Teen Titans - Renegade's Last Resort ; Finding Pandora = Hope
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Slade punishes Dick a bit out of character just after Dick had lost the fight and had to be rescued by Slade from his team. In any sort of scenario, he would have taken Starfire's hand before they'd flown into the clouds and away from the last place he was told to rob. In Star City. This is a prologue to the other one shot and rated T to make it easier. M later.
Dick gets a pep talk from the man who would be Roy Harper but loses all the same another comrade. This is going to be a one shot but I've decided to start a short fic on a Renegade, "Waiting from dusk till dawn." THAT WAS A SLADIN OR BUST ONE SHOT SO IT WILL BE EXPLICIT IN MOST PARTS. I CAN'T LIE. THE PANDORA PROJECT AND THE SUIT WILL FORM A TERRA - LIKE NARRATIVE WHILE BATMAN TRIES TO HELP THE TITANS SINCE THE SIDE EFFECT OF THE PROBES IS A CANCER. Dick, many sacrifice himself to save them or let them die. That is the gist, and the Nightwing forever continued arc of dead or alive is in later. No promises. Arc….now.
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Chapter 1: Such a Drag
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A backhand across the face was nothing, something the bat never gave, yet thugs in his line of work as the boy wonder. They have relished in putting him on his side. Watching him cower as they towered about, staring down a prey with claws and teeth.
Another hit came as Dick never blocked it in time. To fragile and told to stay bound with his arms and legs unable to twist out of what Slade had done. Tied him up to his new life. To the pillar where above, gears gave his forming concussion a boost.
The beating lasted for a few straight minutes until his vision grew dim and fuzzy around the edges. Sleep overcame the rest of himself as he'd never heard the rule of the binds Slade had unclasped from the pillar, or how he was so "kind" to have carried Richard to his cell of a room. Military black and grey. A light supplied without a way to tamper with it , or else he'd be forced to wallow in utter darkness.
"If you had never spoken to that Tamaranean. If she'd just stayed away, you brought this…onto yourself, my apprentice ."
He was right. Dick had shouted on how to deactivate the device chaining them down, and like the switch in his room, they'd lost the fight. The side effect wasn't clear yet, though Raven was scarred by it. Beastboy was in pain even after they'd vanished. Slade could do ANYTHING with his shiny new toys, Robin being now one of them. It never resisted. Never rusted. Never grew older as long as it got its nine hours to sleep off the pain.
Slade even injected him with a heavy dose of painkillers while he was moaning on the bed. How nice, right?
He would get older. He would change in size and shape, and even angrier would be the storm if Slade's little "project" learned his tricks too quickly.
Beating him like this, was just rubbing salt into every porous pained spot imaginable, as Richard drifted off and imagined someone getting the last piece of footage that had been saved. The last ounce atop that rooftop where his friends had shed tears before he'd been taken into a copter and into the clouds to vanish.
Slade had forced him to the ground, bound his wrists and ankles while keeping the kid from leaping out to his death, maybe.
He had plans, and they didn't include asking Ra's for another favor.
"He's become too bold. As much as I enjoy that fire, I don't want his studies to falter while in my firm hand, Will."
" You handed the boy his task and he chose what would have them hurt more than himself or his pride, Slade. Perhaps the human side of yourself could lessen the ex tent of this….experience."
"The bat will come. If he sees the damage, he'll know what needs to be said to the boy. But I want to be there first. I want, him to swear his loyalty only to me."
Delusions of the mad man in his dreams, Dick finally drifted off while no light hit him upon daybreak.
He did rise, yet it was…quiet. The door.
He groaned and rolled onto his side, which was painfully patched a – plenty.
It, was opened?
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Starfire rubbed at her skin despite the ointment doing its job. A top grade bit of engineering for her kind, even on earth. They waited as Cy checked the status of the probes while Bb whimpered through the tubes surrounding his body again.
"No…" Raven looked on in horror as the darkening of Bb's once red and even white, were starting to look sickly. Mutated and ruptured or split as they grew and recovered. Cell damage.
Bb didn't open his eyes as Starfire wept into her hands. "How long has the occurred fir??"
"Since he used the trigger the last time we fought Robin. It's…just too soon. This is impossible-
"It's going to kill us." Raven interjected, Bb sticking his eyes her way as wide as he could.
"What??? Dead?? No way!"
""Yeah, way. Slade found a way to not just have us stop fighting back."
"He would gladly erase us, to keep us from friend Robin –
"DOES HE EVEN KNOW??"
"Robin must be hurting…I felt his pain all night…" Raven hugged her arms to her chest. "His heart, it's so slow, he's conserving his energy but it may be a trick by Slade."
"A drug, maybe." Cy agreed on the afterthought. "Slade could have knocked that kid's teeth out, but we know he's pushing woth that ego of his to keep Robin alive long enough to show him off."
"TO…The very, bat - eared - like man of the Gotham City??" Starfire asked.
"I think he will." Cy nodded. "If we contact him before Slade starts talking –
"What if he's watching us." Raven wondered as she scanned the walls, terrified by how Robin was as unaware until it was too late. "I'll short these terrible bugs if there are any with my abilities, metal shall not last if it is molten by my strength." Kori insisted.
"I'll scope them out with my…um, nose?"
"You can't. It's not organic." Frowned the empath. "They were like Cy's arm. Automatic in placing themselves here. There is nothing I can do but try to see if that's not the case."
"I'll leave a call to Bats in private if I have to. Won't be too explicit-
"You sure you should NOT tell em that we have cancer inside of us?? He'd be my super hero anyway and come rubbing –
"Robin is the one I'm worried about. Slade won't touch us, but Robin is defenseless if he tries. He is too much a a white knight fir his own good." Cy let out a huff of air as he got the keys pumping under his grip. "Fan out gang. We only have so much time before things get that much more ugly."
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Bruce was busy on his end stopping a threat. A laughing clown from killing again another of his allies.
He had to keep running into trouble. Jason knew the risks of disobeying orders. Just last month, Speedy; Green Arrow'sake side kick and adopted ward had done something similar to Dick Grayson and had left. Had claimed he was underrepresented as a hero and just a side kick. What? At sixteen he'd be a vigilante? Jason was fourteen. He had no idea how much trouble he'd be in if the bat decided to bench yet another failed-
Bruce shook that thought off as the bat mobile's wheels burned up the streets of Gotham. He just hoped that Joker would think to work slowly and not cut the cord off the Bat's timetable. Jason was just a boy, he…
He had wanted this, and Bruce had been crazy to say yes. Dick was not responding back to his calls at the Tower. He felt this level of disrespect too often. Two boys separated states of being.
Under his watch, even so.
Even so, he didn't stop searching for either.
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The news was a- buzz with the debut of another hero outside of Star City. Speedy. He was cool, ick and faster than the Flash's fumbling new boy, Wally West. Roy had run away to see to a forming reason to get his life together without Ollie bringing up his fair share of complaints.
"YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE AUTHORITY-
~ YOU'RE UNDER MY ROOF, MY RULES. Walk out now, you put a target on both our backs.~
Roy watched over the skyline of this new city. If it was San Diego, it looked too modern. Starling was pretty, even had some charm to it – but this. This was the Titans' turf.
Jump City at night. He grinned as he found a landing and took to scanning for any muggers, thieves and cutthroat –
He blinked and looked to his left. Was…
Roy followed it, a person. He knew what that wasn't. No illusion.
A person, with a strange uniform of two colors. Black and orange…
Roy squinted and wondered why Ollie was so ticked off when he' asked about the last fight he'd almost lost. One, Oliver was a stupid, idiot faced drunk when he drank at parties. Two; he had baggage of a rich boy and an ego not as refined as B. Wayne's. Three.
Three was…
Maybe, he had a past regarding those two shades of an October horror.
So, he followed the figure to a back ally where the kid was using earpieces to apparently speak to someone just as deviously suspicious.
"Target acquired, sir."
~ Excellent. Though, one issue remains, boy. You didn't watch your back.~
Blinking, the two toned teen moved his hand from his ear. The thing at his waist as a priceless gem that could power cities. A lot of them. It was still getting the bugs worked on, yet that…
~ It would be the first man made stone to ever hold that much capacity. ~
"Wayne? What about securing this server? The public would swarm in on it!"
~ It's not to hoard, Mr. Queen. This is a gift to mankind that is going to place a bit foothold of the reversal of damage done by humans. One large stone and the emissions, the output and the need for more towers will leave room for better energy initiatives like this one. It is a building block of hope. Hope, that should never be kept behind a vault for much longer than it has to. ~
One gem would power cities in natural disasters to prevent more natural disasters from occurring on a global scale. And Jump had one locked up tight. Roy wouldn't stand by as he walked coldly out of the shadows.
"Hey! You are not even aware of what you're holding, are you?"
The teen, masked with black spiked tips on his, pulled the gem back into its hiding place. A box that was only for it. One infinity to charge it, should it be lost to all of humanity.
"Hand over the human marvel, kid. You can't get away, you're in my sights, now." Roy held up his bow and clenched it, arrow there in a standoff while the other planned quietly.
He wasn't just a thief. There was something else about this brat's eyes, Roy noticed it Quietly.
"You like me, running away?" The kid leaned into the wall, his back was towards as Roy readied his bow slowly, masked eyes never leaving the other's. "Never been one to stay in the pack for too long. No growth in it fer me. But... You, need help –
"Do I?" Dick moved a shifting foot outwards he looked to wait and see what he could do to evade one shot that would string him by his suit.
Damned archer, and he knew who it was too.
Roy. He'd come looking like Fick had for a place to call home. He couldn't say get out of here with a scream like before. Slade had forbade it. He'd be listening in. Waiting with a hand on the trigger. Finger at the real, absolutely.
Roy had to get out, though Dick didn't know if he could save the dumb adopted boy of his former mentor's competitor. The drunk and the punk, they'd say. At galas or at house gatherings in the Queen mansion, Bruce always said to not get too close.
He had, and this was the price of having to let go.
Of only Roy were smart enough to know. To tell…
"Why aren't the Titans after you, kid?"
"Dunno. You guys friends, or are we done here?' Dick changes his tone to seem street tough a bit. It was a poor acting job as he could imagine Slade designing the punishment of the boy reciting something to make his lungs give out. If he didn't speak, that was fine too.
"You are all by yourself, but here you are; stealing something that could save thousands from becoming like you. Drop the toy, and I won't-
"Jail would never hold something like me. I've got a contract. And, I'm never alone." Dick snapped his fingers as the box was handed to a shifting shadow with white eyes in the background. Roy looked up, seeing half cloaked robot drones with mean looking metal clawed fingers.
He was trapped.
Roy darted back, as a robot shot out a lazer gun at his only weapon. Roy blocked and then was chased. He had to look over his shoulder, the kid had been home free from his old rival.
Fuck….who was that kid??
Over again he panted, until the bots had chased him past the pier, his eyes catching a glimpse of the same T - shaped tower. The bots shooting as he dove. The water was fine, yet the fact he had to hold his breath until they left…
The red headed teen swam towards the boardwalk for cover as their solid footsteps ended. Vanishing.
Roy coughed up some excess water as he let the first gulp fix him back into the present, sputtering it out ubpleasently. That….was intense…but that boy, the box and the bots.
He'd taunted him like he wasn't a threat. Roy felt like an idiot as he tugged out something from his belt compartment.
A vape pen took the edge off and cali had this whole thing with their good shit easier to nab. It was just to get mellow. He'd lost everything because of Ollie's words, so what?
Prefect was an understatement. Perfect was an illusion. That kid though, was anything but a perfect nemesis.
He decided on it. This city was out if luck and the Titans were AWOL for half of the action he'd witnessed. With a slick grin on his face, he stated at the dark sky and took another drag. "I got my home back. Don't care what came before."
Hope was here, on these shores to get him away from an old past illusion, and to build the promise of a more secure future for somebody.
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