Chapter Text
Robert had been sleeping again when he was awoken by the sound of the door opening. He struggled up to sit on his knees. He expected Toxic. He had returned a few times with food and water which he fed him by hand.
But no one came through the doorway. It couldn't have been a draft, Robert had watched Toxic latch that door closed firmly every time he left. His eyebrows furrowed. This felt familiar. In a way his weak, sleep-addled brain couldn't quite identify.
“Robert!” A voice hissed into his ear. There was a purple shimmer and then a face peering closely at him.
“...V-Visi?”
Visi grabbed him by the shoulders, and then patted him down for injuries. He winced whenever she brushed over one. “Jesus, they really did a number on you. Here.” She reached behind him and tugged at his restraints.
“What are you doing here?” He asked, filling the silence as she struggled with the knots.
“I've been running with them again ever since…” she trailed off awkwardly, Robert was able to fill the rest of the thought though. Since she had killed Shroud and ran off. She shook her head firmly. “I didn't know that they had you down here, not for a while. They kept it from me. I'm sorry, I should've been able to sneak down here sooner.” Her hands were shaking now, slipping at the knots uselessly.
“Visi.” He called out and when that didn't seem to help, “Courtney.” He said firmly. She looked up, and their eyes met. “It's okay. You did good. Take a deep breath.” He tried to speak evenly, reassuringly, but his voice came out weaker than he wanted. Still the message seemed to get across.
She nodded and took a breath. Adopted a more determined look. And with a final tug, the ropes came loose. He hissed in pain, his joints were stiff and aching from being held for so long in one position.
“Shit!” She grabbed his arms and pulled them to his front. She helped him bend them slowly, stretching at the elbow one at a time. She massaged her thumbs gently into his joints, slowly returning a bit of flexibility to them. “How long did they have you tied like this?”
He grimaced and held back whimpers of pain while she worked his arms. “I… I don't know. What day is it?”
She looked up in concern. “The fifteenth.”
He winced. “Too long. But it's okay, I've recovered from worse.” He remembered the physical therapy required after his coma. This was nothing in comparison. He could deal with sore and stiff arms for a day or two.
“Okay.” She moved to crouch beside him. She hiked one of his arms up across her own shoulders and lifted. “Here we go.” He clutched at her. His legs gave out when they stood and she dipped to take his weight while he found his balance.
“You're not as heavy as I thought you'd be. What've they been feeding you?” she said it jokingly, to lighten the mood. And he tried to reply back just as light but it came out sounding somber.
“Not much.” he said. She didn't have anything to say in return to that.
They shambled out the door. “Okay." Visi broke the awkward quiet. "That was the easy part. Now… stairs.”
They came to a stop in front of a dusty stairway. Robert was right assuming he was underground. Although it seemed less like the basement of a normal house and more the sub floor of some complex.
Cliché villain shit. He inspected the staircase. It was steep. “I don't know if I can make it up.” He admitted.
“It's okay. We'll go slow. Put your weight on me and here-” she grabbed his free hand and placed it on the hand rail. He forced his fingers to tighten his grip. “Hold that. One step at a time. I got you.”
And together they began the slow ascent.
“Slow down! You're gonna make yourself sick!” Visi cried out. And logically, he knew she was correct. But he couldn't help himself, he tore into the bread, not taking time to dip it into the soup like one normally might.
He finished the bread quickly and then picked up the bowl, taking a few large gulps without use of the spoon before he was finally able to calm himself down, and take a breather.
“Did they feed you at all?” She asked while he tried to let the first bit of food settle.
He thought back to the small snacks Toxic had brought him occasionally. And then to that first time, and the twinkie. And the way he had begged for it. He cringed. “Yeah. No. Just a little.”
Her eyes narrowed. She analyzed him, looking to decipher his expression. He looked away uncomfortably.
She let it go. “How are you feeling?” She asked him instead.
Robert thought before answering that. Not well. Obviously. His arms still ached. His stomach was cramping from the sudden intake of food. He was covered in bruises and cuts from previous beatings.
But… Visi had helped him upstairs, showed him the shower, found him a change of clothes, tended his wounds, and served him a bowl of thick stew he'd watch her heat in a sort of kitchen area. She'd done all she could to help him at the moment. So... “Good." He responded. "I feel good.”
He looked around the dining area she had sat him in. Despite being walked through several rooms in the building, he didn’t feel like he had a good layout in his head of the place. It was decorated like a mansion, gaudy and red, and was definitely the size of one at least. The dining room they were in reminded him of one from a mafia film. Hallways were long and all looked similar. He hadn’t seen a single window yet. He hadn't even seen another soul the entire time he was up here. He had slowly relaxed the longer they were left alone but he knew he wasn't safe yet. He was still a captive as long as he was here.
“Visi- Courtney." He pressed his palms into the table and leaned forward to speak in a hushed but serious tone. She shifted in her seat. "I need to get out of here. I don't know where everyone is. I don't know how long we've been up here. But it's not safe.”
Visi's expression was… horrible. She looked devastated. His stomach sank. He knew suddenly that there was more she wasn't telling him. Was she lying to him earlier, was she a prisoner here too? She looked away.
“...finish your food.”
He looks back down at his bowl and picks up the spoon. He scoops some soup into it and takes a bite. Savoring the flavor now of his first real meal in a while. Was she really not going to explain? He remembered her avoidance before with the astral pulse. ‘I was trying to protect you.’ Well it didn’t help him then, did it?
He lowered the spoon from his mouth and prepared to argue with her. “Courtney, I-”
The door behind them slammed open, the crashing noise echoing through the empty room like thunder. Robert spun in his seat. No.
It was Toxic. He had one hand steadying himself on the doorway and his other clenched in a bright glowing green fist. His face was also flushed in that neon color. He was heaving in heavy breaths. He looked pissed.
“What is he doing up here?”
Visi stood, but Robert found himself uncharacteristically frozen to the spot.
“I brought him up! He said he was going to help us, didn't he? Why keep torturing him?”
“Oh I dunno, Invisibitch, " He emphasized her villain name the way he had heard many do before him, like it was an insult. "Maybe to keep him compliant?” He marched up to her, getting up into her face. She held her ground. Leaning her face up to sneer at him.
“What? And have him work on the augments down there? How?! Tied up and losing function in his goddamn arms?!” She threw an arm out, gesturing towards him.
Robert wanted to say something. Anything. To stand and fight or run or literally anything. But he was stuck. Indecision? Embarrassment? -fear maybe, glued him to his seat. An involuntary tremor shook through the muscles of his arms and his hand seized. The spoon clattered from his grip, bouncing off the edge of the table and hitting the floor.
The sound brought Toxic's attention to him directly now, ending his and Visi's staring match. “And you.” He lunged forward and clamped a glowing hand down on his shoulder. “No fucking pets at the table.”
He ripped Robert from his chair and threw him on the ground. His arms, in their pained and weakened state, failed to catch him. He collapsed onto the floor in an undignified heap.
“Toxic!” Visi shouted from somewhere above him.
Robert lifted his head just in time to see Toxic pick up his bowl and turn it, dumping the contents on the floor in front of him. Some of the leftover stew splattered up, hitting his freckled cheek. He bemoaned the waste. And the fact that there was a part of him that would still finish it off the floor. “We may need to get you a dish.” Toxic smirked down at him smugly.
“He's not a fucking dog!” Visi elbowed past Toxic and knelt down, helping Robert to sit up.
“Oh, yes he is.” He laughed darkly, “And here's a reminder.” He pulled out something that Robert hadn't noticed was dangling from his back pocket. It was a thick leather collar with a scarlet hoop hanging off the front. A red ring.
Robert clutched at Visi’s arms, turning into her. He felt like a coward, but he was too weak to fight right now. Toxic grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked it back. Once his view of his neck was unobstructed he kneeled down too and wrapped the leather around his throat. Buckling it tightly- too tightly. Robert made a choking sound and felt his breathing constrict.
“Fucking- get off him!” Visi pushed his arms away. Shoving at him until he backed off. He stood above them.
“Fine. You want to keep him up here? Take care of him? Play house? Fine. But the collar stays on. I don't want him forgetting he's an owned man.”
Toxic snarled, looking down at them both in disdain. “And stop babying him. You brought him up here so he can work?” He asked in disbelief. “Sure. Then make him work.”
And then he addressed Robert again. “Bad dog.” And he spit down at him. It landed in his eye and Robert flinched back with a shout. It hurt. Bad. It burnt like fire and he immediately felt his eye fill with tears. He scrubbed at it to get as much out as possible.
Toxic turned to leave, the door slammed again behind him. Visi cursed, getting up and returning with a glass of water from the table. “That asshole!” She cradled his jaw and tilted his face up.
“Visi! Wait- I don't-” she poured the water over his eye, helping to rinse it out. He shuddered in discomfort.
“Sorry. I'm sorry. It'll stop hurting if we get it out.” The water spilled down his face, soaking through the clothes Visi had found him and dripping onto the floor.
He blinked up into it, trying not to close his eye instinctively.
She stopped pouring, giving him a minute to blink and adjust. “Better?”
He closed and reopened that eye a few times. And resisted the urge to rub at it again. “Yeah. Fuck. Ow. What the fuck?”
Visi set the glass down and put her hands on his face, inspecting the eye. “It's his dumb fucking powers. Makes his spit like- acid or something. I don't think it's enough to cause damage. Your eye just looks a bit irritated now.”
She held his face, far longer than she needed to inspect the eye. She rubbed her thumbs soothingly over his jaw. He remembered suddenly the last time a woman looked at him like this, tilting his head back to take in his face. On that billboard with-
Oh fuck, Mandy. Did she realize he had gone missing when he didn't show up to work? She must have, right? She had to know he wouldn't just leave like this, not when their relationship was just starting, still fragile in its beginning stage.
As if sensing where his thoughts had gone, Visi let go of his face, turning away. He felt a pang in his chest. She looked like she did that day in the locker room. When he had pushed her away. She looked heartbroken.
Shit.
Robert reached up for the collar. Visi grabbed his wrist. “You should… you should probably keep it on. I've never seen him that mad before. I don't know how he'll react if he finds out you took it off.”
Robert tried not to look as devastated as he felt, but he must've failed because Visi reached up a hand again to press into his shoulder comfortingly. “Here.” she said and reached for the buckle.
He was confused when he felt the collar loosen but not fall away. “That asshole had it way too tight.” She finished adjusting it and leaned back on her heels.
Robert reached for her hand and she gave it to him. He squeezed it gently, looking in her eyes to let her know that he was serious about what he was saying. “Thank you.” and they both knew he meant for more than just fixing the collar.
She squeezed his hand back. Standing again and helping him to his feet. “Come on, I got a room for you to stay in.”
She shut the bedroom door behind her, flicking the deadbolt and locking it from the outside. Robert had passed out as soon as he had sat down on the bed and she had tucked him in tenderly.
Toxic was lounging in the hallway waiting for her to be done. “We need to put a lock on that collar. He's just gonna take it off.”
“I told him not to.” She answered. Starting down the hall. Toxic followed dutifully behind her.
“That's gonna be enough for him?” Toxic shook his head. “We need to chain him up too. Until the pup is trained, I don't trust him not to try to escape.”
“You can. That's what the hoop in the front of the collar is for anyway. Just let him rest a bit first.”
“Fine. Do you want me… to pay you back for the collar?”
“We’ll call it even since I gave him some of your clothes." Toxic glared at the reminder. "I had to be the one to pick it out anyway. With your fucking horrible taste who knows what you'd come up with…” She eyed him up and down distastefully. “You’d probably tattoo it on him.”
“Fuck…” Toxic’s eyes became unfocused at the thoughts that brought to mind. ”We could still-”
“Don't you dare.”
“Damn, fine. Bossy.”
“Yeah. Your boss. Now go clean the fucking mess you made in the other room. What a waste of good soup. Couldn't have put it away for him later?”
Toxic grumbled to himself, turning to do as he was told “Yeah yeah, you just can't appreciate a good display of dominance.”
“Toxic.”
He turned back to her. “I appreciate your work just fine. Send me those pictures from downstairs. I know you took some.”
“Yes ma’am.” He saluted her lazily, and watched her saunter down the hall. He tilted his head to look at her ass as she went. Hm. He wasn’t usually into women, but damn if her new high status in the red ring didn’t look good on her.