Percy was relieved to finally be leaving Gotham City. Kidnapping Dick had been surprisingly easy. While he was being driven home from school by his butler they had intersected the limo, taken Dick and left a letter promising he'd be back soon. Sure it wouldn't do much, but hopefully this way Bruce would know they weren't hurting his son.

Currently Dick was fighting for his life in the seat next to Percy. He had a potato sac over his head and his hands and legs were bound with zip ties. They had been wearing masks during his capture, and hadn't yet revealed themselves to him.

Once they had been driving for at least twenty minutes Percy turned towards Dick who was still struggling for freedom.

"Calm down Dick it's me, your brother, it's Percy." At this Dick flinched and stopped fighting slouching with a sigh. Percy slowly removed the potato sac from his head. "If I undo your hands and legs do you promise not to try and escape?"

"No promises." He said with a scowl.

Percy frowned, he didn't want Dick bound like a prisoner the whole trip. I mean sure they kidnapped him so technically he was their prisoner, but Percy wanted his own brother to at least tolerate him by the end of the trip.

"I know." After removing the zip ties, Percy unbuckled Dicks seatbelt picked him up and scooted into his old spot by the door, placing Dick in the middle between him and Grover. Dicks frown deepened and he sent Percy a withering glare that terrified him more than he cares to admit.

Percy cleared his throat. "So, umm, do you feel any different now that we're out of Gotham?"

Dick slouched and looked down. "No."

"Was it weird adjusting to Gotham in the first place?"

"No."

"Oh." Percy said quietly, he turned to look out the window. This was not going how he'd hoped it would go.

After what felt like hours but was really only a half hour Dick spoke. "Bruce will come for me. He funds the Justice League you know. Someone will come get me."

"The Justice League? That group of super heroes that defends earth? Pshhh we could take em!"

"Correction, seaweed brain. We could not take em. They've got powerful people on their side!" Annabeth stated.

"Like who Batman? I heard he was only human, and took on a kid sidekick too! What kind of nut job would do that? They should call him squirrelman!" Percy looked toward Dick hoping his joke would garner a smile. Instead he found that Dick was silently fuming, face turning red with anger.

He was about to try and placate the fuming boy when Dick took a deep breath. "For your information Batman and Robin are amazing superheroes! I've been saved by them a few times, they're really cool. Also even though Batman is still pretty strong, I think Annabeth was talking about the Atlantan king, Alien powerhouses and Amazonian warrior on their team." Dick crossed his arms and looked away from Percy.

Percy sighed, he hadn't meant to offend Dick. Only start a conversation, but clearly he was failing miserably. He made eye contact with Annabeth through the rear view mirror and she gestured for him to keep trying.

"Hey, uh, Dick. Listen, I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend you. Truth be told I don't know a lot about the Justice League or Batman and Robin really. Could you, umm, maybe tell me about them. You make them sound so cool, I don't know what I'm missing."

Dick turned towards him with a small smile. "Well, if you insist. So first there's Batman, the dark night, Gotham cities great protector!"

Five hours later they were still on the road. Dick had nodded off around an hour ago and had his head resting on Percy's lap. Thalia has switched out with Annabeth to drive after she'd gotten tired.

Percy smiled as he remembered the conversation he'd had with Dick. After talking about superheroes they'd moved on to topics like school, friends and hobbies. Apparently Dick was some kind of genius who had skipped two grades and could already understand concepts that even Percy had trouble with and he was seventeen!

Dick only had one friend at school, a girl named Barabara Gordon who was a year older than him, she had also skipped a grade however so they were both in the same class. Dick was also unfortunately bullied, but not for the same reasons Percy had been. Unlike most Demi-gods Dick did not have ADHD or Dyslexia, instead he was bullied for his heritage. Dick explained that though his mom was Romanian his father was a Roma so he'd get called names like gypsy trash. Percy's blood boiled at the thought of anyone saying such terrible things to his little brother.

"I think your getting pretty good at the whole big brother thing." Grover said smiling.

"Although you did have us in the first half, I totally thought you and your big mouth was gonna blow it!" Thalia teased.

Percy smiled back and looked down at Dick. He hadn't even realized he'd been subconsciously stroking his hair. Dick looked peaceful while asleep. When he was awake he'd only seen him either extremely angry or extremely excited when talking about his interests. Now however he looked completely peaceful.

"Can you believe that kid is nine years old?" Thalia asked. "Honestly, if he scrunched up his face right I could believe he was six!"

"Yeah well, he's still got time to grow." Percy defended. "After all our dad is pretty tall, so he's got a loooong way to go."

"Maybe he took after his mom." Annabeth joked from the front seat.

There was a moment of silence after this. Percy's face scrunched up sadly. "He's lost so much at such a young age. His parents, his aunt and uncle, and his cousin." Percy brushed some of the hair out of Dicks eyes.

"We've lost a lot too." Annabeth said sadly. "It's like a demi-god curse, we've all got tragic lives. We've all lost people we love."

"but we've fought in wars and battles, we knew the risks. And his family wasn't killed by a monster or a demon or a jealous god. Their murderer was human."

They continued driving on in uncomfortable silence. Until Percy felt Dick squirming around in his lap. He began mumbling and when Percy looked down he could see he was sweating.

Suddenly, Dick began screaming in a language none of the teens could understand. This caused Thalia to startle and she almost drove off the road before regaining control of the wheel.

"Dick? Dick, wake up! Wake up it's just a nightmare!" Percy yelled panicked. Dick was kicking screaming and crying in his sleep.

"What language is he speaking?" Thalia asked.

"He keeps slipping into different languages." Annabeth said in concern. "I think I recognized Russian, Romanian and some Portuguese."

Suddenly Dick began screaming in English. "No! Stop! Leave him alone! Bruce don't leave me!"

"Dick, please wake up!" Percy begged.

"No! Stop laughing! Get away from me! Batman!" Dick shot awake in a cold sweat. Tears stained his flushed cheeks as he wearily took in his surroundings. "Bruce." He whimpered quietly.

Percy was about to say something to comfort him when Dicks eyes sharpened. He had finally realized where he was. His previously terrified face went blank and all traces of emotion vanished. He wiped the tears off his cheeks and stared at the ground.

What had just happened.

This was not normal behaviour and he wouldn't have expected it from any nine year old kid. What had he gone through to make him first have a nightmare like that and then cause him to shut down so easily.

The rest of the car ride was spent in uneasy silence until they arrived at camp.