DC's First Bionic Superhuman (Lab Rats/DC)

Grunting could be heard in a particular building in Gotham's East End. Wildcat Gym had a large boxing ring in the middle, where two men were fighting inside. Chase stood opposite a man with black hair, the sides of which had turned grey, and a massive frame. Despite the size difference, Chase was holding his own as the two sparred.

Both were wearing boxing gloves, and it became almost a blur how quickly Chase would throw out punches, yet Ted Grant was keeping up with all of them. The timer for the round finally ran, and the two separated, although Ted was sweating a lot while Chase was noticeably dry.

"You're a freak of nature kid," Ted grunted as he toweled himself off. "It's been what, three years since you started coming here and somehow you can give me a run for my money."

Chase chuckled as he grabbed a water bottle he'd set to the side and drank from it. "Just a fast learner is all."

The ability to download any fighting style ever recorded let him learn ridiculously fast, but it didn't provide direct experience with it, so he ended up coming to Wildcat Gym to work out when he was younger. Despite his proficiency, Ted was still better than him in straight boxing due to how long he'd been doing it, but if you incorporated other martial arts, it became much more of a toss-up.

"You ever gonna think about competing professionally?"

"Every time you ask this I give the same answer; it's just not for me. It's just a hobby to stay fit, I'm not interested in competing."

The real reason Chase didn't want to compete is that it felt a little unfair. A bionically enhanced superhuman competing with a bunch of regular people didn't appeal to him, especially knowing how quickly he could get better than them at something they devoted their lives to.

"I've got about a half-an-hour until I've got to meet up with someone for a school project, guess I'll work the bag to cooldown," Chase said after checking the time.

"Went and got yourself a date, it's been a while, was thinking you were losing your touch," Ted said with a snort. 

"Who even said my partner was a girl?"

Ted looked at him and rolled his eyes. "We both know you're too impatient to let anyone help you with anything, she's gotta be some girl for you to not just take over the whole thing."

"Whatever you say," Chase said.

It had nothing to do with the fact she was a girl, but he would admit that he only was willing to work together on it because of how competent she was. It had been a week and a half since their first meeting and they'd been meeting up throughout the week to discuss the project. He'd mostly gotten he kinks worked out, but he needed a few parts he couldn't salvage and Barbara offered to pay for them since he was putting it together. They'd made plans to meet up later that day to go to the mall and get what he needed.

Chase glanced at the door where he could hear someone walking down the long driveway to reach the gym. After a few seconds, the door opened and a woman walked in. She was dressed in athletic wear, a grey sports bra and black leggings, and had long blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Dinah," Ted spoke fondly and walked over to hug the woman. "Been a long time since I've seen you in here."

"I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by."

Ted then turned back towards Chase and introduced him. "Chase, Dinah Lance. Wanna hop back in the ring, go a few rounds with my newest protégé, Dinah?"

"He's that good," Dinah asked surprised, but shook her head. "I'm here on business, wanted to stop by and ask you something."

The two shared a look and Chase got the hint it was private. "I'll shove off early then, give you two some time to catch up."

He gathered his things and made his way out the door despite Dinah saying it would only be a few minutes. The last thing he heard before he intentionally tuned his super-hearing out to not eavesdrop was "It's about Roy..."

Walking through the streets of Gotham, Chase figured he'd just kill time till he needed to meet up with Barbara. It was about ten minutes after he started walking that he heard a thud coming from the rooftop of a nearby building and the sound of incoherent groaning.

He had time to kill, and despite his lack of desire to dress up and be a hero, he still wanted to help people, so he figured he'd see if somebody needed his help. He walked into a nearby alleyway and moved. In one bound he grabbed onto the window ledge and swung his body upwards, using the momentum to swing across to the other side and grab onto another ledge. It only took him a few moments to scale up the building and make it up to the rooftop, where he found a bizarre sight.

It was a man in a hero costume, he recognized him from TV a few years back. His orange hair was matted and long, looking as though it had been cut unevenly. His beard was unkempt and overgrown, the domino mask on his face covering his eyes while he wore a red and black body suit with a quiver of arrows on his back and a bow discarded on the ground near him. Oddly, there was a LexCorp tablet on the ground beside him as well.

He was also currently sprawled out awkwardly on the rooftop, seemingly staring off into space. There was no visible reaction as Chase stood across from Red Arrow on the rooftop, so he cautiously approached him. 

"Hey, you alright?"

Red Arrow turned towards the sound of his voice, but still didn't speak. With this enhanced vision, Chase could see a needle mark on his exposed arm and figured out what was going on.

"Were you drugged by somebody?"

Slowly to not startle him, Chase closed the distance until he was right next to the hero. He reached down and tried to lift his arm to get a better look, but that caused Red Arrow to throw a somewhat clumsy punch at Chase

"Relax, I'm trying to help you." Despite his words, it seemed that Red Arrow was now fully defensive, but it was also clear to Chase that he was showing signs of drug use. He deliberated for a moment on what he should do.

"You know, screw it. Sorry about this, hopefully you'll forgive me when you wake up."

Chase's body moved quickly and Red Arrow's drug addled mind couldn't react properly as a punch struck him in his stomach. He quickly moved forward and grappled the man while he was disoriented, before another carefully aimed punch knocked the hero out.

'Alright, now let's figure out what is wrong with you.'

He moved to the downed figure and used a pocket knife he kept on him to prick Red Arrow's finger. Then, he touched the drop of blood that leaked out and activated his bionic chip. Built-in with his intelligence were a variety of apps that could capitalize on his enhanced senses, whether it was a fingerprint scanner or a blood analyzer. 

As he read the information presented to him, a frown formed on Chase's face. Red Arrow had been injected with heroin, but it wasn't a one-time thing. There were signs of extended drug use in his body, along with muscle atrophy. Overall, his body was in terrible condition, the drugs combined with lack of proper sleep or nutrition meant that what was probably a well-maintained body was now only somewhat better than that of an addict.

The only thing even keeping him in decent shape was how much activity he probably went through while acting as a hero, but Chase hadn't seen any major reports on anything Red Arrow had done since he joined the Justice League.

'Now what do I do about this?'

While he was trying to figure it out, his phone rang and when he checked the caller ID, he saw that it was Barbara. He answered it, an idea already forming in his head.

"Hey Barbara, can we take a raincheck on the mall? I kind of need your help with something, can you meet me at my dorm room?"

----

Barbara stood in front of the door to Chase's dorm and knocked lightly. She was confused as to why he called her over, since they'd been planning to head to the mall, but she'd shown up anyway. She could hear some shuffling in the room before the door opened a tiny bit and Chase poked his head out.

"I'm gonna need you to stay calm and not scream."

She raised her eyebrows at his comment. "Because that's not worrying at all? What's going on Chase?"

He glanced behind him for a second before he sighed. "Just come in and you'll get it."

When she walked into the room, her eyes immediately locked onto the other figure inside. She recognized Red Arrow, but what she didn't understand was how he'd ended up in Chase's room, tied to a chair with his hands bound behind his back with handcuffs, and gagged while he thrashed around.

"You better have a really good explanation for this."

"I found him delirious on heroin and figured he could use some help, but the guy woke up and tried to deck me, so I tied him up," Chase quickly explained to clear up any misunderstanding. "I figured your dad could do something, or you'd have an idea who to call."

Barbara pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to figure out what to do. She knew Red Arrow's identity, but he didn't know her's. He'd gone off on his hunt for Speedy before she'd even become a hero, so he wouldn't know anything about Batgirl. 

"Wait, how'd you even tie him up? Even if he's on drugs, a normal person wouldn't be able to keep him here."

Chase shrugged and smirked. "What, just because I don't run around in tights doesn't mean I can't take a self-defense class? He's come down now, but he was in pretty bad shape before."

'A self-defense class wouldn't help you against someone trained by Black Canary and Green Arrow.'

The main issue at hand was what to do about Red Arrow. She could call Batman, or Green Arrow, but that would mean exposing the fact she knew them to Chase, which wasn't an option. Even the person who would be most suited for this situation was someone she really didn't want to have to call.

"Wait, did you take his mask off?" Barbara asked quickly. If Chase knew his identity, it would cause a slew of other issues.

"Hell no, the last thing I want to know is his real identity. I just figured it'd be a bad idea to leave him there, and he's clearly been going through something for a while, so somebody should step in and help him out."

"I don't need help," a gruff voice sounded from the chair, where Red Arrow had managed to slip off the gag. "Now untie me before I get out of here myself."

"Good luck with that, you aren't picking those cuffs," Chase replied confidently, which caused Barbara to take a second look. The cuffs had a display on them, and what she'd thought were metal links were some kind of rubber that would harden whenever Red Arrow moved. 

"Uh, Red Arrow," Barbara began somewhat awkwardly. It was weird talking to someone in costume when she was out of hers. "We're just trying to help you."

"I'm fine," he began only to be interrupted by Chase.

"Sure, because six months of heroin use and malnutrition is clearly fine." She could see Red Arrow's eyes narrow behind his mask as he looked at him. "I tested your blood while you were out, your body is just a mess of problems, so the last thing you need is to be back on the street doing whatever it was you were doing."

"I don't have time for this," Red Arrow said and struggled in his restraints. 

"Alright, well I can't keep him here, but if we let him go he's just gonna go back to running himself into the ground, so what should we do?"

Barbara sighed and decided to bite the bullet. "My dad has a way to contact Batman in emergencies, give me thirty minutes to try to swipe it from him and hopefully he can help him."

She hoped Chase wouldn't dig much further into that idea, but he shrugged his shoulders and nodded. "Sounds good, I'll keep grumpy here company until you get back."

'Great, now I've got to figure out how to explain all of this to Batman.'

----

Once Barbara had left, Chase sat down on his bed and looked at Red Arrow. He was content to buy any excuse Barbara gave for how she was going to contact a hero, he just needed one of them to come pick this guy up and get him the help he needs.

"So how'd you end up like this?" Chase asked curiously. "Lose a quiver? Crash the Arrow Mobile? Girlfriend left you?"

He was just making conversation out of boredom, but the way Red Arrow twitched slightly at the last comment drew his attention. His super senses were fully trained on the hero across from him, so he noticed the subtle queues of his body language.

"A breakup made you start hitting the hard drugs?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you're annoying," he grunted in response, seemingly having given up on his attempts to escape.

"I've got to watch your sorry ass, I might as well play detective and figure out what your deal is."

Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was the fact that he'd been knocked out by a 'civilian,' but Red Arrow sighed and answered.

"I'm looking for someone."

That certainly drew Chase's interest. "How hard is it to find someone as a member of the Justice League? Batman couldn't figure it out for you?"

"Tch, they gave up." The sheer disdain in Red Arrow's voice was shocking. "They couldn't hack it, so I'll find him myself."

"And you're going to do that like this?" Chase asked, looking at his emaciated form.

It seemed that Red Arrow was done talking as he fell silent and just stared off into space. Chase sighed and rolled his neck to work the kinks out from sitting still. Acting on impulse, he activated his chip and connected directly to the internet. Images popped up and closed at an inhuman speed as he tracked every available movement of Red Arrow in the last 4 years. 

There were times where he disappeared, but he frequently reappeared in incidents that involved LexCorp facilities, a large number of which notably included a villain named Cheshire.

'I can't figure out who he's looking for just from this, but at some point LexCorp had them.'

Chase glanced at the time and deliberated mentally. On the one hand, he'd decided not to become a hero due to some misgivings with the superhero community. On the other hand, somebody was missing, Red Arrow was apparently running himself into the ground trying to find them, and everyone else had already given up.

Even if everyone else failed, wasn't he the smartest person on the planet? If anyone could find this person, it'd be him, plus he'd get to one up Batman. The man's motives were understandable, but he still wasn't happy being under surveillance and that chance to solve a case he couldn't was one Chase didn't want to pass up. Barbara was going to contact him anyway, so it wouldn't be hard for Batman to tell Red Arrow what he could do if he asked.

In the end, he wanted to be the opposite of his father. He had these bionic powers, if he could help someone, then shouldn't he? Slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the LexCorp tablet Red Arrow had dropped on the rooftop. He'd been holding onto it, but hadn't done anything with it yet.

"What are you doing with that?" Red Arrow asked as he noticed Chase's actions. Chase ignored him and touched the device, mentally connecting with it and flew through the data mentally.

'He must have swiped this from someone with high-clearance. It has access to records that definitely wouldn't be available to the public, but that's just what someone else could access. For me, I can see so much more.'

Decrypting security measures put in place by an ordinary human, even if they were someone as intelligent as Lex Luthor, was child's play for him. Information about things that LexCorp was doing was displayed before him, but the breadth of information was large and he focused on anything that Red Arrow would be interested in. Nothing came up originally, but it wasn't until he had the idea to switch from looking into Red Arrow to looking for things related to his original moniker, Speedy, that he found a match.

'DNA sample for human cloning.'

Chase glanced at the agitated Red Arrow and continued through the records he could find. There was information about LexCorp's cooperation with Cadmus and their creation of two clones based on the DNA of Green Arrow's sidekick. The information on the whereabouts of the DNA source was redacted, but recovery wasn't an issue for him.

He kept working, until he finally stopped and looked back at Red Arrow.

"What?" the hero asked with a grunt, irritably. 

"How would you like to find Speedy? The real one."

----

Batman and Black Canary stood in Chase's dorm room an hour later. He'd gotten a call from Barbara that Chase had found Red Arrow and Batman had informed Black Canary who'd come to Gotham looking for him. 

Notably, neither Chase nor Red Arrow was present. Only Barbara was there, clutching a sheet of paper, an irritated look on her face.

"This was here when I came back."

She handed the note to the two of them to read. On it, one could see the clear handwriting of Chase Davenport which said, "Figured out how to help Red Arow, gonna save a missing person. Tell Batman I did it when he couldn't."

"Who is Chase Davenport and why does this say he found Speedy?" Black Canary asked, growing agitated. She was normally a calm person, but Batman couldn't blame her when it involved both her boyfriend's original protege and the clone that replaced him. 

"There are certain...circumstances involving him. It's possible he did find the real Speedy," Batman finally answered after some thought.

"Then we need to find them, Roy is apparently an addict and now he's gotten a civilian involved."

"What circumstances," Barbara questioned as she focused on the first part of his answer. "What aren't you telling me?"

Silence was her only answer as Batman turned back to Black Canary, the two quickly making plans to track down the wayward duo.

----

Author's Note:

Ngl, I'm not sure how happy I am with this chapter. I had a vision of where I wanted to get, but I don't know how I feel about the sequence of events. Somewhere my thoughts got kinda jumbled, so might go back and touch it up with a clearer head. In the end, I was trying to convey that while Chase is smart, he's also arrogant and enjoys proving he's better than someone, especially Batman, who he's still somewhat irritated by.

Just to clarify as well, Batman knows that he's bionic and that he has super-intelligence, but not that he can unlock other abilities. I don't like reading nor writing a story where the main character literally never does anything out of fear of people discovering what he can do, so this is my attempt at a turning point where Chase grows more active and actually uses his powers for something. 

Anyway, anybody who voted for Starfire and Barbara, you guys clearly have a thing for redheads with abs. Those of you who voted for Zatanna and Raven, goths with nice legs. Here's another poll for you.

1. Black Canary

2. Huntress