Dick Grayson had to believe that Bruce was allowing him his freedom this past month. He thought that if it had always been so easy to escape the order and the rigorous training under his mentor, he might go insane. A month ago, Dick lived by what felt like Bruce's every whim. He ate when Bruce told him to eat. He slept when Bruce told him to sleep. When Bruce said jump, he prepared for an intensive lesson on physical or mental training. For the first time in a long time, Dick Grayson took a walk down a street on the shadier side of town in civilian clothing.
Dick had expected people to be much more suspicious of a young man looking for work, but working seemed paramount to living in the slums. Few people here spared him a second glance. He had enough money squirreled away to make it on his own for a while, but he was going to have to find resources if he was going to continue in his previous line of work. On his third day on his own while he was searching for suitable employment, he stumbled across a small pawn shop hidden among the government housing. The shop itself was dusty and low on stock, but there was a constant flow of people moving in and out during the late afternoon and evening. It was obvious that the store was some kind of front, and Dick had every intention of finding the operation beneath. Finding a source of income would have to come later.
Night after night, Dick continued his stakeout. He watched through the windows with night vision goggles and listened in on conversations with a tracer he managed to plant inside. He had anticipated something along the lines of non-violent drug trafficking, or small arms dealings, but what he heard and saw was much worse.
People were disappearing. A group of guys might walk in with an unwilling companion or an excessively large bag, and disappear without it. A large truck would pull up to the back of the building at around midnight or so every third night, and quickly, almost so quick you'd wonder if it ever happened, someone (or a couple someones) would get thrown into the back and disappear. Dick used his handheld computer to scan for missing persons reported from the local area, but there hadn't been so much as a peep out of a missing person's family. Whatever Dick had stumbled upon… it was big.
After weeks of monitoring the inflow and outflow of people from the shop, Dick prepared to make his move. To his knowledge, everyone who had entered the shop the night before had left before the sun began to rise, but he still moved with caution as he picked the lock of the back door. As soon as he nudged the door open and slipped inside, large hands grasped his wrists tightly, dragging him up by them as someone else held a moist rag over his mouth and nose. These people weren't the thugs he had seen coming and going the last couple of days... Whoever was holding him tight refused to budge as he fought. Dick kicked for the large man's shins, heels connecting weakly as his muscles relaxed without his permission and his mind faded to black.
For what seemed like an eternity he faded closer to and further from awareness. He could see bright lights in his mind and smell harsh disinfectants in his dreams. His wrists were bruised from the cool metal restraining them over his head. In a haze he wiggled them to try to find a more comfortable position but the cuffs held tight. He came to with a shock when his body refused to move. Oh, God. Start with something small. He twitched his fingers over his head, satisfied when they moved as his direction. He clenched the muscles of his arms and legs, forcing blood back into his numb digits. Once his body had started to awaken he finally opened his eyes.
The light was beyond blinding at first and his eyes snapped shut to fight off the pain in his head. The room was cool with nondescript concrete walls and a concrete ceiling. The only feature of the room was a heavy metal door with a complicated electric locking system. In the middle of the room sat a metal cart very much like one you would see in a hospital stacked with bandages or medicines or whatever nurses needed to bring to various patients. It was almost completely empty except for a small vial of some kind, cotton balls, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a complicated device Dick couldn't identify. It was relatively small and plastic, but it appeared to be in the basic shape of a gun. He was studying the device to distract himself as he forced his thumb against his other fingers, readying himself to dislocate the joint if it would give him enough room to slip his hand out of the cuff. Before he made the final rough tug, the door opened and bright green eyes studied him with mirth.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the tall, bald man warned, a dark eyebrow quirking upward. With his hands folded genteelly behind his back he stepped such that the cart was between him and the restrained younger male.
"Luthor," Dick spat, his voice heavier with emotion that he had expected.
"Hello, Robin," he started mockingly politely. "Before you start worrying about your little stint as a juvenile vigilante, I haven't bothered to check under the mask. It doesn't really matter who you are, because it's already painfully obvious what you are." He casually clicked his tongue against pearly white teeth. "You're a child soldier recruited for a war among men and gods. You're either the Batman's son or some sorry orphan he's dragged into all of this and abandoned without the weapons to defend yourself." Dick growled lowly in response feeling slighted while Lex merely rolled his eyes in response. "If he'd taught you everything he knew then you wouldn't be here… you'd be hiding wherever he is, waiting to save the world from the next costumed creep while people around the world starve."
"Years of training… Clearly the Batman has the resources to buy the best toys money can buy, and yet he wastes time on petty criminals who could be dealt with in a matter of seconds if he only had the strength to do what needed to be done… but I digress. You and I are mere mortals in the golden age of the Super Man. For all of our gifts and all of our talents, our will is meaningless against the growing metahuman population. We need representation in this new era before average humans like you and I become obsolete, and I believe I have the answer. Two decades of trial and error have finally paid off. Robin… how would you like to join the world of the gods?"