Archive of Our Own

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It was dark when Dick came to. He couldn’t tell if he’d awoken by how utterly silent the world around him was, how deep the blackness of his eyelids went. Dick’s breathing picked up instantly, panic filling him as his eyes darted around, hoping for even the faintest pinpricks of light. Anything to indicate that that he was awake. That he was alive.

There was nothing. No end to the darkness. He couldn’t move his limbs, no matter how hard he tried. It felt as though he was stuck in place, paralysed into position like a statue. The fear would’ve overcome Dick, had it not been for the fact that he could still squeeze his muscles to some degree.

He was fine, he told himself. He just needed to relax, and figure out what was going on. The fact that he couldn’t even hear his own panicked inhales was something he would just have to ignore.

Dick tried to think of the last thing he remembered, but could only come up with the barest bones of patrol. The only thing he knew was that he had been on patrol, and he’d sent out a distress signal at some point when he’d been attacked. He’d hated to do it, even facing thirty odd goons, but he was confident enough in his abilities to know that he wasn’t going to get out of it in one piece, especially not when they’d used a sonic device to bring him to his knees.

Had his hearing been well and truly wrecked in that? Dick didn’t want to think about it. It was a problem he’d face once he got out of wherever the hell he currently was.

If he could feel the fact that he had limbs and a body, then he could sense things with said limbs and body. Dick tried to focus on his hands, the very tips of his fingers. He couldn’t tell if he was wearing gloves or not, but his arms were flat against a smooth surface.

Now that he’d pinpointed on that, he realised that whatever he was lying on was making his shoulder blades sore, at this point. Dick longed to shift around just a bit, and the moment he thought that, he began to feel an itch in his bones that told him that if he didn’t move now, he would go insane.

Stop it, he ordered himself even as the panic set in. There was no easy way for him to talk himself out of a panic attack if he fell in one now, and he couldn’t afford to give away to his captors that he was conscious. You’re fine. You’ll be fine.

Where were his feet? He moved his thoughts from his fingers to the ends of his feet, to his heels. He was definitely still wearing his Nightwing boots, because by now his heels would be complaining loudly if he weren’t. But there was an odd pressure around his calves and thighs that told Dick that perhaps he lying so much as… strapped to a wall.

He could feel the pull of gravity, the way it threatened to send him falling flat on his face or crumpling to the ground. There were bands holding him attached to whatever uncomfortable flat surface he was currently placed on. He didn’t know what that meant, not with his starfish position.

Dick felt a wave of gratitude at the universe for at least not having him hang by some lone limb, at the very least. He’d been in that position way too many times for comfort.

He was just about to start seeing if he could sniff out whatever strange smell that was, when he felt a wave of cool air on the bare part of his face. And it was only at that moment that Dick realised that he still had his mask on, and felt a second wave of relief.

He tensed instantly, straining his eyes to see if he could see something, anything. But there was nothing there, not even the faintest changes in light. Trying to open his mouth and force out a quip or two, or even an angry demand for answers, did no good. There was no moving his body, no crying out for help.

Something shot right past him, a thwip of not so much noise, but more… air displacement, sounding right beside Dick’s ear.

And then, red hot pain as it pierced his upper arm, stabbing right through. Dick would’ve screamed, had he been able to. It was only a stab or gunshot wound – surely he’d had worse – but something about the fact that it had been so unexpected, so out of the blue, made it hurt all the more.

He couldn’t find anything else to focus on to distract himself from the pain of his arm. There was only the abyss around him, and Dick was floating in it, writhing trapped in his own mind with no way to release some pain through physically expressing it.

Another thwip, and this time, even though Dick braced himself the moment he felt it, it was almost as bad as the first when the weapon embedded itself into Dick’s calf. Were his eyes watering? He would hate that. Dick squeezed them shut, only to realise that he’d never actually opened his eyelids. He couldn’t open his eyelids.

Dick lost time. He had no way of keeping track of it, except by keeping count, and that was impossible when he fell unconscious a couple of times.

Or so he thought. Unconsciousness was just the absence of pain for a moment that Dick had no memory of – there was no sensation of falling into a dark pit, so was he ever truly asleep? Dick just knew that his arms and legs hurt, and that he’d lost count of how many wounds he had when the number had passed beyond seven.

Was he dripping blood? Surely he’d be able to feel it on his flesh if there was blood leaking out of his body, feel the coldness on his bare skin if his suit was torn in places. But by this point, Dick could only tell pain, and nothing else. There was nothing else.

He could hear nothing, see nothing. The only things that were accompanying him were that terrible stench, and the bright hot pain that was now lighting up his whole body. He wanted to badly to scream, to be able to say something, at least, but he couldn’t.

Another thwip through the air, and this time Dick knew he was crying, could feel the water running down his face. He didn’t even know who his captors were, let alone what they wanted or why they were doing this.

But this time there was no pain. Or maybe Dick was in enough pain that he couldn’t tell when he’d been hurt again, because was another hole in his body when his whole body felt like Swiss cheese?

Something touched Dick’s face, and he instinctively went to flinch back, only to find that his body hadn’t moved. Something cold slithered down Dick’s spine when he realised that he was basically left at the whims of whoever was in charge here; he no longer had any power over his own body to control it or to protect himself. The best he could do was to slip away and try to not feel anything.

But the touch was soft, nothing at all like how the rest of Dick’s body felt. He felt it rubbing over his eyelids, and wanted to scream, but the touch didn’t do anything except gently dab at them. And then it moved to his ears, working a finger into each of them, to do what, Dick had no idea. It sure as hell wasn’t clearing them – he still couldn’t hear a thing.

And then he finally felt his body giving in to gravity’s relentless pull, and his head swooped as he felt his limp physical form fall a little bit of the way. And then he was caught, to his endless surprise. He was caught before he hit the ground and then he was gently picked up and cradled into someone’s arms.

Dick’s head lolled back, but whoever was holding him shifted his body until he fell against their shoulder. Or chest. Or arm. Dick had no idea what body part it was, but he could feel the harsh material of their exterior rubbing against his chin, and he knew exactly who it was. Dick could sleep now.

Dick dreaded waking once again, because what if he was still lost amidst that dark cloud? He didn’t know if he could handle that bubble again, not knowing when pain was coming and where it would strike, and not having the power to do anything about it. He would much rather stay hidden inside his own mind, waiting it out.

But there was a bright light shining somewhere, and Dick could hear something, somewhere. He couldn’t tell what it was, but it was there. The sound was shrill and loud, the sort of noise that truly hurt your ears if you were close enough to it, and it was familiar. Dick slept again.

The next time he woke up, it was tentative. He could remember the previous time, and it hadn’t been a bad experience, but who knew what this one would bring. Dick had woken up too many times to unknown circumstances to fully trust his surroundings.

Ears. That was the first thing he tried to figure out. Could he still hear, or had he been hallucinating the chittering of bats that last time? Dick strained his hearing as much as he possibly knew how, and… was that the whirring of computers he could hear? The sound of something beeping quietly? Was this all a figment of his imagination, to reassure him as he died quietly, or something to placate himself while he hid away from his true reality?

Eyes next. Dick would only know if he could open his eyes, or perhaps sit up and move at his own accord. But he couldn’t give it away too much.

There was definitely something bright nearby, because the light was penetrating through his eyelids. He tried to squeeze his eyes shut first, just to not give himself false hope. And then, when that worked, and the tight anxiety around his chest eased slightly, Dick tried to open his eyes.

Creaky was probably not the right word to describe it, but that was all Dick could scrounge up when he tried to get his eyelids to function properly. It was as though he had to re-oil an unused engine, like all the right parts were there but he’d half forgotten how to use them.

The corners of his eyes were crusty, and it stung when he tried to open them more. But he could see. Dick wanted to cry. He could still see. He could still hear. He was fine. He would be fine. This was nothing more than a tiny mishap that had occurred during patrol. Hell, he’d had much worse than an overnight stay at some sadistic villain’s torture dungeon.

His eyes watered at the bright lights when he tried to open them up once again, but now that Dick had done it once, he didn’t want to fade back into the darkness of the insides of his eyelids. He’d stared at them for far too long.

Fingers. He needed to move his fingers. That itch was starting up again – normally, it was from being still for a bit too long, but this time there was that added weight of not having been permitted to move, of having been stripped of control over his own body. Now that he could command it, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting out of this bed immediately.

His finger twitched, and Dick had to suck in a breath as he fought to control himself. A finger, and then another finger, and then his hand, and then Dick was squeezing his eyes shut as he moved an injured part of himself and the shockwaves washed over him.

Something must’ve been triggered, or perhaps someone had only just appeared near him, because he suddenly heard footsteps rushing towards him.

Dick instantly went still; he couldn’t see who it was, and his mind was telling him that it would only result in pain and he had to prepare for it. Dick sucked in a breath as his slight movement aggravated his body, but he didn’t make a sound.

“Dick?”

Dick’s eyes shot open – and when had they closed? When had he given them permission to close – to find that it was Bruce standing before him, a concerned look in his eyes. His whole body sagged, and he fought back the tears of relief that it wasn’t someone else, someone Dick wouldn’t recognise but who would recognise him because they’d stared at him for however long he’d been in their clutches, memorising his still, splayed form and working it over to their own pleasure.

Bruce was saying something, but Dick couldn’t even begin to process it over the roaring in his ears. He opened his mouth, his lips dry and cracked, and tried to say something, but all that came out was a harsh cough.

He truly hadn’t been expecting this – in all the time that Dick had been held captive (and he really needed to find out how long it was, exactly), he’d had bigger things to worry about than catching a cold. Now he wondered what would’ve happened had he tried to cough while his body had been unresponsive.

A large hand was rubbing up and down his back, spreading warmth through him that Dick hadn’t felt in… a rather long time. He hacked out what felt like his lungs, his stomach, and part of his lower intestine, before he slumped against the bedrail and Bruce’s muscly arm, spent from the taxing coughs.

The hand kept rubbing. “You’re alright now,” Bruce’s rumbling voice reassured him. “You’re in the Cave. We decided to keep you in here when you developed a cold.”

Dick opened his mouth again, but all that emerged was a croak. There was a tiny cup of water instantly before him.

“Can I….” Bruce asked, unable to finish the sentence. Dick was distantly glad – Bruce tended to make things like this incredibly awkward, and now wasn’t a time Dick could say something to get around the discomfort they both would’ve felt.

He settled for a small nod, trying his best to move his hands upwards to assist with the cup. His fingers were shaking like crazy from the effort. It felt as though he hadn’t moved in months. Bruce used another one of his arms to help steady Dick’s, so he could at least touch the cup.

The water was that perfect amount of heated up, where the hotness overrode the gross taste that warm water exuded. He could only swallow in small amounts, and his tongue was apparently only partly awake, but Dick managed to get down about half the cup before he moved his head back.

Bruce placed the cup on a small tray beside him, and gently removed his grip on Dick’s arm. Dick watched as it plopped to the bed, not having it in him to slow its descent.

“B,” he tried to say, and almost cried when it came out the way he intended. Bruce’s face probably reflected his own. “How long?”

This time the words were a bit more garbled, but Bruce seemed to understand, because he said, “They had you for about two days, but…” His expression turned dark before he schooled it, taking in a breath and continuing on. “Do you want to hear this now, or after you feel better?”

“Now.” Did he really? Dick didn’t think anyone particularly liked hearing about how they’d been tortured, but the questions would drive him crazy now that he was somewhat awake.

Bruce waited another few minutes as Dick coughed a little more. His stomach was roiling from only having consumed the few swallows of water a moment ago; when had he last eaten something solid? And then Bruce said, “One of Black Mask’s people got you. I don’t think she intended to, exactly. When we found you, you were… pinned to a giant dartboard, and they’d been throwing knives at you.”

Dick winced, and Bruce instantly stopped talking. Dick could imagine it all too clearly in the silence, however, and he pressed on, “Body?”

There was another moment of silence, and Dick glanced up at Bruce’s face to see what was taking the other man so long to speak up. Bruce’s jaw was clenched, and when he saw Dick looking at him, he glanced away for a moment. Dick watched as he brought himself back under control.

“You know of Black Mask’s cosmetic line?” When Dick nodded, Bruce continued, “His reach apparently extends to plastic surgery and skin care.” Dick couldn’t help himself; he smiled just the slightest at the thought of Black Mask of all people creating skin products. “He’s developed some new cream that numbs the area. It’s supposed to be an alternative to anaesthesia, but it’s still being workshopped. He used you as…”

“Guinea pig,” Dick said, not even feeling it as he spoke the words.

He just wished he could make a joke, or talk about how this was refreshing instead of being tortured for information, and maybe comment on how Damian would definitely use this to convince him to raid PETA’s labs. That would at least make this whole thing feel just the slightest more normal. But he was already finding it difficult to keep his eyes open, and he could feel his hold on his neck and head slipping.

Bruce’s hand was holding his head up. Dick didn’t remember when that had happened. “Injuries?” Dick asked; the last thing he needed to know.

Bruce looked at him for a moment. “Nineteen knife wounds, only three in critical areas. One to your torso. They removed all but the ones that hit your abdomen, and it was a wonder you didn’t bleed you. And a cold that Alfred thinks you had before they captured you, and according to him, you’re lucky you don’t have pneumonia. And the cream… we got you back yesterday morning, so it’s been about thirty-six hours now. I don’t think it’ll take very long to wear off, and Tim and I have been working on trying to find an antidote.” But there’s no way we’re testing that on you went unsaid.

Dick could only nod once. His eyelids were slipping. If he really had nineteen holes in his body, then there was definitely some sort of high strength pain medication he was on.

“Sleep now,” Bruce murmured. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Dick was shifted upstairs the next time he woke up, because apparently being in a damp cave was doing nothing for his cold. He could feel the difference – no matter how much heating they put into the Cave, and in particular, the medbay, it didn’t change the fact that the very air was cold and wet.

He slept for the better part of a day – that he knew of, that was – and then when he woke up, he was back there again, with no sight and no sound and no movement, and that bitter, bitter smell in his nose.

Dick stopped breathing, but he also wheezed in as much air as he could as he fought hard not to panic. He didn’t know what was real anymore – he’d thought he was out, that he was free from them and their dartboard and the knives and their everlasting, unexpected pain. But that had all been a fever dream, clearly, because how else would this come about now?

He couldn’t move his limbs anymore, couldn’t open his eyes or hear a single sound. There was only the horrible waiting before the inevitable struck him. Dick could handle many things, but he was so very tired of not being able to fight back. He needed that, needed to be able to stand up once again after he’d been knocked down, whether that was with his fists and a swift kick, or if it was through a cheeky comment at his opponent. This nothingness was the true torture.

He was going to die in this darkness and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw a single breath of air into his lungs. He was gasping – hadn’t this been exactly what he’d been trying to avoid, what he’d already told himself that it’d be near impossible to pull out of if he fell into? He had nothing to grasp onto, no solid anchors to catch a hold of—

Something thumped his back, and Dick’s lungs automatically expelled the air they had left in them, and drew in a sharp one. There was something squeezing his hand tight; when had that happened?

“Breathe, dammit,” a voice commanded.

It’s not that fucking simple, Dick wanted to yell back, but he was coughing harder than he could ever remember coughing. It was a wonder his tongue didn’t fall out of his mouth. He wheezed in desperate breaths, short gasps in between coughs. He was shaking all of a sudden, his whole body cold and hot all at the same time.

When he blinked – for he could blink! had he always had the ability to do that? – he found himself in his room at the Manor, sitting upright in bed, hunched over. He was leaning heavily against someone – Bruce, by the way the grip was familiar and steady, how it was practised and not panicked at the sight of Dick’s predicament.

Actually, had it not been for the solid shape beside him, Dick was sure he wouldn’t have been able to sit upright. He was tired, so very tired, and it wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling this time. Panic attacks had always left him feeling utterly, utterly drained; what his body would do now was lie as still as the dead, but he didn’t want that, because Bruce placing him back down would mean Bruce leaving, and if Dick was left alone with his thoughts, he might just fall back into that blackness again.

“Alright?” Bruce murmured. It took a moment for Dick to realise that Bruce didn’t intend for him to respond. “You’re doing great. Keep breathing for me, there’s a lad. I’m going to lie you back down now, alright? I’ll be right here—”

Dick gagged. He didn’t know what it was, but somewhere, there was that smell. He had barely noticed it when he’d been captured, but now that scent brought him right back to it. “B, I think it’s still on me,” he wheezed out, trying to keep from truly gagging and breathing through his nose.

“The cream? It’s not on you – we wiped your skin down thoroughly…” Bruce frowned, his voice trailing off. Dick knew what that sort of a tone meant; he’d realised something. “Dick, this might be a bit awful, but hold onto me. I’m going to bring this container of Vicks Vaporub closer to your nose, alright?”

Dick forced his eyes to open up, curling his fingers around Bruce’s jumper when the other man’s arm vanished for a moment. He watched as Bruce slowly brought the little tub closer, and he realised that he would have to stop breathing through his mouth.

The first inhale he took almost sent him right back over the edge once more, and it was only from Bruce hurriedly shoving a chapstick under his nose that he clung to the room he was in. He inhaled a sickly sweet, artificial strawberry scent, and told himself he was an idiot.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce murmured. “We spread Vick’s on you a few hours ago. It must’ve triggered you in your sleep. I’ll see if there’s a different scented one in the house, or we can find some alternative.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Dick said in a hushed voice. “B, don’t make me sleep.”

Bruce’s hand trailed through his hair, unexpectedly tender. When was the last time he’d done that to Dick? Surely not anytime recently, not when Dick was awake for it. He wondered just how bad he’d looked when they’d found him, for Bruce to be expressing such blatant comfort.

“I’ll stay right here,” Bruce promised. He glanced around, and picked up a book from the nightstand.

Dick had no idea what story it was – he hadn’t stayed overnight at the Manor in ages, so anything he’d been reading then he’d well and truly purged from his memory by now – but it didn’t matter. It was the sound of something in the background, something soothing and familiar and safe, that made it okay for Dick to drift off.

BONUS:

“Shh, you turd, you’ll wake him,” a voice hissed. And then, almost immediately, there was a thump, and a quiet hiss of pain.

“That,” another voice whispered smugly, “is for name-calling.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Now you’ll be the one to wake him.”

There was no other sound for the briefest of moments, and Dick had almost drifted off once more when he registered the low creak of one of the floorboards, and he stirred just enough to catch the soft pad of footsteps as they came closer.

If it hadn’t been for the hissed conversation that followed them, he might’ve woken up more to make sure it wasn’t another band of Black Mask’s goons, here to reclaim their test subject.

“See, he’s still sleeping,” proclaimed one of them triumphantly.

“No thanks to you.”

“Keep that up and I’ll take the nice side of the bed.”

Dick wondered very distantly which side was the ‘nice’ side, and why he wasn’t apparently on it, it if was free for the claiming.

Then the mattress tipped, and Dick could feel two tiny forms wiggling around trying to find good spots around him. He opened his eyelids the tiniest of fractions, and spotted Damian in a giant hoodie, the hood over his head, settling on his left. He lay on his stomach, and got some kind of gaming device out that Dick could only vaguely make out from the corner of his eye.

There was more shuffling on his other side, and Dick almost blinked in surprise at the sight of Tim, also in a hoodie and with a Nintendo switch in his hand. As he watched, the two of them bracketed his sides, their warmth seeping into Dick’s cold figure, each oblivious that Dick had very much woken up with all of the commotion. Dick’s eyes slipped shut only moments later, content in being surrounded by his brothers.