FicWad

How he got there in that situation he didn't remember anymore.

His memory stopped a few minutes ago. He remembered waking up suspended there, held to the ceiling with chains, his wrists tight and aching, his legs swaying without any support.

He remembered the disorientation caused by the drugs circulating in his body.







How high was it?

He couldn't have said it ...

A few centimeters?

Few meters?

Was there really something beneath him, or was there just emptiness?







He was losing lucidity. He had to fight it, otherwise, it would have been worse. He had to resist the toxin. He didn't have to allow hallucinations to manifest.

As long as he remained lucid he could hope that he still had some chance.



"Let's see what little Robin is scared of!"



The voice seemed to come from a very distant place and at the same time from inside his own brain.

Following those words incessant laughter, which resounded on the outside and also inside. Probably his kidnapper had already stopped laughing for a while, but he kept hearing that rumble inside and outside of him.

Maybe it hadn't even been that long, but he was beginning to lose track of time.







How long had he been there?

Was it hours?

Maybe minutes?

Could they even be just seconds?







He could not give answers. He couldn't concentrate.

He remembered the pain of a needle stuck in his neck, the burning of something being injected and then the feeling of disorientation that was amplified.

The fast heartbeat, the wheezing, the muscle tension, the cold sweat ... he knew these symptoms. Fear toxin.







"Don't give up! He's coming! Don't give up! He's coming! Don't give up! He's coming! Don't give up! He's coming! Don't give up! He's coming! Don't give up! He's coming! Don't give up! He's coming! Don't give up! Give up! He is coming! Don't give up! He is coming! Don't give up! He is coming! Don't give up! He is coming! ... "







A mantra. He repeated it over and over. He focused on single words and then on whole sentences. He clung to it with all his remaining energy, the only anchor he had left in order not to fall prey to hallucinations.

He knew he couldn't hold out for long, but he couldn't give up without a fight either.

He could already feel his control over the situation slipping away.

Him of all people, with a tailor-made backup plan for every possible unforeseen event, how could it have ended like this ?!

It took him a moment to lose focus and fall prey to a hallucination.

Everything around him had changed, it had been so fast he didn't even realize it.

One moment he was hanging, chained to an unknown ceiling and a second later he found himself clinging to a trapeze with a broken rope.

He didn't want to keep his eyes open, if he looked down, he knew perfectly well what he would see.

He didn't want to see them! Not again, he couldn't stand that sight again.

But in that scenario, he didn't seem to be in full control of his body, so closing his eyes wasn't an option.

Against his will, his gaze began to turn downward.

He saw them again, his parents. To the ground. Lifeless.

That scene had never disappeared from his head, over the years the nightmares had certainly faded, but he continued to see them every time someone on the team risked falling on a mission.

Falling was not a fear he perceived for himself, but for others.

The fear of seeing someone he loved fall was much stronger than the fear of dying.

His gaze shifted to his own body. He was wearing the clothes he had worn that evening, but the body was how it is now.

Gradually his gaze rose.

He wasn't alone!

In his own situation, everywhere around him, he saw the people most dear to him.

There, each dangerously clinging to their own broken trapeze, he could see all the people who made up his daily life.

Bruce, Alfred, Barbara, all of his Young Justice friends, the members of the Justice League he felt most attached to.

It was absurd to think of the most powerful people he knew in a situation like this, there was an infinity of dangers that all of them found themselves facing daily, this would not normally be cataloged as a great danger.

There were many ways out of a similar situation, his rational side was aware of them.

But all of this was driven by his fear, and the fear is not rational.

He watched them demonstrate a fragility alien to them.

A fragility that he had had to observe only in desperate situations.

A fragility that hurt him!

He wanted to do something, but he couldn't do anything. He was there next to them, but there was nothing he could do!

He couldn't help them, he couldn't reassure them, he couldn't save them ...

In that timeless place, movements and changes seemed to take up a split second and infinity at the same time.







How much time had passed outside his mind?

How close was he to death?







The first to fall was Bruce.

He wanted to look away, but his body hadn't obeyed him for some time now.

His gaze followed his entire fall to the ground. His body sprawled next to that of his parents.

Then it was Alfred's turn.

He didn't know how long his heart could hold out what he was going through.

He was trapped in that nightmare, a prisoner of his own mind.

Time had a different way there. This didn't always turn out to be positive.

Then he saw Barbara fall.

Bruce and Alfred had gone away in silence, but for Barbara, it was not like that.

Even before the inevitable fall, it was her screams that broke him.

Barbara, the only stranger to the life they all led.

Her only fault was that she was close to him. That was enough for his brain to make her participate in this scenario.

His mind. His greatest ally, which backfired so painfully.

Then it was Wally's turn, then Roy, then Kaldur ...

One by one they all met the same fate.

Each of them brought him closer and closer to breaking.

In the end, he was left alone, staring at all the people who had died because of him, without him having even been able to lift a finger to help them.

Up there, alone, clinging to that broken trapeze, the only thing he wanted was his own death.

But not even that was granted to him at the moment.

The only thing he was allowed to do was look at the massed bodies of all the people he loved, without being able to move a muscle or let himself fall.

At a certain point, from a very distant place beside him, he heard agitated voices coming.

At that moment without any warning, his hands came off.







Was he about to join the others?

Would he die?







He felt hands on him, maybe he wouldn't die.

The scenery was replaced by darkness. He heard voices calling his name.







Was it over? Or his mind had found a new scenario to break him?