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Scarecrow. He knows. He can see the bastard clear in his mind, but everything else is hazy. He can't think. He can't. He's sluggish and tired, his eyes are so heavy. Scarecrow. Everything is jumbled and he doesn't know where he is anymore. He remembers Arkham Tower but he can't recall why he'd been there to begin with. He swallows thickly, closing his eyes and trying to sift through the uncertainty but there's only the dull thrum of panic buzzing beneath his skin. It's familiar in a way that makes the sensation worse, his mind screaming danger! into his ear, but for the life of him he can't remember why.
He feels something latch onto the back of his uniform, dragging him across the floor, and he loathes to be pliant in its clutches but his vision is shrouded in shadow and his body is frozen still. His autonomy has turned to sand in his hands, slipping through his fingers no matter how hard he grapples for it. He's helpless as he's manhandled, maneuvered in this creature's grasp. The panic flares, his heart stutters beneath his ribs. Danger! Danger! Danger!
"Do you remember me, Nightwing?" Scarecrow. He knew. He remembered pieces, a flash, the prick of five needles plunging deep into chest. He remembers but it's out of reach, his fingers just barely brushing against the memory. Scarecrow. He pries his eyes open as much as he can manage and his vision zeroes in on the haunting image before him. Scarecrow. Shadows danced along his shoulders and crept closer, liquid darkness begging to swallow him whole. The only thing keeping the shadows at bay the mutilated figure of Scarecrow, his face a massacre of burlap, straw, and decaying flesh glowing with the power of fear. He knows. Fear toxin, he knows. The panic still rages, a desperate bird trapped in a too-small cage.
There's wind in his hair. There shouldn't be. They were inside. He's dangling but he can't see past the dark. He doesn't know where he is.
"Can you hear me, hero?" Scarecrow's voice, distorted, echoes in the fog that clouds Nightwing's mind. He can. He doesn't want to. He hates how sluggish his mind and body are. He hates how confused and lost he feels, unable to collect his thoughts. He hates this incoherence. His mind is slipping. "Do you feel it?" His head tips down, eyes still cracked open. A soft groan pries itself unbidden from his lips. The blurry view of Gotham's streets blurs, morphs, twists into something not real but just as achingly familiar. "The fear?" The center ring looks up at him, the drop far higher than it should have been, but it's there and the panic turns to something inconsolable. His heart leaps into his throat and his hands spasm against their restraints in a feral desire to escape.
The circus stretches and lurches around him, swirling into something uncanny and impossible, the whole big top circling in around the center ring and the impossible drop. "Goodbye, Nightwing." And then the creature holding him up lets go.
He's falling, the swoop in his gut no longer an adrenaline rush but a primal fear his body still can't respond to. He tries instinctively to pull against his restraints and slow his descent towards the circus floor suddenly smeared in red but his limbs don't respond. There are creatures in the bleachers, hulking beasts with white masks and golden eyes that are awaiting his impending splat. They're screeching a horrible imitation of laughter as he plummets.
He jerks in midair, something stopping his fall and leaving him hanging hopelessly. It lasts only a moment before his reprieve is ripped from his hands and he's sent tumbling gracelessly through the air again. Is this how he goes? Destined to follow in his parents' footsteps? Destined to fall? He feels sick, tears burning his half-lidded eyes behind the mask. He can't breathe, he can't see, the circus lights dance along his blurred vision and he wonders what people will think. Will they laugh at the irony of the Falling Grayson?
Suddenly something slams into his stomach and knocks what little breath he has left from his lungs. He wheezes, coughs, but eagerly curls up against the floor as he's set down and saved from his demise. There are hands on his shoulders, his restraints falling slack in one swift movement, he'd try to squirm away if he could get his limbs to cooperate but he's still a prisoner to his own body. The shadows flicker, allowing him a glimpse of the beast in front of him. It's distorted and broken, flashes of glowing eyes and fangs and danger! danger! danger! but he's just as helpless as he has been. The hands on his shoulders shake him not ungently, "Nightwing," the beast growls, demands. No, no, Nightwing's mind pleads. Let him fall. The fall would be quick.
"Nightwing," A new voice, sounding just as urgent and pained as he feels, "Nightwing, focus," The voice pleads. Barbara. Barbara is desperate.
"Dick," The beast growls but this time it's far more familiar and some of the panic ebbs away, bleeding out of his body as the shadows recede enough for him to see a flash of the cowl. Batman. Bruce. He knows. He always knows. Batman always comes. Even if he's too late, he always comes. There's a prick in his arm and the fear surges anew, his eyes widening as much as they could in his state. One of the hands reaches up and cards through his hair, "It's okay," Bruce's voice is a comforting rumble. Even when they fight, and scream, and punches are thrown. Dick will always feel of sense of warmth from the gravelly tone of the Batman.
Bruce wouldn't lie to him. Not about this. Bruce is here. Barbara is a soothing hum in his ear. His body won't respond to him, his mind is a jumbled fog, he doesn't know where he is. But Bruce is here. His eyes flutter shut and he lets go. Bruce will catch him.