Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dick was covered in blood.

He didn’t remember where it had come from.

“What—“ he rasped, trying to get an elbow under him, blocked by—was he—was he lying on someone’s lap?

He needed to get up, he had to figure out where he was, and he pushed against the arm bracketing him down.

“Shit.” He heard from above him. “Dick, you’re okay.”

He had to figure out where the blood was from, if someone was hurt, he couldn’t—he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here.

“Fuck,” the voice said, as something shifted to hold him more firmly. “Dick, calm down .”

Dick didn’t want to be restrained, he wanted to get up , he needed to see what was around him, he needed to clear his head, he couldn’t—he couldn’t think .

His fist connected with something, there was more swearing, and he had a moment of freedom before both his wrists were trapped in an iron grip.

Whoever had him really should have considered his legs.

“ Fuck .” They spat when his foot made contact with something solid.

They didn’t release his wrists.

“Hurry the fuck up, he’s gonna hurt himself if we keep going like this.”

Another voice chimed in, “Or he’s gonna fuck you up.”

“I just got him to stop bleeding, and he definitely fucked up the clot with that kick. Drive. Faster.”

Someone was bleeding?

“Leave it to you, Dickface, to somehow be more of a menace when you’ve been shot.” mumbled the person above him.

Something shifted his whole body—it felt a little odd to be manhandled so easily—to pull him back against what felt like body armor, legs in their own protective gear bracketing and carefully trapping his own. His wrists were still captive, pressed against his chest, though his captor had moved their grip up his forearms to spare the joints.

They’d said—he’d been shot? He didn’t remember—oh. There were two points of agony on his body, burning and aching and stabbing all at once. He…wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed.

And, now that he was remarking on things…

The world was swirling oddly around him, tinted green, moving and shifting in a nauseating light show.

“S’mthing’s wrong.” He grated out.

The person keeping him trapped held on a little more tightly. “You’re okay. We’re in the Batmobile. You got shot, but we’re gonna go patch you up, okay?”

Dick shook his head and the grip got a little tighter. “Think ‘m drugged. ‘S wrong .”

It was a risk to share that with his captor—with—but part of him felt like he was supposed to trust them. Though that could be part of the drug’s effects as well, now that he came to think about it.

The body behind him went tense, and there was swearing from the voice in what must be the front seat.

Dick should be calming down, some. He…almost recognized the voices around him, they’d said he was in the Batmobile, they knew his name.

Logically, all of this should be reassuring information. His heartrate shouldn’t just be ratcheting higher, he shouldn’t be struggling to control his breathing, he shouldn’t be shaking like he was going to fall out of his skin.

Unless.

Deathstroke knew his name. Slade would think it was funny to drug him and haul him off, would sneeringly compare his vehicle of the week to the Batmobile.

He tensed, and heard another low curse from behind him, grip turning to concrete around his limbs as he tried to maneuver free, twisting and pulling.

“Dick— Dick , you’re fine. We’re fine. You’re okay, you’re okay—” Whoever was holding him had started a litany of mumbled reassurances, which wasn’t very Slade-like, but— he couldn’t— everything felt so off, and he just wanted—needed—he needed to figure out what was happening.

The struggling was getting kind of exhausting, for some reason. It was never fun to be trapped, to throw yourself against restraints that wouldn’t give, but he usually had more stamina than this—It had only been a few seconds, and he was heaving huge, gasping breaths—

He slumped into his captor’s hold. Maybe—he could fake them out. He certainly wasn’t making any progress against their fucking iron-bound grip.

The voice from aside—ahead? The one that wasn’t holding him—was mid-rant.

“—should never have fucking believed him, ‘Oh, it was just some goon, Red, we can keep going—‘ I’m gonna kill him. We’re gonna get to the Cave, patch him up, and then I’ll kill him.”

There were creeping figures at the edges of Dick’s vision, and the person holding him kept blurring into different people—orange and black masked, then all leather, then a younger, smaller figure whose green domino dripped blood—

Oh. Dick was hallucinating again.

He groped for the memories leading up to this—anything at all—the effort like fumbling in the dark after an escrima stick, hoping it hadn’t rolled too far—

Nothing.

“—think he was already hit before he got shot?” The chest behind him was rumbling again as its owner spoke—it would be kind of soothing if every new sensation didn’t jolt him into a startle response.

Someone—someone got shot?

Pain flared in a streak across his back and in a fiery set of points through his side—right. Right. They were—probably talking about him.

It would be nice if he could focus enough to understand what they were saying.

“—on the bullets? They were—“

There were whispers, now, just at the edge of inaudible, creeping up on his senses and fading away when he tried to turn his attention on them.

“— hate Gotham, we weren’t even up against—“

Hallucinating. He was—he’d seen—he was hallucinating. There was nothing to listen to. Probably.

And the person holding him had been careful—as gentle as it was possible to be while holding someone hard enough to keep them from thrashing. He’d bruise, but they weren’t squeezing unnecessarily into the freshly tender flesh along his forearms, and they seemed to be trying to avoid the (horrible) points of—he moved a little, shifting just wrong and pushing the scorching streak along his back into protruding body armor.

He was promptly rearranged. “Fucking—quit it, dumbass.”

Okay, so, definitely intentionally trying not to hurt him.

That didn’t rule out all of his enemies, but it was a good sign.

He took a deep, shaky breath, trying to reduce his heart rate a little.

They didn’t particularly want to hurt him. But something still felt off—they were in a car, taking him somewhere—his instincts were usually a good warning sign that something was about to happen, and the wrongness was itching at him—

“—can’t give him an antidote, dumbass—“

“We’ve got a whole stock in here, douchebag—“

He was still mostly in body armor, mask in place, so he hadn’t given away his identity by fighting; that was something.

“It’d tank his blood pressure—“

He went still, and his captor cut off mid-sentence. “Dick?”

The arguing had been—almost familiar, almost soothing, but something was missing.

“Where’s Robin.” He hadn’t heard Damian’s voice this entire time. His own voice was sounding—abused. Like he’d been screaming.

“ Fuck ,” his captor said again, with feeling. “Damian’s back at the cave already, Leslie patched him up—“

Dick’s heart had already been pounding, but now his veins were buzzing with energy, with anxiety—was this why everything felt wrong? Why was Dami— who had—where—

Why did they know Damian’s name?

(What had happened, that Damian needed to be patched up?)

He was hyperventilating properly now, and his captor had shifted his hold to try to calm him.

“—n‘s all right, I promise, you’ve gotta breathe, man—“

The hold had shifted just enough to break .

“ Shit .”

Dick was scrambling across leather now, fumbling for a door—it was dragged shut by wind, and he braced himself against the seat back to push it open again—

“SHIT—“

He was grabbed from behind, and got a good elbow into his captor’s face.

“Fucking—quit—trying—“

The world was swaying sideways, or the vehicle was turning sharply.

“Tim, if you fucking pull over and he escapes—“

Tim—Tim might need him too—God, had he forgotten—he’d never forgive himself if Tim had needed him and he’d just—

“Do you want him to throw himself out of a moving car?”

“I want him in the Batcave, where we can get some fucking fluids in him—“

The car, or the world, swerved the opposite direction, ramming Dick into someone’s leg—his elbow glanced off body armor and he was swiftly restrained.

A little, keening sound escaped him—he wanted to go help his brothers, what if he was too late, even if these people meant well they were stopping him from going to them—

“Oh, God damn it—“

Dick was bleeding.

There was a hand pressing against his side, hard, and Dick was suddenly very aware that something had torn up the muscle there—

The world got very distant, and he was vaguely appreciative of the fact that he would be in quite a bit of pain right now if his brain was working correctly. Small mercies.

That said, the amount he was feeling wasn’t… ideal, exactly, and it certainly wasn’t helping him focus, either—

He was suddenly aware that he’d gone rigid for a moment, head pressing uncomfortably back into body armor.

Dick’s wrists were held in one hand, and he could probably escape again if he wanted to, but everything was going kind of dizzy on him. He wasn’t quite sure if he’d be able to move as far as he’d like.

The edges of his vision were going a bit fuzzy, actually.

“Fucking—hell, well at least he’s not fighting me anymore—“

“—still think we should give him the antidote—“

“—literally just passed out again from blood loss, I’m not—“ the world blurred, “—lower his heart rate—“

Everything went black.

Chapter Text

Dick woke with a jolt.

He was being held by someone—there was a distinct sense of deceleration, like someone was skidding to a stop.

Was he—was Wally here?

No, the grip felt less like a friendly ride and more like a caution not to move, like it was waiting to hold him down.

There was an overwhelming sensation of deja vu, but he couldn’t quite—he wasn’t sure what had happened before he’d fallen asleep, it was all sort of muddled and disorganized.

He knew he didn’t want to be restrained. His skin was crawling, his muscles begging for movement, and it was taking more self-control than he’d have liked to keep feigning unconsciousness.

He wasn’t sure how long the charade would last; he was getting progressively worse at controlling his breathing, and eventually it was going to be noticed.

His captor’s grip shifted, loosening as he heard the clunk of a door handle unlatching—

And, well. What kind of vigilante would Dick be if he didn’t take advantage of an opening like that?

People never did expect to be hit by Dick’s legs, so he was surprised to be blocked; not surprised enough not to follow up with an elbow to the solar plexus and a graceless scramble through the door, but impressed nonetheless.

He was balanced on the balls of his feet a good distance from the car in seconds, steadfastly ignoring the way he was wavering in place.

(He was also ignoring the…bandages? Where was the top half of his suit? What had—)

There was a loud stream of curses in the direction he’d come from, and he got into a defensive stance, ready to fight or flee as needed.

He most definitely did not feel like he was about to fall over.

He was—his surroundings kept changing on him, dizzying and incomprehensible—it was like being stuck in one of those insufferable dreams, where no matter what move you made you couldn’t make any progress.

He didn’t—

There was an achingly familiar tutting sound to his right, and he snapped his head toward it—only to completely forget anything else he’d been worrying about, dropping to his knees in front of the small figure that had to be Robin.

The flare of pain through his back and side at the movement wasn’t helpful, but it didn’t matter.

He was busy marshalling horror, reaching out to cradle a small, black-haired head, to assess, to do something—

Robin was saying something.

He should be listening.

But.

Damian was bleeding. Damian was bleeding and he didn’t know where it was coming from—he ran frantic hands through hair, down the suit, vaguely registering exasperated noises coming from the kid, but not feeling any—

He paused, one hand in fluffy hair.

…Fluffy?

It should be caked down with gore, with the kind of blood that had long since dried, like his parents’ bodies by the time the police had finished—

No, back up. It was fluffy. Soft. He couldn’t feel the blood he’d seen.

Damian was talking again, he was pretty sure, “—‘m perfectly well, you idiot—“

One of Dick’s hands continued to roam, and caught on the slightly tacky surface of a new fiberglass cast. His view of Damian changed, again, offering new horrors, new deathly injuries, but he did his best to hold Damian’s gaze with just a smidge of Batman’s judgement.

“—arm broke, yes, but it’s already set—“ it was remarkable how much exasperation the pre-teen could pack into even the shortest of phrases.

(His brain was very helpfully suggesting a montage of Damian falling, Damian dying, Damian too far to catch—)

Hang on.

Had he—was he fear toxined again?

Fuck’s sake.

It couldn’t even be that strong a dose, given the way the hallucinations were shifting, refusing to settle and grow immersive.

Normally he’d power through a dose like this, if it hit once he’d made it home—it was almost refreshing, some nights, to have a clear source to blame the incessant worrying on.

(Of course, powering through fear toxin required the knowledge that he was on fear toxin—and they hadn’t been up against Scarecrow tonight.

He was…53% sure of it.)

His train of thought was interrupted by Damian gently disentangling his hand from his hair—there was no exposed bone in the space left behind, he’d just felt it, it was silly to doubt it so quickly—and pulling him stolidly across the room.

He was pushed unceremoniously onto a hard, uncomfortable surface that had to be a fucking medbay cot. He was unfortunately, profoundly familiar, regardless of what his other senses were telling him.

“—ichard, we just have to place an IV—“

That—that made sense, he was vaguely suspicious that he might have been shot—

One IV catheter slid home, adhesive smoothed quickly into place before he snatched his arm back. He needed—he wanted to be in control, and he wasn’t, right now.

Someone reached, slowly, for his other arm.

“You don’t have to… major trauma protocol me.” Dick’s voice came out hoarse but steady, and he did his best to offer his arm. It was kind of difficult to be sure it was going the right direction, at the moment.

“You got very shot and bled all over the Batmobile, forgive me for being cautious.”

It was hard to watch the needle with the creeping threats he could feel just over his shoulder, but he needed to know when it went through skin, he couldn’t be surprised right now—

The second IV slid home, and he gave in to the need to check over his shoulder, to scan the room for threats.

There were flickering, hard to decipher figures in every shadow, watching and waiting.

Dick’s hands itched for a weapon, for his escrima sticks or wingdings or a fucking kitchen knife—

Fear toxined. He was fear toxined and probably—apparently—shot. He really shouldn’t be allowed a weapon right now.

There was a salty tang at the back of his throat that suggested someone was running fluids, and a small body was clambering up onto the cot beside him.

It was…probably pretty late, right? “You should—go to bed.”

The small figure next to him made another tutting noise and settled into his uninjured side, and Dick couldn’t quite help but settle his hand back into its hair. Still fluffy. Not hard and tacky with blood.

There was someone else standing awkwardly nearby, like they’d finished working on something and didn’t know what to do now that they were out of tasks. Their features kept shifting.

“—didn’t have to shield me from the bullets, God, I could’ve handled it—“ there was a distressed edge to their muttering, and Dick felt kind of bad for them. Someone should tell off the jerk who’d upset them, honestly.

He offered them a silent invitation for a hug, and got a huffed, wet sounding laugh in response. “—still gotta stitch you up, Dick, we can’t just cuddle.”

Dick thought that sounded kind of dumb. He wasn’t allowed to fight any of the things he was seeing, so he should at least be getting cuddles out of this.

(Maybe it would help chill out the creeping sensation that he was missing something, that he was too late to—that he couldn’t protect—that he wasn’t safe .)

There was a scuff from behind him—he tensed, hunching instinctively to cover the small body at his side, tucking a small head under his chin and bracing for an attack—hissed slightly as he felt the wound along his back reopen—and blinked as he was thwacked in the chest by a small, admonishing hand. “—that! Get off me—“

Dick straightened slightly, then let the small hands push him upright.

“—just Todd, you utter imbecile—“

There was something squeezing his arm, and he did his best not to jump, to listen to the small figure’s exasperated speech by his side.

There was a beeping alarm, quickly followed by hissed profanity. “—glad we didn’t give the antidote, holy fuck—“

“—good to catch him, Demon Brat? If that’s his blood pressure on toxin—“

“—just stitch him now? If he’s—“

“—like a great idea, Timmington, he almost jumped off the bed when I walked by him—“

Dick’s head was starting to hurt.

“—don’t have to stitch him now, we can wait on a couple boluses—“

Well, actually, it had kind of been hurting for a while. He released Probably-Damian (with effort—he was fine, he’d already been treated, Dick’s senses couldn’t be trusted—) and pulled a leg up onto the cot to let him rest his forehead on his knee.

He could breathe through this. He’d done it plenty of times before, it shouldn’t be this goddamn difficult to focus.

There was a small hand on his shoulder—a brand, approaching his face—a hand shaking him, someone asking if he was okay.

“‘M fine.”

(He was ignoring the distant screaming. He was 64% sure it wasn’t real, and the certainty was climbing.)

“—convincing, fuck, man, let’s just—“

Dick interrupted. “C’n just sleep through it.”

The suggestion was less well received than he’d hoped.

“—the actual fuck , Dickface, who the fuck sleeps off fear toxin—“

“—not gonna leave you to suffer, why would you—“

“—if I am not permitted to train by waiting out toxin, you should not—“

Dick raised a shoulder in a listless little shrug—ow—resisting the urge to recapture the small figure by his side. “‘ve done it before.”

It wouldn’t even take that long to check on Damian—just a quick hand through hair, a palm to the chest to be sure it was intact, not even a real injury check.

There were a lot of very angry sounding voices aimed at him, and he summarily decided to ignore them.

…a real injury check would be more reassuring. And still pretty quick, really.

“—fucking—why does this shit always happen when Alfie’s out of town—“

He was being good , though. He shouldn’t be freaking out Damian unnecessarily; he was stuck as Batman, slowly being crushed by the cowl, but they’d been making real progress. He’d started to feel like maybe there was something good about their whole shitty situation, like there was a little pocket of stability he’d made in the middle of a tempest, like he had a little glimpse of family back—

He was suddenly aware of someone very cautiously offering him a bottle of solvent.

For his. Domino. Mask.

So. Not Batman tonight, even if he could see the tactical pants that should have gone with the suit.

Of. Course.

Bruce was back.

Dick was Nightwing.

He lowered his leg and swiped solvent onto his mask, removing it cautiously.

“—ly shit , well if we didn’t know you were drugged before we’d know now—“

“—looks like a goddamn cartoon character, Jesus—“

“—like to know, Richard, your pupils are quite dilated.”

He tried to muster the ghost of a smile for Damian and thought he heard a tut in response, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look up at the kid’s expression.

The brief glimpse he’d gotten a moment ago, glancing over his probably-not-actually-gore-coated brothers’ reactions, had not been conducive to staying calm. Or. Staying in the general vicinity of calm. Maybe the greater metropolitan area around calm. Calm enough not to go after any weapons.

His. Brothers.

Plural.

One of whom seemed to have a fair bit of blood smeared across his face and onto his chest plate.

“F’ck, did I hurt you?” He was off the cot—he didn’t remember making that decision, but here he was, swaying a little in place. There were hands settled very gently onto his shoulders—rain in the background, guilt, blood on his lips—steering him back onto the beloathed cot.

“—‘ll live, sit down before we have to patch you up more—“

No. He wasn’t ready to sit down yet. He wedged one hand into a fissure on the chest plate—tacky with blood, so it hadn’t been completely a hallucination, fuck—

“— your blood, idiot, stop looking at me like—“

Dick’s other hand met a face he knew he should be able to recognize, and felt swollen, puffy flesh and something congealed and viscous under the light brush of his fingertips.

Fuck.

Fuck . He pushed away from  the figure, stumbling slightly at the loss of support. He’d hurt one of them. They’d been trying to help and he’d lost control and he’d attacked them and what was he ever good for anyway, other than violence—

“—ick? Dick, I’m—“

He’d been lashing out with fists and elbows and feet, and the fact that he was probably in the Batcave was no longer reassuring—it was crushing , because he’d stopped caring in the car about where he was aiming.

People died when vigilantes weren’t careful enough about where they aimed.

Sometimes—sometimes people died because Dick stopped caring—Joker and Blockbuster and—

And he’d lost control in the car with his brothers .

When he had thought they might be enemies .

Dick wrapped his arms around himself, vaguely aware that he was pressing his fingers into a wound that screamed at the contact.

“—hey, don’t—“

The figure—he couldn’t trust its face, but the gruffness, the hard plate armor, the reaching out to someone who’d hurt him all suggested Jason, Jason, he’d hurt—Jason was reaching toward him, and Dick stepped back, curling his arms more tightly around himself, feeling a fresh trickle of blood start down his side—

“Dick, you’ve gotta—“

He was breathing too quickly, now, but he couldn’t imagine slowing down, he needed to hold himself together, how could he protect his brothers if the problem was him —

“ Dick , come on—“ He was stumbling back, he wanted to run , he didn’t want to be here anymore—his back hit something hard, and the flinch moved his hand away from his side—he was vaguely aware that his fingers were wet—

“ Tim —“

There was a sharp prick in his exposed shoulder, a wave of heat—something was wrong, something was burning him from the inside, something was…actually very anti-toxin-like—starting through him—the world was wavering more organically than it had been, his knees were buckling, and he pitched forward—vaguely registering alarmed voices and scrambling hands—into blackness.

Good. This whole thing had fucking sucked.

Chapter Text

Dick didn’t stay out as long as he’d have liked.

He was being manhandled onto a cot—there was hushed arguing, cold flow through the second IV, pressure on his side that made his whole body want to arch away from the cot it was on, muscles that twitched and tried and failed to do much—

His fingers were tingling with cold. It was maybe an odd thing to focus on, when a large portion of the sensations hitting him were pain and nausea and overwhelm, but they felt downright strange—and they were matched by his toes.

It was almost odd enough to distract from the way his body insisted on panting, choking for air like he’d tried to match Wally in a race—

Someone was shoving tubing onto his face, the little trickle of air into his nose was kind of obnoxious—it made him want to reach up and rub at it, but his hand was caught and held by someone smaller—the other was in an uncompromising grip, and someone was muttering at him, “—will fucking kill you if you make me code you, fuck you—“

He was vaguely aware of running footsteps, cold, voices in the background, being pushed onto his side—

There was a loud sort of ringing in his ears, and it took a while before anything started to make sense again.

When it did…

God, Dick wanted to cry. And not even just from the post-toxin sadness that always hit him; it was the way Tim and Damian and Jason were all hovering nearby, fidgeting and watching and waiting for him.

“Well,” Dick rasped. “That kinda sucked, huh?”

He quite suddenly had an armful of Tim, who…had not been on his list of people likely to throw themselves into hugging him, but he wasn’t complaining.

He waited a moment, in case Tim wanted to say something, but nothing was forthcoming. “…you good?” He really needed to get some water so he could stop sounding like a 90-year-old smoker sometime this century.

“Mmf.” said Tim.

“Fair enough.” Dick tracked his gaze over what he could see of Tim—some scattered blood on his side and face, but there was a splash pattern to it—

Dick’s side throbbed. Ah. That was unfortunate.

Damian was standing just a hairsbreadth out of reach, holding a water bottle out to bridge the distance and staring pointedly off into the depths of the Cave. “I should have been with you. I could have—“ his voice cracked a little and he cleared his throat viciously, “provided backup in the Batmobile. Monitor duty is inane, what is the point of staying behind when Gordon is perfectly capable—“

Dick took a long draught of water and handed the bottle back. He…was still working on actually remembering what had happened tonight, but he could hazard a guess. “Babs deserves a break sometimes.” Tim looked up at him sharply, and Jason took a step toward the bed, looking concerned.

Dick sighed. “…or apparently is working with the Birds of Prey.” He shook his head ruefully. “I should know better than to bet on any of us actually resting.”

Damian was looking far from reassured.

“…Promise I’m not hallucinating anymore?” The vaguely flickering shadows from the corners of his eyes didn’t count. All the auditory stuff was gone, anyway. “…Mostly?”

Jason didn’t have to run through the whole mental status exam. Who needed to know the date, anyway? Most people didn’t know the date off the top of their heads, they checked their phones when they needed it. Granted, most people remembered the last twelve hours of their lives better than Dick did, but that was beside the point.

The failed attempt to sit him up was also irrelevant. Sometimes your vision goes a little black, c’est la vie.

What was relevant was that Dick would very much like to get the stitching over with so he could go upstairs and go the fuck to sleep.

“No.” Jason always denied resembling Bruce, but it was right there.

“But consider. It sucks sleeping down here, and if I sleep my body can make more blood.” (And he’d quite like to have a good, cathartic cry somewhere where it wouldn’t make his brothers suspect the world was ending around them.)

“You’re finishing your fucking transfusion and we’re monitoring for reactions, asshole.” Dick almost didn’t feel bad about the broken nose anymore. Almost.

“We could just—“

“No.”

“You could hand me a needle—“

“No.”

“Tim could—“

“Tim won’t.” Muttered Tim into his chest like a traitor, peering down at the phone he was holding between them.

Your little brother tilts you into hemorrhagic shock with an antidote one time and suddenly he’s not willing to stitch you up.

“Dami’s good at—“

“Damian has one working arm.”

The boy in question tutted at him from his spot at the foot of the bed, where he’d quietly tangled his feet with Dick’s, propped a sketchbook against his cast, and proceeded to surreptitiously watch the monitor with Dick’s vitals.

Dick went to flop dramatically from his side to his back, and was promptly stopped by an unimpressed Jason.

“Reopening the wound really isn’t gonna help your case.”

You had a couple of shitty blood pressures and your overcautious brothers wouldn’t wash out your wounds just because “they’re already clotted” and “you can’t afford to lose more blood right now.” You’d think a room full of vigilantes would be a little less risk-averse.

“Duke would stitch me up.”

“Duke is no more hinged than the rest of us, and, crucially, is not here.”

It wasn’t—look, Dick did actually care about his general wellbeing. It was just hard to accept that he was better off down here, on a hard cot with obnoxiously beeping monitors, than he was upstairs on a several-thousand dollar mattress.

And, well.

Tim still hadn’t even changed out of his suit, Dick’s blood still smeared across part of his face.

Damian (who, Dick had been informed, had returned from Leslie’s and insisted that he’d be fine alone in the Cave when Dick had offered to stay back with him) was acting more like Bruce than usual, brooding in his corner.

Jason had paused to set his nose and had shed his armor, but he seemed to be planning on standing guard in the medbay the rest of the night.

Dick sighed loudly—regretted it, slightly, when the side wound twinged sharply in protest—and poked at Tim’s face. “You should go change.”

“Mm.”

“Just because I’m stuck in sweaty, itchy gear doesn’t mean I want you suffering with me.”

“You do smell, yes.”

“Thank you for that, now go shower.” Tim himself wasn’t smelling like roses, but Dick was a gracious older brother who wouldn’t stoop to pointing it out.

“Hm.” Tim kept looking at his phone.

Fine, so maybe that was a losing battle.

He just couldn’t—he didn’t want to be a burden, here, and they all had to be exhausted. The Cave was only a fun time when you had the energy to vault around it, no one enjoyed sitting around in the medbay.

“Jay, you could at least—“ Jason was peering at the monitors again, then at the little trifecta of red and yellow bags slowly feeding blood cells, platelets, and plasma into Dick’s veins. (Hm. How much blood had he lost? Like, he too would prefer not to bleed out from acute traumatic coagulopathy, but damn.)

“I’m staying here.”

Dick knew for a fact that there wasn’t anything to do over there; he was on the monitor already, slightly elevated heartbeat on display for the world to see, and the “don’t fucking die from anaphylaxis” supplies were already set out. “But it’s—“

“Shut the fuck up and let us take care of you.” Jason was actually making eye contact now, unapologetic and stubborn, and Dick…didn’t completely know what to do about that.

“…Dami?”

“I’m offended that you’d even ask.” Even so, the boy gathered up his sketchbook and levered his way off the cot. Dick had a small moment of triumph—he steadfastly ignored the way his heart sank as Damian headed toward the door, this was good, it was what he’d asked for—before the boy came back holding a wet rag.

“That was not a plea for help getting this gunk off me.” Damian was supposed to go to bed .

Jason had already stolen the rag—with a pointed look at Damian’s arm—and lugged over the closest cot to sit and start scrubbing at the bloody coating across Dick’s torso. “Too bad.”

The rag was warm.

This was really not helping Dick’s attempts to keep it together.

Tim made a face and shifted out of the way of the trails of bloody water making their way down Dick’s chest.

“So.” He really should have expected Jason to have an ulterior motive. “Sleeping off fear toxin a regular move, or…?”

Dick. Didn’t remember mentioning that. He didn’t appreciate drugged-Dick’s decision-making capacities.

“Because you know, oh brother-of-mine, that that would be some self-destructive bullshit, yes?”

Dick shot Jason a sheepish grin, and got a wet rag to the face. Fair. He had a feeling that any explanation he offered would only dig his grave deeper.

It seemed a little unfair that Jason snatched the rag back when he tried to start cleaning blood off his torso himself, but honestly he didn’t know what he’d expected.

Damian was hovering nearby, looking contemplative. “If this is a useful skill—“

Dick shot up onto an elbow—watched the world tunnel, and carefully lowered himself back with the help of a reproachful looking Tim—and said, “No.” Shit. Fuck. This wasn’t supposed to be an issue. “It’s not—you don’t train for fear toxin with prolonged exposures.” How should he— “I just—sometimes your decision-making isn’t great when you’ve been hit—“

“Understatement of the century.” muttered Jason, running a dry rag over the skin newly freed from residue.

“It just—it seemed easier at the time?” Dick finished weakly.

This explanation did not prove successful on the “avoid prolonged lectures” front. Bruce wasn’t even in town. Dick was gonna give Jason one of those “mini me” dad mugs. It would be worth the likely attempted murder.

There was a shifting noise from behind him, and Dick startled a little, peering over his shoulder.

Damian seemed to have decided—purely out of practicality, of course—that the best way to prevent Dick from flopping onto his back (and, therefore, the obnoxious fucking gash where he’d been clipped by a stray bullet) was to cuddle up cautiously behind him.

Dick felt the cast brush against his back, briefly, as Damian rearranged himself, shins and forearm settling carefully against Dick’s back, warily avoiding contact with any bandaged skin.

He could feel Damian’s breath at the nape of his neck.

There was a new lump in Dick’s throat, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

“Go to sleep, Dick.” Jason said quietly, finally, apparently, finished ranting about self-destructive decision-making. “It’s going to take a couple hours for that transfusion to run; we’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Dick let out a shuddery little laugh. “Despite my best efforts, yeah.”

Tim and Damian each shifted a little closer.

Jason settled back onto his shitty adjacent cot, pulled a book out of his cargo pants, opened it, and proceeded to “covertly” watch Dick’s monitors in a move eerily reminiscent of Damian’s position a few minutes ago.

Dick reached out a leg to rest his ankle against Jason’s knee.

He wasn’t rebuffed.

Dick was still bloody, still unstitched, still on the worst cot known to vigilante-kind.

He was asleep within minutes.