Demigod in Gotham

69) ...Noice

-Dick POV-

Dick had been in the conference room with Bruce, talking about how they were going to proceed, when Connor burst in.

"Okay, so don't panic-"

"What happened?" Bruce said as he immediately stood from his chair.

"Well-" Connor started, but yelling from outside the room cut him off. "Ghost King put the collar back on himself and now everyone is fighting."

Dick and Bruce ran out of the room, following the sounds of yelling until they found the source in the room they had given to Leo to work in.

"-he just said!"

"I don't care what he 'just said'! We are taking it off right now!" Will yelled at Leo who was standing between the blonde and Nico.

Leo stood his ground. "I know you care about him and that you're just trying to protect him, but the damage is already done. We can't undo what he already did, so we might as well learn something from his stupidity."

Nico rolled his eyes as he his body laid motionless on the floor. "I'm literally right here."

Will glared at the son of Hades. "You purposefully paralyzed yourself in order to run a stupid test— that counts as idiotic."

"What happened?" Bruce's voice was booming, immediately silencing the fighting demigods.

Will clinched his jaw as he turned to face the Bat. "We were talking about how we could only work in hypotheticals because the collar is bio-locked to only work if it is on one of us. My idiotic boyfriend apparently heard that as 'put on the collar'."

Nico glared up at Will. "We need to know what this thing can do. Someone had to put it on and you two need to be able to run tests with it, so that left me."

"I swear-" Will started but Dick cut him off.

"Okay, everyone take a breath. Superboy, go grab a gurney. Red Robin, go get a med cart. Surgeon and Technician, go grab whatever you need for the test."

"But-"

Nightwing put up a hand to stop Will from interrupting him while Kon and Tim ran off. "I don't agree with what he did, but Tech was right. The damage has been done. We need to see how the collars work and the effects it has on people like you. Though I would have preferred to find a work around or at least discuss the method before hand, we still need to take advantage of the situation."

Will sighed as the two returned and nodded to Dick. "Fine, but we are taking it off in an hour no matter if we're finished or not."

Dick picked up Nico and laid him on the bed while Will got to work with attaching him to a monitor. "Make it half an hour."

Leo went to his work station and grabbed a pile of things before returning. "I can attach my sTablet to the Collar and have it run a new set of diagnostics on the collar along with checking what commands it can follow. We know that Heat Stroke Guy had a controller-"

"Deathstroke."

Leo shrugged as he attached some wires to the collar. "Potato, Tomato. We can see what other things the controller did based off of the commands the collar has been taught."

Tim grabbed the schematics that Leo had made off the of table and passed them to the demigod. "Don't you mean based off what has been programmed into it?"

Leo shook his head as he swipped around on the tablet. "No, I meant taught. I learned while working with celestial bronze that it interacts differently with technology in general, but when you incorporate the two it can work together better than intended. By making the 'inhibitor collars' with celestial bronze, it opened up a world of possibilities. If were lucky, Strokeman doesn't know about the capabilities."

The tablet beeped and Leo immediately began to focus intently on what he was doing. Dick and Nico shared a look for a moment before the son of Hades raised and eyebrow. "And if we aren't lucky?"

Leo was silent for a moment, still rapped up in what he was doing before Will smacked his arm and he looked at Nico with a nervous laugh. "Yeah we aren't lucky."

Bruce crossed to room to look at what the tablet said but paused. "Can you change it from greek?"

"Sorry dude, I only have it set for Spanish and Ancient Greek."

"Spanish is fine."

Leo raised an eyebrow at Batman before clicking a few buttons and handing the tablet to him.

Dick let out a sigh as Bruce, Tim, and Leo began going over the information together. "You got any better news Surgeon?"

Will, who was on a sTablet of his own that was connected to the monitors, shook his head. "Not really. The good news is that the collar's doesn't cause any actual damage outside of the neck wounds. It looks like the spikes in the back give it the ability to basically hack into the brainstem and convince the body that it can't move. This means that N- Ghost King was probably right about the pain being completely mental."

Dick watched as Will places his hand on Nico's chest and began to hum slightly.

"Is it just me, or is he glowing a little bit?" Kon whispered to Dick.

Will removed his hand and chuckled a little bit as he turned his focus back to the tablet. "That happens sometime when I use my power. I was checking to make sure that there wasn't any damage happening to him internally that the machines might have missed. So far it seems to be spot on. The collars are defiantly meant to render people like us useless, but they aren't intended to harm us."

Leo hopped back in the conversation. "They can do a lot of damage when it comes to painful stuff, but there's no 'instant kill' button, so that's good."

Nico rolled his eyes. "Well that's good new."

Will flicked the side of his head. "Cut the sarcasm death boy. You're the one that put the thing on against doctors orders."

Leo disconnected the wires from the collar. "My works done."

Will nodded. "Same. We can take it off now."

Leo pushed a button on the tablet and the collar popped open.

"Son of a bitch," Nico muttered as he sat up, pulling the collar's spikes out of the back on his neck. blood began to drip down his back as he handed the collar off of Leo. "Im glad I took the hoodie off."

Will rolled his eyes as he shoved a piece of ambrosia into Nico's mouth and pushed him back down. "You're not allowed up for an hour. You've lost too much blood today."

Nico sighed, but didn't argue. "Can I at least switch to a wheelchair so I don't have to be wheeled into the debrief on a gurney?"

Will muttered a fine before setting his hands on Nico's chest and humming a song quietly, the slight glow returning. After a few minutes he had Nico sit up and began wrapping his neck.

Kon returned with a wheelchair, Dick hadn't even noticed he'd gone to get one, as Will had finished the wrapping and cleaning up the blood. Nico pulled on his previously discarded hoodie and moved into the chair.

Bruce ran a hand over his cowl and face as he returned to Dick's side. "Ghost King, Surgeon, and Technician, you all take a break for the next half hour. Red Robin and I will go over the new information while Nightwing updates Aqualad and the rest of the team. We will meet back in the conference room after for a debrief."

Nico sighed. "Oh joy, another debrief." 

A/N: I am currently doing this instead of my homework because I have to write a 3 page paper about a book I didn't read. #collegeisascam

Vote. Comment. Tell me if you actually read the books for class (I don't, but I really need to start lol).