Teen Titans – ReBeL Yell; If I Had Stayed a Renegade
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Adrenaline Junkie
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" You won't admit, but at some level…"
About a month ago.
That was how long he'd considered those words to be a false way out…
And they had.
/
Dick's bloodshot eyes strayed towards the burning copter, whirring in motion right above him.
"Mission, abort." He spoke in a low groan through his ear piece.
Another growl had his ear as he zoned out, imagining how far down his feet would take him.
~No coming back here to the haunt, UNTIL you've cleaned up your mess, Apprentice. ~ Hissed a very important figure of said - mission.
"Affirmative." The operative in black snorted, sending the butt of a rather dirty cigarette to its demise. The drop was not as Gotham's tallest buildings or in Metropolis with the globe overhead. He could fly, but only if he had the want for feeling nothing and everything –
~Do you hear me?? You are not t –
"I got this…" Dick Grayson. Now a total slob in his stupor since the Titans had failed; failed to get him out, failed to make him theirs again….
While he had no home but these dark skies.
Dick leaped and sent a pretty barrage from a fire arm at his waist swiftly swishing by, to decimate the craft before it could land onto the opposing roof.
Move.
Fly!
Catch me!
She wasn't coming, so Dick jut got teste. Even more restless. No Titans to fight really synched it…
He wanted to see some fireworks, now.
And If Slade made him bury those pilots….?
So annoying.
He landed with a bit of a wobble onto his toes.
The trick was not to fall, Dick.
He looked behind him, knowing Slade hated when his apprentice's theatrics became, too theatrically staged.
~Don't you try that with me, Dick! I can see every move you'll think to make before it's done. You'll be wishing you had fallen when I'm done with you. Dispose of the bodies and GET BACK to the haunt. Now ! ~
Dick pretended to try and listen to the wind. OH! It was his master calling him? Thought a plane just took off…
"Affirmative –
~ You're forbidden from using that. Yes, Master will do just fine. ~
"Sorry, did you say something, M?"
~ Dick ! ~
Slade was positively seething by the time the line was downed. The boy tugged the ear pieces from his ears, checking over his suit with a grimace. His hands ghosting over to find a part of his suit that was equally a bother. Out came the tech and so too Slade's annoying screaming.
"Clean up the kill, kid…don't engage the enemy, Robin. Am I talking to a brick wall, boy?" Sneering; he mimicked the mad man's tone of voice when talking to his protégé, yet the boy wonder knew Slade would not hesitate use his upper hand with that trigger in it if he had to. He had to be sure Dick witnessed the killing of his team with his promise kept. So no, his friends were safe and Slade would later coin this as a "selfish" tantrum. Guilt taking, talking down to Robin, was his specialty, as Slade had become a bird watching genius in the time, he'd been left breathing.
To him, maybe.
Dick needed a breather, but the rush was electric in his mind as he set off a new grapple. The fat of the land and this city, made his heart race as he yipped and went for a night ride all his own.
No master and no dead bodies to mop up.
What could be better?
/
Was that...
He found out that there was no money in his stash, no money because he was a minor under a despicable crime lord.
No wait…. Just…a card. And Slade could trace it. Could he care at this rate? He tugged it out of his compartmentalized belt pouch, turning the plastic around in his gloved fingers.
No. Definitely not.
/
So, after the teen's deliberate pow - wow with himself went surprisingly dark, he went into the first corner store and gas station he came across as his conclusion was met.
With a hunger strike.
Yes, as low as he could drag out this act of "insubordination" he saw something that made his eyes light up, mask still on, and was instantly watched like a delinquent as the teen entered the gas station's convenience area.
There were some dummy hitch hikers and teens by the front that he ignored, but the person leaving through the automatic doors was quite nervous.
Until Dick handed them their reason, in person.
"Ah, new game Role – playing. All the rage in Tokyo?" A goofy man by the magazine rack put the cover up over his face, and in that moment, Dick played along and put up a "rock sign."
~ I hate my stupid master, and I hate who designed my outfit! It does not clash with D& DD at all! Wait…why do I care?? I don't! ~
Otaku monthly…
Sonnova!
Dick walked on, gave a weary grin to the guy at the check out counter and looked for…
Something Slade would beat him for if he saw it in Dick's mouth.
A big…
Box…
Of….
Donuts.
Nuts of dough as Star would.…. call them…
Shit, maybe a bad move...
He turned again, staring at something that would be fine to pack into his growling gullet.
He saw a two pack, then a…oh.
And, energy drinks? He'd never had one in over a year! Bruce hated them unless they were organic or non existent, and Slade would pump his stomach as if it were…
What was he doing?
Oh, right.
He saw it. The glorious, freeze-dried crap that even Alfred would have poked before chucking at the manager – dragging Dick from this infernal fat - farm.
The icing on his metaphorical, rebel – rousing cake.
"Pizza…I could always…" He was drooling over it, so hungry….
American hog.
He's eaten slices in Italy, in the middle east to digest the real flatbread.
The birthplace…
And now, this.
He felt cheap. No money and now no way back, unless he wanted to…
Be unable to walk for another month…
/
The three items and a pack of super strong mints hit the table top's counter, as Richard dragged out his shiny black credit card.
Illegal funds for starving, lunatic criminal's assigned henchpersons.
With a warranty? Maybe not for a secondary character.
The stolen kind of dough, no doubt.
Slade was a killer with a list as long as his apprentice's appetite would last from the adrenaline rush tonight, until tomorrow when he'd be forced to up - chuck his sodium chloride drenched feast in one smooth move.
Grossness.
"You out late tonight, kid?"
"Got the munchies, I live around here. At a party. Nothing crazy, just dice and dragons…" He fibbed, his eyes on the donuts, then the Buzz energy drink as the secured card was soon recovered and tucked away from sight.
/
After all that, it still wouldn't go away.
Two donuts with a cakey glaze of powdered sugar.
A Buzz brand guarana flavored beast – and later? A soda that did not say diet cola on the label.
And pizza from a box. A BOX. His mints only made the trip worse, but he kept munching. Eating past the reflux, letting the acid go down smooth as he resisted the urge to vomit.
An antacid or two later…
It wasn't until the dip became an unofficial high again.
He needed to roam; Dick told himself.
Just another hour before Slade sent in his drones to hunt the kid back down.
All of that food would be mopped up with…
Dick shook his head and dropped every piece of plastic, paper and metal into the right bins. He knew Jump. He knew that it was a gem so very young in the eyes of Cali living. He knew….
How to avoid a fight.
A dumb bit of energy was dragged out. He saw a mugging, heard it now that the sugar gave him such a cursed gift.
He needed to roam, to forget about Mr. M and just….
/
Slade was not at all expecting this.
A boy who needed to get out of the house after midnight.
Where had he heard that old bit before?
"Secure the perimeter, don't let him go that far." He programmed his bots by command. "The boy will be found before this night has ended for him."
/
Flying! He really could rock this outfit if he tried.
Sad to say, he'd stayed active, heart was stable.
But that edgy rush?
It was painfully, still there.
Hungry? AGAIN?
"Teenage hormones are the worst!!" He moaned and stood over the defeated bodies of the two sputtering muggers.
"Jus…. just t- take it…G – get away from us, ya freak!"
"Noted. Here, yours, right?" He tossed the backpack to the kid he'd saved, but as it fell and did not find its target in time, so did too its contents from the ruddy green sack.
/
He wasn't ok.
This was a bad plan, a really reckless plan –
Drugs, white crack. The stuff that could make Slade hate him.
Despise him…
Would he? The hero stared at the bag within a bag; the real smuggler of this bleachy heaven had run down the alley way already as Dick went to scoop up everything in the pack.
He'd, bring it to the authorities…. or…or…
If the mugged men had not gotten so rude with their dealer, he wouldn't have had to step in.
~ Thu – thump. ~
Dick's brows were coated in a thin layer of sweat as his lips grew drier, thirsty.
~ Thu – Thump. ~
Was it a bad thing to want to be somewhere else right now?
If he did this, if he took this poison into his body, his being…. would he be useless as not only a criminal, but as a –
" Don't try anything."
/
"Slade?"
Dick turned around, the bag still in his hands. Slade wasn't moving much. He'd come out to play, to see if the kid…
Needed a ride home.
Or to snap himself out of this wide ride, first.
To snicker from the word, Crack would be laughable.
"Put the bag down, child." Slade let his words rol slowly out, more serious than he had been in some time. Not a pinch of panic at the bridge of his nose, only Robin looked like the bad guy, here. No anger showed as Slade's eye even dictated this - which terrified the former boy wonder a great deal extra.
"Why?" Dick demanded in the corner, feeling beaten even when he had still that annoying tic to sudue.
Slade rolled his eye. "What, a million-dollar question…After you made your promise to return to being a Titan, then shouldn't your escape be any other way - or rather… by your graduation day as my student…? I that what you wanted? Someone to cry to about your growing pains, kid?"
Dick's eyes sunk below his mask. Arms drooping as he held onto the bag's arm.
Something, this easy was…
Cutting it that close to dying, right?
"Way out?" Barked the boy, arms still clinging to his cure.
"Away from you screaming at me to clean up your messes?"
Slade's tone changed into futher, warning.
" Apprentice…." He spanned out the title, as if talking to a toddler instead of some disturbed young adult that HE had manipulated.
"Or how you expect me to be something I never signed up for…or…. or…. I can't eat pizza or play video games like any normal teenager would, because…you…. you tricked me!" He shouted with a hoarse cry.
"You took everything from my life that I ever cared about…and now…."
Slade started walking while Dick pulled out the one thing he'd been trained to keep on his hip until an emergency came up.
That time was today.
" Stay back!" He had up the pistol, readily cocking it at his prime target of tonight's watch.
The freaking pistol that had killed, had ruined lives.
Made his no easier to deal with.
Slade stopped, only to raise a hand, to try and coax the boy from pulling a "Grant" on him.
~But he wouldn't. ~
Slade had decided to act like the good guy, but it wouldn't work.
Dick wouldn't stick around, he would rather go….insane than put up with that dictator of a man!
Moving inches away, Slade saw his opportunity. He started to walk, keeping Dick as a cornered animal – he was after all, trapped in an alleyway.
And in that alleyway to his right, Slade's eye motioned as Dick's one side soon followed.
A broken, half shattered and discarded mirror lay there.
Upright.
What he saw in the reflection, what made the boy break, as the mirror already had…
Had…
He fell to his knees, mesmerized by the image which overtook it.
A frazzled ebony head of dirty hair, dark circles below his now widened masked eyes. A cut on his lip from biting down so often. And the other thing that made him shudder and drop his arms with a hiccup.
He was trembling.
Like a junkie, kicked up a notch as the rush had done this…. Slade had said it would and he'd lost…
Himself.
He'd almost shot someone without….
Tears toppled from behind those masked bags, his lip trembling as the gun fell. Dick put his head into his hands and wept, bitterly, while Slade stood behind the boy to reflect upon this lesson with his apprentice at his feet.
And to offer some help of his own for the little adrenaline junkie, now totally again at his mercy.
"Your anger is understandable, yet how you choose to hone it will depend on how you'll see things. In this reflection, for example."
"I get it…" The boy wiped his face, finally coming to. "You wanted to show me what you know, but that won't stop it. The rush was too much…. I really thought –
"Not only are you supposed to be quick on your feet during a dangerous hit, you have to be smarter than you have been lately."
"I, Robin was –
"Careless, or not too careful. He let his determination become tainted. I propose we fix this with another lesson. And this time, there will be no punishment."
"W…" Dick looked up at the man.
"Why?"
"I've worked you to the bone for a few months now. I know it's not easy. You've been through a great deal of these unending "trials" and we could both use a break now and again."
"Ah…" Dick was speechless…. Was Slade…
Suggesting they take a vacation??
"I don't deserv –
"As for your little trip through town, you'll pay me back every penny, next time."
The bodies were still on that roof.
Dick lowered his eyes to the man.
Always a catch.
"You'll have to control that temper of yours boy," Slade paused, "If you ever wish to confront the Justice League while standing by my side, someday."
Dick blinked at the ground, then at the mirror as he sighed and rose slowly from the dirty, alley way floor. "I don't want to see them."
"You won't be the one facing them, especially him, alone. And not this soon." Slade said and ushered for Richard to follow him back to their home. Robin's bed had a big space that needed filling - especially if he was ever to get rid of those ugly bags. Less sleep and more sessions of drilling and suppression for such a need wasn't helping the matter. Slade realized the implications of his actions a great deal; to mitigate a dose of punishment and privilege took a keener insight than he was used to, yet Slade wouldn't give up on the boy. Not until he was truly lost, unable to see clearly through the fog that clouded his judgement.
And Slade of course, would have to make Dick curb that cigarette habit he'd been nursing.
A vacation was fine, but he still had to stop closing himself off to missed opportunities for growth. Even as an assassin, he would have the skills he'd need later to make a life for himself.
"When I do, he won't see me as a killer."
Slade didn't reply back. He instead just pushed a button as a hatch opened up.
The boy was impressed and frustrated, defending his inward remarks as he just gawked at the trick.
~ That son of a - ~
"Come, apprentice." Slade beckoned the boy to go ahead of him as Dick finally made the proper eye contact for once. "Let's get you to bed."
Richard complied, too tired to even think about bats, bringing down this killer with a trigger held up to his friends, or that fall from grace he might have had to stain his reputation.
Had Slade not been so obsessed with keeping this boy wonder on his toes, perhaps?
Dick bit his lip, seeing that Slade wasn't stopping him from this small act of defiance.
He recalled that it wasn't out of a way to defy everything in his life.
But for Dick to believe that he hadn't been conditioned to BECOME what he now was…
~ I monitored your vital signs during the mission; elevated heart rate, adrenaline, endorphins. You won't admit, but at some level…you enjoyed stealing for me…~
~ It was a thrill, wasn't it…~
~You're going to keep stealing, Robin and you're going to keep getting that thrill. And sooner or later, you will see things my way...~
Dick winced at the clamping memory against his subconscious as the doorway back to the surface, shut behind them with a load creak of winding pullets and gears.
~ Who knows, I might even become like a father to you…~
One thing Dick did realize while gazing at that disturbed reflection of his future self, was that he wasn't where he wanted to be.
With his friends and...
~ I already have a father...~
As long as it took, he wouldn't try it. After this merciful act from Slade, he'd try as long as it took to break free. Without masking all of himself, or using that pitiful excuse as Slade claimed he would fall into temptation. That if he already hadn't, would it be impossible to dig his way out?
Now that he was in, in deep.
As long as he wouldn't have to break anyone else in the process.
Yeah, he told himself that WAS possible, before. In the beginning.
He was a hero. He'd saved some kid; despite their criminal track record, from ending up in a body bag or far worse.
He'd not gotten his hands on the thrill of true theft – even if the money was borrowed from Slade's Swiss bank account…he stilled paid the amount expected, only from account that he was going to probably compensate the owner by…
Working harder…
And he didn't bury those bodies, they could still be scrambling half – alive from some distance away, clinging on for dear life. To freedom, from people like him...
He still was nothing like Slade had wanted, and yet he didn't leave.
And for now, to know thine enemy…?
Neither would this recovering adrenaline junkie.
Because he had a tower to go back to, and a slate to be made clean.
/
