Tesseract Child

Meeting Robin

Thor was being dragged along by two big guys with machine guns strapped to their backs. He was out cold.

Captain America was slung over someone's back. He watched blearily waiting for whatever it was he'd been shot with, to work its way out of his system. It felt hard to breath and the best he could manage was the occasional finger twitch. Everything felt tingly and the walls were swirling. He supposed he should feel concerned or angry or something about being captured but right now it kind of made him want to giggle. He was trying to count how many men were escorting them but he couldn't remember what number came after squirrel. One,.. two, tree, squirrel, eight, nuts?

They were dragged into a large workroom and secured spread eagle with a huge metal restraint system with complex looking electronic locks. Captain America wondered if the small child, unconscious and strapped in leather restraints to a worktable, was in fact there or if it was like the melting walls. Once the guards left and they were alone for a while, the Captain closed his eyes and drifted away for a bit.

"Captain!" bellowed Thor authoritatively.

"Yeah, I'm awake!" Captain America started opening his eyes with a gasp then wiggling his fingers and toes just to prove he could. He tested the bonds focusing all of his strength but nothing even budged. The child was still there but the walls weren't melting anymore.

"What are these foolish mortals going to do the youngling?" Thor sounded concerned, and angry.

"I can see he's breathing but why is he unconscious? Has anyone been here?"

"I know not. I have been indisposed."

Their voices woke the little one. He looked over. "Hello," chirped a small voice. The boy looked maybe four or five. He had messy onyx hair that stuck up everywhere at odd angles, a slightly tan complexion but that was really all they could make out from where they were.

"Hello," replied Captain America keeping his voice gentled.

Thor inclined his head in a slight nod of acknowledgement but that was the limit of his ability to move and he wasn't sure what to make of the boy.

"I'm Robin. Pleased, to meet you. Are you here to shut down that monster of a machine too? It really has caused enough damage. Just a minute; I won't be but a few moments." Robin carefully dislocated his thumb on his off hand, wriggling and working with the straps. It took a few minutes but then he had a hand free. He repositioned his thumb joint and undid his other bindings. He slipped off the table pulling the sheet with him and wrapping it around him.

"It's cold in here and for some reason I have no clothes... probably the rapid re-sizing issue." Robin explained chatting in a determinedly cheerful manner. "Come on then, let's get you free. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that." He tottered over to Thor unsteadily then climbed up to examine the electronics securing him. "Okay, I've got this. I just need, um..." He scrambled down, wobbled unsteadily over to a small pile of equipment on the far side of the room. He took a few things apart and dragged back some circuit boards and wires.

Captain America and Thor watched him in silence although the little guy was not really silent long enough for them to get a word in edgewise anyway.

"They probably didn't know what to make of me and thought leather restraints were enough. Do you know who they are? Do you know why they were trying to open a portal? Is it common in this world, just open dimensional portals and wreck havoc? Why even bother? Oh man..." The little guy staggered and stopped to lean against a wall. "Not really feeling the aster right now."

"Are you okay?" asked Captain America.

"No, not really but let's get things sorted first. I figure I already stabilized the time distortion they had that thing sending off, so I should be able to set it to send me home then after a few seconds delay, blow it up but I've got to find what they did with my C4. I guess it's not really my C4 but well, the explosives I was given to destroy that thing. I wonder if that's why they kept me,... because I fixed their toy and they wanted to know how? It's not really like they gave me a choice! Do you know how many live were lost because of their portal thingy? It's completely not cool."

He hooked a makeshift mess of circuit boards and wires to Thor's restraints then padded over to Captain America, climbed up and got to work there. Thor noted that his restraints were now clicking.

"You're pupils are uneven," the Captain stated staring at two very blue, very young eyes, thinking of the staggering wobbly way the child walked and looking over to Thor. Both adults thought concussion. The child needed immediate medical attention.

"It's not a sign of concussion," Robin denied as if interpreting the Captains thoughts from body language alone. " ...but yeah there's definitely brain damage. I'm missing information, I was unconscious for, I don't know how long, I've got a killer headache and I can't seem to stop talking. Two Martians trying to shove bits of my brain back together as fast as I was loosing my marbles probably did that. Well... we had to do whatever it took to stop it, the portal that is. It was going to kill everyone.

I'm a small price to pay to prevent apocalypse. Dad's gonna be mad though. Uncle Clark was supposed to be babysitting me to stop me from rushing headlong into trouble not. Well,... Dad's gonna accuse him of encouraging it,... trouble that is.

I hope Uncle Clark's not crying. I'm okay, sort of. Just a little younger, missing a few memories and well... pretty far from home.

I've got to stop saying 'well' so much..." Robin paled as he realized he was using his Robin persona and he had referred to Superman as Uncle Clark. It was weird to be Robin without a mask but his new extreme youth was easily as effective a disguise as a slight change in hairdo and a mask. He was having a lot of trouble paying attention to what he was saying and doing. His thoughts felt like a freshly wobbled bowl of jello.

"You are a small price to pay to prevent apocalypse?" Thor boomed incredulously.

Robin continued to prattle on unfazed by Thor's loud outraged response. "Blue Beetle wasn't available and they needed a hacker, a really good hacker who was experienced with extraterrestrial tech. The Magicians and the Green Lanterns were trying to contain the time distortion and portal energy. They had to put me inside the, you know, containment zone so I could hack the technology and shut the gate down.

The time distortion was reversing time inside the containment zone so to go in there and still know what I needed to do, the Martians grabbed hold of as much of my mind as they could, you know, psychic-like and kept my consciousness on a feedback loop so I'd know what to do to stop the machine.

Batman will be mad about that too! The Martians know like everything now, really! They know every Bat secret, every embarrassing or personal moment. They know it all now. That kinda wigs me out, but you know, get traught or get dead. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at Megan again. ...you know.

Argh! Now I'm doing it with, 'you know'! Come on brain, keep it together."

"So you used to be an adult and were turned into a child by a time distortion created by the gate?" Captain America tried to clarify. The child was rambling quickly from topic to topic. Was Thor following what the child was explaining?

"I'm thirteen, or I will be in a few weeks. Well, I used to be," Robin answered looking a little confused.

"That's still a child," protested Thor trying to wrap his head around what he was being told. "There was no more qualified adult available?"

"Nope!" bragged Robin a little cocky and grinning. "I'm awesome!" He sent two thumbs up in the Viking's direction. The clicking on Thor's restraints stopped and they popped open. Robin kept working on the Captain's restraints which a few moments later popped open as well.

I wrote this a while ago and it's still a favourite of mine.  I've posted it elsewhere before but I'll re-edit a chapter a day then post it so hopefully you'll see less spelling and grammar problems.  I've never had a beta.  Sorry.  I spelling the good wordies and writing grammerfully.