Disclaimer – Own nothing.
To vi – Thanks for your review! If you liked that chapter, I think you are going to like this one! Hope you do!
To Isa Ceballos – Thanks for your review! Oh yeah, Slade definitely wants to end Dick and found a sneaky way to do it. Hope you like this chapter!
To Woods – Hey! Just realized I forgot to respond to your review! Sorry! Thank you so much for commenting! I'm so glad you like the story! I hope you like this chapter as well!
AN – So I've started working on a Batman fic where Owlman from Forever Evil shows up and kidnaps Dick and have gotten to wondering, how cool would it be if that comic storyline (Forever Evil) happened in the show? Does anyone else think that would be cool? Just me? Oh well, just something to think about. Hope you all like this chapter!
Enjoy!
Donna stood in front of the large window, looking into the room where Dick currently was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by medical equipment. After finding Dick unconscious on the floor, they had quickly brought him to the infirmary and got Batman and Dr. Mid-Nite. It was then Rose told them what Jericho had showed her. Slade had poisoned his sword and when he cut Dick, the poison got into his bloodstream. Rachel then tried to use her powers to cure him, but it didn't work. Now, there was nothing to do but keep an eye on the former Robin while Batman, Dr. Mid-Nite and Wally tried to identify the poison since Jericho had no idea what it was. He was able to tell them where Slade kept it though, so Wally rushed off to get it.
It had been over two hours now and they hadn't found anything. To make matters worse, Dick hadn't woken up at all yet either. He had a fever 102.3 last Donna heard and his breathing was getting weaker. It was terrifying, and not just to her. Rachel, Gar, Kory, Conner and Roy were in the room with him. Jason was with Bruce, Rose/Jericho and Wally, and Hank and Dawn had gone to the kitchen for something to eat for all of them.
"Hey." Dawn's voice pulled Donna's gaze away from the window to the right where she saw Dawn and Hank coming towards her. In Hank's hand was what appeared to be a picnic basket.
"What's with the basket?" Donna asked as they reached her.
"Easier to bring all the food for everyone." Hank explained. Donna nodded in acknowledgement then turned back to face the window.
"Any change?" Dawn questioned, coming to stand beside Donna, also looking through the window at Dick's unconscious form.
"Besides his fever rising a bit, nothing." Donna answered.
"Any word on a cure?" Hank wondered. After two hours, Bruce had to have figured out something. The man was able to create antidotes to the drugs those psycho criminals in Gotham use. He should surely be able to come up with a cure to whatever poison Slade used on Dick.
"Bruce and Wally are still working on it. I think Jason and Rose are with them, but I don't know it they've even figured out poison Slade used." The photographer told them with a frustrated tone, which wasn't at all surprising.
When they realized that they had no idea what the poison was, they first thought they should interrogate Slade and find out from him how to save Dick. But Batman quickly pointed that Slade wanted Dick dead. He wouldn't tell them, even if they tortured him. They had no leverage over him, had nothing he wanted and they weren't willing to make any deal with him. Slade probably wouldn't take a deal anyways. No one had gone to see him since they got Jericho out, but nobody had any doubt that Slade was fully aware of what was going on since he knew that he had cut Dick.
"Isn't there anything else we can do?" Dawn inquired. Though they had known Dick for years, had been teammates, she had never seen her ex-boyfriend like this. She hated it.
"The only thing that I can think of is going down to where Slade is being held and beating the crap out of him until he tells us what we want to know." Donna responded through clenched teeth.
"Let me know if and when you decide to do that. I'll join you." Hank said before moving to the door and walked into the room.
Dawn watched him for a minute, then put a hand on Donna's shoulder and asked, "You okay?"
"I will be when Dick is." Donna answered, keeping her eyes on the figure lying in the hospital bed. She felt Dawn move her hand to rub her back for a minute, then pull it away. From the corner of her eye, she saw the blonde enter the room, but her focus remained solely on Dick. Her little brother. Her little brother who was dying and there was nothing she could do about it.
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Bruce glared at the screen in front of him. For the last several hours, he had been running test after test on the blood sample he had taken from Dick, trying to identify what poison Slade had used but he couldn't find anything. When Jericho was able to show Rose his memories of Slade poisoning his sword, and where he kept the poison, he sent Wally to go get it. He had hoped with a bigger, purer, sample, he'd be able to finally find a match on one of the several databases there were on poisons all over the world. However, there was nothing. Jericho also had no memory of when Slade bought the poison or where he got it from. Even though he was in Slade's head, the assassin was able to hide from him what the poison was. They had nothing. It made Bruce want to punch a hole in the screen.
He had been so busy focusing on finding the cure to save his son, that he hadn't even gone to see him except for when he took the blood sample. Dick looked awful. And that was hours ago. He had been getting updates from Dr. Mid-Nite, but none of them were good. Dick was getting worse, and he would keep getting worse until Bruce found an antidote or was able to create one. As much as Bruce wanted to be by Dick's side, especially if the worse did happen, he forced himself to keep working. He was of no use to Dick just sitting there watching him die. No, he wasn't going to let that happen. He had to find a way to save his son.
"Anything?" Wally asked as he walked into the room, panting a little. After running to Slade's home to get the bottle of apparent poison and back, there wasn't much to do. He went to check on Dick, but there were so many people there already and sitting still always drove him nuts. So he went running on Barry's old treadmill. He was now a little tired, and hungry.
"Not yet. Whatever poison Slade used, it's not any official database." Bruce answered, keeping his eyes on the computer.
"And Jericho doesn't know what it is?" Wally questioned, his gaze moving to where Jason and Rose/Jericho were sitting. If it wasn't for the two cups and two empty plates, Wally would've thought they hadn't moved at all in the last few hours.
"No. He hadn't even seen it until Slade pulled it out to put it on his sword." Rose responded, refusing to call the assassin her father. She had already decided she wanted nothing to do with the man, but after seeing with her own eyes everything that he had done to Jericho, what he wanted to do to her friends, hate wasn't a strong enough word to describe how she felt about the man.
"Sh*t." Wally hissed under his breath, sinking into the chair closest to him.
Jason stared at the current Flash. He hadn't met Wally until they arrived at the Watchtower almost two days ago. He knew who he was, and that Barry Allen was the original Flash, but since he hadn't been Robin very long and there weren't any missions or team ups that they were both on, their paths never crossed. Because of that, he didn't know that Wally and Dick were apparently so close. Then again, Jason didn't know much of Dick's personal life. Bruce and Alfred didn't talk about him much and whenever they did, they seemed sad, making it clear that they missed him. It made Jason wonder exactly what all occurred when Dick left Gotham.
When Jason went to San Francisco with Gar, Rachel and Dick, he thought it would a chance to get to really know his predecessor. To learn from him. During those three months, Dick did teach him and the others a lot. However, he didn't really become close with Dick. He had tried, they had all tried and though there had been some success, Dick was surprisingly guarded. Alfred had mentioned at one point that Dick was a very outgoing person and, when he wanted to be, could be extremely charming and make friends with anyone, but it was clear that had changed. He had started thinking that maybe they just needed more time to get comfortable around each other or something.
The last several days however made him question if it was actually because of what all happened five years ago. Garth, an apparent close friend of Dick's, had died and his other three friends had walked out on him. Having just Rachel, Hank, Dawn and Donna turned against and blame him for stupid crap that he didn't do only days ago and hurt enough to drive him up to the roof. And he didn't even know these people for very long. How much did it hurt Dick, who had been friends with them for years, to watch them practically walk out of his life after blaming him for something Slade did? No wonder he seemed so closed off and cautious of letting anyone close to him. Then, they all did it again.
Now he was dying. No one was sure if they were going to be able to save him. And even if they did, would Dick still want anything to do with them after all the pain they caused? Had they all ruined everything?
"How's Dick doing?" Jason finally asked, knowing that Wally had gone to check on the first Robin earlier.
"Not good. He needs the cure, otherwise…" Wally broke off, staring down at the ground. Jason felt his heart plummet even though he knew already what would happen if they couldn't find antidote to the poison, Dick would die. Yet it was becoming more and more real and it was scaring him.
Jason looked over at Bruce and saw that his mentor had become even more tense than he was before. Though Bruce was terrible at showing or talking about his emotions, any one who was able to get to know the billionaire would be able to see that he was just as worried and terrified as Jason and Wally were. Whatever issues Bruce and Dick had, it was clear Bruce still loved his first son and Jason didn't want to know what could happen if Bruce lost him for good. And honestly, despite his own mixed feelings about Dick, Jason didn't want to lose him either.
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A steady beeping pulled Dick out of the black fog of nothing. Almost instantly, became aware of how sore he was. It was like when you over did it during work outs, and were then run over by a semi-truck. And then there was the heat. He felt like he was boiling. There had been a time when he was Robin and he and Batman had a mission that led them to a desert during its hottest season. This was worse than that. He wanted to go back to sleep, back to the darkness he was in before, but then he started hearing voices. Someone was around. Maybe they could help him.
Very slowly, Dick opened his eyes, before squeezing them closed only a second later. Not only was keeping them open a lot more work than he thought it should be, the lights were way too bright. It felt like he had been looking straight into the sun. Maybe he had been. He had no idea where he was or what was going on. All he did know was that he was hot, tired and extremely sore. He wanted to go back to sleep.
However, he suddenly heard a gentle and familiar voice say, "Dick? You awake?"
Turning his head to the side, Dick was barely able to make out Roy and Rachel sitting on the chairs beside him. Confused, he blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, then looked around the whole room. He was surprised, and puzzled, to see that the room he was in was almost completely filled with people. Gar was sitting on his bed by his feet. Hank, Dawn and Conner were sitting on chairs around the end of the hospital bed. Donna stood by the door and Kory sat in a chair on his other side. All of them looked worried and anxious.
"How are you feeling?" Roy asked, drawing Dick's attention back to him. Even though he spoke quietly, it sounded loud to his sensitive ears as his head pounded furiously in his skull.
"'rsty." Dick croaked. His throat felt like sandpaper and just saying that one word hurt.
At first, he wasn't sure if Roy understood him, he barely understood himself, but in between one long blink and another, there was a cup with a straw held out in front of him. Dick tried to lift his head, tried to push himself up, but quickly he realized he didn't have any strength at all to do that. Apparently sensing that, Roy's hand slid under his head, lifted him up and moved the cup closer so the straw hit Dick's lips.
After downing a few sips, Dick pulled away and Roy lowered his head back down on the pillow. Looking up at the archer, Dick mumbled, "Wha's going on?"
Roy looked over his shoulder at the others for a few seconds, then back to Dick. It was quite clear to the archer that his friend wasn't really with it. That wasn't surprising given how high his fever was, but it made him wonder how much he really understood. Was there really a point in telling Dick what was happening? Would it just make him confused and cause him to panic, or would not knowing make him panic?
"Um, well, Dick, Slade had apparently poisoned his sword. And when he cut you, it got into your system." Roy tried to explain, bringing a hand up to run his hand through Dick's hair.
Dick stared up at Roy through squinted eyes. The lights were blinding him. He tried to pay attention to his friend, but his words sounded all muffled. His head was also pounding and he felt like he was boiling. The only thing he heard Roy say clearly, was the word poison.
"Poi'ned?" He mumbled, his eyes closing. Keeping them open was too hard, and the light hurt too much.
"Yeah." Dick heard Roy confirm and tried to nod, but wasn't sure if he succeeded. He was so tired. He just wanted to go back to sleep.
But then he felt something wet and cold drape across his forehead and he moaned. The cold felt so good on his burning skin yet at the same time, caused his body to shiver. Then, smaller fingers pressed against his cheek.
"Dick?" Another voice, Rachel, whispered. As much as Dick wanted to go back to sleep, she sounded so worried and he didn't like it. So he forced his eyes open again.
Rachel was staring down at him, looking terrified. He wanted to reach out and grab her hand, or pull her into a hug, but he couldn't. His limbs felt like they were weighed down by bricks. He was only able stare at her for a few seconds before his eyes drifted close again. Dimly, he could hear her say something, but he had no idea what. He tried to open his eyes again, but he had no strength left to do that. So he sunk back into the darkness.
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"Dick? No Dick, stay awake." Rachel begged when she saw Dick's eyelids shut. He didn't open them though like he did before. She grabbed his arm and started shaking him, trying to get him to wake up, but he didn't.
"Rachel, stop." Kory told her, putting a hand on the teenager's shoulder. "Let him sleep."
Turning to face her, Rachel asked, "What if he doesn't wake up again?"
Kory felt her heart stutter in her chest a little at the question and she glanced over at Dick. Despite the rising fever, he looked so pale. There were dark smudges under his eyes that seemed to be growing every few minutes and there were times his chest hardly moved when he breathed that if wasn't for the sound of the heart monitor, she would've thought that he died already. And when he woke up, instead of helping assure her that he was okay, it only worried her more. The distant and confused look in his normally beautiful brown eyes made her question if he understood what was all happening.
She hated seeing Dick like this. It was clear everyone hated it. It was beyond infuriating and terrifying knowing that their leader, their friend, was dying right in front of them and there wasn't anything they could do about it. So far, it didn't seem like Bruce or the others had found a cure yet and the more time that passed, the more scared she was getting. The redhead wondered if it was possible the poison would just naturally pass out of Dick's system given enough time. Though she only met Dick a few months ago, and they had actually gone three months without talking, she couldn't imagine losing him.
"He'll be okay Rachel." Roy chimed in when Kory didn't say anything.
The dark-haired girl turned her gaze to him and said, "How can you be sure?"
"Well one, Dick has survived worse than this. He might be human, but he's tougher than some of the heroes with actual powers." Roy replied with a proud grin, then continued, "And two, Bruce isn't called 'the World's Greatest Detective' for nothing. He'll find the cure. He's not going to let Dick die."