Work Text:
Bruce’s eyes are burning. He’s been staring at the computer for the last hour and processing, if he wants to be charitable, maybe every other sentence in the file he’s reading. He should go to sleep. He wants to go to sleep, but his case isn’t going to sleep, so he merely rubs his eyes and keeps reading. A few more minutes of reading the same sentence and a quiet snore cuts through the ambience of the Cave. Bruce turns his head to the side.
Dick is crashed out in the chair next to him, cheek smushed up against the arm of the chair. Bruce’s expression softens and he reaches out to brush Dick’s hair back from his head. He looks peaceful in sleep, a far cry from the chaos that was their patrol earlier tonight. The touch makes him stir a little and Bruce pulls his hand back and Dick settles again. Bruce doesn’t know when his little boy turned into a teenager, but it’s probably also the last time he had a full night of sleep. Dick only being half the cause of his wakeful nights. The other half being Gotham. He looks back to the computer. It’s always been Gotham.
He sighs and closes the file. He needs to change out of the suit and take Dick upstairs so his kid can sleep in a proper bed. Then he needs to try and get some rest himself. If he stays up any longer he’s going to start seeing things. He takes a deep breath and gathers the strength to stand up, sore muscles aching as he does, when an alert sounds through the Cave. The beeping cuts straight through his head and he hits a button on the keyboard to silence it. He feels the distinctly childish urge to stamp his feet. He’s so tired. But Gotham is still wide awake. He spares another glance to Dick, unaffected by the alert, and says a silent apology before pulling the cowl back on.
Time to go.
The police are already at the warehouse when he arrives. The mass of cop cars sit in a semicircle in front of the building. There are officers standing behind each open door, guns at the ready. The blue and red lights slice through the darkness of the night. All of the civilians in the area must have left when the standoff started. Bruce can’t blame them, but it makes everything unusually quiet. The only sounds are coming from the motors of the police cruisers and Commissioner Gordon yelling into a megaphone that the building is surrounded. Bruce turns away from watching them at the edge of the roof and walks over to the skylight. He crouches down.
Inside is chaos. Scarecrow and his workers are running from place to place with equipment and boxes, frantically trying to pack away whatever lab Scarecrow had built before he’d been found out. Bruce sees one man with a box of syringes before it gets set down and taped up by another person so the one who’d been carrying the box can go grab something else. Bruce makes those boxes his target. He needs to make sure none of them leave the warehouse and if he can get his hands on a sample, all the better. He pulls his attention from the packing to the six armed henchmen with their guns pointed toward the front of the warehouse. He smirks. After all this time, they still never check the roof.
He stands, pushing through the fatigue and the dizziness that comes with it, and drops through the skylight. It takes a precious moment for the henchmen to react. Bruce uses it to drop a handful of smoke pellets. He shoots a grapple to slow his descent. The gunfire starts a second later. They’re still shooting upwards when he lands on the main floor. He slams two of them together. They’re heads hit each other with a thud that Bruce is sure they’ll feel when they wake up. They slump to the ground. He takes another’s gun right out of their hands, disarming it before sweeping their legs out from under them. He drops the gun.
Bullets are flying in all directions now. He throws down another set of smoke bombs and backs out of the fray. He takes a quick survey of the room. Scarecrow and the others who had been packing had booked it when he’d dropped in. Bruce grits his teeth. He doesn’t see them anywhere now. No sight of Scarecrow either. He wants to go and look for him. Follow a possible escape route, but the gunmen take priority. He joins the fight again. The remaining three are easy to take down. He leaves them, unconscious, for the police - who definitely heard the gunfire and will be moving in soon.
A look around the room shows him that the boxes are gone. He curses under his breath and walks to where they were. There’s nothing, not even a stray syringe. He kneels down, tapping the side of the cowl to scan the ground for any residue. The scans come back negative and he stands again, ready to go consult with Gordon when something sharp stabs into the back of his neck. He spins around, ready to attack and finds Scarecrow behind him, the burlap mask already morphing into something grotesque. He tries to push through the fear.
It doesn’t work.
He swings, acting more on instinct than anything. Scarecrow sidesteps him with ease and sticks his foot out as he gets out of the way. Bruce, already moving forward from the punch, stumbles over the foot and falls to the ground. The spot on his neck where he was injected is starting to burn. He tries to push himself up. Scarecrow puts his foot on Bruce’s pack and keeps him down with pitiful ease.
“Do you like the new formula, Batman?”
Scarecrow’s voice is everywhere. Bruce shuts his eyes against it and tries to breathe. The adrenaline for the fight only makes the toxin act faster. Every nerve ending feels like it’s on fire. The tiredness from earlier doesn’t help either. His body isn’t in a state to try and push past this. He tries to get up again. No dice, just a laugh from Scarecrow above him. It echoes in his head, bouncing uncomfortably around his skull.
“It acts much faster than before. Within the next few minutes the delirium will truly set in. After that, your condition will worsen until your heart exhausts itself and you die. Do enjoy yourself.”
The tone is almost jovial and it makes Bruce’s skin crawl. The pressure moves off his back as Scarecrow walks away. Bruce doesn’t know how long it’s been since he was injected. It seems like hours and minutes and days and seconds all at once. He turns himself onto his back with great effort. His fingers reach for the emergency beacon on his belt, but he’s not even sure he hits it. Reality is starting to fade away, the warehouse and awareness of his body going with it.
Next thing he knows, he’s in a well. He doesn’t have to look around to know what well. It’s dank and damp and dark. There are broken pieces of wood around him. The light from the sky above is but a pinprick above him. He only has a second to register those things before hundreds of Bats, more than could ever feasibly live in the space, fly right towards him. They screech and dive. Their bodies brush against him. They scratch and claw at his clothes and skin. He puts his arms up with a shout, trying to ward them off. The effort is futile, but it doesn’t matter because just as soon as the onslaught starts, it stops. He drops his arms at the silence and looks around. He recognizes the surroundings instantly. Crime Alley. He doesn’t see his parents, but he hears the gunshots and the screams. But instead of their bodies laying on the ground, it’s his own. Dick is knelt next to him, sobbing, begging him to wake up.
“I’m here,” he tries. “I’m here!”
The words are caught in his throat. The most that comes out is a strangled whisper. He tries to inhale, but can’t. Panic sets in and suddenly he’s in the bay. His cape is too heavy. His fingers won’t work with him to unclasp it. He keeps trying anyway. Still, it drags him down, down, down until there’s nothing left.
Sensations trickle in before anything else. He feels sterile air against his skin. Light filters in through his eyelids. The drip of an IV and the steady beep of a heart monitor reaches his ears. It feels like a hospital. Smells like one too. He can’t feel the weight of the cowl on his head. He takes a breath that catches in his throat. After everything he can’t handle being unmasked to the public on top of it. He forces himself to open his eyes, even though the effort feels monumental. There’s a brief moment where his fear spikes, the heart monitor picking up pace with it, but then he processes the familiar sight of the Batcave infirmary. He calms, relaxing into the bed beneath him and closes his eyes again.
He’s home and he’s safe. He’s not dying or drowning. He’s okay. Evidently, he must have been able to hit his emergency beacon before the hallucinations really took hold. Alfred and Leslie mostly likely synthesized an antidote. He’ll need to look over the data for that at some point so he can make new antidotes to keep in his and Dick’s utility belts and the Cave. He’ll also need to follow up on the boxes of toxin that went missing. For now though, he just breathes. He’s safe. He’s home. He’s okay.
A few minutes later he hears a curtain being pulled back. Bruce opens his eyes and meets Dick’s gaze. His face is a mixture of relief and concern and he walks over to the bed quickly and hugs Bruce as best he can. Bruce’s hand finds the back of Dick’s head and holds him close. Dick doesn’t pull away for a long while. When he finally does, his eyes are a little shiny.
“You scared us,” he says.
Bruce reaches out and grabs his hand. He squeezes it gently. “I know, I’m sorry.” His voice is rough from disuse and his apology doesn’t at all capture the true regret he feels for scaring his son.
Dick nods sharply, but Bruce can tell that he’s still upset. He squeezes his hand again. He rubs a thumb over Dick’s knuckles. “How long was I out?”
“Twelve hours or so. Alfred has the exact time written down. A report of the situation has been written down. Obviously you’ll have to add your account of things, but we figured you’d want us to write what happened while you were out.”
Bruce hums and pulls Dick back in for another hug. It’s not like him to be the tactile one, but the events that played out while he was under the influence of the fear toxin are still fresh on his mind. “Thanks for coming to my rescue, kiddo.”
Dick’s laugh is muffled against his shoulder and it’s a great sound to hear after the horrible time he’s had. Even if he’s confused about why Dick is laughing. “That wasn’t me. You gave a beacon to Selina remember? She says you owe her something shiny.”
He can’t help his own laugh. Of course she does. Well, it’s the least he can do when she got him back to the Cave in time. Back in time to breathe another day. Back in time to hug his son. Yeah. He can definitely get her something shiny.