A/N:
Ok, first I wanted to apologize for the update being so far in between.
I know I've been gone a while but I've had trouble deciding what to do
with these next few chapters leading up the point of this fic,
vengeance. Chapter 4 should bring the previous ones together and
prepare for the all out mayhem I have planned for Gotham.
Now
to talk about what's going on in this chapter. Basically Freeze saves
Jason from his doom, and takes him back to his residence to recuperate.
Jason goes through illusions regarding Bruce, while Freeze seems like a
good guy. Freeze is trying to get Jason to see things his regarding
Batman, and that is that he needs to be dead.
Robin removed his mask and asked himself aloud, "What am I gonna do? I have seconds to live." He nervously thought, "All these years of training with Batman and being his loyal servant, and he was so easily subdued by The Joker- leaving me to die?"
Sweat poured down Robin's brow and he anxiously wiped it away. He was moving towards the right side of the room when he saw an exit. His plans of escape, however, were interrupted as a roof beam came crashing down. Robin turned and saw Victor Fries standing near the door. Freeze held out his hand towards Robin. Robin sarcastically thought, "Great. I'm being engulfed in flames and this whack job wants to come and fight. Batman, you sure do know how to pick 'em."
Freeze looked at Robin, held out his hand again, and said, "Come with me, young Robin, and I can protect you." Robin sneered at Freeze and turned his back. Freeze slyly said "Of course you can always go back to Batman, to be unloved, to be second best to Dick Grayson, third rate to Barbara Gordon." Robin worriedly wondered how Freeze knew their identities. "I can get you out of here. I know this building in and out," said Freeze reassuringly.
Robin thought for seconds too long, and the roof of the building collapsed around him.
---
Robin slowly grunted as he awoke in a dark corridor. He exhaled and ice vapor escaped his mouth. "Where am I?" Robin questioned himself. He attempted to move, but groaned in pain. "Is this a dream?" Robin again asked himself, but this time aloud.
"No, young Robin, you're quite alive, and this isn't a dream. Yes, I'm sure you're asking yourself how I saved you and why," Freeze said, walking closer to Robin's position lying on the table.
"Why I saved you? Because I couldn't let you die after all of those years of being treated harshly by Bruce and the way he put you beneath others. Your soul wouldn't be at peace. Had it been any other Bat...'member' in that fire, I wouldn't have saved them. I have no compassion for them. You, on the other hand, are special. Bruce isn't worthy of you, not the other way around. Now, lay back, my young friend, and recuperate," Freeze said as he walked away.
Robin fought his hardest to keep from dozing off; his eyelids collapsed and he struggled to re-open them. Robin couldn't let his guard down while in the presence of Freeze. Robin's fight to stay awake was deemed useless; it seemed as if an outside force was slamming his eyes shut.
-- A giant bat swooped through the air, came towards Robin and latched onto his back. It pulled him hundreds of feet into the air. Robin looked up and saw Bruce smiling, and, for a brief moment, Jason felt warmth around him. Yet Bruce's facial features expressed anger, sorrow, rage, and disappointment all at the same time, and he said, "You're not good enough to be any pupil of mine." The bat dropped him hundreds of feet towards the ground. When Jason landed, he felt his back break.
"Aaaaaaaaaaah!"
He yelled out in pain and awoke in a cold sweat. "Freeze, where am I?" Robin asked Mr. Freeze.
"Why, young Robin, you've been asleep for months."
Robin breathed nervously. "Has anyone been looking for me?"
"If by anyone you mean Batman, then…" Freeze hesitated and said, "I'm sorry to tell you this young Robin, but… no. They've all accepted your death, and Batman has sent Nightwing and Barbara to do the work he obviously thought you couldn't."
Robin thought, "Wha…?"
"Young Jason you've been asleep for months." Freeze moved his hand, which was covered in a blue glove to hide its fragile form, and picked up a remote with several red buttons and assorted keys. He pressed a switch and a picture of a DNA chromosome came into view. "The gas that The Joker sprayed you with was meant to kill you. How you survived it, I don't know, but," Freeze put on a smile that only hid evil intentions, none of which Jason was aware of, "I'm glad that you did survive, for you to die as Batman's slave would have been insane, you should exact your revenge… I mean live your life while not under that harsh wall of stones." Freeze placed his fingers in the air in a quoting motion and said, "Loving care."
A thousand thoughts rushed through Jason's mind, sweat raced down his face, he panted like a dog roaming through the city on a hot New York day without water. He dozed for merely seconds, he thought. Fond memories of Bruce suddenly raced through his head.
Jason stood in the middle of a dojo in the Batcave, he lifted his foot into the air ninety-degrees back, and without warning kicked it forward knocking a training dummy of it's holder. A sweet and caring Bruce embraced Jason while he winced from the pain.
Seconds later, nothing but a blur could be seen in the memory, pink skin roughened by years of training impacted upon his face. Knocking him towards the ground sending his teeth sprawling across the ground. "You think that's something to be tired and in pain about?" Yelled Bruce with a ferocity that made the Batcave seemingly tremble.
Jason's rage maneuvered through his body with the freedom of an untamed river, it swooned through him uncontrollably, his eyes opened and closed violently. His rage had to be redirected, Bruce didn't know any better. "I… I…, die exact my reve…" Jason could barely utter the words with what little ability he had left to form a coherent thought. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought. "How could I possible contemplate going against Bruce!?"
The room became a blur again, his eyesight once again blurred, body temperature raised, he felt as though his body was a volcano. For some reason he couldn't control himself, for an uncountable amount of time he had been dozing in and out of reality, and for that matter he no longer knew what reality was: was the state he was in now even reality?
Freeze, who had normally been his enemy, had suddenly become his friend… Jason couldn't even remember how long Freeze had been his friend time was of no realization to him. Bruce, the man that had once been a father figure to him had become a person he feared. Bruce was only there to point out his mistakes, nothing more. Yet with the speed of a cheetah in an African jungle on the run from hunters, Bruce ran towards Jason yet again, seemingly took a bat from nowhere and prepared to hit Jason. "Aah!" Jason screamed. Bruce's facial expressions took a turn for the worse. His hand moved towards Jason's throat leaving the boy defenseless and with no time to react. "Never scream," Bruce snarled and pressed down around the boy's throat.
The room swirled around yet again to become something new; Bruce walked forward to the edge of a cliff and held Jason over the edge. Jason reached into the air to grab Bruce's arm to pull him back up, but no matter how many times he tried, he could never even touch Bruce. Bruce's eyes glowed yellow, and he laughed maniacally and said, "Only real Robins can fly."
He held Jason further out over the cliff and let his grip of the boy go. The ground which merely seemed hundreds of feet away before now became a distant figure that he could never have chances of reaching. His body violently twisted and turned yearning to grab onto a stray path of rocks while he fell down, suddenly Bruce's words etched through his mind. "Only a real Robin can fly, Only a real Robin can fly, Only a real Robin can fly."
Jason screamed, wishing what he was experiencing was all a bad dream and that his scream would bring him back to reality. It failed, and he swooned closer to the ground, Jason heard screeching, not that of humans but of a life form small… he realized that they were bats. Hundreds came towards him and they looked as though they were prepared to rip him into shreds.
The pack of bats passed over him; he turned to see where they were going the wind raced through his hair and made it stand on end. The bats reached the ground, and all instinctively stood vertical on wing tips. Seconds later, their bodies collected together into a giant mass and became spikes. Jason feared for his life: he had no way of stopping himself. He closed his eyes and prepared to play the cards fate had dealt him.