Chapter 12

The next day dawned bright and early upon the two boys. At about 7:30 am, Alex roused his new roommate by throwing a pillow at him. It bounced off Dick and landed on the floor, giving Alex back his ammo. When the first three strikes failed to elicit a reaction, Alex came a little closer and studied his roommate intensely. Then, he threw his pillow again. This time, Dick caught it.

Dick turned to look at him blearily. Seeing the look of disbelief, he said, "What? I don't want to get up."

Alex smirked, and replied, "You do if you want breakfast. Those psychos will be by to take me to class in a little bit, and they'll probably take the food then too."

"When did they deliver food?"

"A few minutes ago. Before I started my pillow attack." Dick slid his legs out from under the sheets to hang off the side of the bunk. He scanned the room and found two trays of food that had been laid haphazardly on his desk.

"What is it?"

"Breakfast!"

"I know that, but what is it?"

"No one knows. That's the fun of it. Look, they color coded the trays for us. Mine is blue, like it's always been, and yours is red."

"Uh…" At least the food in the Target Dump and last night had been appetizing-looking. This looked like slop and a soggy roll.

"Come on. Eat."

Dick dropped down to the ground eyeing his roommate wearily, and stepped over to his desk. He took one bite of the food, and made a face. "Blegh," Definitely not up to Alfred's standards. Alfred would probably toss it in the trash, take out the trash bag, set it on fire, and drop a batbomb on it to be sure. And if that wasn't enough, Alfred would also scatter the ashes to the four winds. Alex grinned at his face. He started eating as well.

"My guess is they'll wait to get you until everyone else is in class. They take us in spurts. I think that's what happened last time, but I didn't have a roommate, so no way to know for sure."

There was a buzz sound, and they heard the door unlocking. "Shoot," Alex said, and started stuffing as much food as possible into his mouth. He was able to shove the majority of his breakfast in, because he had eaten a little while waiting for his roommate to awaken. He grabbed the roll as one of the nurses entered, to lead him out. He said something muffled to Dick, who cocked his head at him, and then left with the nurse. The door was locked again.

Dick poked at his food, as he waited for someone to come get him. He heard other kids getting let out of their rooms down the hall. After a little while, he finished the glop on his plate, and turned towards the door. The noise in the hall quieted down as it emptied.

Eventually, he heard two sets of footprints coming back. They stopped in front of his door, unlocked it, and opened it. A nurse came inside and glanced at a clipboard.

"Alright, 169. It's time for your check up." She glanced up at Dick, and flicked her head to the door. He got up, eyeing her wearily, and walked out. The nurse already outside took his arm, and they led him down the hall, around a few turns, down a flight of stairs, and across to an examination room containing a raised, padded bench with plastic on it, a rolling stool, and some medical equipment. They sat him down on the bench.

Dick watched as they locked the door. He didn't think all these precautions were necessary. Even if the door was unlocked and there was no one watching him, he probably wouldn't run. He had no idea where he was, although he imagined it was the middle of nowhere. He was still weak from the voyage to reach here, at least, weaker than he had been when he'd been kidnapped. Plus, he had no supplies, no real shoes, and would probably freeze to death before he could contact help. No, it was probably better to play the helpless rich kid until a better opportunity presented itself.

Not for the first time, Dick hoped Artemis was okay. She was older than the range Alex had given him, but that didn't mean anything. They might not have noticed the age difference, or seriously injured her, or killed her. He hadn't seen any sign of her, and he wasn't sure that was a good thing.

The doctors did the usual check-up stuff. They checked his reflexes, blood pressure, and heart rate. Then, they pulled out a needle and took some blood. One of the nurses put it in the slot by the door, while the other pulled Dick's shirt off. They checked his flexibility, and then the female nurse seemed to feel it necessary to touch and document every scar on Dick's body. Every scar. When they finished, he felt extremely violated. He curled in on himself slightly, gritting his teeth and resisting the urge to punch someone.

They let him redress. They stood for a while, as if waiting for something. The two nurses studied Dick intensely, and he swung his feet back and forth, looking up at them. Someone knocked on the door, and passed some papers through. They looked through them and then nodded. The female nurse gently pushed him onto his back, and started asking him standard medical questions. Stuff like "do you have a family history of heart attacks?" "Do you have any allergies?" and such. Dick answered honestly with nods and shakes of his head, seeing that it would probably hurt him if he didn't.

When they were done, the nurses strapped Dick down, causing him to roll his eyes. Then, to his surprise, they left. He craned his neck up to try to see where they went, and dropped back down when they closed and locked the door. Seriously overdoing the restraints here. At least he hadn't had to talk to them yet. Dick wondered if they would notice if he underperformed on the mental and educational tests he'd have to take later. Probably math, but who knew about the others.

After about an hour, during which Dick got so bored that he started banging his head on the bench, the nurses returned with a plate of food and released him from the bench. They then watched creepily as he carefully inspected his food and ate it as slowly as possible.

After he finished eating, they took his blood again, and then led him from the examination room to a small office. They sat him down in a chair that was bolted to the ground. The female nurse gave him a mechanical pencil and an eraser, while the male nurse chained his ankle to the chair. Did he mention how sick he was getting of all these stupid restraints? Yeah…

"Take this test," the female nurse said, and dropped a ginormous stack of papers on the desk in front of Dick. He gapped at it. That had to be some fifty pages. At least! He looked at the nurse, who was glaring at him. Better get started then. He opened the test, and set to work.

The test was mostly math and science. Dick answered all the math questions honestly, but for the science questions he followed a pattern of one honest, one less obviously wrong, two honest, one less obviously wrong, three honest, one less obviously wrong, four honest, one less obviously wrong, and redo the cycle. When he finally finished, an hour and a half later, he sighed with relief and handed the test to the nurse who'd been watching him. She nodded, took it, and left. Dick did some stretches, while waiting for her to come back and take him back to his new room.

However, when she returned, she carried another fifty page stack. He looked at it with disbelief. Well, there had not been any lit or history on the first test. It made sense they would have a second one. He wilted, but took this test as well, following the pattern he had used for Science. It took him two hours to finish the second one.

When the second test was finished, the nurse went and got a third test. Internally, Dick was begging for it to end.

"What could this one possibly be on?" he demanded when the nurse returned, deciding speaking was worth the answer.

"Foreign languages," she said. He blinked, not having actually expected an answer. "Answer honestly. We heard you speaking to the other kid in the special processing section. If you speak more languages, you could translate for some of the kids here."

Dick considered his options. He could be completely honest, and do all the languages he knew, but that might make them slightly suspicious as he only took a couple in school and it was only truly reasonable for him to know one or two in addition. On the other hand, he would have more contact with other kids, and maybe be more valuable. That would make being killed less likely to happen. Pros outweighed the cons, although he decided he would keep one or two languages secret. Maybe they wouldn't test him on those.

Reluctantly taking the packet, Dick flipped through the see what languages were in it. Unsurprisingly, they were the most common ones: English, French, Spanish, and Arabic along with a few others. He took the test in about an hour, and handed it back to the nurse. She graded it in front of him. Next, she forced him to do a speaking portion for the ones she had determined were actual knowledge of languages instead of lucky guesses. Once that was finished, she left the room, locking the door behind her, of course.

Thinking he was finally finished with the written exams, Dick slumped down in his seat, exhausted. The ankle cuff inhibited him for stretching out all the way like a typical teenager, but he made do with the maneuverability he had. Ugh. Did every kid here have to go through this? It must have taken them ages to get through everyone!

A half hour ticked by on a clock in the corner before Dick heard people returning. However, instead of the nurse coming to bring him back to his room, a new man was let in. He was relatively short, standing only a few inches to half a foot taller than Dick, with dark glasses that reminded him of Doctor Strange from Belle Reve and a prominent bald spot surrounded by dark hair.

Great, another psycho. Dick thought. This guy was apparently here to take stock of his personality, to play psychiatrist. He made Dick take yet another written test. This one was about his personality traits. It took a good half hour. By the time he was done, Dick was ready to eat dinner, his stomach giving off an impressive growl.

Unfortunately, the psychiatrist seemed to think that now was an appropriate time to mark the test, agonizingly slowly in front of his patient, and then, as if they hadn't done enough tests already, he pulled out a stack of cards with black ink on them. Dick groaned. He hated the Ink Blot test. It was so subjective. He decided to say a food item that he enjoyed for every card that was raised, no matter what it actually looked like.

The psychiatrist raised a card that looked a bit like a rose. "Hamburger," Dick said.

Another card, this one kind of looked like a dragon. "Pizza." He crossed his arms.

Next card, "French Fries."

"Escargot."

"Steak."

"Spaghetti."

"Chicken."

"Chocolate Chip Cookies."

The psychiatrist stopped lifting the cards and scowled at the kid in front of him.

"You should try this again when I'm not hungry." Dick smirked at the man in front of him. The psychiatrist continued to stare at Dick for a moment. He sighed and pressed a button on the side of the desk. Dick's smile faltered slightly. Buttons could do anything. The man made some notes on his clipboard until a bulky nurse who Dick had not seen before entered.

"We don't tolerate disobedience or jokesters. Frederick here is in charge of discipline." The color drained from Dick's face. The psychiatrist plucked Dick's goggles from his head, causing Dick to look at him in confusion. Was he trying to keep them from getting dirty or something? "Now, Frederick, why don't you demonstrate for 169 what happens when he acts out?" Frederick reached forward and grasped Dick's arm tight enough that Dick felt his bones move slightly under the pressure. He jabbed a Taser at Dick's forearm, right under the tattoo, with the energy level high enough that Dick saw sparks flying before his vision began to tunnel slightly. The shock didn't let up until Dick let loose a small scream.

"That'll do, Frederick," the psychiatrist said. Dick ripped his arm away and wrapped his free hand around the burn. Frederick left. Once Dick's vision cleared, he looked up at the psycho. The psychiatrist handed him back his goggles, which Dick took in his unharmed hand, and then curled his fingers around while returning the hand to his burn.

"169, you will cooperate; you will follow all orders and answer questions honestly and fully, or there will be consequences. Understood?" Dick nodded. This time, when the psychiatrist again lifted the cards, he answered softly with answers other than food, unless something really looked like food. There were a few more tests after that, mostly related to psychology.

Two hours after the psychiatrist finished, a nurse came and escorted Dick back to his room. It was way after dinnertime. When he entered, Alex was already fast asleep. He climbed onto his bed and curled into a ball, cradling his arm. He never did get to eat dinner that night.

Hi!

Waves.

I don't own Young Justice.

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