Of course it would have to be her, binding me with her Lasso of Truth --a joke to pass the time, now in a rare moment when the world needs no saving. This, my hazing, I suppose, among my so-called super friends, an initiation to mark me as one of them the way Superman had to rescue an airplane wearing nothing but his cape, or how Aquaman had to swallow that goldfish (I think he heard it telepathically screaming inside his stomach). I understand the need for ritual just the same as I understand this magic rope’s history: forged by the hammer of Hephaestus from the Golden Girdle of Gaea, inflamed by Hestia with the power to make mankind obey. But Wonder Woman shouldn’t ask a question I’d rather bite off my tongue than answer. I’ve been beaten, stabbed, gassed, shot at, knocked unconscious and hogtied more times than I can count. But this... this is worse than the Legion of Doom’s darkest scheme. “So tell us, Robin,” Diana commands, her fine Amazonian beauty marred by a smirk. “How do you really feel about Batman?” Her golden chain constricts me like a snake. My Dark Knight looks at me and then looks away. I have no choice but to obey. I think of the box of Itch Powder in Flash’s boots, the Martian Manhunter and exploding cigars. This time they go too far. “I love him,” I finally say. “Always have. Always will.”