Teen Titans Presents Robin – Torn Legacy of a Prodigal Son

Chapter 55: Jailbirds and Death Sentences

Strangled by the darkness, he saw a white light as Dick Grayson was unforgivingly made to burn below it.

The scraping of skin to bone, the scream before he'd blacked out. Before there had been utter silence…

"He'll be in one hell of a mess when he wakes to see you, Slade."

"Mainly the point, Billy." Slade sighed and let Dick heal the right way, the way any human was supposed to do so without meta – abilities. However, Dick was getting too good at imitating the master, so Slade had to slow the process to make the distinction between them clear.

Dick grunted and groaned in his hospital bed; the man was in pain as he healed, the exact same with some small semblance to the man overtop his cot. He wasn't all that perfect, not as much as Slade was expecting now that Grant was to be….

He unclenched his fists as Dick let out another groan, as his drip was increased to help him sleep through the next miserable reprimand he'd have to wake to. Slade knew it, but the Bat. If word got out that Grant knew too much as to bargain what he knew with what time he had left in Black gate, they'd certainly all be put on trial. His identity was easy, but Dick's? No.

However, the flashback of how Dick had ended up in that bed, made him want to glue the mask to his face until it was time to face facts.

"No! I'm not sorry! I did what you said, I –

Dick's face was backhanded as Will watched on from the estate's balustrade. Slade had dragged Dick off of a jet in Tokyo to their Colorado home where the snow had decided to pack in the three adrift.

Dick was allowed to be dragged to the lowest room in the home; a cellar where he'd catch his death. Instead, Slade had something all set up and ready. A systematic lie detection. Via a new serum.

What he found, had Slade in such a foul mood. Dick's entire plan was to escape, to stop Slade which…

Which wouldn't come true, not at all.

Dick's eyes fluttered open as he put a hand up with a croak in his throat. Will was there, a second bag of saline for him was –

Guessing it was something else in the bag, Dick's eyes again were glassy and gave way to sleep. Slade didn't want him up yet, and so…

It had to be after that night when the whining of machines and Dick's headache had him feeling far too full to realize it. The needle was carefully taken out as Will came back to help Dick to the toilet. He'd only gotten this way with Al, but it was useless to expect any time for himself in Slade's own domain. It was commonplace for him to expect Will as his Florence, Slade as his Doctor Death.

In the next few moments as soon as Dick had been placed back into his hospital bed, the first lift of the covers; even before he had a chance to crawl back in, fate had the door on the other side of the room to open. Slade walked in, his mask fully off and back in civilian wear. His hair was tightly bound in a short tail, his eyes masking his displeasure with something more…

Dick had forgotten that as he put a hand to his face, the man had not removed his. The evil spired – mask of Renegade still brought him to touch it against his eyes, as the glue had since dried out. He took time to remove the domino cage, the other nodding before seating himself on a chair and casually moving it to have himself backwards onto it. Like in school with your teacher, the cool one which…. Slade would never be as Dick lowered his gaze and rubbed at his arm where the needle had been. They could rap, before someone broke the law AGAIN.

"Let's talk, now that you're up and visibly capable of conversing with your master."

"I'd rather rest some more, if that's ok. Sir."

"No."

Will was ready to leave as he did, not even apologizing for being such a chicken around the mercenary. "Not this time, Renegade. You'll call me what was always intended." His cold eye landed on the boy, the ten's face beat red. His face pooling to colder shades as his pallor was lost at the memory of the Haunt.

"But I –

"Shut up."

Slade snapped, the kid only gripping the sheets and surveyed his side. The doorway wasn't close enough as Will left it shut.

"Look at me, Renegade." Slade demanded as he moved from his seat to shift from it slowly. "You'll see no one else as fit to take what you've become. You're just like me, look at yourself and tell me I'm wrong.

"I –

"I. Said." Slade moved to pounce to Dick's side. "To not, speak."

"S…."

Dick's arms were gripped over his head by force in a second, as Richard Grayson was flung from the bed to the floor. His body was still wracked with the memory of Slade's blade at his chest as his heart froze up. His whole body tremored and shook at the shock of being so away from the world since that fight. He wanted to fight, to survive as he tried to crawl away.

"Four days you had to rest in comfort, my apprentice. It gave you time to cope in here, but you still have the option of telling me." Slade moved quickly. He reached and wrenched at the arm that wasn't freed to twist, bending it brutally behind Dick's back. More pain, as his side could have split and cracked – the stitches not enough as Dick spied a small trickle. He screamed, flailing weakly. Slade only applying more pressure while, Will…. Will stayed out of the men's' affairs from the other side of that doorway.

"You'll take what's owed after the hell you put me through to drag you away from Defiance's forces. You don't understand; they want you dead , brought in and executed if you resist. Just like my worthless son... that won't help your friends now, then don't you get it by now? You're never going back."

Slade dragged Richard up as he was made to dangle by his arms, Slade tossing him yet again as a rip resounded from the blood not pooling, the low energy being…loss…

"Not after that act, Japan has posters everywhere. I'd sell you out but, I know you'd rather face facts and protect them from the shadows. Your bat made clear of keeping the vigilante act up, but for how long…"

Dick crawled, he felt dizzy. The serum had failed…but, why?

"I've treated you with something to stall your abilities, as mainly a punishment for striking back." The man chuckled sadistically as he dragged Dick's face up to look at him by his dark, shoulder length hair. "Feels awful to hurt again, doesn't it? You miss not being able to let that all go. The fakir's lesson failed a thing like you. Worthless!" Dick hair was tugged, so very hard that his battered arm flew up to take the hand off of it. Slade squeezed the kid's hand instead and made it crack, the bone could mend if he'd wanted! Why dama –

Dick gasped, his heart fluttering faster as Slade shoved his boot on TOP OF the boy's skull. Enough pressure to keep him under it, squirming with a broken rib, a mangled hand. And short of breath as his lungs…. were fuzzy too.

Slade's response to this was to speed up the factor, so a syringe was jammed into Dick's shoulder next. His apprentice bit down into his lip, as the fractured bone started to tend to itself, tissues repaired and…. his fingers, cracked back in place as his pale face went blank in disbelief so raw….so, horrified, until Slade waited, then pulled out a second needle as Dick scrambled to be set free of this display of madness.

The other solution instantly slowed it, as he'd already clearly said.

Pain, aching and groaning as the half-healed rib felt as if it would crush and spear through Dick's shuddering chest. A forced perspiration coated his brow as Slade removed the boot and simply kneeled before pulling out an old friend from his belt compartment.

"You know what needs to happen, Richard. You broke your promise to them, so it's only fair that I return the favor. Tenfold."

"No…. ples…. ach!"

"The pain will not stop; you deserve this as your punishment for leaving my side. So, I think…. that Jason should be the first to yield." Dick let his face drop to the floor. Call Slade his master. Really sell it…. he could, he had…to try again.

"No." Dick said in a murmur. "Not, him…. Cyborg."

"No."

Dick; through tears and a dizzied expression of intense pain, narrowed his eyes at the man. Cy could reboot, but his brother? He was alive, but not a miracle worker in that department. " Why? I chose one of my team...mates! M…master, please!" Dick trembled as his eyes bled red and raw out to the mastermind. "Don't hurt them…. please…. master…. I beg……you, please..."

"If I said yes to you, then my warning wouldn't continue to function for its original purpose…of having you beg, just like that."

Dick looked hopeful. He gasped, on his knees as his spine winced on a twinge. "M – master? Will you?? R –

"Maybe not." Slade smirked at the boy as he moved to stand over him again, the trigger there as he pressed it. "As much as I hate to see you suffer, this view was rewarding all on its own." Dick's mouth opened and shut as the man disregarded his plea, he let the tears fall as he clutched his skull with one good hand and screamed. The man just kept on talking, kept rubbing salt in the wound as it bled in a small puddle for someone else to clean up.

Besides, Renegade." He moved for the exit as Dick could see spots dancing in front of his eyes. The blood loss and salt loss of his tears, all of his fears coming to life as his body was too weak to fight the process. Slade just let the fit die down to quieted sniffling whimpers before speaking again. Dick shut his eyes, laying on the cold floor as Slade's boots shifted back to him, even as he looked into the black of his dying vision. "You finally, decided to call me " master."

Jason was holed up in his last safe place. The last base was raided, the new one in Japan. Katana had gone to find out what they were going to do to Grant in Blackgate, while Tim returned with Rose and, well. They couldn't mourn anyone.

"Dick is not even sure that he can fix himself."

"He's not a real threat to us, yet." Rose took off her bandana and tried to swipe some sweat from her platinum mane. Tim was at his computer, looking up a way to hack into the systems in Grant's jail of choice.

"Belle Reve would have meant Waller." Tim looked up through the database that right now, her company through Cadmus's aim was branching out to control more than her southern cell block of mutants and metas. Jason sighed and looked out at the view from their flat in Gotham. "Slade's gotta be laying low, he's not helping Grant so we…."

"I could tell you what my dad likes, but you'd be better off enlisting a spy or –

Jason snapped his fingers. "A ghost! Rose, get in touch with the channel; Raven won't be happy to see us, but I can negotiate tit for tat."

"No."

Joey, Terra and Raven shook their heads at Red X gone back to black. Defiance was in mourning it seemed as she peered by his shoulder and SAW Tim's cheeky expression. The dark-haired boy waved as Terra was whistling away in the back. Not fessing up to what she knew.

"Terra?"

"He…" She rubbed her neck and seethed through her teeth. "He wanted to help out?"

~ Master Timothy! ~

Alfred was through another line three – way style with Raven's arms crossed in the box below. Bruce's frown was above, his dark circles massively hard to stare at as the cowl the majority of his lack luster resolve in stopping Slade. ~ What did you find, Tim. You don't have the ability to handle their forces on your own. ~

"He's not." Rose brought a hand to Tim's shoulder as he kept typing. "I'm in." Grinning, the kid looked too pleased with by far proving the great Detective wrong. "Anything else you wanna say to me, B?"

The whir of a copter to her post was a trek back to the worst place on earth. Yet, it was Waller's job; she stopped any psycho's kid from breaking out in the past hour – let alone a mercenary progeny from the infamous Team 7….

Or, Task Force X.

~ Amanda. We found him detained. The driver looks spooked, but it took more than a few of our guards at the gate to lead that rat to the gu –

"You have any idea who that boy is???" Waller slammed her hand on the desk, her intercom rattling on the other end. "That kid is a killer from the bottom to the top; Deathstroke groomed his first protégé and THAT is who I'd advise you not to mock before I get there. Don't want blood spilled before I file my report to the new Warden.

~ R- right, As requested… We even made sure his cell was as meddlesome free as dear old dad's. ~

"Good." Waller nodded, better in spirits as she hopped over to see about the time. "I'll be departing immediately, but first…" A shadow had Waller sigh; a corner of her office was in fact not the issue as the figure within shifted its gait. "I have some calls to take. I'll meet you at the gates by morning, good luck."

The call was ended with a click as more than one face; a masked one, a bat's scowl met Waller's view from the side. "You have the key to get into that boy's cell?"

"I'll wait for you to be ready to listen." Batman's cape moved with his now crossed arms over his broad chest.

"Can I help you with something …sir?" Waller didn't want to make this dull, she had a flight to catch to Gotham. To the prison for sane criminals. It was a big mistake. No one Slade weaned as a pup came out clear - headed. "I need to know what your plan is with the top-secret information collected thus far."

"No data was sent; you can drop the act now." Waller and Bruce both let out a solid breath. "I respect you don't want me to talk."

"I don't, actually." Bruce was firm in not denying his dislike for the former Task Force operations coordinator. She was a lethal force in both claims of Cadmus's work and with Lex Luthor himself. Among those, she also was on better, not good and golden terms with the JLA to not tamper with evidence right away. She was, after all an enemy of those on the force, including Slade.

"Slade Wilson's son." He heard her start. "The truth is, he's waiting on a rescue and I hope your own capes aren't the ones responsible for upsetting Blackgate's peace of mind."

"We have bigger problems than that, Amanda." Bruce mentioned directly to the director of Cadmus and Belle Reve. "Slade's not coming for him, but my worry is that the information Grant has on all of my f…teammates, and on the recently turned Robin from the law –

"Your old protégé? The first?"

"Yes." Bruce had warned Waller that the JLA was handling his case and the release of info could not breech past the sensors under ANY means. He trusted her to be confidential and professional. Because…

"Bruce, we know Grayson is being pulled around the world but the serum, according to the troppers, the blood samples found had DNA traces." Bruce's eyes widened a bit under the cowl. "Wilson?"

"I'm afraid, if it was his goal to create a new Ravager, he's done plenty of damage. And when the time comes, you have to stop him. Any means."

"I know that, Amanda." Bruce gruffly denied that he'd not hurt Dick to maintain the peace of their societal order. "He's not choosing to; it was blackmail."

"In his blood, there were traces, Bruce."

The dark knight waited; this was…news he'd wanted to call false but couldn't.

"It was the one he was fighting, Red X, and even Grant, they both had something different. All traces of a technology from STAR labs that was stolen. Nanoscopic probes, Bruce." (Remember how Slade said he wasn't trying to "control" the Titans in Apprentice part 1? Well, in this case he is and is not. Grant was injected back before he'd escaped Slade's lair. Red X was later as Hush, and so on. Dick is infected in a different way but not so that it sticks until he figures that out, the fact that his rebellion before lead to the bots staying dormant. More like a shock collar, Slade really wants Dick to surpass his other failures. At any cost.)

"Both? That…. Jason is still not clean of the injection that…Slade…His own son…" Bruce realized that Slade wasn't trying to kill Grant, because in his mind, Grant would die somehow by his creation's. But Dick's hands as Slade's true successor. "He's creating human weapons." Waller told the Bat, her eyes dark and scanning the room for any hidden surprises in store. "Just like what the United States Army did to Lt. Colonel Wilson, he is doing the same to those children. Creating his own Meta – army if it suits him. And your boy fits the bill…Blackmail or not, he'll become a master assassin under that coward unless you cull the ones responsible that he has power over, before either acts without question."

Bruce raised his eyes to Waller. "You're going to kill Grant."

"And if need be, pull Slade out of hiding to come and face the music." Smirked Waller. "He kept his son alive, Wayne. He still has his emotions pushed down deep. The kind that Cadmus and I can manipulate; we can have Deathstroke out of the picture. I show no pity to those who abuse the system; I will become his executioner, and maybe. Maybe your son might benefit from being saved by us in turn."

(She would murder one to bring others to start talking. Wow….no mercy in her. Compared to my Break out arc, Waller is a bit less sentimental than the fiasco in Belle Reve. Read on!)

Red paced the rooftops of a nearby building that overlooked Blackgate's walls. Not a building, a gate that was since left to ruin since the sixteen hundreds. "Rose Red, Timbo. We have clearance. They just shut the gates for the night." Jason suite up to cloak as Rose nodded beside Tim, both watching as Katana and Jason – Katana having masked her presence until now, made their way to the facility.

"You came? Bring any friends, missy?"

"We're not strangers, so let me cover you." She whispered under her masked lips. " Shhh."

Grant hummed a tune that could have been a wedding march mixed with a death march in the same voice. He then let out a big groan. His hands tied back at the cuffs magnetically kept him bound to his cell. He smiled at he hummed and shut his eyes. "Ah, I recognize the sound of those size tens anywhere, boo..."

When he'd opened them, a siren of red went off as the door was grossly blasted away, the system fried as Katana wasn't too happy about blowing a whole in the wall. "Boo's back and ready to get you set free, Baby." Smiled Red below his mask, the one helmet that Grant could trust as he did the same –

Only, he didn't get that relief.

Todd gripped at his heart as Grant was let go from his cuffs. Someone had intervened. Not just them as Todd was carried, the guards were down and what else. What else could go wrong?

Grant opened his eyes with a gasp. Guards were on the side, dead and in the room was a man with a white cloak and red glowing eyes staring… back at him.

"No…you can't take me out. Not again! We ended our deal. I'm off the guest list…you psycho." Grant growled and pulled at his cuffs, but the face soon grew closer. "Hello, my old student. So sorry to come at a bad time, or…was it actually to benefit you, I do wonder." The man was white haired and either British or just talking in a regal tone of voice. Yes, he was smug. Very, very smug and Grant knew he'd lost something after that damn flashback had him reeling with his teen hood angst.

"You remember your Headmaster, don't you, young Wilson? Because, well…. you do owe it. Your entire life right now, to the Glorious Hive Academy!"

Grant pulled at his binds, but the damned psychic had him snoring in no time…. no. Jay was supposed t –

"Let's leave your shining knight and his noble steed a great farewell. I'd hate to be so rude as to not include them, but…. you're desperately in need of a refresher course, my boy." Dazed, knocked out by Blood's powers, Grant said nothing more as the HIVE guards in shady cloaks took him into the night. The next morning, there would have been an explosion just as the midnight hour had passed over Blackgate. Over Todd, as he fell to his knees and cursed out whoever had taken his lover back from him.

Oh….Recall the Hive? They were the ones who messed with Grant and then he died so? He owes them and they got to him before who else but the power of love. The thing with Jason coming to save him was an illusion created by Brother Blood's powers. Well, that will be in the next chapter! What comes after? We'll see!