Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Waking up in a new place was like taking a shot of adrenaline directly into your veins, the feeling of fear spiking so high it feels like your heart is about to explode. Robin wasn't a stranger to the feeling, or even to the fear itself. It was a common part of his job description, a risk he had been willing to take when he agreed to remain a hero. Didn't mean he enjoyed waking up to three heavily armed men in a clearly reconstructed room, one that seemed to be rushed into a prison cell rather than whatever it had been before. Nothing good ever came from secondary locations, of that he knew.

Robin's head was spinning, and while he had training for this exact moment, he was not pleased to find himself in this position again. He had hoped he would have left those days behind when he left the grime and darkness of Gotham but apparently, they still followed him to Jump City, clichés and all. A quick scan gave him the basics, gray walls and off-white floors that were surprisingly clean. So, it was either a building still in daily use or a villain's lair, neither of which boded well with the young teen.

The guards themselves seemed to be pretty run of the mill, black body armor and wicked looking guns strapped to their hips. The three of them didn't even seem to be a unit together, rather, three different hires that just happened to be thrown together haphazardly, like a puzzle rushed to the finish.

The one directly in front of him was tall and broad, with biceps the size of Robin's head. His hands were calloused and rough where they poked at his face, roughly turning it this way and that. His eyes, the only thing he could see past his mask, were sharp and narrow , the color of a clear river. This man was clearly a soldier, or at the very least, a well trained mercenary. He tilted his head back towards the other two, voice carrying easily in the silence.

"So, this runt is what was giving the Boss so many problems?" He questioned, not judgingly but rather genuine.

The man a few feet away looked up from the files he was reading to level a scathing glare at the first man, who Robin was dubbing 'Muscles', his mouth set in a scowl.

"That 'runt' as you call him took out six of our finest men by himself. It took bringing in bigger guns to even get him down for this long." The man, whose face was uncovered and littered with scars, droned out blandly. 'Scar' clearly wasn't in the mood to be dealing with any of this, and Robin almost chuffed out a laugh in response. Way for the thug to not be into his own part or caring about his privacy.

"You guys realize he's awake, right?" The last man spoke up, voice quiet and almost swept under the noise of what could be an air conditioning unit buzzing in the background. The other two blinked at him, his arms wrapping around his thin body at the attention, before turning back to Robin. The boy-wonder silently cursed 'Skinny' for outing him like that, though he knew he wouldn't be able to keep up the game anymore.

"Ah, the little one joins the living," Muscles spoke out calmly, his voice thick with an accent that Robin would place as Eastern European perhaps, though he couldn’t pin down a specific region. The bulk of a man stopped handling the boy's face, of which he was grateful, reaching out to adjust the cuffs around his wrists. Robin glanced down to his hands, irritation shooting through him when he spotted the metal chair he was in had been bolted to the floor.

"Congrats to the brat," Scar muttered, already returning back to his files. He flipped through a few pages in the silence that followed, calling over Skinny to look over a sheet.

Without a distraction, Robin only had one thug left to talk to and while he wasn't being cruel like his captors usually would be, he wasn't going to let his guard down. That would get him killed, depending on who their boss was. Speaking of....

"So, since you guys went through the effort of kidnapping me, maybe you might be interested in letting me know who I pissed off this time?" Robin snarked, his usual leader tone coming into play. He pushed down the voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Batman whispering that he needed more information but not at the risk of his health.

"Hah, it's none of your business, little one." Blue eyes narrowed, almost disappearing in the shadows of the mask, " You will be moved to your proper containment unit once it has been finished."

Containment? Why was he being contained? He didn't have powers like his teammates, and while he was highly skilled, a containment unit was usually only reserved for metas. Villains rarely had a need for one with him. Chairs and rope were good enough, at least until he cut himself out of it.

With a hum, Muscles patted the boy's cheek before standing.

"Better to relax. It will be a while." He spoke with the manner of someone telling their child to sleep.

Oh hell no. He wasn't waiting for rescue, if there was any coming. He had to get out and find his team, find out what this group wanted. This was not gonna be easy. Nothing in his life ever was.

He twisted his wrists as subtly as he could, testing the give of the cuffs. They were heavy-duty and Robin was a bit surprised to see they were lined with leather, a courtesy that goons typically didn’t extend to him. That didn’t necessarily make it a good thing though, as it implied that whoever had taken him had intended to keep him in decent enough condition. For what reasons, he had yet to work out.

At the very least, he was grateful that his domino mask was still on his face. Its adhesive was still going strong and didn’t seem to have been messed with while he was under, and that at least allowed him to breathe easier. With all the manhandling he had woken up to, Robin was surprised that Muscles hadn’t at least attempted to see beneath the mask, but nonetheless he was grateful for it. One less thing to deal with in the grand scheme of things on his to-do list.

“You say it will be a while,” Robin started, gently tugging his ankles to test the cuffs on them as well, his tone deceptively light, “but I can’t imagine there would be a lot of prep involved in a containment cell for a non-meta.” He glanced up through his hair, falling out of its signature style and onto his forehead.

He was going for causal, or as causal as was possible in a situation like this. Being too relaxed would be suspicious, even for someone like him. There was a fine line to walk between confident in his skills to get out and tipping his hand out of his favor with hubris. This was a tightrope he was used to though, much like his parents before him.

Muscles grunted out a noise, watching him like a hawk. The shadows over his eyes were intense, the furrow of his brows casting a valley of darkness on them. It made it unsettling that the only thing Robin could see was the light reflecting off his irises, like two orbs of ice in the pitch black. Perhaps this man was not someone to test, but then again, neither was most of Gotham’s rogue gallery. Still…

“Meta, no.” Muscles muttered, fixing the supplies on his belt as he fixed his stare directly into Robin’s face, like he could see past his mask, “Human, also no.”

That…was not what he had expected to hear. Perhaps a little confession that he was harder to contain than most, perhaps praise or anger towards his mentor for his training, but not whatever this was. Mental manipulation, maybe. But the man in front of him didn’t seem to be looking for his reaction, more like he had stated a fact of life that everyone knew, no questions asked.

Muscles turned his back to the boy, hands remaining on his hips (not far from the gun holster, Robin noted). His stance was basic, still militant and perfectly balanced as he started a conversation with Scar about estimates, both in expenses and time. Nothing that he could glean anything useful from, and so he allowed the drone of words to wash over him, dulling him slightly.

It took Robin by surprise then that Skinny had appeared to his right side, silent as a ghost. He just barely managed to prevent himself from jumping and it seemed that although he managed, Skinny knew it. The look on his face was not one of maliciousness but rather, the same one that thugs who regretted signing up for action had when faced with the reality of their duties. Guilty. Solemn. Skinny still had his arms crossed, wrapped around himself in a looser hold than earlier, but no less relaxed. He looked tense, like a man marching to the frontline and his stare was perhaps just as intense as Muscles, although in a much different sense. Where Muscles was watching, waiting for Robin to make a move, Skinny seemed more inclined to search his face for something. What it was he was looking for, Robin couldn’t be certain, but it appeared he wasn’t finding it.

“You know, when they gave us the briefing on this job I was expecting something…. different,” Skinny mumbled, his tone sounding almost like a confession. His brows furrowed further than before, visible through his balaclava.

Robin glanced up and down the man, taking in his body language. He switched tactics, lowering his voice to prevent Muscles from noticing their conversation. “And what exactly were you expecting? You took the one member of my team without powers and are what, surprised?”

The look of apprehension that flashed across Skinny’s face when Robin tested his bonds again was not missed, and his tone had shifted from guilty to almost conspiratory.

“Is that really the story you wanna keep playing at? It’s not doing you any favors here.” Skinny leaned back, almost out of the teen’s sight. The hair on Robin’s arms raised at the tone, a sliver of wariness returning back where it had been when he woke up. He hadn’t realized it had disappeared until now, speaking with the one of the men who had kidnapped him.

“Oh, because I have so much going in my favor to begin with?” He bit out, his tone shifting upwards in frustration. He bulked in surprise when Skinny’s hand flew automatically to his gun, clenching it tightly in his grip but not unholstering it.

It seemed that his anger had drawn Muscle’s attention back to him, those watchful eyes narrowing in on the situation. His large frame moved to Robin’s side, blocking bodily between the two like a shield. For whom, the boy-wonder wasn’t sure of yet.

“Enough.” His tone brokered no argument, the finality of it settling the tension that had filled the air. “Sleep, or don’t. We will move in four hours.” And with that, Muscles gripped Skinny’s arm in one gigantic fist and dragged him back into Robin’s line of sight and away back to Scar, who had been watching the scene with something similar to Muscles’ gaze. Watchful, cautious, hawk-like.

For the first time in however long he had been here, Robin was alone.

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Hello! I am so sorry to anyone that got excited that I updated this, but fear not! I have finally decided to come back to this work and begin on it anew. I will be rewriting the first chapter (keeping most of it and just adding to its length) before I update more chapters! Feel free to leave comments on which SCPs and Foundation staff you'd like to see in the series, as well as what your guess are for what will happen! Thank you for your patience <3