Prompts

cornered | caged | confrontation

Chapter 2: nowhere to run

The next thing he knows for sure is a cell on the Watchtower.

At first everything is blurry. Then a flood of stimuli crashes over him all at once, sights sounds smells tastes PAIN, and he staggers. He falls against something hard. He lands on the floor, on his back, all his senses whiting out.

Everything hurts.

He doesn’t want to move. He wants to lie on the floor until his body stops throbbing like one giant bruise. He wants to sleep.

“Pathetic.”

Dick stands up.

He turns, on shaking legs and a twisted ankle, to face the door.

The woman coils a golden spiked lasso around her hands.

Superwoman.

She sneers at him. Her face is familiar. Dick knows her. He’s never seen her like this; he’s never seen that much contempt on her face. But he knows her.

Lois Lane.

“Who are you?”

He sounds hoarse and scared. It’s not hard. He’s behind enemy lines. Captive. Alone. He doesn’t know if Barbara picked up his last location, if anyone else knows where he is. He doesn’t know what happened to the Justice League.

He doesn’t know what happened to Bruce.

“What do you want?”

Her mouth lifts in a cruel smile. “Your world,” she says. “Your surrender.” Her eyes linger on his chest. “Your total submission.”

He glances at the lasso. Everything before the cell is blurry and hard to remember. It’s not hard to deduce why. That lasso. He’s felt the Lasso of Truth before. It’s compelling, painful to resist, impossible to disobey, but it doesn’t impair brain function.

This is different.

“You don't have to do this,” Dick says. “We’re—we fight for peace here. We would have negotiated with you, if you had come in good faith—”

The lasso flicks out. He stumbles back on a twisted ankle—too late. It wraps around his wrist, barbs digging into his skin, and drags him forward.

“You think we would have negotiated? With you?”

The lasso burns against his skin. She pulls him close, into arm’s reach, and Dick feels a sudden desire to go. To let her grab him—to fall into her arms—

No!

That’s the lasso. Whatever it is, whatever it does—he resists. He fixes his thoughts on physical sensations. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, pain.

The woman in front of him is pale. Her lips, fixed in a sneer, are pink. “The Crime Syndicate negotiates with no one,” she says. “Least of all people as pathetic as you. Holding back your power in service of the weak—bending the knee to meaningless human governments—when you could be gods.”

Dick blinks. He wants—more and more of his brain wants to agree, to give in, to do whatever she asks. He resists. He holds himself rigid. He thinks about the pain in his ankle. He presses his heel to the floor. He focuses on the pain.

“You may as well be ants yourselves.” She shoves him away. Dick stumbles on his ankle—the lasso tightens—and he falls toward her. He can’t keep his balance. He falls.

His knees crack against the metal floor of the cell. The lasso burns into his arm.

This is where he’s supposed to be.

No. No. No.

“Peace.” She scoffs. “We didn’t come here for peace. We came here to conquer. To fight. It seems we shouldn’t have worried.”

The lasso burns. Dick pants, trying not to think about it, trying to wrench his thoughts away from the irresistible lure of submission. He opens his mouth.

“I,” he says. Every breath hurts more. Every thought takes more effort. “Wasn’t finished.”

Something like surprise flares in her eyes. Dick stares at her. He doesn’t see her after a few seconds—the lasso makes it too hard—but he keeps his head up, keeps his eyes staring ahead, and knows that he’s looking into her eyes.

“We would have. Negotiated. So we didn’t—have to—” He breathes harder. He can’t think. He can’t think about anything but her voice—how much he wants to hear it—to do what she says—

No.

He grabs the lasso with his other hand. He feels the sheer power lance through his hand like a knife. He remembers every knife he’s ever felt on his skin.

He breathes in.

“We fight for peace,” he says. “We fight. We fight to—the death.” He looks up, where he knows her face is. “Your death.”

He doesn’t quite know what happens after that. She grabs him by the hair. She loops the lasso around his body. The barbs dig into his skin. His scalp hurts. He doesn’t mind. This is what she wants. He wants to make her happy. He wants to submit.

This is where he’s supposed to be.

The lasso makes everything a warm haze. White and grey and sudden squalls of color pass him by. His ankle hurts, his arms hurt, his scalp hurts, but he doesn’t mind. All that matters is—

Death—death—death—

A word rings in his head. He doesn’t know what it means, or why it’s there. It’s not supposed to be there. He doesn’t know where it came from.

Death. Death. Your death.

He reaches for it, but the thought slides just out of reach, beyond the comforting fog. He doesn’t know how to reach it. He doesn’t know if he wants to. But—

Your death.

It seems important.