Archive of Our Own

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It was actually pretty cliché, if Dick thought about it. Here he was, tied onto a giant square table, shirtless, with his arms and legs bound at each of the four corners. If the situation wasn’t getting a tad bit dire, he might’ve even laughed.

Hell, if he were Nightwing, it would’ve been part of his job to laugh, but Dick Grayson had never been used as a pawn to sacrifice. Never mind that being around Raven so much, Robin and Nightwing alike had been kidnapped and offered to various darker powers pretty much every Saturday. No, he had to appear absolutely terrified out of his wits.

All around him were figures in dark robes, hoods drawn over their heads. Their hands were the only body parts that were properly visible, and they stuck out of the armholes like skeletons. Dick tried not to look at the yellowing fingernails, long and curving and edged with darker bits of gunk.

Someone had come up behind him, footsteps perfectly silent despite the giant, echoing building they were in. Dick glanced up at them, widening his eyes to really sell it.

“What’re you doing to me?” he asked nervously as they lowered a round bowl, rusty and brown. It looked like something that one would find at a hipster café in Melbourne. “Is that blood?”

There was no reply; the person continued to paint something on Dick’s chest and arms. Dick craned his neck downwards to see it, but another hand came out of absolutely nowhere and slammed his head back onto the table.

Dick blinked rapidly as the hit made him see stars, woozy from the force behind it. He didn’t move while the painting continued, trying to track whatever sigils and symbols were being drawn onto his body as they were created.

It’d been a game he and Bruce used to play. For Dick, it’d been fun, a way to make boring meetings or speeches a bit more entertaining. And maybe Bruce had seen it like that, too, instead of as just another training exercise.

It’d been everywhere. They would trace out whole sentences on each other’s palms, their wrists, backs. Anywhere that they could reach that didn’t see suspicious, especially not for a single young man adopting a child. It’d gotten to the point where their shorthand and tracing grew more and more obscure and unintelligible to others, because of the sheer amount of practise the two of them had.

Now, Dick could clearly see, in his mind’s eye, the picture being etched upon his skin. It wasn’t anything familiar, that was certain.

He decided to give questions another go. “Who’d y’all say you worked for, again?”

Silence. His words echoed in the empty crypt. Dick should’ve been used to dark rooms by now, with the amount of time he spent in the Cave, but there was something eerie about this one that the Batcave just wasn’t.

The person walked away. Dick turned his head to the side to watch them go, hissing slightly as the wound at the back of his head stung at his movements. They crouched down and lit a candle. Dick looked on as an entire circle of candles was lit up around him, swallowing down the sense of foreboding that was welling up inside him.

And then it began. Dick screamed as his insides threatened to melt against the burning of the sigils as they came alive. The light shone bright enough for him to see, a deep, deep red against the yellow of the flames surrounding him. He twisted against his bonds in an instinctive attempt to get away, but there was no moving. Dick could barely shift any of his body parts, let alone try to get up the leverage to free himself.

After a minute, when the sensation didn’t ebb away, Dick took in three shallow breaths in quick succession, focusing on trying to stabilise his heartbeat and yank his mind away from the pain. He had to compartmentalise it, shove it deep inside a box and not think about it. That was the only way he was going to get out of this without going crazy.

Dick’s fingernails dug into his palms. Normally, this would give him a different anchor to hold onto, something else to concentrate on, a pain that he was in control of. But this time, it was like a teardrop in the face of the ocean that was his chest and upper arms.

He didn’t know how long it went on for, lost inside his mind, when it felt like something inside him was severed. The pain stopped abruptly, but it took Dick a while to realise that. The sudden nothingness felt almost as bad as the fire itself had.

Dick opened his eyes cautiously, wincing as he unclenched his fingers. He looked down at his chest, bracing himself for whatever he’d find, but it was the same as it’d been when it had first been painted on, still looking wet.

There was a crash as a door opened, sending hundreds of winged creatures flying. Dick looked up, to see if he could spot them, but there was nothing there.

Dick shivered from the cold draught that was coming in from the open door; he lifted his head up as far as it could go to catch a glimpse of who it was. But the circle of candles was the only thing lighting up this crypt; beyond it, Dick’s vision failed him. He couldn’t even track movement in the shadows.

And then one of the shadows raced over to him, and Dick’s insides melted for a completely different reason as relief swept through him.

“Batman,” he tried to say, but his voice came out as rough as sandpaper. It hurt to speak through his raw throat.

“Are you alright?” Bruce spoke when he neared Dick’s head. “I’m sorry it took us so long.”

Dick frowned. “What do you mean? They’ve only had me for like a few hours.”

Bruce’s hands paused where they’d been undoing the chains wrapped around his wrist. “Dick, you’ve been missing for a whole day.”

Dick stared at him. “No,” he said incredulously. “Fuck, really?”

Bruce gave a single, sharp nod, intent on taking off the cuffs. Once Dick’s left arm was free, Bruce moved on to his leg, giving Dick a lock pick to do the other arm himself. Dick’s fingers shook so much that he’d barely made any progress by the time Bruce had freed his legs.

Bruce gently took the pick from him and did it himself, sliding an arm behind Dick to support him as he stood on shaky legs.

“Where is everyone? This place was full of creeps.” Dick asked, mostly to distract himself from the world spinning on its axis as he stepped towards the doorway. His stomach threatened to rise up through his throat, but he swallowed convulsively.

“There were three people I gave over to the police,” Bruce said. “No one else was here.”

“No,” Dick protested weakly. “I definitely remember like… at least twenty of them.”

“We’ll look into it once you’re out,” Bruce said. “But there was no sign of anyone else in here. Either it was some sort of illusion, or they fled when they saw the sirens.”

Dick was quiet at that. It was only when they reached the outer rim of the circle – which was much bigger than what it’d looked like, from where Dick had been lying – that he spoke up once more.

“Aren’t we going to blow out the candles?” he said in as light a voice as he could. His palms itched where his nails had broken through skin.

Bruce grunted. “I’ve been told that undoing altars without following the correct procedure is ba—”

Dick was flung back with enough force to send him landing on his back as they went to step over the candles. He lay there, trying to get the air in his lungs back, as Batman raced over.

“Maybe try getting rid of them?” he asked weakly.

The first one Bruce kicked over, extinguishing the flame as it tipped onto its side. For the next ones, he got out a tiny little canister from his utility belt and held it out towards the candles. Dick stood shakily as he watched Bruce use his mini fire extinguisher at least a quarter of the circle.

“Cool toy,” he mumbled, swaying a little.

“Come on.”

Bruce’s arm was around his shoulder again, practically carrying him over the circle. This time, Dick wasn’t repelled by the border. Instead, as he passed through it, it was like someone had injected him with a vial of ice water, straight in the centre of his chest.

His legs buckled beneath him, trying to breathe around the block of ice that was spreading throughout his body. Distantly, he felt himself being lifted up, before his vision went black.