"What do you want to do with your life?"
My gloves drip red. Slade's blood smears across my fists and up my forearms. Pummeling him isn't an accurate description.
No, I'm beating Slade to death. Which is odd, given my less-than superhuman capabilities, and Slade's, well, superhuman abilities.
He's a source for me to take my anger out on.
How many times have we let him slip by? How many times have we let him go because the authority wasn't in our hands? Most criminals rip off banks. Slade Wilson? He takes whatever he can--whatever pays the most. As long as he gets paid, he's fine with doing whatever it takes to finish the job, civility be damned.
A right hook slams across Slade's face, and I hear a crack. I can't tell—and don't care—if it's my fist shattering or his maxilla bone. For the moment, I'm focused on gaining the upperhand. For the moment anyway, the rest of the world melts away...
What was it Bruce told me once? "To beat your enemy, think like your enemy."
Not difficult.
Slade Wilson has always thought his actions were justifiable. Always thought he operated within perfectly reasonable grounds of morality and righteousness. And who could argue? As long as his check is deposited, Slade walks away from any responsibility for his actions.
No…
Slade Wilson is a thug. He associates with other thugs. He's the playground bully who's pushed us around for years. And it's not going to be that way anymore.
"There," I say, slamming another fist into his nose. Between hits, I can see his nose crooks a bit; the cartilage is split from the bone. Good. "How does that feel?"
I let up for a moment. I pull a razor batarang on him, and press it slowly into his jugular.
"Where is he?"
Slade coughs up blood, spits it in my face. I disregard it.
"Who?" He chokes weakly. His voice is gritty and nasal, a byproduct of the broken cartilage and blood coursing its way down his throat. For the moment Slade has to breathe through his mouth. He takes deep gasps—as deep as he can anyway—when he's got a Boy Wonder sitting on top of him, crushing his lungs. Healing power be damned, I can break him.
I move the razor batarang up his face, holding it just below his good eye. His eye flashes to the batarang momentarily, then back at me.
"I'll ask again. Where is he?"
"Around," Slade patronizes.
"That's not good enough!"
Another right hook sends teeth and blood from Slade's jaw.
My arm burns. I've probably injured some bones—my own and definitely some of Slade's. But I don't care. Slade's face is a series of blood lines and bruises, mostly concentrated around his mandible, temples and nose. His eyepatch remains. His good eye is bloodshot and angry. The area around it burns a deep purple.
I grab the collar of his suit, and stand, pulling him up with me. I'm at full height. Slade hangs lazily in my hands, staring hatefully at me—silently analytical. Part of me wonders if he really doesn't know where Conner is.
"Tell me where Luthor's hiding him."
"Go to Hell," he grumbles angrily. His head hangs back at an angle.
"Tell me now!"
"Or what?"
"I finish what your wife started," I challenge, bringing the razor batarang back to Slade's face. I stare into his cold blue eye…and he stares right back at me.
I half expect Bruce to come walking up behind me, slap a hand on my shoulder and tell me to let Deathstroke go. But…no. Bruce isn't going to show up—I didn't ask him to. Deathstroke isn't going to get away—I'm not letting him.
Not this time.
"I can break you."
"No," he says and shakes his head. "You can't."
A flash out of the corner of my eye, and I release my grip on Slade a nanosecond too late. His leg slips around one of mine and puts me in a leg-lock, and he shoves off.
The force of Slade's flip throws me over top of him, and I land square on one of my vertebrae. The pain momentarily paralyzes me.
My eyes flutter open, and Slade's already standing over me. His broadsword is clutched tightly in his hand, the sharpened end now pressed against my jugular. He's good.
"You underestimated me," Slade says, half amused and half suprised. "It's a common mistake."
I lay there. Beaten, huddled on the cold floor. My face hurts. My hands hurt. My body hurts. I underestimated him. Thought…if I could keep him down long enough, he'd stay that way.
I let my anger get the best of me. Once I had him pinned down, I let loose. Everything came out. I got…reckless. I was never reckless. I was always the detective. The most like Batman. The one who would sit in the cave waiting for him to send me back samples from the crime scene, so I could analyze them and tell Bruce what he needed to know.
Bruce is…a fusion of brains and brawn. The pinnacle, in his way. He's fought Slade twice. The first time they met, Bruce was overwhelmed. The second time...Bruce came prepared. He always prepares. And when he doesn't…he improvises.
He could lose both his legs and still find a way to beat his opponent. Bruce can adapt. He can become something else entirely. Me?
"What do you want to do with your life?"
I'm Tim Drake. Robin…the Boy Wonder…
I stare at the glistening blade of Slade's sword, my eyes course across the shimmering blade, up Slade's arm, and lock on him. I don't try to move. His message is clear.
For the moment, Slade Wilson stares coldly at me, his mouth drawn downwards an almost depressed frown.
"You're good," he says.
He reaches down, and rips the utility belt from my waist, stares at it puzzlingly for a few seconds. With a slight shrug, he tosses it over his shoulder like a wet towel.
"But I'm better."
He tosses the sword in the air. It flips and lands reversed in his hand. He's holding the end of the blade now, with the hilt facing me.
In a flash, the sword leaves my sight, and a blinding pain slaps across my face. And the world goes dark.
Light.
Harsh. It's from overhead. My eyes adjust fairly rapidly. I suddenly figure out I'm not dead, because apparently a higher purpose values my company.
I can't feel much of anything below my waist. It's…a little disconcerting. I open and close my mouth slowly, trying to bring feeling back. The cartilage clicks almost noiselessly. There's a pounding in my head.
I realize I'm horizontal. On the floor. And it's cold. Maybe…purposefully.
"Bart Allen," a voice calls to me from somewhere. It almost rings a bell. "Grandson of Barry Allen, is it?"
I can't feel my legs. Ironically enough, I can sense the impulses; I know I'm trying to move them. But I can't. Why not?
"I can't feel my legs," I say, half panicking.
"Calm down," the voice says. "You've been injected with a metabolic inhibitor. We'll call it that for lack of a better word."
"Where am I?"
"Can't you tell? That brain of yours should have figured it out within picoseconds of regaining consciousness."
No, Sherlock I can't. Sheesh, you read one library and everyone thinks you're freakin' Aristotle.
My head turns to one side, and I see him—them. The source of the voice. He's familiar. Part of me wonders why he's even here. He has a company to run. Or I thought he did. I recognize him from the war a few years back. When Young Justice got back from Apokolips, he presented us with medals of service (which we were later told to discard, thank-you-very-much Tim).
Lex Luthor. A bald James Bond, sans the accent, double up on everything else. Most of all…the superiority complex. Yeah, he carries that kind of supremacy with him. It's a well-concealed red flag, but it's still there. Almost makes me feel important and worthless at the same time.
Everything's a little fuzzy, but I can make out basic shapes and symbols. I can see Lex's skull glistening in the light like some divine bowling ball. I can see he's seated. I can see he's surrounded by…people. But I can't make out the details.
"Interesting that it took you that long to catch on," he says in that tone of some snooty doctor. "So much for the, ah, Fastet Boy Alive, eh?"
Luthor and the people around him sit a few yards a way from me, on a tiered dais. My vision starts to clear, and I can make out everyone around him. He's the only one seated. The others: a woman in a skintight, dark green jumpsuit. A man wearing the remnants of a hard day at the office: worn kahkis, a faded white button-down, suspenders, a loosely-bound red necktie, and spectacles that hang loosely off his nose. He's fiddling with a Palm Pilot, not even paying attention to the situation. And there's the floating one. He looks like a capeless Captain Marvel—dressed in blue. But he's not the weirdest one.
Sitting on one of the arms of Luthor's little quasi-throne, his arms folded over his chest…
No…
Conner.
Continued...