Dick Grayson one shots

174

The 8 year old's screams were silenced as the inky black tar filled his lungs. His body jerked and shuddered for a moment before going still in the pod.

"I bet he'll be some sort of elemental," one of the men at the controls said.

"No way, it's more likely that he'll turn into some monster or something," the other man retorted.

"Let's see then," the first man replied, pressing the button that started draining the tar from the pod.

The small body left inside was still for a few seconds before it started to shake with coughs.

Dick Grayson, the boy inside, opened his eyes. As the two men watched, the beautiful blue of the irises was overtaken by a bright silver.

"Well, something happened," the first man said, pressing the button to release Dick's restraints.

The two men grabbed the small boy and dragged him to the back of a long line where his hands were cuffed to the end of a long chain.

Almost as soon as Dick's wrists were enclosed in the cuffs, he was jerked forward with the rest of the line, his heart hammering in his chest.

When he got to the front of the line a woman grabbed his tar-coated head and began wiping his right earlobe clean.

The woman worked quickly, finishing by wiping the area with an alcohol wipe.

A jangling was heard as the line of children was moved forward again.

Dick was shaking with fear as he stood in front of a woman with a strange instrument in her hand. She grabbed his ear and lined up the instrument on his earlobe with a bored expression on her face.

A whimper escaped Dick as the woman continued preparing for whatever was about to happen.

Suddenly, a needle was stabbed through his skin, and Dick cried out, two clicks sounding directly into his ear. The cuffs on his wrists clinked together softly as he was pulled forward, another child taking his place.

A man at the end of the line grabbed Dick's face roughly, turning his head to look at the newly placed tag on his ear. #174 was printed on it, and he scanned the small barcode at the bottom, officially entering him into the system of their meta trafficking unit.

Dick's ear throbbed, and he cried out again as the man grabbed the tag, inspecting the area where it was pierced through his small ear.

When the man finally deemed the job acceptable, he unchained Dick's wrists, and shoved him towards a mountain of a man who loaded Dick into another pod, giving the child a strong sedative before closing the pod and wheeling it away.

—

Dick stepped into the training room with a girl who appeared to be in her early teens. She had two large brown wings fluttering behind her, and Dick didn't even need to look at the tag on her ear to know it would be green.

Green because they already knew what her metagene was.

Dick's fingers subconsciously brushed over the tag in his own ear. It was red, they didn't know what his metagene was yet, despite performing test after test for months.

The two metas shared a look. They were supposed to fight each other.

Dick had been put against different opponents every day since he'd been brought to the large meta training facility.

At first he'd lost nearly every fight, but now... it'd been months since he'd lost a fight, even with no known power.

Dick and the girl circled each other. Dick watched her body language, especially her wings which were, surprisingly, giving away a lot.