Author's Note

Sixteen Candles

By Syl Francis

Chapter One: Two-Face

The young man expertly drove the sleek, red convertible Porsche, his sixteenth birthday gift. His dark-haired, wind blown, good looks were striking enough to draw second and third glances from passing female motorists. A carload of students from a local exclusive girls' school honked and waved good-naturedly. They collapsed into helpless giggles when he flashed them a dazzling smile.

The car pulled up next to him. The girls' foolish stunt instantly worried Dick. They were on a two-lane road with several dangerously blind curves. At any moment, another vehicle could suddenly appear in front of them.

"Are you *crazy*?" Dick yelled. "You trying to get yourselves killed?" He began slowing down, urging them to pull ahead of him. However, the carload of fun- loving, girls blithely ignored the danger and his warning.

"Dick! When are you going to phone me?" one girl called waving both arms over her head. She blew him several kisses. Dick recognized her as the kid sister of one of his classmates.

"Pull up!" Dick answered. Emphatically pointing his finger in front of his car.

"I'm free Saturday night!" another yelled, shoving the first one down.

"I'm free *any* night!" still another added, laughing. She was standing up on the back seat, precariously managing to balance herself somehow.

The first girl kept blowing kisses, while another whistled appreciatively. The one standing up cupped her hands and began reciting her phone number.

"Call me!" she cried. As they drove off, the girls' fun-filled laughter trailed behind them.

Dick shook his head bemusedly. Girls, for the most part, were still somewhat of a mystery to him. At sixteen, he had yet to go out on a "real" date. Of course, part of this morning's plan was to hopefully rectify that sorry state of affairs, he thought determinedly.

Dick smiled to himself, easily visualizing Babs' beautiful, long red hair. A small squirrel abruptly crossed his path, interrupting his daydream. Expertly cutting the Porsche right then left, Dick breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the frightened squirrel in his rearview mirror dashing back into the treeline.

He shook his head.

"Concentrate on your driving, Grayson," he muttered. "I can see the headlines now: Rich Kid Drives Porsche into Gotham Woods!"

Focusing on his driving, Dick took the two-lane, tree-lined drive from Wayne Manor, his stately home in the country, at a speed the Gotham County Sheriff's Department would frown upon. Dick enjoyed the feel of power at his hands. The Porsche wasn't the Batmobile, but Dick had only been driving officially for a week. Therefore, the experience was still new enough to excite him, and he took every opportunity to get behind the wheel.

Dick remembered the bright, clear morning almost a week ago when Bruce presented him with his birthday gift, a sleek, gleaming, red convertible Porsche. A dream gift by any measure of the word...

"But, Bruce! It's too much! Really!" Dick's words belied the ecstatic expression on his face. A Porsche! It was much more than Dick would have ever asked for. But when your "father" was billionaire Bruce Wayne, you sometimes came to expect such outrageously generous gifts.

"You're only sixteen once in your life, Dick," Bruce replied, pleased with Dick's reaction. "You're a good kid. You keep your grades up, you excel at everything I ask of you." Bruce looked away, momentarily embarrassed. "I'm proud of you. This car is little enough, I think." Bruce paused, then added with a slight grin, "And guess who gets to drive the Batmobile tonight?"

Dick smiled at the memory. A momentary pained expression flitted across his eyes. Such happy, relaxed moments with Bruce were becoming poignantly rare. Dick remembered a time when he could run to Bruce and expect at least a warm hand on his shoulder and a minute's time with his guardian. Now, Bruce was growing more and more distant, with Batman increasingly consuming his life.

Sadly, the only conversations Dick and Bruce shared lately seemed to be in the Batcave, and only while in their Batman and Robin personas. Why did things have to change, Dick wondered for the umpteenth time? One day everything was normal. The next day, everything was...different.

Everything.

Almost like turning a page in his life. New chapter...indent five spaces...begin new paragraph. Only problem: No one bothered to inform Dick of this new phase in his relationship with Bruce.

Dick ran his hand absentmindedly along the car's dashboard, unconsciously enjoying the feel of sun-warmed leather. The interior was all leather, of course, with all the extras. Dick grinned sadly and shook his head.

"It sure beats the desktop computer Wally got for *his* sixteenth birthday," Dick surmised aloud. As he drove along the quiet country road, Dick's mind went back almost a year, to the previous summer. He, Bruce, and Alfred were set to go to Cancun on a real vacation. The first one Bruce had taken in almost ten years...

"Master Dick," Alfred said punctiliously, "have you finished your packing?"

"Yeah, Alfie," Dick said, unconcernedly waving his hand in the general direction of his bags. He was lying on top of his bedcovers, listening to something that Alfred assumed was music. Alfred rolled his eyes upward, and then proceeded to unpack and repack Dick's clothing.

Dick grinned and watched, secretly pleased by Alfred's thoroughly piqued expression. Dick didn't bother to do a decent job with his packing because he knew that no matter how well he did it, Alfred would nevertheless repack it. Dick figured that even if Alfred groused all the while, he actually enjoyed doing it. So, why deny Alfred his fun?

That's when they saw it: the Bat-Signal!

By the time Dick made it downstairs to the Batcave, Batman was already dressed and working behind the computer terminals.

"Two-Face," Batman explained succinctly. Dick blinked, then nodded in understanding, hurrying to the uniform vault. Dick changed quickly and emerging, rushed over to where Batman was running a computer search.

"He's escaped from Arkham," Batman continued as soon as Robin joined him. "I should've seen it coming, chum," he said quietly. "Today is the second anniversary of the second time I captured him and returned him to Arkham. On that occasion--"

"--On that occasion," Robin interrupted, "he kidnapped his ex-fiancee, Grace Timm, who'd broken off their two-year engagement prior to his second incarceration."

Batman's mouth quirked up in a half-smile. "You've been doing your homework, chum." Batman became suddenly serious. "Shortly after I returned him to Arkham, Harvey warned that since he'd lost the most important thing in his life, then the next time he got out, he'd take the most important thing in mine." Batman stood and he and Robin started for the Batmobile. "Harvey blamed me for losing Grace. I'm sure he hasn't changed his mind."

"Two-Face out for vengeance?" Robin mused. "That should make him twice as dangerous!" He grinned at his senior partner over the Batmobile's canopy. "*And* twice the fun."

Batman quirked a sardonic eyebrow at Robin's bravado and quickly got into the driver's side.

Batman and Robin answered the Bat-Signal that night. Since it was summer vacation, Robin didn't have the usual ten p.m. curfew...

As Dick drove in the bright March morning, he recalled the events of that summer night. Everything was proceeding normally, until--

Dick held his hand to his head. The painful memory still elicited a migraine whenever he forced himself to look back on it. Perhaps, he should pull over momentarily, he thought, and as quickly discarded the idea...

Everything was proceeding normally. Batman and Robin clung to the ceiling rafters located in the waterfront warehouse. Batman's computer search predicted this place as Two-Face's most likely hideaway.

Robin heard voices below him. He signaled Batman, who indicated he'd already heard them as well. Robin quickly took out a Batline, secured it, and began lowering himself into the shadows below. A sudden explosion rang out. Robin's line broke!

The world went black.

As he regained consciousness, Robin became aware of a blinding white light directed into his eyes. He tried turning his head, but something held him in place. He tried moving his arms and legs, but those too were immobilized.

"Where?" Robin whispered.

"Welcome to Hell, Boy Wonder!" That voice! Two-Face. The villain's maniacal laughter seemed to echo eerily from all around. Robin couldn't focus on a location because of the white light burning into his corneas.

"Two-Face! What's the idea? What's going on?" Robin demanded, his voice a dry croak. He had to play for time until Batman could--

That's when he felt the first punch. It was a closed-fist, metal-reinforced, hammer blow to the abdomen. Before Robin could recover, he was struck with a heavy roundhouse to the chin. He instantly tasted blood and felt a tooth loosen. This was quickly followed by a white-searing blow to the groin.

Robin again felt his tenuous hold on reality collapsing.

"You don't ask the questions!" Two-Face raged. "I'm the prosecutor, remember? I ask the questions! I ASK THE QUESTIONS!!!"

"Why--?" Robin whispered, barely enunciating the word. As the nonstop beating started again, Robin couldn't complete his question, "Why are you doing this?"

"I ASK THE QUESTIONS!!!" Two-Face repeated. "Why are you so important to him? WHO ARE YOU?" Each question was accompanied by a blow to another part of Robin's poor abused body. "Where did you come from? How did he find you?"

Two-Face's voice rose in increasing hysteria. "You even LOOK LIKE HIM! Is that IT? Are you his SON? HIS AND GRACE'S? That's it, isn't it? Even when he was pretending to be my friend, he was going behind my back with Grace!"

"No," Robin tried to deny the unfounded accusation, but he couldn't articulate a sound. After that, everything just seemed to blur into a long continuous crimson haze. The incessant pounding became a dull background roar. An eternity later, Robin blessedly lost consciousness...

Pain. Sharp, white-hot, searing agony in the rib area. His lower abdomen. Face. Extremities. He hurt everywhere. He squeezed his eyes against wakefulness. He wanted to crawl under something and just curl up and let sleep reclaim him.

His hearing came back all at once. He was surrounded by a sea of loud voices. Angry voices. Shouts.

GUILTY AS CHARGED!!

GUILTY!!

Cold, evil laughter.

Where was he?

When full awareness finally returned, Robin's blood froze in place. He was standing, his wrists and ankles again immobilized, in total darkness. He felt like he was tied to a post, but couldn't be certain because of the impenetrable gloom. It seemed that the room in which he was being held prisoner was entirely devoid of light. If there were such a thing possible as absolute blackness, Robin believed that is where he was.

"Am I dead?" he whispered.

"No, Boy Wonder, not dead...At least, not yet!" A sudden spotlight immediately in front of Robin blinded him, revealing Two Face/Harvey Dent in judge's robes, sitting behind a high, stately desk. "The verdict by our two esteemed juries..." Two Face waved an arm, and footlights suddenly revealed two jury boxes peopled by several of Dent's henchmen. "...has been passed...*HE* is guilty of violating that most sacred of trusts among friends! He betrayed me with my own fiancee, and therefore, *you...the *sole issue* of that betrayal must *die*!!!"

With that announcement, another spotlight suddenly sprang up, revealing an old- fashioned gallows, complete with hangman's noose. Robin felt a cold hand clutch his insides when he realized this chamber of horrors was awaiting him. Two black hooded executioners lumbered towards Robin in slow, measured steps.

"By the power vested in me, I now condemn you to be hanged until you are dead, Dead, DEAD!!" Dent screamed out the verdict in increasing fury. His anger escalating with each pronouncement.

Robin felt himself grow lightheaded. The beatings he'd received earlier had probably caused internal injuries and possible bleeding. Also, because his extremities had been tied for some time, Robin also lost all circulation in his arms and legs. When Two-Face's goons untied him, Robin rallied to fight them off, but couldn't make his arms and legs do what he wanted them to. Instead, his leg muscles abandoned him by folding under him.

One of the executioners picked up Robin, unceremoniously throwing him over his shoulder. Robin weakly tried to fight him off, but his strength was quickly failing, as was his grasp on reality. Robin felt the world crazily spinning around him, a weird kaleidoscope of light, colors, and darkness...

Robin must have lost consciousness for a few minutes, because the next thing he knew, he was standing, a noose around his neck.

"Does the condemned have anything to say before we carry out the sentence?" Dent asked solicitously. Through the roaring in his ears, Robin fought to maintain his hold on reality, and blinking furiously, tried to focus against the shimmering, crazy merry-go-round that had become his world.

"If I'm going to die," Robin croaked in a dry whisper, bravely facing his cold- blooded murderers, "then I won't go with a lie...*He* never betrayed you with Grace...He was your friend and still is. Grace left you because of who and what you'd become...and as much as love I him...He isn't my father, and Grace isn't my mother..." That was all Robin could say, before he felt the darkness begin to encroach once more.

"LIES!! ALL LIES!! You go to your death with *two* lies on your lips! SO BE IT!!" Two-Face flipped his two-headed coin. The weak light in the warehouse briefly flashed on the coin's every other turn. Robin's blurring vision caught the strobe-like effect that first marked the coin's ascent, then its slow return arc. The coin fell into Two-Face's open palm. The disfigured former District Attorney gazed on the coin with evil satisfaction.

"Executioners...carry out your sworn duty!"

Robin heard a whirring sound, followed by several screams of outrage. He felt himself falling...falling endlessly into a black abyss. Then blessed darkness...

The next clear memory Dick had was waking up in his own bed, the morning sun streaming in through the open bedroom windows.

"Master Dick, don't try to move, young sir," Alfred's soothing voice spoke from somewhere in his dreams. "You're home, and you're safe. Everything is going to be all right. Sleep now. Sleep."

Dick pulled the Porsche into the Gotham Library's vast sun-drenched parking lot. Quickly parking the car, Dick sat back, the memories of a year ago almost overwhelming him. He blinked his eyes rapidly in the bright sunlight, and quickly brought his right hand up to his eyes, squeezing for several moments until Dick knew he wouldn't lose control right there in a public parking lot.

Alfred was sorely mistaken. Everything did not turn out all right. Soon afterwards, Dick began to notice subtle differences in Bruce's attitude towards him. He seemed colder somehow, distant.

At first, Dick thought his imagination was working overtime, but soon realized that their relationship had indeed changed. In his heart, Dick came to believe that Bruce felt ashamed of him. Dick foolishly fell into a trap that a child could have avoided, and as a result he'd gotten himself badly beaten and almost killed.

Dick believed that Bruce probably couldn't stand to be in the same room with him anymore, which is why he'd avoided almost all contact with Dick for the past year. After all the training, time, and effort that Bruce invested in him, Dick let him down.

"I guess I'm a real disappointment to him," Dick said, leaning back tiredly on the headrest. "A total loser." This time he felt the stinging tears dangerously close to spilling. "I deserve his contempt!"

In his harsh assessment of his personal failings, Dick omitted the fact that the trap with which Two-Face caught Robin, also caught Batman...

"Bruce...?" Dick whispered hoarsely.

"I'm here, chum." Dick felt a warm reassuring pressure on his shoulder. Slowly, Dick's eyelids obeyed his half-hearted command to open. He focused on the blurry images immediately in front of him. These soon coalesced into the worried countenance of Bruce Wayne.

Dick took a moment to get his bearings. He was hooked up to several tubes and machines. He heard the steady beep of a heart monitor and several noises he didn't recognize. He felt physically separated from his body, undoubtedly a side effect of the drugs he was being pumped with.

"What--?" Dick could barely force the sound around his dry throat.

"Don't try to talk, chum," Bruce's quiet voice ordered. He then began to explain what happened. "After the explosion, I woke up in a small cell. It had no windows, no doors, no seams of any kind that I could find. I didn't have my utility belt, of course, but..." Bruce's eyes twinkled momentarily, "...I had a few other tools squirreled away on my costume."

Dick gave an answering lop-sided smile.

"By my best estimates, I must've been unconscious for about two hours. I ran a blood-works on myself after we returned to the Cave, and not surprisingly found that I'd been drugged." Bruce looked away momentarily. Dick thought he saw a fleeting look of guilt-laden pain in Bruce's eyes, but it was gone so quickly, Dick decided that he must have imagined it. Bruce swallowed, then turned back to Dick.

"I ran my mini-snoop device along the walls, and I soon discovered a weak spot. I tossed a coupla of nitro-pellets, and--Bang!--I was out! I found myself back in the warehouse. It was empty...or so I thought at first. I began looking around, and found my utility belt. I found yours a few feet away. It was stretched out to its full length...almost as if pointing. I walked in the direction that the belt seemed to be indicating, and found...you."

Bruce paused. This time his pain was almost palpable.

"Harvey really intended to carry out the sentence. If I hadn't shown up at that moment..." Bruce's voice dropped. His face showed his inner struggle to continue. To Dick's shock, a single tear began to trail down the corner of his guardian's eye. The man whose inner strength was the one constant in Dick's life was crying.

Dick's raised his bandaged arm and awkwardly reached out for Bruce's face. Feeling his own tears well up, Dick gently traced the lone tear with his forefinger. Bruce reached up and held tightly onto Dick's hand.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, son...When I saw that executioner throw the handle, I thought you were--" Bruce choked on the words. "--I thought I'd lost you." Bruce closed his eyes at the horrific image of Dick's bloodied, battered, and broken form barely able to stand on the gallows' malignant platform, a noose tied around his neck.

Batman had never acquired, prepared, and thrown a Batarang as quickly as he did that night. It's razor-sharp edge sliced the rope at the same instant that Two- Face's hooded executioners threw the switch. As the rope tightened around Robin's neck, the Batarang found its mark, and instead of the Boy Wonder's life being choked out of him, he fell to safety.

"After I cut you loose, I managed to bring down the majority of Two-Face's henchmen. Unfortunately, Harvey had already escaped somehow. He left a note, 'Two birds for the price of one'." Bruce paused, his eyes chagrinned. "I found a second gallows, by the way. Intended for me." Bruce's eyes looked sadly upon Dick's.

"Harvey might not have succeeded in killing either of us, but maybe this was better. By hurting you, he knew that he had hurt me." Bruce looked intensely into Dick's eyes. "I caught him two days later. Or rather, he let me catch him. He even arranged it. More than anything, Harvey wanted to gloat how he'd managed to hurt the two people who'd hurt him the most, with the one thing we both shared in common." Bruce shook his head in bewilderment.

"Dick, I didn't know about Harvey's delusion. I tried to explain to him that you weren't Grace's son, but he wouldn't believe me. He's completely convinced that Grace and I betrayed him. That we had an affair, and that *you* were the result."

Dick nodded. "I know," he whispered. "Two-Face told me right before he started to...you know." Dick looked away. He should've found a way to escape. Instead, he'd allowed himself to be the victim--again! Robin, the Boy Hostage, he thought disgustedly. I should've escaped, and helped Batman. But no, I get carried home practically in a body bag. "Bruce, I'm sorry...I should've gotten away."

"Don't talk, Dick," Bruce said. "Nothing that happened was your fault. We were both caught off-guard, remember. It was a two-for-one trap, and we both fell for it. If anyone's at fault, it would be me. Now I don't want you to worry about this...I just want you to concentrate on getting better. Do you hear?"

Dick nodded, but despite his guardian's words of reassurance, as Dick slipped off into sleep, he felt that Bruce was disappointed in him...

Continued...

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