Variables
A.N.: There are some minor adult themes in this, so be warned. Enjoy!
Dick sighed, leaning back in the chair next to his father. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could block out the dank smell that was choking him, despite the mask over his nose.
"How's Tim taking all this?" Bruce asked, not pausing from his work. The youngest of the bat family had walked Dick down to the cave, but had gone back up t get something, probably pretense, and hadn't returned yet.
"I think he's kind of shocked. Rightfully so, too," Dick replied. Tim was lighthearted, but he also wasn't one to believe in what his eyes couldn't see. So finding out that not only were werewolves real, but that his brother was one and his father believed it was probably a very un-fun surprise.
"What are you going to test for, anyway?" the boy plowed on, looking over the spreadsheet. It was riddled with technical-looking letters and numbers, all of which he was too tired to really attempt to understand.
"Maximums and minimums, for lack of a better term. As well as how the change affects the virus."
"You're going to be taking my blood?"
"Only a milliliter at a time. You should be fine."
"But I'll also have to change."
"Later on, yes."
"Fine, but I am not changing in front of you." This time, he didn't respond.
Instead, he pressed a needle into an IV tube and held out a hand. Dick hissed as the needle pierced his skin and entered his vein.
"So, how do you feel about microchips?" Bruce asked as he taped the needle in place.
"What?"
"In case we should ever lose track of you," He explained. Dick opened his mouth, only for nothing to come out. The concept was pretty logical.
"Fine. Whatever." Bruce nodded, looking back to the screen and finishing off with a few keystrokes. One more, and Dick's face screwed up at the intrusive feeling of blood being siphoned off from his vein.
"Glad you guys didn't start without me," Tim's voice echoed around the cave. Both men looked over to see him trudging down the steps, apparently having gotten over his shock.
"Just in time," Bruce remarked. He turned to the werewolf. "How would you rate the pain of changing, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst?"
"Ten," Dick immediately replied.
"Describe the progression of pain."
"It usually starts out feeling hot, like a fever, and then goes from that to a really bad headache, and then full body pain. The pain itself isn't so bad, maybe an eight, but it's the organs and bones shifting that just makes it so much worse." Bruce's brows furrowed, but he didn't say anything else on the subject.
"When do you normally get to sleep?" The boy let out a laugh, at that.
"You're joking, right?" Bruce glared at the younger man, reminding him that Batman never joked.
"Usually I nap through most of the day and night. It's irregular. On a regular sleep schedule, I would sleep all day and be awake at night."
"Okay. By the way, Leslie's going to be coming over." Dick nodded. Bruce had already sent her the results from first discovering the virus; this way, there would be no more awkward explanations.
A sound grabbed his attention. He pulled of his headphones as his eyes flicked to a dark corner of the cave, a fair distance from where he was sitting. The noise repeated itself, a chirp, but unlike any bird or bat he'd heard before.
A hand shoved his shoulder, snapping him back to present moment and making him replace his headphones. Neither Bruce nor Tim seemed to have noticed anything strange.
"If you had to guess, what, besides full moons, brings about your change?"
"Well, the only other time I have changed was when I was with Wally. I don't know why."
"What was going on at the time? Anything significant?" Dick chewed is lip.
"Um, it was really loud, out. And smelled really strong."
"Anything that happened with you, physically?" Tim interjected, probably annoyed with being ignored. He'd been silently rigging his brother up with electrodes for the past ten minutes, pausing at every question to eavesdrop. Dick shrugged.
"All I remember is that my heart was beating really fast. I don't know if it means anything." On the screen, Bruce typed in 'possible increased heart rate' under the box entitled 'causes of change.'
Dick flinched as the computer chose that moment to let out a monstrous whir, followed by a screeching voice that grated out Leslie Thompkins: A14.
Tim, ever the gentleman, left Dick to fit the last electrode in favor of taking her bags and escorting the older woman the short distance to the batcomputer.
"Hi, Doctor Thompkins. How've you been?" he greeted, pulling a rather large duffel bag from her weathered hands.
"Be careful with that equipment, now, or you'll be paying for all of it," she chided. "I'm quite well, thank you. How's school going? Have you started your summer vacation yet?"
"Yeah. I just got back from a month-long camp, last night, as well," Tim answered as they both walked the last few paces to the monitors, where she paused to study her patient.
Dick chewed his lips again, squirming in his seat as he found himself unusually awkward. He'd had to remove his shirt to allow the electrodes, and he also hadn't showered the night before.
Leslie let out a laugh before reaching forward to pinch the young man's cheeks, before a quick tickle behind the ear, making him force a tightlipped smile.
"Oh, it looks like you might be putting on some weight there, bud," she remarked, pulling an otoscope out of her bag and painfully reminding him of the fact that he also hadn't been working out.
"Alright, I need you to keep your eyes open and looking at my nametag," she ordered. Then, true to her medical license, she began to shine a light in his eyes.
About halfway through the first one, she paused, taken by something.
"What?" he asked, looking up from the nametag.
"Nothing," she replied, sounding like it was definitely something. "Just eye shine. Have you experienced any pain in your eyes, lately?"
"Yeah, but it's only with, like, lights and stuff. At night, or in the dark, I'm pretty comfortable."
"Then I'm going to say that for you, eye shine is perfectly normal. It's a result of new tissues forming behind the retina, which improve your night vision. Nothing to be worried about." He nodded, looking straight ahead again.
"Anything medical happen in the last two months?" she continued, checking the other eye. Dick shrugged.
"I had a blood transfusion, but that was about a month before I changed the first time."
"Anything else?" She finished with his eye and, placing a plastic cone onto the tool, pulled back his headphones to get a look in his ear.
"No," he answered, wincing.
"Were you sick after the transfusion?" She moved to the other ear as he flinched at the volume of her voice. "Sorry, love."
"Yeah. I had chalked it up to having just lost a few pints of blood."
"What were the symptoms?"
"Fever, chills, a rash…"
"And how'd you lose that much blood?"
"It was a knife attack. The guy managed to slash my wrist." He turned over his scar-ridden arm to show her the one from the attack.
"Hmm," she said as she tipped his head back, pulled his mask down to his neck, and jammed the otoscope up his nose (without cleaning it off). "The virus must be transferable by blood contact, then. Funny, you never hear of that in a werewolf movie."
The easy mood he felt (despite the scent of earwax forced upon him) dropped like a stone. About a week and a half ago, he'd talked himself into watching a few werewolf flicks, now that he was somewhat settling into his condition.
When each movie not only featured the beast as the antagonist, but also ended with it dying, he realized it may have been a mistake.
And now, with that wound painfully reopened, he wondered, not for the first time, if that was what would become of him. If he'd eventually get so out of control that people would catch on, and even try to kill him. Maybe Bruce and Tim, too.
"I guess you don't," he remarked, trying to keep conversation going.
Leslie looked up, but didn't apologize.
Instead, she cleared her throat, checked the inside of his mouth before taking a cotton swab to it, and then pulled off the stethoscope from around her neck, listening to his heart and breathing, apparently nothing out of the ordinary there.
"Well, now comes the fun part," she said, and Dick's mood sunk even further at the knowledge of what the 'fun part' would actually be.
Then, she handed him a pair of headphones.
"Put these on, we're going to test your hearing," she said as she tried to push a flashdrive into the USB port, flipped it over, and finally succeeded.
"Okay…" He replied, pulling on the device. They were an older pair, probably bought either in bulk or in a Five Below, and the fragile plastic frame and thin foam padding did almost nothing to block out the other sounds in the cave, especially when compared to his Beats.
"We're going to start with volume," Leslie explained. "It'll start a mid-level volume, and get softer and softer. You need to let us know two things: When it becomes comfortable enough to listen to, and when you can't hear it anymore. Okay?" He got the impression that she was making a point of explaining everything for his benefit.
As he was saying, the headphones didn't do much to block out noise, but the high-pitched tone that played over them sure did.
He flinched and Leslie, seeing this, rushed to lower the volume. Thankfully, the sound that grated on his ears began to ebb.
"That's comfortable," he said when the sound reached a level somewhat comparable to normal speech, pre-change. "And now, I can't hear it," a few moments later.
Leslie mumbled and "Okay," as she jotted down the information, which he peaked at over her shoulder.
Comfort: 20 dB
Lower threshold: 0 dB
"Now for pitch," she announced, adjusting the volume accordingly. "You'll hear a long, sustained tone that gradually decreases in frequency, beginning at the very highest the headphones can produce. Let me know when you begin to hear it, and when it becomes too low to hear." Dick nodded.
A few moments passed before he flinched again, the cadence finally coming in like a demonic scream. This being enough of an answer, Leslie wrote down the frequency.
The pitch, as she said, slowly turned to something standard, to impossibly low, before it cut out, altogether.
"That's it, I can't hear it." Leslie nodded, wrote down the data, and waved her hand for him to take off the headphones, which he did.
Bruce opened up one of the minimized windows, and what looked like the screen of an ECG machine appeared.
"Are you able to hold off the change at all?" he asked, a bit late. Dick shrugged.
"I don't know. I held it off for a little while, with Wally. I still ended up changing, though. And, I don't want to risk hurting you."
"Well, do your best, and if you do change, we'll think of something." Dick nodded again, and made his way to the treadmill.
He smirked to himself after he'd been running for a few minutes, the rhythmic grinding of his feet against the belt and the beeping of the ECG in accordance with his pulse the only sounds in the sounds of note in the room. He might not have worked out in a while, but he wasn't that out of shape. He didn't even break a sweat.
Still, the goal was to raise his heartbeat, so he upped the speed.
Then Tim approached, and Dick immediately hoped he wouldn't actually start for quite some time. Time seemed to have just gotten over the whole 'my brother is a werewolf' thing; suddenly having to watch him double over without warning would probably not help matters. If this all still felt like a dream, he didn't want to make it Tim's nightmare.
"So, I was wondering…" he started. "Do you actually know it when you start to change?"
Dick shook his head, thankful for the simple question, rather than the emotionally loaded one he'd been expecting.
"Not immediately, usually. It starts out with heat, like I said. So it's a lot less pronounced at first. I usually figure it out when the headache sets in."
He was sure Tim had said something else, but he didn't notice because another sound had grabbed his attention, making him frown in barely recognized, yet still irrational distaste.
There was no doubt, this time. There was definitely a cat in the Batcave. Probably had gotten in through a crack or small hole somewhere.
The momentary distraction made him stop in his tracks, and his heart skipped a beat as he realized he'd been pulled back a few feet, almost off the edge of the treadmill.
"Did you hear something?" Tim asked, brows furrowed. Dick shook his head.
"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."
This apparently sated Tim's curiosity for now, because he was silent as Dick placed his hands upon the heart monitor, wondering what he was at, right now. The screen stated about 110 beats per minute, and a small smile snuck onto his face. He was within his target zone; he could totally get some exercise in, so long as he did it down here with his mask on.
A few minutes later, the smile slipped off his face, as well as any thoughts of exercise. He took a brief moment to assess himself: Yes, he was definitely heating up in a way he hadn't been a moment ago.
"It's starting!" he yelled out, not that his voice carried all that well with a mask over his mouth. Still, the pair across the room seemed to hear him, because Bruce pushed a button and the tube in his forearm suddenly began to fill with blood.
"You'll have to hold out for another second or two, to make sure we get the right amount. Can you do that?" he shouted, and Dick breathlessly nodded.
The monitor reported that his pulse was now at 145, and climbing fast.
Bruce, not a moment too soon, ordered him to stop running, and he leapt onto the sides of the treadmill, panting and trying desperately to keep his heart rate down.
155, 160, 165, 175, 180, 185… He could feel the headache, now, blooming in his skull as the number on the machine kept climbing, faster and faster. No stopping it.
'Tim,' he tried to get the word out, but he was out of breath, and his heart was pounding so loudly that he probably couldn't have heard his own voice, let alone a whisper.
The ache was setting into his bones, now, and he knew it was no use trying to hold it off. He was definitely changing now; he could feel his teeth growing in and could see the fur sprouting over his claw-tipped hands.
The pain was excruciating, even for what he'd experienced so far. It was so great that he didn't feel the needle that Tim had stuck him with.
Almost immediately, his legs turned to jelly and his whole body felt numb. Shapes – probably people, but now no more than just blurry shapes – grabbed him under the arms and kept him from toppling to the floor. There was a number, one he could just make out, that was always changing.
175, 165, 155, 135, 105, 75, 60…
That was the last one before it disappeared, and the world around him lost its focus completely.
BREAKLINE
He felt himself wake up, but he didn't open his eyes. It was too bright, already, and he was unpleasantly reminded of the two full moons he'd endured. Both had involved bright lights for some reasons. And drugs. Don't forget the drugs. (A.N.: If you are doing drugs and you shouldn't be, please forget the drugs. I really, really want you to forget the drugs.)
Still, he was determined to get up, of only so he could go back to his warm, dark room to sleep for a while. With no lack of effort, he dragged himself up on shaky limbs, supporting himself into a sitting position with his hands behind him.
Then, one hand swept his right arm out from under him, and another grabbed his head on the way down, setting it firmly back on the pillow.
"Whoa, whoa, easy," a familiar voice said. "You really shouldn't be up yet."
"Tim?" He managed say it, this time. "Why are you still here?"
"Leslie and Bruce wanted me to keep an eye on you. Make sure you didn't choke on your own puke or something like that." Dick nodded in understanding.
"Would you get the get the light?" he rasped. He heard Tim's footsteps as he went to flick off whatever light source hung above him.
"Better?"
"Much."
"So, uh," he began, probably wondering if the subject he was about to bring up would do more harm than good. "Bruce told me you opted to get a microchip implanted."
"Yeah," he replied, nodding.
"Why? I thought you'd be uncomfortable with it."
"Well, if I get lost or something…" he trailed off, the logic of the concept speaking for itself.
"Still, it doesn't bother you at all, that he's kind of treating you like a pet?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean he's getting you chipped, he lets you sleep all day, and he doesn't really talk to you, even to try to understand what's going on. You're a freaking werewolf, after all. So, why is he only doing this, now?"
"Okay, first off, I was the one to agree to the chip; yesterday was an exception, actually; and I spend most of my time in my room, because it smells too weird, anywhere else. He can't talk to me, or else I'd choke. And as for the last thing, why don't you ask him, yourself?"
Tim left without a reply.
BREAKLINE
Dick did his best to ignore the weariness he felt. He was so tired; it was almost like that could just become his whole identity. Maybe he could take a nap? Just a little quick one?
No, stop that!
He really did need to focus. Leslie was explaining the ins and outs of micro chipping, mostly through anecdote about how she'd spent a few years as a veterinarian.
"So, then, Bruce and Tim will hold you down, and Alfred will be on stand-by. He'll sedate if we need to, but we should be fine without-"
"Wait, what? You're doing this without sedation?" he asked, eyes wide. He snapped his mouth shut when everyone turned to look at him like he'd just grown three heads.
Leslie was the first to speak up, immediately clearing the air with "You haven't been paying any attention at all, have you?"
He shook his head, telling himself to focus!
Leslie stepped forward, cupping her hands around his face and making absolutely sure he kept his eyes locked onto her.
"We need you in werewolf form to make sure we get the placement right for the microchip. Since we know that putting you to sleep will cause you to change back, we're going to have you change, and then inject you with the chip. Bruce and Tim will have to hold you down to stop you from biting or even knowing what's going on. When the whole thing's done, we'll let you go and give you enough sedative to let you change back."
"B-but…you said…" He tried to remind her of her earlier words, but the tang of disinfectant and Alfred's tea on her breath demanded his attention, and it took everything he had not to start hacking in her face.
"We'll sedate you if you get out of control, but I don't think we'll need it," she explained. "Okay?" He nodded. Off in the distance, he could hear a small chirp, infuriatingly reminding him of the cat that was, for some reason, still in the Batcave.
A thought struck him as he got up.
"Oh!" he said. "Uh, one more thing you should know about." Leslie's face was blank as she looked at him to continue. "When I change – um – my clothes don't…change with me."
Leslie was unimpressed as she kept her attention on the needle she was preparing.
"Would you like us to leave you alone to change?" She asked. He mulled it over for a minute. On the one hand, he'd have total privacy if they left, so that was a big plus.
On the other hand, He couldn't exactly call them back in when he was done. Who knows what he could get into by the time they came back?
"I'll, uh, I'll just go change over there," he said, pointing over to a rarely entered tunnel of the cave. Everyone else nodded as he took a few tentative steps backwards in that direction, before turning to get there faster.
A cough escaped his mouth while he was stripping down. The cat was definitely over here, and probably not even three yards away. Truth be told, he'd known that well ahead of time, and he briefly wondered why he'd chosen to come here if he'd been despising the thing this whole time.
He sighed heavily, his nerves starting to get the better of him. He knew he had to make himself change, and he knew he it would take a while for him to get to that point just by running in place, but there were still people in the next room, and it would definitely be awkward for them to see this.
Still, he told himself he was entitled to his own body and his own pleasure, and set to work.
BREAKLINE
Five minutes passed before they could hear the screams. If Dick had been in pain on the treadmill, Tim thought, then surely he must be dying, now.
For the next five minutes, Tim – as well as Bruce, Leslie, and even Alfred, he assumed – did everything they could to block out his agonized screaming and groaning, which had quickly devolved into whimpers and howls.
"Go upstairs and get a steak," Bruce whispered to Alfred, who left in search of the beef. "Dick!" he called. "Come here." Tim suspected he didn't think Dick would actually follow these orders.
There was a hiss from the direction he'd been in, and then a feline yowl which was quickly cut off and followed by the sounds of chomping and gorging.
When Alfred returned with the meat, Tim found morbid curiosity nibbling at his insides, and he followed the butler to the tunnel.
Inside it were a pile of clothes, a splatter of something that looked like milk (or that he told himself was milk), a trail of blood and fur, leading to a spot where the lights didn't quite reach.
"Master Dick," Alfred called as he waved the steak. He didn't need to get any farther than that, because the wolf, apparently unsatisfied with its meal, stalked out of the shadows, golden eyes trained on the red meat in front of it.
The duo stepped back calmly, and the wolf padded forward, curiosity piqued. Every time it got close enough to take a bite, Alfred would move the slab back with him, resulting in a comical display of sniffing and snapping as it walked the length of the cave.
Finally, Alfred tossed the food onto the steel table, and the wolf jumped onto it without a second thought. Cautiously, Tim placed his hand on the animal's head, feeling its soft fur beneath his finger tips. It growled, at first, but returned to its meal when the hand didn't move to take it.
Bruce joined just as slowly, and Leslie waited a moment for the creature to stop moving before sticking it between the shoulders and injecting the tag. Robin swept his hand along the wolf's back, trying not to feel weird about the fact he was petting his brother.
Then Alfred pierced the wolf's haunches with the sedatives before covering him with a blanket, and everyone else was forced to leave.
BREAKLINE
Dick was glad Leslie was so understanding. If it had been any other doctor, they probably would have laughed in his face about being asked to make a follow up in the middle of the night. But, that was when he was most awake, so he wanted to be able to pay extra attention to what she had to say.
"So," she started, making her way to the computer to bring up his charts. "Let's take a look at this, shall we?
"Well, your blood work was mostly fine, and we found that the virus multiplies as you change, and is also present in your saliva, so be careful of that." She looked back to see Dick nodding. "And it seems that, even in your human form, your body has undergone some changes."
"Like what?" Bruce's voice asked. The pair turned their attention to see the billionaire descending the stairs, probably curious about the tests, as well.
"Well, the number of cilia in your nasal passage has increased, which enhances your sense of smell. We already talked about your eyes, and even your ear canal adjusted to be more like a wolf's." Dick nodded again.
"What about the other tests? The hearing and stuff?" he said.
"Because of those changes, anything you hear is dramatically louder than what it is – you know this. The level that would be comfortable to you is around 20 decibels, and your lower threshold is almost nothing. There's really not anything you can do about that that you aren't doing already. As for pitch, your upper limit is around 70 kilohertz, and the headphones actually failed when you said you couldn't hear it, so we can't measure that. Your maximum heart rate without changing is about 140 beats per minute."
"Any changes we should make?" Bruce asked, which immediately set Dick on edge, because the fact that Batman even WAS asking was because there were undoubtedly changes to be made.
Leslie nodded, before launching into her explanation.
"Well, Dick, I found that your T cells are down."
Dick snapped to attention, staring at her in shock. Down? His T cells were DOWN? The thought almost made him nauseous, and his mind refused to accept it. It couldn't be. It…it just couldn't.
He felt Bruce's hand clamp over his shoulder, but Leslie's next words made the fretting unnecessary.
"It's not serious yet," Oh, man, he hated that word. "and I suspect sleep deprivation has something to do with it. But, I advise you come by the clinic some time to get up to date on your vaccines, and maybe to drop by a vet as a wolf for those shots."
"What do you mean by sleep deprivation?" he asked, leaning forward. "I've been sleeping."
"Yes, but you don't get sleep when you're supposed to, and I'd hazard a guess that you also don't sleep well. Bruce told me your circadian rhythm, your body clock, has changed to make you nocturnal."
"So, what? You're saying I should just live like a wolf and sleep during the day?" The woman nodded.
"If that's what's most natural to you, I don't see any reason not to. Nobody's forcing you to be diurnal." Any defense he had was immediately shut down, after that. The argument made terrifying sense.
"So, basically, just sleep during the day, get your vaccines, and try cutting out anything that isn't meat from your diet. I have a feeling that's what's causing you to gain a lot of weight; wolves don't typically eat anything but meat, so everything else is just filler, for you." Dick nodded. The last part, he supposed, wasn't especially terrible.
Bruce nodded and sent her off, before turning towards a separate room to change into his Batsuit. Dick, even though he couldn't go with him, followed after him.
"Tell me something," he said, not making eye contact.
"What?"
"Why did you decide to run the tests now, instead of earlier, or even right after I changed the first time?"
Bruce was silent for a moment, before replying with "I'd figured it was still a raw wound, for you. Didn't think you'd appreciate someone rubbing salt in it."
Dick stopped in his tracks. Batman? Wanting to spare feelings?
Who'd've thought?
He shook his head, wishing Batman well and making his way to the kitchen to find some food.
A.N.: This chapter is probably one of the longest ones I've ever written, and definitely the longest so far on this fanfic. This is the fourteenth page, and there are 4,961 words in total.
Also, does anyone else think that this story is paced kind of oddly? The first two chapters took place over a few hours, then there was nothing written for the subsequent month, and then the rest of the chapters have been over the course of about four days. I just think it's weird.
So, anyway, is there anything you'd like to see from this fanfic? I'm starting to run out of ideas.
Also, don't forget to check out my FaceBook page. Just search my penname on FaceBook. Thank you for your time, and GOD BLESS!