Teen Titans Presents; Renegade- Prison Break; Break Out!
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Chapter Six: Downtrodden Stupor
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Shuffling beneath the sheet he'd been handed for his bunk, there was a quick switch that Dick had recalled on the day of that flashback in Waller's office….
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~We're moving him to a different cell. ~
The crew; all of them had to scratch their heads as Waller raised a hand to explain.
~Dick Grayson should be monitored by someone we can trust, and I think that one of my best behaved should have the honor of sharing that cell; if the attacker comes by, there may be some way to monitor them while in a box. ~
~And…what if said cell mate can't leave the box? ~ Floyd raised an eye to the conundrum that they were currently expecting to yield some result from.
~Also, won't this help with Richard's mental state? ~ Bruce Wayne was on the call line virtually as the screen showed his face, the open road to Gotham on the way as Dick lowered his eyes.
~Any new news on the trial, Waller? ~
Harley looked and saw the dynamic duo at a crossroads with their own decisions. Dick didn't want to be here, but he had no shot at running from the man who could kill a bunch of teen heroes, miles away. She almost felt, badly for the little snot. He'd always been a good kid, even to the baddies. Unlike the second Robin.
That kid was a monster if ever she knew…total definite difference to his bigger bro.
Seventeen…time flew by pretty quickly.
~So? ~
~I haven't decided on who he'll have as a temporary roommate, yet the cell was already cleared. One of the newer models and plenty secure. ~
~And the toxin? ~ Dick lifted his head with eyes begging to get some space between them.
~What if that enemy comes back, tonight? ~
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The new cell was a double, a bunk bed for his convenience as the teen drifted off, brow plastered as Slade's hired hand was sure he'd be thrown to the pyre.
He didn't care as the cameras were blocked, the rest left to his devices as the door creaked back with a click.
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The security on shift was not present; their minds elsewhere as the Scarecrow decided to do what he did best.
"Why, every night you'll see your shadow and run from it – out that door." He chuckled and let the fear creep into the guards' minds with his new formula.
"Every morning at first light, you shall thank no one and climb into your shell. Never to reach for the hand of your saviors."
The guttural sounds of those guards being torn apart by gutting themselves with office supplies, was music to his ears.
"In the noontime, you will drift into a state of awareness, and the shadow you now fear, will catch you off of your guard. It will taunt and harass until you are reduced to your former self. A slave to the service of another."
He grinned once more at the live event of the injection causing waking nightmares as the kid kicked like a pup dreaming up a field of posies to bound along into.
"Aww…you look distressed, boy wonder…" The crooked doctor rubbed his masked chin as that last pillar fell. The doorway to this chaos he'd planned to plant, far from to the root of the issue.
"No….no, we must dig a bit deeper, my boy." The doctor mused along as the face of the kid's dreams were on the screen of only, he to view.
"Lovely! ~" The dream keeper left the room, satisfied with his life already forever more.
"And the bat is unaware that he too took my presents home with him. Oh, what fun it will be to hear them scream as the infamous crime fighting family! I cannot wait!"
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Circus tents lined up nice and pretty.
The flavorful aroma of buttered popcorn and candy apples…
IT, was fall in this city. In this tent, as Dick Grayson awoke bawling to his parents. Running to them as –
"Mom! DAD! I heard a –
The boy stood back.
Blood, a crime scene as a powerful foe shook the muck from his two katana. No longer to value human lives, the creature was masked, only a half of what it could be, in shadow it gleamed copper and black as a howling night in December. Dick felt his heart and head pounding as he looked at his hands, at his gloved hands.
~You are not a hero. ~
Dick was Robin, right? Why was he seeing a specter…what was it wearing that –
~Are you scared? Well, are you?"
The spook changed as his outfit also did, the screams of his dead parents growing too loud to bear. Dick threw his gauntlet steady palms over his ears, feeling metal by the earlobe –
~ Apprentice! ~
Dick tried to calm himself, the scene changing as he saw a sky scraper. The figure or dopple that looked just as he did in orange and black…it stood looking over its shoulder.
~Jump. Now. Do as I command, Renegade –
Dick felt his body move, his head throbbing as he got into a running start, speeding past the double, seeing the sky.
Before ending up, feet off the ground…
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"What was it this time??"
The good news was that Psycho was now directly linked with Dick's signature energy via his telepathic connection. He'd heard that cry for help better than any cell mate on the boy's side, and blazed his way over just in time to stop the kid from diving off into the land of broken bones and suicidal rants.
Which, eventually ended him into Harley's makeshift office to sort out what had happened.
"Why were you out of your room, kid last night? Not cozy enough?"
"No." Dick clutched his skull, trying to think. "I, don't remember…a scream, then…. a…." He shook his head.
"I don't know! What…." He looked at his palms, pain over his good looks as Harleen swallowed a sob back quietly.
"What's happening to me? Is it the toxin? Am I still –
"Could be." Deadshot had come to the room and, he didn't bring good news with him.
"We need you, Quinn." He turned to Harleen and frowned. "Bring the kid; he needs to hear this."
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Waller sat with a few of her suicide squadron to the left, the rest were…
Missing.
"As of midnight, last night, the hotel Bruce Wayne had been staying at in Lousiana was, infiltrated. The only thing left behind was residue of a drug that got into the upstairs suite that Mr. Wayne had been –
"What?"
The group saw how Dick couldn't stay quiet after all of that.
"Let me finish. Bruce Wayne was not found; he was reported missing and his belongings left as they were. Someone has possibly abducted the billionaire in question."
"Ah, worse news?! This kid was just in therapy with me, A! Nice way to punish im…Is anyone gonna try to be a little –
"Harleen." Amanda raised her eyes to the jester incognito. "This isn't going to work. I'm going to have to put the building into lockdown and every night, we'll be on our guard. If the analysis team will hurry it up with finding out what gas was what knocked the boy's fath –
"Bruce…. he's not gone." Dick shook his head.
"Huh?" Dr. Psycho tried to understand if the kid was in shock, but something told him otherwise.
"No." Dick stared up into the group of perplexed and worried faces.
"Because if he went missing unexpectedly, then the "bat" might have to step in."
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Dick prayed he would because that same day, the doctor that called him back to his office was sure to check every nook and cranny.
Sitting on the hospital bedding, the lights turned up a bit too high, his skin prickled. This room…those instruments –
"Mr. Wilson?"
Ah, the doctor who had saved him...He looked over while his panic had receded for a moment, the room no longer turning like a top.
"I'd like to check your temperature, your complexion is…rather off."
Crane wasn't Crane here, yet he could play pretend until the jig was up. He took out a stethoscope, his thermometer for both arm, ass and throat, and jammed it into the kid's waiting jaw.
"Oh…" A stifling moment later, the results were in.
"Not good, not terrible, though. Says one hundred and one."
"Shit…" Dick cussed, swiping his brow. Was it this place, or his cell mate maybe?
"It happens in closed corners. You'll have to take these." Dick was handed a few painkillers. Well, if it were that – the doctor had not shown him a label. They were a borrowed sample from a fellow Herbologist. Wilson did say to make the kid's stay the worst of his little life time, did he not?
"Are they safe –
"Am I a real doctor?" Smiled the false face in the mirror. Dick bobbed his head. "Thank you, doctor." He dismissed the question; it was his own paranoia. Slade wouldn't come here right now….
~ I hate being left out of any decent conversation…but you knew that already. ~
Dick turned around, the pills still in his sweaty palms. They were melting into a puddle at his feet as he dropped them, hearing a laugh from behind.
"Slade!"
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The boy heard another sound, fingers snapping his mind back into place.
"Rick? Are you alive in there? Answer –
Dick blinked, gasping back into his body.
"Just a traumatic response, you must learn to breathe." The doctor seemed unaware. He wanted to help out, right? Dick nodded, hopping down with the pills still in his hand.
"Take them now, that way you won't lose them later. Drug poppers are still a thing behind bars even if Waller's methods of a democratic system are so prevalent to this one facility." The doctor explained, Dick drinking in each word for later. The paper cup was downed along with his curative as the boy wonder made his way back to the cafeteria. For some reason, someone was asking him to join.
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Some of the extra No's in Waller's book were extended, which included the lunch room. She had Harley and Boomerang pick up the slack there while Deadshot did some more digging on who had broken into the cell block where Robin currently was for now. Last night, her guards had been admitted into emergency care immediately after she'd found a few dosed with the same substance as Bruce Wayne's hotel suite.
Dick was handed his tray as he excused himself to sit with those he knew, the few being older as he felt overshadowed due to this fact. Dick was still a kid by nature even when he could do his taxes and drive. Regardless, he still wouldn't fit in with the sui – sitters.
"Over here!" Waved Harley as she'd recovered her old black and white striped jumpsuit to keep a low profile. At least they let her use it. She could rock the horizontal like a star!
"Any reason why you wanted me here." Dick picked up his spork and let the bland noodles from his dish leave the plate.
"That's up to Waller, mate." Boomerang replied.
"I was thinking…" Harley started. "What if we did a session on free time, since I'm not supposed to use the broom closet." She laughed nervously. "I could –
"Thanks." Dick put down his spork. "But, right now I'm avoiding staying a jail bird." He quipped. "I just have to stop my nemesis, save my friends, get out of this…" He sighed. "You can't help me with my life, not the way I need."
"But…" Her lip wobbled as Dick stood up, eyes with bags as her mask stayed put. They were under cover. He was in distress and being hunted. While Waller and her other foe fought on the side, Boomerang just spoke up. All this doom and gloom wasn't his style, or the kid's.
"You never opened up to any of them."
Instead, Harley beat the clown to the punch.
"That's why yer friends got all upset. Cause you lied to them, left em out on purpose."
"To protect –
"An fer what?" She slammed her hand to the table and stood up, making a valid statement. Boomer tried to sign that Harley was going off script, yet in a way…Dickie was a family member to her. As demented as it was, it was true. Ivy could agree.
"I stayed around helpin' people and when I sympathized with the wrong men, I never got myself outta what I'd done till I was ready to change. You are gonna go after this crook until yer all washed up. All yer family, your teammates? Do you even care about how they musta' fel –
"I do!!" Dick shouted; his bark much worse as Harley sat back down with a smile on her face. "This won't be yer regular old therapy, sweetie. It's progressive as it gets. Very in-depth stuff. You still don't wanna talk about it?"
Dick sat down, looking behind him as the guards just stayed a distance apart from their squirming catches of the late afternoon.
"I'll…. I'll think on it." Dick swallowed, his face pushing for more sweat as he excused himself.
"Need to…" With a hand over his mouth, he was off to a stall to vomit. The first time in a long time that being this powerless really bugged him while having an audience.
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He leaned over the seat and prayed it was some unidentified stomach bug. Just a passing fluke. But no.
~You're getting this nervous over a little interrogating, boy? ~
Slade was still in his line of sight. Right outside the stall, taking his time with his prey.
~ You're supposed to do better; the clown has nothing against you, you can always just say –
"NO." Dick spat into the bowl as his dry heaving was last to go.
The merc mumbled before letting his false boots move to the other side, to the exit.
~ Clean yourself up, then we can talk terms. ~
"Not…going back –
~Not even to save them, Richard? ~
The creak of an open door had Dick back to the bowl, his one way out. Still blocked. Even if he was not seeing the real, Slade. Too much fog, had to be the toxin working through his system.
~ Could be an issue if Waller finds out you were lying about Babcock. ~
Dick's lip was bitten plenty raw, but now it was tender. Soft and as…he heaved again. Slade only clucked his tongue disappointedly.
~You'll need to be well enough to hear what I have to say. I might even know where your dear father ran off to. ~
Dick scrambled for the door, his stuttering and shouting no longer vocally expressed in the same manner as the figment had already vanished. The boy was left to wash his face and head to his cell with the aid of one, the only guard on call.
Wyatt, who made rude comments about how the sick boy was making his life a living hell.
Like he didn't know that already as Slade leaned against the wall of his cell, waiting to talk face to face…. ghost to ghastly. Boomer had not gone back yet, which gave them plenty of time to get to the point of such a pointless disagreement.
Wyatt hurried back while knowing nothing about being tailed. As soon as he'd come to the next block, a face with that five o' clock blocked his path.
"Y'ello, Warden." His eyes caught the fat cow as the perp played dumb, just trying to get home to his bed and all of the things he never had time to do since he'd made his deal with an actual human devil.
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So, the first time, it was Slade as Babcock, the second it was just a brainwashed puppet talking in Slade's words. The person too, the father Mr. Wilson first was Slade, then it was another brainwashed adult. Where is Bruce? Is he going to end up also taken away? Did he escape or fall? Is the Drug like in Haunted? If it is, then Crane had to have pulled it off. The pills Richard took extend the effects and amplify them, thus?
Slade's double in Robin's line of sight! What will he tell our boy wonder? What did Wyatt do that has Floyd so pissed? Did Harley make things worse with her tactics in the cafeteria? Find out! Dick's hearing is in the few weeks to the month, and Slade is trying to speed it up while Waller is trying to slow down the rest for a transfer. Maybe making Dick mad is what is her goal? Find out!
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