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With trembling fingers, Duke used one of those shitty school staplers to stitch the multiple gaping holes in his body. He ignored the slight glint of his blood on the ground, the unnatural yellow glow already starting to fade the longer it was away from his insides.
Duke himself had never noticed it - how that hell had the those assholes in white coats seen?
Ragged breath in, ragged breath out. This was fine, Duke assured himself, totally and completely fine. Someone would come get him. Bruce - no, he was in space with Diana and Clark. Dick - also in space, just on a different mission with the Titans. Jason- nope, he was somewhere in Europe with Outlaws on some sort of not-contact ‘adventure.’ Cass… with either the Birds of Prey or in Hong Kong. Tim was off the grid some place. Steph and Damian were doing some sort of Med retreat with Dr. Thompkins. Babs was definitely with the BoP.
Shit. He was on his own, this time.
Duke tapped his fingers against the stapler as he built up the will to put more metal in his skin. He could try calling one of the Supers, he mused. The click of stapler came at the same time as the bite in his skin, and he bit back a yelp.
The staples were barely even registering to his brain, at this point. Just another bunch of pains to add to his ever growing list. He exhaled slowly. Right. Supers.
Duke opened his mouth, ready to holler for Kara or Kon or even Jon (maybe Krypto would come?), when the clunking of heavy boots came hard against his senses. His head wiped towards the closed door - had he remembered to lock it?! He bit his lip tasting more of his weird, glowing blood. (It didn’t taste any different from the time he bit his bully and took a chunk off, but it had been a while since then, so maybe he was wrong?)
He held his breath as the harsh voices of - what had they called themselves? Agents? - angry men and women floated through the cracks of the room.
Duke frowned as he caught a few snippets. They… weren’t talking about him. They weren’t looking for him at all. That wouldn’t stop them from taking him back to their lab, he was sure, but that meant…
He might have an ally.
The storm of footsteps soon stopped, and he ran a thumb over his trusty stapler in thought. Half-empty, now, but still useful as a weapon.
Even if he couldn’t fight back physically right now, there was a decent chance he could snatch another victim of this fucking cult shit right out of their grasp. Duke smiled slightly. Yes, that was a good idea. And if he got caught again, he could always inspire a revolt.
He got the feeling it’d be really goddamn easy.
Duke looked around, trying to see if there was anything about the room he’d missed the first time he’d swept it.
It was a classroom, with maybe 20 desks lined up in neat rows and columns. There was a discarded hoodie tossed on the back of a chair, and Duke resolved to swipe it on his way out. Since he wasn’t wearing a shirt, after all. Also, it was red! That would probably help make sure no one noticed he was injured. There were posters up on the wall, of the middle school variety, and he mostly skimmed them until one caught him attention.
His brow furrowed. “The fuck do they mean ghosts?” he muttered.
“Oh, you’re not from around here are you?” a new voice asked, and Duke just about jumped out of his skin. Not that he had much left, but whatever. “By the way, can I use that stapler?”
Duke sputtered, “The fuck?” His head whipped around, trying to find however was speaking, before landing on a blur of pale colors over by the door. All entry points were still closed off but-
“Ah. Shit. You’re the one they’re looking for, aren’t you?”
The blue twisted violently, and Duke assumed it was because the voice-person-blur-who-might-not-be-a-person was tensing up now.
“I mean, I would hope so,” Duke continued, “since if you aren’t then I think that makes you with them and I’m kind of indisposed at the moment.” He winked at the blur and a shade of red entered the otherwise pale colors. “Makes it hard to fight back, ya know.”
The blue made a sound like it was clearing its throat before- oh that was a person. What the fuck.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” the… guy, supposedly, agreed, a flush high on his face, and holy shit, why the fuck was he bleeding out.
Some of his shock must have shown on his face because the new person looked down and winced. “Yeeeaaaahhh, forgot about that for a moment. Um. Stapler?”
Duke nodded, open-mouthed in horror. Jesus Christ, he could see his organs. At this point, Duke was just done. Also maybe considering a bit of murder. He’d see where he was later.
The boy (who kinda looked Duke’s age but also should be dead right now so he didn’t really trust that measurement) walked over to where Duke was sitting propped up against the teacher’s podium and slowly sank to the ground beside him. He took the stapler from Duke’s limp hand and pressed his two skin flaps together, the click of the school equipment finalizing the situation as crazy in Duke’s mind.
“So, ow, what’s your name?” the guy asked.
“Duke,” he responded absentmindedly, still staring at this dude who definitely was not human. Although, Duke corrected himself, he did look like one of Bruce’s long lost kids or something. Like, seriously. Ignoring the blood and resulting paleness, the kid had extremely blue eyes that popped, with midnight black hair that framed his face nicely.
“Oh, nice,” new guy said. “I’m Danny. I’d say nice to meet you, but… it’s not, really.”
Duke grunted, nodding and thunking his head back against the wood.
“Hey, so, quick question. Why’s your blood glowing?”
Duke sighed, “No clue.”
“… makes a good night light though.”
“… yeah, fine, I guess.”