Pain. Ow!

You know that feeling of waking up with something pressed in between your rib bones?

Yeah. He had that now.

Not to mention, his eyelids were extremely heavy and hard to open. OK, focus. What was the last thing he remembered?

Why? Why can't I kill you?

That voice was hanging onto the edge of the back of his mind, repeating that line. The voice he recognized, but his foggy mind couldn't pull up a name or face at the moment. The second thing he felt was that his throat was extremely dried out. It felt like there was a great number of bunched up strands of dried twine shoved into his esophagus. A dry crackling, sounding out from his throat, only appeared to back his theory. His vision returned only for a breath, and allowed him only the momentary sight of a few blurry shapes above him.

Thankfully, he saw and recognized the shapes.

"Robin."

The voice that followed seemed to be almost from an apparition some rooms away. He had to strain to hear what the boy was saying.

"…I...you…we…Stup…idio…Gray…"

Then, strangely there was another voice nearby the first.

"…ve…kid…infec…wound…fever…we…night…"

Fever.

He had caught that word, but he wasn't shivering or hot.

"…rang…ercury…"

"OK Grayson, get your thoughts strait," Dick muttered in his mind.

Something touched his lips. Sadly, he only got about three drops of liquid in his throat before his mind flipped his body back over into unconsciousness.

In the back of the BHPD HQ, long left to decay, supplies room, a figure was forcing himself to flip through a magazine slowly in the dim light of the room.

"What kind of an idiot builds a swimming pool inside of another swimming pool?"

"I'm sure I don't know kid."

"Stop calling me kid!"

Two sets of challenging eyes met before a mumble drew the two sets of irises back to the still form. Still sporting an admittedly torn up version of his Nightwing uniform, the hero was lying there, near dead to the world.

"I'm wasting my time here," the colorful child sitting in a fold out chair next to the makeshift bed muttered as the cop across from him adjusted the hanging light above the trio.

"Then leave, I'll take care of my partner."

Her partner?

Robin gritted his teeth and forced his eyes back to the old magazine in his hands. What pissed him off the most at the time is that he couldn't do anything! It was incredibly irritating! Drake had disappeared. After the Boy Wonder had learned that Amy had shot at Drake quite a few times to scare the older bird away he had almost felt gratitude.

Almost.

Alright, the woman was tolerable. Given he had learned that his father had made some questionable choices of partners in the past. Thankfully, Grayson didn't appear to be falling into the same habit. Mostly, this was a woman.

Females.

She was the one, who had, without a hitch, chewed out Nightwing the whole trip back from the outskirts of Bludhaven, even though the hero had been unconscious most of the time. A smirk fell over Damian's face; he could already see the scene. Poor Grayson, he was going to hate waking up!

Overall Damian had a distasteful respect for the woman.

She wasn't an idiot, but she was still irritating nonetheless.

He should've known that the idiot wouldn't have been out for long. Should've known.

Damian had left the room for a measly ten minutes to find something to eat. A short, unimportant ten minutes and when he returned, he found Amy cursing Grayson's name while pacing the room. Glancing over at the bed, Robin noticed a note on the pillow.

Well, what do you want woman? He left you a note!

Meaning, crap! Grayson was out there with no idea what was going on.

He should find the idiot before he causes some kind of havoc.

Nightwing found himself leaning against a partially burned tree near the debris of the High Rail Train, continually turning over a bat-shaped communicator in his hand. This particular one had been Kate Kane's. When he had found it near an entrance tunnel into Bludhaven he realized that the whole thing had been a trick.

His head was still hurting, his ribs and a few other things, but that could wait.

Wait. Someone coming! Ah, wait, he recognized the footsteps.

"What took you so long Robin?"

"You have a habit of pissing that woman off."

As the colorful clothed child came into view, the elder hero chuckled, "Everything and everyone pisses that woman off at one point or another. You know, you were supposed to stay in Gotham?"

Damian huffed, "Oh please, you would've died if I hadn't followed you."

"Point taken," Dick said with a smile, "I guess we should head back to Gotham. This was a ruse, probably to get me away from Gotham. The city should expect trouble soon."

"Wait. You need to know."

"What? That you snuck away from the others repaired the Batmobile and flew it here? I already know."

Robin blinked a few times, "How did you-? Oh, forget it! I'm not asking!"

Nightwing smirked before he noticed that the younger bird's eye suddenly took on a different look. The smirk he held fell into a frown before concern draped itself over his face.

"What is it Robin?" Nightwing asked, pushing himself off of the tree, walking over and kneeling down next to the boy.

"Drake."

"What about Tim?"

"He's a traitor."

"Robin, what are you-"

The rest of the man's sentence was cut off when the younger shoved what appeared to be a security camera into his face. There was an image of Robin in the corner, frozen. Seeing the young bird nod from the corner of his eye, Dick hit the replay button.

"I can't believe this," Nightwing muttered as the two birds finally reached the previously hidden Batmobile.

"Drake's a traitor! You can't deny that he attacked me."

Tried to kill you!

Nightwing had a million thoughts running through his mind, trying to distract himself by watching the child walking beside him finish the repairs on his signal tracer. It had gotten a bit damaged but Robin had claimed it was 'repairable.'

"I'm not denying it, but it just isn't like Tim. What could make him do that?"

"Why are you so sure that something made him do it?"

"Tim wouldn't do that. I know him."

Damian scoffed and made his way to the passenger side of the Batmobile as he finished snapping the tracker's face plate back into place. Imagine his surprise when Nightwing follows him and leans against the door.

"Idiot, move! We need to get back to Gotham!"

"What about the others in Gotham, are they-"

Irritated, Robin shoved the signal tracker, screen first in the elder's face, "They're all at the hospital still. Now if your simple one-way brain can get the idea, we need to get back."

"OK," Nightwing said with a shrug, turning around and opening the passenger door in front of him before throwing himself down into the seat.

"Are you intoxicated Grayson? You-"

"You drive."

Hold your breath. Blink. Blink.

"Wh-what?"

Nightwing smirked. The child had stuttered! He had actually gotten the little prince to stutter!

The elder spoke again, but slowly, "Yyoouuu, drrriivvveee. Got it?"

Robin reached out and slammed the door closed faster than the automatic could in the elder's face. Grayson wanted him to drive?

A smirk fell over the younger's face and he kept that smirk as he pulled himself up and over the vehicle to land on the opposite side. It was not a flip of joy; he was simply getting to the necessary location as quickly and efficiently as possible.

It wasn't a flip of joy.

OK. Here's the beginning of "Recall."

Only ten chapters for this story.

And I have to thank everyone for making "The Call" my most sought after story. It's still on 35 alert lists and the one-shot that started this all "Popularity" has just reached 50 favorites. I'm grateful to every one of you.

Reviews make me update faster.

~Moonsetta