Sick Bird.

28. Forgetting.

A soft groan of pain left a certain young hero's lips as he pried his eyes open with difficulty, his efforts immediately being regretted when an all too familiar bright light flooded his vision. The infirmary? What did he do to himself this time?

Robin let a light sigh out and moved his arms back to push himself up into a sitting position. Unfortunately, a stabbing pain in his gut made him cry out and fall back down onto the white, thin mattress. The hell?

His sudden distress seemed to have drawn the attention of a particular group of heroes talking on the other side of the room. Barely a minute flashed by before Batman was at his side, a gloved hand reaching down to gently pull him up into his desired sitting position.

"Don't move too much."

He gave his mentor a light nod as he laid back against the soft pillows propped up behind him, slowly lifting a hand and placing it over his aching gut. "What happened...?"

That's when every other hero's attention flicked in Batman's direction. 

Robin looked up at his mentor, who seemed to be currently finding the statistics screen more interesting than his ward's confused face. 

"Batman." Superman, who had walked up behind the Dark Knight, placed a firm hand on the vigilante's shoulder, a serious expression adorning his structured facial features. "What happened?"

Batman reluctantly wrenched his narrowed gaze away from the statistics screen next to the heart monitor to meet the masked eyes of his thirteen year old partner. 

"Robin, what is the last thing you remember?"

The ebony-haired Boy Wonder blinked lightly, and looked down at his lap in thought. "I..." He furrowed his brows slightly,"I remember we were talking in the hall..."

"Do you remember what we were discussing?"

"Um...we were arguing about..." The young acrobat lifted his head to meet the whites of his father figure's face. "I can't remember..."

The older vigilante gave him a light nod in response, his expression almost looking relieved before he noticed how Robin was keeping a hand over his gut. "Are you in pain?"

Robin blinked yet again and tilted his head down to look at where his hand was resting over his gut. "It feels like I'm being stabbed there..."

"Does it hurt anywhere else?"

"My head...everything's fuzzy and I can't think clearly..."

The Dark Knight narrowed his eyes as he turned back to the statistics screen, his gloved fists clenching at his sides.

Kid Flash took a step forward from where he and the rest of the team were standing, his expression morphed into that of worry. "Is he okay?"

Batman didn't turn to face the speedster as he answered, his eyes still narrowed at the screen, but his voice showed no doubt or concern in any way. "He's fine. His heart rate picked up too fast during our argument. His breathing got obstructed and it put him into a state where there wasn't enough oxygen getting to his brain, which is what made him fall into unconsciousness."

"He hasn't sustained permanent damage or something like Canary said he could, did he?" Artemis asked.

"Not this time, no." He replied firmly.

Robin kept his gaze trained on his mentor as the vigilante reached to the side of the bed to retrieve the portable stand with the oxygen mask, linking the IV drip to it again. "What was our argument about?"

Batman didn't make eye-contact with his ward as he took the oxygen mask and gently placed it over the bird's nose and mouth, pulling the thin strap over his head to keep it in place. "It is not important. The matter has been taken care of."

Robin reached up to touch the oxygen mask firmly placed over his face with a slight nod. "Okay..."

"Do not remove this mask unless I or Black Canary tell you to. Understood?"

"Understood...But what about the pain I keep feeling in my gut?"

"If it's just a cramp it will go away over time. If it still remains after more than an hour, inform me immediately." He stated as he moved from Robin's bedside to walk to the door, turning his wristcomputer on.

"Wait, you're leaving?" Red Arrow asked as the Caped Crusader stepped through the door.

"I have business to attend to in Gotham. Robin may not leave the infirmary without that oxygen mask." He didn't give the other heroes a chance to say anything else and turned down the hall, opening a small folder on the screen of the holographic computer.

As soon as it opened, he started reading the bullet points in his head. 'Exhaustion, Rapidly changing body temperatures, headaches, sensitivity, difficult breathing...this doesn't make sense...'