AN: Short drabble of a scene if the apprentice episodes had been expanded on. Thank you Elioma for beta reading. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.
"What do you see in front of you?" Slade asks patiently.
"It's a gun." I answer mechanically. I try to keep the fear from my voice of how guns make me feel. Guns kill people. Guns were not allowed by Batman's teachings that were rooted so deep within me. Guns were bad. I don't look at it. I'm afraid staring at it too long would somehow turn me into a monster that kills. The monster I'm well aware that Slade wants me to be. The monster I refuse to be.
"It is a gun." Slade muses. "What kind of gun?" He asks again in his relaxed, patient voice. He's standing on the opposite side of the table from me, his hands folded neatly behind his back, his sole eye piercing my very soul. His tone is one of a master and mine the submissive apprentice.
"I don't know." I answer simply.
"Look at it," he pressures me. My jaw locks as I mentally remind myself not to make some smartass comment. After a moment of hesitation I look down at the weapon in front of me. It looks like a gun to me. I don't know the differences between guns and I don't want to learn, either. But I know he'll make me. "What kind would you guess it to be?" he asks.
I stare at it trying to think of any names of guns I know. It doesn't look like a rifle. It doesn't look like a machine gun. The only thing I can think is handgun, but that sounds too broad for an answer he would be looking for. "Pistol?" I guess.
"What kind of pistol?" he questions. I'm surprised I got the pistol part right, but I know I can't go beyond that.
"I don't know," I say again. "I've never learned about guns," I tell him looking back up to his two-toned masked face. My eyes are narrowed behind my mask to give the glare I always do when I know I can't disobey or give some bratty response.
"It's a Browning 9 mm Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol," he tells me as if I'm supposed to know what that means. I continue to stare at him silently, my mouth pulled in a disapproving frown, but otherwise unmoved. "Do you know what semi-automatic means?"
"I don't do guns," I tell him firmly.
"You didn't do guns," he corrects me.
"No," I say staring him in the eye. "I don't do guns."
He gives me a disapproving look, the single grey eye narrowing challengingly at my defiance. In a moment, he'll bring the damn trigger out. In a moment, he'll remind me of the threat held over my friend's lives. The ones that are still alive anyway. For now.
I had challenged him far too much for his liking. He had figured out that threating to kill them all at once wasn't good enough. With an all-or-nothing threat like that, if I had lost them all at once, I wouldn't have a reason to stay any longer. I'd figured out that logic, too, and had tried to make my escape that way. So, he'd locked me away and designed four new triggers, only keeping one on him at all times. The other three would be locked away somewhere I couldn't find, nor was allowed to look for. He'd rotate the triggers, allowing each day to be a new Titan's life I was risking instead of getting too comfortable with risking one. I wasn't allowed to know whose trigger he had that day. Only if I disobeyed would I find out. And I had done it once. I had pushed him far enough to kill. Beast Boy had died a very painful and sudden death due to my disobedience. I had tried to stop it, but I couldn't.
That had been three months ago. I'd grown stronger since then. I'd grown wiser. Part of the wisdom was knowing just how far I could push Slade before he did something I wouldn't like. This was one of those moments the wisdom came into play.
I drop my head in a submissive pose before he can even pull the button out. "Please," I beg him. "I'm not a killer."
"You don't have the motivation to be…. Yet." His tone far less dangerous than it would be if I had continued my defiance. "Well, you do… but you know better than to point a gun at me," he muses. My fist clench at my side. I'm tempted to pick up the gun now and prove him wrong. The thought shocks me, and I close my eyes in defeat. Of course he's right. He's always right. I don't know why I ever think any differently.
"A semi-automatic pistol harnesses the energy of one shot to reload the chamber for the next. After a round is fired, the spent casing is ejected and a new round from the magazine is loaded into the chamber, allowing another shot to be fired as soon as the trigger is pulled again." Slade continues his lecture as if the interruption had never happened. I'm listening in case he quizzes me, but I'm cringing internally for taking in the knowledge. "Basically it does what?" he quizzes, just like I had suspected he would.
"It reloads itself," I conclude for him. I can see his approval as he gives a small nod.
"Very good," he approves. "Pick it up." I visibly flinch. My blood freezes cold and my mind stops processing. For a long moment, I stay in a paralyzed state. I'm not even sure I'm breathing. It's almost as if I hope being as still as possible will make him forget the command. "Pick it up," he demands again. Illusion shattered. I close my eyes and have to take a slow breath in to keep myself together. "Now." His tone is getting darker. I'm testing his patience.
I open my eyes and nervously allow my gloved hand to reach forward. He's watching me, relishing my display of weakness. I pick it up. It's a heavy awkward weight in my hand. I'm so scared that it's going to fire at the slightest movement that I'm keeping it aimed down and as far away from my body as possible. It looks as if I'm holding out a vermin by the tail instead of handling a gun, but essentially it's the same thing to me.
Slade approaches me and places a hand over my own, moving it to the proper way to hold a gun. He steadies it in my hand and then forces my finger to curve slightly over the trigger. I go rigid. My gaze is solely on the weapon and not the powerful man beside me. He points the weapon away from my body and towards the wall across from me, the place he'd just been. I hadn't noticed before, but now I can see a human shaped target in the background. Then he lets me go and I'm holding it by myself. I feel sick. I'm willing to bet I'm ten shades paler than I was a moment ago.
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to fire at this target or not. There had been not instructions, and so I stand there rigidly with the gun aimed at the target. Just the site of my own hand aiming at what looks like a human is wrong. I feel like I'm going to throw up. I want to put it down, but the order had been clear to hold it. So I do, praying he won't make me shoot. I know the target isn't real, but just the thought that this same gun might one day be pointed at something real is enough to scare me senseless.
He stands there beside me watching. I can't look to see if he's approving or angry that I haven't done anything yet. The wait seems to last entirely too long. My hand begins to shake with both anticipation and restraint to continue to hold it there. Just hold still, I tell myself. Maybe it's not even loaded. I can only hope. I don't know the difference between the weight of a loaded gun and the weight of an unloaded one.
"You can set it down now," he tells me in a soft pur. Clearly he approves of me holding the weapon so long without further instructions to do so. I set it down carefully, not to make it fire off by mistake. Once it's on the table I quickly yank my hand away as if it were going to bite me. "We won't be learning to fire it today. I know we must take small steps to undo the Bat's teachings. I just wanted you to get a feel of it today." His words don't help the nausea I still feel. He plans to make me use this eventually. He plans to make me a killer. He'll make me choose between my friend's life and another's. I know he will. I'm panicked at the thought. I'm shaken to the core of what I might choose. "Go clean up. Sparring in an hour," he tells me and I leave without another question or comment. This is only the beginning.