Dick Grayson
Fifteen meals. Five days, assuming three meals a day. If it was only two meals, it'd be longer. I didn't want to think about it being longer. The lights never went off, I never left the cell, except once, when Davis chained me up and took me to get a shower. He leered at me for the whole five minutes I had been given, but he didn't say a word. The silence was part of my punishment, too.
I filled my days with whatever calisthenics I could manage in the claustrophobic space. Handstands, one armed pushups, sit-ups, squats. Reps numbering in the hundreds. Honestly, I usually lost count.
The morning of the sixth day, I woke up and stretched, surprised to find less resistance from my shoulder. It had taken longer than I should have, but the wound was finally healing, and it was now just an angry purple scar, thick and scabby.
I rubbed my face, very aware that my stubble had started to turn into a weak, scraggly beard. I didn't have a mirror, but I could just imagine how I looked - like a castaway on a deserted island, alone and walking close to the edge of insanity. Unanchored from reality, time, and loved ones.
Loved ones...
Damn it, Jason. Do you know I've regretted every second since I pushed you away? God, I'm so sorry.
Maybe it's for the best. I didn't deserve you anyway.
The slot on my cell door slid open, and a tentative voice slipped in from the hallway. "Mr. Grayson? It's Terrance… I mean CO Bradley. I'm supposed to take you for yard time?"
Automatically, like one of Pavlov's dogs, I slipped my hands through the opening, back against the door. I waited.
Yard time? That's a first.
Is it a bad sign that I'm excited?
"Oh, uh. Yeah. Right. Sorry." Terrance stumbled over an apology as he loosely clicked the restraints in place. I stepped away and he swung the door open. As always, the next steps were already rote: Stomach chain, leg irons. Each carefully tightened and connected to prevent running or fighting. He stood, making a final check on his work.
There's no way he's even eighteen yet. He's just a kid. And they accuse Bruce of training child-soldiers? Hypocrites.
I smiled down at him as he took my arm. He was at least a head shorter than me, and looked younger than I remembered. His face was set - trying to seem brave but clearly terrified underneath.
Terrified of me? Or the consequences if he screws this up?
I gambled, striking up a conversation as we walked down the corridor. "No CO Davis today?"
Terrance looked around nervously, "No. out sick. Lot of guys are today." He stopped short and shook his head. "Sorry, I'm not sure I'm supposed to be talking to you."
Definitely not scared of me. Why do I get the feeling he's almost as much of a prisoner here as I am?
I nodded, absently trying to keep track of the steps and turns through the hallways. Finally, we stopped at the door to a half-court gymnasium. My heart sank, and I was ashamed at the disappointment that bubbled up my throat.
No yard. No fresh air. No wan sunlight. Just another small room.
For a minute I felt like I was trapped in my own skin, or buried alive. I closed my eyes, tried to imagine wide open spaces, but the stale air made it impossible. Each breath became an explosion, and I did everything I could to slow it down.
In four, out six. In six, out eight.
Terrance jostled my shoulder.
"You ok, man?"
"Yeah, no, I…" I cursed myself for stammering, and I filled my lungs till I thought they would burst in a failing effort to steady my voice. "Just feeling a little cooped up is all. I grew up in a circus, so lots of big tents, open fairgrounds, and travel. I start to get stir-crazy if I stay in one place too long."
I was vaguely aware that I was running my mouth, but I was desperate for some kind of human interaction. And the kid had asked, after all.
Terrance was wide-eyed, and cast a furtive glance over his shoulder before beaming up at me. "That is so cool," he whispered, "I'm from Gotham, born and bred, so I didn't do anything exciting like that before… well, before everything."
He opened the wire gate to the gym and unlocked my restraints. "I get feeling stuck though. My family and me spent weeks in the laundry room at our old apartment during the war, thought I was gonna go nuts."
The door swung shut, and he said, with finality, like he'd given away too much, "They told me to give you an hour."
God it felt good to move, to stretch and jump without banging into a wall or a toilet.
I warmed up with a set of back handsprings - couldn't go too crazy, space was limited. Still, I tried to lose myself in a modified routine. Layouts and twists. But I felt like a bird with its wings clipped - there was no flying in this tiny box.
I stopped. The ache in my chest was back, gnawing and incessant. Trapped. No way out. Did Bruce assume I was dead? Were they grieving? Or putting themselves in danger trying to look for me? I wasn't sure which option was worse. My stomach churned with bone deep anxiety and I swallowed hard on the acid creeping into my mouth.
'Yard time'. Somehow it made me feel worse. I looked to the door, prepared to ask Terrance to just take me back to my cell, but he was gone. Instead, Inspector LeGrande stood behind the wire and metal door, arms crossed, looking unimpressed.
"I'm afraid I'll have to cut your recreational time short, Mr. Grayson. I've just received a message from the President's office. It's time for you to serve your government. Back against the door, I assume you know the protocol by now."
I faced her, resolutely keeping my feet flat on the floor, fists clenched and a snarl on my lips. I was not in the mood for her mind games again. Not today.
She scoffed. "Do you think your accommodations are bleak now? Please, continue to defy me. You will find there is no bottom to the depths of pain in which I can make you sink."
I narrowed my eyes, hoping to look dangerous. I'm sure I just looked pathetic, like a wounded and cornered animal. Feral, baring its teeth.
She tapped her foot impatiently, but there was a glint of worry in her eyes, and it suddenly dawned on me. The prison was quiet. No chatter of guards, no echo of boots. If she wanted me out of this room, why didn't she call over some bruisers to drag me out?
Terrance said CO Davis was sick. But that wasn't entirely true, was it?
No, Tim's plan had worked - Without the drugs we destroyed, Enforcers were in withdrawal, probably as much a danger to themselves as others, and likely impossible to control. Which meant LeGrande was weak. At a disadvantage.
Maybe if I do play along, just for a little while, I might get an opportunity to get out of here.
I dropped my head and shoulders - I needed to look contrite. Defeated. I took slow, small steps over to the door and turned around.
LeGrande was decidedly more cruel than poor Terrance, and she tightened the cuffs until I could feel them cutting into my skin. She didn't bother with additional restraints, which was a shame, really, because I would have liked the opportunity to kick her in the face. Instead she dragged me along by the elbow and into a sparsely furnished room with large flood lights blinding me from the perimeter, then pushed me towards a chair bolted to the center.
"Sit. Now."
I hesitated. I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd seen this room before. And the smell - sharp, metallic.
Blood.
Suddenly, my plan of 'playing along' didn't seem so brilliant anymore. Whatever this was, I wasn't going to participate willingly. I lowered my head, centered my balance, and charged at LeGrande.
I was met with a sharp, burning pain that pulled the air from my lungs as she dug the electrodes of a taser into my side. My knees buckled and I collapsed to the floor, gasping.
"Officer Bradley, if you would be so kind?" LeGrande tugged on my arm to hoist me up, and Terrance followed suit, his eyes wide and brimming with tears. Together, they dropped me in the chair, and Terrance set to work securing me to it with thick zip ties.
"I'm sorry about this. I'm really sorry about this. And order's an order, you know. I'm sorry," he whispered behind me as he finished his task.
I could see just beyond the lights in the room, now. I wish I hadn't. Two large digital studio cameras, each manned by someone obscured by the brightness. A teleprompter, angled away. And then I remembered. The room, the chair, the blood.
Executions of so-called 'terrorists' were always televised. Broadcast on the Global News Network for everyone to see. Proof that Luthor's government was working tirelessly to keep its citizens 'safe'. We used to watch them from our bunker in the early days, piggybacking a signal off the stadium's old antenna. Lately, only Tim and Babs were keeping track. It was too demoralizing for the rest of us.
But now I was here. The main character on the set of a real life horror show. I felt like I was suffocating.
No. No… it doesn't end like this. I can't let it end like this…
LeGrande stepped into view, dispassionate as always. Only a slight smile, nearly sinister, gave away any indication of what she was feeling.
Superior. Powerful. Satisfied.
I opened my mouth to… beg? Lash out? Debate? I wasn't sure in the fog of my mounting panic. But she stepped forward and secured a leather gag over the bottom half of my face, smile growing as she tightened it beyond necessity.
"None of that now. Wouldn't want your infamous 'wit' to interrupt our important work here today. After all, one doesn't need to speak to be an effective lure."
Fluidly, she pulled Terrance's baton from his belt and swung, connecting with the side of my face. I choked and sputtered behind the gag as blood filled my mouth.
She crouched down to eye level, savoring her ill-gotten victory. "President Luthor and top officials in his Department of Global Peace have decided to end Batman's reign of terror in Gotham, once and for all. You are the perfect leverage necessary to bring your 'family' out of hiding, and directly into our net. So Officer Bradley is going to 'rough you up' as the saying goes, I will say some words about your upcoming Tribunal, and then we will wait with bated breath, until Bruce Wayne himself deigns to retrieve his charge. Assuming, of course, that you matter enough for him to even attempt such a daring rescue."
She stood and adjusted her suit, tugging her skirt down and smoothing wrinkles from her blouse. "Are we ready?" She asked the shadowy figures behind the cameras and lights.
She signaled to Terrance, who stepped into the light with a grimace, his face pale and apologetic, and she pushed the baton into his hands.
"Let's begin."