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We have a thirty day prompt going in Journalism and it's basically just fanfiction writing for me, and one of my stories ended up being Young Justice themed, so I figured I would try and bring it to better light. Please note, while this is Scarecrow based, I know very little of his abilities, so I apologize if this is untrue to his characterization.
The warehouse was hauntingly silent as Robin slipped in through the window, despite there being at least a hundred people inside. The window took the teen to a metal walkway, and he walked on the front of his toes to try and maintain that same spectral silence, pausing only once he got to a staircase that would take him from the safety of the walkway to the ground floor that held the hundred below him.
"What's it look like in there?" Artemis' voice came over the telepathic link, and Robin's hand curled around the railing.
He stood a story above the crowd, and from his bird's eye view, they reminded him a lot of toy soldiers, meticulously arranged in neat little lines. While their feet stayed planted, their heads were all aimed at the large door at the front of the building, and their lifeless eyes held an animosity that suggested they were ready to strike whatever were to come through. He went out of his way to not remind himself that he had done just that.
"They're all in here. I'm not sure how many exactly, but they're just... standing there. Catatonic, I think. They're all facing the door," he relayed.
Holding his silence, he slowly got his binoculars out of his belt and took a closer look at the crowd.
"Any sign of Scarecrow?" Conner asked.
Robin rolled his eyes under the mask. "If I saw Scarecrow, don't you think that's the first thing I'd mention?"
If there was an angry retort, which he bet there was, the telepathic communication broke for what he assumed was an intentional fraction and he took that time to better study something that had caught his eye on one of the men's arms. Zooming in, what he had assumed to have been some kind of tattoo sleeve were deep grooves in the man's arm, self-inflicted from the bloody fingertips his opposite hand held. Something had made him scratch at his skin deep enough to produce a fairly decent gash. A quick examination revealed the others all had clawed off some portion of their own skin as well, and Robin's skin itched just at the sight.
When the communication came back up, he rubbed at the bare stretch of skin between his sleeve and his glove, chewing uncomfortably at his lip.
"The people... they all... it's like they tried clawing off their own skin. I think they were Scarecrow's test subjects," he updated them, slipping his binoculars back into the belt. "What should I do?"
The obvious answer was to find Scarecrow, but he didn't see him. Even turning on the thermals on his mask, all Robin saw were the hundred or so unmoving masses on the floor below, and unless Crane was down there among them, they had just found a dumping site.
"You're absolutely positive Crane isn't in there?" Conner asked almost spitefully.
Robin shook his head, forgetting they couldn't see him. "No, I'm not sure. I just... don't see him. Stay out there, just in case. I'm going to get in closer."
They advised him not to, but he calmly reminded them that their mission was to find Scarecrow and stop him from poisoning the hundreds of thousands of people that he planned to infect with this very venom. If they didn't stop him, he could take out whole states, and then have the entire country under his palms. Kid Flash was very set on the fact that 'under his palms' wasn't the phrase Robin wanted, but the younger hero had little concern on the matter of phrases as he crept down the staircase, even holding his breath to stay unnoticed.
"Is it safe to be breathing flat air in there? It had to have taken a lot of... whatever he used... to affect that many people. Something might still be in the air," Megan cautioned, and Robin was fumbling for his breather the moment she started.
He set it between his lips and pulled it back, sinking his teeth into it as he continued to creep down the steps. There wasn't much of a game plan in his mind between each slow step, but he didn't take those intervals to form one. If endgame was just to find Scarecrow, he would get closer, and then he would look out over their faces again until something stood out. It was reckless, but that was a part of being a hero, and helped make up for his current lack of fearlessness that all heroes are supposed to have equipped.
"Think you'll need back-up, bird boy?" Kid Flash offered over their silence.
He did, but he wouldn't admit it.
"No, I've got it. I'm going to check for Scarecrow, and then I'll be topside with you guys. Do a quick perimeter, maybe. I won't be long."
A small chorus of wishes for him to be safe started all over, and then the haunting silence of the warehouse set in again. Robin was painfully aware of every breath he took, and every pulse of his heart, and as he crouched on the step to look between the rails, he swore he could hear his blood flowing, too.
He only prayed that the toy soldiers weren't that good of hearing.
The binoculars found their way into his hands again and he looked out over the crow again, going along the faces carefully now. It had been a while since he had seen Crane's bare face, but he was sure he would recognize it regardless.
He looked until the rails barred his access to their faces, so he lowered the binoculars and scooted up a step, lifting them again. Immediately, he dropped them to the metal step beneath him and didn't flinch at the sharp metal tang they gave off upon impact. His nerves had frayed when he had met eyes with Scarecrow. The man was there beside him, suspended on something that Robin didn't have time to worry about before a thick gray gas filled the space around him. He gasped, and in his temporary fear, breathed through his nose.
"Found Scarecrow," he said quickly, and he was running.
His friends were there in his head at once, wanting details or just anything more than the measly two he offered, but the toy soldiers below were storming up the stairs after him and he was trying to balance the fact that he was going to run out of walkway soon with the fact that he had breathed the gas in.
"The gas is gray and thick and smells a little like chemical waste. In a few minutes, I'll be able to tell you exactly what it does to someone who breathed it in."
Despite how calm his thoughts were, Robin's hands sweated as he fumbled for his grappling hook, and his heart was going fast enough to make his chest feel confined. There wasn't time to be weak, though. He had to think bigger than himself. With little other thought, he grabbed the railing with a hand and flipped over it, shooting his grappling hook up into the side of the air duct running along the ceiling and scrambled along it until he found a grate that would get him inside. His hands shook to a point that he almost couldn't unscrew it.
"We can help you, Robin. Get out of there!" Kaldur all but ordered.
It was that 'but' that had Robin sliding into the duct and pulling the cover back into place, drawing himself into a little ball against the cool of the wall.
"That would be a negatory, Aqualad," Robin laughed out loud, but it shook, and he felt very little like a hero with how afraid he was starting to feel. "Those test subjects bolted at me the second I dropped my binoculars. They'd have torn my throat out if I didn't get out of the way. I won't risk doing that to you."
He swallowed hard past the knot growing in his throat, and he clasped his fingers around his legs as carefully as he could. He wondered how long the gas would take to kick in. Would he be conscious the whole time, just watching his body get played by some other puppeteer? Would he even know when it hit? A small tremble started in his shoulders, and even though the loneliness in this very moment was crippling, he was more than thankful for it.
"We're not just going to leave you! Where are you?!" Wally was either too loud, or his words just hurt the right way. "I'll beat him with his own straw until he gives us the cure, Rob. Don't quit me yet."
Robin hugged his legs a little tighter. A small tick was starting in his jaw, and it felt like the air duct was starting to shrink to encompass him. It was going to swallow him whole and keep swallowing him until he was nothing, and it would keep going from there.
"I'm not quitting you. I'm trying to give you one less person to fight on your way to Scarecrow. He's down there with them, and he's armed. Just make sure you have your masks on when you go in. The front door shouldn't be guarded as heavily right now."
"Robin-"
"Disconnect me and take him out, guys."
If there was argument, Megan was kind enough to cut the connection before he could hear it. It left him alone in the metal duct, and he listened to the beat of his heart echo as the metal started drawing closer to him. At first, he thought he was imagining it, but then he had to move his legs in closer as his feet ran out of room, and his head snapped up towards the grate trapping him in.
If he didn't escape the duct, he realized that he'd be crushed, and for a moment, he raised a hand at an attempt for freedom. His fingers had no sooner grazed the grate that he pulled his hand back down and put it back around his knees.
Robin knew know that the gas had started to kick in. There was no possible way an air duct could close in around him at this sort of pace, let alone at all in these circumstances. He may have felt the cool of the metal tightening around him to a point that actually hurt, but he knew his mind had to be making it up to try and draw him out of the duct.
As the metal kept closing in, making it hard for him to draw out a breath, he reminded himself that his friends would be down there soon, and his escaping could end in their harm. That wasn't to say that they wouldn't find harm on their own down there. He had seen how vicious the others had been, and there had been a lot of them. They could easily tear his friends apart. They would claw off his friends' skin like they had their own and leave bleeding masses on the concrete for him to collect if he came out of this intact.
The metal had closed in tight enough that he couldn't manage a breath, and he could only give a tiny groan as it ruptured around him, and it took everything he had in him to not cry out as he felt the metal give way beneath him and the air whip at his body in his descent. He forced his eyes open and scratched at the bare stretch of arm he had, reminding himself that it wasn't real until the illusion gave way, and he was staring at the metal of the duct again. Down below, he heard the large door ease open. His glove might keep him from taking off his skin, but it wouldn't stop him from taking theirs.
The symptoms were more fear venom than any of the hostilities he had seen from the test subjects, but he assumed the transition would come along before he had time to realize it was happening.
His shaking hands came up to his hair and he cradled his temples, biting harder into the breather he uselessly kept between his teeth, and hearing the test subjects thunder down the metal steps, he could only manage a little groan of fear. Above the sounds of combat to start, he heard Kid Flash call for him, and he dug his fingertips into his head.
More than anything, he longed to shout down a goodbye, or to drop down before the venom went even farther to deliver it himself, but he didn't move. His whole life had been a goodbye until now, and he knew that. All of their lives had been a goodbye. That was the drawback of being a hero. It was always a goodbye, and never a hello. They were unspoken, and that was just how it went. Someone had told him it was because a spoken goodbye was bad luck, but he knew it was just because they hurt.
Robin gave a shaky sigh and pulled his breather out from between his teeth and tucked it back into his belt before laying flat out in the duct and reclining as far as he could. He watched the grate above until it looked tempting, and then he shut his eyes again, focusing on his breathing the best he could. The hush of his exhales in the metal atmosphere slowly dissolved into the laps of waves on a shore, and then he was aware of a wetness rising between his fingertips. He opened his eyes and looked beside him, tensing to see what he could only hope was water starting to fill the area around him.
There was no way water could be getting in here, and especially not at this speed. The weight that would be gained should've been enough to sink the whole duct. The fact it was holding Robin was a miracle in itself. He knew the water was an illusion, and he told himself that in a mantra until it rose up to his nose and he breathed some in. He sat up and hacked it out, a nasty burn tearing through his throat.
He knew there wasn't water in the duct with him. He knew what he felt wasn't real, and this was just like the bending metal that was supposed to get him to leave the duct. Leaving meant that he would hurt his friends, though. He didn't want to hurt them, so he wasn't going to leave.
Sitting up, the water was to his chest now, and rising faster.
They were his friends. They would die for him. He wasn't going to leave.
He was on his knees now, and the water was to his throat. The grate was just grazing his nose.
He couldn't hurt them. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did. The water was just in his head, and he wasn't going to drown. He wasn't going to drown, and he wasn't going to leave.
His face was tilted so his mouth was pressed between the grate slats, desperate for the air the water-filled duct couldn't supply him any longer, but the water was still rising, and he had no room left.
He couldn't breathe. He loved his friends, he couldn't hurt them, and he couldn't breathe.
His body worked on its own accord. As he choked on the water that was just in his head, he forced out the grate and threw himself out of the duct, and this time, he was actually falling. Opening his eyes wouldn't dissolve the slide of the world around him. As he choked on the water he imagined, body surprisingly dry for someone who had nearly drowned, he fumbled in his belt for his grappling hook. He could still make it back into the duct. He didn't have to hurt anyone.
Robin had barely managed to shoot the grappling hook before he hit the ground, landing hard on his left knee. He screamed loud enough to mask the crack it made. Immediately, he released the barrel and rolled with the impact, and when he landed, he laid there.
The pain came in waves and he almost howled at how bad it hurt, fingers numbly reaching for something, anything, to take his mind from it. He stopped reaching when he saw a figure coming at him from his peripheral.
It called for him in Kid Flash's voice, but looking up at him, he knew it wasn't his friend. Coming into focus, he had his face, but everything else was wrong. The body was too long and the colors didn't match. He didn't notice that the rest of the world in his eyes was blurred and distorted as well. All he knew was that someone was wearing his best friend's face.
"Give it back," Robin whimpered, staring up at his best friend's face in anguish.
The figure drew closer and the young hero forced himself to his feet, standing on his good leg with a shudder in his breath. Tears of a different nature joined the ones that had swollen from pain.
"Give it back!" he groaned in what would've been a scream had he not had to put weight on his bad leg to get closer. "That's not yours!"
The figure used Kid Flash's voice to call for him again, and Robin felt his stomach churn in disgust. How had he let this happen? He had had enough sanity for a few minutes- he could've helped! He could've warned them to stay out! He could've... a tiny sob let out, and he used the anguish to charge at the figure, grabbing his best friend's face with all the strength he had, trying to pull it free.
He didn't have his nails with the gloves on, but he was determined with what he did have. The figure screamed, moving his best friend's mouth with their own, and the disgust boiled into absolute fury. They had taken his best friend's face and they played it like their own.
"Robin! Robin, please!" Kid Flash's voice plead, and fingers that were too long closed around his wrists, trying to pull his hands back.
Robin gave a dull roar and fought harder. They had stolen his voice and his face. He didn't want to think about what they had done to the rest of his body. He didn't want to have to think if there was enough left to bury. He didn't want to think at all. He wanted to get back what didn't belong to the figure, and that was the only thing running his thoughts now.
He dug his fingers in against the pale jaw and tried using the catch in the pads of his fingertips to pull the skin back. It wasn't coming off, and the harder he pulled, the more frustrated he became. His sobs were cold and angry, and further blurred the colors he was trying to focus on. There was red under his fingertips, but the face was fixed in place. He didn't want to tear the flesh, but he needed it back.
The fingers around Robin's wrists released him and moved instead for his face, holding his jaw in a gentle desperation. When the younger hero tried to jerk back from the grip, the fingers curled around the back of his head, thumbs pressing against his cheekbones. The figure leaned Kid Flash's face forward and pressed their foreheads together. Robin squirmed between panicked gasps and groans, but he couldn't look away from the emerald eyes that had the singular owner in his mind.
"Dick, please," Wally whispered from right there in front of him, and Robin stopped squirming. "Whatever you're seeing, it's not real. It's me. Please."
Robin's fingers stopped trying to pull Kid Flash's face off, and he held the pale jaw in palms that trembled now, blinking a hot stream of tears down his cheek.
"Wally," he whimpered.
Kid Flash's face nodded against his, and the thumbs rubbed gently against his cheeks, and then a sharp pain shot through the back of his thigh and Robin was collapsing against the figure. His vision blinked in and out, up until unconsciousness caught up with him.
When he woke up, it was to the rhythmic beat of a heart monitor, and a dull ache in his leg. He blinked until the world caught up with him, and then he looked around the best he could. He was in a hospital bed, leg suspended in a cast, and an IV plugged into his hand.
"You're awake," he heard Bruce before he saw him.
His guardian sat beside him in civvies, with bags under his eyes big enough to hold bodies. Dick weakly fished for him, and Bruce grabbed what of his fingers weren't connected to the heart monitor.
"What happened?" he asked weakly, and his voice cracked from what he assumed was disuse.
Bruce squeezed his fingers, but he didn't have to say anything. It all came rushing back to Dick once Wally walked in, the bandages on his jaw bloodstained. Dick remembered trying to rip his face off, and a thousand apologies came forward all at once, tears welling in weak blue eyes. Wally raised a hand with a little smile to stop them. He came over to the side of the bed and patted Dick's hand, squeezing the fingers like Bruce was, and letting go. The heart rate on the monitor was a lot faster.
"It wasn't you, Dick. It was the gas," Wally shrugged casually, and then he held onto the bed's metal railing. "You didn't do a whole lot of damage anyway. Mostly just scared me. Thought I... lost you, you know?"
Dick stared at the bandages a moment longer, and then he pulled both of his hands onto his stomach, hooking what of his fingers that he could. Bruce pulled his own hands back into his lap.
"I thought..." Dick started, and then he was quiet as he fought for his voice, avoiding Wally's eyes. "I thought you were... It looked like someone else was wearing your face. I just... wanted to get it back. It was so... real."
"I know. That's what the venom does."
The room was quiet for a long time, just the sound of Dick's heart slowing back again, and then Dick regarded his friend again.
"The... the others?" he asked weakly.
"Everyone's alright. They were sent to hospitals at the same time as you, and the cure's been distributed throughout the state. Everyone's expected to recover soon," Bruce answered for him.
Dick managed to breathe a small sigh of relief. A few more questions had the cast explained, and the time he was missing, and then Bruce left the room to call Alfred and update him, leaving Wally and Dick alone.
They were quiet at first, up until Wally gave a little laugh. Dick stared up at him.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
Wally hooked a crooked grin, grabbing his friend's face with a hand that had the slightest tremble. He let it rest there, and Dick leaned into it with a softer sigh, shutting his eyes.
"If you ever think of doing that again..." Wally warned, and Dick smiled against his palm. "At least... at least give me a 'goodbye' next time, alright?"
Dick opened his eyes lightly and stared up at him, and then he shook his head, the same little smile on his lips. Wally pulled his hand back and gripped the railing again, lifting a brow curiously.
"This job is always about the 'goodbye', Wally. I'm sick of the goodbye," Dick shook his head again. "I think I'd rather give you a 'hello', if that's alright."
Wally paused, as though to think about it, and then he nodded.
"I suppose a 'hello' would be alright," he agreed.
Dick managed a grin, and Wally couldn't help but mirror it.
"Hey, Wally."
"Hey."
-F.J. III