Robin froze, staring at his fork on the table. He had just been punished for dropping his fork to the floor, but surely this wasn't as bad. He couldn't look at Slade; that would have been as good as an admission of guilt. So, Robin did the only thing that made any kind of logical sense.

He scooped up food with both hands and crammed it in his mouth.

The adults at the table stiffened, and from the corner of his eye, Robin could see the woman in a business suit shake her head in dismay.

Robin crammed another handful of food in his mouth, but it was too much, too fast, and the air went down the wrong pipe or something, and he choked.

For a second, he couldn't breathe, and he was scrambling for air as his eyes watered. Then his body lurched, and he had just enough time to lean to the right of his chair before he threw up on the floor.

He retched twice. The nasty vomit came up and spilled on the polished wood.

Blinded by tears and still coughing, Robin felt his chair being pulled back. He didn't fight. He fleetingly wondered if Slade would spank him again or inflict a new torture or punch him, but the pain in his chest from coughing and the dizziness from vomiting overrode any fear of what Slade might do to him.

Slade had a hand on his arm and was pulling him towards the door. Robin could barely walk, and his bare feet scuffed along to keep up.

"Some choice for an apprentice," Gray Hair remarked. "He's as weak as a baby."

With the last remaining energy, Robin turned and grabbed the nearest thing he could reach (a small vase) and tried to hurl it at Gray Hair. But in his condition, Robin's aim was off, and the vase went too high. It soared over the table and crashed into the wall, knocking a picture off.

Robin bared his teeth in a snarl, too weak to think of anything to say.

"You'll be punished for that tomorrow," Slade said calmly as he tugged Robin out into the hall. "You can't stay out of trouble for two minutes. I wonder why Batman ever took you in. Even your dead parents weren't enough –"

Robin didn't let him finish; he twisted and sank his teeth into Slade's arm.

Hissing, Slade whipped his arm around to get free, and Robin stumbled back into the wall. He felt cornered, trapped, animalistic – but the adrenaline was enough to overcome the exhaustion from training and vomiting from eating too fast.

He didn't like people to talk about Batman, but he hated it when anyone said something unkind about his parents. Yeah, Batman could be a jerk sometimes and cold other times and a full-on jackass occasionally, but his parents had been nothing but good to him.

"Talk about my parents," he snarled at Slade, "say one word about them, and I'll kill you right here."

Slade had his hand over the bite mark, but said nothing.

"My parents are off limits," Robin went on, ignoring the growing headache that was beginning to throb. "Batman you can trash, the Teen Titans you can ridicule – hell, you can sneer at me all you like. But my parents do not get mentioned by you or any of your staff. I don't care what that contract says – the minute you say anything about my mom or dad, I leave here forever."

Slade still said nothing, and Robin felt his legs start to tremble. He didn't have much fight left in him, but he summoned all his remaining strength to demand, "You agree, or one of us dies right here tonight. I'm not moving another inch until you agree to leave my parents alone."

"Your parents, God rest them, will be off limits," Slade nodded as if he were granting a generous request.

"Good," Robin let out his breath. He leaned back against the wall as his knees went out, and for a blind second of panic, he thought he would pass out cold on the floor.

"He's going to make himself sick again," Nurse Ratchet said from somewhere. "He's shaking all over. I told you not to push him so hard on his first day."

Nurse Wilkes stepped beside him. She reached a hand out and pressed two fingers against the side of his neck. Robin stared at her, dizzy and unsteady.

"His heartbeat's too fast and weak," she announced. "He hasn't recovered from the time he spent in your dungeon. He'll be running a fever later."

"Just like a man," Ratchet sniffed, casting Slade a look of scorn. "Breaks his toys before he's done playing with them."

Slade turned ominously towards her, and Robin stumbled forward, mumbling, "No . . . I'll protect you."

He slipped past her and fell to the ground, crumpled in a heap between Slade and the nurse. Weakly, he pushed at Slade's boots. "Don't hurt her."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Ratchet put her hands on her hips. "This is pathetic. The boy's practically broken. Another day won't make a difference."

"When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it," Slade said.

"She's right," Wilkes interjected. "Put him in the machine and be done with it."

"Machine?" Robin lifted his head. Groaning, he rolled to all fours. He didn't have the energy to stand so he started crawling away.

The three adults looked down at him.

"Oh," Ratchet smiled, "he's like a little puppy, avoiding bath time."

They walked behind him slowly as Robin kept crawling. His body ached, his head pounded, he could barely see from the waves of nausea, and he was still hungry and thirsty. But he wouldn't give up.

"You can't stop me," he groaned. "I'm making my escape."

"Naughty," Slade observed. "You signed a contract. A gentleman should honor his word."

"A gentleman can suck it," Robin returned.

Slade chuckled. "You are quite the handful."

"You're not going to stop me?"

"Why should I? You're heading right towards the machine."

Robin slowed to a stop. He turned to one side and crawled around, but Slade's legs blocked his way.

"My dear boy, there are three of us and one of you."

"Faced bigger odds," Robin muttered.

"My men are right behind me, and you cut their dinner short," Slade went on. "So why don't you give up and come quietly? Honor our agreement?"

"I don't give up. Ever."

"You gave up and signed the contract to get out of a punishment."

"Beating," Robin lowered his head. "You were beating me."

"And now I've beaten you."

"For now, but –" Robin's reply was cut short as Gray Hair and Black Eyes grabbed him from behind and pulled him up. He snarled at Slade (the man had to be smirking under that mask) before the goons dragged him down the hallway.

They all got into an elevator, five adults and a disgruntled Robin who wanted to swear but thought better of it. He could barely stand, but he was concentrating on pulling in energy to fight them off once they got off the elevator.

They went down a long ways, and when they got off, the doors opened, Robin lurched forward.

He came to a short stop when he saw the room – a large space with wires and tubes connected to the machine in the middle of the room. The machine was a metal form in the shape of a body, standing up, lined with tiny nubs inside. There were cuffs at the ankles and neck. It was not high enough for a grown man to fit inside, but for a boy –

To one side, the front panel of the machine was held up in a stand, but Robin could see the latches on the side. It was meant to close the person inside.

"No! No!" He backed up violently, his entire body lit with terror.

His phobia of tight spaces slammed into him and he fought wild, shrieking with hysteria as they pulled him into the room. They pulled off his clothes, leaving him in his shorts.

"You had to bring him in not blindfolded," Nurse Ratchet said as they got Robin to the machine. "Blindfolds every time, Slade!"

"Quiet, woman!" Gray Hair snapped.

"No, no," Robin screamed as they got him locked down. He thrashed against the restraints as tears filled his eyes again. "No, no, please. Slade, please don't lock me in here. Please, don't. I can't do it. I can't breathe. Please!"

"Such a baby," Gray Hair commented as he and Black Eyes reached for the front cover.

"Shut up," Slade stepped in front of the machine. "Robin, Robin, calm down. You're going to give yourself a stroke. The cover doesn't reach above your head. See?

The front did look shorter, curved down at the top, but Robin couldn't stop. He begged them not to as they locked the front on, encasing him in the machine. The front part fit at his neck, just over his collarbone.

"Let me out!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Let me out! I'm going to kill you all, you stupid fuc- umph!"

Slade shoved the mouth-guard into his mouth and held it there as Robin's teeth fit into the grooves. "You'll thank me for this tomorrow when you're not groaning from sore muscles," Slade said.

Robin stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, but Slade kept a grip on the front of the mouth-guard as he continued,

"What's about to happen to you is years of research, years of searching for the right medicine, the right combination of technology and biology to enhance the human body. I would describe the intricacies of this machine, my creation, my beauty, but I think you'd learn it better by experiencing it."

Robin tried to spit the mouth-guard out, but Slade shook his head.

"Ah, ah, we don't want you biting your own tongue off. Trust me to take good care of you."

Slade nodded, but Robin couldn't see what was happening, the edges of the machine blocking his eyesight. But the machine whirled to life around him.

It hummed, vibrating softly as the noise grew louder. Robin pulled against the restraints, tried to shake off the mouth guard, tried to beg Slade one last time, but all in vain.

Slade put his free hand on the side of Robin's face, his warm fingers laying over the boy's cold, tearstained cheek. "You might as well relax. It's not like you have a choice in any of this."

The machine started.

That was Robin's last coherent thought as the thing came alive. It was all over him, every inch of his skin, the bumps of the lining of the machine moving against him.

Robin nearly saw stars as the stimulation overwhelmed him, the bumps growing harder and more obtrusive against his skin. The bumps shook, shot out, vibrated, buzzed, and just plain moved. It was like being massaged hard from every angle all at once, and it hurt, but it felt good, but it felt too much. Some places were ticklish, but the moment he registered the sensation, other places were being touched.

Various tiny needles came out to prick him all over, but the pain disappeared once the bumps massaged over the injection sites.

Robin wanted to scream again. He wondered if he was crying. His eyes were open, but he couldn't understand anything he saw as his vision went in and out. His teeth gnawed down on the mouth guard, pressing deep into its plastic shelves as he looked for something to balance the sensations happening to him.

Water filled the inside of the machine, and he wondered hazily if he were drowning. The nubs kept moving, sloshing water against his skin until it felt like a tight whirlpool, cleaning him thoroughly. He wondered if the machine had taken away all his skin – did he have any limbs left? It might be awful to wake up and find he had no limbs.

Then the water changed. The liquid turned thicker, gooier, coating the inside of the machine. The bumps still hummed, crawling all over him as he stood helpless.

A bright light shone in his eye. Slade stood in front of him, pointing a pin light into his eye. Robin winced and screwed his eyes tight. He wanted to be left alone. The machine wanted all of his attention.

He tried to remember his training, remember to focus, just like Batman had taught him, but he couldn't picture Batman's face or his voice or any of the Teen Titans. The pain had disappeared, along with most of his senses. His mind seemed to float, up somewhere over his body, riding the waves of euphoria as the machine manipulated him in one long, endless cycle.

He must have dozed off because he shifted slightly when the mouth guard was removed from his mouth. The machine still moved around him, not as invasive but still insistent.

Slade wiped the drool from his mouth, but Robin just closed his eyes. A rubber bottle top was inserted in his mouth, like the night before, and he drank it hungrily. Chocolate-flavored this time, but still cold and smooth.

The machine had eaten him. It gulped him down, devoured his body, harvested his brain. He was the machine. But it didn't matter anymore.

Robin kept sucking as the movement continued.

Across the room, Gray Hair and Black Eyes stood watch. Nurse Wilkes was at the computer, watching the five screens that monitored the machine. Robin's heartbeat and temperature beeped on one screen; his oxygen levels and brain activity were on another.

"Is he unconscious?" Ratchet stood beside Slade, watching Robin's still face.

"No, he's almost asleep but every few minutes he swallows more nutrients."

"Four cycles complete," Wilkes called out.

"How many are there?" Ratchet asked.

"Seven," Slade replied. "Muscle massage, tissue regrowth, dermis cleaning, muscle repair, body conditioning, vitamin insertion, and then a last special concoction that I borrowed from a certain friend."

"You broke him down just to build him up again. He's never going to submit to you if you keep giving him hope that he can beat you."

"Are you the super-mind here or my paid nurse?" Slade asked coldly. "My purpose isn't to break him, it's to bend him. I punish him, I reward him, I hurt him, I heal him. The more erratic my treatment, the more he comes to depend on me. It won't matter if he's strong as an ox – he won't be able to lift a finger against me without permission."

"So this is basically a lesson in Stockholm Syndrome?" Ratchet pursed her lips. "You make a person dependent on you and then, guess what? They depend on you. No one could possibly see that coming."

"Punishments work just as well on outspoken employees as they do unruly children," Slade warned.

She scoffed as she stepped forward to center the bottle nipple in Robin's mouth. "I could be in Gotham right now, fighting Batman or stealing from Catwoman, but instead you want me here to watch after this child."

"I could always return you to Penguin."

Ratchet glanced at him warily, but she said nothing as she took a cool cloth and wiped the tears and sweat away from Robin's face. The boy twitched, gulping down another mouthful of drink from the hose that was attached to the top of the machine.

"Take a note from your partner in crime and learn to keep your thoughts to yourself."

Wilkes didn't glance up from the screens. "I will say, Slade, I'm surprised he didn't put up a bigger fight. Are you sure we have the right Robin? This is the daring Teen Titan that gave in because you spanked him and doesn't have the strength to fight back after aday of training and three days in a dungeon? Not much of a superhero in my book."

"I have the right boy. I've been giving him mild drugs since last night, and we know what a screwed up relationship he had with the Dark Knight. Batman was forever lecturing him and withholding affection. He wavered between neglect and over-indulgence."

"Over-indulgence?" Ratchet asked.

"We all know Bruce Wayne paid for Titan Tower," Slade said. "That's what kills our young superhero. The one person who claims to love him, who adopted him, who trained him, can't be bothered to concentrate on him for more than a second before rushing off to save Gotham. No, no. What Robin will get here is my undivided attention. Here he gets the stern father figure he's always needed."

Robin didn't move as Slade removed the empty tube from his lips. His eyes remained closed, but his cheeks turned slightly pick as the round of vitamins began pulsing through hot air in the machine. The vitamins would be rubbed on Robin's skin, ingested through his pores before the tiny needles started injecting the more serious vitamins.

"I just want to know," Ratchet swallowed nervously, "what is your special concoction? We should know if we're going to give him the proper care."

"I borrowed it from a very big brute, so big the Bat's scared of him."

"Bane's serum?" Ratchet whirled towards him. "You stole his venom?"

"Borrowed, my dear. Not enough to notice, certainly not enough to create our own monster. Just enough to give Robin a little kick."

Wilkes turned away from the screens to stare at him. Only the goons guarding the door seemed unfazed.

"May I suggest you tie him down to the bed extra tight tonight," Slade chuckled.

"You're playing with fire," Ratchet warned.

"Probably. Make sure the video cameras are on him for the last round. I want to see if his veins turn hard when we inject the diluted venom."

An hour later, the machine finally whirled to a stop. Robin, who hadn't moved since the vitamin round, was dead to the world as the suction pressure eased off. The goons unlocked the panel front.

Robin's skin had a flushed, healthy glow to it. His chest rose and fell as he breathed; his arms and legs looked stronger, more robust than they had two hours ago.

He didn't wake up as they pulled him out and wrapped him in a robe. Slade scooped him up in his arms and carried him into the elevator.

Robin's eyes fluttered open once when he was put to bed in his own room, but he didn't make a sound.

R&R&R&R

Consciousness gradually returned to Robin at the end of a series of strange dreams. Morning light shone through the high window, and he stared at it as he tried to remember where he was.

His face heated up at the memory of what he had endured the day before. That was Slade for you – not just a villain who wanted to win and beat you but a villain who also wanted to shame and humiliate you just for his own twisted pleasure.

Batman had never done that. Oh, sure, Batman had pointed out his mistakes, grating on tiny little details until Robin nearly lost his temper, but Batman took no pleasure in it. Robin hated seeing that scowl under the cowl directed at him, but he had forced himself to listen to Batman's lectures, muttering "Yes, sir" every so often so Batman wouldn't think he was defiant.

The nice thing about being the leader of the Titans was that they rarely ever questioned him, not as superheroes. Their arguments tended to be on a more personal level – what to order for dinner when everyone was tired of pizza, who should get Raven out of her dark funk, who to tell Starfire that the hugging needed to happen less frequently.

They often blew up at each other, proving to Robin's dismay that they were more like normal teenagers than he wanted to admit. He used to go to his room and sit there at the end of their fights. Cyborg said he was sulking, and Beast Boy would stand outside his room, saying, "Stop sulking, Robin. Come out and we'll be friends again. I'll get the girls to apologize to you. No one thinks your hair is stupid – Starfire doesn't know how human hair should look."

But Robin hadn't been sulking. He had been sitting on his bed, staring at the phone, wondering if he should call Batman. It would have been so comforting then to tell Batman about their problems, their little spats – he would have loved to gripe, "Come on, Bruce, really. Why does Starfire have to love every animal in the universe? And Beast Boy won't stop bouncing around when we're trying to concentrate. It's so annoying!"

But he never picked up the phone. You didn't call Batman about everyday normal problems. You called him when the world was about to end, when you were dying, when you were completely and utterly beaten.

Robin glanced down at the bed, at his wrists locked snugly into the cuffs. The world wasn't ending; he had just been kidnapped. He wasn't dying; he wasn't even sore. Whatever that horrid machine had done to him, he felt stronger than ever. And he wasn't beaten, not yet.

He wouldn't call Batman even if he had a phone right next to him. In fact, he wouldn't tell Batman about any of this once he got free. Being a superhero wasn't about whining over inconveniences. It was about survival and endurance and beating bad guys and protecting people and never, ever letting Slade win.

Robin sat up, intending to wiggle his wrists out of the cuffs like the day before. But he sat up too quickly and yanked.

The metal anchoring of the cuffs snapped free like paperclips, and the leather ripped off the buckles. The bed gave a sad groan at the sudden movement, shuddering beneath him.

Robin stared in horror at the loose restraints. He hadn't meant to break them.

What had they done to his body? He felt roughly the same, well, better than he had in a long time, but nothing too strange. He looked the same, but his strength –

Footsteps sounded in the hallway.

Panicked, Robin looked around trying to decide what to do. Make a break for it? Hide somewhere? Demand answers?

The doorknob turned, and Robin did the only thing he could. He put his arms down, laid back on the pillow, and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep.

Maybe they would think the cuffs broke in his sleep. Maybe they would think the cuffs were already broken. Either way, he wanted to hide his new-found strength until he had time to figure out a plan.

A mean little voice in the back of his head told him that Batman would have already had a plan. He promptly told the little voice to suck it.