I'm not sure where this fits into the superhero timeline. It might even take place in a different timeline completely, and au of an au if you will XD
Prompt(s) Filled: No 4 - Cattle Prod, Shock, No 13 - "It comes and goes like the strength in your bones.", No 21 - Restraints, Alt 9 - Drugging, Alt 14 - Lab Rat
Gordon groaned as he came to. His head felt like it was filled with lead, and his mouth was dry and felt like cotton. There was a burning at the back of his throat, a sour taste that lingered like he had breathed in gas. He tried to swallow as he went to reach for a glass of water that he usually kept by his bed, but his limbs must have still been asleep as they refused to move.
It was like there were weights at the end of his lashes as he struggled to force his eyes open. Much like his body, his eyelids struggled to move, but eventually he managed to open them far enough to see slits of light.
However, that was a mistake, as the bright light sent a flash of pain through his skull, and he groaned again.
"Finally awake?"
The unfamiliar voice had him opening his eyes all the way, the pain of the bright light forgotten as alarm bells rang through his rattling skull and he searched for the source of the voice.
As he blinked and his vision started to become clearer, he realised he was not in his bed like he thought he was. He wasn't lying on his soft mattress, but instead was sitting up on something hard and unforgiving.
Something swam in front of his vision, and it took a moment for the blur to come into focus, and Gordon realised it was a man he didn't recognise.
"For a moment, I was beginning to worry that I'd given you too much."
Gordon frowned, trying to work out the meaning of the words. It seemed the man knew what he was thinking, as he continued.
"The drugs. I gave you a little more than I usually would, but what with you supers, I didn't know if you would need more than the average person to go down."
He turned away and walked off, and the implications of his words had Gordon's heartbeat thundering in his ears and his breathing quickened.
He had been drugged, which explained why he felt so awful. That, along with the fact that his man knew he had powers, was not a good sign at all. His father had warned him that there were awful people out there who thought that those with superpowers were abnormal or should be experimented on, and he had taught Gordon to be wary in case he ever came across someone like that.
His father's warnings blared through his mind, and Gordon knew he needed to get out of there. But when he tried to move, he found he still couldn't. It soon dawned on him that it wasn't because he still felt half-asleep, but because he was being restrained against something.
He was being forced to sit up, like he was in a chair. His arms were pulled to the side and were trapped in some sort of restraint, his fingers feeling like they were being stretched apart from each other. His legs were pinned down to the chair too, and so was his chest. His head felt like it was being gripped in a vice, with metal nodules digging into his skull that were sure to leave bruises.
No matter how much he tried, the restraints would not budge. He had no other choice but to use his powers.
He tried to steady his breathing, lest he lose control of his powers now, and felt the cool energy run through his body and towards his hands. His intention was to freeze the restraints to make them brittle enough to break free. However, as soon as the energy reached his fingertips, something felt very wrong.
He suddenly slumped against the seat as he physically felt his energy sucked from his limbs, his breath going with it. He quickly stopped using his powers as he took in heaving breaths, his chest straining against the restraint as he tried to work out what had just happened.
At that same time, a bright, blue glow emitted from in front of him. It was only there for a second, before it dimmed. Gordon's lids fluttered as he continued to catch his breath.
"Wha-?" His voice croaked, still feeling the effects of the drugs.
"It works!" The man's excitement juxtaposed Gordon's fear as he turned towards where the glow just was, his hands clasped together.
Gordon blinked through his still blurry vision, trying to make out the device that was in the centre of the room. It was huge and looked to be some sort of cylinder, but that was all he could gather from the machine. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't something good if it made him feel like that.
"Now, do that again and this will be done with quickly." The man turned to him expectantly, like Gordon was just going to do what he asked.
"What do you want with me?" Now his breath had come back to him, he found he could finally speak properly and find out what exactly this delusional man was up to.
The man scowled, like he wasn't amused by the fact that Gordon wasn't complying, but then he straightened and dropped his hands to his sides.
"I suppose you can find out why you are here and what your efforts will be used for."
The man faced the cylinder again.
"This here is a battery. It will be used to fuel my greatest experiment yet."
Gordon could see the grin that stretched across his face, and as he looked at Gordon once more, he felt nauseous.
"Or rather, you will fuel it."
He stepped towards Gordon, and Gordon had to strain his eyes to look up at the face looming above him, unable to move his head.
"You see, what I am building will need more energy than I can get my hands on. Not even all of the generators in the world will be enough for my creation. Which is where you come in."
He leant in close to Gordon's face so he no longer had to strain to see him, but now he could smell his rancid breath, and he tried to pull away to no avail.
"Supers possess more energy in their little finger than most of the world can even attempt to replicate artificially." As if to demonstrate, he squeezed one of Gordon's fingers, which caused him to wince. "So, I thought why not just build a machine where I can take the energy that I need. All you have to do is use your powers, and my machine will do the rest."
Gordon stared at the man, eyes wide as he registered what he was saying. The man straightened up, and patted Gordon's shoulder as he did so. Gordon flinched at the contact.
"Now, this will be easier for both of us if you just comply and don't put up a fight."
"You're insane if you think I will use my power to help you," Gordon finally found his voice, trying to hide the way it shook.
The other man just laughed, his head tipped back as he held his stomach, finding this much funnier than it actually was.
"Oh, you don't have a choice in the matter," he said as his laughs died down. "Only how much pain you want to put yourself through before you comply."
Gordon's heart pounded as the man turned back to where he had been earlier. Gordon now realised it was a table, covered in a variety of objects. From here, Gordon couldn't tell what any of them were, but he couldn't imagine any of them to be good.
The man picked up something and spun around to Gordon. What he held was long and thin, and Gordon could hear the crackle of electricity come from the tip.
Before he could even register what was happening, the man darted at him and the device made contact with his abdomen.
As the burn of electricity hit him, Gordon instinctively felt his power spark in defence without his control.
He felt the sensation of energy being sapped from him again, and even though it was only for a second, he felt like he had been sucker punched.
The man smirked as he noticed the brief flicker of the battery, and then moved to shock Gordon again.
However, this time he was prepared, and managed to stop his powers from slipping as the device was stabbed against his hip. Gordon heard the man growl in frustration as his plan didn't work this time, and he dug the device further into his side.
Gordon clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. His body was on fire, the burning spreading across his abdomen and stealing his breath from his lungs. He knew that giving into the pain would just make it worse, and he couldn't let himself slip.
He called on all the training his dad had drilled into him when he first learnt how to use his power. Everything about keeping his power under control, about staying calm and taking steady breaths, even though right now he felt far from calm and couldn't breathe at all.
But he couldn't give in. He had to hold on.
It was an eternity until the device was pulled away and the burning pain dulled. He took gasping breaths as his chest heaved against the vice keeping him in place. There was still a fire spreading, but it was far more manageable without that device pressed against his body.
"It seems I need to increase the power," the man muttered as he started to fiddle with the settings of the device.
Gordon took this opportunity to start struggling against his restraints again. Logic told him that there was no use, but that didn't stop the panic from throwing logic out the window and trying anyway. There wasn't much strength behind his movements, and pain pulled at his stomach with even just the smallest of motions, but he still thrashed so hard he would give himself bruises. He needed to get away from here.
The man looked up as he noticed Gordon's feeble attempts, and a chuckle emitted from his lips. The noise had Gordon's heart sinking, but he didn't stop. Even if he knew deep down it was all for nothing, he wouldn't stop fighting.
"If you just give in, this will be over with much quicker." The man pointed the device at him, the metal prods that emitted the burning pain hovering so close to him, and Gordon squirmed.
However, he did not give in.
The man took his silence as his answer, and without another second to spare, he swung the device at him once more.
Gordon wasn't sure the pain could get much worse, but he had been so wrong. The pain of the lower voltage paled in comparison to whatever this was. He could no longer keep back the cries of pain as he felt the whole of his nerve ends fry. He felt like he was being suffocated and he couldn't draw in a breath, his mouth open but nothing going in as his chest felt like it was being squeezed.
The device was dug in further and a sharp stab joined the burns, and somewhere deep in Gordon's mind he thought that the prods had pierced his skin.
It was getting harder and harder to keep control of his powers. Through the pain and struggles for breath, it was becoming difficult to concentrate. He could barely even remember why he was resisting in the first place.
His vision was alarmingly starting to tunnel, the edges turning black as everything blurred and swayed. He tried to focus on one point to keep himself grounded, but as his cries soon became chokes due to the losing fight to gasp in oxygen, he knew he was slipping.
He could not hold on much longer. He had tried, he really had, but he couldn't fight it any more.
With one last gasp, he felt his hold fall.
The sudden feeling of his very essence being drained from him jolted his mind awake and he realised what he was doing, but by then it was too late. He worryingly didn't have the strength to stop his powers from feeding into the machine, and no matter how much he willed his body to listen to his mind, it was now beyond his control.
The battery started to glow again, this time the brightest it had been yet. It was almost blinding as the blue gleamed almost tauntingly at him, a glaring reminder of what was being stolen from him.
He felt like he was being pulled to the ground. His body had never felt so heavy. Even with the chair holding him so tightly, he was sure he was going to sink into the floor.
At least with the feeling of his energy draining, the pain was disappearing too. The device had been taken away, and he could feel himself sinking into a sweet bliss.
Until a much worse feeling washed over him. Instead of the burns of electricity, his whole body now felt like it was aflame. All of his nerves were on fire. They felt like they were going to be ripped apart as his power coursed through his body and was sapped away.
He cried out at the new pain, instinctively trying to pull away from it. He squeezed his eyes shut, the glow of the battery becoming too intense, as a guttural cry ripped out of his throat.
His head was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to split open. He thought it was when he felt something wet slosh down his face, and a metallic taste fell to his lips. He choked on the liquid as his cries tried to burst past it.
It felt like his very being was being torn apart from the inside. He could physically feel his power being sucked away, and he was sure it was taking his insides with it. The vice around his chest felt tighter as his ribs strained against it, his lungs heaving behind them as he struggled to breathe through his cries.
He was getting weaker. He knew it. Although the pain didn't lessen, he began to lose the strength to even shout, and the noises from his throat soon became just whimpers. He wanted to keep fighting, but he was ready to give in just so that the pain would go away.
He wished he could tell his family that he was sorry, as he allowed the machine to take what remained of him.
Suddenly, he felt something on his arm, and he fluttered his eyes open to see a figure in front of him silhouetted against the blue light that created an outline around them.
Something brushed his cheek as he continued to gasp, and although his skin was on fire, it was comforting. There was a noise, like words, but they sounded so far away and his ears were filled with the pounding of his heart, that he couldn't make them out.
Another flutter of his eyes, and for a brief moment he could see the figure in front of him. It was most likely a pain-filled hallucination, but the blurry sight of his brother in front of him brought him solace in his final moments, and he let himself finally give in to the darkness that clawed at him.
Gordon blinked sluggishly at his hand that laid on the pillow next to his head. He furrowed his brow as he concentrated hard, willing something to happen.
It took a long moment, but soon a bit of frost appeared on the tip of his finger.
It vanished as quickly as it appeared, and just that small effort had him gasping for breath as his head pounded.
"I told you not to strain yourself."
Gordon flicked his gaze to the door of his bedroom, where Virgil was quickly moving into the room. He placed the tray he had been carrying onto the desk and swiftly made it to Gordon's side.
"I had to try," Gordon rasped, his throat still sore from how he had overused it.
Virgil made a face of sympathy.
"I brought you some food." He gestured to the tray he had brought up.
"I'm not hungry," Gordon mumbled as he pulled his blanket up to his chin and buried his face in his pillow.
"You need to eat if you want to build your strength back up."
That was easier said than done, seeing as Gordon barely even had enough strength to sit up, let alone eat. Not that he was going to tell Virgil that.
"Maybe in a minute."
He heard Virgil sigh, and then a moment later the bed dipped as his brother sat down. He leant back against the pillows so that Gordon could tuck his head into his side.
"What if they don't come back?" He couldn't stop himself from muttering.
"They will." A hand fell to Gordon's head as fingers started to card through his hair, and it soothed his headache. "You just need to rest and regain your strength."
"How do you know that?"
"Because it's true."
Virgil said it so surely that Gordon had no choice but to believe him, even if he knew his brother had no proof. He knew that his powers weren't gone completely, his efforts earlier had shown him that, but he was worried that they would never be as strong as they once were.
Virgil continued to brush his hand through his hair, but he wrapped his other arm around Gordon's shoulders and pulled him closer, like he knew the turmoil that was going on in his head.
Gordon tucked his face further against his brother, blocking out the light in the room. The smell of Virgil's shirt was familiar and comforting, and Gordon felt himself start to grow sleepy.
The rhythmic movement of Virgil's hand on his head was soothing, and his strong but secure embrace made him feel safe and like there was nothing to worry about. So, with the food that Virgil had brought him left forgotten, Gordon allowed himself to be soothed into a deep sleep.