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It generally took a big event to get Dick to leave Blüdhaven for Gotham, but the current weekend certainly demanded it.
Formula 1 was hosting a race in Gotham for the first time ever—a street race, after nightfall—which meant thousands of vulnerable tourists to protect from both the regular criminals, and the opportunistic. Batman had called in all hands on deck. And that meant Nightwing was needed.
He'd certainly been kept busy, too. Batman and Robin were patrolling the majority of the city, Red Hood was taking Crime Alley, and Red Robin and Batgirl were undercover inside the circuit pretending to be fans. That left just Nightwing to surveil the track from outside of it.
The race was a three-day affair, and even though Friday only held practice sessions, it had already left Dick drained enough. Saturday had both practice and qualifying. He had spent most of the evening swinging around the blocked-off streets, stopping muggers and would-be track invaders, before perching himself on top of a nearby department store. He overlooked the circuit as the cars finished up their last laps, each one hoping to start on the front row. Some orange car got it, eventually, and people began to trickle out of the stands. Finally. Dick was more than ready to call it a night already. The race was still to come, and he was going to need to be rested for it.
And then, just as he was leaving, a distress signal came in. Tim's, by the look of it. He must have run into trouble on his way out of the circuit.
Oracle was in his ear at once. "Nightwing, you're the closest to Red Robin's location. Do you have the coordinates?"
"Yeah," Dick replied, already firing off his grapple. "Heading there now."
The coordinates took him not to the perimeter of the track as he'd expected, but rather to a nearby laboratory, which was closed for the weekend. Dick swung in through a cracked window and landed hard, almost stumbling. Fatigue was clearly building up.
Still, Tim needed him. Without wasting a second, Dick darted towards the distress beacon.
He found Tim in a central room, buried under a pile of shelves. "Red Robin!" he cried, hoping against hope that Tim was alert enough to answer.
"Nightwing. That you?"
Relief flooded through him. "Yeah, it's me. Are you hurt?"
There was a sound like Tim was trying (and failing) to push the shelves off of himself. "No, I'm good. Maybe a bit bruised, but nothing broken. Just… trapped."
"Gotcha. I'm gonna get you out, okay?" Dick scanned the room for anything he could use, trying to catch his breath. He was still winded from the mad dash to get there. No doubt the fact it was the second day in a row that he'd pushed himself so far was becoming a problem. Perhaps he could call in some backup to help.
That's when he noticed a weird orange liquid slowly creeping along the floor towards them from a shattered vial. It was thick, viscous, and moved at a pace like molasses, but by the way the acrid smell curled into his nostrils, Dick was pretty sure it was something a whole lot worse. Shit. "Tim, you wouldn't happen to know about any dangerous chemicals in this lab, would you?"
"I mean," Tim replied, his voice slightly muffled, "I wouldn't be surprised? I was only here to quickly grab some files off the computers, but I wouldn't be surprised if Anarky intentionally broke something else when he attacked me."
"You were fighting Anarky? Alone?" Dick grabbed a cylindrical stool and a sturdy wooden beam.
"No, I was researching Anarky alone. I got a tip-off at the race. Wanted to follow up before it got too late. He tracked me down."
"That's not exactly better," Dick replied. He slid the beam under one of the shelves pinning Tim, using the stool as a sort of fulcrum. He had to work quickly—the orange liquid wasn't slowing down, and even though it wasn't eating through the floor or anything, Dick still didn't want to learn what it might do to skin.
So with that in mind, he forced the other end of the beam down as hard as he could. If he remembered his physics lessons well enough, the leverage of Dick's body weight should be enough to lift the shelves.
And it did!
Just… not much. Not nearly as much as he had hoped. Still, though, it was something, and Dick was able to dart into the gap he'd created, crouching low.
His entire body ached, but he had to persevere. For Tim. Channeling every bit of strength left in him, arms burning, muscles trembling, Dick made himself stand, and slowly, slowly pushed the shelf upright.
As soon as it was balanced, he collapsed to his knees. It wasn't the last shelf on Tim; there were more to go, but he… he… couldn't, and…
"Please," he managed to say. "Please tell me you can get yourself out now. That that was enough."
He heard Tim struggle beside him, and then—"Yeah," Tim replied, crawling out from under the pile. "It was light enough for me to squeeze through."
"Good." Dick still couldn't move. There were tiny stars in his vision as he panted.
Tim was crouched beside him in an instant. "Hey. You okay?"
"Yeah." Dick put his hands on his knees and forced himself to stand. "I’m good."
Tim stood too. "Great. Let's get out of here before Anarky comes back, then." He shot a glance at the chemical, still sliding towards them on its inevitable path. "Or that reaches us."
He headed out of the room, and Dick did his best to follow. But despite his efforts, Dick was already falling behind. He couldn't keep up. His muscles refused. It was impossible.
And Tim, of course, noticed. Not long after they left the room, he turned around, frowning. "Are you sure you're not hurt?"
"Positive. I’m just… tired."
"No kidding. You already covered the whole race stuff, didn't you? If you're so exhausted, I could have waited for one of the others! It's okay!"
Dick shook his head. "No, it's not. You were in trouble. None of the others would have even reached you by now, and that weird liquid might have. I wouldn't want you to find out the hard way what it does to human flesh, just because I'm a bit tired. I needed to help you."
"Well," Tim said, slinging an arm under Dick's shoulders to support him, "I appreciate that. But you're only human too. So let me help you now, okay?"
And Dick just leaned against him, too exhausted to argue.