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Shit.
That was the only thing that went through Stephanie's head as she watched Dick disappear out of sight, the black and blue figure sinking through the newly-created hole in the roof.
It all happened so fast. One moment they were in the middle of an awesome team-up—Spoiler and Nightwing against a bunch of thugs who were trying to protect an illegal manufacturing operation. What sort of manufacturing? Steph hadn't figured that part out yet but that was why they were there. Her usual partner in crime fighting, Cass, was away doing something with the Birds of Prey so Dick had graciously stepped in to help Steph find out what was going on. They were supposed to be investigating the decrepit old factory the gang were using.
They hadn't expected the thugs to already be waiting for them on the roof of the factory.
They also hadn't expected the building to be quite so decrepit.
One moment they were dominating the fight—Dick flipping all over the place, Steph kicking some serious ass, if she did say so herself. The next there was a loud creaking and splintering of wood and Dick was just... gone.
For a few seconds, Steph and the two thugs still standing stared at the hole in the roof where Nightwing had once been, then the thugs turned to Steph with smirks on their faces.
Focus on the fight, Steph told herself, heart pounding in her chest. Then worry about Dick.
They came at her together. She ducked a swing from one then the other before unleashing a high kick at the first one's head.
One down.
The second charged at her. Almost as broad as he was wide, he made a fine bull and Steph would have loved to play the role of matador, using her cape to lead him right towards the hole in the roof, but he'd probably just land on Dick and make everything worse. Instead, she went for the element of surprise, going in close when he'd expect her to move out of the way.
And then she kneed him in the crotch.
An inelegant way to win a fight but she was in a bit of a hurry. She followed it up with a right hook to his chin and a left to his solar plexus. He went down so hard the roof shook. For a moment, she worried he might go through as well but the boards held.
Great. Now she just needed to get to Dick and...
Always secure any hostiles before moving on to the next stage of a plan said a voice in her head which sounded suspiciously like Bruce.
Shit. Shit.
Okay.
Steph yanked a bunch of zip ties out of her suit and began wrapping them around the wrists and ankles of the fallen thugs.
Tapping open her comm as she worked, she mentally crossed her fingers and sent out a call. "Nightwing?"
No response.
"Come on, Wingnut. Some sign you're alive would be really great right now." Pretty please she added in her head as she shoved a thug over onto his stomach and tied his thick wrists together behind his back.
A hoarse groan came through the comm.
"Thank fucking Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," said Steph, letting out a relieved breath. "You alright, Wing? That must have been some fall."
There was a pause, and then a slightly confused, "Huh?"
Okay. Not good.
"Nightwing, you with me?"
"Steph?"
Really not good.
Steph finished tying up the last of the thugs and took a step towards the hole in the roof, eyeing its ragged edges with trepidation. "Yeah, you were helping me with the whole evil manufacturing empire thing, remember? You took a bit of a tumble."
"Oh. Right." Another pause. "That would explain why everything hurts so much."
The boards surrounding the hole were dark and rotted. Steph might weigh significantly less than Dick but she doubted they'd hold her any better than they had him. She didn't dare move any closer no matter how much she wanted to peer down and get a look at Dick.
"Yup, that would do it," she said. "What's the damage?" She glanced around hoping to find something solid, and most importantly not rotted, she could attach a grapple to.
"I..."
A rough scraping sound could be heard, then a gasp and a cry of pain.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
"Dick, don't move! Just... I'll be down in a second. Don't move!"
Steph fired her grapple at the edge of the roof and leapt into the hole praying it would hold.
The factory was three stories high but three stories without any actual stories. Its warehouse-high ceilings meant there was nothing to stop Dick's fall. He would have gone straight down all the way to the bottom.
Steph followed after him, letting the line out slowly as she descended into the shadows. Only the faintest glimmer made it through the windows from the streetlights outside. She pulled a flashlight from her belt and shone the beam downwards searching for the familiar figure.
The first thing she saw was a pile of debris—broken timber, scraps of drywall, twisted rebar—then she saw a flash of blue on black. She traced the beam along the Nightwing symbol until she reached Dick's face.
It was scrunched tight with pain.
"Hang on," she said as she descended the last dozen feet towards the ground. "I'm almost there."
She landed at the edge of the debris and carefully made her way over the unsteady pile to Dick's side.
No blood was visible but between the lack of light and the black suit there could be plenty just hidden out of sight. All limbs were attached and splayed out at reasonably human angles, though, and his breathing seemed okay if a bit fast.
"Dick?" she said, a quaver making its way into her voice despite her best efforts.
The corner of Dick's mouth twitched. "Hey," he replied. "What brings you down here?" His voice was, unsurprisingly, even less steady than hers, full of badly hidden strain.
"Oh, you know," she said as she settled down on her knees beside him. "Thought I'd take a look around. See if there were any injured birds that might need my help."
Propping her flashlight up on a nearby bit of board, Steph pulled out the compact first aid kit from her belt and quickly switched her leather gloves for the latex ones inside.
"Very... noble of you," said Dick, voice hitching as a spasm went through his body.
Alright. First responder time. The training had been instilled deep into Steph's bones by Alfred, Leslie, and most importantly her Mom. She could do this.
Reaching over, she checked the pulse at Dick's neck. Fast but steady. Good. She began patting him down searching for injuries. There was a bump on the back of his head but thankfully no blood. Probably a minor concussion based on how he'd been acting earlier, though he seemed pretty lucid now.
"Uh... Steph?"
"Yeah?"
Dick swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing visibly. "I think you'd better call for a medical evac."
Steph's hands, which had been moving down Dick's arm, stilled. "Should I be freaking out right now? Because you saying that is really making me want to freak out."
"I... uh..." Dick seemed pale in the odd shadows created by the flashlight beam. Lines of pain disappeared beneath the edges of his mask. "I think there's something wrong with my leg."
Steph immediately began examining his left leg, gloved hands feeling along the muscles trying to find—
"Other leg."
Inwardly cursing, she switched to the right leg. It didn't take her long to find what was wrong.
There was something sticking out of Dick's thigh, something that clearly did not belong there.
Steph grabbed the flashlight and shone it directly on the object to get a better look.
It was rebar. A couple inches of the steel bar protruded from Dick's leg, the familiar ribs winding around it. The rest disappeared into the meat of the muscle and...
Steph gently probed beneath the thigh, hearing a sharp hiss of breath from Dick as she did so.
...and went all the way through to the other side where it was stuck solidly into a lump of concrete.
"Fuck."
There was also blood, a lot of blood. She could see it now against the black of the suit, glistening in the flashlight beam. More was pooling beneath him. At least the bar seemed to have missed the bone and the artery.
"What's..." Dick propped himself up on his elbows, craning over to try and see. "Oh." His complexion went even paler as his eyes fixed on the rebar.
"Don't look at it!" cried Steph. "And didn't I tell you not to move?" She helped him lie back down. "Don't you know not to move when you take a fall like that? You could have cracked vertebrae for all you know."
"Or an iron rod going right through me," Dick joked weakly. Biting his lip, he stared up at the hole he'd fallen through, every muscle tense with pain.
"Just stay still. I've got this."
Boy did she hope she had this.
Steph switched her comm to the main channel, trying to remember who was monitoring it that night. "This is Spoiler. I need a med evac for Nightwing ASAP."
"Copy," said Tim through her ear piece. "What's his status?"
Her shoulders sagged in relief at the sound of the familiar voice. "He took a bad fall, about three stories. He's stable but has a concussion and..." Stick to the facts, she reminded herself. "And a penetrating wound to the right thigh. We'll also need help with extraction... uh... A saw, I guess, or a laser cutter. Something that can handle two inch rebar." She swallowed. "He's kind of stuck."
There was a pause in which Stephanie could tell Tim was digesting the information.
"Noted," he said after a bit. "Batman's on his way—eta 17 minutes."
"Got it," she replied.
"And Steph"—Tim's voice was softer this time, less business-like, more pleading—"look after him, alright?"
"What me let everyone's favourite superhero-slash-big brother die?" Steph scoffed, avidly denying the very real fear. "Don't worry. He's in good hands."
A faint chuckle could be heard over the line, then a click as it was disconnected.
"I'm everyone's favourite superhero?" said Dick, squinting at her in honest confusion.
"Shut up. You know you are." Tim's for certain, and if Steph let anything happen to Dick—more than she already had—she was dead meat.
Alright. Help was on the way, so all she had to do was keep Dick alive until they got there.
Which meant stopping him from bleeding out all over the place.
Bandaging would only do so much in this case. A tourniquet would be her best bet. Steph pulled one from the medical kit and began winding it around Dick's leg. It was awkward, and though she did her best to not jostle Dick or the rebar, she heard his breath hitch and felt his muscles tense several times.
"Ready?" she said once the tourniquet was in position, and without waiting for a response, slowly began to tighten it.
Dick made no noise but the lines of his face grew tighter and his hands clenched into fists.
Steph kept tightening until the bleeding finally stopped. At least she hoped it had stopped. It was hard to tell between the dark costume and the dim light. She was forced to use the end of her cape to wipe away what was already there so she could get a decent look and it was not the most absorbent of materials. The puddle beneath Dick didn't seem to be getting any bigger, though.
Grabbing what gauze she had along with some medical tape, she did her best to bandage around the rebar and stabilize it. The result looked like a bad attempt at papier-mâché but it was better than nothing.
"There," she said as she finished it off. "Functionality before beauty, I guess. Though I suppose we could call it modern art."
Dick apparently had no opinion either way.
It suddenly occurred to Steph just how quiet Dick was being, Dick who was known for being chatty even in a pitched battle.
She grabbed the flashlight and shone it at his face. "Nightwing? Dick, you still with me?"
There was no response. Through the lenses of his mask, Steph could see his eyes were closed. His pale skin shone clammily in the flashlight beam. She reached over to check the pulse at his neck. It jumped rapidly beneath her fingers.
"Oh no. Don't you dare." She detached the cape from her neck and draped it over Dick's eerily still body. "You are not allowed to go into shock. You hear me?"
Still nothing.
She patted him as hard as she dared on the cheek. She even booped his nose for emphasis. "I said do you hear me!"
Dick groaned and his eyes flickered open. "No shock. I hear you."
"Thank fucking..." Steph's whole body slumped in relief.
The relief was dampened, though, when she noticed the tightness of Dick's jaw, the shakiness of his lungs as he breathed deliberately slow, in and out.
She seriously needed to start carrying morphine with her. Unsure what else to do, she twined her fingers around his and squeezed.
Dick squeezed back, clamping tightly on to her hand as if she were a grappling line.
"Is... is there anything I can..?" she asked.
"Mmm... tell me a story."
Steph's eyebrows rose in surprise. "What?"
Dick gazed at her, lips twisting in an attempt at a smile. "I'm serious," he said between breaths. "A piece of rebar... is currently shishkebabing... my leg... and I could really use a distraction... right about now."
"Um. Ok. Sure."
A story? Stephanie's thoughts whirled unhelpfully through her head. She'd spent the past several minutes teetering on the edge of panic and she was supposed to come up with a story? What sort of story? Fairy tale? Ghost story? A recap of the black and white foreign film Barbara had forced her to watch last week?
An idea came to her and she latched on to it.
"Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Tim got his cape caught on a dumpster?"
Dick's eyebrow raised, intrigued.
Steph took that as a sign to continue. "We were chasing down some mugger who'd run off with this guy's briefcase. You know. Everyday patrol sort of stuff. The guy ducked into an alley so we ran in after him."
Dick gave a nod of encouragement. It was quickly followed by a wince. A concussion and a skewered leg and the guy still couldn't remember to stay still.
"And well, Tim must have taken the corner too fast or something because his cape flared out behind him and the end got snagged on the lid of this dumpster. Of course, Tim didn't notice. He kept going, the cape pulled tight, and he was yanked back, feet pulled right out from under him."
A grin appeared on Dick's face, weak but still a grin. "Like in a... cartoon?"
"Exactly like a cartoon," agreed Steph, hand gesturing enthusiastically in the air. "It was pure slapstick. And it gets worse. The dumpster must have been full because some bozo had dumped a pile of garbage bags beside it, and while Tim was trying to get his cape free and his feet under him, he fell."
"Into the garbage bags?"
"Right into the garbage bags. Some of them even burst open, and let me tell you whoever dumped them seriously needs to learn how to compost because they were absolutely full of rotting fruit and vegetables—slimy lecture, moldy strawberries, mushy peaches. Tim was absolutely covered! And the smell..."
For a moment, Steph thought Dick was trembling, then she realized he was shaking with laughter.
"The mug... The mugger?"
"He actually stopped. It even looked like he was going to offer to help, but then he must have thought better of it because he skedaddled. Good thing too. I don't think Tim's pride could have taken much more."
"Poor Tim," said Dick, not sounding remotely sympathetic.
"And that's not all..."
Dick's eyes widened. "There's more?"
"Well, you see," continued Steph, enjoying this perhaps a bit much, "Tim wanted to get back to the Cave and get cleaned up straight away, get rid of all the stinky goo he was covered in, but Bruce called..."
"Oh God."
"It seems Two Face was causing trouble down in Burnely and Batman needed Robin's help right away. Tim had to grapple halfway across the city, sneak into a warehouse, and fight Two Face and his goons all while covered in garbage. Thankfully, it didn't take too long to subdue him so Tim didn't suffer too much. I think half the reason Harvey gave in so easily was because of the smell."
"Ha," exclaimed Dick. "Wish I could have... seen that."
"Yeah." Stephanie grinned at the memory. Tim was so going to kill her if he ever found out she'd told, but right now, she couldn't care less. "It was pretty priceless. Tim had this big gob of banana stuck in his hair the entire time but I didn't have the heart to tell him."
Silence fell over the two of them.
Tension still tightened the lines of Dick's body and sweat glistened on his forehead but there was a lightness to his face that hadn't been there before.
"Got anymore?" he asked.
Did she have more stories?
Steph's grin turned into a smirk. "How about the time Tim broke into the wrong apartment and interrupted a certain 'clothing optional' party?"
She told him about the unfortunate party crashing incident.
She told him about the time she caught Damian trying to feed some baby skunks Alfred's infamous fillet mignon.
She told him about when Cass made brownies and they came out looking and feeling like igneous rock.
She even told him a couple of her own embarrassing escapades. Just to even things out.
She was in the middle to telling him about the time Barbara spilled tomato soup over her keyboard and accidentally shorted out half her system when a noise cut her short.
It was just a slight creak, the shifting of debris, but it had Steph on her feet in an instant. She raised her fists, prepared to defend the injured Nightwing, and herself, as she swung around gazing into the shadows of the factory, searching for any sign of movement.
She hoped more of those thugs hadn't decided to show up. She really wasn't in the mood.
One of the shadows detached itself from the rest. There was the faint swish of a cape.
"Stand down, Spoiler," said the deep, guttural voice of Batman.
Steph blew out a relieved breath. "About fucking time." She didn't think she'd ever been more grateful to see Bruce in her life, not that she was going to tell him that.
The pointy cowled figure emerged from the darkness and knelt beside Dick. His gaze quickly scanned the scene, taking everything in in less than a second.
He reached out a hand and laid it across Dick's forehead. "How are you doing?"
"Oh, you know," said Dick, gazing up at Bruce with a lopsided smile, "enjoying the little break from the usual trials and tribulations of our daily lives."
Steph rolled her eyes. "Says the guy with an iron rod through his leg."
"Yeah, but at least I had good company."