Title: Pretend You Don't Exist

Category: Cartoons » Young Justice

Author: LunarBlade Valentine

Language: English, Rating: Rated: T

Genre: Drama/Hurt/Comfort

Published: 12-03-14, Updated: 12-03-14

Chapters: 1, Words: 8,184

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Pretend You Don't Exist

Opening his eyes made no difference. Blackness.

Robin was floating on a fragile cloud between awareness and sleep, knowing that just thinking about it too much would shatter it. So he just drifted. It felt right somehow. Lulling him back into slumber.

Blackness.

There were voices though. Coming as if from a million miles away, but buzzing right next to his ear. He wasn't very comfortable, he realized. Something digging into his shoulder painfully, just at the edge of waking. The fog was lifting despite how much he longed to keep it on as a blanket. He tensed. He meant to simply shift his weight a little to get away from the sharpness.

He screamed.

Pain shooting unexpectedly through every part of him. His limbs were being skewered, his bones crushed. The more he struggled the more futile and painful the motion was. Had he been kidnapped? Again?!

He forced himself to relax, and the pain slowly ebbed. Still in blackness, blinking and still seeing nothing, trying to move but being unable to.

He was awake now; nauseous, sore, freaked out, but awake. His limbs were twisted painfully, but he didn't immediately feel the tightness in the shoulders and ankles from a "traditional" kidnapped pose. God, it said something about his life when being kidnapped became a 'thing'. Yet despite this he couldn't move an inch. Not his arms, not his legs nor even his head.

He forced himself to take a couple of calming breaths, painstakingly slow. His lungs obeyed. The familiar pressure of the light kevlar armor noticeably absent. He was in civvies. Oh, right. This morning...

"And then Rosh pushed me into the fountain at school! Ruined my homework, my day planner and I had to walk around for two hours looking like I had just soiled myself." He had protested to his legal guardian.

"Your life is truly full of tragedy." The older man said blandly. Eyes set still on the morning newspaper and you'd have had to be better than the world's best detective to find any sympathy there.

"Just let me teach'em one lesson! Once!"

"No." Batman flipped a page, found an interesting article about a new exhibit at the science museum.

Robin waited perhaps for an explanation, but quickly remembered: Batman hates explaining himself.

He might have been garbed in a suit and tie, looking the picture of morning calm, but being dressed like Bruce didn't make him any less Batman.

"It'll make them stop! Let me at least dodge!"

"No." That one word again, but this time his eyes flickered up and he said sternly, "You will do no such thing." He went back to reading, "The best way to deal with them is to not engage. Pretend they don't exist."

"Like you do with me?" He didn't mean to say it out loud, but being a teen meant a lot temper and a lot less control.

Now the eyes left the article and settle on him. A sharp glare. Face half-hidden behind the paper. Dick wanted to apologize, but he wasn't going to. Still too angry.

"Go to your room." Bruce said and went back to reading. He wasn't grounding him, Dick knew that much. 'Go to your room' just meant 'leave me alone' or 'go do something else' in Bruce-speak. Well, if he was going to be a stubborn fool-

"You want me out of your hair? I'm out of your hair. You want me to pretend people who push me down don't exist? Bye." It was petty and beneath him to be so childish, but sometimes Bruce's apathy was just too much to bare.

It was Saturday, so he more or less free.

He turned and left. He was usually far more eloquent with his snappy comebacks, having had to depend on making enemies lose their temper and do something stupid, but he wasn't out to anger Bruce, just to throw it in his face. And while Dick knew as he was leaving the kitchen that Batman's face was still buried in the newspaper, he also knew without a doubt that the older man's eyes were following him as he left. Jeans, hoodie, hands stuck in pockets and sunglasses firmly in place he headed out, planning to not go back home until dark at least.

What had happened then? His mind was a blur.

He was in pain. Substantial. Couldn't move, but wasn't tied down. If he was tied down, it was in some strange position. Didn't feel a blindfold or even sack on his face. His face was pointing where gravity and a general sense told him was skyward, hid body splayed more or less in a 45 degree angle to the side. Not too sharp to be uncomfortable, at least. But while he was pretty sure his right eye was open (pressure keeping the left one shut, didn't know why yet), he could see very little. A couple of smudges lighter than the rest of the blackness. Pain. Training kicking in as the fog in his head continued to clear. Need to self-diagnose situation. Need to calm down.

Pain in chest. He took another two experimental breaths, testing both breathing from his mouth and his nose. Mouth was chalky, dry, and he spat out what tasted like ash or dirt. Nose worked. Lunges protested, but none of the symptoms of punctured lungs or broken ribs. Maybe a couple of cracks.

Next he tried to wet his mouth enough to taste for blood. If there was blood in his stomach, he needed to know. Yeah, he definitely tasted blood.

He felt his heart flutter wildly, fighting off the panic. He took a few more calming breaths, worked through the techniques Batman had taught him; count 4 seconds on the inhale, 4 seconds on the exhale.

Why do people say inhale but not outhale? He wondered, and realized he was probably slightly concussed.

Blood. Right. He tried to shake his head to clear it but maybe only got a quarter of an inch movement. None of that, then.

What was he doing?

Right, the taste of blood.

He probed around with his tongue and managed to find that he had bitten the inside of his cheek. Blood was probably coming from there.

What if it wasn't, though? What if he was bleeding internally? No, no no no… He had to remain calm, continue figuring out where he was and how bad his injuries were.

Chest under pressure, but not broken. Head concussed, but probably not cracked. He wasn't light-headed or without the capacity for thought, although he was having trouble concentrating.

"Hello?" He tried. Nothing. Sounded like a tight space, little to no echo.

He tried moving his arms. His left arm was covering his head, pressed against his left eye. Like he was trying to protect his skull from whatever had happened. Good thing, too, as his arm was obviously protecting him from whatever was stabbing into it so painfully.

It meant, however, that the sharp needle-like pin pricks around his closed eye were the shrapnel from his sunglasses, crushed under his own arm against his face. Again panic gripped him, and his body tensed and the pain intensified. What if his eye was wrecked? What if both of them were and this darkness was all he will ever see? What if the shrapnel punctured his eye and-

Unlikely.

He reasoned with his own panic, fighting it down. He would have been in a lot more pain. He had to continue chanting that to himself over and over until he finally managed to calm his body enough to continue.

Twitching the fingers of his left hand- yup- at least three broken fingers. Bone deep pain. His pinky worked, and his thumb seemed to be all right. At least that. Not that he could move his arm, though. It was pinned but good.

Right arm. He tried twitching it.

He screamed through clenched teeth.

A stabbing pain, a crushing pressure on his shoulder joint. Intense pain at any movement. Fleshy, muscular, to the bone. Forcing his scream into a growl, he deliberately moved against the pain.

Not even an inch.

He stopped and spent a long moment- who knows how long in this land of nothingness- just getting his breathing back in check. The fact that he could not move his shoulder at all was actually a good indication. It had a good chance of indicating that whatever was pinning him down had not run him through. Probably. Unless whatever was keeping him here also prevented even an inch of movement. He'd take a probably.

Probably concussed, probably not internally bleeding, probably not permanently blind.

He stared at nothing, just breathing. Ash, dirt, rubble. Couldn't see, but could now sense the weight above him.

He was buried. Pinned. Breath. Breath. Don't panic. Keep working on understanding.

He twitched his right foot. Pinned, pinched painfully, but he could wiggle his toes. He'd have to remember to continue to wiggle his ankle and toes from time to time, just in case the pressure would be enough to interrupt the blood flow.

"Don't panic," he told himself aloud, voice hoarse and a little slurred. Definitely concussed. Sound deadened almost immediately, "You're not going to lose your foot."

Other foot twisted painfully, but still operational as well. Maybe a sprain or a deep cut. Surface pain. Tissue damage. Hip in agony.

Then static noise, a sharp note and then-

Batman. He was talking right in Robin's ear.

"Robin?" He said. Relief washed over him.

"I'm here…" He croaked.

"Robin, come in."

And there went the feeling of relief. In order to answer he'd have to press the earpiece. He tried turning his head again, desperate for a moment to get through, but there was no wiggle room and the rough surfaces were cutting into him. Couldn't even press his ear against debris to activate that button. So close, yet infinitely far.

"Robin. This isn't the time to play at being immature." Batman's voice had no patience in it. That rough edge of agitation that he reserved only to people close to him from whom he expected better. He continued, "There's been an explosion at the science museum-"

That's where he was! The memory of the day returned in a rush.

He had left in a huff, and remembering that article Bruce was reading, he headed towards Gotham's Science Museum, hoping to have a pleasant day surrounded by science instead with ever-disapproving father-figures. He had called up Wally and the Kid was there in minutes. He didn't rant about Bruce in front of him, but Wally silently understood. It wasn't the first time in the last few months that the Boy Wonder had a spat with the older man. Wally got it.

"Being a dumbass again, was he?" Was all he had said. Robin gave him a lopsided grin and that was that. Out of habit he scanned the place, took note the exits, the security cameras. There were a lot of the latter.

It was a pleasant enough day, even if it promised to rain later. He had planned to get sopping wet (he hadn't brought an umbrella) and then walk in like that. It drove Bruce bonkers. He hated the "drowned bird" look, as he had called it. Alfred had just politely requested that he at least remove his shoes, next time. He had strolled along with his friend, pointedly ignoring the throngs of happy families visiting here today. Kids seemed to be everywhere. Dick would send them dirty looks if a mother was too affectionate to a child in front of him.

It had been perhaps no more than an hour into their enjoyment when Dick had realized what had drawn his attention about the cameras. When he had mentioned it to Wally the latter just shrugged, but then, after thinking about it, agreed with the younger boy.

The cameras were placed oddly; bunched up in some places, scattered in others.

Wally suggested that they were cameras added to the existing ones by a nefarious villain wanting to keep an eye on the artifacts, but there were simply too many of them to even be useful. How many times could you look at the same artifact?

A second later and the Boy Wonder had reached the startling realization that some of them were not cameras at all.

He heard a far-away beep, and instinct took over. He had lashed out with a foot, kicking one of his friend's feet from under him. Using the older boy's own falling momentum, he had crouched, grabbed him and hurtled him out of a nearby window. They were on the third floor. It would hurt, but possibly less than what was about to happen.

Then the place collapsed.

That's why they didn't look like bombs-they weren't. They were more like… seismic detonators? Hiding in plain sight, looking like cameras. They didn't explode the building, but cracked it, like dropping an egg on the floor. Had he attempted to grab Wally and jump, he would have never manage to take the taller boy far with him. Not far enough to clear the falling debris. Was Wally alright?

He had missed a few words from Batman while he was recollecting his thoughts, but the last ones he caught pretty much summed the one-sided conversation.

"-I'm very disappointed in you." The Batman muttered impatiently into the mic, quiet enough so that people around him wouldn't hear him scolding. Robin rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, I am too." He chuckled, then winced. Other than the pressure on his right shoulder, there was only one other spot that hurt quite as much. He tried to wriggle a bit, doing the same test as before.

Something was poking into his thigh bone on the right side in the most painful of ways, but he suspected that if it was actually stabbing through him, it wasn't all the way through. Another probably for the list.

All limbs accounted for. None actually useful in any way.

He felt the shift before the understood it. Liquid. Cold liquid started dripping down. It wasn't blood. It was just rain. Probably. A drop here and there reached him. He wasn't going to drown. Even so panic gripped him. How much air did he have? Were those pinpricks of light enough to sustain him? What if the water started pooling?

"Let me out!" He yelled. Again and again, hoping someone would hear him. He struggled, trying just to get a bit of wiggle room, a hand free, anything! Dust got into his parched mouth and he started coughing, and each caught was excruciating. When the pain climbed to blinding levels he forced himself to hold his breath. Then he let it go slowly, forced in a few gasping breaths. His ragged inhales were punctuated by coughs, and the coughs by gasps and cries of pain, and that caused more coughs… He held his breath again to stop the cycle.

There was nothing, no movement, no sound. A sort of white noise as the rain hit debris, and as the water drizzled between loose rocks, but nothing else. A silence so oppressive it drank his feeble wheezes and made them vanish.

The static in his ear flared up again.

"We will communicate via ear piece," Batman was saying. Sirens and shouts sounded in the distance through the comm. "Our objective, obviously, is to rescue the people trapped inside under the rubble."

"Yes, sir." It was Aqualad, his soft voice giving away some of the sadness he must have been feeling, seeing the destruction.

Batman spoke again, all business, "Superboy, take Artemis and use your super-hearing to listen for people screaming under the debris. Search for loud, elevated heartbeats from those who can't shout."

"Sure." Said Superboy.

"On it." confirmed Artemis.

Robin didn't hear them head off, but more felt it through the pause in the discussion.

He could scream, he realized. He could say Connor's name over and over and the boy, listening deliberately, would pick him up. They'd come rescue him!

"How many people are trapped?" Asked Aqualad. Batman didn't speak for a moment, and Robin imagined him doing some mental calculations, "About one hundred and fifty. Mostly families and children. Some staff."

"And how many are already accounted for, from that amount?" The young man asked, dreading the answer already.

"Three." The Batman stated, deadpan. "Ms. Martian," his rumbling voice commanded, "Take Aqualad and search mentally for the highest levels of distress."

"Yes, sir!" they said at once.

Robin didn't realize he was still holding his breath until his lungs were at bursting. He could scream mentally! She would be passing over the destruction with her mind, separating the ones who are in most distress with those who are unconscious or safe enough. He would just need to think her name loudly enough and she'd recognize his mind.

He took a breath, planning on doing both at the same time.

150 people.

Then he exhaled.

150 people. Families. Little kids. Those same happy families he had shot dark thoughts at earlier. How many orphaned kids? How many bereaved parents? How many more, if he made his friends waste time rescue him instead of them?

"Superman, listen for the weakest, faintest heartbeats. Get them out. Everyone else is lowest priority- they'll probably survive."

"Alright." Said the man of steel. While he didn't have an ear piece, Robin picked out his voice through the background noise.

"What about… Wally and Robin?" Artemis asked, sounding exerted as she was probably already running or heaving boulders.

"Kid Flash is with the paramedics right now. Once he wakes up we'll ask him what he knows about this, why he was here."

He tried to let it stop there, but Aqualad was always a bright one, "What about Robin?"

"He's… not coming. Continue the mission."

He let all the air out of his lungs. His heart fluttered like a caged bird. Superboy would definitely hear that. He mustered all the courage he could. Trapped, injured, scared.

He spent long minutes just breathing. Using all the techniques Batman had taught him to calm himself down, ignore the pain. Endure. Survive.

Pain kept on intruding, but he did his best to block it out. The dust in the air made his mouth as dry as a desert, but he kept it closed and tried to accept the discomfort. An itch on his nose, dirt in his eye.

He forced his ragged lungs to take in even breaths.

Slowly, excruciatingly slow, he convinced his body to calm down. Pretended he wasn't here, wasn't distressed. He wanted more than anything to be out, to be 'tressed instead of distressed, but...

He heard the chatter on his earpiece, drank in the voices of his friends like a lifeline. Heard them fight through the rain and rubble to get more and more people out. One at a time. Sometimes two or three, but those were rare. Heard them talk in soothing tones to children, parents, families. Struggled for what felt like forever in the darkness and pain- don't let them hear or feel you. You're the last priority. You don't exist.

It felt like centuries. The pain in his shoulder and hip grew to be a constant sharp white pain. More often than not he found his breathing going shallow from it, and he would force himself to breath deep long breaths again. It was a fight against his very own survival instincts. The deepest, most primal parts of his brain were trying to take control, make him hysterical so that he would be rescued, but he fought it down with determination and discipline, using the voices of his friends as an anchor.

"They're right above you." He thought like a mantra, "They'll get to you soon." He repeated this again and again and again until the words were nothing more than sounds that stopped have meaning.

"Batman!" Cried M'Gan after centuries of wait. Robin's good eye, closed in meditation, snapped open from the urgency in her voice. He saw nothing, but it didn't matter.

"Kid Flash just woke up! Ro- Robin was in the building with him! Threw him out just before it went down!" Her distress made Robin smile. He always liked her. There was a stubborn innocence about her that was just endearing. Hearing her worried for him was comforting. He didn't really know what the team thought of him. In a way he was more of an outsider than she was. He was trained and molded for this. He was the farthest from 'normal' than most of them, Connor excluded, perhaps.

There was a long moment of stunned silence from the entire team.

"What are we going to do?!" She cried.

"Nothing. Carry on." The steel in Batman's voice brooked no argument. The words were like a knife through his already over-taxed heart. But he knew without a doubt that it was the right thing. Even as the knowledge tore him up, he knew Batman was completely right. It was the very same reason he had remained silent. Still, they tried to argue,

"But-" Superboy began. Aqualad interrupted him, sounding tired but calm, "Team, Superman has been rescuing those closest to death. Superboy and Artemis those most injured, Ms. Martian has been leading me to the most distressed. They haven't found him amongst those groups. Robin probably cleared out before anything happened. You know what he's like.."

The team was silenced by their worry, wanting to believe Kaldur's words. Moved as Robin was by their worry and their confidence in his skill, he desperately wanted to hear them speak again. Now, as they continued into the umpteenth hour of work, it was reduced to a few commands here and there, a few words to paramedics or survivors.

"Idiots…" Robin smiled to himself, now struggling with a new issue; He calculated he'd been here for several hours now, and pain and possible blood loss (don't think about it, don't think about, don't think about it) was taking its toll. Add to that the freezing drops of dirty, scratchy water that constantly dripped on his face and body, causing him to flinch and gag. It was a new form of Chinese water torture. "Idiots," He muttered again, affectionately. While he had commanded himself to wriggle as many unbroken appendages as he could as often as he could bare the pain of it, he was losing sensation in pretty much all extremities. He spent a long time trying to get sensation back. Clenching and unclenching his good hand, despite the pain it sent through his shoulder. His broken fingers felt the size of cucumbers, but if he made it out with only these broken bones, he'd count himself lucky. Curling and stretching his toes again and again. He approached it like gym sets. 25 of his feet, 25 of his hand. The broken one was throbbing and sore, but there wasn't really anything he could do there. After a while the accumulated pain was too much and he was actually sweating from the pain and exertion while shivering from the cold at the same time. He relaxed, just concentrated on breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. The taste of blood was gone, thankfully. He was calmed by the workout, by the fact that he could still move his digits, mostly. He still tried very hard not to think about his eye, covered by his upper arm. When he squinted tightly he could practically count the amount of sharp little pricks around it. Some dug into the protecting arm, some into the flesh around his closed lid. He wondered if he could continue being Robin with limited depth perception. They say some people can overcome that and learn to perceive distances with one eye. Would he wear an eye-patch? He won't be a very striking Robin with half a domino mask. Damnit, he specifically was trying not to think about it. What were eye patches made of? He wondered. He dressed as a pirate for halloween one year, before everything happened. It was just a piece of cloth his mother had sewn for him. Damnit, enough about eye patches. But if it was that or thinking about his mother while buried under rubble with dirty rain dripping on him...

Maybe he could just black out one of the domino mask's eyes. But that would make him pretty easy to spot. Robin missing his left eye, and Richard Greyson missing his left eye. Ugh. If only he had super powers. Superboy wouldn't be trapped down here! Megan would mind-blast her way out if she didn't just fly out of the building before anything even happened. Kaldur could use the very water that was tormenting him to blast a way out.

Damnit.

Kid Flash on the other hand… He would have gone mad by now. Wally didn't take well to being forced to remain stationary, he would have quickly lost his temper. He wondered if his friend would have actually gone mad down here. No sensory stimulation, no noise, no ability to move. It would be a literal hell for him. For Robin it was just a proverbial hell.

It took a while but Kid Flash must have grabbed a spare communicator, because his voice came blaring in on the communicator, angry and with feedback to start.

"What do you mean Bats told you not to look for him?!"

Aqualad started explaining, but Wally was inconsolable, "I don't give two shits what some overgrown rodent told you to do! How many times have we said we're family, huh?! And now we're just going to abandon him?"

Robin spoke to himself, even as Aqualad and Artemis reluctantly explained the situation.

"Oh, Wally." He said to himself voice hoarse and barely above a whisper, "Thanks, you really make my captivity nicer." He chuckled to himself, "But Batman is right. I'll survive." He then added, ever more quietly, "Probably."

"You are aware that Batman is also on this channel, right?" Said Superboy. There was an awkward silence, and Dick actually burst out laughing, hurting himself and tensing up, not to mention getting some of that nasty, grainy water in his mouth. He sputtered and coughed, twitching even as motion cause more pain and more motion. It took him long moments to calm down again.

"Over here!" He heard M'gan's voice in his earpiece as well as barely, almost from above him. There was a mighty crash right above, sending ripples and anguish down after it.

His breath was still caught in his throat, but so was his heart. Was she hurt? What was that impact right over him? Were they ok?

"What is it?!" Superboy demanded, worried for her. He was right above, which meant... Oh, thanks, Supey, Robin thought, trying so very hard not to make a sound.

"I thought I felt- mirth!" She called, but since she wasn't yelling, he could now only hear her electronically.

"I thought perhaps the villain has returned and gloating over this!" She still had a shake in her voice, and it warmed Robin's heart. The only warm spot as his limbs slowly went numb.

He held his breath, willing his heart to not get too excited. Connor said, "There are survivors nearby," He commented.

Robin didn't even dare whisper that Superboy was an idiot for jumping around on top of the debris, but not calling out for help was one of the hardest things he had ever done. His teeth were clenched so tightly his jaw was sore after seconds. They departed, frustrated, after a couple of moments. "We'll get to you all as soon as we can!" She called out, and he could barely hear her if not through the comm.

Wally was still going on, becoming more agitated by the moment. Batman approached him, and by the static noise, he must have removed himself from The Team channel. Wherever Wally was, he was away from the commotion of the rescuers. Thankfully, Batman's channel with Robin was a different frequency, and possibly it hadn't occurred to him to turn it off.

"Kid Flash, you will be silent."

"Hell, no! I'm not going to stop protesting until I know he's safe! If I hadn't busted up my leg you know I'd be out there-"

"-Wasting time saving someone capable of saving himself, or who might not need saving in the first place." Batman interjected.

"Saving my best friend!" Wally protested.

"If he had known you could handle the collapse, he would have saved himself." The older man said, and Robin hissed at the harshness of the comment.

"What? I-" Then it sunk in. If he had been more competent, Dick wouldn't have had to worry about him. Not entire correct, and Robin could only imagine the indignance and anger on that otherwise ever-cheery face.

"Why, you-" He growled, "You're willing to just let him die?! Your own son?"

"He's not my son, but my charge." That reply was so automatic from his lips that Dick could mouth it along with him, chuckling to himself as he imagined that stoic face.

What must he be thinking right now? Thinking maybe "his charge" was trapped under here? Maybe dead? Was Batman certain he was actually safe? Batman had to remain ever stone-faced, but what was he thinking? Worried? Did he secretly know that he was sort-of alright?

"Son, charge, who cares?! Obviously not you! He could be dead!" Wally's voice broke at the last word, and Robin found his own throat constricting just from the emotion in his friend's voice.

"Yes." Batman said. At Wally's sputtering, he continued, "Think, Kid Flash."

The boy was stumped. After a pause Batman sighed imperceptibly and explained. He hated explaining himself,

"I've tasked Superboy and Ms. Martian to find those most panicked and hurt."

"Yeah, but they haven't found Robin!"

"Exactly." There was another pause. Wally was fast on his feet, but leaps of logic were still tough for him at times. Another sign, "I've tasked Superman with searching for those closest to death."

"But he hasn't found him either!" Protested the boy. Another pause. Finally he got it, "So if he's neither really panicked or injured or almost dead, that means he's fine!" He exclaimed, and you could hear the happiness in his voice. Then another pause and he added, "Or dead." The happiness was gone.

"Precisely." Said Batman, moving back towards the noise and the hubbub. "Either way the most logical thing to do is to keep doing what we're doing."

The Team channel went back online and Wally muttered darkly, "Did you hear that?"

"Yes, Kid." M'Gann said, sadness permeating her voice. They were speaking on a channel away from Batman's this time, but again this was still on Robin's spectrum, thank his lucky star. And his natural paranoia.

"I hate to say it," said Aqualad, "but I can't fault the logic behind it." He said the word 'logic' distastefully, like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Logic can only take you so far…" M'gann said.

"Guys, he's really not a bad guy," Robin participated in the conversation, putting in his two cents despite no one hearing him, "I know he cares… on some level. But really, I'm with him on this one!"

They continued speaking between themselves. He wanted to scream. Didn't. It wasn't easy. The pain was one with the cold and numbness now. It was a constant.

"How much you wanna bet," Artemis growled, sounding out of breath, "That the little twerp is sitting on some rooftop not far from here, watching us and laughing that creepy little laugh?"

"Hey… That's not fair, Artemis." Robin countered.

"That would be unnecessarily cruel of him, and he's not that type of boy." Aqualad said, then he added light-heartedly, "Although that laugh is disconcerting."

"We'll ask him to 'concert' it, when we see him." Wally laughed.

They laughed, some of the tension easing from them.

They all agreed, and Robin said, "Gee, thanks. I'm glad you all agree that I'm creepy, but at least not a cruel creep."

"But seriously, I get bad parents and all that. Believe me, I do," Said Artemis, sobering up, "But how does he have such a smile on his face with Bats as his mentor? Does Batman really not care?"

"His secret identity family must be very supportive and nice." M'gann offered.

"Those two are inseparable," Aqualad observed quietly, "I am suspecting that Batman is his family."

"Poor bastard." Artemis said, "Better no father at all than being treated like that."

Thankfully Wally, the only one who knew Dick's true identity, stayed silent.

"Speak for yourself." Snapped Superboy. "Any guidance is better than being alone." He then added quickly, "For someone like Robin." And then again, "'Cause he's so small."

"Thanks, Connor. I didn't know how small I was until you mentioned it." Robin said, voice dripping sarcasm.

"What?" Superboy snapped.

"What?" M'gann and the others sounded confused.

"I thought… I heard my name." Superboy muttered, embarrassed perhaps. Robin, in his makeshift tomb, bit his lip again to stop himself from shouting the boy's name. Maybe it was time? Maybe the worst of it was over?

As if to answer his question, he heard a great rumbling sound and the team sprang into action. Apparently an entire buried room they had considered safe rushed to get anyone out there out. From the chatter on the comm, despite being assure that the team would be rescuing people in order of urgency, the occupants of the room panicked and tried to dig their way up, bringing the whole roof down on them. He listened to his team go, staring up at nothing and those pinpricks of light. They had changed from the soft glow of an overcast day to the harsh yellow of construction lights. The change was almost imperceptible. Had he anything else to look at those tiny smudges would have been invisible.

It was night.

Doing a quick calculation in his head, if he left home at 9am and it was dark enough to require night-lights…

Wow. He must have really been here a long time. He was cold. No, he was beyond cold. The type of chill that no longer feels like cold but just pure pain. It was time to work out again, but he found he could no longer wriggle his toes. If they were moving on his command, he could no longer feel it. Breath, breath, don't panic.

The right hand, the one that got hit in the shoulder was just numb all the way through. He couldn't feel any of it anymore. The other hand was so swollen that the tiniest attempt to get blood flowing there would cause his entire body to convulse in agony.

He had reached a sort of resigned place, lying there, the numbing cold mixing perfectly with the awakening pain to abstract his thoughts enough to take the edge off of his panic attacks. He was tired, but awake. Scared, but at peace.

He lay there, one arm pinned over an eye, the other pinned away from him, both legs bent and a little twisted. He was a little crushed bird, waiting for someone to find it and mend its wings. He lay there, so cold he didn't even feel like shivering anymore. So alone and disconnected from the world…

There was almost a freedom here. Listening to his friends talk through their grief of seeing so many injured and dead. Hearing the surprised gasps and cries of joys of survivors and reunited families.

He didn't need to run, didn't need to save anyone. No one could disapprove of you when you were dead, and even if they did… You were dead! They could say what they wanted.

It put things in perspective. There were more than confrontation and denial as approaches to life. The issue with the would-be bully at school could be solved, and seemed incredibly silly and unimportant.

He could both use his training and not engage. He was the master of disappearance. Even Batman had admitted it more than once. He could just not be there when the bully chose to engage. He could… not exist.

Not exist…

His eyes felt heavy and he almost dozed off. A cold drop of rain landed on his nose, and stirred him awake, but it was sounding like the rain was letting up.

Rain… Not existing…

He remembered going to Bruce's parents grave. The Wayne tombstone was a massive thing, terrifying for a then only ten year-old Dick Greyson. It had been raining then, too. Alfred had stood behind them, holding a large umbrella. It was one of the few times Bruce had let Dick in. Let him see that shattering sadness that underlined every moment of his life.

What would happen if Dick were to die? Would he make a yearly pilgrimage to a tombstone and a pile of rubble where death visited? Would it upset him?

Would dying feel like this? A floating numbness, a drowsy half-existence where sound and sight were mixed with pain and cold? Would Dick get to see the effect his death would have on the man?

A part of him was almost… curious.

"Alright," He told himself, trying again to wriggle anything that would still listen to him, "At that thought I'm officially calling it. Any more and I'd start actually listening to myself."

He flexed his jaw, pretty much the only part of his body with full freedom of movement.

"Connor." He said.

Nothing.

The team was preparing to call it a night, resuming tomorrow morning after a night shift by the League. Even though the League had Superman who could hear him, this somehow caused a bout of renewed panic, thinking he had very nearly missed his friends in his stupor.

"Connor! You stupid monkey!"

"I hate monkeys." He heard through the earpiece, then a confused, "Robin?"

The others started asking questions, but Connor shushed him.

"I can hear you guys through my earpiece," Robin said, almost laughing despite himself. Relief washed over him. It was this easy! All this time and it was just this easy.

"Where are you?" Connor asked.

The others chimed in again, and apparently Artemis had to actually gag Wally with a hand over his mouth so that Superboy could pick up Robin's weak voice.

"Oh, nearby." Robin teased, chuckling and coughing as his body resented the action.

"You could have helped." Connor said, unimpressed.

"I really couldn't have." Robin said, "Not buried at least ten feet underground, anyway."

"You- you're-" There was a touch of worry in the voice and Robin mentally congratulated himself; If Conner accepted him in the group, the hardest battle was already won.

"He's here! Buried!" Conner explained to the team. They gasped and asked a million questions.

A fuzzy feeling touched his mind, M'gann linking them all up.

"Hello, Megan!" She exclaimed, "I linked up before we got here! He would have been out of range then!"

"It's cool." Robin said, "But could you guys please get me out of here?" He tried very hard not to simply start screaming and freaking out. His heart was drumming so very hard against his chest.

"You sound like you got out alright," Wally's voice shook only a little from the relief.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm peachy. But I'm getting a bit bored and wouldn't mind someone to remove these rocks now. I've named them all."

There were a couple of relieved chuckles. "Where's big, black and terrible?" He asked.

"We had removed him from out channel so that we might converse." Aqualad remembered. Robin heard some static and then Aqualad said,

"Aqualad to Batman."

"Yes?" Came the gruff reply. He sounded tired, irritated, but to most people it probably just sounded like Batman.

"We have located the wayward bird." Aqualad's smile was evident in his voice.

"Where?" Was the immediate reply. There was an unspoken threat, a sort of "He better be buried or else I'll put him there myself" sort of tone.

"We're heading to the location now. We've got this-"

"I'll meet you there." Batman said abruptly.

There was a confused moment of silence. "He must be pissed." Artemis shrugged.

"Dude, if you need a couch to crash on…" Wally offered.

Robin chuckled, wincing and grunting as the two major injuries flared to pain from the motion.

"You alright? I thought you said you were ok!"

"I said I was peachy," Robin corrected, irritated with how easily he was giving into the pain. Too tired now to fight it. "You know, swollen, bruised and mostly pink and red."

There were noises coming from above him now. His heart hammering again, excitement and nervous anticipation. There will be hell to pay between Batman and his own injuries. He tried not to think too hard on the lack of feeling in his limbs.

"Are you injured?"

"Maybe a little."

"Can you please answer like a normal person?!" Wally demanded, losing patience. He was saved another snarky remark when Batman's voice cut in, "Where is he?" He barked, demanding.

"Down here." Connor said, grunting as he was lifting heavy rocks.

"And the rest of you are what, decorations?" Batman snapped, and Robin heard a second scraping sound. After a few seconds he heard several more.

Was the whole team digging him out?

It slowly got brighter.

He thought the last day was hard? Those last few minutes, waiting for salvation, were the hardest yet. He had to use the last of his already empty reserves to not yell at them to go faster, but Batman was doing that for him.

At long last the remaining rocks were cleared from on top of him, and the light was painfully blinding, even dim as it was in actuality.

He blinked long moments, realizing with amusement that the right lens of his sunglasses was still intact, still over his eye. Thank goodness for that. He still didn't dare to try and move.

"Hello!" He exclaimed cheerfully, trying to get his eyes focusing. When he did he was greeted with the heavenly sight of his teammates and Batman standing over him.

But instead of looks of relief on their faces there was worry.

He blinked a few more times.

"Oh come on!" He moaned. A massive copper piping rig from the collapse was over to his right, with two pipes embedded firmly through his flesh- just under the right shoulder joint and just at the outside of his hip. There was a lot of blood, but it had hardened. Not enough lost to cause severe blood loss, and not nearly as much as there would be once those are pulled out of him.

Removing him from this could take… hours.

"Superman." Batman commanded. The blue-clad man approached, looking down at the boy with sympathy. "Use your heat vision and cut off the pipes with three inches to spare." He ordered.

The strongest man in the world, in his nature kind and obliging, gave Batman a chiding look but did as asked. Within seconds the pipes were severed. They were still impaling his flesh, but at least now he could be moved.

The Team delighted, moving to approach and help him, but Batman was there before any of them, checking up on the broken bird. He checked the entry wounds, reaching a hand to Robin's back to see if it went through.

"It didn't," Robin said, trying to speed thing along.

"Shut up." The Batman growled. He then studied his partner's face and almost quirked a smile, "I see you've managed to at least protect your identity." He was of course referring to the one intact-lens. Robin smiled at him. His arm was still over the other eye.

"You know me." He said, trying for levity, but sounding simple exhausted.

The older man then carefully studied the broken fingers, and the shoulder joint of that arm. It had been pulled upwards for so long, the muscles were stiff and unyielding. He worked silently, massaging the muscles and slowly bending the arm down.

"How's the eye?" The boy asked through the pain of movement, still smiling through it all.

"It'll be fun removing the shards," Batman observed casually, "But the eye should be fine." Even with his arm down the eye was glued shut with blood.

Robin exhaled loudly and the others seemed relieved as well. "A lot of blood there." Observed Aqualad.

"He'll be fine." Batman insisted. Then he picked up his ward in his arms. The motion made the boy gasp in pain, and Batman turned to leave with him without another word to the others. The part of the man's face not under the cowl was dirt-stricken, his lips pressed together into a thin line of displeasure.

"You're welcome." Said Superman, maybe a bit terse. He had just saved them hours of careful work with blow torches and saws.

"I'm taking him to the Bat Cave." He didn't slow down to even look at Superman, never stopping in his march out of there. Robin was limp in his arms, just relishing in the warmth and relief. Through the mind link he said,

"Thanks guys."

"How did you-"

"When-"

"How long-?"

They all spoke over each other. He was too tired to keep track of who was asking what.

"Let's talk later, ok?" He said through silently to them. "This peach is feeling more bruised than he thought."

"Yeah, man," Wally said-thought, tears of joy openly on his face, "We'll talk again soon! You just get better!"

Superman, walking beside the dark knight, seemed amused.

"You make sure to take care of him, after all the effort you put into not looking for him all day." Batman only narrowed his eyes at the man, but the latter wasn't finished, "after all, you were chanting 'be alright' and 'he's fine' to yourself all day." This time Batman actually flinched, instinctively holding Dick closer to his chest. If looks could kill, Kryptonite would be nothin'. He glared at the man of steel, but the latter just gave him a small smile. Robin laughed, wincing quickly.

"You should say please and thank you." Superman chided softly and returned to the rescue effort.

Robin smiled and allowed himself to fall asleep, finally warm and safe.

Update:

There is a wonderfully written Batman PoV for this story! Titled Pretend He Doesn't Exist, written by A Small Voice here in . Give it a read!

Pretend You Don't Exist now is available as an audiobook, read by yours truly. It's on YouTube! Search for Pretend You Don't Exist - Audiobook, or look at my very empty channel under ClouWindwing. Hope you enjoy, and leave a comment (here or on YouTube!)

I was amazed at how much I loved this show. I always had a soft spot for Robin, but this show had touched on exactly the topics I was always fascinated with; the relationship of mentor and student, specifically Batman and Robin. The 'Downtime' part with the basketball had me with all the feels, like no show had managed in a long time. Then I found out they had cancelled it because "Too many girls liked it, and girls don't buy merchandise." They obviously had never researched female Whovians. I was, and still am, deeply disappointed that the show ended like it did. Still disappointed we didn't get at least another season with them as kids.

It was a plot bunny that made me write this story. I don't know why. I had written in maybe half a year or more ago, but thought it was kinda 'meh' and didn't upload it. Recently I've been rereading some of my finished and unfinished stories and deciding which are worth my time. I realized that I still really like this, and thought I'd upload it. I'd love to know what you think! Daddy!Bats is the love. Do you know any good,in character stories that center around Batman and Robin's relationship as father/son? Please send them my way! I want them!

Ever yours,

~LunarBlade.