(A/N)- Hello hello I am returning to my roots in whumping Teen Titans Robin this year.
Prompts used: No. 23 "It's gonna get me by the end of the night": Shadows/Stalking/"Who's there?", No. 11 "All the lights going dark and my hope's destroyed": Captivity/"No one will find you.", and No. 30 "It's okay to just say, 'I'm not okay.'": Bridal Carry.
Disclaimer: Nope, alas.
Second Shot
The night was deep and chilly as he swept over the rooftops like a fleeting breeze.
The tap tap! of his shoes and the swish of air as he leapt and dropped were the only sounds to be heard; even the crickets were quiet tonight. A thin curl of fog was drifting in from the bay, giving the streetlights a very vague haze.
It was eerie.
Robin tried to shake off the muted feeling of nails scraping against the insides of his head. He focused on his steps, on each breath and pant, the weightless feeling of being midair and the solid thud of his body as gravity pulled him back down to the concrete and bricks.
His anxiety had been... agitated... the past few days.
He couldn't say what it was. A random odd artifact left at a crime scene here, a chill down his spine there. Cryptic clues planted that could portend something... or could have just been his paranoia working overtime, responding to outside agitators that didn't actually exist.
Starfire had noticed first, of course she had, even without a mind bond she could always tell when something was off with him, and had given him a "Be safe." before he'd left on patrol that night that sounded more concerned than usual.
He was beginning to wish he'd asked her to come with him. Just so he wouldn't feel quite so alone.
There wasn't much night life in the industrial sector of Jump City, granted, but the night owl warehouse bees seemed to have shuttered themselves inside too.
Robin dropped down to street level and checked the time on his T-comm. Sighing, he let his eyes sweep the street.
Empty, nothing of note.
That feeling crawling on the back of his spine wouldn't go away. Robin wrestled with whether to listen to the instinct or dismiss it as his overactive hyper-vigilance misfiring. It was hard to tell sometimes what was his worst Batman habits emerging versus the best of his training paying off.
His anxiety was not eased when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted fleeting movement, flicking through the shadows.
Immediately alert, Robin's head whipped in that direction.
The darkness between the buildings was too complete, it was impossible to see.
On edge, Robin continued along the street, walking carefully but quickly, eyes open and scanning every which way. He felt his heartrate start to prick up, and automatically went into a breathing exercise to calm it. One, two, three steps, slow inhale. Four five, six, seven, and let it out.
He was almost to the end of the street. He was wary of the darkness under the broken streetlight at the corner. It was all too easy to conjure shapes in the shadows with his mind's eye.
A sound, like the scritch of a foot on the sidewalk.
Robin whirled around, tensing. "Who's there?" he shouted towards the empty darkness.
Nothing but silence answered his call, but Robin still felt heavy portents of doom echoing through him. His hair was beginning to stand on end, adrenaline creeping up.
His instincts proved horribly prophetic; the next second he caught the sound of something whistling through the air towards him.
Practiced, automatic motion had him whipping out his bo staff, swinging it wide to knock the object away. There was a metal clang as the end connected.
And then everything exploded with white lightning.
Robin felt electricity stab up through his arms and tingle sharply in his chest and head, knocking his teeth together. He disconnected from his body for a moment, lost in the shock, and returned just in time to feel himself falling backwards, collapsing.
His staff clattered somewhere to the side of him. Robin was dizzy, staring up at the gray-black sky in a daze, every limb limp and uncooperative.
"Impressive hit."
The voice made Robin's throat hitch and tighten. The cold, chilling, familiar edge, the leering mix of condescension and praise...
As feeling started to return to him, Robin lifted up his head, eyes freezing wide in terror as he confirmed the identity of the figure stepping into the hazy lamplight, hands clasped casually behind him.
Slade's single black eye had a vindictive gleam as he looked down on the Boy Wonder.
"Too bad it was the wrong move," he said, dryly patronizing.
Get up get up MOVE! Robin's mind yelled at him and Robin struggled to do so, fighting against the sluggish paralysis still clinging to his arms and legs, heaving up with effort, scrambling.
Like a swift black hawk Slade swooped in, grabbing Robin up by the collar of his cape. Robin's throat strangled on a frightened sound as he was hauled up, shoved against the nearest building wall.
He smacked the bricks like a ragdoll, choking on his fear and the shrill alarm inside him screaming at him to Fight back, fight back!
His boy wouldn't cooperate, nerves still fried and recovering from the electric blast and Robin grunted in frustration as he forced weak arms up, to throw a punch, to bat at the villain, something.
"Don't fight," Slade told him, pulling something from his belt and covering Robin's mouth and nose with it. Robin choked as the sickly sweet chemical smell invaded his nostrils. "You still owe me a second shot at our 'partnership', apprentice," Slade was saying, pressing the ether-soaked cloth down tighter with his palm. "And this time," he growled, dangerous undertones in his eye and voice, "I intend to finish the job."
Robin keened breathlessly, fighting for a clear breath, but all he could inhale was slick, sticky acid, burning down his throat. He clutched at Slade's wrist feebly, feeling his kicking and grasping growing distant, out of reach. Watery static trickled through his ears, filled his head, the edges of his vision blurring.
Panic rang through him, but he couldn't struggle, couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, and could only feel his body growing weaker and weaker, all sound and sensation melding into the ringing static wall as he faded away.
The world went dark.
-TT-
Waiting for an opportunity to escape from the stronghold was an exercise in torturous patience. Robin put up some of the expected resistance at first, but then held back, watching carefully, learning the routine.
He ate without complaining, he trained when he was told to, for as long and as hard as he was told to, even when Slade made him perform the same set or task again and again until he was satisfied with its perfection. He held his tongue and didn't talk back.
He knew Slade didn't trust his quiet, compliant routine, but the man didn't comment on it, merely keeping an eye on him either physically or via the cameras.
Finally, when Slade made the mistake of being on the opposite site of the manor from Robin, leaving him alone for a moment in the library to study building blueprints, the Boy Wonder seized hold of a chair and didn't even hesitate.
CRASH! went the chair into the window glass, and an alarm immediately began sounding.
Robin was already scrambling through the open sill, dropping down the two meters to the ground. He was unsteady on his feet for a moment, praying he hadn't twisted his ankle, and then as soon as he found his balance he was off running.
He made it around to the front of the house and was halfway down the drive before Slade caught up with him.
Robin didn't even see him, too busy looking for hidden traps or wire fencing or maybe emitters for an invisible electric fence. But then an orange blur to his left side warned him a split second before he was bowled over, tackled and sent slamming into the pebbles and dirt of the long driveway.
The plain white shirt he'd been given was immediately scuffed up, his cheek scraped on the rocks and pain lanced through his head as he was knocked down. He was breathless a moment before he fought, desperately, viciously, under the bulk of the man pinning him.
"Get off!" he screamed, looking towards the gate and the treeline with mounting frantic despair as Slade grabbed hold of his arms. His legs kicked, sneakers scuffing the walk, jeans catching on the cobblestones. "Get off me! You can't keep me here!" he shrieked.
Slade's fingers squeezed around his right wrist and yanked, pulling Robin's arm up painfully behind his back.
"Ahhh—!" he cried pitifully.
"Ohh but I can, apprentice," Slade was snarling, eye flashing with anger and thoroughly unamused. "Do you see that gate?" he asked, his other hand snaking around Robin's chin, forcing him to look forward. "That is wrought iron, ten feet high, and leads to nothing but a private drive that eventually joins with a long-deserted rural track within dense forest."
Slade dropped Robin's chin but pressed down with more force on his pinned arm—Robin held back a pained whimper.
"We are miles away from anyone who could possibly help you," Slade emphasized, growling the words into his ear, uncomfortably close in his personal space. "So rid yourself of any delusions of rescue." The man's anger was hot and harsh, practically spitting the words. "No one is going to find you," he said firmly.
Robin stared straight forward, towards the illusion of freedom just steps away, eyes welling and blurring with hot tears. His breaths came in shuddering gasps, as he tried not to give into sobs.
Slade held him there, emphasizing his helplessness and hopeless situation, before he released Robin's arm.
Robin didn't fight, though his heart beat fearfully as Slade dragged him up, grip tight on Robin's bicep as he began pulling the boy back towards the stronghold.
He pinched his face and firmed his mouth and tried not to make things worse as he let himself be dragged back towards his prison.
-TT-
In lieu of another escape attempt, Robin focused on projecting as much fear and pain and distress outwards as possible, in the hope that it would attract Raven's attentions through their bond.
He pictured his emotions as a blaring alarm, sending a distress signal into the ether. Slade might have control over what he did and what he wore, what he ate, when he slept, everything, but he couldn't yet—as far as Robin knew—control his mind.
So Robin beamed out his negative emotions from every physical pore and prayed it would be enough for her to hear.
He was sitting on the edge of his bed right now. Slade had left him to his own devices, after expressing concern about the elevated levels of stress cortisol inside him.
Robin was certain Slade would resort to forcibly drugging him unconscious, if it kept up too long. But he had to try something and this was the least bad option he could come up with.
He stayed wound tight, black gloves clenching on his thighs—Slade had stuck him back in his old apprentice uniform, which Robin was trying desperately not to think about—calling out and calling out and yanking on their bond, trying to get her attention.
Hours passed. He couldn't sleep, didn't want to sleep, rigid and frozen solid in posture, crying out inside his mind.
Some time in the early dawn hours... he felt something back.
A whisper. A touch. A reassuring mental brush.
Robin almost wanted to sob in relief, but didn't dare do much more than gasp, keenly aware of the blinking camera in the corner of the room trained on him.
Muted sounds came through the walls. Blasts. Breaking items. The pulse of a familiar sonic cannon.
And then the space between the bed and the door turned dark and Raven and Starfire emerged from the depths of her portal.
Robin let out a cry and flung himself into Starfire's arms at once, not even caring anymore as security alarms blared shrilly in his room. The alien princess gathered him up, one arm around his back, one underneath his legs, pulling him close to her chest protectively, comfortingly.
Slade had apparently beelined for Robin's room at the first sign of trouble; the door was slamming open now before him, hideous anger in his masked expression.
He hit the barrier that Raven quickly flung up between them. Robin flinched into Starfire collarbone as the villain's fists bashed against the energy projection, fully determined not to let him escape.
Starfire clutched him tighter, breaths frightened but then growing steady. Robin felt heat above his head, felt a searing fire rustle through his hair as her eyebeams shot straight and true.
Slade grunted, slammed into the far hallway wall by her blast, and Raven wasted no time swirling darkness around them again.
Robin clung tighter to Starfire's neck as he felt the world dissolving into a cool familiar pressure.
They emerged in the air high above the manor, already pouring smoke from Cyborg and Beast Boy's joint distraction attack.
Raven paused a moment to check on him, looking for injuries, before drawing back in the air and lifting her hands again.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" she said, and dark matter surrounded them again, a telepathic tug pulling them away.
Robin buried his face into Starfire's shoulder and shuddered gratefully, with unspoken wells of relief, as he was borne away from the hell that had defined him for weeks.
He was almost genuinely asleep by the time they made it make to the Tower.
Starfire brushed soft fingers into his hair, sitting them down on the couch.
"Rest now," she whispered, gentle and soothing. "You are safe."
And he felt it in his bones, felt the shuddering, sobbing ease of tension and emotions coming uncorked, pressing his nose even more into her sweet-smelling skin and letting the tears fall.
It was over.
(A/N)- I'd thought this would be a three-chapter minific but this turned out a lot shorter than I expected... which is the opposite problem I usually have lol.
Hope y'all enjoyed!