Auroral » Titans

30|| Borderline Psycho

The small group came to a stop outside of a padded room's cell door. "This is it?" Sophie looked back at the woman claiming to be Rachel's mom.

"It is." Rachel answered for her mom. She walked past Sophie to the heavy door and wrapped her smaller hand around the handle. The latch clicked as she eased the door open.

Rachel took a step inside before her breath caught in her throat.

Sophie's heart sank and she quickly stumbled into the doorway. The moment her eyes landed on Dick it was like the world stopped spinning.

Her breath fell silent and a pain she had never felt before stabbed her in the heart. She forced her feet to move, ignoring the way she stumbled over them.

Dick looked so broken. His brown eyes were lifeless, staring off into a place only he could see. His chest rose and fell but his breaths were slow and weak. It was like she was looking at the shell of a man. An empty husk of the person she knew.

A lump began to form in her throat and the pain in her heart only got worse. She created a small, thin dagger and sliced through the restraints around his wrist and head.

"What's wrong with him?" Rachel asked as she undid the restraints around his other wrist.

"They must have given him some kind of drug." Gar muttered weakly.

"They may have broken him Rachel, they do that here." Her mother spoke sympathetically but the tone of her voice only grated on Sophie's nerves.

"Not him." Sophie snapped. "He doesn't break easy." She needed those words to be said, like somehow saying them aloud would make Dick wake up.

"Come on Dick," she gently slapped his cheek, "we've trained for stuff like this. You can't let this beat you."

A tense silence settled over the room but all she could focus on was him. "Dick, look at me. You have to fight this, whatever they did to you have to fight it!"

It felt like she was screaming into space. His foggy eyes only reflected her terrified face back at her. Her vision became blurry with tears and her jaw began to quiver.

Her grip tightened around his shoulders and she shook him. "You can't leave me again." Her voice caught in her throat, breaking along with her heart. "I forgive you, ok! So just snap out of this, Dick, please."

The fog in his brown eyes faded and slowly they focused on her. She felt his hand brush against her arm and the dam in her eyes broke.

She buried her head against his neck and hugged him like he was going to slip through her fingers. "I love you." She whispered loud enough for only him to hear.

His arms wrapped around her and the pain in her heart dissipated. "I love you too." Hearing him say those three little words again eased her pain.

Sophie breathed deeply before she pulled back from the hug. She wiped the lingering tears from her eyes and stepped back so Rachel could see Dick.

She hated crying in front of others but for once she didn't care if the world saw her cry. She was too weak to hold herself together, and she knew she had a family to help her.

"Come on." Rachel said as she pulled back from hugging Dick. "We need to get Kori."

****

Sophie never quite felt as useless as she did right now. Her head sat heavy on her shoulders and every step had her grabbing the wall to stop herself from falling. She could barely walk, let alone fight. It just made her feel like a liability.

The crunch of dirt beneath her boots echoed down the long, dank, tunnels. Dick and Kori lead the group, they were the only two who were capable of fighting whoever tried to stop them.

Rachel walked alongside her mother, and Gar stuck close to Sophie. He watched her with careful eyes, moving to grab her every time she stumbled over her own feet. Still she refused to lean on him for support.

"Come on, we can get out through there." Angela said, pointing to a turn at the end of the tunnel.

"There they are." A faint voice echoed down the tunnel. Sophie's eyes darted upwards and she quickly spotted the two armed guards who stood at the end of the tunnel.

"Stay right where you are!" One of the guards hollered before they began running towards them.

Every instinct in Sophie's body told her to get ready to fight. It felt like she was betraying herself by choosing to stand still. Instead she watched as Dick walked forwards, his body tense and ready for a fight.

He walked ahead of the group before he noticed a large industrial wrench still attached to the end of a pipe. He grabbed the handle and pulled it free with a loud clank.

The moment the two guards were in range he attacked. He slammed the end of the wrench into the closer guards stomach. The man lurched over in pain before he barreled into Dick.

Dick slammed his elbow into the back of the man's neck. The second guard rammed his taser stick into Dick's side, well the other guard shoved him backwards.

Sophie watched the three fight before her attention was drawn to the fourth figure running towards them.

Her heart tightened in her chest as even more guards turned the corner. They quickly surrounded Dick. He fought them with a kind of brutality she had never seen in him before. Deep red blood covered the end of the wrench and splattered across the grey walls.

Sophie's eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. She had seen violence ten times worse than this, but this shocked her more than any war scene ever could. Batman could be violent but he never taught them anything like this.

It made her sick to her stomach. The Dick Grayson she knew wasn't a killer.

The last standing guard hit the ground with a thud. It should have ended there but Dick still raised the blood soaked wrench, ready to beat the man's head in.

"Dick!" Sophie forced her weak voice from her throat. The room suddenly fell silent, like it was only her and him standing there.

Dick raised his eyes to meet hers. Another man's blood was splattered across his cheek and coated his hands. As if he could read her mind the wrench fell from his grasp. It clattered against the cement, next to the man he was so willing to beat to death.

His eyes widened with realization before his shoulders slumped and his face fell. "Get out of here." He said breathlessly.

The others slowly began to step around the bodies covering the floor but Sophie's feet refused to move. Dick's gaze flickered back over to her. She could see a sea of pain and regret behind his eyes.

"Go." His words sounded empty.

Sophie tore her gaze away and began to step over the bodies on the ground. Her heart ached. In that moment she couldn't find a reason to justify his levels of violence. All she knew was that he wasn't going to be able to look at himself when he realized what he had done.