Author: Sally'sSongisMySong
Prompt: Snowstorm
Word Count: 2302
Rating: T for minor curse words
Pairings: DickBabs
A/N: This might be crap. I couldn't write worth anything earlier, and had to force most of this out. I did get inspired during the ending though! Possible mistakes, my Beta's still having a bad week. And I have no clue about Freeze, so I just sorta guessed?
Shit.
Nightwing ran, trees rushing past in blurred hues of green, brown, and white. He duck and swerved around branch after branch, the snow almost blinding him but his pace never stopped, his gaze never wavering from where he could just barely make out Batgirl's silhouette in the tree line.
He should have known it wasn't just a low level criminal. Should have recognize the signs – an abandoned science research facility, more than just a few diamond heists pulled in the past months, multiple chemistry labs broken into. He should have known, should have never even thought about letting the rookies come. He was the leader! He should have seen it! He was trained by the damn Batman!
Instead the Team we're fighting against a blizzard to get back to the Bio-ship with their lives, while Mister Freeze himself was fighting against Batgirl.
She wasn't ready to fight him alone – hell, none of them were ready! As far as he was concerned, they could all spend their hero careers never even seeing a Gotham villain!
Breaking through the tree cover, his heart almost stopped as he watched Freeze aim his ice gun at Batgirl's feet, causing her to slip towards the edge of the cliff on the newly formed ice, then swinging the butt of his gun at her head forcing her the rest of the way over.
"BATGIRL!" Nightwing didn't think about fighting Freeze, didn't think about leaving the Team on their own with only the order to stay on the ship, he didn't even think about his families death. All he thought about was Batgirl's still form being shoved off the cliff. With just enough of a glance at Freeze to toss a few batarangs at his helmet – in the hopes that it'd crack so Freeze would be forced to retreat – he dove off the cliff after her, tucking in his body to try and catch up to her faster.
With the blizzard it was hard to tell how far of a drop the cliff had, and Nightwing didn't know if he'd even be able to get a hold on the icy cliff-side with a grapple, but he could breath again when it finally seemed like he was getting closer to her. She was unconscious from what he could tell – he wasn't sure if she'd even been conscious when she was thrown – and he held her as tight as he could, when he could finally grab her.
A slight break in the wind showed them nearer to the ground than Nightwing would have liked, and he quickly pulled out his grapple gun. Turning so his back was to the ground, he held Batgirl as close to his chest as he could, bending his back so he was curled around her, and shot a grapple at the cliff-side. Even if it didn't hold maybe it'd be able to slow their decent enough to not kill them. With a quick prayer, he braced himself the best he could. He heard more than felt a pop when they abruptly stopped. He found he couldn't focus any longer, and the grapple gun slipped through his suddenly lax fingers.
It was a small mercy, black over took his vision and his mind before they hit.
Cold. Wet and cold.
That's what Nightwing woke up to. His body ached, his arm was screaming in pain, and there was an odd amount of pressure laying on his chest. It took more effort then he'd care to admit just to get his eyes opened and to stay open, but what he saw cleared the confusion hanging over his head.
He slowly and carefully, his back screaming all the while, leaned up into a sitting position, holding Batgirl securely against him with his left arm – his right arm, hanging in a way that could only mean a dislocated shoulder, told him why it was pulsing in pain. Shifting Batgirl to lean against his chest more, he turned on the communicator in his ear.
"Nightwing to Team. Do you read me?" Static. Honestly, he hadn't excepted anything less.
'Miss Martian, can you hear me? M'gann?'
Sighing, he turned the communicator back on to relay a message, knowing there was a chance they'd get it when the blizzard cleared some. "Nightwing to Team. Batgirl and I are incapacitated. We are at the bottom of the cliff with no means of getting back to you, and will take shelter in the trees. Report to the League that Mister Freeze was here, and request immediate back up from any members that won't be slowed down by the storm. Tell them to come as soon as possible. Stay where you are, there is no point for you to get lost as well, or run the risk of getting seen by Mister Freeze. Nightwing out."
His hand dropped from the communicator, eyes closing as he willed the ever approaching darkness away, then set about getting himself and Batgirl looked over. She had a knot the size of Metropolis on her head, and her ragged breathing foretold possible bruised ribs, but other-wise seemed fine. Taking stock on himself, he determined he was in about the same state as her; with a bruised back and a dislocated shoulder but no life threatening issues.
Placing Batgirl on the ground, he stood, almost falling back down as he stumbled to the cliff side. He braced his shoulder against it and pushed, a quick tug and pull on his arm at the same time forced a straggled scream from him as he tried to reset his shoulder. He must have blacked out for a moment, because he found himself sitting now, his arm throbbing painfully but, thankfully, duller then before.
He pushed himself up, a dizzying motion, and back towards where Batgirl lay – grabbing a stick to use as a make-shift splint on the way.
Doing his best to lift Batgirl, he held her to his side and used the cliff-side to lean on, to both help distribute their weight off of just him, and to make sure they didn't get lost in the woods. After stumbling some hundred feet, he noticed an outcropping in the rock in front of them and forced his resisting body towards it.
What must have been a slightly bigger than average animal den greeting him, and he wasted no time laying Batgirl down as best he could inside. It wasn't very big, but they could both fit and it kept them out of the blizzard and, if he was still out there, Freeze's sight for the most part.
He collapsed to the ground beside Batgirl's head, his fatigue finally catching up to him, his eyes closing of their own will. What could have been a few minutes or a few hours later his eyes were snapping back open as the pain of someone touching his messed up arm took him from sleep. His eyes clenched shut from pain before he could get a look at the person with him. Whoever it was must have known him tensing wasn't because of pain, and they finished what they were doing quickly.
As his arm steadily stopped pulsing he notice the blood rushing through his ears had kept him from hearing his guest's words. Forcing his breathing to even out, the first strands of conversation drifted in.
"-mean really. Whoever did this number on you must have really been something. I was working on your arm for at least five minutes before you finally realized!"
He knew the voice, but the mind numbing pain was making him think a bit slower than normal He tried to answer – to ask who they were – but all that came out was a groan.
"I know. We'll have to keep that part from Batsy – wouldn't want him thinking you're losing your touch."
With more effort than it should have called for, Nightwing got his eyes opened and found himself staring at a pair of eyes almost as familiar as his own.
"There are my favorite blue eyes." Batgirl said, sighing in relief. She shifted closer, molding her body to his. "I was starting to think you'd never wake up. How are you feeling? I know, stupid question, but I have to ask."
He lifted his good arm and gently pulled her over so they were leaning against each other, huffing out an incredulous laugh. "You're the one who took on Freeze by herself, then got thrown off a cliff; and you're asking me how I feel?"
She smiled softly, happy to see he was coherent enough to know what happened, and tucked her head under his chin, answering into his chest, "No, I'm asking how the idiot how who dove off after me is doing."
Her head moved as he chuckled, his arm holding her just a bit tighter. "How do you know an idiot dove off?"
"Because, my first month trying to learn to use a grappling hook, I dislocated my shoulder more times than I care to admit – and your shoulder looks just like mine did."
Nightwing grinned just a bit. Even though she hadn't been doing this near as long as him, the detective side of it came so naturally to her. His grin fell quickly though, Batgirl's attitude starting to worry him slightly. She'd just almost died and she was teasing him like nothing was wrong.
"How are you doing?" He asked carefully, not wanting her to know what he was leading to yet.
"Fine." She shrugged. "I mean, my body is kinda sore and my head feels like someones doing a tapdance in it, but over all, fine." She lifted her head to his so they were eye level. He knew right then she'd already figured out what he wasn't asking. "I'm aware I could have died, it's a occupational hazard, but I'm not freaking out right now because I knew I wouldn't." She placed her hand on his cheek and kissed it, laying her head on his chest again after. "Just before Freeze hit me, I saw you break through the tree. I knew you wouldn't let me fall."
His cheeks warmed in a blush, something that didn't happen often.
"Where are the others?"
Nightwing sighed. He knew where he'd told them to go, but he didn't know if they'd actually done just that or not, and he told her as such.
"So there's about a fifty-fifty chance they're on the Bio-ship. Did you get a message to them with the comm.?"
"Tried. Don't know if it got through or not – it was static on their end. And Miss Martian's mindlink is offline."
"So either the storm is blocking the comms. or we're out of range."
"Pretty much." He said. Both of them shifted minutely closer to ward off the cold, they slipped into a comfortable silence after that. Batgirl glanced thoughtfully over at the snow blowing passed the entrance to there hideaway.
"Hey, Dick?"
"Yeah?"
She grinned and pointed to the snow. "Remember that huge snowstorm from when we we're fourteen?"
He turned a thoughtful look to the snow. "The one that had you and Wally stuck at the manor for five days?"
"Yeah, that one." Her expression changed to what Dick affectionately called her Trolling face. "Remember how Alfred kicked us out of the house on day three? After we almost destroyed the kitchen, trying to make snow-cones?"
Dick's expression changed to the twin of her's. "and Wally snuck out the snow-cone syrup and decided to use the snow outside for his snow-cone since we couldn't go inside?"
She continued for him. "But he tripped and sent cherry syrup flying onto the snowman I was making-"
"And I said it reminded me of a zombie snowman now-"
"So we spent the next four hours making the front yard into a snowman zombie apocalypses battleground-"
"Complete with cherry syrup blood Wally had gone to buy from any grocery store that was open-"
"And the news crew that followed Bruce back to the manor after his business trip, got footage of and it was being considered a death threat to you and Bruce-"
"Until Bruce released a statement saying, it wasn't a threat just a prank and he knew who was responsible and it had already been taken care of-"
"Which was code for giving Alfred the day off and him joining us in turning the backyard into a superhero versus supervillain snowman battlefield?"
They stared for a moment before bursting into laughter together. The next hour was spent reliving every snowday they could recall. Not even noticing the storm outside slowing down, until they heard voices outside yelling their names and a voice echoing the same in their heads.
With one last grin to the other, they got themselves out of the den, voices yelling back to their friends. Neither of them would say it, but they'd missed their easy friendship. With Jason and Tula dieing, Roy going AWAL, Kaldur's betrayal, and Artemis and Wally's sudden departure of the team – they hadn't had much down time to just be themselves. To stop being Nightwing and Batgirl, and just be Dick and Babs.
Even if their near-death scare had shaken them more than they let on, found out M'gann and the rookies had taken on Mister Freeze, Nightwing's shoulder had been worse than they thought and he had to be off active duty for the next month, the few hours together had been worth it, and neither of them would change a thing.
A/N: Let me know what you think, please? Thanks to all who read and review!
