Tears in his eyes, he asked for his request.  "You gotta promise me that you won't tell Bruce.  He'll take this part of me away, and I can't live like that.  This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.  People need saving, and I want to be there to do that job.  So please, just don't tell him... please..."  Superman looked into the young boys gaze, and he knew that he was right.  So he gave him a firm nod, wiping some hair out of Robin's face.  "Thank you... Uncle Clark."

When Robin made it back home, things were much different.  He had just turned fifteen, and his whole mind set changed.  His judgment on certain situations became clouded, and he was beginning to lose it.  Beginning to lose sense of what necessary meant. The words "When I say you are willing to risk your life, I mean you only do so if it is ABSOLUTLEY necessary" became lost in the cracks of his mind, as it no longer played a part in his code, his morals.  To him any circumstance was necessary, because as one once said, "The citizens are ALWAYS the priority."  It's like his beliefs were flipped around.  The fuel powering the engine was the fact that his mentor once said "A hero has no limits."  Which was an idea, that became possessed over time.  An idea that suddenly made him feel invincible even though his body could easily be broken.  And for once, not fixed.  So far, he'd made it in this world, and the situations he had been put in made him think that he was a force that couldn't be reckoned with.  Even up against the all mighty power of death.  He understood that when an object is broken, it can be mended back together.  There are many ways it can be 'fixed'.  But he didn't grasp the concept that even though the object can be repaired, it can never be the same.  The object might not be able to do what it once could.  Which in his case was comprehending the meaning of the words absolutely necessary.