YOUNG JUSTICE SEASON THREE IS HAPPENING! Go to this site pub. s6. exacttarget 5f1n10tgyjh Remove spaces to sign up for updates. Confirmed by the people in charge, like Greg Weisman.

So, you get a relatively early chapter so I could announce that. :P

Edit: Whoops. Wasn't whelmed enough to realize I forgot the line break.

Chapter 1

May 2013

There was a soft murmur near his ear. Then, a shifting of cloth as someone moved next to him. His right arm felt especially sore, the sadly familiar pinch in the crook of his elbow indicated an IV. A cold feeling originated from the point where the cool saline entered his body, making him shiver the slightest bit. His somewhat scratchy clothes from before had been replaced by a soft large t-shirt that went past his boxers to somewhere between his knees and mid-thigh, and a pair of warm woolen socks. A warm blanket had been tucked around his body, with only his arms and head sticking out. There was a malleable cuff around his upper left arm, and a slight pinch on his left index finger, a blood pressure and heart rate monitor maybe? He moved his left index finger a bit and heard a beeping start up behind his head.

Yep. Definitely a monitor. He could feel a mask of some sort over his mouth and nose as well, regulating his breathing. That, coupled with the uncomfortable feeling of a rubber tube down his throat, was enough to tell him that he was in some sort of medical facility. Was he back in the Target Dump? He'd never heard of anyone returning there. Did the prison have an official med bay? Or did they only have the rooms he'd seen for the experiments? He was probably in one of those. His body certainly felt like something had been channeled through it. Just one problem, the room he was in felt too spacious, too damp, and the slightest bit breezy to be one of those rooms, or even the Swirly Lights Room, as Damian had dubbed it.

Speaking of adorable baby brothers, there was a weight on his left leg, warmth seeping through the blankets at that one spot. With great effort, Dick managed to twitch his leg. He heard a soft mutter and felt the bundle shift curling up to keep his head on Dick's leg. Something soft lay across both legs of which the ball of Damian was settled half on, half off. A pillow, maybe? An extra blanket seemed to have been thrown over the boy haphazardly. The corner of it rested on the back of Dick's left hand, now that he thought about it, kind of itchy.

Dick's entire body felt sluggish and weak, and he noticed that the mask on his face was regulating his breathing rather than just pushing oxygen at him to help him heal as he had first assumed. Where was he, anyway? The Bluemen weren't the kind of people who would let Damian sleep curled up near the bottom of the bed like a puppy. They definitely wouldn't have replaced his clothing with softer cloth and wrapped him in a warm fluffy blanket. Dick didn't think they even owned a blanket this fluffy, unless one of the Bluemen kept it in their guardrooms at the end of the hall. Also, the Bluemen never gave them socks, just slippers.

That reminds him of the time he tried to do the jumping jacks the needle lady forced him through with the infuriating slippers on. Needless to say, they are called slippers for a reason. He narrowly avoided doing a split, and hurt his arm when the poisons caused his reflexes to slow enough that he didn't fall properly. He ended up strapped from head to toe in punishment.

Head to toe for the bluemen meant head to toe. When the Bluemen left him alone, they normally only tightly strapped him down with three straps, one over his waist and wrists, one over his legs just below the knees, and one over his upper body. When they strapped him head to toe, there was a strap over his forehead, his mouth after an oxygen mask had been fixated, his chin, his neck, his shoulders, his upper body and loops around his biceps, his stomach and loops around his elbows, his waist and loops around his wrists, upper thigh, lower thigh, loops around his knees, just below the knees, shins, and loops around his ankles. They didn't mess around and he could barely twitch when they were done.

Dick had endured the punishment many times for the tiniest, sometimes imagined slights, especially following the botched escape and Roy's subsequent death. It was one of Logarithm's favorite and Dick's least favorite tortures. The main differences between the demon and the rest of the Bluemen in using it was that Logarithm always blindfolded the boy first and then sharply pricked or burned the boy as the he added the straps in a random order, pulling them so tight Dick could barely breathe. One time, Logarithm had even put a set of mufflers on Dick's ears so that he couldn't hear hints of where the next strap would come from. Another time, after applying the blindfold, Logarithm forced the boy to do the leg straps himself as tight as Dick could manage. Then, Logarithm had the boy lie down and attached the strap around his neck firmly. Logarithm tightened all the straps around Dick's legs even further until it was cutting into his circulation. Every jerk of the straps tighter cut into Dick's breathing via the strap across his neck, Dick's instinctual grasping of the strap led to Logarithm playing a game of guess where I am in the room after securing his wrists.

Anyways, back to the original thought train. They were obviously not still with the Bluemen. Dick listened to his surroundings. There was another shift of cloth and quiet yet heavy footsteps moving around to his right. He could hear Damian's soft and even breathing and a slight echo when he moved his finger enough to restart the beeping of the machine. A few squeaking screeches echoed in response to the beeping. Bats? Was he in the Batcave? But why would Bruce keep him and Damian in the Batcave if they were kidnapped in Civvies. Also, weren't they in Europe? The heart rate monitor picked up beside him as he felt the respirator force him to even out his slightly panicked breathing. The footsteps moved closer to Dick who instantly tensed.

"You're awake." An unfamiliar, gruff voice said. "Can you open your eyes?" He, it sounded like a he, asked.

Dick tried, but his eyes felt like staying closed. He managed to crack his eyes open, but the influx of light led to him immediately closing them again. It felt like a heavy weight had settled on top of his eyelids and his eyeballs were avoiding strain. They weren't even strong enough to squeeze a tear out. His head felt heavy as well, and his entire body was numb, pins and needles all through his weighted limbs.

"I'm going to take that as a no." A second later, Dick felt his right hand lift from the blanket by a calloused, large hand. The hand was dry and warm, and definitely an adult's. "Can you give me one tap of your index finger for yes and two taps of your index finger for no?"

Dick twitched his index finger once for yes.

"Excellent. Do you know where you are?"

Dick hesitated then gave two taps.

"Do you know who I am?"

Two taps.

"Okay. Do you know how you got here?"

Dick thought hard about it. They had been in the prison, downstairs. The lights went out... He could remember the Target Dump and vaguely remember deactivating some bombs… The cave in! He and Damian had gotten stuck in the Swirly Lights Room! And then… it was a portal? Early zeta tube, right? They must have gone through… One tap? He had a vague idea of how they got there, but the theory was a bit lost.

"Well, that's something. Is Damian your little brother?"

One tap. No hesitation.

"Do you know what caused you to collapse?" They needed a 'sort of' option, Dick thought as he gave one tap.

"Hmm. Hard to do a concussion test with only yes or no answers." Another large, calloused hand reached out and tapped on his right knee with a rubber hammer.

"Did you feel that?"

One tap. Dick could feel the man pause, hovering over Damian.

"Feel a weight on your left knee?"

One tap.

"Alright. Can't do any more tests until you can open your eyes. Are you in any pain?"

One tap.

"Should have asked that first. Is it your back?"

One tap.

"I'm afraid I can't do much for that right now. It's more important that your breathing is even than that you're off the abused skin, but you can have another dose of pain medicine in an hour. You've been in a coma for five days." Dick heard him put the hammer down, and then felt as he switched the hand holding Dick's for the one the hammer was in a moment previously. The freed hand reached up and brushed against Dick's forehead. "You don't have a fever, so that's good. Do you hurt anywhere besides your back?" Dick checked with his senses, but the rest of his body only felt numb and heavy, not painful, although the tingling was annoying. He tapped a no.

"Try to get some more rest. If you're better when you wake up, we might be able to take the feeding tube out."

Dick gave one last tap and settled in to sleep. He felt a thumb rubbing the back of his hand like Bruce used to when Dick was sick or trying to fall back asleep after a nightmare. His last thought was that he wished Bruce was here.

The second time Dick woke, it was to soft spoken voices. Well, one soft spoken voice and one loud voice trying to be quiet, but failing drastically.

"But when will he wake up?" Damian demanded grouchily. Dick could feel the kid's knees against the side of his left leg. Damian's right hand was settled just above Dick's knee

"As I told you the last five times you asked, your brother will wake up when he wakes up." The same gruff voice from before sounded awfully exasperated, Dick observed.

"But you said he wasn't in a comma any, anymore." Comma? "So why is he still sleeping?" Oh! A coma! Dick vaguely remembered something about that. Most of the first time he awoke was a blur, what with being unable to open his eyes and all, but there was something about a coma….

"There are different kinds of sleeping. Earlier, your brother was in a coma, a really deep kind of sleep that he needed to wake up from on his own, because his body needed to repair, to fix, too much damage than could be fixed in a normal sleep. While you were sleeping, he switched to normal sleep, woke up briefly but not fully, and went back into normal sleep," Gruff said. "He probably won't remember much of what I asked him." Gruff added, almost as an afterthought.

A large, calloused hand brushed through Dick's hair absentmindedly. It felt kind of nice, relaxing. Dick started to drift back to sleep. The hand did a final pass, and then Dick felt and heard Damian lifted from his spot on the bed and into Gruff's arms. "Come on. Let's get some food into you." Gruff said, sounding distant, as if he was speaking through a long tunnel.

"But I'm not hungry!" Damian said.

There was an audible sigh. "No. You're Damian."

A/N

I found information about comas online, so I'm going to be using this scale for the next few chapters to give a rough medical estimate of what's going on with Dick.

YJ Season 3!

www .medicalnewstoday articles/ ? page=2

Glasgow Coma Scale ^

Scene One:

Eyes: Score of 1.5- 2 - opens eyes in response to painful stimuli, but mostly does not open eyes, so 1.5

Verbal: Score of 2 - incomprehensible sounds (mumbles)

Motor (physical reflexes): Score of 5.5- 6 - localizes painful stimuli (can pinpoint where pain is) and obeys commands

Overall Score: 9-10 , in other words, Dick is just above Coma and just in the Moderate Brain Injury section on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Definitely not healed yet, but no longer comatose. And because this is the Batcave and Thomas Wayne is a doctor/ surgeon, he somehow managed to run a full battery of tests on Dick including a CT scan and important blood tests. He knows what he needs to do for comatose patients, but since I am not a doctor, this is kind of relative for me. Inky is studying to be a doctor and nitpicks this stuff, so it's more likely more accurate than not.

Also from her, she says the coma described here is an anoxic brain injury coma. Basically, Dick lost oxygen to his brain for too long, and compounded with everything else, it caused him to go into a coma. Only about 12% of patients who have been in a coma for over 6 hours make a good recovery.