"I'm sorry," Gizmo whispers helplessly.
He grips the needle-nose pliers so tightly that his knuckles start to whiten, hands shaking violently on the workbench.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he whimpers again, desperately. The words are infused with suffocating fear. "I-I don't know how."
He ducks his head, waiting for the inevitable blow.
Instead of a strike, gentle fingers wrap themselves around his to calm his trembling.
"It's okay, Mikron," Jinx soothes, taking the pliers from him so gently he hardly even realizes when they're gone. "You don't have to do this. I only thought it might help you, to try and build something again. We can stop if you want to do something else."
"I want to," he whispers, ducking his head low. "I just c-can't remember how. I still can't—"
"It's okay." Jinx sets the pliers aside and stoops down to Gizmo's level, stroking the sides of his face with her fingers. "It's okay, Mikey. I promise you, everything's fine."
"I'm sorry," he repeats, in that same, hopelessly small voice. "I'll t-t-try harder next time. I'll be good. I-I'll do whatever you want, anything you want. Just, p-please, don't...don't be angry..."
Jinx shakes her head with an expression of infinite sadness. "It's okay," she says again.
She pulls him close and holds him while he cries.
"I've got nothing so far. What about you?"
"Nada. Everything topside checks out. Soon as you zap the alarms, I'll sweep the underground levels just to make sure."
"I already took care of the system. Get going!"
"Thanks, babe. Don't know what I'd do without you."
"Kid Flash."
"Huh?"
"Be careful down there, okay? I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Mikron?" Kid Flash knocks on the door as lightly as he can, using the hand not holding the soup bowl, though he doesn't really expect a verbal response. "Mikron, it's me, Ki...um, Wally. I'm coming in."
He could phase through, if he really wanted to. Instead, he reaches experimentally for the doorknob, surprised to find it unlocked. This is new. Maybe it's a good sign.
"Mikron?" Wally says evenly as he slowly pushes the door open, taking a few tentative steps inside. It's dark enough in Gizmo's room at the apartment that he has to give his eyes a few seconds to adjust. "Hey, Mikron—are you in here?"
A small sound reaches his ears from the eastern corner of the room, drawing Wally's attention to the bed. He slowly walks over, spying a telltale, shivering child-sized lump beneath the many layers upon layers of blankets. There are at least a dozen of the quilts stacked in total, piled high to make their guest feel safer by having more warmth and more places to hide.
Wally reminds himself to stop before he gets too close, halting his steps a few feet away from the bed.
"Mikron?"
No response. Though Wally doesn't miss that the tremors under the blankets ease up a little, the tiniest bit.
"Heya, Mick," he says again, calmly and deliberately. "I brought you some stuff to eat. Can I come over there and give it to you?"
Seconds pass, but the kid says nothing. Wally debates with himself for a while, then finally walks over, closing the distance to the bed and slowly pulling back the many blankets. Gizmo blinks up at him with watery eyes, lying curled up as small as he can on the bed and shaking badly.
Wally expects him to shrink away or try to hide, but to his surprise Gizmo actually sits up in his pajamas to look at him.
"W...Wally?" he manages to get out, trembling definitely lessened but not yet stopped. "S-Sorry. Hey."
He's lucid, then. Kid Flash internally heaves a sigh of relief, moving carefully to sit on the edge of the bed. The worst is when Gizmo doesn't recognize him. He never knows what to do when it happens.
"Yeah, kiddo. It's me. You ready to eat?"
Old fear flashes in Gizmo's beady eyes. "No. I'mnothungry," he says, too quickly, panicked.
Wally shakes his head, feeling sorry and depressed. They've tried being slow about this, tried letting the kid heal at his own pace, but the fact remains that months have passed and Gizmo is still emaciated enough to count as legally starving. Wally could easily hold both his wrists in one hand if he wanted to.
"Sorry, buddy. It's soup, you'll like it," Wally offers by way of apology, holding out the bowl. "You really, really need to eat something, Mick. It's been two days. Jinx didn't cook it this time around, I promise. Okay?"
His attempt at a joke falls flat. Gizmo still looks terrified, and, perhaps worse, defeated. Already accepting, that he's helpless to fight this.
"Do I have to?" he asks Wally very quietly, eyes rooted firmly on the mattress below.
"I'm sorry," Wally tells him.
The fear in Gizmo's expression vanishes, replaced by a look of dull, broken resignation. Wally knows he shouldn't feel guilty about this, knows the kid would literally die if they didn't force him to eat, but still he feels like a monster every time they go through this awful routine.
"Okay," Gizmo finally says, his voice so quiet that Wally can barely hear him. He out his shaking hands out for the bowl. "O...Okay. Okay."
Wally gives it to him. There's no rush, nothing to fill the seconds as he watches him take one shaking spoonful after another. The slow meal is torture for both of them.
Wally and Jinx know damn well why Gizmo is so frightened of eating. From what bits and pieces the Titans have been able to glean from the other survivors, they know that just about everything the prisoners were given to eat in that place was either drugged to the teeth, or completely rotten, sometimes even poisoned. See-More had died from that, and Kyd Wykkyd nearly had as well. What little food the prisoners did get, they had to beg for, forced to take each individual bite from their captors' hands like animals. Sometimes they had to do more than beg. The thought of it makes Wally physically ill, whenever he remembers; he has to try hard not to dwell on it for too long or else he gets worked up and furious and it just won't help anyone after the fact.
He was a criminal, but Gizmo didn't deserve this. None of them deserved this.
Silently, Wally watches watches the younger boy eat, comfortingly rubbing the top of Gizmo's bald head in thanks when he's finally done. It's not much, but, as much as Wally hates to admit it, this is the best he can do.
"For all we know, it could still be a trap."
"Maybe. But I...I mean, come on, Kid, you know these guys. They've pulled this sort of stunt before, but not with the sort of message that they—"
"Oh my—holy shit!"
"Kid?!"
"Oh my god. Oh my god, Jinx, it's worse than we—than that video—listen to me, you need to get out of here. Right now. I was wrong, it wasn't a trap, this is bad. I need you to go call the other Titans for help right this second. Call Raven. Whatever you do, don't come down here."
"Kid, what is it? What's down there?"
"Jinx, get out of the building. Please go. I don't want you to see this!"
"That does it. I'm coming down."
"No, Jinx—Jinx, wait! Please don't...Jinx!"
And then the screaming starts.