Wrong Parent (Dick Grayson)

13--Fear

I sat in front of my laptop. Batman had decided that I should take a break from field missions since the events with Tony Zucco.

Aqualad gave me the command and I did it, although I was distracted today by Deathstroke's message, so I only did it halfheartedly.

I'd also been losing sleep since I got the message two days ago. I'd been haunted by nightmares. I rubbed my eyes with a yawn, my eyelids getting heavier by the second.

"Robin!" Came an urgent shout in my ear. "Repeat I need you to shut down the main power source."

My eyes snapped open. Oh no! I must have fallen asleep! I sprang into action, quickly typing codes into the laptop, every time getting the same result: Access Denied.

"No!" I shouted. "Aqualad? Are you there? Do you copy?"

The line was dead. "No,no no! Artemis! Miss Martian! Superboy!" A horrifying thought entered my mind. "K-Kid Flash?"

There was nothing.

Tears rolled down my face but I still couldn't grasp what had happened. "Dead?" I whispered aloud. "No...no, they can't be..." my voice crackled at the end. I buried my head in my hands and sobbed until I couldn't any more. The Zeta tubes announced the arrival of Batman. I looked up in fear. "P-please don't hurt me. I-I didn't mean to..." my voice trailed off.

Batman was right in front of me now. I looked up at him, terrified, tears glistening in my eyes. A hand suddenly came out of nowhere and slapped me in the face, hard enough to knock my off the stool and onto the ground. I looked up fearfully at Batman. He had no emotion on his face as he began to repeatedly kick me over and over again. I wrapped my arms over my hex to protect myself and cried for him to stop, but he didn't.

Batman pinned me down with his knees and took out a batarang. Before I could figure out what he was going to do with it, he plunged it into my shoulder. I screamed in pain as he tore it out again. He stuck his fingers in and groped around, forcing another scream out of me. "B-Batman! S-Stop! P-p-please!"

He didn't.

~
My eyes snapped open and I tried to get up, just to find myself strapped to a table. I started hyperventilating until I heard very familiar voices talking. "He's just a kid," I heard Wally saying. "Why would you force him through that?"

"It was an exercise," Batman's deep voice said. "He's been acting strange lately and I needed to make sure we could trust him."

"By injecting him with fear serum?" Wally sounded mad. "How does that help? If he hasn't been acting like himself, you could have just asked."

"He wouldn't have told me anything."

"Oh, wait," Wally said. "He's up." I heard footsteps and there was Wally. "Hey, Dickie," he said. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head. He took the straps off me and helped me sit up. I glanced at Batman and flinched, still having the image of him beating me fresh in my mind.

"We had to know if Deathstroke could control you," Batman said. "We tried everything, but we found nothing. With this simulation, we knew that your worst fear would be returning to Deathstroke, or so we thought. Either way, however, we still discovered that your loyalty is still with the team. I'm so sorry for having to put you through that."

I swallowed and shrugged. "At least you know Deathstroke can't control me, right?" I tried to sound like I didn't care, but my voice was shaking and tears wanted to come. I swallowed them down.

Batman nodded. "At least we know that."

"But..." I said, trying to get up the courage to actually say this to his face. "You shouldn't have assumed I would have lied. I would have told you if you'd asked."

It got strangely quiet in the room. Batman looked like he was trying to think of something to say, but couldn't find the words.

"Woah," Wally said. "Awkward silence..." He ruffled my hair. "Come on, Dick. Let's go get some lunch. I'm starved."

I smiled slightly. "Wally, you're always hungry."

Wally shrugged. "Hey, that's not an all bad thing, is it?"

We walked out of the room, chatting, leaving Batman to himself. Maybe that will treat him that I can be trusted.