Gotham City.

October 4, 2013. 02:21.

Robin raised his eyebrows. "They call that security? I'm whelmed." Barely that. He might even risk a prefix and call it underwhelming.

Beside him on the roof, the lump of shadow that was Batman grunted agreement.

"Huh." Robin raised his binoculars and scanned the area again, hoping to see something he'd missed the first time around. Nope. One crummy warehouse, one chain link fence topped with barbed wire, two parked cars, two guards wandering around the inside perimeter. He was skipping a Team mission for this? Lame. He glanced sideways. "So, remind me why you need me on this one? These guys are amateurs! I could take them all down alone."

Batman adjusted his binoculars and focused on the warehouse. "Don't get cocky. Amateurs are—"

"Dangerous because they're unpredictable, I know."

"Doubly so when they're crazy enough to strap bombs to themselves."

He knew. Bruce was right: he needed someone to watch his back. But still. "You've got Batgirl now," Dick muttered.

Batman turned, eyes narrowed to white slits. "She's…backup. You're my partner."

Robin subsided. Couldn't really argue with that. He put his binoculars to his eyes again, but he wasn't looking at the warehouse. The Team had probably reached Benechem Labs by now. Even if it was just the ordinary lab complex it looked like, it would have good security. They'd need his hacking skills, and he wasn't there.

"Robin."

He jerked his thoughts guiltily back to the chilly rooftop and the whelming warehouse security. He knew better than to lose focus like that.

Batman rose from his crouch. "Now."

They fired their jumplines in unison and soared over the fence and the single bored guard currently between them and the warehouse.

They hit the ground rolling, absorbing sound as well as the force of impact. No noise but the faint crunch of gravel and the whisper of capes. Robin read Batman's motions, followed his lead into a familiar pattern. Together they darted behind a pair of cars parked in the shadow of the warehouse, and the guard just kept strolling past them, unaware, swinging his gun back and forth and humming.

The guards at Benechem wouldn't be so lax. And they'd have electronic eyes backing them up. Aqualad and Tempest thought their magic could blind cameras remotely. Maybe. But it couldn't patch in a looped feed.

Bruce's hand brushed his shoulder, and he forced his thoughts away from his team. They knew what they were doing. Dick slid a magnetic tracker from his belt, tucked it under the bumper of one of the cars, knew without looking that Bruce had done the same to the other.

Batman slid forward to crouch between the cars where he could see the guard's progress. He nodded: all clear.

Robin sprang to the top of the car and from there caught the edge of the roof and swung up onto its slope. He flattened himself on his belly and watched the guard reach the end of the building and stretch, yawning. Yep, amateurs. He nodded to Batman, who climbed up after him and flowed across the roof toward the squares of light rising from the narrow skylight windows. Robin never understood why so many buildings in Gotham had skylights. It was like everyone was trying to make it easy for the bats to get in.

Well, he wasn't complaining. He joined Batman and peered down into the warehouse. A few feet below the slanted roof ran a skeleton ceiling of crossed girders with a pair of bare light bulbs hanging from them, barely lighting the room. Below that, a stack of crates, several tables covered in junk, and four men sitting in folding chairs.

"Stop looking at your watch," said one. He wore a battered cowboy hat and had his feet propped on the nearest table. "You're making me nervous."

The guy next to him shifted uneasily. "They should be here by now." He glanced at his wrist. "They should have been here ten minutes ago."

The one with the cowboy hat shrugged. "Ten minutes is nothing. Just traffic."

"In the middle of the night?"

"It happens."

Dick shifted his gaze to the other two, a bald guy and a really short guy. Their table was cluttered: bottles, cardboard packaging, a crumpled fertiliser bag, a mostly empty box of ball bearings, pipe ends and duct tape and spools of wire. All the ingredients for some pretty nasty bombs.

Tires squealed. Robin glanced behind him, down the slope of the roof, to see the guards opening the gate for a pickup truck. Something big and bulky filled the truck bed and heaped up high enough to block the back windows. The truck drove into the warehouse's shadow, out of sight.

The warehouse door squealed open. Batman pried open the skylight at the same time; Dick barely heard its stiff creaking over the noise of the metal door rising from inside. He stepped past Batman, lowered himself through the gap, and dropped silently to one of the crossbeams below. A flicker of shadow in his peripheral vision was the only sign that Batman had joined him. No need to talk or even see each other at this point.

The guys waiting below all jumped to their feet as a big black man and a petite woman strode into the warehouse. "About time," said the one who kept looking at his watch.

"We're not that late," replied the black guy. He glanced back through the door and stepped out of the way to let the two guards from outside file in after him.

But behind them…that wasn't even close to human. At first it reminded Robin of the biggest Genomorphs from Cadmus, but then more of it squeezed through the door and he thought of Clayface, and by the time its thick serpentine tail writhed into the warehouse, he just wondered how it had all fit in the bed of the pickup. So, all right, maybe this wasn't a lame mission after all. Robin grinned and slipped a birdarang out of his belt.

The black guy nodded to everyone. "Y'all ready to go? Pico?"

"Ready and eager, Tom." Baldy waved toward the crates. "One for everybody. Well, everybody but Lumpo there." He jerked a thumb at the hulking creature.

Tom grinned. "Awright. Y'all know your targets. Let's give the bastards in Washington something to think about." He held out his arms, and the others all gathered around. They formed a circle, gripping each other's hands, heads bowed. Silence fell.

Did silence still cover Benechem, or had the Team set off alarms by now?

At the other end of the beam, a glint of metal arced out of the shadows, and one of the hanging lights shattered. Dick blinked, hastily released his birdarang as startled yells rose from the men below. "It's Batman!" yelled someone, and, "Lumpo, get 'em!" shouted someone else, as the second light went out. He'd timed it wrong. He hadn't missed his cue to knock out lights since he was eleven.

No time to feel stupid. As darkness fell, Robin leapt from the beam and tapped a finger to the edge of his mask to switch the lenses to night vision, just in time to glimpse the monster in the corner springing toward him, not moving blind: it could see in the dark.

Robin twisted in mid-air and felt claws tear through his cape, missing his back by inches, and then the beast was past him and Dick's boots connected with Cowboy Hat's chest and sent the man staggering and the hat tumbling away into the dark. Robin rebounded off the man's body and flipped over to drive feet first against the back of someone's legs, one of the guards from outside. The guy still clung to his gun as he stumbled forward into the other guard, but at least he wasn't stupid enough to try shooting in the dark while off balance. Both goons went down and Robin slid free of the falling tangle of limbs and weapons. His fingertips touched the ground first, and he whirled straight into a handspring, propelled himself up and over a table and into someone's face. Four goons down in as many seconds, and Robin landed right behind Batman, as tidy as if they'd planned it that way.

The creature they called Lumpo charged again, roaring. Its claws threw up chips of concrete and its gaping mouth sprayed drool. Batman and Robin both dropped and rolled sideways, barely out of its way, and Dick flinched as flecks of its saliva spattered him and burned his exposed skin like acid. What was this monster made of?

It turned for another pass. In his peripheral vision Dick glimpsed people still stumbling around in the darkness like green-tinted ghosts, carrying crates, groping toward the door, but he didn't have time to worry about them now, because Bruce stepped into the beast's path, an explosive batarang ready in each hand, and his back hunched like an old man.

Dick grinned. He'd always liked this manoeuvre. He took a running start, landed his hands on Bruce's bent shoulders, and vaulted over Batman's head into a high flip and twist that passed him right between Lumpo's spiny ears. The beast lunged upward, jaws wide to catch him, and from below came the whir and thunk of batarangs cutting through the air and into flesh. Lumpo shrieked and flinched, and its teeth snapped shut just shy of Robin's hands as he turned in the air and released a pair of explosive birdarangs. The weapons embedded themselves in the creature's jagged eyebrow ridges, and Robin unfolded and landed sliding along its rough back.

Four explosions burst from the creature's head, it screamed again, and Dick cried out with it as the sudden light whited out his night vision and seared into his eyes. Lumpo jerked and bucked, and Robin lost his grip and tumbled down its flank, barely in control of his fall, but he managed to land rolling away from the sound of its roars, still too flash-blinded to do anything else. He heard the thud of more batarangs finding their marks – of course Bruce had remembered to shut his eyes during the explosion – and another shriek from the beast.

Dick jumped up, trying to blink his watering eyes clear. Through the blotches of swimming colour he made out the shape of Batman ducking, dodging, and then the beast's tail swept around and caught Bruce in the side, and he slammed into the wall with a grunt and crumpled to the ground. He wasn't out of the fight, Dick could see him struggling to get his feet back under him, but he looked winded; he wasn't moving fast enough. The monster lunged at him, claws scything downward.

They both fired their grapplers at the same instant. Bruce's shot toward the far end of the room; Dick's latched around Lumpo's descending claws. He felt the line go taut and pulled with all his weight. Batman slid one way and the beast jerked the other and the claws screeched lines of sparks down the metal wall inches away from Bruce's head.

Dick kept pulling, and suddenly the line loosened and he staggered back as Lumpo turned and charged at him. Great. Where was Superboy when you needed him?

Robin dodged the snapping mouth, barely, felt hot monster blood and spit burn into his skin as he grabbed onto the thing's snout and flipped himself up. The stench of acid breath and burnt flesh made him gag. He jumped again before Lumpo could shake him loose, caught one of the metal beams of the skeleton ceiling and looped his line around it, then dropped and landed in a crouch, ready to move.

"Hey, ugly, I'm right here!" He grinned, waved his arms at it for good measure, then sprinted for the far wall. This was Wally's job, Dick wasn't a runner, he felt hot stinking breath on his back, and if he wasn't quick enough—

A sickening crunch of bone and a roar of pain blasted Dick's ears as the line jerked taut and wrenched the beast's arm back, snapped it to a stop in mid-stride, bent the ceiling girder with a screech of metal, and Robin's cape slipped through the half-closed fangs and away. Lumpo crashed to the ground, snarling and mewling.

Dick straightened, panting, more from the adrenaline rush than anything else. He laughed breathlessly. "I'm a little turbed," he told the whimpering monster. "Most critters your size don't go down half so easily."

He glanced up as Batman glided across the room to join him with one hand pressed to his ribs where Lumpo's tail hit him.

"Broken?" asked Dick.

"No." Batman dropped his hand away from his side. He turned his back on the beast to look at the four men Robin had dropped. The other four must have gotten away while they were fighting. "Call Gordon," Batman said, bending to tie the men's hands and feet. "And then we need to talk."