Dick blinked slowly and an involuntary groan escaped his lips. He tried to rub his eyes but quickly realized that his arms were heavily bound on a cold, hard surface. He shook his head and narrowed his eyes in an attempt to clear the fog and dizziness from his vision.

The last thing he remembered after leaving the Watchtower under Amanda Waller's strict control was her injecting a syringe into his neck which, judging by the effects he was feeling at the time, was a sedative.

And one that was quite powerful too because he was as dazed and confused as he had ever felt up to that moment.

He looked around, noticing that he was in a cold, gray room with several guards scattered around the room.

Interrogation room.

The acrobat ignored the feeling of the metal surrounding his neck, having now become accustomed to the inhibitor collar, and looked down, discovering that not only were his hands heavily tied to the table but his legs were also tied to the chair. As Flash had done before, the federal agents had also stripped him of his weapons -or at least most of them- and his gloves but in this case he had also been stripped of his boots. Instead his armor and greaves were still in place as they were tied by his utility belt which had an excellent safety system as did his mask.

He sighed.

If it weren't for the risk of them revealing the identities of heroes around the world, I would run away from here in a heartbeat. Once I get over the numbness of whatever shit they injected me with, obviously.

Wanting to behave in the worst possible way, the Talon began chattering annoyingly and loudly about whatever topic came into his dazed head, silently chuckling when he saw the guards' clear nervousness and their desire to shoot him.

He continued like this for many minutes -he was too confused to even understand how much time had passed but he was still impressed by the willpower of the guards who had not yet shot him: he hoped that someone would give them a raise- and just when he was in the midst of a rant about elephant mating, he was abruptly interrupted when the door to the room suddenly opened.

Renegade pretended to brighten when she saw Amanda Waller and gave her a smile, albeit a shaky one. "Waller! How kind of you to deign me with your honorable presence!" he joked, slurring slightly between words.

"Do you know why you're still so drugged?" the woman asked with an amused and pleased smile. "We filled your system with so much anesthesia that it's honestly a miracle you recovered so quickly."

"Anesthesia?" the assassin stammered in confusion.

"We operated on you and implanted a bomb in your brain." Waller smiled coldly. "You are now an official member of the Suicide Squad. My congratulations, Renegade."

Dick's still dazed and drugged brain took a few seconds longer than necessary to comprehend her words. When he did, he sighed and refrained from banging his head on the interrogation table, knowing that it would only stun him further. "The joy." he stated in a flat voice.

"Now let's move on to your charges." Amanda continued, sitting in front of the mercenary and placing several files on the table so that he can take a look.

Renegade lit up, genuinely excited by the situation. "This is the first time I have been interrogated and accused by the government!" he took on a deep, dramatic voice. "What am I accused of, officer?"

Waller frowned at his excited demeanor but shrugged it off, pointing to a particularly large file. "You are officially charged with 943 first degree murders-"

"It's actually 948. At least keep track, please."

The woman glared at him and gritted her teeth. "You are officially charged with 948 first degree murders, 241 arsons-"

"I really like fire. It gives particular drama."

"-illegal possession of firearms-"

"You should, like, arrest half the population of the United States for this crime."

"-crimes committed on international territories, blackmail, fraud and theft, destruction of 189 private properties, pollution of crime scenes, destruction of evidence, disclosure of confidential information, extortion, violation of international civil rights-"

"Ironic and inconsistent of you and your fucking Suicide Squad, don't you think?

"-mutilation-"

"One of my favorites, honestly."

"-torture-"

"Another one of my favorites."

"-theft of 115 identities, forgery, use of fire or explosives to destroy property, kidnapping of 186 people, assault on 75 public officials and assault on 34 federal agents-"

"It's not my fault they were corrupt but hey, at least I made sure they rot eternally in prison where they will find plenty of entertainment."

"-killing 41 officers and 16 federal officers-"

"They were not only corrupt but much worse."

"-obstruction of investigations and federal investigations-"

"I solved some of your cases and this is your thanks? Ungrateful."

"-theft of trade secrets, 73 murder committed in federal government facility, aiming a laser pointer at 14 aircraft-"

"Obviously I made sure that there were only criminals in those planes before I brought them down. It was also part of my bucket list to accomplish before I die. Permanently."

"-hijacking of 7 planes-"

"Same thing."

"-crimes aboard aircraft, crimes on Indian and government reservations, detention of 3 armed vessels-"

"I had to eliminate a couple of bad apples. I didn't even touch the rest of the crews."

"-drive-by shooting-"

"Very exciting. I recommend trying it at least once in your life."

"-embezzlement-"

"My contract money is very honest, thank you very much. That and when I stole millions and billions of dollars from several multi-million dollar and multi-billion dollar companies, I distributed all this money to anti-hunger charities, research organizations to find cures for rarer diseases etc."

"-entering train to commit crime and hostage-taking." Waller looked up from the file she was reading and stared at him with an impassive eyebrow raised. "Did I forget about some other crime?"

"Actually yes." Renegade admitted honestly, surprising her. "Mostly cyber crimes but it was expected that you wouldn't know anything about it because I always make sure I leave no traces. I'm just the best hacker in the world, you know?"

Waller looked at him with a look that clearly indicated she couldn't tell whether he was serious or not and finally she sighed, taking a pen from her pocket and waving at him very reluctantly. "Go ahead."

"Cyber crimes and international cyber crimes, hacking of federal agencies such as FBI, NCIS, DEA, CIA etc. and White House servers. All this for boredom, fun and to solve some cases you left unfinished." the mercenary chuckled at the woman's flat look and continued. "Illegal wiretapping and last but not least violation of servers related to the government's atomic weapons."

Amanda slammed her hands violently on the table, staring at him in complete shock and horror. "YOU DID WHAT?" she screamed wildly, her face slightly paler than usual

Dick chuckled at the panicked looks from even the guards who were on the verge of fainting once they finished listening to his entire list of crimes committed. He just shrugged as much as he could. "Again, I did it for fun and because I was bored. I also greatly improved the security of those servers, making them virtually inaccessible."

The woman rubbed her temples, clearly exhausted and tired from his bullshit. "Tell me that at least you only hacked the American servers related to government's atomic weapons." his silence and shit-eating smirk made her curse loudly. "You're kidding me!"

"I couldn't let some hacker infiltrate some state's databases and drop an atomic bomb on another state!" Renegade quickly defended himself. "It was my duty as the best hacker in the world to make these servers inaccessible to everyone except authorized ones. You're welcome, anyway."

"For heaven's sake. I'm too old for this bullshit." Amanda murmured, shooting a death glare at Renegade when he laughed. "Any final comments before I officially condemn you?"

Silence.

"I want my lawyer."

"Stop joking, Renegade." Waller growled. "You are sentenced to 1796 life sentences and 542 death sentences. You are by far the criminal with the most crimes committed, life sentences and death sentences received in the entire history of the world. Not even your former mentor Deathstroke The Terminator would reach such numbers and he has been a mercenary for about 10 years even before your official debut."

Take that, Slade!

"What can I say?" Renegade smiled innocently. "I like to be first in all things."

"How I would love to have you personally serve out all your death sentences." Waller hissed angrily, a cold glint in her emotionless brown eyes.

The assassin gave her a mysterious and enigmatic smile. "Huh. You can do it. It wouldn't be anything new that I haven't already dealt with, after all." he paused briefly. "Though I never wanted this particular kind of second round."

The woman ignored his quirks and continued. "You're fucking lucky you'd be the government's best asset. You will need many hundreds of missions with the Suicide Squad if you want to serve out all your sentences."

Renegade erupted into the eerie cackle that made every agent in the room shudder. "As if. I will be able to escape from here sooner than you might expect."

Amanda raised an eyebrow, staring at him coldly. "Have you forgotten that if you even dare to think about escaping, I will reveal the identities of the heroes to the entire world?"

"Have you forgotten that you are dealing with the best hacker in the history of mankind?" the Talon promptly retorted without holds barred. "Even a crappy computer is enough for me to erase every single piece of evidence you have accumulated over the years. All your sacrifices will be null and useless. I'll kill you and Bordeaux and make sure that neither the A.R.G.U.S. nor will any other federal agency undertake the task of rediscovering the identities of the heroes."

Waller narrowed his eyes. "Is this a threat?"

"No." Renegade sent her his scariest, deadliest, most dangerous smirk and if it hadn't been for the inhibitor collar, his eyes would have glowed an unnatural gold right now. "It's a promise. One that I will keep no matter what the cost. Even going so far as to threaten, kill or oust the current president of the USA who is too interested in getting in the way of the heroes for my liking. Only the United States wants to have a hold on the heroes: no other state in the whole world pisses off the Justice League except you, the USA government. I will make sure something like this never happens again. Not while I'm still alive."

The two enemies looked at each other for a few seconds of tense silence until Waller growled. She stood up, grabbed a key from her pocket and unlocked the metal restraints that bound Renegade's arms and feet. "Get up." she ordered him sharply and waited for him to follow her order before continuing. "Give me your utility belt."

The antihero chuckled mischievously. "Who was the unfortunate person who tried to rip off my mask and utility belt?"

The woman was not at all amused and she just silently held out her hand expectantly.

Renegade sighed and with one fluid motion he undid his utility belt. Dick next sneezed and reflexively put both hands over his mouth. "Bless you too." he joked, taking his hands away from his face and handing the utility belt to the unamused woman. "I keep the mask on, though. It's non-negotiable."

She shrugged casually. "We've already taken your blood, so we'll find out your and Deathstroke's true identity shortly."

The assassin simply nodded, willfully ignoring the part where any analysis of his DNA would take much longer than normal thanks to his computer skills.

She didn't have to know.

"Take off the breastplate and greaves of your armor."

With another sigh Renegade did as he was told and a few seconds later he was left in his underwear.

"Even your underwear."

The mercenary gave her the are you fucking serious? look to which the woman nodded impassively. With a brief hesitation, the seventeen-year-old also took off his underwear and immediately felt uncomfortable at being so exposed, especially from a physical point of view.

Waller must have noticed his discomfort because she sent him a cold smirk. "Who would have thought that the mighty Renegade was such susceptible to nudity?"

The Talon bit his lip and simply sent her an annoyed look. He noticed her gaze fixed on his chest and he followed the direction of her eyes, swallowing hard when he realized that she was looking particularly at the scar positioned exactly at the height of his heart.

Cobb had stabbed him in the heart.

Cobb had killed him when Dick Grayson was just a seven-year-old boy, who had recently lost Mami and Tati and who had just killed his parents' killer.

Cobb, his own great-grandfather and his last living blood relation, had not hesitated to kill his own flesh and blood and then inject him with electrum and bring him back to life as an undead, an empty shell of his former self.

That was the moment that began his transformation from Dick Grayson to The Talon, The Gray Son, the most dangerous and lethal weapon in all the world and the tool that would lead the Court of Owls to conquer Gotham.

Dick returned to the present just in time to see Waller nod to someone behind him and he turned with stiff muscles, relaxing slightly when he saw a guard handing him the orange prison jumpsuit. The youngest quickly put on his underwear and the rest of the jumpsuit, breathing a sigh of relief when he was fully dressed again. He turned to the woman when she began to speak.

"Now Albert will take you to your cell. Be good, Renegade, because I could make your head explode at any moment." Waller stated and to emphasize her point she pulled out a remote control with a small red button glowing ominously. "You are so special that this is exclusively connected to your head. Aren't you happy?" she teased with a derisive smirk.

Dick mentally filed the information away and smirked back. "I bet some guards will have a remote control that instead hits me with an electric shock from the inhibitor collar."

"Exact." she nodded. "So be good as a fucking puppy and don't cause chaos. Don't worry, Renegade: I will visit you often because I have special plans for you."

"The joy, part two."

"Enough chatter now. Albert, why don't you take the new arrival to his cell to meet his new roommates?"

"Yes ma'am."

Renegade bit back his annoyed growl as Albert the guard grabbed him by the shoulders to roughly shove him forward. As he walked away with the guard Dick smirked mentally, his tongue hiding a toothpick beneath it.

Bless you too, Waller.