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Dick woke up with a horrible headache. There was also a dull throbbing behind his eyes, and Dick pressed his fingers into his eyes, trying to relieve the pressure.
It did not go away.
“Fuck,” he groaned. He glanced around, bright spots dancing in this vision. He was in his room at the Manor, probably due to the fact that he had gotten a direct dose of fear toxin the night before.
While he had also gotten an equally strong dose of the antidote, there were still some lingering effects. For example, the afternoon breeze ruffled the curtains, and Dick nearly fell out of bed in surprise.
Dick groaned quietly, knowing he was in for a day of seeing things and being extremely jumpy. It also did not help that his entire chest was sore due to a fractured rib a couple weeks back. He just really hoped that he could have a calming rest of the day, drink some tea, maybe read a book and gorge himself on Alfred’s cookies. Preferably in a brightly lit area that was enclosed and does not have many hiding spaces for anything smaller than a child assassin.
Dick goes downstairs, glad to find the Manor mostly empty. He did not think his heart could really take it if Damian snuck up behind him like the teen preferred to approach people.
Alfred had left him a plate of his favorite Fruity Pebble pancakes, still warm, and a nice glass of orange juice next to it.
Dick took his food to the library, where he felt most comfortable surrounded by the huge volumes of books. On his way, Dick nearly spilled his juice when he saw something black move out of the corner of his eye.
It was only the hands of the grandfather clock, ticking away steadily.
Dick took a deep breath and kept walking. He made it to the library without incidence, and he curled up in his favorite armchair, surrounded by fluffy pillows and started eating. It was a nice day out – bright sun, blue skies, chirping birds.
A shadow zipped across the floor of the library, and Dick dropped a pancake. His eyes whipped up to the window, where he saw a raven circling back around. Dick shivered. Ravens were not good signs.
He curled up a little tighter and took a hesitant bite of his pancake. He eyed the one that fell on the floor and wondered if he should pick it up. But something could be hiding under his chair, and it could bite his hand off.
Dick knew he was being ridiculous, but he decided not to risk it.
Suddenly, there was a heavy thump on the wall of the library.
Dick froze.
A second later, there was another thump.
It sounded a lot like a dead body hitting the wall.
Another couple of thumps, followed by a loud yell.
Dick knew that voice. It was Jason’s voice. Dick sprung to his feet, pancakes falling all over the floor. Dick’s mind raced a thousand miles a second. What was he supposed to do? He did not know what Jason was fighting in the next room, which happened to be a bathroom.
Dick cursed softly as there was another couple of thumps, and a loud, muffled curse from Jason. Dick paced the room for a second, twisting his hands. He was not mentally ready to fight anything yet. But Jason was in trouble!
Dick took a deep breath, let out a little whimper and charged out of the library. He kicked down the door of the bathroom, fully prepared to find a hundred clowns and haunting circus music, but it was worse.
He found Jason wrestling a giant octopus.
Not a giant octopus like the animal, but a giant, huge, humongous octopus with tentacles as thick as Dick’s arm.
There was water all over the floor of the bathroom, an entire bottle of bubble bath had been knocked over, and the bathtub was overflowing.
And Jason was naked save for a slipping towel, wrestling a writhing tentacle down. A couple of the tentacles banged at the wall, or they grabbed Jason and banged him against the wall.
“Wha-” Dick started to say.
Suddenly, one of the tentacles wrapped around Dick’s waist and hoisted him up into the air. Dick let out a girly scream. He was certain he felt his orange juice coming up his esophagus again.
Jason’s eyes widened when he saw Dick. “Fuck, Dickie, what the fuck-” He never finished his sentence because he tried to get up, and only slipped on the slick floor.
“Jason!” Dick screamed as the tentacle shook him. Another tentacle came and wrapped around his chest, squeezing. He suddenly could not breathe.
“Okay, okay, calm down, Dick!” Jason called. “They’ll let go of you once you stop struggling!”
Dick continued to struggle. What was Jason thinking? This giant octopus monster was going to eat him alive unless he got away!
“Dick, trust me! They’re just hyper!”
“Who?!” Dick screeched. His muscles were starting to tingle with the lack of oxygen.
“Stop struggling!” Jason said again, firmer.
Finally, Dick went limp. A second later, when the tentacles saw that he was no longer playing with them, they let him drop back to the ground. Dick crumpled in a heap and started heaving breaths.
Jason slipped and stumbled to his side.
“You okay?” Jason asked, grabbing Dick’s face with one hand, squishing his cheeks together. “Hey, hey, focus on me. You good?”
“’m okay, Jay,” Dick mumbled. Jason let go of his face and Dick pushed himself up. “What the hell is that?!”
Jason winced silently. “It’s… a long story.”
“Okay, how do you get rid of them?” Dick asked. The wriggling appendages were still causing chaos in the room, but ignoring the two of them now.
“I… can’t,” Jason said. “Get rid of them that is. But I can put them away, as soon as I can get them to calm down.” He ducked, narrowly avoiding a sucker slap.
“Calm them down?” Dick asked, his panic growing already. He would have to talk to Bruce about developing a stronger antidote. “How- How do you do that?”
Jason grunted as a shampoo bottle came flying into his head. “Just- wipe the- bubbles- off!”
“What?!”
“The bubbles!” Jason grabbed the towel that had been lying on the toilet and wrapped it viciously around the tentacle that threw the bottle. He scrubbed the bubbles off the tentacles body, and suddenly, the tentacle went limp in his arms. “See?” he said breathlessly. “That’s four down, six more to go.”
Dick watched with wide eyes as the tentacle started shrinking. He thought for it moment it would disappear, but it started shrinking into Jason’s back. When Jason turned around to wrangle another tentacle, Dick saw that the tentacle shrank into the small of his back, where six more, thick tentacles were growing out of.
“What the fuck, it’s- it’s in you, Jason!”
“Yeah, I know that,” Jason grunted as he was flopped against the wall yet again. Another tentacle ripped the towel from his hands. “Just- Just help me out here!”
Dick let himself soak in the information for another second before he jerked the towel back from the tentacle. He wiped down the tentacle, hanging on for dear life as another tentacle tried to pull him off. When Dick got all the soapy water off, he let go, and he was slammed against the wall as well, his teeth rattling with the force.
The tentacle dropped him after that.
Jason was there to pull him up. “Nice work, Dickie.”
They surveyed the five tentacles that were left. Two of them were splashing around contently in the bubble bath, another one still mindlessly banging the wall, and the other two seemed to be play fighting.
“Let’s tackle those two first,” Jason said, nodding at the ones chasing each other around. “You take left, I’ll take right?”
Dick let out a weak groan. “Okay,” he agreed.
They dove at the tentacles, tackling them to the ground, and wrestling them into submission. Dick rubbed the towel all over the tentacle, grimacing at the rubbery, slippery feeling as it writhed against him. Thankfully, Dick was still too terrified to be aroused.
He was about to throw the towel behind him to Jason when he saw that Jason had already gotten his tentacle wiped down, with the towel that had been around his waist. Now he was completely naked.
Dick quickly adverted his eyes. The temptation to get aroused was seriously starting to fight the frightful adrenaline pumping through his veins now.
Jason had already jumped on top of the one thumping against the wall. Dick reached for the one in the tub, but the other one pulled him in.
Dick sent a tsunami of bubbly water all over the floor and the tentacle Jason was wiping down.
It thrashed harder and threw Jason off.
“Dick!” Jason yelled accusingly.
Dick just coughed up the soap that was burning his throat and eyes. Two tentacles hovered over him. Suddenly, they leapt at him. For a second, Dick thought they were going to drown him, but one of them ripped his shirt off, and the other curled tightly around his chest, which was extremely sore from the previous constriction as well as the fact that, well, it was supposed to be healing.
“Oh god,” Dick groaned out. It was even worse that being drowned by tentacles. He was going to be a star in his very own hentai tentacle movie.
As the tentacle lifted him out of the bathtub, the other one started stroking Dick’s hair and his face. Its huge suckers sucked its way across Dick’s cheek, lips, and jaw. He just hung there limply, let out a soft cry.
Suddenly, the tentacle was ripped off his face would a loud, squelching pop.
“Dick, you weak, useless… dick! Don’t just lie there!” Jason yelled.
Dick let out a weak moan.
“Fucking hell.” There was a rough tug on the tentacle. “Give… him… back!” Jason yelled.
There were a few slipping noises, some grunts, and a loud “Gotcha!” before Dick dropped to the ground.
Then, there was a wet thump. Dick opened his eyes a little bit. Jason sat next to him, panting and glaring at him.
“You’re so stupid, Dick,” Jason huffed.
“I was about to be raped by your tentacle,” Dick said accusingly. He pushed himself into a sitting position, just barely managing.
“They weren’t trying to rape you,” Jason scoffed. “It was enthusiastic hugging. You’re no stranger to that.”
“That was not enthusiastic hugging,” Dick said. “I don’t rip people’s shirts off when I hug them!”
“Okay, so they’re clumsy,” Jason said. “Don’t be so hard on them!”
Dick rolled his eyes and slumped, beyond exhausted. His head leaned against Jason’s shoulder, both of them equally wet. “You wanna talk about how you got tentacles?” he mumbled, already feeling sleepy.
“Not really,” Jason said. “But if you really must know, it was the Pit, like everything else.”
Dick yawned, his eyes fluttering shut. “Are you… saying that… Damian’s grandfather… could have tentacles?”
“Would explain why the kid’s such a monster,” Jason scoffed. He also sounded extremely tired.
“Don’t be… so mean to him,” Dick murmured before drifting off into the comforting embrace of sleep.
~
Dick woke up with a loud gasp. Echoing throbs from his dream still pulsed around his chest. He quickly looked down at himself. He was wearing a different shirt from yesterday… because his shirt got torn by Jason’s tentacles.
Dick quickly glanced outside. It was somewhere around mid-morning and noon. Dick glanced at the clock. Yes, it was nearly lunchtime. But the date was different. He could not have possibly slept through all of yesterday and missed patrol, could he?
Just then, there was a knock on his door.
“Yeah?” Dick called, glancing over.
Jason opened the door and poked his head in. “Hey,” he said. “Feeling better? Alfred made lunch and said you should come down and eat, especially since you missed dinner and breakfast.”
Dick looked Jason up and down. “Can you just… tuck your tentacles away or something?”
Jason gave him a strange look. “…tentacles?”
“Yeah, you know…” Dick waved his arms around.
Jason’s expression became even more confused, and a touch amused. “You okay, Dick? I know you fainted yesterday because your meds interfered with the fear toxin antidote from working properly, but tentacles?” Jason laughed. “Kinky, even for you.” He then turned and left.
Dick frowned. Huh, maybe it had been a dream.
He shook his head and got out of bed. He went to the bathroom, yawning loudly and stretching.
He lifted his shirt to check on his healing rib.
Dick froze, staring wide-eyed into the mirror, where his entire torso was covered in rows and rows of round sucker marks.