chapter nine - bereft

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SOMEWHERE IN BIALYA
SEPTEMBER 4th — 21:16 EEST

when dick grayson woke up he had only three thoughts on his mind:

i wanna die.

wally.

why are the stars so bright?

dick ignored the first two, sitting up immediately upon realization. why were the stars so bright?

dick took his eyes off of the stars and the setting sun, scanning his surroundings. the fact that he was sweating obtrusively suddenly made sense. he was in the middle of the desert. the very hot, very dangerous desert.

alone.

dick sighed, pulling himself to his feet. why was he here?

...

he... didn't know. he couldn't recall. he didn't fucking remember how he ended up in the middle of the fucking desert. what the shit. at least he had his suit on, he felt better as robin than he did as richard grayson.

dick pulled out his hologlove, running a hand through his hair. it was longer than he remembered, and also curly. he never let it get curly.

how long had he been in the desert for?

dick turned on his hologlove, staring in silence for a few minutes at what he saw. the date... it was september.

it was september?

"what the fuck," dick muttered to himself.

six months? had he been in the desert for six months? his memory was wiped clean—perhaps he was captured? dick checked himself for signs of torture but only found the usual: too many bruises, too many scars.

dick sat back down, pulling his sleeve up and absentmindedly running his fingers over his scars. pressing hard on the new ones.

wait.

dick pulled his sleeve up to his elbow, staring at it in disbelief. there were no new ones. the oldest one was, maybe, a few months old. was he was kidnapped and treated for depression?

didn't seem likely.

dick's heart quickened and he pulled his sleeve back down. he put his hand up to his earpiece, about to call bruce, when something stopped him. an instinct. a memory.

absolute radio silence.

it was a mission. he was on a mission. a mission that called for total radio silence. so why was his memory wiped? he wasn't undercover in the slightest.

suddenly he heard something. a faint noise of... footsteps. marching. people.

dick tucked himself behind a nearby boulder, peaking out as a flock of army-men stomped a few hundred metres away from him.

their uniforms looked almost... bialyan. but that couldn't be right. he's confusing the colours. he has to be. dick anxiously checked his hologlove for his location, almost begging himself to be wrong.

location: east bialya
50°3'41.15"N, 19°56'11.69"E.
42.6km to zugzwang city

why was he here, hours away from the nearest city, in an active warzone? this wasn't like bruce. it wasn't like him at all.

dick missed wally.

but he sucked it up, starting his trek to the nearest city. walking through the desert was going to fucking suck. the last remnants of sunset were slowly heading beneath the horizon and that meant that the desert was about to drop in temperature and fucking freeze.

just before dick left the sand dune he had slept on, something caught his eye. he walked over to it, picking it up with a bewildered face.

it was a ripped piece of a shirt baring superman's symbol.

dick threw it back on the ground. if the bialyns had already taken superman? ...well. dick didn't know if he wanted to remember those last six months.

-

the second dick started walking he regretted it.

the sand was difficult to walk in, and that difficulty was only enhanced by the wind and steep hills. 42.6km felt more like 200km. and that's coming from a fucking athlete.

music helped him take his mind off of it—the awfulness of it. with every step he wished more and more that he would just slit his wrists with a bird-a-rang.

but he couldn't.

he wouldn't.

he had to see wally again. he had to see bruce and alfred again. dick wasn't sure how long he'd been on this mission for, he had to get back to them.

he had put one of his playlists on shuffle; his hologlove was useful in many ways, but the fact that it had spotify premium was probably dick's favourite. surprisingly, a notification popped up.

CHECKMARK—APPARATUS 1km AWAY

dick raised his eyebrow at the phrase. it seemed like he had marked something special but what was it? could it explain his memory loss?

the decision was too easy; he had to go to this mysterious apparatus. it held an important clue about his absent memory, maybe it could even be the mission itself.

-

the apparatus was in a sort-of sand valley. it was in the very middle of a huge crater. it was a metal box in the perfect spot for an ambush.

it was too perfect.

dick held a bird-a-rang in each hand, scanning the perimeter of the crater. he saw no one. he held his breath, listening intently, but all fell quiet.

only an idiot would risk it.

dick slid down the dune, hurriedly walking over to the box. it had many buttons on it and also some kind of... pulsating device? he began to inspect it when sand went everywhere. his eyes, his nose, and his hair were covered in sand before he even realized what was happening.

it was an ambush.

a dozen bialyan soliders slid down the dune, running over to dick with weapons in hand. he ducked the first man's gunshots, throwing a bird-a-rang directly between his eyebrows.

more gunshots rang out as dick knocked another soldier over, using him as a shield from the bullets. it worked well at first, but ten gunmen could surround a tiny teenager pretty quickly when they wanted to.

he threw his last two bird-a-rangs, knocking two more army-men out. a well-planned kick got him one more, and the good old dodge-and-punch got rid of another one.

he'd taken half of their force, but now they were really angry. dick dropped onto his knees as the tallest gunman shot right at where his face just was, but he instead killed his mate.

"little fucker," the biggest guy yelled, grabbing dick's hands and tying them until they hurt.

dick flipped his body over, kicking him squarely in the face, but he barely flinched. "stay still or i gut you from the inside out."

"i thoroughly doubt you have the anatomic knowledge to do that," dick grinned, but his snark was met with the end of a gun smacking him in the face.

his ears rung, his nose hurt like hell, and his eyes began to water. more gunshots started up, but dick figured he was imagining it. they obviously weren't shooting at him, so why would they be shooting? who would they be shooting?

the man holding dick up by his wrist-ties let go, letting him fall down and get a face full of sand. dick spat it out, sitting up to see that the rest of the soldiers were unconscious.

dick blinked in shock, noticing three panting teenagers walking over to him. one was a martian, one an archer and the other...

"wally?" dick spoke without thinking. he fucking exposed wally in front of two random women. he was a fucking idiot.

"di- dude! robin!" wally broke out in a smile, running over to him. "are you okay? what happened?"

what are the chances that wally's here too? they didn't do missions together too often, and never in another country. this whole memory loss thing was really getting on dick's nerves.

wally untied dick's hands, giving him a long hug before brushing the sandy hair out of the other's face.

"dunno. woke up with no memory."

"us too!"

"us?" dick glanced at the two girls with trepidation. they seemed... too warm. too friendly.

"hi! i'm m'gann. this is artemis!" the martian introduced the duo, smiling eagerly.

"uh, hi. i'm robin."

"you two know eachother?" artemis asked, her eyebrows furrowed. "i thought you lost your memory."

"i just can't remember the last six months," dick answered, looking back at wally. at wally's eyes. at wally's pretty green eyes.

"we've known eachother for years," wally answered, smiling at his boyfriend. all he wanted was to lay with him and hug him and kiss him and know that he was safe. forever.

dick stood up, grabbing wally's hand and pulling him up too. "we all know eachother, i think."

"i think we're a... team," artemis said the word like it left an awful taste of her mouth.

dick nodded. "i assume we work for batman, or at least in close proximity with him. this mission obviously has a goal but... i don't know what it is."

"if you guys want... i think i can repair our memories," m'gann piped up, rubbing her arms anxiously. "i can link the four of us together and we can fill in the gaps in our memory."

no one answered her.

"guys?"

"i'm down for it," wally said, after much deliberation. "we need to know why we're here."

m'gann looked at artemis with pleading eyes. dick just observed. did no one else think it was suspicious that she had just brought this up now? who even was she? a random martian happens to show up exactly when he and wally lose their memories?

"fine. but only if you look through the last six months. no poking and prodding. just the last six months, then you're out. no snooping," artemis folded her arms.

"i'm out," dick said, pulling his sleeves down.

"what?" artemis rolled her eyes. "come on. if i have to do it - you have to do it, boy wonder."

dick cringed at the nickname, subconsciously standing closer to wally. "i don't like the idea of people in my head."

"it's not like she's gonna find anything. you've been a hero for what, four years? you're a good person." artemis was angry, but dick wasn't too sure all that anger was because of him. it seemed like she was convincing herself just as much as she was him.

"five years," wally muttered.

"that doesn't mean i want people i don't know to sift through my brain!"

m'gann turned to dick. "i don't think i can do it with only kid flash and artemis. the more people the easier, with only two there's a huge margin for error."

wally's hand brushed against dick's, interlocking their hands. "i'm sure it'll be fine. m'gann's just looking at the last six months and only at what we need to know."

"right!"

dick closed his eyes, weighing the pros and cons, simultaneously tapping morse code onto wally's hand.

w, i can't.

yes, u can.

it's a lot.

"so?" artemis asked, breaking off their little morse conversation.

dick felt like he was going to cry. even more likely, he felt like he was going to have a panic attack. he could physically feel his heart quicken. his breath got shallow.

there's too many pros. he can't be selfish.

"uh-uhm. sure. sure." his voice was practically a whisper. he was going to have a fucking mental breakdown in front of these people he doesn't know and then they're going to sift through his brain and see everything that's wrong with him.

everything's wrong with him.

dick let go of wally's hand, thrusting it under his sleeve to rub at his scars. he just wanted to go home. he just wanted to leave this fucking desert.

"okay, everyone hold on, this is going to feel like vertigo!" m'gann said, hesitantly holding both hands out in front of her.

dick closed his eyes, crouched down and held onto his head. though he couldn't see it, the whole world felt like it was turning on its toes. dick felt motion sick; he felt like he was falling off of a trapeze.

down,
down,
down.

dick finally opened his eyes once he felt a hand rest on his back. he was immediately hit with purple light—a garish purple light. he finally took a breath, shakily standing up.

"sorry about the vertigo. i'm getting better at not causing side effects when i use my powers, but i'm still an amateur," m'gann apologized.

artemis clutched her arms, nodding shyly, while wally shifted his weight, his energy endless.

"welcome to my mindscape."

m'gann said the word with such importance, such respect, that it was hard to believe that this was it. it was just a small purple room with black branches entangling the "walls".

"now, i need you all to consent to my search through the last six months of your memory. is that okay with everyone?"

wally agreed immediately, but artemis and dick just stood there. "you promise only the last six months?" artemis asked anxiously.

"mhm! if you only give me access to the last six months i can't physically go past there," m'gann smiled, but dick noticed a twinge, a slight behavioural change. she was lying.

"okay. have at it," artemis said.

everyone turned to look at dick. he closed his eyes in response, fondling with his forearms. this made him uncomfortable beyond belief. but he couldn't be selfish. wally had been through hard times just as much as he had, but wally was always so generous. so good.

"sure, sure," dick nodded, trying to tell himself that this was a good decision. the right decision. "have fun."

m'gann smiled, extending her hands. an eerie, blue glow shot out of her palms, twisting and growing and nearing the heroes.

memories flew past dick's eyes, so fast that he couldn't properly realize what they were. an ebony girl. iris west-allen. a cave. alfred pennyworth. batman. lightning. alice in wonderland. glowing vials. the beach. gotham academy. the hall of justice. sportsmaster. roy harper. bloody bandages. a broken beer bottle. wally's cat. an empty wheelchair.

soon the images stopped, and instead came a warm feeling. dick's entire body tingled with warmth, like he had just stepped into a hot tub. along with the warmth came weeks upon weeks of recovered memories. dick closed his eyes as half a year's worth of knowledge was shoved back into his head.

the six of them were sent to qurac to investigate a power surge in the bialyan desert, having to maintain radio silence at all times. they found a tent coveted by bialyan soldiers and m'gann took it upon herself to head into the tent, invisible, and investigate. she did, of course, keeping in contact telepathically with them for her own safety.

what next?

dick couldn't remember anything after m'gann went into the tent. he remembered seeing her head in, and then bam. he woke up in the middle of nowhere.

"aqualad!" wally's eyes went wide. "oh god, where's kaldur?"

"also, what happened after we went in that tent? is anyone concerned that there's another hole in our memories?" artemis whined.

"i... i don't know," m'gann spoke quietly, holding her head with one hand. "i can't remember."

dick ignored the rest of their bickering, turning to his hologlove. with a few strokes of his keys he had kaldur's location to the nearest metre. some would say that having trackers on everyone's costumes was intruding, but to dick, it was a necessity.

the only thing that turned dick's smirk to a frown was the logs on kaldur's location — he hadn't moved in over a day. dick just prayed that he was alright, that he hadn't been attacked by bialyan soldiers.

"found aqualad."

"how far?" wally asked, sidling up to dick with a smug smile on his face. apparently he really liked having his memories back.

"1,603 metres. and..." dick pulled up superboy's coordinates. "sb's 3,229 metres away."

"i'll go get superboy," m'gann stated.

"what? no. there's four of us, we should split off into teams!" wally protested.

"no, no, she's right," dick said, "sb's gonna be very angry—remember when we first met him?—she's gonna have to restore his memories fast. and, not to alarm anyone, but aqualad's going to be fully passed out from the heat, we have to carry him."

"even at night?" artemis asked.

"he's dehydrated from when we first got here, from what i can tell." dick couldn't tell. "but he should be fine once we get him some water."

hopefully.

the others nodded solemnly, and parted ways. m'gann flew as fast as she could eastward, leaving with a solemn wave.

"i guess i have a new truth for 'two truths and a lie'."artemis laughed.

wally ran a hand through his hair, starring up at the stars. "as if anyone would believe that you woke up in the middle of bialya."

"maybe i meant that i've hung out in a martian's mindscape."

"did you?"

"no."

dick laughed at his friends' dorkiness, walking slightly in front of them in order to lead them to aqualad easier. it still felt weird - his mental state was that of six months ago, even though he knew that he had gotten better. he just hoped that it would be alright. he hoped that tomorrow would be an improvement.

"oh yeah? what would your two truths and a lie be, robin?" artemis asked.

dick thought for a minute before answering, "i've never been to greece, i'm allergic to shellfish, and i've never broken a bone."

"the bone one seems so false it has to be true... i'm saying the lie is the greece thing."

dick laughed, shaking his head. "nope, i'm not allergic to seafood in the slightest. peanuts, on the other hand."

artemis gawked. "for real? that's ironic."

"i try to keep it on the down-low. the fact that a criminal could knock me out with a spoonful of peanut butter unnerves me."

wally smiled at his boyfriend's antics. "good thing you keep that epi-pen in your utility belt, then."

"epinephrine is my best friend."

"what am i?" wally shook his head, faking tears. "chopped peanuts?"

the three of them devolved into laughter, feeling good for maybe the first time since they've been on this fucking mission. dick just hoped that this wasn't their peak. he hoped that they weren't heading to the dead body of their team leader.

-

it didn't take long to find aqualad. dick led wally and artemis to his location and quick as he could. though the desert was swarming with soldiers, all it took was for the trio to duck behind a sand dune and the soldiers were fooled in the dark.

"there he is!" artemis yelled, pointing at a figure in the near distance.

dick pulled his gaze off of his hologlove, straining his eyes at where artemis was pointing. the sky was dark and so was the sand, but there was an obvious shape between them.

there he was.

wally took off, seemingly disappearing and reappearing beside kaldur. dick and artemis looked at eachother before running after him.

though he was adamant on getting to kaldur, dick's mind journeyed other places. namely: wally. when was the last time that he had eaten? wally had an insanely quick metabolism, and running just made him hungrier. he had to be in the first few stages of starvation by now. at least.

"is he..?" artemis slowed down, kneeling beside kaldur.

wally took his fingers off of their leader's neck. "he's fine. we've gotta get him some water and food though."

wally opened his mouth to say more, but dick covered it with his hand, pulling the two of them down. seeing his duress, artemis followed suit.

dick slowly took his hand off of wally, leaving them entangled and sandy. "someone's coming," he whispered.

it took a few seconds before the others heard it too. the sound of vehicles on sand, getting louder—closer—by the minute.

dick stood up slowly, peeking at where the noise was coming from. "it's tanks, they're heading directly for us. we need to move, fast."

wally looked at the state aqualad was in. "even if we can wake him up, he can't walk. someone's gotta carry him."

artemis and dick just stared at him.

"i can't carry him alone! look at him! he's six feet of pure muscle!"

dick sighed, checking his hologlove before pulling off his cape. "the bioship's only two kilometres away, we're gonna have to drag him."

dick layed his cape on the ground, rolling kaldur onto it. his legs were half off and it wasn't going to be comfortable, but it would have to do.

dick bundled up the top of the cape, turning to his comrades. "well then, let's go."

they managed to get out of the way of the tanks just in time, but it was still a ways away from safety. it seemed like all of bialya was out looking for them and, honestly, they probably were.

"shit," dick said, staring at the fifth fleet of bialyan soldiers coming their direction. "you know what? get to the bioship as fast as you can, i'll try to meet you on the way."

wally stopped his turn of pulling kaldur, turning around to look at his boyfriend. "what are you going to do?"

"save us."

wally sighed, wrapping dick's cape around his hand as tight as he could. "don't die."

"wasn't planning on it."

and thus wally and artemis took off, attracting the attention of the soldiers. dick ran directly at the fleet, throwing a smoke bomb to confuse them. he managed to knock them all out, there was only eight, but not before they had radioed in their location.

panting, dick sat down beside one of the unconscious bialyans, grabbing their communicator and forcing himself to lower his voice and fake an accent. rather, fake another accent.

"this is fleet #531 who radioed about the possible infiltration. it turned out to be a false alarm. the martian tricked us, it's heading south. over."

dick held his breath, waiting for a response. either the entire bialyan army was being sent his way or he pulled off a sick accent.

"copy. proceed south with caution. all hail queen bee; over and out."

dick let out a breath, smirking adamantly. "all hail queen bee."

he stood up, dusting his pants off, and tossed the communicator beside the soldier whom he had stole it from. yawning, dick started his trek back to his teammates.

-

when dick finally caught up to them, wally and artemis were deep in an argument about some ninja movie. dick rolled his eyes at how predictable they were.

"i solved our soldier problem."

wally jumped at his voice, turning around sharply. "i thought you were one of them, holy shit."

dick smirked as wally gave him a quick hug. "so, what'd you do? other than avoid the glorious labour of dragging aqualad across the desert, of course."

"got them to head the opposite direction." dick shrugged, taking over dragging duties from artemis.

"how?" she gawked.

"charmed them."

"charmed them?"

"you're scary sometimes, you know that? i'm glad you're on our side." wally smiled, bumping shoulders with dick.

dick rolled his eyes, before diverting his attention to a notification on his hologlove. "there's the bioship!" he said, pointing at empty space.

as if on cue, the bioship appeared, coming out of camouflage mode. the three of them let out a sigh of relief, all grabbing on to help drag kaldur toward it.

as they neared, the ship opened up, extending out a ramp. the four team members boarded, and the bioship became camouflaged to the outside world yet again. 

inside, a medical bed with an i.v. beside it morphed into existence. wally picked kaldur up and placed him on the bed, administering the i.v. like the science man he was.

i've got superboy! we're heading to the bioship now! m'gann said via a newly-established mind link.

copy that, we're already here, dick sent back.

awesome! we may have a... surprise in tow.

kaldur shot up, staring hazardously at the crowd of people around him. he went to pull out the i.v. but wally stopped him in a flash.

"where am i?" kaldur gulped.

"you passed out from dehydration," wally told him, "we're gonna keep you here until you're a-okay."

kaldur nodded, laying back down. dick smirked at his boyfriend; wally was ever so great at helping those around him.

sorry, kaldur just woke up, wally sent.

hello, megan! i've still gotta restore his memories. we're almost there.

dick yawned, going to sit in his assigned chair, when the door to the bioship opened once more. in strolled m'gann and superboy along with a... robotic sphere?

"pet?" artemis gestured to the gigantic metal ball.

superboy nodded shyly while both dick and wally immediately went over to investigate it. "is it metal?" wally asked his boyfriend, running a hand over the blinking lights.

"no, i don't think so, anyway. at least not any metal we have on earth." dick answered, brushing his hand against wally's.

superboy stepped up, oddly overprotective of the sphere. "it's not for science. i'm keeping it."

dick grinned, partly because the rolling ai would be coming with them, and partly because it was nice to see superboy so ecstatic about something.

"sorry, sb. just curious."

and after that, the team all sat for the long flight ahead of them. but it was okay, for they had their memories, they had their friends, and they stopped the bad guys once again.

right?