Teen Titans- Renegade's Last Resort; Pandora = Hope

/

Chapter 13: Be Oh – So Gentle With Me ; Sentimental For Me

/

This is a creepy Slade moment. Recall that Dick chose not to take his clothes and swap to avoid it being a trick, and that Slade is still hoping to erase Dick wanting to break his oath as long as he's keeping the Titans alive. What occurs…gets to be much less casual. More, intentionally mixed with feeling. Find out!

WARNING FOR : MIND GAMES, LAP SITTING, VOYEURISM, CREEP PSYCHO VIBES, DRUG REFERENCES , THREATS OF ASSAULT

/

Groaning, the night had gone while Dick felt his body shift uncomfortably between those times. In a blink, he couldn't feel the ground as his poor cracked lips tasted water dealt to them.

The precariously noticed water bottle was slightly tipped as if he were being fed it. His nose crinkled as he was forced to swallow with a hand to his trachea gently to coax it all down.

"Are you awake?"

Dick shook his hair out of his face with a smaller sound of discontent. His eyes were feeling too stuck shut, until he'd realized he wasn't able to see.

His hands shot up, yet larger ones snugly held them down and in place. "Ah – ah - ah." Tutti a sing song voice. "I'm the one who's helping, here. Not only that... I see you did as I'd expect of you, mostly." Slade softly sighed with his hands at the kid's stiff sides. "The dais's last step isn't the best for your ribs if you're expecting to not feel that." He pressed on one as stuck winced a little. He'd been there all night abd his arms had even tried to fall asleep on him. They made a terrible head rest pillow, he grunted.

"Though, you never budged while I was away. You are welcome to now use an actual pillow." Slade smirked in his ear as the blindfold stayed taught.

"If you can break free of me."

Dick gaped a bit then shut his jaw. Slade was testing him. His arms squeezed as if to crush, yet they were in control. His body wasn't as stiff due to whatever treatment he'd had upon….wait…

Slade's lap.

Dick's face lost some shade against his lacking sight here.

Slade…lap??

"Why am I –

"Here with me?" Slade ended that question by answering it for them both. "You were being so good, I just thought I'd do my part. After all, being alike as we both are, you'd treat anyone as an obstacle, Renegade. If you think you can, tell me I'm wrong."

Oh, so this was still training.

Dick took in his feeling in his arms as Slade tugged the kid flush against his chest with a jolt back. "Sit up. Your spine is a bit tender. Leaning on it won't save for your posture, dear child…and I don't want a damaged apprentice going out tonight."

A…was he a thing now?? A fucking teddy bear??

"I need to get up."

"No, you don't. " Slade tilted his metal mask to dance past the boy's cheek, to almost have his apprentice's head tilted back to meet a gaze he could not visually react to. "You don't want to go anywhere. And what if you did? What would that change? You're not welcome anywhere else. I have you, here. And so I'll keep you here. With me. Until that sticks."

The squeeze round his sides and torso had Dick brace back, only to see that his back was flush against a mound that didn't belong in the equation.

Dick started to fidget as Slade chuckled hotly against his exposed lobe. "Are you finally able to read those words? Would you kick and fight Wayne the same way? Am I any better? Or, would you remain like this, without raising a first to your master…"

Was…

Dick sneered as he tried to take one leg and bend it to lift himself up at a knee, yet Slade's grip moved a slight, readjusting him to let the leg fall and his bottom dipped out of the lap Dick was forced to sit upon.

"Hell, if I told you to be more machine that assassin, I'm sure you'd love to hide within another persona. If it makes time for them, that is."

He didn't know what was happened as the more he struggled, the closer he was to slipping out if the hold into a brand new one that felt worse. Contorted and out of his own mind, with the blindfold practically glued by sweat over his unmasked eyes.

"I….can't be here –

"Where can here be then?" Slade asked s bit softer, curious himself to know what the panic might soon morph into.

The twist has Robin corkscrew his body to land on his hip on the floor. Right on his side. Yet Slade's own hand gripped his as the kneeling brat's arms were pulled like ropes without weight apart to them. "I can keep you where I want you. On your knees, beneath me, if that's what it takes to show you your place."

The bones in Robin's slimmer wrists made a small pop, as his hands in Slade's were vice grip tight. He tugged back, while Slade's mask hit his cheek every time his was dragged back in to hear the man purr.

" Wayne wouldn't think twice about sending you off, locking up his biggest flaw to that man's happiness. You don't make him happy anymore, Richard. You only caused him so much pain, and now it shows."

Dick's wrists were on fire as Slade squeezed harder, hearing more tension turning as the boy bit the inside of his cheek at the pain.

"What I do, all I've done, is to have you remember that. That even if you go back, and you somehow again become that gloating little Titan, you'll still belong here. Beneath this little entrapment I've set into motion…." He hissed back with a pleasure in his actions.

"It's your brand, and you should welcome it. After all, you said nothing about being alike to him." Dick flinched before continuing to try and get free. "The Titans…they think you have a dark side, and it was true. Wasn't it? Whatever happened to chasing that thrill?"

He meant Red X. He meant the thermal blaster and Kori's brave face on top of the Wayne Enterprises building in Jump City. He meant…

Dick tugged harder now, as his leg kicked and held the dais base to rip his wrists off. Slade wasn't caring of the display, letting his fearful protégé try to tear both his arms off to do just that. He was in control. It didn't matter what Dick wanted anymore.

"We are alike, apprentice, and you should appreciate all that I am trying to teach you. In this very second, Speedy; A.K.A, Roy Harper has one secret he won't breathe a soul to and, it includes you."

Dick stopped fighting as his heart rate slowly gave a second to even out. "Speedy…secret?"

"Our next mission was to find out what he's hiding. Any of that which is a threat to my things, and it directly affects me. If he's the one person you had a history with who refuses to embrace that past, it might not be so cut and dry on the surface to have to dig a bit deeper. His rivalry could be a mask of something, other than a personal hate for your competitive side as sidekicks. Don't you want to know what he feels, deep down, Dick?"

"Not…not really." Dick responded hoarsely.

"Too bad. I have a serum that can make the job easier. Your goal will be gritty. But , it will prevent you from falling as he has, in only a single night. However …"

"Sir…" Dick swallowed, seeing a glint as his wrists were let go of. Slade leaned forth to tug off the blindfold while he was still grinning below the faceplate; his eye was gleefully aware that he'd done a bit extra to keep the kid awake this time.

"His trust, will be difficult to mend. Do everything you can to have it, then inject the serum into his veins as he would enjoy any other back street syringe, to forget. Only this dose, won't allow him that at all."

Dick's eyes focused without speaking, yet that look was obviously not lacking in giving away any spoilers.

Truth serum.

"What if he finds out."

"He can't. That boy is hiding how much of a monster inside he's become without proper guidance. You'll be his tipping point to discovering how deep his pain really gets. How much you can pry from the hands of a self-made junkie."

Dick pursed his lips as his salt filled blue orbs were darker in the lacking light of Slade's new lair.

"So, I just have to play the vixen in this take his secrets."

"Correct, in a way. Unless you'd rather take him away fir a good time, I doubt a vixen is what you'll be."

Something about that sentence betrayed Slade's motives. Dick had seen him mind brand the boy in this creepy keep. He couldn't tell if it was one or ghe other. Beneath him, for example.

That set off a dim, red flag as Dick shrugged it off for now.

Or the fact that he was going to fake getting high to gain Roy's trust to take something he hadn't told a single soul yet. It felt…dangerously close to being hurt himself.

"Why is Speedy so important in this, Sir?"

Slade knew that the boy would ask that, and his only motion was to deflect each blow as it came.

"You're not to beg the question as to "why," Renegade. That will be from now on, an order given that you cannot break from. Do you understand?"

Slade stood up as Dick still was to his knees, still in his rags. Slade looked the boy over and he had been working on trying for new designs while the kid had stayed asleep through the night.

"You won't be wearing those for this mission. You'll be going under cover. So, maybe a vixen is what you should be…"

Dick dipped his face and flushed at why the man kept comparing him to women like Ivy or Catwoman. He didn't sneak into the hearts of anyone for a little intel. That…

"I'll set up a scenario for you two to meet. It will be almost cliché, though mind the sentiment. I'm doing this to be one step ahead of the bat."

"Does this have to do with element, Sir?"

Slade turned from the boy to hit a button by his makeshift dais throne. "Your location will be at a club downtown. I believe that Roy Harper has been searching for something around this range. The streets are Robin's home, yet don't forget to stay ever vigilant. You're not Wayne's child, yet you still look like him."

"Why would I need to keep a cover if I could just have contacts and a wig? If –

"He won't trust a stranger, boy. Use your head. A personal connection allows him to sink into the pain, and for that…he won't agree to sinking deep enough without a light shove."

Shove…push….

Dick nodded. The damned seat his butt has been in was a metaphor all along. Push and pull, being blind to who was watching. Getting in another's head.

He wanted Dick to do the same. To be just like him.

"I see you've fully let that lesson sink in." Slade chuckled a bit at his confused pupil. "Now that you're briefed to a degree, let's see what perfect outfits look good on a Renegade, and not a flightless song bird."

/

(Slade likes to play dress up. Robin is a perfect mannequin for that. See what I did there? The tugging, the mind games and the squeezing were all lessons within a lesson. Hah!)

/

Starfire sat up and looked at the windowless wall of STAR labs' s research center. If it were a spell more acutely diagnosed, they could do more than their best.

"I know I came at a bad time. But, I need your help."

"She'sin pretty bad shape, compared ta' how you've been holding on, Vic. Did Batman tell you to stay back in your home for now?"

"Yeah, and we can'tdo it –

"You're gonna need to keep an eye on the relapse, so I'd take his word for it, son."

Another doctor behind the glass was further assisting Kori as she smiled weakly after the last test was through. "Those probes aren't coming out until we can be sure that the sweeper won't cause side effects on our patient. She's tough, even so…she still has enough of her anatomy that won't make it through the procedure. I can work on a counter option but it's gonna take time."

"What did you have planned, for my team."

"If there is an acid that eats metal, it could take out the robots in a few weeks. Like dissolving diseased tissue or healing an ulcer. I can't say that it will be effective on the trial one – hundred percent."

"You need a sample of um. Raven can heal up pretty quick. If I ask, she's got enough blood ta spare for a specimen." Cy told Mr. Stone, who nodded at the idea. "An empath, but she's still gonna need a strong enough response to activate um."

"Wait, you mean they have to be alive ta even be taken out??"

"They go completed dark when the last sample was outta your friend in there." Silas told the teen. "If they get activated somehow, they could function long enough to fish out a couple for testing."

"In other words, they have to on and hurting us to even have you see what's really going down." Frustratedly, Cy ran a hand over his skull. "I…I gotta see what the team –

"If you do anything else, any other method…the acid could work. Maybe not so much on Starfire or Beastboy due to their DNA. Yet yours and Raven's as human. Hers is half, actually."

Cy blinked. "So, she can still try that option, cool. But what if it's not gonna…well…"

"Then we don't stop. I can call in Atom anytime and Palmer knows my work is limited to robotics."

"Right. You know the probes, but…"

"Humans, we had a lot to do to pick you up and put what we could together…Vic."

"I get it, you don't do human anatomy as well as she…" His mother before her death had worked on a genome project through another firm 8ne she didn't talk about much, yet her biological intelligence of the human form was incredibly detailed. Losing her had his father push his own son away. He couldn't cope, and Cy had stormed out until Robin made the teen try over to win a word into his father's emotional battles.

"Robin won't be gone, not if it's you. I know, I saw how well you fight and , I'm just afraid, son." Silas told him. "You have bombs lodged deep inside your body, and it's ten times worse to me than losing you and your mother. It's twice as painful, but I'll do whatever I can to win back your trust in me. I have scientists and doctors from all over here to help. We will…find a solution." He could finally breathe as Vic understood clearly.

"Together." Smiled the eldest hero. "I know, dad. We're doing all we can while the Batman…he just wanted to give up."

"Bruce lost his son, Victor." Silas explained quieter, the doctors using a strange instrument to check Kori's heart rhythm. She was too busy giggling at the fitted vest as they sat her up to run more in-depth tests.

"Put yourself in our shoes. You don't stop worrying about the ones you love, even if it hurts. He used to be close to his ward, Dick Grayson was the kid who changed Batman I think for the better. The fact I know their secret and yours isn't uncommon. This place gets plenty of funding through his company's aid, yet the rest remains totally mum. Robin is a hostage to some mastermind and who knows what he's going to do next? Bruce should be upset, but that can't stop him' when we have hope - and your mother and I hopefully taught you to empathize with another's pain. Even if they might not absolutely deserve what's coming to em'."

/