when you're in the half-light, it is not you I see (closed)

[seenitall]

WHO: Alex Rider, Tim Drake, Kyra at some point
WHEN: Not too long after the mingle/exiting the labyrinth
WHERE: Point Blanc
WHAT: Alex has a flashback.
NOTES\WARNINGS: PTSD, violence, tbd


This isn't really Point Blanc, but he feels it all the same when he walks through the doors. Terror. Isolation. The realization that he might die in the middle of a frozen wasteland, all because he wanted to know what happened to his uncle (all because the Department wouldn't keep their hands off him, all because his uncle raised him not to leave well enough alone). It's an excellent facsimile of the place, even if it's fake underneath it all (rubber needles in the infirmary, prop guns in storage - he checks). He finds himself reaching for what Dr. Lambert taught him in their sessions, controlling his breathing and staying grounded in the moment. Of course, the moment is Alex and Kyra, alone in Point Blanc, and there were so many other, more dangerous moments like that.

They don't intend to split up, exactly. They're not far from each other, but Kyra's looking at the computers to see if there's anything useful in them or if they're just fake, and Alex thinks he's heard something. It's probably nothing. It's probably nothing. (Breathe in, two, three, four. Hold. Out, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.) He has to check, though, because it might not be nothing, because this is a place where horrible things have happened (not the place, this is a copy, he has to keep remembering that this Point Blanc is fake). So he separates from her, just to make sure.

It's not nothing.

He doesn't see who it is, not really, just registers (barely) that it's not Kyra, Laura, or James. It's not someone he knows, it's not one of the people he's here to protect. This is a place where horrible things have happened, so he does what he was trained to do: he attacks, brutal and efficient.

Comments

[mostdangerousbird]

A large facility, looking for all the world like a brutalist hospital with stately home aspirations, goes up almost overnight? Tim had to investigate it. The bots keep building, and some structures are so outsized compared to the population that he has to assume they're here for individuals. They're not all housing - the square footage far outweighs the need. The number of kidnappees isn't scaling with their little city.

Red Robin entered through a third-floor window.

(Formerly a window, now an open air ventilation system. It wasn't locked, but sealed. Wire mesh glass in the windows, too, making it annoying to cut. Old building. They don't make them like that anymore.)

He was on the floor only a minute before he decided that nothing good happened here. There are a number of small, heavy doors, leading to dormitory-style rooms. All with glass windows in them. All wired to the same control system, lights above them.

(Prison? Some facility for those with disabilities prone to uncontrolled actions or moods? Another world's swankier Arkham Asylum?)

The locking mechanism still has his attention when the blond teenager from the Labyrinth enters the hallway, and Tim sees him at the last second, registering the clear intent to attack, and then he's on him.

Tim tries to control the fight and end it quickly, but the hallway space makes it difficult to flee. He concentrates on minimizing damage. Blocks. Dodges.

When he tastes blood, the priority changes to incapacitate. "Stop! I'm not here to hurt you."

Is not, perhaps, the most effective argument while swinging a metal bo at someone's skull.

[seenitall]

It's definitely not a calming reaction to Alex's presence, but it is different, at least. The guards wore black and carried guns; they weren't dressed in bright Christmas colors and fight with bo staffs. It's different enough that it might've jarred him back to reality if he wasn't also in the middle of a fight.

(He's not an assassin. Whatever else he is, he's not that, and his strikes aren't intended to be lethal. But he was taught to fight in a life-or-death situation like it's you or them, and you don't pull punches or worry about the damage you're doing in that kind of fight.)

It's not til he's in a hold that he's struggling to break that he finally notices the person holding him has been trying to talk to him, and he doesn't quite follow what's being said but it's not threats. It's not - he blinks, and the combatant comes into sharper focus. It pings something in his brain, some memory he can't quite place like he's seen this person before, but he's not sure where. His thoughts are still scrambled, stuck in the past, and the best he can manage is the realization that he recognizes this person and he's younger than Alex originally pegged him for, maybe not too much older than Alex under the mask.

"Are you - one of the other students?" he ends up asking. He doesn't think that's right (they got all the students in the cells out, right? they'd left Point Blanc empty), but it's the best he can manage right now.

[mostdangerousbird]

His ribs are going to be sore for days. Body armor is great, but sacrifices are made to the suit's structural integrity in the name of dexterity. Nothing’s broken, but the teenager knows how to fight. Someone trained him properly, Tim realizes, thinking back to the lockpicking skills he showed in the labyrinth. It's not a skill set someone stumbles into.

Students. School for wayward teens, then, some juvenile center that requires locking the kids in their room.

(Horrific. There's very little he can think of that would merit the sort of lockdown this floor is built for.)

"Not yet," he says. Red Robin doesn't let go of the teenager, but there's no movement or struggle for the first time since the fight began. He's simply holding them both here and catching his own breath. "My dad's looking into places like this. He's favoring a military school in Haiti."

[seenitall]

“Oh, this one’s great, if you can afford it and you’re not too picky about the kid you’re getting back being the one you sent in. Or the lessons mostly being lectures from a megalomaniac. The cells in the basement make it really luxurious.”

Where are you, Alex? Five things you can see. The - the floor at Point Blanc. The walls at Point Blanc. It turns out, grounding exercises are much less useful when you really are somewhere horrible.

He tries one of the breathing exercises instead, in for four, hold for seven, out for eight. He does this a couple times, since the person holding him doesn’t seem particularly inclined to incapacitate him further.

“I need to get out of here.” He doesn’t bring up Kyra just yet, not wanting to give her away just in case, but now that his head feels like it’s on a bit more straight, he’s starting to remember where he knows this person from. And he’s not Point Blanc, at least.

[mostdangerousbird]

Cells in the basement?

(What, locking them in their rooms wasn't enough?)

"I'm going to let go of you," he says evenly, as if he's just going to put on a pair of shoes or get the kid a soda. "But before you go - can you tell me anything else about the basement?"

Because he can't leave that statement uninvestigated. His injuries are - manageable. He's only going to snoop, and, if the cells are real and occupied, he can call for backup before taking any action. As a show of good faith, he lets go Alex and takes a step back.

[seenitall]

"For keeping the kids in after they were replaced. Suppose it's not worth killing them if you can keep them around for information."

It may not be the most helpful pieces of information, but Alex's brain is still on the scrambled side. He holds himself loosely and at a wary distance from Red Robin now, but there's still something in his stance like he's ready to be attacked.

"I don't - know what the point was of recreating it here."