Chapter Text
For the fifth time in less than a minute, Dick cursed his luck that Jason got knocked out from a tranq while they were being chased by magic androids in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
“Thanks a lot, kid,” he muttered as he stumbled over rocks and fallen branches. Jason, who was too dead to the world to realize that Dick was fireman carrying his ass away from danger, wasn’t able to answer with a snarky remark.
Dick tried to ignore how the silence from his brother unnerved him by pausing to check over his shoulder for any androids on their tail. All he saw was lush green trees and bushes that stretched on for miles and miles. No shiny metal in sight.
Dick didn’t dare let his guard down. He knew the androids were coming for them. Well, more specifically, for Jason. The Outlaws were clearly on someone’s shit list and were being hunted down like dogs.
They’d learned pretty early on in the fight that the androids weren’t interested in Dick, but they’d been more than happy to swarm Jason and Artemis. Dick figured the androids were programmed with facial recognition, and since they weren’t programmed to recognize Dick’s face, they ran right past him. It was a blessing for Dick and a curse for Jason.
The androids were drawn to Jason like a beacon. Dick doubted the explosion he set off earlier would dissuade the androids from finding them for much longer.
Sweat from Dick’s temple trickled down towards the corner of his lip. He wiped it away on Jason’s pants. Fuck, it was hot outside. Running around with over two hundred pounds on his shoulders in Maine’s humid air was almost unbearably uncomfortable.
He was running pretty low on energy, having used most of it to smash the android’s heads in. Carrying Jason around certainly didn’t help. It was frustrating because Dick knew his slow pace was putting them in danger. On the flip side, stopping would shorten the distance between them and the enemy.
Still, he wouldn’t be much use if he was too exhausted to protect Jason. And another problem he’d been thinking about for a while was that he needed food and water to be at the top of his game.
He wasn’t too worried about food since he had a protein bar stored in his glove. Water was the bigger worry. They had some on their plane. Only problem was that it would take Dick some time to backtrack to get to it, assuming he’d even get to that point. If he couldn’t make it to the plane by evening, he would have to track down a creek or a river. The thought was extremely unappealing to his tired mind and muscles, but if it meant life or death, he’d do it. With that thought in mind, he decided to find a place to recharge.
Dick was panting by the time he stumbled upon a cluster of giant rocks that were shrouded somewhat decently by neighboring trees. Two of the large rocks crossed over each other, leaving a hole between them that looked just big enough to fit both Dick and Jason inside of.
Arms and shoulders burning, Dick decided the rocks would be good enough to camouflage them from sight. He stopped in front of the hole, and with a grunt, he carefully lowered Jason to the ground. Knowing Jason’s head was protected by his helmet, he grabbed Jason by the legs and slowly dragged him inside the hole. Jason would probably be pissed about the dirt stains on his jacket when he woke up, but Dick was quickly running out of fucks to give.
It wasn’t until Dick was fully submerged in the hole that he realized his mistake. The smell of soil invaded his nose, and before he knew it, he was living through a PTSD nightmare. There was an instantaneous feeling of his lungs feeling way too small, like he was breathing through a straw.
It was too tight here. Too small. Too dark. Dirt was fucking everywhere. In his hair, on his legs, under his fingernails. His hands hurt so bad. He needed to breathe, but he couldn’t. He had to save his air. There wasn’t much of it left. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic!
Hands shaking, Dick ripped off his gloves and threw them to the side. He blindly reached out towards Jason and ended up grabbing Jason’s arm. Dick immediately started rubbing his hand against the leather, buttons, and zippers on the jacket. He focused on the rough texture of the leather, the hard metal of the buttons, and the biting teeth of the zippers.
“My name is Dick Grayson. I’m with my brother on a mission in Maine. I can see the sky. I can smell the fresh air. I can hear the birds chirping and the bugs buzzing. I can feel my brother’s jacket. I’m not in a coffin. I’m not underground. My mind is my greatest weapon.”
Dick had no idea how many times he repeated his mantra before the anxiety that was threatening to choke him slowly eased up. He stumbled towards the opening of the hole and greedily sucked in large amounts of air, making sure to focus on the trees swaying in the breeze against the bright blue sky.
Slowly, oh so slowly, he felt himself become grounded back to his current reality. The panic began to fade. His chest didn’t feel like it was about to give out on him anymore, and his shaking shifted to a slight tremor. He did one more controlled breathing exercise just to be on the safe side.
He could do this. He was okay. He was okay. He was okay.
Fuck, he did not expect that. Fuck his brain for doing that to him at a time like this. Christ, seriously.
There was no time to reflect on it right now. He needed to take care of his brother. With more reluctance than he'd like to admit, he slowly dragged his feet back to where Jason was lying on the ground.
Dick gently raised Jason up by his shoulders and situated him against the rock wall. He eyed Jason’s location in the middle of the hole, and on second thought, he moved Jason closer towards the opening where he’d be able to see the sky in case he woke up suddenly.
Dick wasn’t the only one in his family that was triggered by dirt.
He felt more in control of himself as he worked on taking Jason’s helmet, jacket, and gloves off, worried that Jason would overheat in them. If he spent a little extra time rubbing the varnish on the helmet, or feeling the texture of the gloves, well, that was neither here nor there. He finished by placing the items next to Jason’s side where they could air out a little.
Jason’s hair was damp and his face was covered in dried sweat tracks. Dick knew his face was probably in a similar state. Sighing, he grabbed Jason’s wrist and checked his pulse. A minute passed. Dick set Jason’s arm back on the ground, content that his BPM fell in the normal range. He placed the back of his hand against Jason’s forehead and his cheeks, checking to make sure that Jason wasn’t in danger of heatstroke. To his relief, Jason seemed to be in as good a state as Dick was, which was one less thing to worry about.
He just wished he knew exactly what had been in the tranq so he would have a general idea of what he was dealing with in case Jason started having any weird side effects from it. It was most likely an anesthetic that lacked neuromuscular blocking agents. Jason wouldn’t have been able to breathe by himself if NBA’s were present, and as far as Dick could tell, Jason’s breathing was fine.
Knowing Jason was okay made some of the anxiety in Dick’s gut disappear. That taken care of, Dick carefully moved to the entrance of the hole and looked out into the forest. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual. Just trees, trees, and oh yeah, more trees. Nothing to be alarmed about.
What Dick really wanted to do was do a brief sweep around the perimeter to check for anything in the distance. It would be too risky to reveal himself in the daylight. But now that he was thinking about it, would the androids even react if they only saw him and not Jason? The fight proved that they didn’t consider Dick a threat, and they’d made no move to attack him. Would they simply walk past him just like they’d done thirty minutes earlier?
Dick had to take into account that whoever was responsible for the androids was probably now aware of his existence.
During the fight, he’d noticed that the androids had white crystals implanted on the back of their heads. He’d spotted the crystals while frying the androids with his escrima sticks, and what he’d found out was that the crystals emitted heat and an aura of magic.
The magicked androids were more resilient and adaptable than regular androids. Dick assumed the magic would also make it way easier to reprogram the androids on a whim, meaning the maker could have easily included Dick into the list of faces the androids could recognize. Knowing that was a possibility made Dick hesitant to put his theory to the test.
Feeling tired from the heat, he returned to his spot across from Jason, stretching his legs out as much as he could in the small space. The shade from the rocks made him feel a little bit cooler. He’d kill for AC and a cold glass of water right about then.
That shit would have to wait because Dick needed a plan. He looked at Jason’s slack face and frowned. Taking Jason’s current state into account, Dick ran a few different scenarios through his head. While he thought, he brought up his wrist computer on his glove and tracked Artemis’s location. As far as Dick was aware, she’d retreated in the direction of their hidden plane. His tracking device said differently. Artemis was actually somewhere closer to the building that Bizarro was trapped in.
Dick was worried she would try to save Bizarro without any backup. He didn’t want her to get captured as well. Jason had been pretty adamant that the guy holding Bizarro prisoner wasn’t a magic user himself, which made Dick feel slightly better. The last thing they needed was a magicked Superman clone and a magicked Bana Amazon.
Dick checked his and Jason’s own location on the GPS and calculated what steps he would need to take. The plane was parked three miles East from their current location. The building holding Bizarro was two miles from the plane.
Dick and Jason could easily cover that kind of ground in an hour under normal circumstances. In their current situation, it would take Dick much longer to navigate through the forest with Jason on his back. Carrying Jason for that long in this kind of heat ran the risk of depleting Dick’s energy to the point where he’d be no use in a fight.
What Dick really needed was for Jason to wake up. Without the NBA in the anesthetic, the effects of the drug shouldn’t last as long. It had already been a little over half an hour since Jason had been dosed, and since he wasn’t being fed multiple doses of anesthesia, he would probably be pretty close to being conscious.
Only one way to find out.
“Hey.” Dick got on his knees and leaned towards his brother, gently tapping his hand against Jason’s cheek. “Hood. Jay lad. Annoying pain in my ass. Hey. Hey. You awake?”
Jason carried on sleeping like a log, not having moved a muscle. Dick sat back on his haunches and sighed, rubbing his hands over his eyes in frustration. He was clearly going to need another plan.
But first, he took another look outside the hole to make sure they were still in the clear. Blue eyes scanned the tree line and found nothing unusual or out of place. Just the same old forest.
Despite the distinct lack of androids, Dick was beginning to feel restless. He’d already wasted enough time hiding here. No doubt the androids were minutes away from their location unless their maker had called them back at some point. And if Dick couldn’t run from them, maybe he could trap them?
There wasn’t much for him to work with in terms of supplies and weapons. If he’d been given the whole day, he could’ve set up some booby traps. If he’d gotten the chance to return to the plane, he could’ve grabbed some useful explosives or tech.
There was no time for that now. All he had was his escrima sticks, wingdings, grapple gun, and some smoke pellets. What else was around here that could be useful to him? He thought back to the research he had done on this environment before the mission. He had a general idea of where the trees thinned out the most and where the closest houses were. But he needed something a little more useful. Something that could help him blow up a bunch of metal. Something like…
“The river!” Dick said excitedly.
“Ngh…”
Dick’s head shot up so fast, he nearly smacked his head into the rock. He barely noticed, eyes now locked on the slight fluttering of Jason’s eyelashes. It was another minute before Jason’s eyes slowly blinked open, revealing blue eyes that were glazed over. He let out a sleepy exhale through his nose.
“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey, kiddo,” Dick said while tweaking Jason’s nose.
If Jason was more coherent, Dick knew he would’ve gotten his finger bitten off for that. As it was, Jason could barely do anything more than blink in confusion. Dick could already tell by the way Jason’s eyes were drooping that Jason was simply too groggy to speak.
“You’re going to fall back asleep on me, aren’t you?”
Jason scrunched his face up as if annoyed that he had to listen to Dick’s voice. Seconds later, he was out like a light, just as Dick predicted.
That was the exact moment when the birds went silent and the clanking of metal thundered in the distance.