A/N: Haha, I apologize guys! When I looked back at the previous chapter, I laughed because I didn't realize how much grammar and misuse of words I used! I'm fixing it now but sorry you had to suffer through that! But tada, new chapter! Now I was gonna split this into two chapters but that seemed like too much work. Lol so get comfy! It's wordy! And omigosh guys! Believe it or not but, this is the second last chapter. Finale is the next chapter over, just in time for Christmas and the end of the year. ;)
(Now you see him,)
Richard twisted in his sheets. The sky that night was stretched with dark clouds and thunderstorm. When lightning flashed in his room, his tired blue eyes painted him the picture of his dull, empty skeleton room with its striped black and white walls leaving him with an eerie feeling. Richard huffed frustratedly and turned on his side to face the rain. It made him distraught, tired, and very cold.
He wanted to be with Rachel, now more than ever. Doctor Slade had said that at any time from this point on, he was finally ready to take her from Arkham whether the staff knew it or not and that terrified the eighteen-year old with so many questions. How long had had that psychiatrist been wanting to take her for? Him and that traitor, Tara. Walking around like she was nothing but a stuck up nurse when instead she was in on the doctor's plan and was helping him cover it up. Bitch!
He fisted his pillow so hard he was sure the encasing would burst. Rachel didn't even know - still doesn't even know that after all these years of being left in here that the very man whose supposed to take care of her was just wanting to ...selling her off. And what did Dr. Slade mean by the Roths? Her family? But he couldn't have none them before they died. Bruce told him psychiatrists were only to handle patients they had never met. Did that mean Dr. Slade lied? And what else was he lying about?
Unable to stand the clenching and his growing erratic heartbeat, Richard sat up in his bed and leaned back against the headboard. What if Dr. Slade meant to ...kidnap her? He said no one would know, she was a special case. A special case. Richard hated that word more than privilege, another word Dr. Slade kept using around him. And if he did plan to take her away ...how? When? Why?
Some dreadful icy feeling inside Richard made him feel like this was somehow connected to...
He shook his head. "Damnit!" he hissed. A roll of thunder followed. He desperately wanted to see Rachel. Every second he thought about her alone in her room clouded his mind with the image of a sadistic one-eyed psychiatrist creeping to her door. But he couldn't.
Rachel said she was sick. She wanted to sleep. And right now, the importance of her health mattered more to him. She was strong but the sooner she got better, the better chance they had of defending themselves. Tara had mentioned they were coming for him next. But what did that mean? Why was he involved too? He could only wonder how many others before Rachel and he were seen by the doctor like this.
Then, a tiny light bulb went off in his head.
Kory...
Garfield...
Richard pulled his blankets away slowly, feeling his adrenaline rise.
"If I can't see her tonight," he whispered hotly to himself, "then the least I can do is try to figure this all out..."
x
Lightning streaked the sky again in Dr. Slade's office and for a moment, Richard thought it'd be okay to turn off the flashlight until the room plunged back into darkness again. His fingers flew across the manila folder tops, carelessly flicking their tabs loudly as he sifted through every name of every shelf in the tall, grey cabinet. But nothing came up with every angry shove he made at the shelf, he grew more anxious onto the next one.
Every name was in the same place since he and Rachel had begun their search. And still, as eerie as it was before, both their names weren't present. He didn't get it! He just couldn't understand ...why were they special cases? What did they "offer to society", as Dr. Slade had said, that the others didn't? When he reached the last file of familiar patient in front of him in the last shelf, he sunk lower onto his knees and sighed heavily, bringing his head down into his hands. Unlike the last shelves he shoved, the last one he pushed softly back into place.
This was it then. After tomorrow, or maybe the next day, or in a few weeks, Rachel would be gone ...and then, so would he. And he wouldn't even know why because he had some pieces, but not enough to figure out the whole puzzle. And he loved solving puzzles.
"Some detective I would be," he muttered darkly, "I can't even put this together. I wouldn't deserve to be one."
He gave a light kick to the cabinet's side. "I don't deserve to be Robin."
Richard thought of Rachel ...as Raven, fighting by her side as he imagined her flying through the air with a smiling Starfire high above them for extra cover. He wondered at times, because they rarely thought it twice, what it would've been like to have more friends living with them at Jump City. Although he hadn't told Rachel, at one time before he found about the teen's terrible secret, he might've considered it nice to have Garfield as fellow hero protecting Jump. Maybe a hero who ...protects people instead of hurting them, preferably animals because he lied about mutilating them but still didn't tolerate them. Maybe he would know what it was like to be like them instead of scaring them... Maybe that Victor guy, would've been nice too. Rachel, Kory, and Garfield had met him before he left, and they liked him. Maybe he could've been on team fighting for Jump. But ...what kind of powers would he have? They all had to have some kind of speciality, that's how Rachel saw them.
Richard furrowed his brow and thought about Victor some more. Then he reached for the second shelf from the bottom and pulled it out, looking for Victor's name to take out his file. He remembered seeing it there but forgot what Victor was charged with and sent to Arkham for. When Richard could find that out, he could use it the way he and Rachel did to empower themselves.
"'V'... 'V'..." he mumbled. Dr. Slade only went by first names with his file. "Here ...Victor Stone." And with a prepared tug, Richard yanked the tight file out from its shelf ...only to find Victor's folder empty.
"W-what?"
Richard stared at it for a moment. "But ...h-why?" There used to be papers there. He wasn't mad, he'd skimmed Victor's file months ago while Raven did another shelf. Curious but too tired to search for something he wasn't even sure for where to start looking, Richard sighed and placed it on the floor and went up for another shelf. He carelessly went searching for Garfield's file.
Only to find it empty too.
Richard's heart pounded. Now something wasn't right. In a blur, he picked up Victor's file and held it with Garfield as he went looking for a final verdict. Kory. And when he opened it,
"This is... w-what the hell is-"
Clumsily, Richard dropped Kory's file and the other two tumbled with it. He sighed and after shutting the cabinet went to reach for them in the dark. Then, his knuckles brushed something hard and cold beside the cabinet. Shining his flashlight on it, Richard saw something that wasn't there before in the weeks he and Rachel snuck into Dr. Slade's office.
"Another cabinet...?" he breathed as he inched toward it. It was against the wall, small and short with only two shelves that were supposed to be padlocked but weren't - the locks were missing and it appeared slightly opened. Richard felt an ominous, cold feeling grow inside him the closer he crawled. The cabinet looked old and rusted, and was banged places. It even looked like it was stained in something like dirt or ...suspiciously old blood.
Richard was almost afraid to shine a light on it and didn't find comfort when lightning kept flashing in the window as if to say, "What, you're chicken? I'll keep giving you light either way!" After all the patients he met in Arkham, retelling their murderous pasts, and now finding out about his own doctor's secret crime, he didn't feel too irrational in thinking there might be a severed limb or human appendage beyond the one slightly ajar shelf.
But then he brushed Garfield's file in his crawl and the determination surged through him again. 'I'm doing this for me and Rachel...' and with a deep breath he grasped the handle of the bottom shelf and pulled slowly. His flashlight shook in one raised hand.
"Holy..." Richard sighed, trying to relax his shot nerves.
Just a bunch of stacked up papers. They weren't neatly organized into slots like the larger cabinet. Dr. Slade seemed to not care what order they were in or how they were tossed in. Richard grabbed a small bundle and with a fire in his eyes, he read them quickly.
They were all old patients' file...about some he never even knew.
"These are ...all the patients deemed healthy." As he flipped page after page, Richard began to wonder.
"Is this some twisted treasure chest of all his successes?" But it didn't make sense, why would Slade,
"...highlight every physical feature about each patient? And then add comments to them?"
He looked at Garth's file, the man who he used to eat lunch with before he left and Richard was let off supervision. There was red writing mentioning his lean chest, the length of his shoulders, and oddly enough, a diet schedule for when after he left. Richard thought maybe the last part was for his health assurances but still ...it seemed off.
Then he finally found Kory and Garfield's file ...in bold red letters were the words 'BE GENTLE, SWEET TALK', scrawled thickly beside their final mental progress report.
Then he found Victor's. Age 17 ...murder conviction, lynching/corpse prodding with custom-made mechanical apparatus ...found asleep in basement surrounded by dead family ...10 years ...mental progress improving ...warms quickly to other patients ...charming man ...released in 4 years ...capable of attracting opposite sex ...strong build ...CAN WORK OVERTIME ...scar over right side of face. ...Special case.
Special case...!
He dove into the pile again, every file had the word 'special case.'
And just when he thought it couldn't get worse, he found his name. Richard felt that if his heart didn't stop pounding he would go into cardiac arrest. After all this time...
"Richard Grayson ...Age 17 ...blue eyes, black hair ...tall, lean ...murder conviction ...death of family and friend Jason Todd, 14 ...slow mental progression ...charming man ...model bad boy ...TEASE HIM ...Special case." Richard tossed the sheets. He didn't want to read any more. After all this time, he couldn't remember Jason, his family friend and neighbour. He was ...killed too? Richard didn't know. He skimmed his sheet bravely one more time. "Unconscious at the scene," it read.
"Wait," he hissed. When he returned his flashlight to the all the sheets, he found a new clue. All these patients had been either asleep or unconscious at the time of their families' death. "That's a common link b-but we all ...who would try to...?" And Richard lifted his gaze a little higher.
Amongst the fallen papers, he saw Rachel's name. He snatched the paper out. It read,
"Rachel Roth ...Age 8 ...purple eyes, black hair, slim ...house fire, family dead ...young, fresh-faced ...innocent, charming ...unresponsive ...introverted, reclusive new nature ...not expectant ...year after year ...lost privileges, lost cause ...consider switch to labour ...Grayson ...better responses ...more incoming comments ...ready ...TENDER LOVER, BE PATIENT WITH THIS ONE ...very special case."
"Aarg!" Richard growled and grabbed the rest of the patients' files. He dumped them back into the cabinet shelf. He'd had enough! Be gentle, work overtime, tease, be tender lover - just what did Slade want to do with him and the others? His hands flew into his hair as he tried to control his breathing. He was ...they were all part of him big plan from the beginning. Slade wanted them to be the perfect models for-! He couldn't even think of what Slade wanted them for without sickness rising in his throat again. But why them, when they were all happy and living with their families? Isn't this kind of kidnapping only done for bad kids or kids who already live on the street?
Kidnapping ...he and Rachel were left. But where were Kory and the guys after they successfully completed Slade's plan? And more importantly, how did this sick man decide to choose them?
As Richard pushed the shelf closed, he noticed the top shelf was still slightly open. And so with a nervous tug, he pulled it out.
Inside were pictures, photographs of different people. There shots of men and women and children he didn't know. Some looked recent, some looked old, and many of them ...didn't even look like the person being photographed knew they were being taken. There were odd angles, from above, at a far distance. Everyone was smiling and they all looked healthy - not in the least bit criminal or insane as Arkham made them seem. And yet, they completely unaware that their lives would change following these shots.
"Spying," Richard hissed. He tried to imagine Tara taking these shots for Dr. Slade.
Then he picked up a picture of Kory in a white dress in front of a garden smiling at the camera - and taped to her picture was a head shot of the patient Pamela he saw in the gardens. Both had their eyes circled and black arrows marked above their red heads. A piece of paper attached to Pamela's read 'Wally West, December'. He found another photo, this time with Garfield in the new clothes Richard saw him in the day he left. His blonde hair was pointed at with a blue ink and a small note beside it said 'Jericho Wilson, following Spring'. Then he found a pre-teen who looked like Victor but with his back turned to the camera as he was shopping in Gotham with a smile on his face.
"Victor couldn't have known about this photo ...he couldn't have," Richard whispered. Someone had been following Victor when he was younger, and took this shot. Several years later, he ends up a murderer and in Arkham. Richard's eyebrows furrowed.
Then finally, he found several older, yellowing shots of the same girl. She looked about five, with black hair. But the shots were from different places - a preschool, a park, a store, from outside a living room window. It didn't take Richard a second for him to know who it was. "R-Rachel," his breathed. The photos fell in the pile again as his heart jumped out of his chest.
"He's ...he's been... watching you for years."
He gulped and felt it hard to swallow back a sob tightening in his chest. With shaky fingers, he pushed the rest of the photos apart until he found what he was looking for. There were two photos of him. Richard recognized that time in the picture three years ago when he and his mother were in line for the early morning breakfast special at a restaurant outside Gotham City. He remembered throwing his head back when he laughed at that joke she made about his dad. There, forever etched in the film, was that eerie memory. And in the second, it was of him washing his dad's car in their driveway with his shirt off the next summer after. Jason was in the picture ...and yet even though they were both some distance away and the lens was surrounded by blurry bush leaves, the younger teen was looking directly into the camera with a suspicious gaze. Richard clenched a fist.
"Jason, you knew?" he whispered. "You knew and you didn't tell me?"
Suddenly a noise far off down the hallway started. Richard hurriedly shoved his pictures under the rest of the others and closed the shelf silently. Then with a speed he didn't know he had, he went to shut the office door quietly. Richard shut off the flashlight and using the lightning that flashed around the office, he crawled under the doctor's large desk. It's wooden body was solid all the way to the floor, so his large frame, though tight under the chair enclosure was concealed in the shadows.
Sure enough, the door opened seconds later and heavy footsteps sounded. Richard was so emotionally distraught, he felt a scared sob rising in his throat again. This time threatening to come out, he threw a freezing hand over his mouth to stop it. He hated being weak but after what he'd just seen, he couldn't help but almost succumb to it.
The footsteps walked around the front of the desk for a couple of moments then left. After counting to thirty in his head, Richard scrambled from his hiding place and snuck back to his room, where he collapsed onto his bed from mental exhaustion.
"I have to tell Rachel," he mumbled desperately. "That cabinet ...the photos ...I have to..."
But before Richard could even think of what he had just discovered, he fell into a deep sleep.
Rachel needed her rest. He thought maybe one night was alright and she would be safe …but then his dreams distorted.
-!-
Robin was staring wide-eyed and breathing heavily through his nose. Behind the whites of his mask, his blue eyes were red and dry. He fisted his gloves at his sides as the gunman he'd finally cornered and took down, began to rise from the ground and twist his bones back into place. With an angry yell, Robin stepped forward and grabbed his collar.
"Where is she?" he screamed. His voice bounced loudly off the buildings. He didn't notice that they were the only two people left in Jump City.
"Where is Raven? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!"
But the gunman laughed as Robin held him up.
"What have I done? What have you done?" he said in between hysterical laughter and then before Robin could catch him again, he vanished in his hold and appeared across the road with Raven unconscious in his arms. Suddenly the gunman morphed and Robin watched horrified as his clothes became one black body suit with gloves and steel-toed boots, and a face that was covered by a black and orange mask with one eye. Robin clenched his teeth.
"Slade!" he cried, the name came so naturally to him. The true villain was revealed. Just as Slade continued to laugh with Raven in his arms, lightning flashed in Robin's eyes and before he knew it, Richard had opened his and gasped.
He shot up from his pillow drenched in sweat and realized the thunderstorm had woke him from his nightmare. Richard ripped the bed sheets away from him as he jumped out of his bed and hurriedly went to Rachel's room.
Richard ran along the wall but just as passed the threshold of Jack's room, a bony hand shot out from between the bars and grabbed a handful of his black hair.
"Aah!" he cried. When he tried to move away, Jack kept an tight hold and didn't let go. His face appeared in the barred window.
"All right, that's enough, Dickie poo!" Jack said with a grin but his voice was edged with a dark tone. "You know that saying 'mum's the word'? Hahaha, well I've been Mum all these months about your little detective games! But I'm not your mommy although, I have been pretty good in taking care of you all these moths haven't I? Hehehe, Mama Jack! Mama Jack!"
"Aarg, let me go!" Richard tried to cry over Jack's cackling. The other patients in their rooms around them started to yell and scream, a couple began banging on their doors. The ones who had locks on theirs were fighting to open the door. "Let us out!" they cried. "Jaaaack!" Another cried. "Nurse, nurse!" some wailed. Richard felt sweat break down on his neck. "L-Let me GO, I have t-!"
"No, boy, you listen to me," Jack hissed as he bent Richard's head back and held it against the bars. Richard gritted his teeth in pain. "It's your turn now to care of me, okay? I want you to play to Detective again and solve the mystery of my missing door key. Hahaha, fun eh?"
His hot breath washed nastily over Richard's nose and the eighteen-yr old turned his head away in disgust.
"Go to hell, Jack," he spat. Then Richard threw his hands up to Jack's fist and dug his fingers into his skin. Jack yelped and pulled away enough for Richard to already start scrambling down the hallway. Jack heaved a deep breath.
"OHHHH NURSEEEE!" he bellowed down the hallway. It echoed like a speaker down the wing and Richard felt his heart explode with fear in his chest. "I THINK A BIRDIE FLEW THE COOOOOP! HAHAHAHA!"
Rolls of thunder and the downpour kept hitting the walls noisily joined in with the growing hysteria in the halls. But Richard didn't stop for anything, even as several of the doors of some patients opened up around and behind him. 'Please be safe!' he cried in his head as he sprinted up the stairs to the third floor. But when he reached Rachel's door, it was hanging open. Lightning flashed and illuminated her room from inside. He saw she wasn't there.
"RACHEL!" he cried not caring if he was heard. Jumping on her bed he looked out her window and saw thanks to more lightning, saw her being pulled and yanked by two people.
Richard sprinted down the hall and grabbed a fire poker from the living room fireplace before opening the side doors and bolting outside into the rain. The noise of Arkham waking up was nightmarish.
(Now you don't.)
A/N: The finale will arrive tonight. I'm not sure if it's anti-climatic from this point or not, but nothing seems as crazy as it was in this chapter. So don't expect a long-ass chapter. Stay tuned!
No mailbox tonight. I have to start on the last chapter and I'm leaving for Florida tonight so time's a factor. But thanks for reading everyone! Shout outs to TheDreamChaser, SladeRavenFan, RxRFannnnn, Sudy Nym, and crazynerd! ;)