This day has been CRAZY.

Lucky for you guys that this chapter was pretty much done by the time I got home!

Hospitals sucked.

In fact, they kind of freaked Dick out. They were too clean and they smelled weird. Plus you had no privacy. Doctors would come in every hour or so to poke and prod you. Or sometimes it was a nurse, with more pills or another shot to give you. Add that together with repeated and violent vomiting, and you've got yourself one crappy situation.

Dick had been rushed to the hospital by Alfred, with the team flying just above their car in M'gann's ship. (On camouflage mode, of course.) All because he kept vomiting. After eating those three bites of apple, he'd been getting sick once every ten minutes. Every time he ate it just came right back up. He couldn't even hold water down. This put him at severe risk for dehydration. So that was how he ended up in the bathroom adjacent to his hospital room, throwing up into the toilet while the nurse stood beside the IV stand. By that point, he felt awful. His ears were ringing, his head was light from the lack of food, he was shaking from lack of any nutrition, and his throat felt like it had been scraped raw.

"Totally not feeling the aster." He mumbled to himself when he was done.

The nurse pulled him back to his feet and helped him back into bed. She said something about talking to the doctor about feeding some more nausea medication into his IV. But Dick had a feeling it wasn't going to help. He glanced towards Kaldur and M'gann. They were the ones who'd decided to stay in his room with him. Artemis, Wally, and Conner were guarding his room from the outside.

Dick tried to smirk. "Either of you feel like doing a mercy killing?"

M'gann bit her lower lip. "I'm sorry you feel so badly. I wish I knew more Martian healing techniques…but I only really know how to help with injuries. Not sicknesses."

"It might not be a sickness." Kaldur said. "It might be something else."

It dawned on Dick that Kaldur was suggesting someone might have tried to poison him. The thought didn't even occur to him before then. (Though he had just spent the majority of the last few hours with his head in a toilet, so it was understandable that his mind was elsewhere.) But it was possible. One of the nurses that came to his home could have been paid to put something extra in his IV. Whatever poison they'd used, it probably wasn't the best. The most obvious choice was arsenic…but you can spot that pretty quickly. They probably wanted something that wouldn't be spotted until too late. But instead of being absorbed into his system were it could get to work, his body rejected it. Repeatedly.

"Poison, you mean." Dick said. His voice was hoarse. "It's possible."

All of the sudden, Barbara ran into the room and skidded a bit on the tile. She was still dressed in her blue school uniform. For whatever reason, she must have come straight from the school.

Dick laughed. It hurt a bit. Not only was his throat sore, but so was the wound on his chest. They hadn't been giving him pain meds. Just in case his vomiting was a reaction to all of the new medicines. "Babs, they told you you're not allowed to see me."

She shrugged, casting a suspicious glance at Kaldur and M'gann. When they didn't bother trying to get her to leave, she walked over to the side of his bed and sat down. "I went to my dad's work right before school to give him something. They have a break in your case. Alfred called the police after he dropped you off here, and they looked over your IV to make sure there wasn't any poison. And they found something called Zulu Water."

"Zulu Water?" Kaldur asked. He was looking at Barbara with silver eyes, his curiosity piqued. Perhaps his suspicions had been confirmed?

Barbara nodded. "It's a rare poison from Africa. It's clear and has no smell. It looks just like water. It's not the strongest poison out there, but it's hard to detect until it's too late. The only reason they ran a test for it was because someone used the same poison on that judge just last week." She looked him over, frowning. "You look a lot better than you should for someone who's been poisoned with that stuff. They don't know why your body didn't absorb the poison. It probably had a bad reaction with something you'd recently ingested."

"Like what?" Dick asked.

"The toxicologist said it might have had something to do with ursolic acid. Zulu Water doesn't react well with that stuff." Barbara replied.

"…ursolic acid?" Dick asked.

"Yeah." Barbara raised an eyebrow at him as he started to laugh. He kept laughing until there were tears in his eyes. "What's so funny?"

"Ursolic acid is a chemical in apple peels." Dick replied with a grin.

xxxx

Despite narrowly escaping being fatally poisoned, Dick insisted on going home as soon as he was able. So the next morning they went back to the manor. His vomiting had subsided. Apparently, his system was satisfied that all of the poison was out of his body. When he was home, Alfred didn't hook him back up to the IV. He allowed Dick his antibiotics, but the boy would have to deal with the pain for a while. They couldn't be sure his IV wasn't contaminated with something worse than Zulu Water. The result was a very cranky thirteen-year-old who had a deep, aching pain that started at his staples and penetrated into his chest.

"It could be worse." Wally told him. He was sitting in with the boy again, trying to keep him company. "I mean…you could have been shot. Oh wait…well, you could have been poisoned. Oh…well, your name could be slang for male genitalia…wait, crap." He grinned a bit. Cheering up his friend usually wasn't that hard. And even then, Dick smiled slightly.

Dick's phone rang. He reached over too quickly and grabbed it. Pain exploded in his chest and he gritted his teeth as he answered. "Hey."

"What's wrong?" Bruce recognized the pain in his voice automatically.

"Nothing, nothing. How are things?" Dick tried to brush off the pain.

"More complicated than originally anticipated. I'll be a few days more." Bruce replied. "Now what is wrong with you? You sound worse than last time I spoke with you."

"Minor attempted poisoning." Dick said. "We think the nurses put some poison in the medicine, so when Alfred put it in my IV it would kill me. I'm not dead though, so we're all good." Without even hearing Bruce's voice or seeing his face, he knew that his adoptive father had that look on his face. That concerned I-don't-believe-you're-as-ok-as-you-say-you-are look. "Seriously, don't worry about it. My body did the whole clean-up thing for me. They didn't have to pump my stomach or anything. I just puked a lot."

"Are you drinking enough water?" Bruce asked.

"Alfred hasn't let my glass get empty."

"Have you eaten anything?"

"Some crackers and part of a bagel." Dick admitted reluctantly.

"Eat a real meal soon. You need something healthy on your stomach." Bruce's voice was stern as ever. Dick found himself almost smiling. What he'd said to Conner a day or two before was true. So maybe Bruce wasn't the father of the year. But he cared. He was strict and, at times, ruthless with him. All because he wanted him to be the best he could be. After all…there were other things implied when Bruce told Dick that he would inherit pretty much everything he owned. The mansion, the company. Inheriting the company meant a lot to him…but the underlying message meant even more: One day, you'll be Batman. Bruce hadn't said it. But he didn't need to. There were some things between the two of them that didn't have to be said, because they'd learned to sense it.

I love you.

I was worried about you.

I missed you.

"I will. I promise." Dick said. "Don't take too long. And don't get shot. Or stabbed. Or dismembered. Or-"

There was a slight chuckle on the other end. "I'll be alright. Take care of yourself. Stay in bed. Keep hydrated." I'm worried about you.

Dick grinned. "I will, I will. I've got enough videogames to keep me preoccupied." I'm fine.

"I have to go. Be good for Alfred." I love you.

"I will. Don't get shot in the face. Come home soon." I love you too. I miss you.

"If anyone's at risk of being shot, it's you. And I'd rather not go through that again. I'll call you and Alfred tomorrow." I miss you too.

They hung up at the same time. Dick allowed himself a groan of pain that he'd been holding back. His chest felt like someone were stabbing it repeatedly. With a dull, rusty knife. "Wally, my friend…could you be an awesome person and knock me out? Hit me over the head with the lamp, for all I care."

"Not happening, bro." Wally said. "So what's up with Bats?"

"He'll be a few days more. Which is Bat-talk for: 'This just got super dangerous but I'm not going to tell you that because you have a chest wound and were nearly poisoned and God knows what else.' So you guys are going to be here for a few days more." Dick replied with a sigh. Things would be a lot better when Bruce got home. He wouldn't have to worry about anyone discovering the Batcave, or giving away who he was.

His friend stared at him for a minute. "So do you guys have like…a secret language? Or are you just telepathic?"

"Both."

"Figures."

xxxx

"Am I the only one who thinks this place is super creepy?" Artemis was sitting on the couch. Kaldur had called them all into the living room after dinner to discuss what had happened, and they were waiting on Wally. (How could one of the fastest people on the planet be late for everything?) "It's so big and…empty."

"It is a bit unnerving." Kaldur admitted. "But it is our responsibility to watch out for Dick."

"We haven't done a very good job of that so far." Conner said with a frown. He crossed his muscled arms over his chest. "So far, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl has managed to sneak past us and he's been poisoned!"

M'gann looked at Kaldur, her face filled with concern. "Conner is right. So far, we haven't been doing so well. We need to step it u-"

Wally dashed in. He skidded along the floor as he tried to use the traction on his shoes to slow himself down. In the end, he slammed right into the marble bust of some guy. The team's eyes widened as they expected it to fall over and crash on the floor. But the thing stayed stable. Almost as if it was bolted to the floor. Wally's expression turned to relief. "Awesome. So, what did I miss?"

"We suck at babysitting." Artemis replied.

"Oh, well that's kind of obvious." Wally leaned against the bust. It was pretty sturdy. It seemed to support all his weight. "But, in our defense, it's not like we could have prevented the poisoning thing. Are we supposed to test his medicine before we hook it up to him?"

The team began discussing preemptive measures to keep things like the poisoning from being on the repeat. Wally set his arm on the top of the bust's head as he leaned against it…and then the head began to move. It tilted back at an angle. Artemis noticed it first and looked on with horror. "What did you do?"

The rest of the team's attention turned to the grandfather clock that was slowly rising. It revealed a sleek express elevator, waiting to take them down into who knows what.

"…ok, here's an idea: let's all pretend we never saw this." Wally said slowly. He had a good guess as to where that elevator led. And it was a sure-fire way for Dick to come under suspicion. "Last time we found a hidden express elevator, we got Supes over there. One is enough."

The team was already moving towards the elevator, looking it over warily. Conner got in and set a hand on the interior of the elevator. M'gann, Artemis, and Kaldur got in behind him. Wally, after a moment of hesitation, sighed and got in behind them. They waited a few moments. Then suddenly the elevator doors slid closed. It began to move downwards very rapidly. After about thirty seconds, it came to a stop. The doors opened.

They'd all heard Robin talk about the Batcave. But for some reason, none of them ever pictured it as an actual cave. They thought it was just a clever name. Nope. It was, quite literally, a cave. A very large one at that. (And, yes. There were bats in it.) The thing had various levels and platforms, each equipped for something different. There was a miniature forensic lab, multiple specialized training platforms, and a platform housing a variety of vehicles. Including a Batmobile, a jet, and Robin's motorcycle. And in the very center was a multitude of computer monitors. The largest was easily as big as a car.

"…the Grayson kid as some explaining to do." Conner grunted.

"We're…we're in the Batcave." Artemis said, shocked. She looked at her friends with huge, wide eyes. "The Batcave!"

"Oh, boy." Wally sighed.