Runaway

Chapter One

"Well, Shit."

By: VincentM

Richie read once that when a person woke up from unconsciousness, it was a slow, difficult process, like climbing up a slippery ladder in a sewer toward an open manhole cover. All reports said that the difficult struggle to full wakefulness came on slowly, maybe two or three senses returning one after the other. Maybe a person would hear noises first, then recognize smells, before cautiously opening their eyes and seeing the world again for what would feel like the first time. It all sounded so poetic.

Utter bunk.

Consciousness hit Richie like an out-of-control freight train, the light too bright, noises too loud, and smells too sharp, while a mildly irritating sensation of pain attacked his entire body. He blinked, the world around him horribly out of focus, his glasses no longer perched upon his nose like they were in the last memory he possessed, which was just as fuzzy. He remembered shouting something at Virgil, then hearing a terribly loud noise, then nothing.

He looked around, blearily. At last he spotted a somewhat blurry Virgil-shaped object sitting next to his bed. He squinted, Virgil's expression becoming slightly clearer. His friend had an odd look on his face, a mixture of concern and irritation, which made him look like a constipated fish.

"Hi," Richie said, his voice sounding rough and frog-like. "What happened?"

Virgil's eyes narrowed. "Somebody was being an idiot, too busy shouting a warning at Static to notice a building falling on him," he replied, sounding much more irritated than concerned, now that Richie thought about it. "You know, for somebody that supposedly possesses a super brain, you can really be a moron."

"Gee, thanks," Richie said grumpily. He reached out blindly for his glasses with one shaking hand, groping around with no real hope of finding them, since he didn't even know if they were in the room at all. Thankfully, Virgil pressed them into his palm after witnessing his struggle for a few minutes. Richie put them on and groaned. They were his old, spare set, completely the wrong prescription, and, as a result, made his head hurt worse. Still, it was better than nothing.

Maybe.

Virgil looked royally pissed and... scared? Richie felt sudden alarm. He wriggled his toes, relived when he saw the sheet move at the foot of his bed. None of his appendages were encased in plaster, though a few bandages covered aching skin. The pain wasn't unbearable, aside from his headache and a general feeling of soreness all over, like that time he'd run the marathon in PE class without stretching first.

Satisfied that he didn't permanently or severely injure himself by not jumping out of the way of a falling building, he felt a sense of relief, but it didn't explain why Virgil looked so freaked out.

"What?" Richie asked, his voice rising in pitch like it always did when he was upset. "What's wrong?"

Virgil scowled. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Richie cast his mind around, trying to figure out what could be making Virgil so irate, but came up blank.

"You're going to have to be more specific, V," Richie said, sighing in frustration. "A building fell on top of me today and I'm not at the top of my game here."

Virgil stood up in a fast movement, slapping both hands down on the guardrail of Richie's hospital bed.

"You have a chip in your brain!" he said, hands tightening around the railing, eyes narrowing to angry slits.

"Oh." Richie looked up, suddenly finding the ceiling very interesting. "That."

"Oh, that." Virgil ran a hand through his dreadlocks, muttering something very impolite under his breath. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?" he asked, much louder.

"It never came up?" Richie offered meekly with a sheepish smile, but Virgil would have none of it. Richie sighed, fiddling with the IV going into the back of his hand. "I didn't want to worry you, man."

Virgil let out a sound that was a mixture of a growl and a whine, a sound Richie would find amusing in any other circumstance.

"Worry me?" Virgil repeated, pacing around the small room. "Worry me? Why the hell would I be worried. It's just a chip in your brain!"

The last part came out as more of a shout than a statement. Richie cringed. "Why don't you say that a little louder, V," he suggested. "I don't think they heard you down in pediatrics."

"I could shout it from the rooftops if I wanted," Virgil said, angrily, turning his glowering expression back on Richie. "Everybody in the hospital knows. They had to do x-rays - x-rays - to make sure you didn't crack your skull. They called in specialists, interviewed your parents, I think the government might be here... Hell, there are two armed guards standing outside your door!"

Richie squinted toward the door. "I only count one," he remarked quietly, feeling oddly calm.

"Great. He probably went to get the brute squad," Virgil grumbled, then went back and collapsed in his chair. "Tell me this, man," he said, leaning forward and resting his arms on the rail. "When did you get a chip in your brain?"

"Remember Braniac?" Richie didn't think it was necessary to go into more detail than that.

Virgil looked ill. "I should have noticed," he said, rubbing his fist into his forehead. "I should have noticed something was way wrong."

"Shoulda, coulda, woulda," Richie said distractedly, less focused on Virgil's guilt and much more concerned by the men in the white labcoats heading their way down a long hall, following the once-missing armed guard. "V, you gotta get me out of here." Richie sat up, yanking the IV out of his hand.

"Man, what are you doing?" Virgil reached over to cover Richie's bleeding hand with a hastily grabbed tissue. "Yeah, we've got a huge problem here, but you're still hurt. We'll think of something."

"No time." Richie threw off his covers and leapt out of bed, not even wincing as his sore ankle protested the movement. The hospital gown felt airier than he would have liked, but modesty didn't seem very important. The white coats had stopped a little ways down the hall, chatting with another doctor that joined them. Richie yanked the blinds closed over the window, then looked around the room for his regular clothing. He found it shoved in a plastic bag near the door. "Don't you recognize those doctors?" Richie asked Virgil as he tugged on his dusty, damaged jeans.

Virgil got up and looked through the mini-blinds, frowning. "No," he said as Richie pulled on his shirt. "Should I?

"Yeah," Richie said, sitting back on the bed and lacing up his sneakers. "Those are the same guys that were working for Alva on that Island. They ran tests, took blood, did x-rays... they know who I am, bro."

Comprehension dawned slowly on Virgil's face.

"Well, shit," he said.

Richie nodded in agreement to that sentiment. "I'm not going back to some lab to be experimented on," he said, going over to the outside window. It overlooked the city from very high up - at least seven stories. Richie tugged at it, but it wouldn't open, not that he had much of a plan assuming he could get it open. Still, getting the window open seemed important. "V, help me with this."

Virgil zapped the window, frying the bolts holding it closed. Richie gave a happy, almost hysterical sigh, as the glass slid up, leading out to open air. He looked out the window, took in the distance to the ground, and then pulled his head back in, feeling a little green from the vertigo.

"Where are you gonna go?" Virgil asked, though Richie knew he wasn't only referring to their immediate predicament. The doorknob to the room turned and Virgil hurriedly magnetized the door, preventing anyone from entering, for a time at least.

"Once I get out of here, I'm heading to the place," Richie said over the shouts of angry men pounding at the door behind them. He took a deep breath and stuck his head out the window again, looking up and down the side of the building, hoping to find some manner of escape. "I've got some stuff stashed there - clothes, money, some food, Backpack - you know, just in case this ever happened."

"Guess being a Boy Scout paid off," Virgil said, still looking unhappy, and Richie didn't have the heart to remind him that he had never, in fact, been a Boy Scout. "Then what?"

"Then, I'll play it by ear," Richie said, not having much else to say. "I'll lay low until the heat is off or I figure out something out. I can't stay here. That's all I know for certain."

Virgil shook his head. "So, what, you're just going to run away?"

"Pretty much." There was no good way to climb up or down the building that Richie could see. His mind moved a million miles a minute, trying to figure out a plan, coming up with plenty, but none that were practical. Most of all, he didn't want to drag Virgil into this, if possible.

"I'm going with you," Virgil said just then.

Richie looked at him in shock, all thoughts of escape temporarily leaving him.

"No," he said firmly, turning and putting both hands on Virgil's shoulders. "No. You can't, Virgil. You can't disappear. You have your dad and your sister and, well, the city needs Static."

"And Static needs Gear," Virgil said, some of the old Hawkins' stubbornness showing through.

"You'll have Gear," Richie promised. "I'll keep in touch. It's only going to be for a little while, I'm sure."

Virgil didn't look at all convinced. Richie didn't blame him, seeing as how he wasn't all that convinced himself. Who knew how long it would take him to shake the people chasing him, who Richie knew were terrifyingly curious about his brain and what it could accomplish? They might never give up.

The shout of someone in the hallway saying something about breaking the window prevented Virgil from arguing any further, however.

"Fine," Virgil said, stepping away from Richie. He grabbed a metal food tray off of a rolling table, dumping the nasty jello on top of it to the floor. With a crackle of energy, he electrified it, letting it hover a few inches off the floor. He stood on it carefully, wobbling for a few seconds until he found his balance. "But, I am helping you get out of here."

The sight of shadowed figures preparing to hurl something dense and heavy through the hallway's window made up Richie's mind for him.

"Thanks, bro," he told Virgil, stepping up onto the tray next to him.

It was a tight fit. The tray was small and not altogether sturdy, but they made the best of it. Virgil wrapped his arms around Richie, holding him as close as possible so they could find some semblance of a center of balance. Carefully, at first, he flew them out the window, gaining more confidence the further they went.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me you had a chip in your brain," Virgil muttered softly as they tore across the sky, the sound of glass breaking and angry shouts reaching their ears at an ever-increasing distance.

"So, now's not a good time to tell you about all the hardware that's grafted onto my spine, huh?"

Virgil squeezed Richie's waist painfully tight in admonishment, then sighed, and carried them safely off into the night.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

A/N: Well, this is going to be a very, very long story. It's going to eventually cover a year in Richie's life on the run, with lots of cameos by folks from the Justice League and a few other random places. It's a coming of age story mixed with government conspiracy and secret organizations. Yeah, it's going to be a damn long story. Whee!

Review if you feel like it. No pressure one way or the other. Thanks for reading and I hope you liked what you've seen so far! The next chapter shouldn't be too long in coming, I don't think.

Peace Out.