Teen Titans – ReBeL Yell: If I Had Stayed a Renegade

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Bellyaching

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This is a conditioning/torture piece. Take with caution.

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A disturbed grumble led his master to stare away.

Four hours ago, had been punishment.

Now it was time to listen, to sit and stay quiet.

A growling belly; yet the boy had no super serum to steer the hunger clear from their schedule.

"Still trying to think up a decent apology, apprentice?"

Dick Grayson sat masked, on the ground with his shin guards digging into his knee caps. Anything to distract him from the pain of hunger a little bit longer.

"You'll eat once I'm satisfied with your progress. Four hours is minimal, so put up with it."

A soldier.

Military background.

Even if Batman had been tough, he never went as far as to use hunger for this purpose.

That's what made the ache grow to tear at him.

Tighter, squeezing and pressing until…

Dick's legs jolted.

He felt a shock!

"If you won't sit still and listen to your teacher, apprentice…" Slade turned with the control to the nanobots –

No.

Dick crawled backwards onto his hands as his heart mirrored his gut.

Pounding a racket, a drumming on as he panted.

Mouth open, eyes wide.

He'd lost his appetite just then.

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A few hours later, he was fed. It was such a feast that the teen leaped for his chair –

He tugged back. Something was wrong.

Something was very, very wrong.

He did feel hungry…right?

He removed his hand from his swollen gut.

Wait…

Dick turned to Slade, who ushered with a hand for his apprentice to eat as he wished.

Dick gulped, nodding and each time he gripped his seat, the shock returned.

He didn't see sparks; Slade's hands were there. There was no…

A sensor? He checked under the table, but his episode was a bother. Slade tugged the boy to stay and seat himself, yet each time he yelped and left the plate.

Still full of food. With his stomach, still very, very empty.

"I…. I can't –

"You won't." Slade corrected and coaxed the boy to his side. As if a cord bound to him, Richard never fought. He'd stopped once Starfire had lost her temper. When she'd finally gotten that his act was of pure deceit.

"I…don't know…" Dick's heart was hollow, his eyes staying on the glove by his cheek, crying into it.

"I think you've learned one lesson." The man said in his calmer tone, the one Dick was more afraid of than any other, yet respected while Slade was also coherent.

"That everything you have, comes from me. Food, clothing, your value. Every ounce of that is for me to decide. Then, are you hungry anymore, apprentice?"

Dick wet his puffy lips; his mouth was so bone dry. "I'm thirsty, master…" Dick croaked.

"See? You know the difference between want and need quite well." Slade left his hands to fall as he walked over to the table and raised a glass, filling it with the pitcher by its side.

"Here." Slade coaxed the boy over, pulling back a chair as Richard nodded. He didn't seat himself.

He was not given that honor. Not yet.

"Thank you master." Dick sat and took the glass in great thanks, sipping slowly as his hunger was only so ebbed by Slade's trick.

"You'll learn, Richard." Slade said from above him, a hand to the top of his seat, eye hinting his satisfaction from where Richard was unable to view his caretaker's pride in his protégé.

"I will join you." Slade was frank about it, no bells or whistles as he took to the opposite side at the head of the table and sat, just watching, waiting for the boy to finish his supper. "Take your time, you wouldn't want to choke…"

Dick nodded and lifted a spoon to his lips, the hot broth the first thing he went for.

Bland, plain and disappointing as this new life he'd have to relieve the ache with.

"Thank you, master." He said curtly, before taking one more bite of a torn piece of soft roll.

Missing the spice that was his old life, which could never relieve his immanent hunger.

Not even this feast as he sat and digested, being analyzed as he consumed, only to feel empty by the end of the meal.

Still hungry.

Never satisfied.

Just as his master's one cool eye never left the room…

The hunger only made him turn in that night to think back, to when he'd always felt it.

What it felt like, to deserve any happiness…