Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

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Dick woke up with the most annoying headache. He opened his eyes and glared at the ceiling for a long moment, wishing he could just turn over and go back to sleep. He even tried that, for the longest moment, but his pillow was disgustingly warm and he couldn’t bring himself to flip it over.

He missed Kory, to make matters worse. Dick missed waking up beside her and seeing her first thing every morning. She would only be gone for another week or so, but right now he was in pain and he wanted to wallow in it for another second or so.

And then he pushed himself up into a sitting position, forcing himself to participate in the day. They had some important cases open, as well as patrols they had to go out on – they’d already been rather lax as of late, because of these strange cases of violence around the city.

He winced when his brain hammered into his skull, crawling out of bed to head to the bathroom. As a rule, Dick didn’t like to take medication for things like headaches and aches and pains, because as a crimefighter who was human, he would always be taking something if that were the case. But sometimes he made exceptions; if it didn’t disappear after he’d washed his face, Dick would find something to take, because he’d be damned if he wasted today.

Cold water helped, and he stepped out of the shower shivering as he dried himself off hurriedly. Winter was drawing to a close, but the last vestiges of the cold still lingered in the earliest of mornings. Dick pulled on one of Kory’s hoodies and headed into the kitchen.

“Morning,” he greeted Vic and Donna, the former of whom nodded a sleepy greeting in return before returning to his coffee with a yawn that was contagious. Donna had her head buried in a newspaper, and she hummed a distracted morning to Dick.

That was fine. Dick was here entirely for the coffee, and then he would try to engage his friends in better conversation, maybe discuss the case a little bit. The Titans were mostly all early risers, with the exception of Gar. He wondered distantly where Raven was – she normally meditated around dawn, and was here before anyone else. Wally would probably be arriving soon – he was rather binary in that when he was awake, he was awake. Roy woke early as a habit from his childhood with both Brave Bow and Ollie – though it was near impossible to find him if he didn’t want to be found. And Garth... well, it really depended on Garth's mood what Dick would find him doing if he popped in to check on him.

The coffee pot was empty. Dick’s thoughts about patrol jerked to an abrupt halt the moment he spotted the empty carafe, and he had to take in a deep breath to avoid getting irrationally irritated over it. (He’d forgotten to take Advil or something, hadn’t he?)

“Guys, c’mon,” he said, waving it in their direction.

“Mmm,” said Donna.

“Whoops,” said Vic, hands going over his own mug full of steaming hot coffee protectively, as though he was afraid that Dick would leap over the countertop and steal it. In his defence, Dick had thought about it for a moment, purely as revenge.

Dick glared at Vic, who gave him an indignant stare and jerked his head at Donna’s mug. With a sigh, Dick turned around to make himself another pot.

A scan through the contents of their fridge and cupboards told him that they really needed to go grocery shopping again. In a Tower full of teenage crimefighters, most of whom were metas or powered in some way, food ran out in an instant. Dick was pretty sure they’d gone shopping the day before, but it didn’t matter. He mentally added that to his list of things to do, and then, knowing he would forget, he got out his phone and jotted it down.

Oatmeal was probably the only thing he could eat and not feel hungry five minutes after the meal, Dick thought. They didn’t have any fruit left to make it taste better, but they probably had honey…

There was a gust of wind, followed instantly by an overly cheerful, “Morning!” as Wally entered the kitchen.

“Morning,” Dick responded far more grumpily than he probably had right to.

“Yeesh,” Wally said, walking over to him and peering into the fridge himself. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

“And you sound as though you were the one who shoved me there,” Dick told him, to which he was given a loose laugh.

“I think I found another lead,” Donna said suddenly.

Vic was reading the newspaper over her shoulder, a thoughtful frown on his face. Dick stepped over to them, his bowl of oatmeal in hand as he did so. He forced himself to not wince outwardly as his headache complained at the quick movement.

“The same?” he said, leaning over Donna’s other shoulder.

She nodded. “Aggression out of nowhere, starting out verbal and then going physical, and then seemingly not remembering a single detail.”

“Did anyone…”

Vic shook his head. “No murder this time. But it’s a higher profile than any of the other cases we’ve had so far. Probably the only reason it got printed without any casualties.”

Dick swallowed down a mouthful of bland oatmeal, sitting down beside Donna. “We need to get over there and examine this guy before something happens. Right now he’s our best lead. And besides all that, we know he’ll reach murder levels if he isn’t stopped.”

He glanced towards Wally to see if he’d been paying attention to the conversation, only to see Roy sauntering in at that moment.

“Hey,” he greeted. “You see the others?”

Roy shrugged, stretching out his right arm tight against his chest. “Nope,” he said. "Though I heard Gar's snoring from the other end of the hallway."

Dick sighed. “Can you get him up?” he asked, not really expecting an answer that he would like. Maybe he just wanted to have a snark-off with someone to wake himself up while the coffee brewed.

“Okay,” Roy said, and headed back out of the kitchen.

Dick blinked at Roy’s fading footsteps. What was that? he wondered to himself, feeling the need to be slapped thoroughly in the face to ensure he wasn’t in the midst of a wonderful dream. And then the coffee machine let out a chirp, and Dick crouched down to find a suitable mug.

Dick, Wally, Donna, and Raven went to investigate the incident. Dick was supposed to be on patrol, but he’d convinced Gar easily enough to swap with him, which was… well, it was surprising, especially considering Raven was with them, but he didn’t really think much of it beyond noting it down as a peripheral worry, just in case Gar showed signs of any weird behaviour later.

There was a police car stationed outside the front of the apartment building where the man had lived with his wife and three children, but other than that, nothing else seemed to be out of the ordinary.

“Raven,” he murmured, “you getting anything?”

Raven paused, and cocked her head a little to the side. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s… strange. I need to get closer.”

“You thinking possession?” Wally asked in an undertone.

Dick shrugged. “Maybe? This is the first victim slash witness we have who’s still alive to tell us anything.”

“If they want to tell us anything,” Donna added. “Sometimes…”

Raven stopped dead in her tracks. The rest of the group paused and turned around, instantly going on defensive. Dick’s eyes scanned the surrounding buildings, trying to see if there was any physical danger, or if this was something that Raven was sensing.

Her eyes were on the fifth story balcony, but when Dick turned to look, and see if he could spot what she was looking at, she coughed a little. “I apologise,” she said distantly. “I…” She shook her head, and walked on.

Dick exchanged a look with Donna and Wally, and the three of them followed her. Raven’s powers were good, and she was becoming increasingly good at figuring out what it meant when she sensed something, but that also meant that sometimes it took her a while to figure out what she was seeing. At this point, they were used to her staring off into the distance before saying it was nothing, but they were also used to it turning out to be something.

They were buzzed up moments after ringing. Dick shivered immediately as he stepped inside the apartment building. The narrow hallway felt – and smelled – damp, and it was dark and gloomy.

“Didn’t you say this was a higher profile case?” Wally whispered. Dick understood the urge to – the silence was all-encompassing, and it felt wrong to be the ones to break it. He almost winced every time he heard their footsteps echoing.

“Yes,” Donna responded back, equally as quiet. There was a thoughtful frown on her face as she glanced around the unwelcoming interior of the building.

The stairs creaked under their feet as they silently made their way up. The carpet was old and stained, and looked as though it’d been burned in places. There were little ashtrays on every landing that appeared to have never been emptied, and the windows were foggy and grey, adding to the terrible lighting inside.

“Number fifteen, right?” he said, and knocked on the door.

It opened up almost before he’d even tapped his knuckles against it a third time. On the other side was a man, roughly about Dick’s height – which was to say… short – and balding. His face was expressionless as he looked at the four of them. Dick found it rather odd that he was wearing a suit and tie, as though he was about to head in to work.

“Mr Malcolms,” said Donna, stepping forward. “I spoke to you over the phone? We’re the Teen Titans.”

Malcolms let them in without a word. They filed in one by one, each trying their best to not track in mud or the like. Dick had to swallow back an audible gasp as he took in the inside of Malcolms’ apartment.

It was… the other end of the spectrum to what Wally had commented on, about the family’s socioeconomic status. The furniture appeared to be brand new, with some items still having the price tags on them. The windows were large on the far end of the room, letting in the morning sunlight. There was a giant flatscreen TV, and Dick could see a stack of video games in the TV cabinet below it, with three consoles visible. From Malcolms’ and his wife’s tax statements, it was clear that their family should be somewhat comfortable, but nothing on this scale.

“Please,” Malcolms said. “Take a seat.”

“Dude,” Wally whispered to Dick. “I thought he was in jail for aggression and shit.”

“He’s supposed to be under house arrest,” Dick whispered back in an undertone. From the glance that Malcolms sent his way, he knew that the man had heard them speaking.

“I assure you, gentlemen, that that was all a misunderstanding between me and my wife,” he told them pleasantly.

“A misunderstanding,” Raven repeated. “Of what sort?”

Malcolms shrugged, spreading his hands out wide. “The usual sort,” he said with a businessman smile. “We had a few arguments about the kids’ schools, buying them expensive new toys, you know how it is.” And then his smile widened a little. “Of course, being the Teen Titans, I wouldn’t expect you to know how married life and kids are. But we worked it all out now.”

“And the police car waiting outside?” Dick asked.

Malcolms shrugged. “Nothing to do with me. Here, ask my wife yourself.”

A woman emerged out of one of the bedrooms, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She smiled at all of them, and offered them something to drink, which they declined politely.

“Mrs Malcolms,” Donna said, “would it be alright if we spoke to you alone?”

Dick didn’t miss the glance she gave to her husband before nodding, and indicating to Donna to come further into the apartment. Raven went with them, and Wally and Dick were left with Mr. Malcolms.

“Why were you featured in the newspaper, Mr Malcolms?” Wally asked, going over to peer out of the window.

“Beats me,” Mr Malcolms said with a laugh. “My wife went to the press with some fabricated tale. Vengeful wives, you know how—” This time he caught himself, and his grin widened as he shook his head. “You fellas ever think of letting grown-ups handle this? They’re sure to understand the situation better than any of you, ‘specially this one.”

Dick tilted his head. “What situation might that be?”

“Hey, now, don’t go putting words into my mouth, Night-whatever-your-name-is,” Mr Malcolms said, though his tone stayed jovial. “Wouldn’t want you going to the press about something I didn’t do.”

“How are your kids, Mr Malcolms?” Wally asked, with a glance towards Dick asking what’re you doing?

Dick didn’t entirely know what he was doing. Normally he was good at questioning people – they liked his charming words and his easy smile, and it didn’t hurt that men and women alike thought he was pleasant to look at. But beyond that, he was naturally good at reading people, and training with Batman had only ever served to hone his skills.

Any ruffled feathers Malcolms had were instantly smoothed by the mention of his kids. “Perfect as always,” he said, words accompanied by another grin that was fit for a toothpaste commercial. “They’re all in school right now.”

Wally had that look in his eyes that said that he now understood where to go. “They weren’t caught up in any of the… disputes between you and your wife, were they?”

Malcolms was shaking his head before Wally had even finished his sentence. “No, no! The missus and I might have our fights, but the kids never get wind of that. Wouldn’t want them thinking there’s anything going on, y’know?”

Dick was so very sick of this man’s grin and his perfectly shaved face and the stench of cologne that was permeating the air. “Mr Malcolms,” he said, and it felt like he was hearing his voice from a distance. “Tell us straight. What happened? We know you’re lying.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dick could see Wally’s wide eyes as he fought to hide his surprise and concern – his gaze was fixed on the man before the two of them. Malcolms seemed to struggle with himself, and he spun around, hands going to his hair and tugging. Dick crossed his arms and waited.

A door in the apartment slammed against a wall, and the sound seemed to jerk Malcolms into action. “Fine,” he wheezed out, and then coughed violently. “Fine. I slammed her into a wall and I told her that if she left, I would hunt her down and slit her throat, but before I let her out of her misery, I would find each of the children and carve my name into them, so she would always know who they belonged to—”

“Doyle!” Mrs Malcolms’ voice sounded from the other end of the hallway. Donna and Raven were right behind her. Dick didn’t know what had prompted them to coming out now, but he didn’t particularly mind.

And then Malcolms collapsed, legs dropping out from under him. Wally sped over to him and caught the man before he hit the ground, gently lowering him down and checking his pulse. He lifted his head and looked at Dick.

“Mrs Malcolms,” Dick said, blinking away dark spots that had suddenly blocked his vision. “Do you have any family in the city? Or friends you and the children can stay with?”

“I-Yes,” she stammered, eyes still fixated on the still form of her husband.

“I think it’s best if you stayed with them for the night,” he told her, turning around and obscuring the still body with his own. “We’ll handle your husband from here, see what’s wrong with him.”

Dick ignored the strange looks he received all the way back to the Tower. The Titans were professionals: they’d been perfectly conducted the entire time the police had come in to arrest Malcolms, they were reassuring and compassionate to Mrs Malcolms, and Wally offered to go with her to pick up her kids from school early.

And now, there was silence. He could feel the others giving each other strange looks, mouthing things, and Wally shrugging emphatically, when Donna and Raven eyed him, but he couldn’t get past the faint buzzing in his head. His headache had definitely taken a turn for the worse.

It was funny that they thought he wouldn’t be able to hear what was going on around him, Dick thought, as snatches of hissed words reached his ears.

“Guys,” he said aloud, voice coming out more tired than he’d intended. “Quit it. I’m fine. I’m… It wasn’t the best tactic, I know, but Malcolms cracked.”

“Dick,” Donna said, looking at Dick with a concerned gaze, “don’t take this the wrong way, but you really aren’t acting like yourself.”

Dick’s temper flared. “What, I get our only witness to talk and you don’t like how I did it, so now you think there’s something wrong with me? I got what we wanted.” Raven shuffled in her seat uncomfortably, looking as though she wanted to say something. Wally opened his mouth, and Dick really didn’t want to know what he was about to say. Before Wally could speak, Dick snapped, “Just drop it, all of you. Please.”

And they all looked down, and the rest of the trip was in silence once more.

A day later, and still nothing. Dick rubbed his eyes, needing to take a break from staring at screens all day. They’d gotten bloodwork from Malcolms, as well as a bunch of other samples. It would take a day to get the necessary permissions from the prison Malcolms was being held at to take him to get his brain scanned, and possibly his whole body, as well, and another to actually do it, but until then, this was what they had to work with.

“Still nothing?” Vic asked sympathetically. He placed a coffee mug in front of Dick, his own in hand.

Dick shook his head, letting out a long exhale. “Nope,” he said. “No abnormalities. Thanks,” he added, taking a sip from the mug.

“Could be it was just in the moment that something changes?” Vic offered.

“In that case, we’d need to rile him up again.” Dick jotted it down on the increasingly growing list of things they wanted to test Malcolms on. It was… beginning to look like it might take longer than a day.

“Well, I have good news.” Vic waved a slip of paper in front of Dick, which Dick instantly went to grab. Vic laughed as he lifted it up from Dick’s grasp. “Ah, you’re so small.”

“Hey,” Dick said in mock indignation. “Not all of us make ourselves taller when we add parts.” He nodded to the paper still in Vic’s hand.

“Permission for us to bring him here,” Vic said. “Only took about four hours of negotiation.”

Dick winced. “Better you guys than me,” he said.

Although Nightwing wasn’t the same level of invisible as Robin had been, he still didn’t like to make himself very well known or recognisable. Negotiating with prison wardens was the exact sort of thing he still avoided, though sometimes he wondered whether Nightwing maybe needed to be seen. Sometimes he wondered whether he was only choosing to stay in the shadows because that was what he’d been taught.

Vic hummed in agreement. Of all of them, he understood, though not entirely. It was hard to understand entirely. Although, Dick did suspect that this time they wouldn’t have let him go in anyway, after the incident of the previous day.

“Well,” Dick announced, draining his coffee, “better get back to it, right.” He grimaced at the wall of numbers and coded letters awaiting him.

“Hey, man,” Vic said, eyeing Dick warily. “You’ve been down here since like, what, last night? How ‘bout you take a break now, maybe a nap or something, get some real food in you, and I’ll look over this?” Dick hesitated, and Vic’s smile broadened. “C’mon, Roy’s been making chilli. You know he’ll give you first serve if you go in there looking like that. Just bring me back a bowl and we'll call it even.”

Dick’s stomach rumbling decided for him.

Roy had, for some reason, abandoned making chilli and was happily snacking on a packet of potato chips. When he saw Dick grimace at the noisy crunching, he began chewing loudly with his mouth open, making sure to really hit that crunch.

Dick looked at the empty kitchen unhappily, and went to poke around in the fridge. “Did we ever get around to grocery shopping?” he asked.

Roy shrugged. “I don’t think so,” he said. “You lot went to look into the case, and patrol had a few more incidents than usual.” Seeing Dick opening his mouth, he added, “Yeah, yeah, it’s all in the reports.”

Dick smiled a little at that, and quickly plucked a chip out of Roy’s packet and popped it into his mouth. “Vic said you were making chilli,” he said around it.

Roy shrugged. “I was,” he said, “but then I realised we’re out of, like, literally everything.”

“Go shopping, then,” Dick heard himself say. “And make chilli. I'm hungry.”

He couldn’t even process Roy’s face, because there was a strange roaring in his ears, like waves crashing against a cliff wall. His fingers were gripping the edge of the kitchen countertop when he finally felt okay once again, though his knees gave out for a moment and he almost fell to the ground.

Roy was nowhere to be seen, but Dick couldn’t worry about that now, because he could feel his head spinning, and he knew that if he didn’t get something solid into his system now, it wouldn’t go away.

(Roy showed up half an hour and went straight to the kitchen, and another hour later, he was knocking on Dick’s door to give him a tray with freshly made chilli.)

Dick came to in the shower, slumped against the wall and his legs splayed out in front of him. Warm water rained down onto his knees, and he had to sit there for another moment or so before he realised that, firstly, he was in the shower, and secondly, he had absolutely no memory of ever getting here.

Had he sleepwalked? But he could see out the window, and there was daylight outside, though Dick was known to keeping odd hours, especially now that they were all working on Malcolms’ case.

There had been some minor breakthroughs with the tests they’d run on the man when they’d brought him into the Tower for a day, and the current theory (which was rather heavily backed up by Raven) was this.

There were no abnormalities – from the typical middle aged male of Malcolms' relative health and size – in him, but once they’d finally gotten him riled up again, back to that strange level of aggression that had gotten a story about him printed in the paper, there were traces of ilurium in his blood, which disappeared when he calmed back down. It was also strange that it reappeared in his blood sample – taken before angering him – once he reached that point again.

Raven thought it had something to do with possession. A creature that invaded the body and left something behind, as she described.

They’d done brain scans and other scans, to see if there was any physical trace, but so far nothing had come up. Wally and Vic had barely left the lab since.

There was a loud banging on the door. “Oi, Dick!” It was Gar. “You’ve been in there for like, an hour, man! Next time just take a dip in the fish pool.”

He let out a sharp yelp, and then another voice spoke: “Rob?” Garth said. “Are you still in there, or did someone hop the line?”

There were definitely other showers, Dick thought irritably, and Garth had his own pool. Dick knew they weren’t above breaking down the door if they didn’t get an answer soon; he called out, “I’m alive,” and his voice almost gave out before he finished the sentence. He almost smiled at the instant silence on the other end of the door, and then the hushed murmurs as the two of them conferred with one another.

That was when Dick tried to get up, and found that he couldn’t.

Don’t panic, he told himself firmly. His body was probably just feeling a rather extreme case of pins and needles, especially from being in the water for god knew how long. He couldn’t just jump to conclusions.

Staring down at his bare toes, Dick tried to wiggle them, and something in his gut unclenched when they obeyed. His ankles rolled when he wanted them to, though it took far more concentration than it should.

His knees wouldn’t work though. He didn’t know what he’d done while he’d been sleepwalking or whatever, but his knees refused to obey. Dick’s heart began pounding. Why weren’t his legs working the way he needed them to?

There were no more voices outside the door – Garth and Gar must’ve decided to leave him be, and Dick was mostly grateful for that. He didn’t know why, but he hated the thought of calling anyone in to help, though they’d all been in a situation like this at one point or another, was instantly dismissed by his mind.

It took him another hour to get back to his room, and his left leg took another hour to start functioning back to normal.

“You sure it’s them?” Dick yelled over the noise of what sounds like rocks being crushed.

“Of course I’m sure!” Donna yelled back. “Duck!”

Dick dodged behind an overturned car, just in time to avoid a toaster being flung right where his head had been a moment ago.

It was utter chaos in the streets. They’d dropped by to visit Mrs Malcolms and update her on news about her husband, when doors had flung open all on the street level, and people had ran outside. At first, Dick had thought there was a fire or something; he’d reached for his phone to call a fire brigade.

And then they’d begun destroying things. Whole cars and the like flung all over the place, at each other, but more so at himself, Donna, and Wally. From the windows, Dick could see the same occurring inside apartment buildings, fruit splattering against walls and windows shattering from objects being thrown at them.

“Why’re they so strong,” Wally moaned over the comms. “What the heck, man.”

Dick agreed. None of them had anticipated this, though they’d been quick to call in the Titans. He grappled up to one of the rooftops, to see if he could find some sort of centre to this mass mayhem, some kind of trigger or cause.

Dick’s heart sank when he reached the rooftop of the nearest apartment. From his vantage point there, it was clear that the problem was much more far-reaching than they’d originally thought – it had somehow spread to the next block or so, and Dick couldn’t quite see an end in sight.

“Nightwing,” Garth spoke, “anything?”

Dick shook his head. “It’s everywhere,” he said instead, hating that he couldn’t offer up any actual information. “I’m going to check out—”

“We have a problem,” Gar said with a high-pitched screech. “Maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else feel like they’re kinda… ganging up on you?”

Dick frowned, opening his mouth to tell Gar that it probably was just him, and that he hadn’t experienced anything of the like when he’d been on the street, but then he glanced at the street on the other side to where he’d been before, and blinked. Where civilians had once been thrashing about seemingly to just create as much mess as they could, they were now running towards something.

A hand grabbed Dick’s ankle, and pulled. Dick let out a yelp, falling backwards. His hands scrambled wildly to try and grip anything, but the rooftop was flat and his fingers kept slipping off the ends of the tiles. The person who had grabbed him was entirely average, even wearing a business suit and heels. Her eyes had no humanity left in them, lips pulled back in a harsh snarl as her eyes bore into Dick’s with a hatred that sent shivers down his spine.

And then she flung him through the air back out towards the open street. Dick instinctively curled up into a ball.

“’Wing?” Wally said. “Need me to catch you?”

“No,” Dick managed. “Think I got it.”

His grapple was in his hand, and he waited until his momentum had put him in just the right position from the wall of the building on the other side of the street before he shot his line. It sailed through the air, landing right where he wanted it to, and Dick felt that familiar tug as the rope pulled taut, and he was no longer falling, but flying.

Dick dropped back to the ground, right beside where Roy was fending off a mob of about ten. “You’re popular,” he said with a grin.

“I’ll take an angry mob of fans over being thrown through the air any day,” Roy returned, elbowing someone in the face. “What the fuck even happened with these?”

It never failed to amuse Dick when Roy cursed, because he very vividly remembered thinking the older boy was so very cool for using bad words, and looking back on it was just funny now, to think back on a time when all he’d wanted to do was to emulate Roy but in the least conspicuous way possible.

“No clue,” Dick said. He was getting sick of not knowing. He touched the comms unit in his ear and opened up the main channel. “Raven? Got anything?”

There was a sharp zapping sound from Raven’s end, which made Dick wince even as he ducked and dodged a meaty arm, neatly using his knee to knock them off their feet.

“There’s an energy force,” Raven said, “but it’s… in everyone.”

“So… possession?” Vic said.

Dick could practically see Raven grimacing. “Maybe. Something like that.”

“Is there a source?” Garth asked with a grunt. Something crashed over the comms, and Dick had no idea whose side it was on.

He and Roy were now back to back, trying to knock people out as harmlessly as they could, but it felt like the more they took down, the more people they were replaced by.

“I must check something,” Raven said, and then there was static from her end.

Alarmed, Dick opened his mouth to speak, to get someone’s eyes on Raven, when Donna said, “I got her, don’t worry. Her comm just fizzed out.”

“Note to self,” Roy muttered over his shoulder to Dick, “invent comms that don’t break when Raven uses magic.”

Dick didn’t feel very much like laughing, but he forced himself to, just to make both him and Roy feel better. “I’m going to drop a stun bomb,” he said. “Have one of your trick arrows ready to immobilise them when they’re confused.”

He paused only long enough to see Roy’s nod before Dick was swinging upwards, kicking off the arms that grabbed at his legs and waist. His vision was starting to go a little spotty; he must not have eaten enough today.

His landing was a little off, but there was no time to lose thinking about that. Dick waited until Roy was out of the target zone and dropped a stun bomb down into the mobs of people who were now clawing at the sides of the building. Some had already begun to climb up, leaping onto window ledges and grabbing balconies.

A hazy blue cloud shot up when it exploded, and Dick covered his nose with a hand even though there was no chance of the gas reaching him. Roy was wearing a mask over his face, arrow nocked and ready the moment the haze vanished just enough to see.

Dick crouched by the edge of the rooftop, ready to jump down and help Roy with clean up, when something leapt out of the blue cloud and tackled Roy to the ground. He went down with a muffled yelp, arrow flying out of his hand.

Dick barely even processed moving; one moment he was on the rooftop, the next he was landing beside Roy, pulling the figure off him. But they were strong, far stronger than the average human was, and Dick was on the ground before he knew it.

He kicked upwards with all his might, and that won him a pained grunt and the figure moving back just the slightest. But that was all Dick needed – he rolled to the side, manoeuvring around the man until his arms were around his throat, grip tightening until he felt the body go slack as he fell unconscious.

“You good?” Dick called to Roy.

“Never better,” Roy yelled back. Dick hid a grin at the grumpiness in Roy’s voice. “You gonna help me out or what?”

Dick didn’t bother with a response, leaping back into the fray. The gas had worked… to some degree: people were listing to the side, swaying even as they rushed towards Dick and Roy and tried to attack them. It was just the fact that there were so many of them.

That was when Dick felt both his knees fold beneath him, and he crumpled to the ground. Dick spun around, expecting to see someone having snuck up behind him and knocked him over, but there was no one.

But he couldn’t get up. His legs weren’t cooperating. It was just like in the shower, but so much worse, because now he was in the middle of a battle and his body wasn’t listening to him. Dick’s upper half fell backwards, and all he could see was the sky, so very far away above all the buildings.

Distantly, Dick heard someone shouting his name, but his mouth wouldn’t work and his vocal cords wouldn’t work and he thought that he should panic, but at that moment, two people realised he was down, and came at him.

And then Dick was thrust painfully into black unconsciousness.