The One-Eyed Man: King of the Blind

by Integral_of_Awesome

Summary:

"I don't want to fight; I just want to talk. After all, a cat may look upon a king." Richie's only question was whether he was the cat or the king.

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king." 

"Backpack, heel!"

The small metal contraption blinked its sensor with something the young man could have sworn was curiosity. Of course, that was only if the device could perceive such emotions, which Virgil was pretty sure it couldn't. Then again, Backpack was, like its inventor, smarter and more complex than it appeared, so Virgil decided that he should have stopped doubting its capabilities a long, long time ago.

"V, he's not a dog, you know," Richie, Virgil's long-time best friend and nearly constant pain in the ass, said with a roll of his eyes. He didn't bother to look up from the new project he was working on, but he very rarely did. 

Virgil had tried every means of distraction he could think of to get Richie to put down the Virgil-touch-that-and-die (or so Richie always seemed to call it) and pick up the video game controller, but none of them had worked. It wasn't that Richie never goofed off; it was just that when he got an idea stuck in his head, it was very hard to pull him away from it.

"Well," Virgil sighed, exasperated by his fruitless efforts with the metallic creature from Hell he'd been grappling with for what seemed like hours (though was, quite possibly, fifteen minutes), "how would you suggest I get it to come down from there?"

Richie glanced up ever briefly from his work, glass-shielded eyes locking with Backpack's little red sensor, and the device, without so much as a word from Richie, skittered down the wall and over to its master's feet.

Virgil shivered a little; it still creeped him out how sophisticated Backpack was and how in-tune it was with Richie. Richie protested adamantly, with words Virgil couldn't spell, define, or frankly remember, whenever Virgil mentioned it, but he could swear the two were psychic. "Psychic" was one of those red-flag words that Virgil had learned would set Richie off in a second.

No, no, no! "Psychic" is completely inaccurate. We blah-dee-blah, smart person mumbo-jumbo, tee-ho.

Virgil had adapted and figured out that if he steadfastly ignored the technobabble bursting from Richie's mouth like the floodgates of all of Heaven and Hell had just been opened, Richie would eventually stop talking about it.

So, instead of commenting on the fact that Richie and the feisty little machine could have entire conversations with the blink of an eye, Virgil asked, "What's bugging it, anyway?"

Backpack's sensor flitted from Virgil to Richie as if it understood exactly what he was saying. Truth be told, it probably did.

"He's been acting like this all week. There have been some weird readings, but nothing out of the ordinary. Or, should I say, nothing out of the ordinary yet. Maybe Backpack feels something coming that we don't." Once again, Virgil had to vehemently fight the urge to say the word "psychic".

No, no, no, Virgil. Backpack's advanced data storing systems and predication modulators allow blah-blah-blah, he-bee-gee-bee.

Virgil raised an eyebrow at the gadget twittering away at Richie's feet, getting him things before he asked for them. If Richie had seen his incredulity, he probably would have scolded him. It wasn't as if Virgil didn't value Backpack's skills, and it certainly wasn't as if Virgil doubted Richie's prowess as an inventor, but he could just never seem to reconcile himself with a machine so close to artificial intelligence. 

Sometimes Virgil wondered if it was jealousy that drove him (Richie did pay a lot of attention to the small device), but he figured it was more to do with the fact that he had seen far too many sci-fi, robots-destroy-the-world movies. Also, that whole incident with Brainiac still gave him the shivers, but only when he knew Richie wasn't looking. Richie didn't want to talk about Brainiac, and Virgil certainly wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.

Suddenly, Backpack perked up and shot away from Richie's feet, scampering over to Virgil and clinging to his leg like a child. It bleeped and buzzed at him venomously, and Richie actually turned away from his latest project.

Huh, Virgil mused in a corner of his mind, so that's what it takes to get Richie away from his tinkering.

Richie quickly shuffled over to his pride and joy, gently prying it away from its perch on Virgil's leg, and muttered, checking the readings and the output and the yes-Virgil-this-is-all-very-important, "What's got your circuits all in a twist?"

Suddenly Backpack's Bang Baby alarm went off. Before Richie and Virgil could even exchange glances, though, Backpack had shut off the alarm. Richie began to examine some strange output that Virgil wasn't sure was physically there so much as being relayed to Richie via no-Virgil-it-is-not-psychic channel, but his inspections were interrupted by the Bang Baby alarm. Once again, Backpack shut off the alarm for a brief moment before it blared for a third and final time, staying on until Richie hit the manual switch.

Virgil's stomach stirred for a fight, fluttering in a fashion much more manly than butterflies. If Backpack was wigged by something… but Richie was slowly shaking his head, placing Backpack back on the ground (Virgil could've sworn he saw Richie pet the thing) and looking at it questioningly. 

"I don't know what's going on with him, V. All signs point to normal as ever, but he's acting like it's Armageddon. I don't think there's actually even a Bang Baby attack in progress, not if I'm reading these right (and I never read them wrong)." Richie leaned back toward his pride and joy, raising his eyebrows at the creature in what Virgil was pretty sure was one of their ever-creepy, no-it's-not-telepathy-Virgil conversations. "I'll give him a full sweep. Maybe he caught a bug."

Virgil could practically smell the doubt seeping off his friend. He was tempted to let it lie, but his curiosity got the better of him. "But?"

Richie glanced up at Virgil in what must have been the first time in hours. "Maybe we should check around, anyway. I mean, I usually know when something's wrong with Backpack. I did create him; I know when things aren't functioning right (even if I don't always know why at first)."

Virgil sighed, rolling out his shoulders. "Run your sweep, I'll go do my own. We can meet back up here in a few hours."

Richie's face hadn't lost that contemplating expression, and he nodded vaguely in Virgil's direction, eyes drifting back down to Backpack. Its sensor kept shifting focus from Richie, to Virgil, and back again. "Sounds like a plan, V."

Virgil quickly went about the task of throwing his costume on. He'd gotten quite skilled at the a-bang-baby's-attacking-and-I-need-to-be-there-five-minutes-ago quick-change, and it now only took him two minutes to be changed and flying on his way. Such would probably have been the case then, but Backpack would see none of it. Virgil was just shrugging into his jacket when the contraption jumped on him, quipping and chirping like mad.

"Backpack!" Richie exclaimed, sincerely surprised by Backpack's actions. Quickly regaining his composure, Richie mastered what Virgil called his "dad" look and commanded, "Backpack, stand down."

It was one of those rare exceptions where Richie used verbal commands on Backpack, and those tended to yield immediate results. Still, Virgil couldn't shake the feeling that the little devil was sulking as it made its way back to Richie. It kept flashing its sensor back at Virgil, like it didn't want him to go.

Richie was shaking his head. "What exactly did you think you'd accomplish with that stunt, mister?" he more muttered than spoke.

Richie had a tendency to drift off into conversations with himself. A less desensitized man might have found such behavior a few Cheerios short of a bowl, but Virgil had learned to basically tune it out. Honestly, Virgil didn't even think Richie knew he was doing it. All those thoughts buzzing around in his best friend's head had to go somewhere, and Virgil figured the open and waiting air was as good a place as any (just as long as no one assumed Richie was off his rocker in the process).

Virgil pulled out his disk and jumped on. Backpack whined at him in a high-pitched whir. It was almost enough to stop Virgil. Almost. After all, there were maybe people out there who needed his help. Virgil was a superhero, and maybes were always enough for superheroes.

Virgil flew off, leaving Backpack's complaints behind him, leaving Richie alone.

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Summary:

Richie gets a visitor. And not the good kind.

 

Chapter 2

Richie had never known Backpack to act this way; it was completely out of character. He thought Backpack was actually going to jump out of his hands when Virgil flew off, and it made Richie feel uneasy.

"Calm down, Backpack. V's just going on patrol. Normal stuff, you know that."

The machine turned back to Richie, his little red sensor zeroing in on his master. Backpack clearly wanted to tell him something, but Richie just couldn't understand, and that was something he just couldn't understand. Backpack and he never had problems communicating. Never. If Backpack had something to say, why the hell wasn't he just saying (well, not really saying, but- whatever) it.

Whatever Backpack wasn't telling him, though, he obviously didn't want Virgil to leave. Backpack rarely acted against Richie's will, but the situations that called for it left Backpack very adamant. Basically, Backpack would throw his own little hissy fit.

Richie had long ago taught Backpack to respond to situations with pre-programmed emotional discourses based on comparative data to like-situations in Richie's example log or to real-life situations he'd had Backpack interpret and catalog one rainy Saturday until he was fully convinced that Backpack had the process of analyzing human facial ticks, hand motions, and voice fluctuations down to a science. Backpack had become nearly human in his representations, and one of his favorite emotions to portray was anger, especially if his objective was foiled.

Instead of this response, though, Backpack seemed scared. Fear, anxiety, nervousness. One of Backpack's metallic feet tapped incessantly as he streamed the warning to Richie. But Backpack was designed to identify, isolate, and analyze dangers throughout the city and was supposed to mother-loving tell him.

This was not, no matter how many times Virgil insisted on calling it such, a "psychic power." Neither Backpack nor he were so-called "psychics." Backpack had a multitude of ways of communicating with Richie that in no way involved such a cheap trick (cheap trick, of course, not including Martian Manhunter or the like). 

Richie and Backpack had, for one, developed a top-secret code of very subtle movements to portray various communications; Backpack also had a special frequency so that he could communicate with Richie via the receiver in his earring; Backpack could stream code into Richie's helmet and work-glasses; Richie's gloves used a sort of sign-language to send commands; and so many other complex, intricate, and definitely not psychic things.

Try and tell that to Virgil, though, and all he'd hear was blah-dee-blah, smart person mumbo-jumbo.

Richie quickly pushed his lingering annoyance at Virgil's inability to let go of his ridiculous "psychic" obsession to the side and focused on the task at hand. While he often found himself lost in his work, losing track of the world for days, he found it quite hard to get his mind to settle on one thing at a time. There were always a thousand little thoughts speeding this and that way in his head. 

Even when he dedicated his mind completely to one task (inventing a device to deflect water from Virgil's path or to track Bang Babies), he would conclude a day of work to realize that part of his mind had been ruminating on a new physics theory all day and that part of his mind had been arguing the pros and cons of superheroes wearing capes and that part of his mind had been systematically cycling through all possible pizza toppings until it decided on the best possible combination for dinner.

"Backpack, run sweep XT007. Password 151109. Override Omega. Password 766590. Allow access to squadron D37 HT with protocol Delta Y. Password 430279."

Richie quickly cracked open the panel that gave him more direct access to Backpack's alert and sensory systems. He tapped into the direct feed from Backpack's sensors, processing Backpack's streams of code and beeps. He expected to find no difference in Backpack's streams versus his output (it was mostly just the initial test he always ran). Backpack's programming was more sophisticated than anything on the market. He was unique, complex, and incredibly encrypted by design, and Richie knew it would be nearly impossible for some of the brightest minds in the world to crack the codes and integrate anything new into the system, especially without Richie himself finding out. What he found, though, dismayed him.

Backpack had been ordered by supreme authority (something only Richie was supposed to be capable of) to backlog almost all incoming data and to report only the information provided or approved by an outside source. Still, Backpack's programming, even when tempered with, had been too smart for the hacker. That's why Backpack had been wigging out; he'd known something was amiss. Richie just hadn't noticed.

Richie got a sick feeling in his stomach to know that someone had had their grubby hands inside his prized possession without Richie's knowledge. It reminded him repellently of when Brainiac had invaded not only his creation but his mind. After that, Richie had decided to take measures to prevent further intrusive encounters, although apparently they hadn't been strong enough. This was not a lesson he would learn a third time.

It took Richie less than a second to process this information, but the intruder beat his reaction time.

"I'd be careful what you say out loud. They say that walls have ears."

Richie spun around into a fighting pose just as the mystery man glided out of the shadows. A long black cloak, hood pulled low over his face, made it nearly impossible for Richie to pick him out. Nearly.

Richie made quick work of analyzing the man. He was tall but hunched over, clearly well-progressed in years. Very little of his skin was actually visible underneath the all-encompassing cloak, but what of the man's skin Richie could see was pale, sickly so. He moved with grace and confidence, and he was probably quite used to making such grand entrances.

"Who are you? What do you want? What are you doing here?" The words flew out of his mouth before he realized he was saying them. The man had only taken a few steps but seemed to already be halfway across the room, nearing Richie. He paused for a moment in his progression, arms tucking behind his back in a manner Richie read as amused.

Pompous asshole, Richie seethed to himself.

Adults, it seemed, always patronized him (or anyone younger than themselves). Even adults that recognized his genius belittled his ability to use it. Like, say, the Justice League. Richie didn't doubt that they were just as big of big-shots as they made themselves out to be, but did they have to treat Virgil and him like such kids? Seeing the Justice League, his idols, in person was so amazing Richie thought he might drop dead on the spot, but the way they looked down their noses at him tap danced on his last nerve. 

This man, though, could have shamed the Justice League. Indubitably, he had gone pro at acting like an overconfident rogue a long time ago. Maybe all the way to the Asshole Olypmics

"Calm down, Richard. I don't want to fight; I just want to talk." The man slithered forward another couple feet. Richie idly wondered just how long his legs were. The ever-turning gears in his mind supplied him with the knowledge that they were probably around four feet tall. If Richie could have seen more of his body, he could have made a more accurate estimation based on common body portions- but that wasn't really important. 

Richie could tell, now that the man was closer, that his cloak was no cheap scrap of material. Top notch stuff, that was. Richie would estimate that it cost at least a couple hundred bucks. He didn't know when he learned about cloaks, but he assumed he picked up on it from TV or a store or Frieda and Daisy when he wasn't really paying attention. His mind always seemed to absorb everything going on in the world, store it away, and bombard him with it when he didn't really need to know. 

There was an emblem on the right side of the front of the cloak that Richie couldn't quite make out. It was deep purple, the color of royalty, with red outlining. Richie did a quick run-through of all of the cults and secret societies whose emblems he had memorized, which was actually quite a lot, but he came up with nothing. Both his interest and his paranoia were perked. This man was from something new; either that, or from something very, very old.

"After all," the man continued, spreading his arms out wide like some sort of seriously screwed up show man, "a cat may look upon a king."

Chapter 3: Chapter 3

Summary:

"I'm here to offer you a challenge."
"And what, may I ask, does this challenge entail?"

Chapter 3

Richie didn't even blink. "That wasn't exactly the answer I was looking for."

He caught a glimpse of a smile on the face concealed beneath the hood, lips cracking at the effort. It reminded him chillingly of the Cheshire Cat's smile in Alice in Wonderland: one last image disappearing into the shadows. Except this was creepier, much creepier.

"You are a very smart young man, Richard. I'm here to offer you something of a challenge."

Richie, after a very valiant effort to shake the chill off his spine, raised an eyebrow in what he hoped was a calm and confident manner. In the back of his mind, the voices of reason and paranoia were quietly bickering about what "challenge" meant in the language of freakish weirdos. "And what, may I ask, does this challenge entail?"

The man shook his shoulders in cheerless, silent laughter. "It's simple, my dear boy!" He drifted a shade to the left, hand ghosting over one of Richie's work tables, and Richie had to bite his tongue to keep from scolding him like he would Virgil. That table held very delicate materials that had taken Richie months to perfect, and he didn't want anyone (let alone this creep) so much as breathing on them.

  His cloak crawled along behind him like some miserable pet kicked into submission a few too many times. Richie flinched at the image. "Impress me."

Annoyance settled familiarly over Richie, smothering out some of the alarm and unease. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

The man didn't seem ruffled by Richie's indignation. "I'm sure if you take a moment you'll see that my statement was fairly self-explanatory."

Richie ground his teeth and tried (but didn't quite succeed) making himself appear taller than he actually was. Pompous asshole was spot-on. "Fine, then. What if I simply refuse to participate? What if I just leave?"

The man, previously displaying some sense of repose, tautened. "If you do that, Richard, my dear boy, I will be forced to reveal your little secret to the world."

Richie felt himself stiffen but tried to pretend like he hadn't. It's not like he hadn't expected the man skulking around in Virgil's and his hideout to know, but still. It was one thing to expect and a wholly different thing to be blackmailed. But his mother had always told him to "fake it 'till you make it". "I'm not really sure what you mean."

The man's eyes were still hidden, but Richie got the distinct feeling that he was being stared down. When the man spoke, his voice was dripping with contempt. "Do not insult my intelligence, Richard. You're antics are only amusing to an extent."

Richie had half a mind to say just how amusing he could be, but he got the distinct impression that wouldn't bode well. Honestly, though, the guy acted as if he'd won some prestigious award in patronization.

He spun around, nonplussed that he was leaving his back completely exposed to Richie. "As I said before, I mean you no harm. I do not wish to reveal you," he whirled around once more to face (well, not really face) Richie, his black robes swelling out around him like a great shadow, and Richie was sure he was doing that on purpose, "but I will not hesitate if the need arises." 

Richie rubbed his forehead. "Isn't this all a bit cloak and daggers? You come sweeping in here with the whole dark and spooky thing down pact, claiming you won't harm me and just want to talk, threatening to expose some terrible secret of mine if I don't comply. Seriously, man, doesn't being that cliche give you a head ache?"

Richie could see the man tense from head to toe. For a terrible second, he wondered if he'd pushed the envelope a little too far. The paranoid section of his mind started bouncing off the walls, spouting off every conspiracy theory it could think of, which was quite a lot, and began recording ways he could inexplicably die without a trace of evidence. In the end, he decided that it would be far, far too easy for someone to off him and not get caught. It worried Richie only vaguely that he was so apt at developing murder plots.

The more rational part lectured that he didn't even know if this man was dangerous (though Richie never made it a habit to underestimate his opponents) and that Richie still had home-court advantage. Of course, Backpack had still yet to pick up that Richie had been subtly ordering him to go get Virgil for five minutes, so that wasn't necessarily true.

Yet another part of his brain had begun cataloging how eerily similar this man was to the Batman himself. Dark, mysterious, overbearing (though Richie would plunge his head into a vat of boiling oil before he said that to the Dark Knight). He began to wonder if there was some secret school people could attend. That was, of course, a ridiculous idea. Still, it got the gears (pardon the pun) in Richie's mind turning.  Well, turning more, that is.

Rigid as he was, though, the man didn't lash out, instead seeming to shrug off his comment, even finding a little of that damn amusement in it. "They did warn me that you had something of a mouth on you." Again, Richie had the feeling the man was glaring at him. "Of course, we know just how to train that out of you."

Richie knew that the man was threatening him again, but he was more caught up with his new revelation. Richie had suspected from the insignia on the man's cloak that he wasn't working alone (that and the fact that there was just no way a single man could crack Backpack), but that was the first real confirmation.

"So, there's a 'they' and a 'we'?"

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

Summary:

Experience had taught Richie that when he thought he'd finally bagged the prize, a mouse would have chewed a hole to set it free. Murphy's Law and all.

In which Richie does quite a bit of musing about mimes.

Chapter 4

"So, there's a 'they' and a 'we'?"

"What, did you think that was a secret?" He tried to sound nonchalant, but Richie could tell he was flustered, fluttering his pale hands in the air like Virgil's homework on that one really windy day when he wanted to prove to Daisy and Frieda he'd actually done it.

Eventually he composed himself and seemed to ponder for a moment what normal people did with their hands before deciding that they place them on tables located conveniently in front of them. Unfortunately for him, there wasn't a table located conveniently in front of him, but he did not let that deter him! He held his hands out in front of him, palms down, and leant forward a little on his new imaginary table. Richie began to picture a society of mimes. Mimes that talk. And where weird black robes. And stalk teenage boys.

Damn freaky mimes.

"Indeed," the man continued, clearing his voice as if he hadn't spend the last few minutes floundering around like some middle school kid with stage fright, "I intended on telling you that, silly boy. I do represent a group."

For the first time in the conversation, he didn't sound like he was reading off cue cards behind Richie's head, and Richie had to hide a smile. Richie was so pleased, in fact, that he really couldn't help what he did next.

"You know, I don't think you intended on telling me, at all. I think you slipped up." Richie stepped toward the man, confidence mounting. "I think you made a mistake."

Richie could tell immediately that it wasn't the wisest thing to say to the man. Really, Richie had known before he'd said it that it wasn't the wisest thing to say, but he'd never been very good at keeping his mouth closed. Ask his father. 

The man seemed to grow with rage, rising up like a great, billowing shadow. Richie immediately thought of Ebon, then of the weird mime-society of his latest fantasy, and finally of Ebon as a mime. He had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing.

"I would not speak so insolently if I were you, boy!"

Richie would, to the day he died, insist that his following scoff was completely out of his control. The eye rolling, though: that was totally volitional. "Could we stop with the 'boy's, already? I'm really starting to get sick of it. I mean, I think of you as Creepily Tall, Freakily Mime-like Dude, but you don't here me calling you that."

"I said enough, Richard! I came here to talk to what I heard was a genius, not some bratty child. I told you to impress me, and instead you only degrade yourself with your inferiority."

That crossed a line.

"My inferiority?" Richie counted his heartbeats, a trick he'd picked up when he was a kid to help him control his temper around his dad. He counted ten (read 4) before he spoke again, taking a deep breath that did virtually nothing to ebb his anger. "You said something earlier about a cat watching a king, and, while you've completely missed the point of equality the saying is trying to make, I think I've gotten you figured out now."

Richie took a step toward the man, and he actually stumbled backwards. "You've been throwing your weight around like you're some big shot, but you said 'they' warned you. If you were so mighty, you would have said 'we.' You act like a king, but you're just a cat."

Richie knew he was right, but he wasn't stupid enough to not contemplate the possibility of things not going his way. Experience had, after all, taught him that when he thought he'd finally bagged the prize, a mouse would have chewed a hole to set it free. Murphy's Law and all.

Taking advantage of the man's brief distraction, Richie renewed his efforts to try and send Backpack out to find Virgil. He'd been dropping subtle hints to the robot for nearly the entire conversation, hints that Backpack should have noticed immediately, but as of yet he'd done nothing.

"Stop trying to contact your pathetic little friend!"

The guy still had some tricks up his abnormally cascading sleeves, apparently. Richie found himself momentarily lost in the marvel of those sleeves. It seemed impossible that so much fabric wouldn't weigh someone down; the sleeves seemed to go on for miles. Richie was brought back to reality, though, by the man's harsh laughter.

"That get's to you, doesn't it?" He was enjoying Richie's discomfort a little too much. "It baffles you that we could take over your mundane little contraption over there. Thought it invincible?" The man had his equilibrium back in spades. He slunk forwards a few times (right through his imaginary table), and it was Richie's turn to stumble backwards. "Guess what, my dear boy! Nothing is invincible to us."

Richie had to fight of a shiver that begged to work it's way down his spine. He wanted out of this line of conversation, and he wanted out now. "You sure went to a lot of trouble to get Static out of the way."

The distraction worked perfectly. "Honestly, I thought it was a waste of resources; it's not as if he possesses any sort of threat to us, after all. Still, my organization wanted to do this little transaction in quiet, and that necessitated Static's preoccupation." Richie saw the glint of a smile resurface on the man's sallow face. "After all, two is company, but three's a crowd."

Creepy McCreeperson of Doom seemed to fancy himself on a roll because he didn't stop there. Richie was starting to regret picking this as his replacement subject. "You follow around that imbecile like a lost pup." Richie had to clench his jaw very tightly. "You could be so much better than him. Why do you crawl in the dirt for his approval?"

Richie spoke before he even registered his mouth was moving. "Static is ten times the man you could ever be!"

The man froze, stiff as a statue, for a split second. In that split second, Richie knew he'd made a mistake (again, ugh, it was just not his day). It was the feeling he always got when he'd pushed his dad too far and was about to get the berating of his life, or when he'd been kidnapped by Ebon or someone and had just earned himself a swift and painful kick in gut.

The man raised himself back up to his full height, suddenly towering over Richie. His lips no longer held the bemused smile. The man wasn't happy, not even his own twisted little mockery of happiness. "I may not be the king, but that does not make me a cat, dear Richard, and it certainly doesn't make that cretin a contender. In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king. I am part of a society of men who can see in this world of the ignorant and blind, and I am not even the top of the hierarchy. Do not glorify a child that can't even see his hand in front of his face!"

Chapter 5: Chapter 5

Summary:

For once in his life, Richie wasn't the least bit curious; he just wanted the hell out of Dodge.

Chapter 5

An important fact to note here is that Richie was not prone to violence. Sure, his superhero (and loud mouth) tendencies had led him into many fights, but Richie was much more of a strategy kind of person. He loved the action and adventure, but he usually left the hand-to-hand combat to Virgil. 

Richie had, on many occasions throughout his life, attempted to learn to fight, but most of his attempts had ended up with his backside being handed to him in a rather unmanly fashion, so Richie had resolved to fight with words and mental might. Obtaining super smarts had helped that equation quite well, and fighting with his mind hurt a lot less.

That all being said, Richie threw a punch right into the void of that pompous, righteous asshole's face.

The man's cloak fell backwards, and Richie had to stop himself from retching on the floor. He had assumed the creepy black cloak was some kind of cult fashion statement, but behind it lay a deformed face, gouged of eyes with a strange metallic third eye implanted in the man's forehead.

Immediately his mind went to work on examining all the implications of this discovery. He tried to stop himself from breaking down the model in his mind, but he couldn't control it. Before he could suck in a horrified gasp, he could recite all of the technology and equipment necessary for such a procedure. He could even imagine the steps it would take, and they were not pretty. He tried not to think about all that in too much detail, tried to make the words blur and run together in his mind. It didn't work. 

As his mind continued to spin, a paralyzing question floated to the surface: Was that what they planned on doing to him?

"Dude, you guys take that 'one eyed man' thing way too seriously!" Richie's mind and stomach were still reeling so much that it took him a few moments to realize it was him who had spoken. Apparently his mouth was unaffected by the shock. Of course, that really wasn't surprising; Richie's mouth very rarely felt the curbing effects of any deterrent.

The man's lips twisted into a sick smirk, but Richie couldn't take his eyes of the two gaping holes boring into his soul long enough to care. It was like something straight out of a horror movie. Richie had always been a fan of horror movies, participating in many late-night marathons with Virgil, but this had him re-evaluating his position. Drastically.

The two dark scars drifted closer, and Richie wondered if he should move back but found the point mute because his feet were glued to the ground. "Oh, my dear boy, you should not have done that."

Richie felt a hand on his arm. He knew he should reel himself in; he should shake the hand off and think of something witty to say in rebuttal while also figuring out some way to get the fuck away from him, but all he could see was the distinct lack of eyes. It was kind of distracting.

The next few moments had Richie regretting his inaction (when he could find time between trying to suck in air and hoping he didn't pass out). It felt like the world had been ripped out from under him with a swift kick in the gut to be sure he had no leg left to stand on. His vision blurred, and Richie found himself wondering if he still had his glasses. Of course, that wasn't really his most important concern because the universe had, apparently, decided to go bat-shit crazy.

When the world finally slowed, Richie found himself trapped in utter darkness. Terror gripped him as he felt his primal (and totally logical, if you asked anyone but Virgil) fear of the dark kick in. It was human nature to be afraid when deprived of one's senses, and Richie was trapped, blind, with a freaky, eyeless cult member who wanted to recruit him. 

He felt justified in his panic.

It took Richie a full minute of hyperventilating to realize that the world had not been suddenly plunged into pitch black darkness but that he had, indeed, closed his eyes. Blinking his blessedly intact eyes open, Richie did a quick inventory of his body to make sure all of his limbs were still attached and in the right places. The answer was (thank God) a pleasant surprise. From there it took Richie less than a second to decide that he was going to develop a super sophisticated teleportation system and then release it on the black market just to avoid ever being pulled through such a molecule-twisting joy ride of horrors ever again.

He was already brainstorming designs as he looked around his new surroundings. Frankly, opening his eyes hadn't made that much of a difference. The room was well-light enough for him to see but was in enough need of extreme interior decorating for ten bad reality TV shows. The words "big" and "empty" paled in comparison. No natural lighting, at all. And black walls?

"Have you guys ever even heard of color?" Richie had registered that the man from his previous conversation was suspiciously absent somewhere between thinking he'd gone blind and counting to make sure he had all ten fingers but boldly decided that lack of audience would never deter him from cracking lame jokes. It was his calling.

Surprisingly, though, his comment did not go unanswered. "Richard Foley," a voice boomed from what Richie assumed was some speaker out of his sightline (or God), "thank you for joining us this evening."

Richie scoffed. "Well, it wasn't exactly voluntary. My perfectly pleasant afternoon was stolen from me by an unbearable conversation, and I was torn quite rudely from my previous location. Has anyone ever told you that your teleportation system sucks ass?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you should not speak so insolently!" Richie imagined that he, whoever "he" was, was glaring, but then he remembered that "he" probably wouldn't have eyes and could, therefore, not affectively glare. The thought made Richie queasy again, and he began to worry about all the stress his stomach was being put under.

Richie swallowed over the lump in his throat and decided to be serious for once in his life. "Why have you brought me here?"

"Why, Richard, isn't it obvious?" Richie was starting to get sick of people thinking their warped view of recruiting was "obvious." As far as he knew, kidnapping was not common practice.

Suddenly Richie was imagining the man from his earlier conversation adorned in full mime makeup holding him at mimed gunpoint, but the hilarity of it was dulled somewhat by the empty eye sockets. He was going to have some serious nightmares after this.

"This stage wasn't meant to happen today, but we should have known you would be impatient."

Richie saw the shadows shifting in the corner of his eye and swung around to meet them, unconsciously assuming a defensive position. He may not have been in costume, but Richie was a superhero, dammit. "You, dear Richard, are here to be tested."

Richie decided that being "tested" wasn't on his to-do list faster than greased lightning and, since fighting (if he could even find someone to fight) probably wouldn't give him a snowball's chance in hell, he did the only thing that made sense. He bolted.

Richie ran along the length of the wall until he reached a panel he hoped to dear God opened some kind of door. Digging into his pockets, he pulled out the scarce tools he always carried with him (Who's compulsively obsessed and paranoid now, Virgil?). He'd never imagined needing them for something quite like this. Sure, he'd been kidnapped by many bang babies and evil scientists over the years (some might say too many), but those had been nothing compared to this. Hell, Ebon usually just stuck him in an abandoned warehouse or abandoned subway station or, that one time, an abandoned Subway warehouse.

He cracked open the panel and went to work, his hands finding wires his mind hadn't even processed would help him yet. That happened to him often enough, even when he was working on his own creations. He'd be halfway through stripping that blue wire before he realized it would override the manual locks and so on.

As he heard a hissing noise from just a little to his left, Richie thanked his lucky stars for his super-brain. Although, technically, said super-brain was what got him into this situation in the first place. Still, he was far too preoccupied with Not Getting Caught to actually give anything much thought. Without even looking where he was going, Richie flung himself through the doorway and ran down the hallway like the devil was on his heels.

Richie just hoped he'd find some way to defend himself or escape before anyone in a black cloak caught up to him. For once in his life, Richie wasn't the least bit curious; he just wanted the hell out of Dodge.

Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Summary:

Virgil could only think of three possibilities:
1. Richie had been kidnapped.
2. Richie had been abducted by aliens.
3. Backpack had eaten Richie.

Chapter 6

"The hell out of Dodge," as it turned out, was pretty damn hard to find. Richie had been running around at a dead sprint for over fifteen minutes with nothing to show for his troubles but a stitch in his side. Computer, control panel, staircase with an "Exit This Way" sign. Hell, Richie would have settled for a mop. He needed a plan, and he needed one fast.

Luckily for him, his best friend just happened to be the one and only Static, superhero extraordinaire. Though it constantly cast him as the Damsel In Distress, Richie tried valiantly not to think of calling Virgil for help as weak. Didn't they have "Phone a Friend" on Do You Want To Be a Millionaire? And, really, where else was he supposed to learn all his real-world skills. So, with all of his In Distress training, Richie ducked into an alcove and fished his Shock-vox out of his pocket.

"Please work; please work!" Richie muttered, flipping it on and raising it to his lips. He spoke softly to avoid drawing attention to his location because that would likely lead to a very unpleasant conversation, and Richie'd had enough unpleasant conversations for one day.

"Gear to Static, come in Static." There was no response. 

Well, Richie had been meaning to tweak the Shock Vox for longer range. No time like the present. A couple of live wires singed his fingers, and Richie allowed himself a very manly wince at the pain (no, that was not a whimper!). He hoped he'd have a chance to do these modifications properly soon. He also hoped that he would still have nifty things like eyes to do them with.

While Richie worked, his mind started to creep into This is Perfectly Justified Panic Mode. What if he couldn't get a hold a Virgil? What if he could get a hold of Virgil, but Virgil couldn't trace his location? What if he could get a hold of Virgil and Virgil could trace his location, but he was in Antarctica or on the Moon or something and Virgil couldn't reach him?

What if the sky turned purple and it rained gummy bears? Richie had more important things to think about than all the "what if"s in his life.

He heard a panel open a few feet from him and pressed himself as tightly into the corner as he could, feeling his shoulders protest the strain. "Well, V, I hope you're having a better day than I am."

 

Virgil floated on his disc high up in the middle of the city. Nothing was going on. No one was even littering. He'd been searching for what felt like hours, but he was coming up drier than burnt toast (or, as he called it, Sharon's toast).

With a sigh of defeat, he pulled his Shock Vox out. "Static to Gear. Come in Gear." He waited patiently for a moment, but his patience ran thin as a general rule. 

"Gear, put down your toys and pick up the Shock Vox." Again, he allowed a moment of silence to envelope him, letting Richie take his sweet time. Virgil really, truly tried to be patient and understanding with his super-genius of a best friend, but sometimes Richie was just ridiculous.

"Rich, I swear to God, if you don't pick up in the next two minutes, I'm revoking your welding privileges for a week." Still no response. Now Virgil was actually starting to worry. Usually threatening Richie's precious tools was enough to snap him out of his deepest work-trances (not that Richie ever actually gave up said tools, but the point was made).

"I'm serious, Rich; this isn't funny. Pick up now."

Virgil was starting to feel antsy. Richie could have a perfectly legitimate excuse for not picking up the Shock Vox. What if Richie wasn't even near the thing? It wasn't like it would be the first time that Richie had wandered off without it. Richie had been absentminded ever since the gas had supercharged his brain. Hell, Richie had been absentminded for years before the gas had supercharged his brain. Sticking the words "responsible" and "Richie Foley" in the same sentence without an "is most certainly not" between them was nearly comical.

Still, Virgil had a sinking feeling in his gut, and those feelings, particularly when someone he cared about was involved, always made him antsy. Besides, Richie had known Virgil was on patrol, and, scatterbrained as Richie could be, he was still together enough to worry about what might happen to his partner in the line of fire. Usually Richie's Shock Vox was practically on his ear when he knew Virgil was potentially in danger.

"Plant-man is lame, and quantum mechanics is a pointless field with no real-life applications!"

With still no reply, Virgil spun around mid-air and bolted back to the gas station.

 

The gas station was abandoned. Not abandoned as in decrepit, run-down, and a general fire hazard like it always was, but abandoned as in no one, certainly not Richie, was there.

Creeping through the suddenly haunting room, Virgil felt a trickle of fear slip down his spine. Richie spent so much time fiddling with gadgets and building the latest and greatest in technology before anyone else could in the gas station that Virgil had nearly forgotten how eerie it could be.

Virgil peered over the counter where Richie had been working (half-expecting him to jump out and scream "Got-cha!") and caught sight of Richie's work laying, delicate mechanics left open to the elements like some twisted, metallic version of road-kill.

And Virgil was officially panicking. Richie never left his projects sitting out like that. He was super paranoid that Virgil would do something stupid in his absence and screw up all his hard work (which Virgil might have done a couple--cough, cough six--times). Richie might have only stepped out for a second, but his Shock Vox was nowhere in sight, and if it wasn't in the gas station it had to be on Richie. Virgil's mind quickly supplied him with the only plausible explanations.

1. Richie had been kidnapped. Again.

Saying "it had happened before" would be the understatement of the year, but usually Richie's kidnapper would at least take the time to threaten Virgil or make some ludicrous demands. Unless, of course, Virgil was supposed to "hunt him down." Honestly, he never knew why villains thought they were so smart for laying that trap; it was the oldest trick in the book.

But he was getting off-topic.

2. Richie's super-brains had finally gotten him some serious recognition, and he had been abducted by aliens for further study.

That was a possibility, but the red X Richie and he had sworn to leave each other if either was ever abducted by aliens was nowhere in sight, and Virgil truly believed that Richie wouldn't run off to shack up with the aliens without at least warning him first. He'd at least have programmed Backpack to do draw it in his stead. Which brought Virgil to--

3. Backpack had eaten Richie.

Of course, that raised the question of how exactly Backpack went about eating Richie with no mouth. Richie himself had once confessed that Backpack's original design had been specifically devoid of anything that could allow his creation to consume him. Granted, Richie was high off painkillers from getting his wisdom teeth removed at the time, so Virgil had never taken much stalk in that statement. Richie had also said that he was fairly certain that killer apes were planning to overthrow the human race and that the only way to stop them was to develop a way to breed super-bananas to placate them.

In all seriousness, though, Backpack had presented a threat to Richie in the past. It was Backpack that had harbored Brainiac, and it was Backpack that had attacked and infected Richie with the virus he lived under the strain of for over two weeks. Virgil and Richie didn't talk about the Incident, just enough for Richie to say that he "didn't remember a thing" and for Virgil to know that wasn't exactly the truth. Since then, though, Richie had become paranoid with security on the thing. He did weekly scans and updates and I-swear-this-is-just-standard-procedure-and-not-some-insecurity-I'm-harboring-from-the-Brainiac-fiasco sweeps. All the precautions probably made Richie feel safer, but they freaked Virgil out. But his feelings about Backpack and about the fact that Richie and he still hadn't really talked about Brainiac weren't the most pertinent things on Virgil's mind.

Virgil refocused his thoughts, searching his mind for another possibility. Those three options were all Virgil could think of, and none of them were very appealing. Honestly, what kind of trouble could Richie have gotten himself into in the short time Virgil had been out patrolling? He'd barley been gone an hour.

The hair on the back of Virgil's neck pricked just seconds before an object of small mass landed on his back, hard. Virgil wasted no time wrestling the thing off him and throwing it to the floor (and if anyone, especially Richie, asked, he did it with the utmost calm and composure and most certainly did not shriek like a little girl). Virgil was getting ready to blast when his mind caught up to him.

The culprit was none other than Backpack itself.

Virgil slowly walked over to it, still not entirely sure the thing hadn't eaten Richie while he was away, and picked it up hesitantly. It twisted its sensor up to his face like it wanted to say something, but Virgil couldn't communicate with it the way Richie could.

Virgil looked into the little red sensor that functioned as Backpack's "eye," wishing it could answer all his questions. He cast another searching glance around the room, trying to discern if Richie was there after all. Richie was usually not far from his weird pet-machine-sidekick-calculator-hybrid, but nothing had changed.

"But, if you're here," Virgil asked, his stomach sinking down to get friendly with his toes, "where's Rich?"

Chapter 7: Chapter 7

Summary:

Richie was going to escape. Soon. Probably. Hopefully with unsoiled pants.

 

Chapter 7

So, Virgil hadn't answered. Typical. Richie had then been captured. Also typical. And now he was tied to a chair with a steady string of paranoid suspicions having a shouting contest inside his head. How very, pathetically typical. In fact, Richie had to bite his tongue to keep from telling the creepy, cloak-clad cult just how unexceptional they really were.

He smiled to himself at the thought of such self-centered wackos reacting to being told that they were nothing special, that Richie had seen bigger and badder, and that he wasn't all that scared. Of course, not all of those would be true, and he was fairly certain the lie would sound like broken glass exiting his lips. 

They really weren't all that special, although their weird robes gave them a boost in an "our mommies didn't pay enough attention to us" sort of way. Still, kidnapping wasn't exactly a new schtick for Richie. He'd done his time and gotten the rope burns to prove it. Cracking jokes about Richie's semi-habit of being hauled off was actually one of Virgil's favorite hobbies.

And Richie had seen bigger and badder. He'd had a fair share of encounters with Justice League-level villains, and the bang babies back in Dakota were no schlubs. While he never really fought alone and his failures were almost as numerous as his successes, Richie would still consider himself a well-seasoned superhero.

Regardless of any battle-hardened heart the boy-genius fancied that he held, though, Richie was most assuredly scared. He was so scared, in fact, that he had considered soiling his pants when he'd heard the footsteps echoing down the hallway, inching towards him slow and steady as the heart attack his dad was bound to have if family history and bad diet had anything to say about it. After all, even Brainiac had eyes.

And they'd hacked Backpack, his creation, practically his child (though he'd be damned if he ever let Virgil hear him say it). These men weaseling their way through Backpack's programming! Richie shuddered, feeling slimy just thinking about it.

None of that mattered, though, because he was going to escape. Soon. Probably. Hopefully with unsoiled pants.

They'd left him alone, tied to a chair in the middle of what Richie believed to be the same room in which he had first arrived. That was their first mistake. Now, just a few more mistakes and he might actually stand a chance at getting away.

Just then a door slid open, and Richie's heart all but stopped dead in its tracks. A young man in his mid-twenties strolled through, sharply dressed in a suit tailored just for him. He had a head full of bouncing, golden curls and a tan that Richie assumed was from wading out in his over-sized pool with a bunch of scantily clad women clinging to him. The man could have walked straight out of a Young, Rich, and Beautiful catalogue.

Smooth as ice, he said, "Hello there, Richard. It's a pleasure to meet you."

At first, Richie was too busy to answer, gaping into those big blue eyes. Of course, Richie could never keep his mouth shut for very long. "Are you lost or something because you don't look like anyone I've seen here yet?"

The man let out a boisterous laugh, tilting his head back slightly. It felt a little rehearsed. "Well, you didn't think we were all so stereotypically cultish all the time, did you? No, we have perfectly normal members among us." He gestured buoyantly to himself, hand sweeping out wide.

Richie scoffed. "You call yourself normal?"

The man didn't so much as glare, ignoring Richie with an ease it had taken Virgil years to master. "Every organization needs a face, and an organization as big and powerful as this one needs far more than one, dear Richard."

Richie took a moment to ponder why all the people (if that term was really applicable) who had talked to him so far insisted on calling him Richard or dear Richard or my dear boy. What was so hard about Richie? Richard was what his mom called him when she was lecturing him or what his dad called him when he was mad.

Richie shook himself out of his contemplation, though, as he realized that the man was waiting for him to say something in reply. "Can you repeat the question?"

The guy rolled his eyes (Richie still couldn't get over the site of them. It felt like ages since he'd spoken to someone with actual eyes.) and sighed. "For someone so bright, Richard, you are increasingly dull."

Richie knew an insult when it was tossed his way, and that certainly qualified. "Hey! Watch who you're calling dull, annoying bastard."

The man grew agitated, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. For an instant, Richie got a flash back to his principal at Dakota Union High. He'd been getting called down to the front office a lot lately, and for once not for his big mouth. Apparently, his sudden spike in intellect was impressing someone up the latter rungs. The attention, though, was not so well received on Richie's end.

Richie's initially response of "Do I really have to be here?" was not exactly what the principal wanted to hear.

"You're acing all your courses, even the ones you sleep through, and your recent IQ test was off the charts," his principal had said with those long-suffering wrinkles deepening on his forehead. "I just hate to see someone with you're potential wasting it. Have you even begun to think about college? About your future career? Richie, you could do amazing things. I just don't see why you won't apply yourself more."

Frankly, Richie thought he was applying himself quite fine indeed. Granted, his principal didn't know about his moon-lighting as Gear, but if Richie had known he'd get so much grief over it, he would have walked out on that IQ test before it had even begun. He'd just answered the questions without thinking about it, never imaging that he was actually being graded. At the end of the day, they hadn't even given him a number. They just blinked a few times and sent him on his way.

Of course, his mother had been ecstatic. She'd just about fainted. Even his father, stoic, man's man that he was, had cracked a smile. Usually, Richie's brainy stuff didn't impress him all that much, but Richie's father did have a certain affinity for superiority, and having the principal of Richie's high school tell him that, basically, Richie was smarter than any student he'd ever had, well, that was pretty superior.

But Richie wasn't sure even his parents' joy was worth his principal's near constant nagging. 

"Richie, you have real talent," the balding old man had insisted. "Someone with your mind, and at such a young age… I can hardly imagine what you'll be able to do by forty or fifty."

Richie hadn't even gotten close to thinking through forty or fifty. Richie hadn't quite gotten past eighteen. Don't get killed, graduate high school, move out: That was pretty much the most planning he'd done. 

Mr. Hawkins was big on the whole college and "planning for your future" deal, but Richie had always considered that more with Virgil than with himself. After all, it wasn't like Richie's dad was all gun-ho for higher education. Built like a brick wall with about as much for brains, the man had barely made it through high school. He'd learned everything about his work on the job.

The general consensus on the Foley side of the family was that Richie would follow in his father's footsteps, create some muscle, and get into the business of building buildings, tradition and all that. Richie's mom had always been open to other career possibilities for Richie, but his father was his father.

A sharp snap in front of his face yanked Richie back to the present. "Stop day dreaming. Were you paying any attention at all to what I just said to you?"

"First you chastised me for being an 'archetypal mouthy teenager', which, by the way, you're not the first to do. Then you apologized, begrudgingly, might I say, for my 'uncivil reception' and explained that you or someone like you usually does the recruiting and that I was 'special' because you, for some reason, think I'm Gear. 

"Finally, you were explaining why exactly it is you brought me here before you stopped because you thought I was 'day dreaming worse than Little Boy Blue,' which isn't really accurate because Little Boy Blue was asleep, not day dreaming, but I understood what you meant." 

Richie had been opening his mouth to say that, no, he hadn't been paying attention to a word the man had said when his lips started moving of their own accord, but the shock on his adversaries face was priceless, so he wasn't about to start complaining. Maybe these foes were underestimating him yet.

"And, through all this," Richie continued, watching as the man squirmed in his expensive suit, clearly not keen on having the upper hand turned, "you still haven't told me you're name."

Chapter 8: Chapter 8

Summary:

"You have one hour. Don't waste it, or else."
Richie really didn't see the point in all this, the drama unfolding with each new invention of his captors, playing out like some twisted soap opera with over-done theatrics, poor plot, and cheesy dialogue.

 

Chapter 8

Backpack was running a search. Virgil didn't know what Backpack was running a search for, but it was running one. Normally Virgil, being the sci-fi obsessed, paranoid teen that he was, would have been distressed by a supercomputer with sentience beyond his understanding, but this was Richie, and if anything could find him, Backpack could.

Even if its gateway of communication (a.k.a the boy genius himself) was temporarily offline.

Virgil immediately shook the thought out of his head. "Offline" didn't sound good. It made it sound like Richie was lying unconscious in a ditch somewhere or dying on the side of the road. "Unavailable" was better. After all, Richie couldn't be in that much danger.

Virgil swallowed the lump in his throat and took a few tentative steps toward Backpack. "Hey, what are you doing?"

He felt a little ridiculous talking to the ball of metal and wires Richie had fished out of the dump and God-knows where else, but he didn't have much choice.

"Yo, Backpack."

Virgil reached forward and tapped on the metal casing, hearing the three sharp knocks his knuckles thumped out, and, even though the question was dumb and illogical, he asked, "Anyone in there?"

The machine snapped its little, red sensor away from its work to look at Virgil, and if he didn't know any better, he'd say the thing looked curious.

Taking a deep breath, he spoke slowly, enunciating each syllable more than necessary. "What are you doing? Do you know where Richie is?"

Backpack stared at him a moment longer before turning dutifully back to its work, gears tittering in a way sounding almost irritated. 

Virgil huffed, offended (and a little creeped because that was eerily similar to the way Richie brushed him off when he was working). "Or don't tell me anything. Not like its my best friend you're looking for." Virgil threw himself down into a musty old chair, headache beginning to form right behind his eyes. 

Maybe he could get in touch with Adam. But what could Adam do, really? Virgil didn't have a what, where, or who. Adam was a great partner in a fight, but the before part (with locator chips and distress signals and planning) was not his forte.

Unfortunately enough, it was Richie's.

He could notify the proper authorities, but he didn't want to endanger Richie's or his secret identities if there was another way. Just because Richie was the last version of his best friend Virgil saw, didn't mean that Gear wasn't the one in trouble. Besides, when had the proper authorities been all that helpful?

The Justice League was always an option, but, well… It wasn't that they disliked Richie or even that they didn't trust him-- Actually, that was exactly it. They hadn't trusted Richie since the Brainiac incident. The Justice League's dismissal of Richie was actually a major point of conflict for Virgil, and he often wondered how he could ever join a group that acted so negatively towards his best friend.

Still, the League would help if he really, truly asked, but they were big time heroes with big time responsibilities, and Richie's punctuality wasn't their Number One. They'd probably tell Virgil to check the local comic book stores.

Virgil was in this on his own, and if he couldn't find Richie-- if something horrible had already happened--

Finally, when Virgil was sure his head was going to explode, Backpack beat him to it, sounding at least three different alarms with various flashing lights erupting from its back as it darted out the door.

Without a second thought, Virgil followed.

 

Richie had never known the human countenance could turn that many different shades of red, but the proof was there. Right in front of his face. After a few tense minutes, the man, looking far too debonair to actually belong in a dark, most likely underground hideout, reigned himself under control and that charming and only slightly slimy smile was back in place.

The guy miraculously appeared a piece of plain, white paper and a pen from behind his back, and Richie was very tempted to yell "Abracadabra," but Richie stopped himself in time. His provocations really weren't getting him anywhere.

As the man approached him, a table sprouted out of the ground, and he placed the two items on the newly grown surface without a word or even so much as a blink. He stepped back slowly, never turning around. Never show your enemies your back, Richie supposed.

Irrationally proud, he smiled at Richie, too white teeth glaring out between his lips. Some of his charm had washed off since he'd entered the room, and Richie could only assume that he was leaving to re-apply it. "You have one hour. Don't waste it, or else."

Richie really didn't see the point in all this, the drama unfolding with each new invention of his captors, playing out like some twisted soap opera with over-done theatrics, poor plot, and cheesy dialogue. He could see it now, "The Cults of Our Lives," a story about an impressionable young boy captured by a vicious cult bent on de-eyeing him (not to be confused with deflowering him. Probably).

Of course, eventually his evil twin brother who had been sold to the circus in their youth would appear and pretend to be him. Then, they'd get into a fight, and only one could survive. Left in the aftermath of some big explosion or other catastrophic event, the other characters would be clueless as to which twin lived, and though the survivor would claim to be Richie himself, it wouldn't be revealed until later that it had been the evil twin all along. 

At that point, though, confessing that he was alive and in hiding all those years, Richie would return from the dead and reclaim his life, and when the long-winded, nonsensical, and unnecessarily complicated plot finally came to an end, everyone would wonder where the original purpose went in the first place.

Richie suddenly found the man on the other side of the room, near the door. He tossed his head over his shoulder, giving Richie one last plastic smile to reflect on as the door slid open.

"Oh, and it's Charles. My name is Charles."

Chapter 9: Chapter 9

Summary:

"What is it, boy?" Backpack looked displeased at the joke.

Chapter 9

Richie wiggled around until he could reach the paper clips in his back pocket, which were not waiting in the wings in case any papers needed emergency clipping, thank you very much, Virgil. After his third kidnapping, Richie had decided to take up lock picking as a hobby because being the damsel in distress was great and all, but the shackles were starting to chaff. He smirked as he thought of how Virgil always chastised him for being too paranoid.

Hey, Virgil, he thought to himself, wishing he was there to be mocked properly, does it count as paranoid if my conspiracy theories are right?

He worked as swiftly as he could, no doubt in his mind that they were watching his every breath, but if he had these weirdos figured out right (and, honestly, when did Richie have anything figured out wrong?) then he was playing right into their hands. They had said they were going to test him.

Once his hands were free, Richie went to work on his ankles because the shackles were starting to chaff, and he wanted to be able to make a quick sprint for freedom if the opportunity presented itself. Richie had a plan cultivating in his mind, but he needed to buy himself a little time and distraction. Good news was: Richie had been practicing procrastinating all his life.

Grabbing the paper off the little desk in front of him and waving it around a little for good measure, Richie called out, in the most obnoxious voice he could manage (which was very, very obnoxious), "What do you want me to do? Write you an essay on what I've learned from this whole experience?" 

Nothing happened.

Richie huffed a little, feeling neglected. "What? Did your ears get damaged when they clawed out your eyes?" 

That didn't go completely unnoticed. Richie saw (or, at least, was 64% sure he saw) a flash of light just to his right.

And then, in a move that Richie thought was the best burn since Brutus stabbed Julius Caesar in the front, Richie snatched up the pencil they'd so graciously provided for him and scribbled two simple words. Deftly folding down and back the sides in a way he'd done a thousand times before, he crafted a small, aerodynamic paper airplane and sent it flying off, soaring toward that flash Richie was almost 58% sure he'd seen.

Virgil had once challenged him to a paper airplane making competition which had promptly escalated into a paper airplane making bloodbath. Of course, Richie'd won. What were mega-brains good for if you couldn't trounce your friends in a friendly/vicious contest ever now and then? Thus, with that shining glory under his belt, Richie was sure the paper would reach the target he was 47% sure was there.

Practically weightless in the air, the small projectile approached the wall at a rapid pace, and Richie held his breath in anticipation. Just before the plane would have smashed against the side of the room, a small panel slid open in the wall, allowing the note to pass through.

Unable to smother the smirk that tugged at his lips, Richie muttered, "Yeah, read that, you eye-less freaks," and somehow, though he'd spoken barely above a whisper, Richie was sure they heard him.

 

Backpack, Virgil had decided, was not in fact a robot but was actually a dog disguised as a robot.

"Where, exactly, are we headed?"

Virgil didn't expect a response, but it made him feel better to speak aloud. It made him feel like he was doing something, and following Backpack aimlessly around like it was Scooby-doo and he was one of the Mystery Gang definitely did not. Virgil was this close to just giving up on the wild goose chase and leaving Backpack to its own devices. After all, the thing could take care of itself, and he needed to find Richie. The sun was already starting to go down, and he knew Richie's dad was expecting him. 

Richie'd broken curfew one too many times a few weeks ago, and his dad had been coming down pretty hard. Not that Mr. Foley ever really came down easy. Richie swore his dad was trying to change, but when something ran so deep, change was slow and hard to come by. The reforming racists wasn't too keen on Richie staying out all hours of the night with his "hood" friends.

"This actually is progress, you see," Richie would say, "because before my 'hood' friends were just my black friends, but now my 'hood' friends are all my friends. It's all about equality."

Suddenly, Backpack's little red sensor perked up, and Virgil viciously fought the urge to say, "Is Richie trapped in the well?" and instead asked, "Backpack?"

Backpack, lacking the vocal chords necessary for a proper response, hung a sharp right, picking up speed rapidly. For about three seconds Virgil weighed his options but ultimately yielded that Backpack probably had a lead on Richie and that this probably wouldn't be another waste of his time and that if he didn't decide soon he was definitely going to lose the little creature.

Now Virgil could see why Richie had insisted on attaching those miniature rockets to Backpack, though even the boy genius couldn't have possibly seen this one coming. Except, Richie probably had seen this coming. This was probably exactly the kind of thing Richie had been spewing paranoia about for months. 

Once upon a time, Virgil and Richie hadn't worried about things like emergency-evasive procedures and if-something-happens-to-me protocols. Even after Virgil became Static, they hadn't been overly concerned, but as they got older and the targets on their backs got bigger, all those nasty what-ifs seemed much more real.

Richie'd become obsessed with fail-safes and Plan B's, and Virgil was more and more hesitant to hand out his trust. Enemies, they were learning, were everywhere, and they couldn't fight them if theta refused to see that. Seeing just that was one of the things that made Virgil wonder if being superheroes was changing them too much.

But that wasn't totally true. While Virgil had always been easily trusting and unsuspecting, Richie had been prone to over-dramatic, panic-attack-verging reactions, even before all the business with the Bang and the gas. He just hadn't had the motivation and the resources to call his psychosis-inspired ideas to life. After all, the two of them had been planning for alien abductions and evil robot takeovers since they were kids.

Virgil may have mused the rest of the day away on such concerns if Backpack's incessant beeping's hadn't dragged him back into the present, and this time, Virgil couldn't hold back his, "What is it, boy?"

Backpack looked displeased at the joke, but the moment of semi-emotion quickly passed (leaving Virgil with a creeping sensation in his gut and hoping to never spend this much alone time with Backpack again), and Backpack was back full-throttle to beeping and buzzing at Virgil. It popped open a compartment on its back, and Virgil glanced cautiously inside.

"Is that-" he began, feeling excitement start to tingle in his toes as the first real rays of hope that they'd actually be able to find Richie began to shine. "Backpack, I could kiss you."

Backpack's little red eye sensor flash at him, and Virgil could swear the thing was rolling its eye, but he couldn't be bothered to pay any attention to the sinking feeling he got when Backpack displayed any too-human emotion because displayed inside Backpack's compartment was a map with a little red flashing "R" and a little green flashing "V".

"I'll worry later when exactly Richie started tracking my every move," Virgil muttered to himself as Backpack dropped down to clutch onto his board, and the two of them took off in the direction of the flashing "R".

Chapter 10

Summary:

"A golden key may open any door. Are you truly in possession of some such key?"

"I'm not the one with the golden key, Chuckie. Do you mind if I call you Chuckie?"

Chapter 10

"Very clever, Richard." Charles didn't sound like he thought it was very clever at all. Charles didn't sound like he thought Richie was very clever at all, which was silly because they were the ones causing a ruckus. They were the once who sought Richie out.

He slammed the paper down in front of Richie with little grace, the side reading "I see" in Richie's chicken-scratch face-up. "A golden key may open any door. Are you truly in possession of some such key?" Charles spoke in smooth tones, gliding from one word to the next with the ease of an ice-skater performing a well-practiced routine. 

And now all Richie could picture was Charles flailing around on a pair of ice-skates, adorned in a ridiculous, sparkling costume. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

"I'm not the one with the golden key, Chuckie. Do you mind if I call you Chuckie?" From the look and color of his face, Charles very much minded. Richie didn't much care. "You didn't hack Backpack."

Chuckie raised an eyebrow that Richie was 89% sure was plucked and/or waxed. "Oh, didn't we?"

Richie scrunched up his nose, getting a strong whiff of the man's cologne as he leaned in closer, presumably trying to seem more threatening. It was mostly just nauseating. Did the guy bathe in cologne? "In a way you did, but not in the way that I'd feared.

"You didn't crack Backpack; you didn't need to. The only thing you broke into was my diary."

"I can assure you, dear Richard, that we do not occupy our valuable time reading the diaries of teenagers."

Richie rolled his eyes. Chuckie really wasn't that intimidating. "Come on, Chuckie. You know what I mean. I'll give you points for stealthiness, but I'd been overestimating you before, which was giving me the heebie-jeebies, but of course I didn't really have anything to-"

"Will you get on with it, Richard!" Chuckie's voice cut through Richie's ramblings with a cold, calculated ferocity. His eyes were sharp, lit from within by the long-fed fury burning in his soul, and Richie couldn't hold back a shiver as the man (monster?) reached a hand swiftly forward to rest on the back of the chair, just behind Richie's neck. 

Suddenly, Chuckie seemed quite intimidating indeed.

Richie swallowed once, then twice, and a third time for good measure. "Um, well, yes, as I was saying, I'd worried that you'd figured out the coding on Backpack, which is next to impossible, since I designed the language myself, but I had you all wrong. You're all smart, there's no doubt about that, but I'd wager that the majority of your mental fortitude rests within scheming and subterfuge, not mechanics.

"That's why you're so invested in me. I'm not just a teenage genius and all the potential in the world; I'm an inventor, and you lot just aren't ingenuitive enough."

"Richie," Chuckie said, "'ingenuitive' is not a word, and might I suggest you reach the epitome of all your ruminations before we all grow old and gray with waiting. What exactly are you insinuating our plan was?"

"Seriously? Epitome, ruminations, what, do you open a dictionary every morning, point, and say, 'I'll slip that word casually into conversation today'? Honestly, man, who talks like that?"

Chuckie didn't respond to the obvious goading, and Richie, though unsurprised, was a little disappointed. The only good thing about this whole cult was that they at least knew how to keep up an interesting conversation. Confusing, convoluted, and flat-out creepy, of course, but interesting none-the-less.

Instead, Chuckie continued to obnoxiously invade Richie's personal space, so he decided to continue with his explanation.

"You used my passwords, the actual goddamn-"

"Language, young man!"

Richie smirked. "-things. To my core, I'm a lazy teenager, and I have clearly been too lackadaisical with my passwords to Backpack's command center. I've tended to relay them orally when I thought I was in the privacy of my workshop, and I'll give you credit for deducing my password generating algorithm, you teenage-boy stalking-"

"Very good, Richard, but you're discovery is not exactly earth-shattering news. So we stole your passwords. It's not as if-"

"But what you don't get," said Richie, feeling pride seep into his bones, "is that Backpack knows. He so completely knows that I haven't been the one relaying orders to him all this time. He even tried to warn me about it today, but I was too blind (no pun intended) to see it until your little friend was right in front of my face, literally. By the way, you're Welcome Wagon could use some serious work-"

"I'm still failing to see-"

"Oh, I'm getting to that!" Richie flashed him a grin that he liked to believe was as charming as one of Chuckie's but that he knew, sadly, was not. "You may have had me duped, but Backpack's no fool."

"You make it sound like-"

"He has a mind of his own? Yeah, well, if the highly advanced, I-can't-believe-I-ever-doubted-my-programming shoe fits…" Richie raised his eyebrows brashly, feeling ever the more victorious as confusion clouded dear ol' Chuckie's crystalline eyes.

Richie knew if he could just keep Chuckie talking long enough, if he could just distract him until Backpack was able to track down his transmitter signal. Of course, they could be miles below ground or out in the middle of nowhere or in space… O.K, so they probably weren't in space. Still.

After a few moments of silence, where Richie decided to secretly initiate a round of "The Quiet Game" where he was sure to emerge victorious, Chuckie spoke. "Even if your machine is as advanced as you claim, what help will that be to you? What hope have you of escape? You don't know where you are, your dear friend Static doesn't know where you are, and your little contraption certainly doesn't know where you are."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that, in fact-" At that exact moment (and Richie could not have timed it better if he had scripted it) the stud shoved through his earlobe began to beep, buzz, and blink a little frantically. "-it appears as though they're on their way right now."

And with that, Richie threw his head backward and swiftly and powerfully swung it forward, smack dab against Chuckie's nose in the most mind-ringing, ear-popping head-butt of all time (or, at least, of all Richie's experience with head-butts).

Chapter 11: Chapter 11

Summary:

"You are cornered, Richard. You have nowhere to go but down ten stories the hard way. You've made an excellent go of it, but you've failed. No one is coming to save you. No one could, nor would. You're alone and powerless, and you would be lucky if we still allowed you to join our company after the stunts you've pulled, so I would suggest dropping down to your knees and groveling this instant, if you have any self-preservation instincts in that puny, teenage head of yours!"

Chapter 11

So, mind-ringing, ear-popping head-butts? Not something Richie was planning to replicate in the near-future. Or distant-future. Or any-span-of-time-future.

That being said: Totally did the trick.

Of course, even mind-ringing, ear-popping head-butts only distracted eerily well-dressed businessmen for so long. Richie only had a few moments' head start before Chuckie was furiously yelling for someone to "catch that pesky brat or else."

Personally, Richie didn't want to know what "or else" entailed, lest he feel some dredges of pity for his kidnappers. Richie always felt sympathy for the flunkies. Virgil and he had often argued the point over Star Wars marathons, where Richie would point out that the Stormtroopers were just doing their jobs. What if Bob over there with mask and imposing shoulders was just trying to put food on the table?

But, Richie reminded himself, these people had stalked, threatened, and kidnapped him, so he supposed he could afford to be a little callus.

Richie was a spry, young superhero, and almost all of Chuckie's reinforcements were lacking eyes, so he was actually managing to put some ground between himself and his deranged pursuers. Unfortunately, the Cult of Stalking Teenage Boys and Calling Them Richard Instead of Richie Very Patronizingly had a serious case of home-field advantage. 

Richie didn't know if he was high or low, to or fro; where could he go? And, he was rhyming to himself. It was a nervous habit he'd noticed himself picking up after he got bored one rainy afternoon and went on a poetry-reading binge for fourteen hours. Usually, literature wasn't his forte, but it had been a slow week, both on the streets of Dakota and in his head.

They had been studying Romantic poetry in English, and his father had recently revived his love life with Richie's mom (for the first time in well over a decade) for their twentieth anniversary, so Richie had been feeling sentimental.

Or maybe it had been something he ate.

Richie's hand hit a door and, mounting the stairs as fast as his skinny, white legs could take him, Richie realized that he'd come up with a plan in one part of his mind while the majority of it had been absorbed musing about his one-time poetic fervor. It was simultaneously awesome and terrifying.

Richie attempted to distract himself from the ache in his muscles with the phrase "simultaneously awesome and terrifying." It actually described much of Virgil's and his lives since the Big Bang. Simultaneously awesome and terrifying. Being superheroes: Awesome. Everything Richie had ever wanted in his dorky life. On the other hand, fighting super-villains: Definitely terrifying. Something Richie had never imagined himself actually, really doing.

Truth be told, Richie had once not known why he was a superhero. Besides, you know, the fact that he got to be a superhero. Sure, he wanted to protect the innocent, fight in the name of justice, and all the things embodied in the heroic spiel, but he wasn't Virgil. 

Virgil couldn't let bad things happen. Something embedded in his bones made Virgil jump up to defend the weak, even before he'd gotten his powers. Virgil was just Virgil. He had Hawkins blood in him, and the Hawkins were all good-doers, even Sharon. For all the bad in the world (and Richie had seen some bad), there had to be a secret stash of good to balance it out, and Richie had a feeling the Hawkins were sitting on top of it.

Richie, on the other hand, had Foley blood running through his veins. Foley blood wasn't all that bad, and it could even be good, but not even in its finest hour was it Hawkins blood. The conundrum had once been something of a stitch in his side, a hitch in his giddy-up. Richie had wondered if his desire to be good was enough, had worried that he just came from bad stalk and that his actions would never quite redeem himself or his family.

It hadn't been the best time in Richie's life.

Of course, Richie had since conquered those insecurities, crushing them unforgivingly into the ground. So what if his family wasn't exactly upstanding? So what he came from a long line of hatred-spewing racists? So what if an evil, super-computer had hijacked his brain and taken his body for a joy ride?

Those things didn't define Richie. Richie defined Richie. That was why he was a hero. No matter what, Richie got to decide what he stood for. No one got to make his decisions for him, not his father, not Brainiac, and certainly not some overbearing, underrated, creepy, stalking cult.

And, suddenly, Richie's aching lungs were inhaling fresh air as storm clouds brewed over his head. It was a beautiful moment of serenity. A beautiful moment of serenity that was quickly, brutally destroyed as flunkies flooded through the door, followed by the swift, fluid steps of none other than Chuckie.

Once again, Richie was struck by the image of Chuckie as a professional ice-skater.

"The roof, Richard? And where, my dear boy, may I ask you were planning on heading from here?"

"And why, dear Chuckie, do you always have to be so patronizing?" The words were out of his mouth before Richie could stop them, and even though Richie could practically see the smoking coming out of Chuckie's ears, he couldn't find it in his heart to regret it.

Chuckie took a deep breath, composed himself, and then let Richie have it. "You are cornered, Richard. You have nowhere to go but down ten stories the hard way. You've made an excellent go of it, but you've failed. No one is coming to save you. No one could, nor would. You're alone and powerless, and you would be lucky if we still allowed you to join our company after the stunts you've pulled, so I would suggest dropping down to your knees and groveling this instant, if you have any self-preservation instincts in that puny, teenage head of yours!"

Chuckie had gradually progressed forward, pushing into Richie's personal space until Richie could feel the edge of the roof at his heels. Richie took one look at Chuckie's glowering face, surveyed the dozen-or-so minions that had accompanied the man through the door, and knew what he had to do.

"Thing is, Chuckie, I've got weak knees." And with that, Richie took one final step backwards and plunged off the edge of the roof.

Chapter 12

Summary:

Richie had just enough time to think, "I'm going to die a virgin."

Chapter 12

There was a moment, with the air rushing around Richie's ears so loud it was nearly deafening and the scream that was violently ripped from his throat as his body plummeted toward the unforgiving ground, that Richie thought he'd miscalculated. His life flashed before his eyes (damn, the first 14 years had been uneventful), and he became suddenly, dreadfully convinced that he was going to die. 

The super computer in his head he called a brain displayed a nice, extensive list of regrets and things he'd never gotten to do behind his tightly shut eyelids (because no way in hell was Richie going to watch as his intestines painted the ground below him), and Richie had just enough time to think, "I'm going to die a virgin," before--

"Man, Rich, you really know how to make an entrance."

It took Richie a minute to realize to he wasn't falling anymore.

It took him another minute to realize that he wasn't dead, either. 

Then, as Richie pried open his eyes to see that Virgil was smiling like a cocky ass down at him, Richie realized a whole load of other things all at once. 

One was that the reason he wasn't falling anymore was because he was being held up bridal-style, which would probably be significantly more embarrassing if he hadn't just escaped falling to his death. Another was that he hadn't actually bothered to look down before taking the plunge, which was very good because Richie had to be thirteen stories up, which was technically fourteen stories up, and--Oh God. Richie was never going to stop having nightmares. 

He was also no longer screaming, which was good, but he was laughing rather hysterically, which was (judging from the sudden look of abject terror on Virgil's face) teetering on the verge of a total mental breakdown. Richie couldn't bring himself to care, though, because he wasn't going to die (at least not imminently) nor were his eyes going to be gouged out of his head. Hell, Richie might even make it home early enough to avoid a brutal lecture from his father.

All-in-all, Richie was feeling pretty damn good about himself. The feeling was only bolstered by the infuriated yelling Richie heard behind them. He peaked over Virgil's shoulder and saw Chuckie, growing rapidly smaller as they flew away, standing on the edge of the roof, screaming and pointing and jumping as if his sheer force of will could bring Richie back.

"Oh, I am so the king," Richie said, barely registering that he was speaking out loud. "Or maybe I'm the cat? I don't really care. The point is I won."

Virgil was looking at Richie like he'd just grown an extra head. "Dude, should I be flying to the hospital?"

Richie laughed again, and the sound seemed to increase the my-best-friend-has-clearly-lost-his-marbles look on Virgil's face, so Richie said, "No, bro', but you might want to land soon, or I might loose my lunch on you."

So they landed, and Richie did loose his lunch (safely away in the bushes) because he had been stalked, kidnapped, and nearly killed all in one day, and it was a lot to take in. As he was wiping off his mouth and attempting to dispel the awful taste, he felt Backpack skitter up his back, and he was unnervingly relieved to feel the familiar weight settle around his shoulders.

When Richie turned back to Virgil, his expression had progressed from mild worry to a full blown my-best-friend-is-going-to-be-emotionally-traumatized-and-I-don't-know-what-to-do panic. Virgil had dawned this look before, just after the Brainiac incident.

Richie decided to deal with it the way he dealt with most things. "You know, I'm thinking of giving up the superhero-ing to pursue a career as a professional damsel in distress. I look surprisingly good in a dress."

Virgil didn't smile, and that made Richie more than a little uncomfortable.

"Who were they?" he asked, very seriously.

Richie sighed, because they were going to have this conversation eventually, and what time like the present? "They're a cult of super-geniuses. They were trying to recruit me."

Virgil's eyes bug-eyed. His mouth opened and closed, but he didn't say anything, so Richie took that as his cue to keep talking. "I don't think they'll come after me again now, though. I've proven myself to be quite a bit more trouble than I'm worth, but I'm not sure what kind of a threat they pose to the world at large. They didn't rave about their evil plans to enslave all those with lesser intelligence than them, but I doubt they all get together just to have tea and cookies. I might be able to compile a list of their associates with some time and a little effort, but I'm not sure if they've done anything yet that they can be prosecuted for."

"They kidnapped you," and it's not like Richie could have forgotten.

"That's not something we want to bring to court, V. Trust me." Richie's stomach flipped uneasily. "They knew who I was, who we were. I didn't say anything that could be admitted in a court of law as a confession, but I don't think we want anyone looking into this. Did anyone notice I was gone?"

Virgil shook his head, and the tension Richie didn't even realize he was holding in his shoulders released. He didn't know why he'd been so worried. He'd disappeared for almost a week when Alva'd kidnapped him, and nobody had even blinked (granted, he was supposed to have been out of town at the time, but the point stood). He hadn't even been gone a whole day, of course no one would know he'd disappeared. It gave Richie the shivers sometimes.

Of course, he wasn't alone. Virgil had noticed; Backpack had noticed. It was one of the reasons why Richie was so insistent that Backpack was more than just a machine, why he lectured Virgil about calling him "it" or "that thing", because if the only two people who went looking for him when he went missing were his best friend and a stupid computer, then Richie's life was more pathetic than he'd ever imagined.

"Alright, then." Richie coughed to cover up the crack in his voice, but he didn't think it fooled Virgil. "I can't fly because 1) I don't have my skates and B) I really don't think I'm in a solid enough mental state to operate heavy machinery. I also have no idea where we are. Where are we?"

Virgil actually looked surprised. Virgil, man, sometimes Richie felt like he'd forget his head if it wasn't attached to his shoulders. Richie flicked his eyes to Backpack, who was already revealing a monitor for Richie to read from. "Oh, we're not actually very far." It was weird, being close to home. Richie didn't know why. It wasn't like crazy shit didn't happen at home all the time.

He looked back at Virgil. "Up we go, then. You're my ride, but I'm not going to hang from your arms like some Louis Lane wannabe. I'll sit on the edge."

Virgil didn't move, just kept staring at Richie like he expected him to collapse in shock any minute. Richie sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, I'm not going to lie to you--" Richie silently added the "this time" in his head "--that was some freaky shit. I'm not doing super great right now, but I am okay. Really." Richie smiled tightly. "I'm tougher than I look."

Virgil's shoulders relaxed a little, and even though he still looked like he was afraid Richie would break if Virgil breathed too hard, it seemed like Richie's words had actually done some good. Virgil levitated his board and jumped on, looking much more like Static, heroic superhero of heroism, then Virgil, mild-mannered teenager of the underwhelming. 

Richie followed suit and couldn't help muttering, "Up, up, and away," as they took off for home.

Chapter 13: Chapter 13

Summary:

At first Richie's "precautions" were all perfectly harmless, even helpful, but they took a turn for way-too-damn-much way too damn quickly.

The Cult Which Shall Not Be Named didn't immediately fly into town on burning chariots, demanding retribution for their humiliation, as Virgil had half-suspected. 

"Burning chariots, V? Really?" Richie had asked, but he hadn't waited for Virgil's indignant response before explaining that of course they wouldn't be back right away (if at all) because Richie had clearly been more than they had bargained for. If they still wanted to rope Richie into their nefarious clutches, they were going to have to seriously re-think their sales-pitch.

Of course, that didn't stop Richie from throwing himself full tilt into redesigning the security systems for Backpack and the Abandoned Gas Station of Solitude. At first it was all perfectly harmless, even helpful, but it all took a turn for way-too-damn-much way too damn quickly.

Virgil kicked open the door a little harder than necessary, but he felt he could be forgiven since he was a wet, sore pile of petulant superhero after the fifth time he'd been forced to fend off one of Richie's latest "precautions" when entering his own secret base.

"I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, your inventions are getting way better at identifying and exploiting the weaknesses of our enemies. The bad news is, they still think I'm one of our enemies!"

Richie looked up from whatever new invention he was working on (which Virgil would probably be destroying later that week while defending his life) with a contrite look. It did little to assuage Virgil's anger. "I'm sorry, man, I've been tinkering with the identification process, but it's hard to get a lock on who you are once they've engaged you in combat."

Virgil threw his arms in front of her and yelled, "Then don't make them engage me in combat!"

Richie rolled his eyes, like that was the silliest suggestion he'd ever heard. Virgil didn't even know what to do with him. "Don't be melodramatic, V. They haven't left any lasting damage yet--"

"Yet!?"

"--and I've developed a chip that I can introduce into all your clothes so I can identify you that way. Just don't come to the Gas Station in anything you've just bought, and only wash your clothes on medium heat."

Virgil sighed and dropped down onto the lumpy couch next to Richie, rubbing a hand on his forehead. This was a conversation he'd been dreading having with Richie for a very long time, but he just couldn't put it off any longer. "Richie, this isn't about the security measures. Well, okay, it's kind of about the security measures, but it's about more than that."

Richie looked legitimately puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

Virgil gestured around the Gas Station, which was covered in Richie's latest inventions. "All this, Rich. You've barely stopped to breath since you got back. I thought things were bad after Brainiac--" Richie visibly tensed at the name "--but this, this is beyond ridiculous. You need to take a break."

Richie shook his head viciously. "I don't need a break, Virgil, and I don't need to talk about this, and I certainly don't need to talk about Brainiac."

Virgil felt anger boil under his skin, even though he knew it was wrong. "Actually, Richie, you do. We--" it was hard to say, after actively avoiding it for so long "--haven't talked about the Brainiac incident, and that's just as much my fault as it is yours, and we haven't talked about what happened last week. It may not be any of my business, but you clearly need to talk about this."

"You know what, Virgil? You're right." Richie jumped up from the couch, glaring daggers at Virgil. "It really isn't any of your business." And with that, he stormed out of the Gas Station, Backpack skittering dutifully after him with what Virgil might have described as a longing look over its shoulder if its eye wasn't a red, metal sensor.

---

 

That night, in a fit of desperation, Virgil approached his father about it.

"So, I have this friend," Virgil began, and his father gave him a look that said exactly who he thought this "friend" was. "No, seriously, it's a friend. And he's, well, he's been having a really tough time. Something happened, and now he's really paranoid, always looking over his shoulder, and it's starting to really freak me out. I want to help him, but when I tried to talk to him about it, he exploded at me and stormed off. I just don't know what to do."

Mr. Hawkins raised an eyebrow and lent ever-so-subtly forward. "This 'friend' wouldn't happen to be Richie, and this 'something' wouldn't happen to involve a certain hobby the two of you share, would it?"

Virgil ducked his head and rubbed at his neck. He'd maybe been avoiding revealing some of the details of his and Richie's crime fighting life to his father, despite how supportive his father had become. "Promise not to freak out?"

Mr. Hawkins stared at his son with an expression that clearly said, I can promise no such thing, but there's no way you're getting out of this room without explaining now, so proceed.

"Right, well. Do you remember how, like, a year and a half ago there was  that giant robot that was eviscerating stuff and the Justice League came in to help Static and Gear stop it?" Mr. Hawkins looked only vaguely reminiscent, and Virgil recalled that, despite the imminent danger the world had been in, the actual battle had gone down with a relative level of animosity. "Right, well, Richie was kind of possessed and forced to build and operate it?"

"Richie what?" Mr. Hawkins demanded, looking distinctly freaked out.

Virgil sped up his talking so that he could get it all in before his father panic more. "Yeah, long story short, this alien computer program with a hate-on for Superman named Brainiac hijacked Richie's brain and body for a couple weeks, but in the end we managed to defeat Brainiac and save Richie, and after that Richie swore that he couldn't remember a thing, but I always figured that he could. 

"Then, a week ago this weird eye-less cult kidnapped Richie 'cause of his intellect or something, but I managed to find him and help him escape in time, so it was all good. Except now Richie keeps building new security systems, and I know he's freaking out, but he won't talk to me about it. And I may have gotten kind of angry when I tried to talk to him before, but he just won't admit that anything's wrong, and I really don't know what to do."

There was a long moment of silence where Mr. Hawkins just stared at Virgil, mouth hanging partially open. Finally, he closed his mouth, swallowed a few times, and then started talking. "Well, I have to say, we never get problems quite this…unique down at the Center." He cleared his throat. "But the underlying emotions aren't that different. It sounds to me, Virgil, like Richie doesn't feel safe. 

"As his friend, you can help him by creating a safe place for him to talk to you, and--" his dad raised an eyebrow, and Virgil felt himself flush guiltily "--maybe you should apologize for getting angry before, hmm?"

Virgil nodded, because those actually did sound like good ideas. "Thanks, pops," he said, standing up to leave and maybe go find Richie.

Before he made it out the door, though, his father called after him, "Oh, and Virgil?" Virgil turned around and saw a soft, gentle smile on his dad's face. "I know you boys don't have many people you can go to with this superhero business, but if either of you every need to talk, you both know where to find me."

Virgil really smiled at that, thankful not for the first time that he had such a great dad. "Thanks, pops. I'll keep that in mind."

---

 

Virgil went back to the gas station, though he doubted Richie would have gone back there after storming out like he had. Virgil assumed his suspicions had been confirmed when he found the Abandoned Gas Station of Solitude to be empty, and he was about to go check Richie's house when he heard a loud clatter from the junk yard behind the gas station.

Virgil snuck out the back door as quietly as he could, but he really didn't need to bother because Richie was so absorbed with smashing various pieces of junk against other pieces of junk that he probably wouldn't have noticed Hotstreak himself fly through the junkyard in a burst of flames. Virgil had seen Richie do this -- smashing inanimate objects in a hissy fit -- only a few times before. Richie once called it his only concession to the anger management issues that ran in his father's side of the family.

"You've got them on the ropes, Rich," Virgil called out, announcing his presence.

Richie spun around to face him, and Virgil half expected him to continue throwing things or to start yelling at him again, but inside Richie's shoulders sagged down with a sigh and all the anger drained out of his face, leaving Richie looking young and a little scared.

Virgil figured he should start. "Listen, I'm sorry for the way I acted before. I'm worried about you, yeah, but that's not an excuse to attack you the way I did."

Richie's chin jutted out with a hint of the stubborn rage he'd shown earlier. "Damn right."

They were both silent for a long moment, and part of Virgil was disappointed that Richie didn't immediately break down and vent out all his issues, but he supposed that was a pretty vain hope. "Remember that sunspot, way back before your powers even manifested?"

Richie screwed up his eyebrows. "Um, yeah, I remember that."

Virgil took a couple steps closer to Richie, suddenly feeling more confident about where he was going with this. "At first I didn't mind it, I was even enjoying not having powers to worry about, but the first time something bad happened and I realized that I couldn't do anything about it -- I remember feeling so helpless and so frustrated and so scared."

Richie was pouting just a little bit. "Yeah, but you still threw yourself in front of Hotstreak, powerless or not."

"Exactly!" Virgil exclaimed, throwing his hands wide in excitement. Richie still didn't look comforted, though, so Virgil kept talking. "I'm just trying to say that I don't really understand what you're going through right now, but I look back on all the times I've felt really vulnerable -- the sun spot, when my father was kidnapped, the cure -- and I kind of get it. I wanted to fight, but I felt like I couldn't. 

"And I think that's why you've been going gadget-crazy. You're trying to fight in the best way that you know how, and I get that. For me, it's all false bravado; for you, it's your tech."

Richie opened and closed his mouth a few times, before saying, "I don't really know what to say."

Virgil shook his head. "Before, I was trying to force you to talk about it, and that was wrong. You'll talk about it when you're ready, but I need you to know that I'm gonna be here for you whenever that is."

Richie smiled, and Virgil was a little distressed when he realized how long it had been since he'd seen Richie smile. "Thanks, V. I will."