Winging Death

First Response

Dick didn't move as he came back to. Instead, taking in as much of his surrounding as he could just by listening. But all he was greeted with was the sound of silence, not complete silence like a sound-proof room, but silence caused by a lack of life.

The room was cold, he judged no sunlight got in and there were no windows, made of a cold material, concrete most likely. It felt hard beneath him, chilling him to the bone. But it was worse around his left ankle, colder and heavier like a metal cuff had been attached to keep him in place. A shiver wracked him but he wasn't too worried about acting awake now, as far as he could tell there was no one else in the room. He cracked open his eyes to peer around, dark and cold. No windows to let in any light, he couldn't even see the end of his arm. The only thing he could make out in the total blackness of the room was an illuminated picture of the Justice League. Batman stood at the front, flanked by Wonder Woman and Superman. Behind them was every Leaguer known, alive and dead. Martian Manhunter, Doctor Fate, Hawkman, Zatanna and so on. He didn't bother calling out, he knew that if Slade wanted to interact with him, he would. Somewhere in this small room would be a camera, set to night vision so he could see exactly what was happening.

Nightwing collected his thoughts, he'd gotten home at roughly half ten, and he couldn't have been out long. He reckoned it was still the same night, maybe slipping early into the morning. Unless he had been drugged, but his brain didn't feel slow so he doubted that possibility.

So, it could only have been a couple hours at most, and if Slade had sent the message as he did Batman would already be on the case. He let his smugness show on his face, no one guesses the code word. 

He jumped at the sound of his stomach, he'd forgotten he hadn't eaten.

How long had it been? A day? More? He always forgot to eat on cases, something that was similar to Bruce. And water, if Slade didn't nourish him it wouldn't take long for him to become dehydrated.

It suddenly clicked in his brain, Slade was trying to brainwash him. Put him in a room, starve him, dehydrate him, make him suffer and make him watch the Justice League whilst he did. Give him something to focus the pain on. Dick closed his eyes, as much as he hated feeling blind (but it's so dark I may as well be anyway) he couldn't look at the image. He had to outlast Deathstroke, until Batman came at least.

------------

Bruce had finished compiling his list as a document was sent through to the cave and a call line opened by Tim.

"It's not much, whoever had come after him knew how to get past the defences as well," Tim explained as Batman began downloading the file, "We don't get to see who it is so I've sent you the footprint instead to cross-reference with your records."

Bruce grunted his thank you as he moved the files into the same folder he had created for the audio he had managed to get a hold of from the general flat security on his way there. It wasn't much to add on, but it was something. And right now, Bruce was looking for anything to point him in the right direction.

"Anything else?" He asked when Tim didn't hang up straight away.

"Yeah," He replied, "If this person can beat Dick and get though his security, how safe do you think he really is?"

"We don't start worrying until we hit 24 hours," Bruce said even as he dismissed the thought himself for the thousandth time that night, "Up until that point we can assume he's nearby. After, he could be anywhere."

"Cold trail," Tim muttered, "I'll see if I can get any security around the building but from what I've sourced so far... Let's just say even Babs is coming up with static."