Despise ⇢ Dick Grayson

sixteen.

A SINGLE FLUORESCENT light bulb swings gently from the ceiling. Dick blinks blearily up at it, his eyesight a little patchy.

His head lolls down to rest against his chest and he belatedly notices his arms are chained to a metal chair that's bolted into the floor. There will be no miraculous escape from Vex Turner this time. The man may be a full blown sociopath, but Dick will give him this; he learns.

After being thrown in jail by Bruce and Dick, Turner managed to escape and build his weapons dealing empire bigger and better than before, even setting up a secluded safe house in the middle of nowhere. By any standards, that's impressive.

"Dick...Dick." Turner's sing-song, grating voice snaps Dick to attention. He surveys his surroundings carefully; a wooden cabin mostly bare except for a few cots and a small kitchen. There's a large, padlocked cupboard to the right that he can only assume holds a multitude of weapons. From within the cupboard, Dick hears a thump. "Oh don't mind that. We'll get to him in a bit. First I want to talk to you, just us girls." Turner drags over a fold out chair and places it across from Dick, then drops down onto it. "Now that we're finally alone, I want to run some ideas by you."

"Is that right?" Dick keeps his composure best he can, his mind racing with ideas on how he can get the fuck out of here and find Will before something bad happens to her. If something bad hasn't already happened to her. "Ideas about what?"

"Well, about how I'm going to expose Bruce Wayne as Batman. Obviously." Turner grins and Dick's jaw tightens. "I'm thinking of getting a banner and hanging it over the GCPD precinct. Or maybe I could go for skywriting. I kind of think projecting a light into the night sky would be ironic, considering the bat symbol. But that might be a bit on the nose."

"Are you done?" Dick glares at him.

"You know it took me months to figure out the identities of Batman and his little sidekick. But when I finally did, oh it was so sweet. And it made sense too!"

There is another loud thump from inside the cupboard.

"Alright! Alright!" Turner rolls his eyes. "Enough foreplay. Let's get to the main course then." He leaps up from his chair and bounds over to the cupboard, producing a key and unlocking it. Dick glances down at the locks keeping him in place. He suspects that is the key to his freedom as well.

Turner flings open the cupboard door revealing an impressive arsenal of weapons and also a bound and gagged man. Dick recognises the man immediately; Hopper, a low level weapons dealer who used to work for Turner. Years ago, Bruce and Dick pressured Hopper into turning on his boss and the information Hopper provided on Vex eventually led to his arrest.

Batman and Robin didn't technically have criminal informants, but if they had, Hopper would've been one of them.

Turner all but throws Hopper out of the cupboard and locks it up tight behind him, slipping the key into his pocket. Humming like it's his goddamn birthday, Turner struts around his prey, leans down and tears the gag out of his mouth.

"Listen to me Vex, listen. I had to. They made me talk, I was loyal, I swear," Hopper cries.

"Shh, shh." Turner hushes him. "Quiet now."

"It was years ago, man!" Hopper continues on so Turner delivers a swift but firm kick to the guts.

Dick has to admit, he won't shed any tears for Hopper. The guy is a criminal, through and through. But Dick also can't help but feel responsible for the position he's is in. Dick and Bruce forced the man to talk and now it's come back to haunt him.

"It was years ago. But lucky for you, I have an elephant's memory," Turner picks up a wooden baseball bat from the corner of the room. Hopper scrambles backwards along the floor but with his hands and feet bound, he doesn't get far. Turner lifts the bat above his head and brings it down hard on Hopper's leg. There is a sickening crunch. Turner hits him again, this time in the jaw. He keeps hitting him, over and over again, until the bat splinters, leaving slivers of wood embedded in Hopper's face. Eventually, he stops screaming and stops moving altogether. It's a brutal death.