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Tim, in general, expected to wake up where he had gone to sleep.
Sure, there were occasional exceptions—getting knocked out on patrol and returning to consciousness in the Batcave medbay, falling asleep on the couch in Wayne Manor and waking up in his bed—but for the most part, if Tim had made it to his bedroom, he was pretty sure he'd wake up in the same place. That went doubly so for when Tim was staying at Drake Manor. There was no Alfred or Dick there to move him in the night.
But the room he had found himself in at the present moment was decidedly not the dark, comfortable bedroom he'd fallen asleep in. He was laying on a hard metal table, and leather straps were secured around his wrists, arms, chest, hips, and all the way down his legs. He could barely move an inch. And on top of being restrained, his shirt had also been removed, leaving him only in the sweatpants and socks that he'd gone to sleep in. Not a very good sign. A square fluorescent light beamed down on him, shining off the white tiles that lined the walls of the room. Tim couldn't see much more—being tied down restricted his field of vision, too—but he could tell it was designed for easy cleanup. Almost like a laboratory. Perhaps of the kind that held mad scientists.
The thought sent a shiver down his spine. Whatever he was here for was definitely not going to be pleasant. He tugged at the restraints, testing them, but to no avail. He was well and truly bound.
And groggy, too. Not in the "just woken up" way (which was true, but the shock of being strapped to a metal table was more than enough to shake the dregs of sleep from his eyes), but more in the sense of having been drugged. That tracked. He'd been transported from the nice, warm safety of Drake Manor to… here, after all.
The door creaked open, and Tim tensed. He had a bad feeling he was about to find out what he'd been abducted for.
The man who entered was tall and lanky, with short brown hair and wire-framed glasses. He was wearing a white lab coat, and a stethoscope hung around his neck. Tim silently amended his assessment of "mad science lab" to "operation room." The thought did not bring him any comfort.
"Ah, Red Robin," the man said. "I see you're awake. Good. My name is Dr. Penrose, and I've been interested in you for a very long time now."
Tim swallowed hard. If Penrose knew he was Red Robin, and he was taken from Drake Manor, then this man knew who he was. His real identity. Unless Penrose had merely followed him home and had done no research—which was possible; he'd called him Red Robin and not Tim after all—but regardless, this was very, very bad news.
Still, he couldn't panic. That was the first thing Bruce had instilled in him during training. If he was in a bad situation, letting whomever had put him in it know how scared he was would only make things worse. Instead, he stifled the quaver in his voice as best he could, and said, "I think you've got the wrong person, Dr. Penrose. I’m not Red Robin."
Penrose made a clucking sound with his tongue. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't lie to me, Timothy. We both know your favorite nightly pastime."
Well, there went any chance Penrose didn't know the truth.
He must have seen the look on Tim's face, though, since he followed it up with an apologetic smile. "Oh, don't worry, Red Robin. Your secret is safe with me. My interest in you is not to prohibit your vigilantism, but merely to… understand it."
"You want to understand why I fight crime? Ask for an interview. You don't have to tie me up like I'm some criminal myself."
"Unfortunately, Timothy, I'm afraid you might not give me the answers that I seek. See, I'm not looking for why you started your patrols, but rather how you are able to continue them." Penrose picked up a clipboard off a metal rolling tray. "I have been studying Batman and his Robins for several years, and have come to the conclusion that there is no feasible way for you to be ordinary humans. You must have some sort of enhancement that keeps you going. I intend to conduct my own experiments to find out just what that is."
Tim's blood ran cold. He planned to experiment?! "I’m human," Tim said quickly. "Entirely human. All of us are."
Penrose furrowed his brow. "And yet you spend significant amounts of time with a certain Kryptonian."
"Superboy? Yeah, because he's my boyfriend!" Tim hadn't exactly planned on announcing his relationship with Kon to those outside the family, but surely it was better than enduring whatever this maniac wanted to do. "Have you ever seen me fly with him? Or do anything else he can?"
"A lack of observation does not mean the capability does not exist." Penrose tapped his clipboard. "Besides, perhaps your abilities do not include flight. I only hypothesize that you have a healing factor, and anything else would simply be in addition to that."
Tim grit his teeth. "I do not have a healing factor."
"In the interests of science, dear boy, I fear I must test that for myself."
"You're insane!" Tim blurted, struggling more fervently against his bonds. The leather straps held firm. "I have no reason to lie about this. You already know my identity."
Penrose shook his head like Tim was an idiot. "Perhaps your healing factor is slow," he said, "and you wish to avoid the pain. Perhaps you are not lying about the healing factor, but your skin is impervious to normal instruments, and you wish to hide that fact from future assailants. Perhaps you are an alien whose organs do not resemble those of homo sapiens. It does not matter. I will do a thorough investigation."
Organs? This had officially gone too far. Tim twisted his wrist, willing to dislocate his thumb if it meant he was able to work a hand free. There wasn't much leverage to do so from his current angle, but he had to try. There were tiny blades sewn into the hems of all his clothes, even his pajamas, but with his shirt gone, Tim was going to have a hell of a time reaching one.
"If you can't stay still," Penrose mused, turning to the side, "I suppose I shall have to make you."
"No!" Tim tried again, desperately, to break his own thumb and free his hand. It slid frictionless over the metal table. Which meant that he couldn't escape. Which in turn meant Penrose was going to experiment on him—and whatever he meant by that definitely wasn't good. The mad doctor was turning back now, a large syringe in his grasp. Tim needed to get away. And if he couldn't reach his knife to do that himself, that meant relying on the one person he could count on to come. He opened his mouth. "K—"
He didn't get the chance to finish the name. Before he could even add a vowel, Tim felt a pinprick in the side of his neck, and his entire body went slack. He'd waited too long. Whatever drug he'd been injected with worked almost instantly, too. He could breathe, and move his eyes, but that was it, the fight entirely gone from his limbs and voice gone from his throat.
The worst part, though, was that he could still feel the cold of the metal table underneath his back. He was paralyzed, but not anesthetized. The most sadistic kind of sedation.
Silently, Tim cursed himself for not calling for Kon earlier. Kon would save him in a heartbeat if needed; Tim knew that. But he'd wanted to free himself of his own volition first—to prove he wasn't some damsel in distress who needed his big strong Kryptonian boyfriend to rescue him from danger—and by the time Tim had exhausted all his options, Penrose had already injected him. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He made a mental note to do better in the future. …If he made it out of this to even get the chance.
Penrose picked up a scalpel, the metal glinting as it caught the light of the overhead lamp. Tim's heart pounded. He tried again to move, to speak, anything, but his muscles were frozen, and he could only watch in horror as the blade descended towards his bare chest.
It cut into him just beneath his ribs on the right side. A searing line of agony followed it. Tim couldn't even scream, unable to do anything but endure the horrible sensation of his flesh being sliced open. He could feel his skin being pulled back, then the layer of muscle, then hot blood dripping down the side of his chest, and Tim hoped desperately that he would pass out soon. He might never wake up, but it was better than living through this.
Penrose didn't seem to care in the slightest about the torture he was inflicting. "Interesting," he said, peering into Tim's ribcage. "Tissues seem to be congruent with a human's so far. Healing factor currently not apparent." He poked and prodded with a gloved finger at various organs. Tim didn't know which ones. He didn't want to know. All he could tell was that it was wrong, and he wanted Penrose out, and if that couldn't happen then he wanted to die. Preferably instantly.
Tim was not that lucky, though. Instead, he… drifted. The pain was too immense for him to remain in his body, so he gazed at the ceiling instead. The light was still there. It was more of a rectangle than a square, he considered, updating his initial assessment. It hummed, like certain kinds of lights often did. And refrigerators, too. The room was cold like a fridge. Fridges had lights. Was he in a fridge? Maybe that was what was going on. Tim was pretty sure a Green Lantern found his girlfriend in a fridge once, so it was definitely a thing that happened. Maybe Tim was deli meat, being carved up like a honey-roasted ham to be served on whole-wheat bread with crispy lettuce and aged Swiss cheese. He liked sandwiches. So did Kon. Alfred would probably make them both one, if he asked.
Another cut sent blinding pain through Tim's torso, forcing him back into the agony of reality. It was on the left side this time, deeper than the first had been. Once again, Tim cursed the fact that he couldn't cry out. He couldn't even dig his nails into his palms to distract himself from the torture. The only outward sign of his suffering were the few tears that managed to leak from the corners of his eyes.
And Penrose didn't even seem to notice them. "Interesting," he said, slicing further. "This specimen appears to be missing a spleen. One must wonder if this is typical for his metahuman mutation."
I'm not a fucking metahuman! Tim wanted to scream, but nothing happened. The sedative still held him paralyzed.
Except… that wasn't quite true. As Tim tried to press his hands into the table, desperate to feel any sensation besides the agony of being vivisected, he realized his pinky finger could just—about—twitch.
It was wearing off.
Slowly. So, so slowly, but it was something. Tim's heart leapt, the first glimmer of hope since the torture had started. He had to be careful not to overreact—if Penrose found out he wasn't paralyzed anymore, he'd just inject him again, and then—
Well, Tim would probably just die of shock, wouldn't he. He knew he couldn't take much more. His heart rate had already skyrocketed from the pain, which was both not great for his cardiac system and also meant he was losing blood pretty rapidly via all the new cuts Penrose had made in him.
He needed to either do something quickly, or do something Penrose wouldn't notice. Since his mouth was still frozen, that only left the latter. And only his pinky finger could move at all. Tim really didn't have very many options.
So the plan was far from perfect. It relied on Penrose being distracted playing with Tim's organs, Kon recognizing his own name in Morse code, and also Kon distinguishing the sound of Tim tapping out the letters in the first place. As far as Tim knew, Kon only kept an ear out for Tim's voice, and that remained stubbornly unavailable. But if tapping on the table with his pinky was all he could do, then it was all he could do. Maybe Penrose would dismiss the sound in the din of his own explorations through Tim's abdomen, and maybe Kon would pick up the minuscule vibrations from however far away he was and come to the rescue.
It was the only chance Tim had. And if he was too obvious and Penrose noticed, he'd probably just kill him, and that wasn't such a terrible outcome either. Anything was better than enduring this torture and waiting to slowly die from it.
So as Penrose sliced again, down the middle of his torso this time, Tim began to tap. He could only hope that the sickening tear of his own flesh beneath the scalpel was enough to keep the doctor's attention. K-O-N. S-O-S. K-O-N. S-O—
Penrose suddenly stopped, and Tim did too, adrenaline coursing through him. The fear of being spotted was almost a good thing—it helped numb the agony somewhat. Not a lot. But enough to help him focus on what he needed to do. Penrose frowned at him, peering closely, and Tim made sure he remained as frozen as he should be. And when Penrose didn't say anything, and turned back to his carving, Tim let out a tiny breath. He wasn't caught yet.
But he would have to be careful. He couldn't risk much more, but he had to try one more time. Maybe Kon was listening but wanted a confirmation it wasn't a fluke. So Tim lifted his finger, and tapped again: K-O-N. Nothing else. He couldn't push his luck further. Kon had to hear it. He had to.
He did. The door to the room smashed open, and there Conner Kent stood, like the knight in a leather jacket that he was.
Startled, Penrose twisted at the sound. His lab coat was stained red with Tim's blood, and the scalpel was still clutched in his hand.
Kon glowered at him. "Get away from Red Robin." His voice was dangerously low. "And drop the knife."
Penrose raised his eyebrows, seeming to have already collected himself. He didn't lower the blade. "How peculiar. You are a metahuman, no? Your friend here proved most disappointing. I was unable to even find evidence of a healing factor. If I was analyzing you, I'm sure—"
Kon didn't wait to hear any more. He ripped the scalpel out of Penrose's grasp, then hurled him into the wall hard enough to knock him out instantly. And then he was at Tim's side, a heartbroken look on his face. "I'm so sorry I didn't come sooner," he said, pressing a hand to Tim's torso to keep the incisions together with his TTK. His other hand worked to rip off the restraints, one by one. "I heard the Morse code, but didn't recognize it as my name at first. I did think it was weird, so I tried to narrow in on the heartbeats of those I cared about, just in case, and that's how I realized it was you. I followed the sound here and—"
"Kon," Tim managed to say, the sedative worn off just enough. His voice was weaker than he'd ever remembered it being before. "You did good."
"Not enough," Kon replied, scooping Tim into his arms. "You've been tortured. You need help."
Tim still couldn't move very well, but he nestled into Kon's arms. His embrace was warm. Everything still burned with agony, but Penrose couldn't hurt him anymore. The fear Tim had felt slowly faded, replaced by pure exhaustion and the desire for it all to be over already. "You are help," he whispered, and let himself drift into unconsciousness.