Amo followed me.
Scared me half to death.
Something about that comment sounds familiar and ironic, and not just because I'm dead…
But it sticks to the corner, hidden in the darkest part of this room. It's always a bit light; there are lights on all the different machines, the darkest being the corners. I try to get Amo to come closer, but stubbornly it sits in the corner, the only proof that it's even there two slight distortions of color.
"Amo-"
The door opens, the light turns on. And Amo is gone.
I blink where it last was, before turning to Robin, who comes over and hands me a bowl. It's white mush. It looks a lot like what I was given before.
"It's ice cream," he explains. "Apparently there's no sugar in it, so it shouldn't be too sweet. It's cold, too."
I'm shocked at how considerate it is. I pick up the spoon and mix it in the mush before lifting it to my mouth. He's right. Not too sweet. It doesn't have much flavor at all, actually, but the cold is wonderful, and I don't have to worry about it being too solid.
"Thank you."
"Sure." He sits down on what I'd come to think of as his chair, unwrapping something pink and chewing on it. He catches me looking. "Do you want any? It's kinda pure sugar." I shake my head.
I slowly eat the ice cream, worried it won't stay down. Robin pulls out his phone again and flips through it while chewing on several different colors of his sugar. It takes a moment, but I gradually get used to Robin being here and stop watching him.
My mind wanders to the people that were with Robin before, and I mull over their behavior towards me.
"Why are they so obsessed with me?" I ask finally, still looking at the ice cream.
Robin doesn't look up from his phone. "They knew you before."
"Before what?"
"Before you got taken. Before the facility place." He chews on another color, green this time. Where are they coming from? He just seems to have an endless supply!
"What was I like then?" I wonder out loud, putting another spoonful of ice cream in my mouth.
"Jazz and Tucker would be far more equipped to answer that, but, as you saw, they're a little aggressive with it." I nod, not looking at him. "So you forgot everything; there really is no pressure to remember. Amnesiacs usually take longer to remember when they feel they have a timeline."
"How long have I been gone?"
"Eight months, I think, or nine. They've been looking since you were gone, but this team only joined the search maybe four, five months ago."
"So you've heard stories?" I want to know who I was. But Jazz and Tucker… Every word they say is filled with pleading for me to remember.
"Oh, yeah." He gives a little laugh. "Wanna hear some?" I nod. "Alright. So one of my personal favorites is when you fought the Master Of ALL REALITY! Sorry, they always say it like that. But apparently there was this guy you fought before. He tried to kill you, but I mean, that's kind of all villains. So he kidnapped all these people, including Jazz's, Sam's and Tucker's parents. You had to collect these gems…"
I finish my ice cream as Robin tells me this elaborate tale of this weird circus master guy. Then he tells me about a fight with some guy named Plasmius (one of many, he says) and a weather ghost, and leads that into one with a ghost named Fright Night who's sword transports people to a dimension of their worst fears.
I don't know how to feel about who I was before. I sound constantly naive, clueless and selfish. But I'm also this brave hero who saves people, usually with a great deal of cunning. It's like… I'm trying desperately to be a teenage boy, who is naive, clueless and selfish, but knows better. I wonder if I'll be that person again.
"What about Sam?" I ask finally, when Robin pauses to eat again. "Why didn't she look for me?"
He pauses and grimaces. "Um, she went missing with you." I blink. That doesn't make any sense. I was never with anyone. She was never with me at all. "We haven't seen any trace of her."
"Is she dead?"
"We don't know."
For some reason, I feel a horrible regret open up inside me. What if she's dead? Would it be my fault? Who even is she? Robin senses my change in mood.
"Hey," he prods, careful. "If she's out there, we'll find her."
"Okay." But I don't sound convinced.
An awkward silence descends, and my thoughts begin to consume more and more of my attention. This Sam person, my captivity… They wind deeper and deeper down. Blood, fire, screaming. Electricity, pain. I can't move, they're yelling. Yelling…
"HEY!" shouts Robin in my face. With a snap I am back with him, disoriented. I shake the thoughts away.
"Sorry," I mutter.
"You can't do that," he scolds, angry. "You can't go off into that world. You aren't there any more. You need to stay here, in reality. Yeah, those memories aren't going to go away. But you can't let them take you. Do you understand me?"
Surprised at his reaction, I nod slowly.
"Say it, then."
"I'll, um…" I trail off.
Robin just waits, no prompts.
"I'll stay in reality…?"
"And?"
"I won't not stay in reality?"
He isn't amused. "You won't let…"
"Let the memories take me away from reality?"
He leans back, out of my face. "Yes."
"Okay."
The tense atmosphere disintegrates suddenly. "Hey, I have an idea!"
Wary, I ask what it is.
"Why don't we get you into a shower? You probably want to wash up. It's been a while, I think."
I give him a sheepish smile. "Yeah, okay. What about the casts?"
"We can wrap them in waterproof stuff. Can you stand?" He offers his hand. I set the bowl beside me on the bedside table and take the offered hand, letting him pull me up. With infinite carefulness he pulls out the needle accompanied with the IV from my arm.
I notice now that I'm wearing loose sweatpants and a T-shirt. I hadn't even noticed before.
Robin leads me over to one of the doors, which leads in to a line of showers separated by curtains. He pulls out a tube of black wrap that I hadn't noticed him grabbing.
"Shirt off," he commands. I give him a weird look. "Calm down, I'm not going to follow you in or anything. Even if Wally hits on me, I'm not gay. I am, however, going to wrap your bandages in this shrink wrap stuff."
I wrestle it off with my broken hand, mostly succeeding. The sleeve of it got caught on my right upper arm, and I can't grab it because my left hand is a freaking fist. Robin chuckles before grabbing it and tossing it behind him. He looks at me and back down at the stuff.
"You aren't going to freak out about this, are you?"
"I don't know. But I do know if it does freak me out and I accidentally kill you, I can use it to bury you." He looks taken aback. I shrug. "Waterproof."
He gives a loud laugh before yanking the thing open. I'm glad he gave me warning before, because it sounds a lot like the white coats opening bags of tools. Robin skillfully wraps the wrap around all the bandages on my torso, arm and hand, sticking it to my skin.
"Your head one won't get wrapped, though," he mentions. My unbandaged hand goes up to my head, where I just now feel the two bandages on either side of my forehead. Without thinking, I pull one off. "Wait! Wait. What?" He leans closer, inspecting where the bandage was. "It's almost all healed."
"Super healing," I brag. "Gotta love it."
He gives me an innocent smile before yanking off the other bandage, sending a sharp jab of pain through me.
"OW!"
"Yeah, you didn't scream when you did the other one," he sasses. Then he brushes my hair out of the way to look at the other side. "Same. Almost healed."
"Yay. Can I take a shower now?"
Robin chuckles. "Sure." He leans inside the stall up against the wall, where a support bar is bolted to the wall. "This is so you don't fall." I nod. He points to the three containers glued to the wall adjacent to the bar. "Shampoo, conditioner, soap." I nod again. Then he touches a black screen and it lights up. "Shower settings. I'd say pick the steam one, but you probably want it cold. I'll get you a towel." He disappears outside the curtain and comes back with one, throwing it over the top of the curtain. "And I'll just be outside. Any questions?" I shake my head. "Alright. Take your time."
He pulls the curtain shut behind him.
It takes a bit of finagling with the little touchscreen but I get it to its coldest setting and flip on the water. It feels amazing. So amazing, in fact, I'm in there for almost an hour. Fortunately, Robin doesn't say anything about it. I almost fall a few times, but I catch myself on the bar. Again, no comment from Robin.
It takes a lot of willpower to shut off the water. Staying here forever would be my dream come true, but standing so long was starting to hurt. My legs were weak from lack of use and my head was starting to pound from the water. Once the water is off, Robin talks again.
"Hey, some clothes were dropped off for you. Would you like to wear those?"
"Yes." I don't hear him for a second as I towel off and am about to call for him, but I hear him come back in.
I wrap the towel around my waist and push aside the curtain. Robin looks up from the pile of clothes in his hands.
"Wow, your hair is really white! Here, come choose."
He sets them down on a bench. He picks up a shirt that's white with a red oval and another that's blue with a logo in the center with a bunch of stars and NASA printed in the middle of it. But I spot something black at the bottom and yank it out, upending the whole pile.
Robin sighs. "Well that was unnecessary."
The material in my hand is rubbery but flexible. I'm confused with it and let it unfold. Robin picks up all the clothes I dropped, still muttering.
The suit is so familiar I want to scream. It's just out of reach… Urgh. It has a white collar and a strange logo of a D, open so it has the imprint of a P. The rest of it is black, long sleeved.
"That's your superhero suit," Robin tells me. "But I don't think you'll be able to fit it over your casts. Besides, it's probably not very comfortable."
"No, it's very comfortable," I insist. "But this isn't all of it."
Robin gives me a huge smile. "You're starting to remember a bit!" He ruffles through the pile and pulls out a pair of gloves. "The boots and belt are still in the bag Jazz gave me. Jazz and Tucker fixed it up while you were missing, when we had no leads. I guess they were hoping you'd come back and immediately be a hero again."
Looking at the suit gives me all kinds of fragmented feelings. This suit… I flew in this suit, fought in it, trained in it. This suit belongs to Phantom. All I have to do is get into it again, and I'll fly, and fight, and train again.
"I do," I say quietly. Then, a bit more forcefully. "I do! I don't remember smack about my other life. But whether I remember or not isn't important. I want to wear this again."
Robin gets a mischievous look on his… well, his mask. "That can be arranged."
You guys are so cool :). I'm loving the feedback on the reviews! You guys actually gave me a pretty good idea of how Danny's memories unveil... Which, to assuage your fears, won't be drawn out forever, promise.
I haven't settled on a set posting schedule, but as you've probably already noticed, it doesn't take me too long.
-Disclaimer, disclaimer