Teen Titans- Renegade's Last Resort; Finding Pandora = Hope
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Ugly chapter then next chapter is the sladin scene. Warning there! This one is ambiguous Slade or Wintergreen.
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Chapter 13: Touchdown on my Heart ; Beat Down Over My Soul
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The fight with Livewire was not a draw, by far she had proven her point this time. Roy growled and pulled his arrow from the wall, the alarms dying down as the Titans came to him, only Bb – with his hair electrocuted and his ego dashed.
"Speedy….you missed –
Roy pushed by and took the doorway as Bb gawked by how the other teen was too cold. And, that Livewire was no longer in the most unsecured safe room in Wayne Enterprises.
Along with that glowing, spectacular orb of energy.
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"You lost the target, and to make matters even worse, none of you had tried to apprehend –
"We defeated Overload and fried his circumstances bwck to normal! Here!" Cy tossed the chip back at Bruce as he single handedly caught the light- blue floppy disc from another era in time.
It was asleep, quieted as if Raven had sent its consciousness packing. Impressed he might have been once, yet this was serious. "Wayne Enterprises lost one if the cores kept safe for the exact reason none if you –
"Listen, we did more than you could ah'. You let your own son walk outta here!"
"He was under orders not to flee." Bruce snapped.
The Titans went silent as Raven read that man's emotions, bordering on rage. And ….fear, for Robin.
"He's not going to get hurt. Slade wants him in one piece." She told the Batman, cautiously. "Renegade, he's-
"Don't." Bruce stopped her. "Don't use that name right now. Right now, that orb holds the ability to capture and contain vast quantities of live energy inside if it. Any shock, charge or nuclear blast can be guaranteed if it appears to be everyone's fault to blame. Even mine." Bruce turned to go, stopping as he did to tilt his cowled neck around for one last message.
"You're to leave Gotham at once. We will discuss any further probationary –
"No." Bb jumped in as Cy did the same.
"He's right, Batman. We aren't getting rid of the Titans on your say."
"I'm not discussing this here."
"But you then must consider what we are meant to accomplish first! Robin was…is, our dearest friend, and you are his, gnorfka " Starfire pleaded a bit back with wide, green eyes. "Do not do as he has and do with the shoving of your allies far from you. It is not "the okay."
"You're doing the wrong thing by not reaching out. We aren't as powerless as you'd-
"SLADE will kill you at any chance he chooses. You're all starting to relapse." Bruce seethed as his fists stayed bunched up, his frustration too much to keep locked down.
"To save time, to preserve all we can, I can't risk your deaths happening all at once. Go back to your city, and stay put until further notice."
"But Robin is in YOUR CITY!" Bb shouted. "We would be dead meet if we let a big cry – baby adult handle his abductor going way down without…." Bb swallowed that last part.
"You're off this case until further notice." Bruce finally concluded with one swish of the electronic doors behind him. Their faces were marred in defeat as he tried to see this as a plus. They only got in his way. …
~ But , Bruce! I can help…why won't you let me stop him?? You can't do this all…alone, you promised…we're a team, right?~
/
Bruce took off to his closest vehicle and sat, brooding before Alfred came onto the video screen in front if the man.
~ Master Bruce? How so far went the mission?~
" Poorly, and I can't talk about it. Too much to do."
~ I see. Sorry? Perhaps, you'd prefer to return to the cave, draw the blinds and be left to your wallowing, then?~
Bruce cocked a brow, seeing the same words as Raven had on her lips.
~ You can't do this all alone…you promised…!~
Dick. He was by himself, with that…that…
~ Either let out your frustrations in the manor tonight, or tomorrow, or else I'll have to come and retrieve you myself. Again.~ Alfred rolled his eyes.
" That, won't be necessary, Alfred. I'm going to be alright."
~ Are you?~ Alfred now cocked his brow as if to one up the caped crusader. ~ Are you prepared to face Mr. Wilson and risk the lives of those teenagers? I know in their shoes I wouldn't stand by until I knew it was necessary to do so. They still have some fight left. What would the younger you say to that?~
" The younger me was full of pain, suffering, and would have done like Richard. I wouldn't have asked for help, like –
Bruce's mouth went agape as Alfred's held a smiling smirk upon it. His mustached face saved him no luck in hiding what he truly felt.
~ You've been the same before. During the incident with Bane, you had your body mangled for weeks In a cast on both your leg and right arm.~ The butler reminded. ~ If I recall, Selina pushed you to seek her out due to that libido you passed at, yet of course. It was all in a knight's work.~
Bruce felt emasculated always by this figure from his past and present, yet what was Alfred getting at?
" Why? How can you be really, why are you saying that –
~They captured a sentient computer chip, capable of doing others as much harm as Slade would have done to our Master Grayson.~
Alfred replied. ~ Master Bruce, keep them near. As much as it pains you to believe this, he is why they fight and Slade is aware that they may set the boy free. He keeps this hinder lock and key, yet the true key may be their, teamwork.~ He cleared his throat, Bruce frowning by the sentimental explanation.
" Their own lives…they'd never just toss them away like that."
~ They are heroes, sir.~ Said the butler. ~ That is their job, and they do not seem wrong to ask for a second chance.~
/
Manning his controller as he thumbed diwn on the button, Robin was tossed in to land on his shin guards. He had no eyes up at Slade, yet that changed when a blank screen showed a pulse.
Dick was tugged away from looking as another ended up her knees, screeching profane words at every spew.
Slade's boots took their time, savoring the win. Saving time for what he planned to do or say to these two individuals right below his standing form.
"An order was issued to one of you. It was partly carried out, and then. You panicked, Renegade." Slade brought his mask so close as he tugged the kid up to grasp his hair, to torment his shut eyes with a sneer.
"The bat wasn't the problem I thought he'd be. You just don't remember the thrill from before. We'll have to establish new tactics to replace the old." He dropped Richard back, he didn't raise another habd to the boy.
To Livewire, he dragged her up even higher as the signal on that screen behind them was a call line. "Tell him. Tell him that you've switched sides. That your loyalty lies elsewhere."
"How….?" Her busted lip by the robots was no shock as the next robot came from the other side with the black box they'd taken the liberty of recovering. "The key is last to gather, the box and the power I want will then become everything else. So, tell your employer or I'll have to try something, new."
New, what did that mean?
Dick watched as Livewire spat at his mask, a glob left as he let it drop before getting a clean handkerchief from a second pouch on his belt. "You're not going to regret this, girl." Hr did not sound angry, in fact...
Wait, what was going on?? Was Livewire trying to steal the orb??
"Patch us through-
"Do it and I'll-
~ This is a private connection. ~
Slade smirked behind the mask as his next move had to be a second screen, the voice modulated simulation was indeed…exactly like the original ( Slade learned CIA AI. Wow. )
~ Hey, Cue – ball. Listen…I got a new boss. He gives you the weekends off you never did, and did you really think I'd help you blow up the sun on that sized pay, little man?? I'm out. Peace .~
~ LIVE WIRE!? YOU'VE COMMITED A BREACH IN YOUR CONTRACT. IS DEATHSTROKE THERE?? LIVEWIRE?? I WILL FIND O –
The link broke as Dick watched Livewire's confidence either. She hugged her arms to her chest as Slade cocked his head at the blue haired thief. "Stolen tech for a man who can't have any ideas for himself. Pretty low you've sunken. I can assure you, I'm willing to forget this if you'll do as I ask from now on."
"If…you don't press it, what then?"
Dick looked at the trigger in Slade's hand. His face lost its shade as that all made logical sense.
Slade had infected Livewire with the probes. Just like his "former" friends.
"I think. You need a demonstration as to what I can do with our new trinket. Robin?"
Dick looked up with a gasp and a sweat cased brow.
"Go take the orb from the robot. Bring it to me."
On his knees, he walked slowly, carefully under the influence of the order given. He eyed the glaring gaze of the masked robot as it held out the box to the teen. He couldn't run. Slade had the controller. He had all the power as Livewire bit her lip from crying her eyes out. He'd done that already. Right now, he didn't have a choice.
Maybe, it could preserve her life too. She was just a teen, like him. She'd maybe not lived a great life if she was bound to this role. And, Lex? He knew that voice from echoing light-years back.
Slade waited as Dick let the man take his prize in hand, the box opening and…
Slade motioned for the boy to take it from his palm.
What?
"A demonstration, by my favored apprentice. Show our conflicted accomplice what this power truly means."
Dick gingerly took a hand out, then another as he cradled starlight in his palms. He could see the cosmic shifts within. The Vega systems and…what…was this??
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The case with Lex was his temper, almost most of the time. He tapped his finger on the intercom as a suit wearing woman with a cold glance and a hair bun approached the tycoon. She was none to the eyes , yet her secret wasn't in who or how. Yet why she served such a person.
"Mercy…We've been had at. Wilson wants that device and will stop me at the next turn I should try. I know that wasn't my little mole's sass. She was getting double under my fingers. You. Contact an old….acquaintance." Lex pointed at the wall, a phone there that didn't seem the least bit a trouble unless he had to use it.
A special calling device, up to the highest watch tower in space.
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"So, what? You threaten my ass, stick it to my boss? Leave me without a job?? Are you insane at who you just –
"If he finds what's left, I won't mind one less mouth to feed." Slade huffed, his eye sliding over to Robin as the boy shakily held the orb in hand. His gloves had to be laced with something that didn't put damage to his grip. This was a cosmic atom, a tell-tale marvel as Slade…he'd entrusted the kid, this?...
"Don't seem so shocked, Renegade. This isn't the completed subject. It needs something else to keep it burning hotter." Slade's eye dipped onto the restless ones of Livewire. Her powers couldn't work, not while Slade had said the worst. That she was a test subject of his probes. The nanos were keeping her heart together, as Dick was sure he'd just been promoted to assistant in this hell hole of an evil lair.
As Slade beckoned Dick to come closer with his prize, the bots shot over and collected up Livewire to set a strange inhibitor collar around her throat. "Gah! Stop… I already –
He directed Richard a look as the kid froze, looking at Livewire, then at Slade's gaze on him. "Hold up the core. Hold it in front of our first subject…"
Dick did, even if he couldn't tell that he'd gone all autopilot since getting this startled out of his skin.
"Now, make her wish….see it? Good." Slade's hand went to his wrist and the trigger there. Dick didn't wait to shout as the man pressed it. The sizzle not on the faces on the screens, but on Livewire as she couldn't dare counter on the ground.
She screamed, instead.
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Howling in pain as she held her arms over her face in fetter, Slade directed the boy to hold up the orb, as a strange blue energy went from Livewire's body in a scent of heat, directly INTO the orb. It stopped glowing and went dim once it was done absorbing whatever she had to give.
"No….no! No!!" She clawed at Slade's boot, yet her own hair, everything seemed to swap.
She was brunette, a buzz cut on the side and olive toned. She gasped and tried to breathe. The collar popped off as she clutched it. "What….what did that do to me??" She themed at her lip, seated on the floor and pleading for this monster to tell her every truth he'd withheld.
"You got what was expected. You're never going to be happy as a common thief, let alone what you were. Your real, true hope in this life…was to be content with yourself. You are now officially, human again." Slade grinned behind the mask. Dick clutched the sleeping relic as he was not aware of a robot taking it from his hands to place the orb back into its box. Slade was handed it soon after as he started to explain a tidbit of what Livewire had missed of this crook's position.
He hated being the end if any stick. The bottom to any barrel and, the butt of someone's joke.
Just as he let her skin peel back, fresh tears in her eyes as Livewire was discarded in the rain gutter someplace, Dick had to speak up. Always the hero he'd been born into by taking Bruce's word.
Now, Slade's.
"You barely left anything. She…could be dead."
"She was a traitor. My robots will see that she won't squeak a whispered lip to anyone in this city."
"Killing her, that's you plan then…sir?"
Slade moved to observe the screens. He had his hands behind his back as Richard's eyes didn't see the mastermind swing his arm round to send Dick to the ground. The boy landed in a crouch.
"You fought against me, why not him?"
That tone wanted to see if it was true. Dick would not hurt Bruce, but Slade wasn't his father figure. What was he but someone to fight back against for his safety?
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Bruce sat in his cave as Alfred had predicted and went over the footage once more of Dick defending himself. Reluctant to do any harm, he even was shocked to find weapons in his boots or arm paddings by his elbows. Slade had made it so that if this could happen, it would tick off the Batman to believe Robin could do harm.
The truth was clear, Robin was afraid and the Titans…were actually right.
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Knocked in the side of his skull, Dock crawled. Slade toppled him to the ground as the boy kept his balance less than perfectly.
"You gave away my point, apprentice. He was supposed to call you a traitor. Yet you betrayed me by expressing concern."
"Y…you." Dick spat a mouthful of blood from a cut lip as he wiped it. His bruised forehead was starting to swell about less than sweetly in appearance. Slade crossed his arms as he was directly above the boy wonder.
"Put knives….in my suit….you never, said I would be…"
"Did that name not inspire some ounce of thought, dear boy? In what I am?"
The man lifted the kid to throw his entire form at the step leading to Slade's seat. The kid gripped it on his knees as Slade walked over. The screens were showing the probes inside the heroes. Not including Livewire, as hers had gone full dark. Dick heard the boots and scurried to ascend the steps with a labored, frightened pulse.
"Why the worry? He's the Batman. If anything else, it's enough to have him remember who he's dealing with. But, you…" Growled the man, his arms reaching out as the sound of tearing fabric had Dick shutting his eyes on instinct.
"I gave you that lesson to prepare you. The bat needs to learn as well. That anything I have, stays put. When I gave the order, you fled. You resisted. You expected pity from me…and, dear apprentice? You should not have let the bot take you back so soon."
His guards were ripped away with the jacket and half of the mask. Slade was an animal that left the other cowering as the only thing intact were the kid's boots.
Dick batted bat, yet was pushed down, no strength by what force the man presented. All while he couldn't even scream out as she had. Livewire had to be dead. He inwardly wanted to scream.
He'd killed her. He was sure of it.
His fault. He'd let Slade get rid of her.
The rest of his suit was torn up and now down to his under cloth. Slade released a flutter of his own handy work. The boy shook fir a second before a tremor pressed at his frame, as Dick then burst out into a sea of tears.
"You'll have to make it to the hallway on your own. For now…" Slade looked boredly over the kid wkth his eye barely making an ounce to care.
As if this was a toy, an object he could place aside.
Slade ignored the child's indignant, sniffled response to his bitter pushing as he simply walked right over his bawling apprentice. All of that fear one hour later had finally subsided by his boots as the man sat, with Robin by his feet in a tightly wound ball, bathed in the light of his very follies.
"In the future, you do as I command. That suit was your image to turn on them, it was a gift, even. And, well…you're now to for the next few days - to stay in those rags until I've crafted something that won't betray my trust in you."
Dick froze as his breathing must have blacked him, out, yet it was the shock. He was still wide awake as he rasped back, panicked.
"W…what….d…do I wear?"
"ONLY. That." Slade recited to an echo, partly.
Dick stayed in a ball as he shook, the warmth in this place was staggering, yet his entire frame around the bots…it…it was wrong. He was practically naked in front of those screens.
And Slade.
Slade saw every inch down to his.…
His breathing hitched with a few hiccups as Dick covered his face and couldn't let the tears cease just yet. Not until Slade had left the room an hour later with the lights now almost all off in the room.
Save for the screens that he kept on, broadcasting to the base their real victory.
One screen changed as he saw Kori, her face sweating as she fell and couldn't get up. Her heart rate was out of sync through a strange gallop, an attack as Raven ran to her right away.
Through the walls elsewhere, Roy was searching the city for his next way into Slade's circle. He was also contemplating shooting up inside a run down apartment he'd used to find cover without the Bat or his mentor knowing a thing.
The syringe looked quite menacing with a single gleam, and sigh from the junkie's own lips.
Bb and Cy were too busy fighting while Bb cried about nearly hurting his friends as a beast. Cy told him it was due to the probes scratching at his neuro- network , and to be safe, they'd look into STAR labs instead.
The eldest teen was this close to calling them together to see about a quick retreat, his hand on the comm and contacts showing a "Silas Stone."
His father, Dick swallowed painfully.
Bruce…had a five o'clock shadow in mere days as his one local lead turned to shit. He was ready to go in, last to fall.
What of Livewire?
Dick looked, sought out a face, yet only static appeared on her screen. Dick's hope plummeted as he wondered about the orb. Slade has said it was not completed. That a key was "missing." It had granted her deepest "hope," yet was that really true at all?
Biting his beaten lip, he noticed that the swelling had gone down. To his side, there lay a gauze pad set and wrappings…
When…
He must have been in a daze to not see them left there. Like a child spanked by their parent for misbehaving, he had stayed.
Numbly, taking in his own pain.
He sniffled and rubbed at his red eyes, finding the rest of his mask now gone. That was why nothing looked splintered in his vision. When had…
Under the wrappings, he saw an oversized tee and pajama bottoms.
That….
Who was looking out for him?
Or , did he dare… to take them at all…
Dick put his head down, not bothering to move, waiting fir the next day to come. He drifted back off as the gifts remained untouched.
One move, and those images would be his brands of loss to wear, instead. So, he simply shut his eyes and continued to heal and forget.