Againts all Odds || Dick Grayson [1]

24| Taste of Darkness

***

Every moment that lead me hear felt like an out of body experience, like I was watching someone who looked like me do these things that I could have never imagined. Escaping many of Wayne Manor'a high security protocols was easy enough considering they ran on electricity. But there was no doubt in my mind that Bruce would notice, he was too clever to fool. The only fact that allowed me some comfort was the fact that he underestimated me, I wasn't the untrustworthy young girl that he believed me to be. Maybe that was another reason for my being here, not only to carry out the vengeance I desired. But to also prove myself to Bruce Wayne.

I was aware of my own recklessness. My lack of weapons or proper gear, the protection that Bruce and Dick always wore every night to be able to go against men like this. The only advantage that I held were my abilities, powers that I still had the lack of confidence to properly control. 

With the little information that I overheard I was able to find the warehouse, one that was clearly temporary. I wondered how many people's lives these men had ruined, and as I looked down at them from the rafters of the building I couldn't imagine how they could live with themselves, yet they were laughing and joking about the meta humans that they had captured from Coast City. 

Did men just like them laugh after they had killed my mother?

That single thought alone was what drove me to leap off the wooden rafters and landing just a couple feet away from them. There were only five of them inside, and although the outside of the warehouse was surrounded by security I would simply have to deal with them when the time came. Now the only thing that mattered was getting justice for the pain that I suffered, for the pain that countless other people like me had to endure. 

Everything happened in a blur, the sounds of men screaming didn't reaching me. Those screams and cries of pain as I electrocuted them only seemed to motivate me to continue, in some cruel and twisted was brought me joy. And although the exact events were like a distant memory, the only thing that was clear to me now was the man that was laying under me in complete terror as my hands wrapped around his neck. 

"Where is Mace Gardner?" I questioned through gritted teeth my grip around the man's neck tightening as the electricity running through my fingers increased in intensity. The man looked up at me with wide eyes, the fear in his eyes only fueling the hatred in my heart as I wondered what fear my parents felt when they were killed by men like him. "Where is he?"

"Stop." The ghost of a familiar voice declared, causing every part of my body to freeze. It was as if my own heart had stopped beating, stopped pumping blood throughout my body. And in the moment for the briefest of seconds I was able to come back up for air from that ocean of rage that I was drowning in. "Don't do something that you'll regret."

"Batman." I said my voice a shaky whisper as I looked behind my shoulder and up at the man casted in shadows. I still remembered the day where Batman was still just an urban legend to many. Even now that I knew the man behind the mask he still didn't seem real or even human. There were times I wondered if Bruce Wayne was even human. But then there were moments when I saw him with Alfred, Dick, and even Selina that allowed me to see a window to the humanity that Bruce Wayne hid so well.

Slowly I released my hold of the man and pushed myself to my feet. My unsteadiness and the shakiness of my limbs made me question if I would have even be able to carry out what I had set myself to do. Even if in that moment it was all I desired.