The Familiar Darkness: part ix
By: Corbin
Disclaimer: I wish that I owned Batman and Robin, sadly I don't and I never will. Oh well, its fun just to borrow such great characters even for a little while.
Batman watched uneasily as Dick shifted restlessly on the exam table. The boy should have been sleeping peacefully from the sedative Alfred had given him, but for some reason he wasn't able to even find peace in a drugged slumber. Dick tossed and moaned softly in his sleep as if he were having a nightmare. Really the young man shouldn't have stirred at all for at least another three hours, but he lay there on the table curled in a tight ball and mumbling incoherently.
Batman had analyzed a sample of his ward's blood to both his relief and his dismay he found no trace of any drug. Nothing, save for the sedative that he had been given. The marks from the needles that had been jammed into the boy's forearm were clear. The ugly set of purple bruises near the right elbow attested that something had been given to Dick during his stay at Arkham. The Dark Knight needed to find out what had been done to Dick, he saw only one way to do that. Go back to the asylum and raise some Cain.
* * * *
Alfred watched Dick with worried eyes, he held the injections gun Batman had given him with trembling hands. He hoped that Dick would not wake up before Bruce returned. Alfred sighed as he watched the boy shivering and sweating all at once. Gently Alfred palmed the boy's forehead, it was clammy, no fever. Carefully the older man pulled a warm blanket over the restless young man and shook his head.
"I do hope Master Bruce finds a way to help you. This just won't do at all," Alfred whispered as he watched the young man toss and mumble under the blanket. Even the darkness of the Batcave couldn't mask the worry that he felt for Robin.
TBC...