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Ric can see Hutch’s mouth moving, but his words are lost in the sounds of the wind and traffic and the faint chatter of a hundred indistinct conversations. He narrows his eyes, tries to focus, but already there’s a bird whose name he can’t remember (can never remember) soaring over the rooftops, cutting through a haze of steam and smoke, and somewhere else the sound of loud, drunken laughter, the clatter of high heels on concrete, the shrill whistle of a pressure cooker—
Zak’s hand closes over his shoulder, and Ric tries to focus on that, anchor his (stupid, useless) brain to the touch.
“You got all of that, cabbie?” Zak asks.
“Yeah,” Ric says. “You guys go right ahead; I’ll be on your heels. Back-up and clean-up like usual, right?”
Hutch gives him a dubious look, but Zak laughs and claps his back. “That’s about it,” he says, his words already beginning to be snatched away by the smoke and the bird and the laughter and the—
-
Ric blinks, and he’s flying.
Coarse, cheap rope is burning his hands through his gloves, and without thinking about it, he tightens his grip at exactly the right moment and twists his body at exactly the right angle to turn his free-fall into a graceful tumble over the nearest rooftop. He rests like that for a minute, sprawled on his front on an anonymous building, feeling the sting of gravel digging into abrasions on his face and arms. His knuckles are flecked with blood, and there’s a familiar soreness in his joints.
Oh. He’s been fighting again.
Bea won’t like this. To be fair, it’s not like he ever remembers doing any of this with kind of clarity—he thinks of his life as an unending roll of old-school film with some ineffable, cosmic being going absolutely nuts on it with a pair of scissors. Snip—there’s Bea, painstakingly explaining to him the app she’s set up on his phone to remind him to take his anti-epileptics—snip—he’s pulling on leather boots for his stupid vigilante costume, ready to cry at just how many parts there are and how he’s ready to just give up—snip—somebody’s smashing a bottle on his back, and he has them in a headlock in three seconds, feeling adrenaline thundering through his veins, smooth, efficient, in control. He’s probably never going to get those missing scenes back. Some days, he even manages to feel bad about it.
Sapienza grabs him by his shoulders, hefts him to his feet. “Come on, cabbie,” he says into his ear, “the night’s not done yet.”
“I’m with you,” Ric says, and Sapienza sprints ahead to the sounds of muffled grunts and gunshots.
He gathers his rope and twists a knotted loop around one hand. His hands are shaking appallingly, reminding him of just how much he’s put them through this evening and just how much he’s been slacking off physiotherapy lately. Despite his shitty adherence to the virtual textbook of instructions his therapists have left him, however, he’s not only been doing perfectly well, but he’s been keeping up with the bloody Nightwings, so—he sees no reason why this night will be any different.
He tosses the loop over a jutting column, takes off on a sprint to the edge of the rooftop, and leaps into the night air. The rope goes taut, and he twists, aiming for the next, lower roof—
The muscles of his right arm spasm violently all at once, and he loses his grip on the rope, falling ten feet onto a rusty fire-escape. He curls into himself with the shock of it, his entire right side blazing with white-hot pain while his body trembles like a leaf. Blood fills his mouth from where he’s bitten his tongue, drips steadily from his lips.
“Hey,” he says, his voice a rusty wheeze. He shifts, trying to sit up, but his arms are shaking too hard, and agony slices up his side. “Hey!” he says again, trying desperately to remember any of their names. God—what was the big one? He wore red, Ric thinks. Nightwing Red, like a big fucking smear of blood—
“Please,” he says, without the slightest bit of shame, hurting too much to care. “Please.”
No one answers, and he lies there alone, shivering, trying desperately not to think.
-
Ric blinks, and Bea’s staring down at him. He’s on a bed, his right arm in a sling, his body half-covered in bandages.
“Ric, baby,” she says mournfully.
He smiles brightly at her. “I’m going to be okay,” he tells her, and doesn’t understand why she doesn’t smile back.