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thejusticelounge2012-11-11 06:48 am
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2012-11-11 06:48 am
a matter of family
The steel angles of Gotham’s skyline rush by as Batman and Robin sail through the night sky in the Batwing. Damian keeps his face pressed close to the window, hardly blinking as if he might spot what he seeks somewhere on the earth far below. Urban sprawl gradually gives way to rural farmland as they continue en route to the current location of Haly’s Circus in central Ohio.
Damian is quiet for much of the flight aside from exchanges of necessary information with his father and Drake’s updates over the comm. When too many minutes pass without any audible interruption from either party, Damian finds himself speaking to ease the tension he feels in the void. “Do you think the text was really from Mother? Perhaps it’s a hoax and she’s nowhere near Grayson and Grayson is safe in Bludhaven,” he rambles. “Perhaps he returned to his apartment after Drake checked and he’s there safe now and his phone has been hacked and he doesn’t even know it. You know how careless Grayson is. You really must admonish him for worrying you so if this is the case, Father.”
Batman doesn’t seem impressed by Damian’s posturing if stony silence is any indication. Damian breaks for only a moment to check out the window again before resuming his nervous chatter. “Do you think Mother actually has him? I haven’t spoken to Mother in a long time. She wanted to kill him. There was a snake, it bit him. Grandfather contacted me recently. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Father,” he adds, voice tightening with sudden contrition. “I only told him he could continue regarding me as an enemy because my loyalty is to you. I didn’t think it worth bothering you over. Do you think they’re after Grayson because of me? Do you think we’ll find him at the circus? Father, where will we look next if he isn’t there?”
“It’s unlikely we’ll find Dick at the circus, but it’s a possibility I can’t rule out.” He keeps his tone level, but his hand is still trembling on the steering wheel. It’s a stroke of luck that Robin is too distracted to notice. And Talia. Who could easily have captured Dick.
Or, she’s just hacked into the phone, and was toying with them. Or Dick’s hallucinations had simply worsened. The phone itself would have been ditched by now, if he’d taught Dick anything a little too well, it was how to disappear. He frowned. They would need to go over the last few messages. Too many variables. None of them certain. His grip on the wheel tightened as he thought of Talia.
She was toying with Damian too. Their son. He felt a little sick. Ra’s was understandable, he was cunning and this was precisely the kind of thing he would do to unsettle the boy, but Talia? … Well, she’d done it before with Jason…
“Damian, what was the exact message you received from your mother?”
Damian retrieves his phone from his utility belt and reads the message aloud to Father once more:
Mother warned you to stay away from Grayson, Damian. You need to learn to listen to her. Your Grayson won’t return to you. ~Talia
“Maybe she doesn’t intend to kill him,” he infers, biting his lip in thought. “It sounds as if she thinks Grayson will choose not to come to us. What could she do to him to make him seek solitude? He doesn’t like being alone.”
Damian continues staring down at the letters on the screen as if he can glean something useful from them, but his eyes linger on the phrasing: your Grayson. He’s been too open in his fondness for Grayson, and his mother— no, his greatest enemy— is going to use it against him now. He’s done all he can to regard Grayson with the same disdain he bestows upon everyone else, but even Damian knows his efforts are transparent. If he has one friend in the world, it’s Dick Grayson, and everyone who knows Damian is all too quickly aware of it.
He puts the phone away, his face hardening as he determines two things: he won’t expend energy on lamenting his unwitting role in this debacle any longer, and he’ll take Mother’s life if it means saving Grayson’s.
Lie number God knows what: “Dick isn’t thinking clearly.. It’s the toxin.”
Obvious truth: “Crane’s have always been particularly potent on us.”
Lie number God knows what plus one: “This time is no different.”
At least Talia doesn’t have Dick. That’s not the message she would have sent if she did. Which rules those possibilities out, leaving only two solutions. Still one too many.
Damian had fallen silent. Too suddenly. This was affecting Robin more than he anticipated. He’ll have to tread carefully. Even if Talia was lying, it had unsettled Damian too much. Maybe he would start tracking the messages on Robin’s phone. Change the number a few times. He’d missed this one and look what it had done to the boy. It was not going to happen again.
The sky cleared as they approached Haly’s, and he looked for a place to land. Spotted a small, secluded field to the east of the circus grounds. Time to rule out one more possibility.
Damian investigates the temporary circus ground while Father talks to Mr. Haly. It remains an acknowledgement unspoken aloud that Haly seems to recognize the connection between Dick Grayson and Batman, but if that suspicion is true, neither men show it. Batman questions the ringmaster with his usual gruffness, and Robin roams through the tents and trailers for any clues about Grayson’s disappearance.
His quest quickly proves to be fruitless. As he’d feared, Grayson is not here, and none of the circus performers seem to know anything about it. “What troupe are you with?” a knife-thrower asks when he looks over Robin’s colorful costume. Damian scowls at him in reply and continues onward, ending up in a pavilion where animals are kept. Normally, he’d be delighted. He barely registers the assortment of tigers and great snakes and the elephant hosing itself down with cool water from its trunk. Grayson hadn’t yet been gone twenty-four hours. He couldn’t have gotten that far—
Damian stops and looks at the elephant once more, remembering Grayson’s recollections of being in the circus. When he draws closer, he can read the name embroidered in purple stitching on her mount. “Zitka,” Damian murmurs in disbelief. It’s bizarre to think this massive creature existed when Grayson was even younger than Damian now, a little boy with both parents still alive and no concept of Batman or anything related. The elephant looks down as he approaches, her trunk winding around to sniff at him. Her eyes are kind, and Damian wonders if she can smell Grayson on him, if her inherent animal wisdom informs her that Damian is someone loved by someone she loves. She’s the only connection to Grayson that Damian’s uncovered so far, and he whispers, “Do you know where he is, Zitka?”
A whip cracks near Damian’s foot, splitting the dirt around his boot and making him jump back. The redheaded woman wielding it jerks her thumb over her shoulder. “This ain’t no petting zoo, kid!”
Damian spreads his hands in a placating gesture, looking up at Zitka once more before he leaves. “I’ll find him,” he promises the elephant, and he returns to Batman in Haly’s office.
Jack Haly knew nothing. But Guy Gardner did, and that had been enough.
He walks back to towards the plane, Damian at his side, wondering how long he could keep up the pretense of trying to cure Dick of fear toxin. Surely Robin would notice if he started calibrating the sensors to look for these nanobots.
That was even without considering that Talia had been responsible for them… Damian was better off not knowing.
That left the question of finding Dick. Where would he have gone? Underground. Oracle and Tim would have been on him in minutes if he was within range of any security cameras; he would not be in any state to disguise himself; wherever Dick was holed up it would presumably be lead-lined to avoid being detected by Superman.
Taught that kid too damn well.
Still. Nothing too far away: no time to set it up properly and the timestamp on the last message… Dick was in no condition to travel anywhere further than Bludhaven. He’d be on foot, on public transport, which left - thankfully - few options.
He requests the computer discreetly inform him of any empty caves or disused subway tunnels, tries not to make eye contact with Robin, and gears up for the flight home.
The first subway tunnel they scour on the Gotham-Bludhaven border doesn’t seem to house Grayson, but it’s not quite abandoned. Batman and Robin are an unwelcome presence at the drug deal they intercept in the wrecked bowels of the city, and a hail of gunfire hammers twisted scraps of steel that once comprised the bulk of a train. The crimefighters shield behind it, using the darkness and disorienting rubble piled around the station to take out the shooters one-by-one.
They face other such distractions throughout the long night as Gardner and Drake update them periodically with further leads on Grayson’s current location, and Damian can sense Father’s frustration intensify with each hideout that yields no sign of Nightwing. Damian punches his hand into the crumbling stone wall of an underground safehouse that turns up empty, rubble spilling down around his glove and dust choking the air. “Gardner must have been wrong,” he declares. “That stupid Lantern. If Grayson is ill, we won’t find him in time at this rate!”
Some indiscernible emotion contorts Father’s face under the cowl, but it’s gone as quickly as it came, and Robin is ordered to remain focused in their hunt. The boy complies, quelling further complaint as they continue the search but unable to stifle the monologue of doubt plaguing his mind. Something’s off about the whole thing. Things are never simple when Mother is involved.
Damian is close to recommending a shift in strategy again when the cave they’re scanning blips positive for human life. He and Father run at full speed through the winding chambers of the cavern, taking note of once-blocked passages cleared by recent force. It can only mean one thing, Damian assures himself, and he calls out in relief when he spots the prone form across a gulf of stone hollowed in one of the deeper rooms of the cave. “Grayson!” he shouts, and the cave walls echo his voice until it sounds like five little boys are chiming at once.
A shout from the cave woke him suddenly. Dick lay still as he focused on the sound. It was possibly a word—something about it felt achingly familiar—but the echo of the cave distorted and warped it into something incomprehensible. He recognized the sound of it, however.
It was a voice.
The pitch was too high for a man’s voice. Not Blockbuster. It didn’t call out again, but, as Dick shifted further back into the cave, his addled mind gave it an identity.
Tarantula.
It had to be her. He’d felt her all around him for so long. She must have lost him in the dark. Now she was looking for him again, ready to attack.
He slipped back into an unused portion of the cave, scampering quickly over piled rocks up into a hidden alcove. From his position, he could see her searching for him, calling for him to come to back to her and her touches and her—
Monster.
She had a monster with her, a huge, black, hideous hell-beast. It moved like a shadow, eyes burning with hatred and bloodlust. Dick’s breath caught in his throat. This creature could smell him. It would find him and devour him. She was leading it right to him, offering him as some sort of twisted meal for this demon.
The creature sniffed at the whole Dick had climbed through, its glowing eyes piercing through the darkness of the other room. There would be no way to escape without the beast seeing him, catching him, tearing him apart for her amusement. Dick pulled out an eskrima and a dagger.
This would be a fight to the death.
Dick sprang from his hiding spot and launched himself bodily at who he thought was Tarantula, tumbling with her to the wall. He struck her across the face with the eskrima stick, the sickening crack of impact echoing through the cave. He flipped back, avoiding the bat minions the demon summoned to attack him. Dick threw his eskrima stick just past the beast to ricochet back and hit it as Dick charged with his knife. The eskrima struck the monster’s head just as Dick swiped with the dagger.
The creature was faster than Dick had anticipated. Even as it reeled from the blow to the head, the beast grabbed Dick’s arm, its claws digging through the suit as it flung him away like a rag doll. Dick hissed at he collided with the rubble at the mouth of the smaller cave. The monster growled out something that almost sounded like his name and Dick groaned in fear.
It had named him. There was no doubt now.
It would kill him.
As soon as he was signalled, Gardner abandoned his search at the long-unused Bludhaven freight train tunnel Batman had assigned him to, and headed for Batman and Robin’s current location: part of the collapsed section of the subway system. Bats’ silent signal meant only that he wanted backup but didn’t want to alert others he was calling for it, and given Dick’s likely condition, he could easily be the source of the trouble they were needing backup for. As odd as it seemed, Guy hoped Dick was the cause; at least it meant he’d been found.
It took him less time to cross the city and find the entrance to the boarded-off subways station than it did actually navigating his way through the tunnels and chambers to them. If the point was to sneak up on Dick in order to provide silent backup, his green glow was a disadvantage. He went into as stealthy a mode as possible as he approached Batman’s position, and took the chance that no guns were involved, dropping his shielding and covering his ring.
In retrospect, Guy realized what a truly reckless thing he was doing; in his own precarious physical state he shouldn’t be risking combat at all, much less a bullet wound. He could hear Kyle’s voice lecturing him in the back of his mind. Yes, Kyle, I know I’m a culobrero, buddy.
Dick won’t hurt me.
The scene he came upon made Guy’s stomach twist. Robin had been hit and somewhat stunned, from the looks of things, as a trickle of blood ran down the side of the boy’s face where he was half-leaning against the cave wall. Batman had placed himself, tall and imposing, between his two sons, and was slowly approaching Dick, speaking his name quietly, trying to keep him calm.
It would do little good, judging from the look of terror and desperation on Nightwing’s pale, sweat-covered face. As Dick groaned in fear, Guy’s gut twisted more. Left alone, this wouldn’t end well.
Guy uncovered his ring, revealing his presence to them (though he was pretty sure Batman was impossible to sneak up on anyway). He willed a long, wide, ribbon of light to extend from his ring, and wrap around and around Dick, enveloping his friend from his shoulders to his feet, until he resembled a wrapped mummy from the neck down. “It’s going to be all right, Dick,” he tried to reassure him, but from the look on his face Dick didn’t believe a word of it. God only knew what the ill man was actually seeing…
The monster was approaching, growling and snarling, smoke and blood oozing from behind its fangs. Dick readied his knife, prepared to throw it into that gaping maw at its next step, but was suddenly distracted by a near-blinding light. His eyes had become so accustomed to the cave-dark that the slightest glow seemed like a searchlight. He recoiled and held a hand to his face to shield the light.
Blockbuster.
Dick started to back away again when the green light shot out and began wrapping him up. He tried to stab at the bonds, but they wouldn’t tear. He dropped the knife, the clang of metal barely audible over his terrified wails.
Blockbuster was going to bury him alive. He’d made Dick poison, destroying everyone he loved or touched, and now he was going to bury him alive in this cave, trap him in this mock of a tomb.
Dick wriggled to get free, but it was of no use; the ribbon held fast. He looked between Blockbuster and the demon, his mind already creating a new scenario: Blockbuster was working with Tarantula and they were leaving him here as a sacrifice to this demon, leaving him to be its eternal feast.
Dick twisted and struggled, losing his already precarious balance, and tumbled backwards. His sobs became whimpers as he looked up at his tormentors, fighting and failing to produce actual words. He was slowly losing the energy to fight and the strength to move. Certain torture and death was staring down at him, snarling and laughing at him. It was like a nightmare. When he used to have nightmares, his mother would come and sing to him, gently rocking him so he knew she was there. He looked around wildly, but there was no mother, only the cave.
He couldn’t even remember her voice.
Damian’s experienced much worse than the blow to his face, and it’s not the resultant pain but rather that Grayson issued it which leaves him momentarily incapacitated. He’s been abusive to Grayson many times before, both verbally and physically, but Grayson has only ever had kind words and caresses for Damian in exchange. He leans heavily on the wall, rubbing his cheek and watching as Father and eventually Lantern Gardner corral Grayson and endeavor to calm him from his state of hysteria. Clearly, he isn’t in his right mind. To realize it makes the strike of his escrima stick ache a little less.
Gardner and Father exchange observations and Damian recognizes Batman’s intention to gas Grayson when the latter continues to shudder and rant like an escaped asylum inmate in his construct straight-jacket. Normally, Damian would be amenable to such a quick and effective method of calming a temporary lunatic. But something in him dreads the idea of seeing Grayson fall limp under the paralyzing effect of sleeping gas, likely sinking deeper into whatever nightmares plague him.
Damian isn’t generally one for sentiment, but Grayson is, and it’s this recognition that compels Robin to move closer to the older boy. It’s painful to see his bright eyes stretched wide with horror as they look upon him. “Grayson, it’s okay,” Damian murmurs, and he extends a hand toward his face. Grayson’s teeth instantly snap at his fingers and Damian withdraws. A moment passes and he removes his glove, reaching for him again and touching fingertips to his cheek. “It’s okay, brother,” Damian promises him once more, and he sings the lullaby Grayson once sang to soothe him, a folk tune from Grayson’s nomadic heritage. Damian’s voice is croaky: he’s never been taught to sing, and he’s rarely had occasion to attempt it. The cave amplifies his volume despite his attempt to sing quietly. But he forgets the rest of his audience and focuses only on Grayson, removing his mask to hold his gaze as his voice cracks and wavers through the notes beyond his range.
Robin is full of surprises, he muses briefly. No matter. It’s the opening they sorely need. He watches Dick’s grip on the knife loosen. He glances at Gardner; for that brief moment of eye contact he signals the Lantern to move back, but maintain the restraints. One chance.
Damian’s voice was becoming more halting and uncertain. Robin was almost done singing - what, a pun? At a time like this? - but the knife was almost free from Dick’s grip. Almost… Almost there… NOW!
“Robin, get back!” He pulled the small spray canister from his belt and lunged forward. Dick looked up at him blearily, momentarily confused. Heaven knew what he was seeing… But enough. It was done. Cradled Nightwing, feeling his body relax and grow limp in his arms as Dick succumbed to the gas.
A moment of silence fell. He looked at Gardner, and said harshly, “Get us to the nearest Zeta tube and radio the Watchtower to prepare for our arrival.” Then, to Robin, equally coldly, “Put the plane on autopilot. Go home.”
Then he looked at Dick, asleep. Vulnerable. A terrible lesson in what had happened in his absence. They were hopelessly - hilariously - outsmarted.
Not again. Never again.
Guy stepped back at the Dark Knight’s signal, and sighed inwardly as the he saw the gas canister come out. He erected his Lantern shield and extended it around Robin as well, protecting him from the gas, but he wish Bats hadn’t felt the need to resort to it; Dick had been calming under Damian’s singing, responding to it, but he had to admit Bats’ way was more efficient.
It was difficult standing back, staying out of the way when Dick was right there and needing reassurance, but these were his family, and this wasn’t the time to interfere…or to spring revelations on them.
He provided a platform at Batman’s command, and flew them carefully but quickly out of the tunnels, grateful that for all his brusqueness and demands for perfection, at least he wasn’t a backseat driver. He called up to the Watchtower, requesting a medical team to stand by at the Zeta tubes to take over with Dick, all the while glancing back worriedly over his shoulder to glance at Dick’s prone form in Bruce’s arms. He’d be okay, he reminded himself. They had a cure now. The nightmare was over, or would be soon, for everyone.
In minutes they materialized, and as professional as ever, a medical team was on hand to whisk Dick away as Guy dismissed the mummy-wrapping construct around his friend. He hung back only a moment, wondering if Batman would follow the gurney, then decided it didn’t matter; Guy had half a dozen legitimate reasons to be in Medbay right now that didn’t even involve Dick. If Batman had an objection to Guy following, he’d say something.
The team handled Dick with a calm and only slightly tense efficiency. They were in full protection suits and took him into the quarantine area, where they planned to keep him for at least the first twenty-four hours. They hooked him up to the IV drip of the antitoxin, making sure he had plenty since he was the carrier, and strapped him down to the bed.
Dick stirred and moaned, his eyelids fluttering. The gas was starting to wear off. A nurse gave him a quick dosage of the anti-hallucination antitoxin, and he groaned, finally opening his eyes.
“Wh—” He choked. His throat felt raw. The room above him was spinning and swirling in and out of focus. It wasn’t where he had been, he knew that much.
He had been in darkness, a dark, black, cold place. A cave. He’d been afraid—of what? The darkness? The voices? The—
The monster. Tarantula. Blockbuster. They were there. They had all been there watching and attacking him, trying to kill him.
Dick choked out a scream and fought to sit up, looking around for any sign of his attackers. The restraints kept him secured to the bed and the doctors forced him back the rest of the way down. Dick looked between them and sobbed. The faces were all general, nothing familiar about them, nothing safe. He felt so alone.
Bruce took up vigil outside on the other side of the viewing window, watching Dick like a hawk. After a brief word with Dr. Smith, he had agreed to provide Batman with the relevant blood samples for study. Guy waited until the doctor had left, and then stood next to him for a minute in silence, as they both gazed through the glass in concern.
“I’m goin’ in,” Guy told him, “I’m immune, so…” He glanced at Bruce, wary of his reaction, and added, “We hung out for a month in Europe, it might calm him down to see a familiar face, y’know?”
Batman was as stoic as ever, and his eyes narrowed only slightly at Gardner’s cautiousness about this. Not moving from his spot, he gave Guy a slow, solitary nod, and watched him as he walked around and into the Dick’s quarantine room, stopping briefly to explain his presence without protective gear when the medical staff challenged him.
“Dick?” he approached the head of the bed slowly, unsure how lucid the fevered man might be, “It’s Guy.” He smiled down at him when Dick smiled, obviously recognizing him, and stroked a hand over his hair to push the damp strands off Dick’s forehead.
“You’re going to be all right, Dick,” he whispered, and touched his face tenderly, ”…You’re safe now, amore mio…”
Between the rush of chemicals flooding his system and the relief of seeing Guy again, Dick was almost giddy with excitement. He tried to reach up to Guy, whimpering when he found he couldn’t move for the restraints. Guy looked down and clasped his hand. Dick smiled wider. ”Guy….”
Dick didn’t know what had happened. The memories of the cave were getting foggier and foggier to the point that he couldn’t quite remember what he swore he could recall five minutes before. That didn’t matter now. He was safe. He’d be fine.
“Guy,” he said, this time with a little more voice than air. ”Guy. Don’t leave me?”
Even from this distance, the words were clear.
He looked away. Fingered the two tubes, one with Dick’s blood, the other with Gardner’s, mind racing. Faster than a speeding bullet.
Ha ha.
Still left too many questions. What were these nanobots? How could they have been potent enough to induce such a reaction? Was Crane involved? Was Talia involved? Why was Gardner immune?
He mulls it over and informs the others via quick text messages. And then sends a query to Alfred about Damian. There hadn’t been time to dress the wound, but - thankfully - it had not looked deep.
He looked up again at Dick before wandering down the corridor. Another sleepless week ahead.
“I won’t leave you, caro,” Guy assured him with a squeeze of his hand, then strangely not caring who saw anymore, he leaned down and kissed him.
His ring quietly warned him he was down to 20% power. So much in such a short time, with very few constructs involved? Ah, of course, he realized, not just the flying, but the ring was keeping him going, as well. It was burning energy faster than normal, and exhausted himself, Guy didn’t have a lot of will right now, either. His ring sparked intermittently, like it would if he were already falling asleep.
He pulled up a chair next to Dick’s bed, though truth be told he’d much rather be laying on it with him, and pillowed his head under one arm, holding Dick’s hand with the other and running his thumb softly over the back of it. “I’ll stay right here with you. I’m really, really tired though…do you mind if I just sleep here?” he asked with a warm smile.
Now that he was sitting down and wouldn’t fall over, he let his ring resume its normal activities, and stop supplementing his hemoglobin-poor body with extra oxygen. The dizziness was almost instant. “Yeah…I-I really need a nap, Dickiebird…” he let his eyes slide closed, “Ti amo, caro.”
Dick was more than happy to have Guy sleep near him; he didn’t want to be alone again. He made a small noise of concern as Guy fell asleep. A small bit of rational thought was returning, which kindly and slightly snarkily pointed out that Guy was probably ridiculously low on blood, thanks in no small part to Dick’s illness. Dick frowned and squeezed Guy’s hand, frustrated that he couldn’t reach over and pet his hair or get closer to him.
“Je t’aime, mon mec,” Dick whispered, giggling slightly at his own pun. He squeezed Guy’s hand again when a nurse came in to give him a sedative, looking decidedly unhappy about the patient not being in strict quarantine. He gave Dick the injection and left with a sigh.
Dick shifted as close to Guy as he could and settled in, closing his eyes. It was peaceful. The gentle humming of machines and the occasional soft sound of Guy’s breath soothed him. There was no darkness here, no demons, no voices crying out, no hands touching him all over. There was only he and Guy and a beautiful sleep waiting for him.
The nightmares were over.
Damian is quiet for much of the flight aside from exchanges of necessary information with his father and Drake’s updates over the comm. When too many minutes pass without any audible interruption from either party, Damian finds himself speaking to ease the tension he feels in the void. “Do you think the text was really from Mother? Perhaps it’s a hoax and she’s nowhere near Grayson and Grayson is safe in Bludhaven,” he rambles. “Perhaps he returned to his apartment after Drake checked and he’s there safe now and his phone has been hacked and he doesn’t even know it. You know how careless Grayson is. You really must admonish him for worrying you so if this is the case, Father.”
Batman doesn’t seem impressed by Damian’s posturing if stony silence is any indication. Damian breaks for only a moment to check out the window again before resuming his nervous chatter. “Do you think Mother actually has him? I haven’t spoken to Mother in a long time. She wanted to kill him. There was a snake, it bit him. Grandfather contacted me recently. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Father,” he adds, voice tightening with sudden contrition. “I only told him he could continue regarding me as an enemy because my loyalty is to you. I didn’t think it worth bothering you over. Do you think they’re after Grayson because of me? Do you think we’ll find him at the circus? Father, where will we look next if he isn’t there?”
“It’s unlikely we’ll find Dick at the circus, but it’s a possibility I can’t rule out.” He keeps his tone level, but his hand is still trembling on the steering wheel. It’s a stroke of luck that Robin is too distracted to notice. And Talia. Who could easily have captured Dick.
Or, she’s just hacked into the phone, and was toying with them. Or Dick’s hallucinations had simply worsened. The phone itself would have been ditched by now, if he’d taught Dick anything a little too well, it was how to disappear. He frowned. They would need to go over the last few messages. Too many variables. None of them certain. His grip on the wheel tightened as he thought of Talia.
She was toying with Damian too. Their son. He felt a little sick. Ra’s was understandable, he was cunning and this was precisely the kind of thing he would do to unsettle the boy, but Talia? … Well, she’d done it before with Jason…
“Damian, what was the exact message you received from your mother?”
Damian retrieves his phone from his utility belt and reads the message aloud to Father once more:
Mother warned you to stay away from Grayson, Damian. You need to learn to listen to her. Your Grayson won’t return to you. ~Talia
“Maybe she doesn’t intend to kill him,” he infers, biting his lip in thought. “It sounds as if she thinks Grayson will choose not to come to us. What could she do to him to make him seek solitude? He doesn’t like being alone.”
Damian continues staring down at the letters on the screen as if he can glean something useful from them, but his eyes linger on the phrasing: your Grayson. He’s been too open in his fondness for Grayson, and his mother— no, his greatest enemy— is going to use it against him now. He’s done all he can to regard Grayson with the same disdain he bestows upon everyone else, but even Damian knows his efforts are transparent. If he has one friend in the world, it’s Dick Grayson, and everyone who knows Damian is all too quickly aware of it.
He puts the phone away, his face hardening as he determines two things: he won’t expend energy on lamenting his unwitting role in this debacle any longer, and he’ll take Mother’s life if it means saving Grayson’s.
Lie number God knows what: “Dick isn’t thinking clearly.. It’s the toxin.”
Obvious truth: “Crane’s have always been particularly potent on us.”
Lie number God knows what plus one: “This time is no different.”
At least Talia doesn’t have Dick. That’s not the message she would have sent if she did. Which rules those possibilities out, leaving only two solutions. Still one too many.
Damian had fallen silent. Too suddenly. This was affecting Robin more than he anticipated. He’ll have to tread carefully. Even if Talia was lying, it had unsettled Damian too much. Maybe he would start tracking the messages on Robin’s phone. Change the number a few times. He’d missed this one and look what it had done to the boy. It was not going to happen again.
The sky cleared as they approached Haly’s, and he looked for a place to land. Spotted a small, secluded field to the east of the circus grounds. Time to rule out one more possibility.
Damian investigates the temporary circus ground while Father talks to Mr. Haly. It remains an acknowledgement unspoken aloud that Haly seems to recognize the connection between Dick Grayson and Batman, but if that suspicion is true, neither men show it. Batman questions the ringmaster with his usual gruffness, and Robin roams through the tents and trailers for any clues about Grayson’s disappearance.
His quest quickly proves to be fruitless. As he’d feared, Grayson is not here, and none of the circus performers seem to know anything about it. “What troupe are you with?” a knife-thrower asks when he looks over Robin’s colorful costume. Damian scowls at him in reply and continues onward, ending up in a pavilion where animals are kept. Normally, he’d be delighted. He barely registers the assortment of tigers and great snakes and the elephant hosing itself down with cool water from its trunk. Grayson hadn’t yet been gone twenty-four hours. He couldn’t have gotten that far—
Damian stops and looks at the elephant once more, remembering Grayson’s recollections of being in the circus. When he draws closer, he can read the name embroidered in purple stitching on her mount. “Zitka,” Damian murmurs in disbelief. It’s bizarre to think this massive creature existed when Grayson was even younger than Damian now, a little boy with both parents still alive and no concept of Batman or anything related. The elephant looks down as he approaches, her trunk winding around to sniff at him. Her eyes are kind, and Damian wonders if she can smell Grayson on him, if her inherent animal wisdom informs her that Damian is someone loved by someone she loves. She’s the only connection to Grayson that Damian’s uncovered so far, and he whispers, “Do you know where he is, Zitka?”
A whip cracks near Damian’s foot, splitting the dirt around his boot and making him jump back. The redheaded woman wielding it jerks her thumb over her shoulder. “This ain’t no petting zoo, kid!”
Damian spreads his hands in a placating gesture, looking up at Zitka once more before he leaves. “I’ll find him,” he promises the elephant, and he returns to Batman in Haly’s office.
Jack Haly knew nothing. But Guy Gardner did, and that had been enough.
He walks back to towards the plane, Damian at his side, wondering how long he could keep up the pretense of trying to cure Dick of fear toxin. Surely Robin would notice if he started calibrating the sensors to look for these nanobots.
That was even without considering that Talia had been responsible for them… Damian was better off not knowing.
That left the question of finding Dick. Where would he have gone? Underground. Oracle and Tim would have been on him in minutes if he was within range of any security cameras; he would not be in any state to disguise himself; wherever Dick was holed up it would presumably be lead-lined to avoid being detected by Superman.
Taught that kid too damn well.
Still. Nothing too far away: no time to set it up properly and the timestamp on the last message… Dick was in no condition to travel anywhere further than Bludhaven. He’d be on foot, on public transport, which left - thankfully - few options.
He requests the computer discreetly inform him of any empty caves or disused subway tunnels, tries not to make eye contact with Robin, and gears up for the flight home.
The first subway tunnel they scour on the Gotham-Bludhaven border doesn’t seem to house Grayson, but it’s not quite abandoned. Batman and Robin are an unwelcome presence at the drug deal they intercept in the wrecked bowels of the city, and a hail of gunfire hammers twisted scraps of steel that once comprised the bulk of a train. The crimefighters shield behind it, using the darkness and disorienting rubble piled around the station to take out the shooters one-by-one.
They face other such distractions throughout the long night as Gardner and Drake update them periodically with further leads on Grayson’s current location, and Damian can sense Father’s frustration intensify with each hideout that yields no sign of Nightwing. Damian punches his hand into the crumbling stone wall of an underground safehouse that turns up empty, rubble spilling down around his glove and dust choking the air. “Gardner must have been wrong,” he declares. “That stupid Lantern. If Grayson is ill, we won’t find him in time at this rate!”
Some indiscernible emotion contorts Father’s face under the cowl, but it’s gone as quickly as it came, and Robin is ordered to remain focused in their hunt. The boy complies, quelling further complaint as they continue the search but unable to stifle the monologue of doubt plaguing his mind. Something’s off about the whole thing. Things are never simple when Mother is involved.
Damian is close to recommending a shift in strategy again when the cave they’re scanning blips positive for human life. He and Father run at full speed through the winding chambers of the cavern, taking note of once-blocked passages cleared by recent force. It can only mean one thing, Damian assures himself, and he calls out in relief when he spots the prone form across a gulf of stone hollowed in one of the deeper rooms of the cave. “Grayson!” he shouts, and the cave walls echo his voice until it sounds like five little boys are chiming at once.
A shout from the cave woke him suddenly. Dick lay still as he focused on the sound. It was possibly a word—something about it felt achingly familiar—but the echo of the cave distorted and warped it into something incomprehensible. He recognized the sound of it, however.
It was a voice.
The pitch was too high for a man’s voice. Not Blockbuster. It didn’t call out again, but, as Dick shifted further back into the cave, his addled mind gave it an identity.
Tarantula.
It had to be her. He’d felt her all around him for so long. She must have lost him in the dark. Now she was looking for him again, ready to attack.
He slipped back into an unused portion of the cave, scampering quickly over piled rocks up into a hidden alcove. From his position, he could see her searching for him, calling for him to come to back to her and her touches and her—
Monster.
She had a monster with her, a huge, black, hideous hell-beast. It moved like a shadow, eyes burning with hatred and bloodlust. Dick’s breath caught in his throat. This creature could smell him. It would find him and devour him. She was leading it right to him, offering him as some sort of twisted meal for this demon.
The creature sniffed at the whole Dick had climbed through, its glowing eyes piercing through the darkness of the other room. There would be no way to escape without the beast seeing him, catching him, tearing him apart for her amusement. Dick pulled out an eskrima and a dagger.
This would be a fight to the death.
Dick sprang from his hiding spot and launched himself bodily at who he thought was Tarantula, tumbling with her to the wall. He struck her across the face with the eskrima stick, the sickening crack of impact echoing through the cave. He flipped back, avoiding the bat minions the demon summoned to attack him. Dick threw his eskrima stick just past the beast to ricochet back and hit it as Dick charged with his knife. The eskrima struck the monster’s head just as Dick swiped with the dagger.
The creature was faster than Dick had anticipated. Even as it reeled from the blow to the head, the beast grabbed Dick’s arm, its claws digging through the suit as it flung him away like a rag doll. Dick hissed at he collided with the rubble at the mouth of the smaller cave. The monster growled out something that almost sounded like his name and Dick groaned in fear.
It had named him. There was no doubt now.
It would kill him.
As soon as he was signalled, Gardner abandoned his search at the long-unused Bludhaven freight train tunnel Batman had assigned him to, and headed for Batman and Robin’s current location: part of the collapsed section of the subway system. Bats’ silent signal meant only that he wanted backup but didn’t want to alert others he was calling for it, and given Dick’s likely condition, he could easily be the source of the trouble they were needing backup for. As odd as it seemed, Guy hoped Dick was the cause; at least it meant he’d been found.
It took him less time to cross the city and find the entrance to the boarded-off subways station than it did actually navigating his way through the tunnels and chambers to them. If the point was to sneak up on Dick in order to provide silent backup, his green glow was a disadvantage. He went into as stealthy a mode as possible as he approached Batman’s position, and took the chance that no guns were involved, dropping his shielding and covering his ring.
In retrospect, Guy realized what a truly reckless thing he was doing; in his own precarious physical state he shouldn’t be risking combat at all, much less a bullet wound. He could hear Kyle’s voice lecturing him in the back of his mind. Yes, Kyle, I know I’m a culobrero, buddy.
Dick won’t hurt me.
The scene he came upon made Guy’s stomach twist. Robin had been hit and somewhat stunned, from the looks of things, as a trickle of blood ran down the side of the boy’s face where he was half-leaning against the cave wall. Batman had placed himself, tall and imposing, between his two sons, and was slowly approaching Dick, speaking his name quietly, trying to keep him calm.
It would do little good, judging from the look of terror and desperation on Nightwing’s pale, sweat-covered face. As Dick groaned in fear, Guy’s gut twisted more. Left alone, this wouldn’t end well.
Guy uncovered his ring, revealing his presence to them (though he was pretty sure Batman was impossible to sneak up on anyway). He willed a long, wide, ribbon of light to extend from his ring, and wrap around and around Dick, enveloping his friend from his shoulders to his feet, until he resembled a wrapped mummy from the neck down. “It’s going to be all right, Dick,” he tried to reassure him, but from the look on his face Dick didn’t believe a word of it. God only knew what the ill man was actually seeing…
The monster was approaching, growling and snarling, smoke and blood oozing from behind its fangs. Dick readied his knife, prepared to throw it into that gaping maw at its next step, but was suddenly distracted by a near-blinding light. His eyes had become so accustomed to the cave-dark that the slightest glow seemed like a searchlight. He recoiled and held a hand to his face to shield the light.
Blockbuster.
Dick started to back away again when the green light shot out and began wrapping him up. He tried to stab at the bonds, but they wouldn’t tear. He dropped the knife, the clang of metal barely audible over his terrified wails.
Blockbuster was going to bury him alive. He’d made Dick poison, destroying everyone he loved or touched, and now he was going to bury him alive in this cave, trap him in this mock of a tomb.
Dick wriggled to get free, but it was of no use; the ribbon held fast. He looked between Blockbuster and the demon, his mind already creating a new scenario: Blockbuster was working with Tarantula and they were leaving him here as a sacrifice to this demon, leaving him to be its eternal feast.
Dick twisted and struggled, losing his already precarious balance, and tumbled backwards. His sobs became whimpers as he looked up at his tormentors, fighting and failing to produce actual words. He was slowly losing the energy to fight and the strength to move. Certain torture and death was staring down at him, snarling and laughing at him. It was like a nightmare. When he used to have nightmares, his mother would come and sing to him, gently rocking him so he knew she was there. He looked around wildly, but there was no mother, only the cave.
He couldn’t even remember her voice.
Damian’s experienced much worse than the blow to his face, and it’s not the resultant pain but rather that Grayson issued it which leaves him momentarily incapacitated. He’s been abusive to Grayson many times before, both verbally and physically, but Grayson has only ever had kind words and caresses for Damian in exchange. He leans heavily on the wall, rubbing his cheek and watching as Father and eventually Lantern Gardner corral Grayson and endeavor to calm him from his state of hysteria. Clearly, he isn’t in his right mind. To realize it makes the strike of his escrima stick ache a little less.
Gardner and Father exchange observations and Damian recognizes Batman’s intention to gas Grayson when the latter continues to shudder and rant like an escaped asylum inmate in his construct straight-jacket. Normally, Damian would be amenable to such a quick and effective method of calming a temporary lunatic. But something in him dreads the idea of seeing Grayson fall limp under the paralyzing effect of sleeping gas, likely sinking deeper into whatever nightmares plague him.
Damian isn’t generally one for sentiment, but Grayson is, and it’s this recognition that compels Robin to move closer to the older boy. It’s painful to see his bright eyes stretched wide with horror as they look upon him. “Grayson, it’s okay,” Damian murmurs, and he extends a hand toward his face. Grayson’s teeth instantly snap at his fingers and Damian withdraws. A moment passes and he removes his glove, reaching for him again and touching fingertips to his cheek. “It’s okay, brother,” Damian promises him once more, and he sings the lullaby Grayson once sang to soothe him, a folk tune from Grayson’s nomadic heritage. Damian’s voice is croaky: he’s never been taught to sing, and he’s rarely had occasion to attempt it. The cave amplifies his volume despite his attempt to sing quietly. But he forgets the rest of his audience and focuses only on Grayson, removing his mask to hold his gaze as his voice cracks and wavers through the notes beyond his range.
Robin is full of surprises, he muses briefly. No matter. It’s the opening they sorely need. He watches Dick’s grip on the knife loosen. He glances at Gardner; for that brief moment of eye contact he signals the Lantern to move back, but maintain the restraints. One chance.
Damian’s voice was becoming more halting and uncertain. Robin was almost done singing - what, a pun? At a time like this? - but the knife was almost free from Dick’s grip. Almost… Almost there… NOW!
“Robin, get back!” He pulled the small spray canister from his belt and lunged forward. Dick looked up at him blearily, momentarily confused. Heaven knew what he was seeing… But enough. It was done. Cradled Nightwing, feeling his body relax and grow limp in his arms as Dick succumbed to the gas.
A moment of silence fell. He looked at Gardner, and said harshly, “Get us to the nearest Zeta tube and radio the Watchtower to prepare for our arrival.” Then, to Robin, equally coldly, “Put the plane on autopilot. Go home.”
Then he looked at Dick, asleep. Vulnerable. A terrible lesson in what had happened in his absence. They were hopelessly - hilariously - outsmarted.
Not again. Never again.
Guy stepped back at the Dark Knight’s signal, and sighed inwardly as the he saw the gas canister come out. He erected his Lantern shield and extended it around Robin as well, protecting him from the gas, but he wish Bats hadn’t felt the need to resort to it; Dick had been calming under Damian’s singing, responding to it, but he had to admit Bats’ way was more efficient.
It was difficult standing back, staying out of the way when Dick was right there and needing reassurance, but these were his family, and this wasn’t the time to interfere…or to spring revelations on them.
He provided a platform at Batman’s command, and flew them carefully but quickly out of the tunnels, grateful that for all his brusqueness and demands for perfection, at least he wasn’t a backseat driver. He called up to the Watchtower, requesting a medical team to stand by at the Zeta tubes to take over with Dick, all the while glancing back worriedly over his shoulder to glance at Dick’s prone form in Bruce’s arms. He’d be okay, he reminded himself. They had a cure now. The nightmare was over, or would be soon, for everyone.
In minutes they materialized, and as professional as ever, a medical team was on hand to whisk Dick away as Guy dismissed the mummy-wrapping construct around his friend. He hung back only a moment, wondering if Batman would follow the gurney, then decided it didn’t matter; Guy had half a dozen legitimate reasons to be in Medbay right now that didn’t even involve Dick. If Batman had an objection to Guy following, he’d say something.
The team handled Dick with a calm and only slightly tense efficiency. They were in full protection suits and took him into the quarantine area, where they planned to keep him for at least the first twenty-four hours. They hooked him up to the IV drip of the antitoxin, making sure he had plenty since he was the carrier, and strapped him down to the bed.
Dick stirred and moaned, his eyelids fluttering. The gas was starting to wear off. A nurse gave him a quick dosage of the anti-hallucination antitoxin, and he groaned, finally opening his eyes.
“Wh—” He choked. His throat felt raw. The room above him was spinning and swirling in and out of focus. It wasn’t where he had been, he knew that much.
He had been in darkness, a dark, black, cold place. A cave. He’d been afraid—of what? The darkness? The voices? The—
The monster. Tarantula. Blockbuster. They were there. They had all been there watching and attacking him, trying to kill him.
Dick choked out a scream and fought to sit up, looking around for any sign of his attackers. The restraints kept him secured to the bed and the doctors forced him back the rest of the way down. Dick looked between them and sobbed. The faces were all general, nothing familiar about them, nothing safe. He felt so alone.
Bruce took up vigil outside on the other side of the viewing window, watching Dick like a hawk. After a brief word with Dr. Smith, he had agreed to provide Batman with the relevant blood samples for study. Guy waited until the doctor had left, and then stood next to him for a minute in silence, as they both gazed through the glass in concern.
“I’m goin’ in,” Guy told him, “I’m immune, so…” He glanced at Bruce, wary of his reaction, and added, “We hung out for a month in Europe, it might calm him down to see a familiar face, y’know?”
Batman was as stoic as ever, and his eyes narrowed only slightly at Gardner’s cautiousness about this. Not moving from his spot, he gave Guy a slow, solitary nod, and watched him as he walked around and into the Dick’s quarantine room, stopping briefly to explain his presence without protective gear when the medical staff challenged him.
“Dick?” he approached the head of the bed slowly, unsure how lucid the fevered man might be, “It’s Guy.” He smiled down at him when Dick smiled, obviously recognizing him, and stroked a hand over his hair to push the damp strands off Dick’s forehead.
“You’re going to be all right, Dick,” he whispered, and touched his face tenderly, ”…You’re safe now, amore mio…”
Between the rush of chemicals flooding his system and the relief of seeing Guy again, Dick was almost giddy with excitement. He tried to reach up to Guy, whimpering when he found he couldn’t move for the restraints. Guy looked down and clasped his hand. Dick smiled wider. ”Guy….”
Dick didn’t know what had happened. The memories of the cave were getting foggier and foggier to the point that he couldn’t quite remember what he swore he could recall five minutes before. That didn’t matter now. He was safe. He’d be fine.
“Guy,” he said, this time with a little more voice than air. ”Guy. Don’t leave me?”
Even from this distance, the words were clear.
He looked away. Fingered the two tubes, one with Dick’s blood, the other with Gardner’s, mind racing. Faster than a speeding bullet.
Ha ha.
Still left too many questions. What were these nanobots? How could they have been potent enough to induce such a reaction? Was Crane involved? Was Talia involved? Why was Gardner immune?
He mulls it over and informs the others via quick text messages. And then sends a query to Alfred about Damian. There hadn’t been time to dress the wound, but - thankfully - it had not looked deep.
He looked up again at Dick before wandering down the corridor. Another sleepless week ahead.
“I won’t leave you, caro,” Guy assured him with a squeeze of his hand, then strangely not caring who saw anymore, he leaned down and kissed him.
His ring quietly warned him he was down to 20% power. So much in such a short time, with very few constructs involved? Ah, of course, he realized, not just the flying, but the ring was keeping him going, as well. It was burning energy faster than normal, and exhausted himself, Guy didn’t have a lot of will right now, either. His ring sparked intermittently, like it would if he were already falling asleep.
He pulled up a chair next to Dick’s bed, though truth be told he’d much rather be laying on it with him, and pillowed his head under one arm, holding Dick’s hand with the other and running his thumb softly over the back of it. “I’ll stay right here with you. I’m really, really tired though…do you mind if I just sleep here?” he asked with a warm smile.
Now that he was sitting down and wouldn’t fall over, he let his ring resume its normal activities, and stop supplementing his hemoglobin-poor body with extra oxygen. The dizziness was almost instant. “Yeah…I-I really need a nap, Dickiebird…” he let his eyes slide closed, “Ti amo, caro.”
Dick was more than happy to have Guy sleep near him; he didn’t want to be alone again. He made a small noise of concern as Guy fell asleep. A small bit of rational thought was returning, which kindly and slightly snarkily pointed out that Guy was probably ridiculously low on blood, thanks in no small part to Dick’s illness. Dick frowned and squeezed Guy’s hand, frustrated that he couldn’t reach over and pet his hair or get closer to him.
“Je t’aime, mon mec,” Dick whispered, giggling slightly at his own pun. He squeezed Guy’s hand again when a nurse came in to give him a sedative, looking decidedly unhappy about the patient not being in strict quarantine. He gave Dick the injection and left with a sigh.
Dick shifted as close to Guy as he could and settled in, closing his eyes. It was peaceful. The gentle humming of machines and the occasional soft sound of Guy’s breath soothed him. There was no darkness here, no demons, no voices crying out, no hands touching him all over. There was only he and Guy and a beautiful sleep waiting for him.
The nightmares were over.