DISCLAIMER: All recognizable characters belong to DC Comics.
CHAPTER SIX: Gambit
There was no warning, no gradual illumination; just a sudden and blinding explosion of light that snapped Robin out of the fitful sleep he had fallen into. His body jerked instinctively, jarring stiff and sore muscles against the restraints he had fought against for several hours until exhaustion overtook him. He hissed at the sharp pain that seared through his eyes as he opened them and he squeezed them closed again almost immediately.
Heavy footsteps approached him and he tentatively lifted his lids, watching through his lashes as Sportsmaster entered the room. The eyes of the man were not kind and the captive felt that pulse of fear settle into dread. Those hard eyes stared down at him when the mercenary came to a stop next to the table. Robin met the glare, returning one of his own, though his heart was pounding inside his chest as he wondered what the man was going to do without Guardian there to stop him.
When the vicious looking hunting blade made its appearance at the masked man's side, Robin felt the dread morph rapidly into panic. He pulled at the straps securing his body, his curses muffled by the thick rubber between his lips. Robin could see in Sportsmaster's eyes the cruel smile as the man leaned over him and the tip of the blade that rested on Robin's throat stilled his struggles.
"It's intoxicating," Sportsmaster whispered, using slight pressure to the knife to force the boy's head back and exposing even more of the throat. He could see the pulse racing beneath the pale skin and chuckled perversely. "Seeing the pride flee from your eyes as you recognize your own death."
"Sportsmaster!"
Robin panted around the gag in relief when the knife was suddenly gone. Guardian stood in the opened doorway, frowning at the other man.
"I told you to prepare the boy, not terrorize him."
Sportsmaster shrugged and sliced the edge of the blade through the strap encompassing Robin's wrist. "Just having a little fun."
As the leather released his limb, Robin swung his fist up and toward his kidnapper's face. Sportsmaster caught it easily enough, holding the wrist tight in his palm as he reached over the vulnerable boy and cut away the other strap. A brief struggle commenced between the two, ending only when Sportsmaster dropped his knife and pulled Robin up into a sitting position.
Dick's arms were yanked roughly behind his back and his wrists lashed together with a plastic zip-tie. He growled at the jolt of pain when the hard edges dug into the already tender flesh.
"I would have thought the night would have tempered you," Guardian sighed from where he stood watching. "No matter, there is much to be accomplished today and your cooperation is not necessary. It would have made the day easier, but we will manage."
"Affhll," Robin spat through the gag.
Sportsmaster chuckled again and moved to remove the straps restricting Robin's feet. Once that was done, the boy was pulled off the gurney and marched toward the helmeted man and the door. His legs were weak from being unable to move for – god knew how long! – and his back was twitching with every step.
Guardian fell alongside them as he was escorted out of the communications room and into the hall. Neither said a word, to him or the other, and a moment later he was being forced into a small cell.
There were no bars, nothing that outright screamed 'prison', but there was no denying that was what the room was. A bare cot with a small stack of clothes resting on it, a waist high partition concealing a toilet in the corner, a small sink, and nothing else.
"You will be given fifteen minutes," Guardian explained when the zip-tie was cut away. "Clean yourself up if you desire, but you will be dressed and kneeling with your back to the door, your hands on your head, before we return. If you are not prepared, or waiting as instructed, in the allotted time, I will allow Sportsmaster one hour of entertainment at your expense."
"Take your time, kid," The mercenary shoved him forward.
Before Robin could turn around, the pair was gone and the door locked.
Wearily, Dick slumped onto the bare mattress. He picked at the plastic sticking to the dried and fresh blood on his wrists and tossed the tie aside in disgust. He hesitated before reaching behind his head for the clasp to his gag. As he suspected, the rubber was crusted in blood from his mouth and he groaned in pain as he peeled it from between his lips. He felt the sores at the corner of his mouth open again tasted the coppery fluid on his tongue.
He dropped the gag on the floor and shakily walked over to the sink. The water tuned on automatically and he spit the blood into the drain. Robin slid the 'mask' from his eyes and winced when he splashed to cool water onto his face.
There was no mirror, but as he gently probed at his lips he frowned at what he felt. "I'm gonna end up looking like the joker."
The hostage filled his mouth with water, swishing and spitting a few times to clean the bloody taste from his tongue, before drinking greedily. His stomach protested, but he hadn't had anything to eat or drink since before first period the day before. He guessed it to have been at least twenty-four hours and, regardless, he was starting to feeling dehydrated. The water wouldn't do much to quench his hunger, but at least he wasn't thirsty anymore.
The same water was used to tend to his enflamed wrists. Though not deep, the angry red around the edges of the wounds showed the beginnings of an infection. He shouldn't have been surprised. Piano wire, leather, cable ties, not exactly the most sanitary things to be tied up with.
After relieving himself, he found himself sitting on the bed and inspecting the clothing provided.
He was shocked to see his Robin uniform waiting for him. The Kevlar tights and tunic, minus the cape and utility belt and boots, were an exact duplication of what he normally wore. All his hidden gadgets and tools were missing, but as he adhered the familiar domino mask over his eyes he couldn't deny the difference it made. He had never felt more exposed than he had as Dick Grayson.
But Robin was a hell of a lot stronger than Grayson.
Grayson…
The video feed from Mount Justice had shown nearly everyone in the briefing room. The League Members were to be expected, but his team had been there. Every last one of them. This meant that they knew who Robin was.
He sighed, unsure how he felt about that. Robin had always been a shadow, a mystery, the Batman's apprentice, the one whose civilian identity was secret even from his team. They weren't entirely pleased with that, even Dick wasn't happy with keeping the secret, but he'd kept it for so long that it was unsettling to know that if – when he got back to the Cave that there would be no more hiding.
No, unsettling wasn't the word…
Robin smiled.
Relieved. He was glad, in a way, that there would be no more secrets between him and his team. He definitely didn't like the scenario in which the mystery of Robin was solved, but there was nothing he could do about that.
With another sigh, he picked up the pile of clothes and his as much as he could behind the partition to change. A few minutes later he was sitting on the cot, barefoot but otherwise outfitted in the Robin costume and glaring at the door.
He was contemplating just sitting there, defiant, waiting for his abductors to return. He loathed the idea of kneeling for them, but he liked the idea of sixty minutes alone with Sportsmaster even less.
So it was that, approximately fifteen minutes after being left in the cell, he was in the demanded position when the door opened.
"Good," Guardian sounded pleased and a moment later a hand took hold of one wrist and wrapped a soft bandage around the appendage. The other wrist was wrapped as well before being secured – surprisingly comfortably – together behind his back.
Robin was lifted to his feet and turned around. Guardian was alone, for which the boy was grateful for. The man carefully took hold of the hero's chin and turned his head from side to side, inspecting his face. A gauntleted thumb brushed against one of the cuts to his lips and Robin resisted the urge to try and bite the digit.
"Maybe, now, you realize the benefits of no longer resisting your place in this?"
"Believe that all you want," Robin snorted and rolled his eyes, unseen beneath the reflective lenses of his mask.
Guardian sighed. "Never the less, it is time to go. Sportsmaster is preparing our transportation."
"Go?" Robin pulled against the man's grip as he was dragged from the room. An ice-like dread settled in his gut.
"Yes, go. We have a limited window of opportunity to accomplish our goals. There is no point delaying what must be done." Guardian led his captive into an elevator and the car ascended.
"I'm a firm believer in procrastinating," Robin managed to yank himself from the hold, and turned to glare at the man.
"You are young," Guardian shrugged. "Besides, did you truly think we would remain here when your message to your little friends gave away our location?"
The ice turned to lead.
.
.
.
.
.
"Did either of you get any sleep?" Kaldur wasn't surprised at all to find Wally or Artemis in the kitchen before dawn, coffee cups in their hands and a poignant silence hanging between them.
Wally shook his head, finishing up his beverage and reaching for a refill. "Did you?"
"I do not believe anyone inside the Mountain got any rest," he sighed, helping himself to the near empty pot.
"We did, at least, got a few things from the video playback of Sportsmaster's transmission," Artemis set her mug down and went for the laptop idling on the coffee table.
"Anything that might help us find Robin?" Megan asked as she came onto the scene, Superboy not far behind her.
"Not exactly," Wally emptied his cup set it into the sink. "We know Sportsmaster wasn't alone in the room with Robin-"
"Any idea who?" the clone asked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the kitchen island.
"No, unfortunately." Artemis held out a couple of images they had printed out during the night and Megan looked at them before passing them around.
"So we are where we started, with nothing to find our friend?"
"We're not done yet," the blonde archer growled at the alien. "Wally and I have spent the last few hours going over this video. We're running it through every possible encryption protocol we've got on our computer having it analyze the smallest detail to try and find something."
"Rob would have sent up a message," Wally pointed out to the rest of their team. "Now it's up to us to find it and use it to get him back."
Superboy didn't take the pictures when Kaldur held them out to him, and he snorted. "Right. After being taken hostage and electrocuted, Robin still had the presence of mind to tap out an S.O.S in Morse code."
Artemis and Wally both tensed and look at each other. "We didn't think of that."
"It's possible," Wally was beside the girl in a flash and bringing up the video feed again. "Not his eyes-"
"-the cloth mask hid too much of them for that." Artemis was grabbing a piece of paper while the others just watched on in amazement. "Maybe his hands?"
"It would be hard in those restraints," Kid Flash isolated Robin's right hand and zoomed in.
"Uh, guys, I was being sarcastic," Superboy regarded the two with raised eyebrows.
"Hard, but not impossible," Artemis said, ignoring the clone's comment. "It couldn't be too obvious; he would know that those creeps off camera would be watching him."
"Perhaps he would make it appear innocuous," Megan suggested, coming closer to the sofa and the pair. "Something one would expect to see in a human after such a painful experience?"
"The muscle spasms," Wally nodded, staring intently at the twitching hand on the screen.
For a moment, no one breathed.
"There!" Artemis exclaimed, jabbing her finger toward the computer. "Go back; watch his index, middle and ring finger…"
Kaldur and Superboy were moving from the kitchen as Kid Flash rewound the image.
"Index and middle, index, index and middle, index, all three…" Wally muttered while Artemis wrote it down.
"2-1-2-1-3…"
"Index, index and middle, all three…"
"1 – 2 – 3…"
"I thought the old code consisted of dots and dashes," Megan whispered to Kaldur.
"It does, but it could be interpreted many different ways." The Atlantean watched the archer and speedster – normally at each other's throats after spending this much time in the same room – working in near synch. "One finger may be a dash and two a dot, or vice versa."
"And the three?" Superboy questioned, hoping his angry sarcasm actually served a purpose this time.
"A new letter," Artemis said as she finished writing the last sequence Wally dictated.
"So it's really there," the hope in Megan's voice was infectious, "a message from Robin?"
"Yeah," Wally shut down the computer and leaned back with a weary sigh. "It's there. We just have to decipher it."
"Gimme… another… minute." Artemis murmured as she worked.
The quiet, save for the scratching of the archer's pen, was broken by the alarm. The five teens looked at each other.
"A mission," Kaldur tensed. As leader of the team he was responsible for accepting their mission assignments and was torn between his responsibility to the Justice League and his duty to a friend.
"Now?" Superboy growled.
"Maybe there is news on Robin?" Megan asked naively.
A pregnant silence fell on the group and when the alarm sounded again Kaldur shook his head and turned to Artemis. "Wally, Artemis, keep working on that message. The three of us will find out what they got for us."
Wally beamed and Artemis smirked, going back to her papers. "You got it, Aqualad."
"Where are Kid Flash and Artemis?" Red Tornado inquired when the trio entered the briefing room a few minutes later.
"They are working on another assignment," Kaldur answered without hesitation.
"I did not realize any others had been allocated," the machine said.
"Not by the League," Superboy snarled.
"But of the highest priority," Megan crossed her arms over her chest.
"Their presence is not required," Kaldur narrowed his eyes, daring Red to contradict him.
After a moment's pause Red Tornado just nodded and tapped a few keys on the newly repaired computer console. "Wonder Woman and Superman will be taking over mission assignments."
"So what is the mission?" Kaldur asked evenly.
"An hour ago, CERN – the European Organization for Nuclear Research – was assaulted. Several scientists were injured, thousands of terabytes of information stolen, as well as several key components to their Large Hadron Collider."
"Something this high profile sounds like someone from the League should be handling it," Kaldur frowned.
"Sounds more like the League's idea to keep us from trying to find Robin." Superboy clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles cracked.
"You truly believe that?" Red Tornado asked.
The tense group was suddenly interrupted by a pair of shouts from the rec room. "CADMUS!"
Kid Flash was then standing among them holding out the paper filled with Artemis' writing, the archer's running footsteps echoing toward them.
"It's Cadmus," Wally said, oblivious to the league member in the room. "Rob's message was 'Cadmus'."
"As in Cadmus Labs?" the clone of Superman was seething in rage.
"He tapped it out twice," Artemis said breathlessly as she entered the room. "When I looked back at the image of the two shadows off camera it made sense. One had a gold head-"
"Guardian," Kaldur speculated.
The archer nodded and continued, "- and the other looked like it was wearing a severely horned cowl."
"Dubbilex." Superboy was tempted to storm out of the room and make his way to his former 'home' but a gentle hand on his arm stopped him. He looked to M'gann and her soft, comforting smile.
Kaldur turned his attention back to Red Tornado. "My apologies to you and the League, but my team and I will be going after our friend."
"Perhaps you would like to hear the rest of the debriefing before you make your decision." The machine opened a file on brought an image. "This was captured from CERN security cameras."
Wally's jaw dropped open. "Are those…"
"Genomorphs," the chaperone nodded, opening several more images. "Unless Cadmus is hiring out their genetically-engineered lifeforms, it would appear as if the abduction of Robin was not their only goal."
"The League knew this," M'gann glanced at her team mates. "And they still want us to investigate?"
Red Tornado shook his head. "Not the League."
"Then who?" Artemis asked.
"Batman."