Author: sififantasygirl

Words: 3,378

Rating: T

Pairings: None, really

Summary: "Five times Robin couldn't sleep and the one time he had no problem."

Beta: Tari Silmarwen. The best ever!

1)

Tick…Tock…Tick…Tock…

Robin closed his eyes, trying to ignore the glaring 4:23 on the clock beside him, but he couldn't. If he closed his eyes he saw the orphange again; could taste the ashes on his tongue. The orphange had been a test, the whole thing had been a test, and however much that it was a sick test, a psychotic test, they still had failed it.

God. Why had they failed it?

It was simple enough. Plans by the Joker were always simple, but deadly. The team was supposed to complete a certain number of tasks in a certain amount of time, and if they finished the Joker wouldn't blow up the building.

They finished in time, gathering everything from a rusted old nickel from the bottom of the ocean to an ice cream sundae. In the end, it didn't even matter.

He blew it up anyway.

Robin frowned, and his eyes drifted shut by pure habbit. 4:24. As engraved as that clock light was, he could see the orphange clearer, with much more detail and shock, as though his brain had decided to take a picture of the scene without his mind knowing.

The orphange had been unique, one of the last orphanges in the country, ever since Congress or whoever had come up with foster homes. The orphange had been run by a few Christian ladies, in an old motel building. It had been a nice place, a place where kids went when they needed some comfort; a place to crash for the night, or even a place to stay until they turned eighteen. You were free to come and go anytime you wanted, without any charge.

Robin himself had dropped many a young girl or boy who was almost raped off to the ladies, and once in a while he would stop by and visit the kids again, and make sure they were doing ok. Most of the teenagers were up until two or three in the morning, so typically he would just stop by while he was on patrol, which worked great for him.

Now, he could see the remains of the orphange, the skeleton of the building that had blown up. He could feel the ashes falling on his clothes like snowflakes, taste the smoke choking up in the back of his throat, and hear Megan crying softly in the backround.

The worst thing was the bodies.

There were blackened limbs everywhere, as well as heads, torsos, arms, legs, anything you could think of. The faces haunted him, grotesque and twisted. Robin saw a few he thought he reconized, but he didn't try to look closely.

He had learned a long time ago it was always better not to look closely.

Robin rolled over and glanced at the clock again. 4:27, it blinked back at him.

Groaning quietly, he sat up in bed, flicked on a light, then got out of bed and sat down at his desk to do some schoolwork. He would have to be up at seven for training anyway, even though it was a Saturday, so he might as well do something useful with his time.

After all, it didn't look like he was going to be able to sleep.

Not tonight.

2)

Robin hated bombs.

Really. He really did. They were the reason for a lot of the crap in his life. They were also villans' favorite toys, making the heroes hate them even more.

Batman had helped with that hatred, somewhat. In their training, Batman made sure that Robin knew how to dismantle any type of bomb before the clock ran out. He had even taught Robin how to add an extra minute onto the countdown of some timers of the bombs, if there was only ten seconds or so left and he didn't have enough time.

What he hadn't prepared for was Robin finding the bomb three seconds before it was going to go off. That was why Robin was stuck under a beam with at least four broken ribs shifting around in his side, broken right arm, his left leg broken in two places, and a concussion, if the blood streaming down the side of his face was anything to go by.

Robin twisted his head slightly to spit out the blood gathering in his mouth, then gave a soft moan as this aggrivated his other wounds. White hot pain stabbed up and down his body, making it hard to breath, and he yelled quietly as the pile of debris shifted, landing further on his already damaged leg.

He couldn't sleep, hadn't even blacked out. What he would give to be unconscieous right now, but as is was, he was trapped. Robin couldn't even reach his belt to send out an emergency signal. But he was wondering one thing as he turned to the side and retched…

Where the hell was his team?

"Where is Robin?"

Aqualad looked at Kid Flash, who shrugged, then he glanced at Superboy, who shook his head. Artemis and Megan frowned, glancing at each other.

"I-I have not seen him since this morning, the debriefing," Megan said, looking up at Aqualad worriedly.

"Wasn't he supposed to be with you?" Superboy asked.

Kaldur shook his head. "Our mission was simple; to move the civilians out of the coast from the threat of the hurricane. Robin took off before I was done, and I do not know where he is."

"Sounds like something Rob would do," Wally said.

"Hel-LO Meagn!" Megan cried, banging her hand on her head. "I'll find him with my telepathy! He should still be in my range!"

Still calling herself an idiot for not thinking of it before, she closed her eyes, mentally searching for him. There! There he was! In an old warehouse on 92nd street, on the East part of town. And he was…..in pain.

So much pain. He couldn't move, and for a split second, Megan saw him, trapped underneath debris with blood pooling all around him.

Her eyes shot open with a cry, and vaguely she heard the worried shouts of her teammates, but she ignored them.

"Hurry! He's in an old warehouse on 92nd street, and he's in pain, and I, I think the building blew up, and we must get to him as fast as we can!"

Aqualad put a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her a little. "KF, you go on ahead and the rest of us will follow as fast as we can on the Bioship. Do whatever you can to help Rob."

"You got it chief." With that he was gone.

Aqualad prayed that they wouldn't arrive too late.

"Rob?"

Robin's eyes got wider. "K—" he coughed loudly, and spat out more blood before regaining his voice. "…KF?"

"Robin? Dude is that you?"

In a second, literally a second, Kid Flash was kneeling by his side, taking in all his injuries.

Robin smirked, ignoring his friend's worried glances. "Took…you….long enough…"

"We're just lucky you didn't fall unconscious. We would never have been able to find you if Megan hadn't used her powers."

"Yeah…" Robin closed his eyes as he saw the rest of the team arrive, with Megan hovering, Superboy trying not to move anything, and Artemis standing completely still gaping at him. He closed his eyes as he heard Aqualad began giving orders to dig him out. "Lucky…."

3)

The wheels on a bus go round and round, round and round, round and round….

Robin groaned and ran his hands through his hair.

The wheels on a bus go round and round…

Aaaaaall daaaaaaay loooooooooong….

He turned around to stick his head under his pillow, hoping that it would help, even a little bit.

The whipers on a bus go swish swish swish, swish swish swish, swish swish swish…

It didn't.

The whipers on a bus go swish swish swish ….

Aaaaaall daaaaaaay loooooooooong….

"Gah!" he whispered-yelled, sitting up and shaking his fist at the ceiling.

The horn on the bus goes beep beep beep, beep beep beep, beep beep beep…

"Damn you kindergarden!"

The horn on the bus goes beep beep beep …

Aaaaaall daaaaaaay loooooooooong….

Knock knock.

Startled, Robin dropped his hand and turned to face the door. "Um, come in."

The door opened to a sheepish Kid Flash, laptop in his hands. "Hey," he whispered, speeding to the edge of Robin's bed.

Robin didn't even blink. "What's up?"

Wally smirked, then guestured to his eyes. "No mask?"

"Well, you already know anyway, so it's kind of pointless."

The motor on the bus goes zoom zoom zoom…

"True," he shrugged, then deposited his laptop on Robin's bed. "Ok, so you know how Red Tornado set up those security things on laptops?

Zoom zoom zoom, zoom zoom zoom….

Robin frowned. "You mean those security features that don't allow us on our laptops after one in the morning?"

Nodding, Wally smiled. "Yeah, those."

The motor on the bus goes zoom zoom zoom…

Aaaaaall daaaaaaay loooooooooong….

"Well," he continued. "I need to get on my computer because of some paper for school that's due tomorrow that I forgot about, but it's not letting me get on. So then I was like, why not ask Robin? I'm sure he deactivated that thing years ago…"

The signals on the bus go blink blink blink, blink blink blink, blink blink blink…

"And then I was like, nah, I'm sure he's asleep, but then I asked myself how many times you have been up past everyone else and blamed it on the Batman and night patrols, so…"

He opened his laptop and swiveled it to face Robin.

Aaaaaall daaaaaaay loooooooooong….

"Can you hack it and turn it off? Since you're not sleeping anyways?"

Robin smiled, "Yeah, sure."

4)

Aqualad frowned as he left his room to go into the living room. He could have sworn he heard something out there, something that had disturbed his sleep…

Robin. Of course it was Robin. He was typing furiously on his laptop, totally engrossed in whatever he was doing. Kaldur decided not to say anything, but instead he watched quietly from the shadows.

After all, it wasn't often that he got to observe his youngest teammate.

Pausing for a second, Robin brought his hand up and around to rub his eyes from behind his sunglasses. "Did you need something, Kaldur?" he asked, starting to type again, not even looking up from the screen.

Kaldur flinched, mentally cursing bats and all their training. "No," he replied, stepping out and moving to sit down in a chair facing Robin.

"Then what are you doing out here?"

Still wasn't looking at him.

He shrugged. "I heard you out here."

This time Robin did stop typing and look up. He even looked slightly embarrassed, which was a first for the boy wonder. Robin was never embarrassed. "Oh. Sorry about that."

Kaldur shrugged. "No need to apologize. Although I must ask what you are doing up at this hour."

Looking at the clock, Robin grinned. "Come on, it's only two thrity. Most nights we'd only be getting in from patrol now. Never mind," he interupted as Kaldur opened his mouth to debate what he thought about that. "Check this out."

He swung the laptop around on his lap so that it was facing Kaldur. Kaldur blinked as he realized he was looking at a police report.

Kaldur frowned. "Who's Matthew Stone?"

"No one you would know." Robin said. "Ten million dollars were stolen from him through banking. Everyone thinks this guy," he pulled up another police report and picture, "David Natt, stole it from him. But I dug around and there was no hacking even hinting from any of his bank accounts. Plus he didn't even go on the internet that day. Plus I checked his closest friend's houses in case he went over there to do it, and even the local library internet and there's nothing on him."

"So then what? It's a dead end?" Kaldur asked, and Robin grinned.

"No, not exactly. I found this one dude, Ryan Tavli, who looks like his computer went on Matthew's back account that day. He buried it good though, so very good. I've been working on trying to find it for an hour or two now, but I keep coming up blank. I know it's him though, everything just makes sense, even the motives make sense! He's about to get evicted from his house, and from what I can tell he's going to make it look like he won the lottery. It's genius, and I'm so close to actually cracking it that, I can practically taste it."

"Interesting," Kaldur replied. "I will leave you to that in peace, then."

He looked up at Kaldur, who had stood up and was trying to surpress a yawn.

"You going already?"

Kaldur nodded. "Yes. It is late, and I need my rest. You need some too."

"Yeah yeah…" Robin waved his hand distractedly. "Night Kaldur."

"Goodnight, Robin."

5)

He had messed up.

Again.

Kaldur tried to interupt him, tell him he didn't mess up. He had tried to tell him that it wasn't his fault.

Robin knew better.

He should have known the layout better, that's what his job was, but civilians had gotten mixed up in this mess, and that was never pretty.

But it shouldn't have beeen a problem. Hostage situations are the most basic form of lowlife activity; he and Batman dealed with that almost every day.

Which is why he was not looking forward to the lecture of his frickin' life tomorrow.

Batman was going to skin him alive.

Beep beep. Beep beep, his communicater twirped annoyingly.

Speak of the devil.

Batman was going to chew him out so bad. Didn't look like he was going to get any sleep tonight after all.

Too bad.

He was tired.

+1)

The whole young justice team hated paperwork. Today they trained for hours with Black Canary, and had a short mission from Batman, and now they were stuck in a random room at a police station filling out paperwork.

Kaldur grimaced, then picked up some other piece and starting scribbling something in the blanks. He didn't even care what he was writing anymore. Wally yawn loudly from across the room, and Kaldur saw Artemis sitting down at a desk already half asleep. Superboy was still sitting next to the window, but he was rubbing at his eyes tiredly, and Megan was in the bathroom. And Robin….

Where was Robin?

Weren't they supposed to be over this guessing game by now?

After all, Robin had vanished lot in the beginning, but that had slowly stopped happening, until just now.

There was no need to panic.

Still, it was probably a good idea to know where he was.

"Guys?" Kaldur asked, looking around the room for responses from his teammates. "Where is Robin?"

Wally pointed to the seat next to him. "He's right..." He trailed off mid sentence once he realized Robin was, in fact, not there. "Hey! Where did he go?"

Superboy looked up and said, "his communicator was buzzing about forty minutes ago, and he went outside to take it."

"But even so, he should have been back by now," Kaldur said.

Wally shrugged. "What if it was the Batman?"

"The Batman's not one for talking much, Wally," Artemis said, her voice clearing saying 'duh'. "In case you didn't notice."

Wally rolled his eyes. "What about relatives?"

"Relatives that have a communicator?"

Wally held up his hands in surrender. "Okay! Just checking all the options. See, now we can rule out Batman and relatives!"

"Should we go look for him?" Superboy asked, completely ignoring Wally.

Kaldur hesitated, but was saved from having to make a decision by Megan. She'd gone to the bathroom, and now she poked her head in the doorway.

"Guys, come here," she said urgently, beckoning them, and then withdrew her head back out of the door. "Come on!"

Kaldur looked around, noticing the different expressions, but then stood up and began making his way towards the door. As he was about half way to the door, he felt a wind breeze by him. It was Wally, and he had shot ahead of them because like always, he was unwilling to wait.

Megan had led the group down the hallway, up two floors, and then down three or four more hallways before anyone spoke again. That in itself was a testiment as to how tired the rest of the team was, as normally it was rare that they could shut their teammates up.

"Megan, where are we going?" Kaldur finally asked.

She turned and smiled at him. "Oh, oh I can't tell you, don't want to give it all away…"

Finally, Megan stopped in front of a door that looked just like all the other doors they had passed by and opened it, stepping inside. Once she was in, she guestured for the rest of the team to come on in, but she gently put a finger in front of her lips to tell them to speak quietly.

They entered the room, one by one, and all of them stared at the couch with different levels of shock.

Robin, friggin' Robin, was lying asleep on a couch, with his communicator in one hand and his other arm propping his head up.

"Well that's...odd..." said Artemis, glancing at her teammates.

"….Yeah…" Wally agreed, giving Robin a weird look. Artemis glanced at him, but Wally was too tired to realize he was actually agreeing with Artemis, who was normally the last person he ever wanted to agree with.

Robin was the one who always told them how late he and Batman stayed up, and who had laughed at Wally when he started yawning at midnight.(Even though Wally'd gotten up earlier than normal. Much earlier.) And now he was asleep in a police station.

This was truly a day to remember.

"I heard him talking on his communicator to Batman at about four in the morning yesterday," Superboy said quietly, breaking the tension. "I doubt he got any sleep before or after that."

Scowling, Kaldur looked up at Superboy. "And the night before yesterday he was still working at two-thirty, and when I came out for some water at six his light was on."

"Is Robin an insomniac or something?" Artemis asked.

Megan looked concerned. "So this means Robin has not slept for two or three days?"

"Wow," Kaldur said. "That's a long time, even for the bats. No wonder he…"

"Yeah, the kid's tough," Wally said, sounding almost proud of him, in a sort of messed up way.

They all nodded at this. Yeah, Robin was tough, but he was still human.

For example, he still needed sleep.

A fact which he constantly seemed to be forgetting.

Superboy stepped forward and scooped up Robin in his arms. Robin's head lolled to the side, and his arms drooped downwards, but he didn't wake up. Superboy didn't quite smile down at Robin, but he definitely looked less angry than normal.

"Let's go home," he said, standing up straight.

"Yeah, I think I'm done with paperwork for the rest of my life," Wally said, miserably.

Kaldur nodded. "Indeed. I too am more than ready to get out of here."

"Ditto that," Artemis said, standing up from where she had sat down.

Megan smiled. "I'll call the bio-ship."

"It's a good thing we have Rob to tell us when it's time to go home and get some sleep," Wally said, smirking slightly.

"Yeah, sure Wally, like you weren't falling asleep just as much over there."

"Yeah, Artemis, don't think I didn't see your eyelids closing over there in your little corner."

"Wally has no willpower…" she sang.

"Shut up, blonde!"

"Call me that again…"

"Barbie doll!"

"That's it! You're a friggin' carrot head!"

"Derranged mind!"

"Snowman face!"

"Would you two get a room?"

"KALDUR! Stay out of this!" They both turned and shrieked at him. Kaldur couldn't help but laugh quietly, glancing at Robin to see if they had woken him up. Nope.

He exchanged a glance with Superboy, and then settled back to enjoy the full effects of Artemis and Wally fighting.

Hope you had as much fun reading that as I had writing it! Feel free to drop me a review; Fanfic authors live off them, and let me tell you I'm no different.

Until next time!

~sififantasygirl