By the time Tim and Damian were suiting up, Dick still hadn't worked out what it was about this case that was bothering him. He hadn't been able to stand for eight minutes either and he was so tired he could hardly see. The whole day felt like a complete waste of time.
"Dick, go to bed," Tim ordered him as he put his mask on.
"Something's still bugging me," Dick mumbled.
"We'll be fine Grayson," Damian snapped at him. "You look terrible. Drake may not be wrong this time."
"Holy crap," Dick groaned. "You guys agree on something. I must look like a corpse."
"Pretty much," Tim agreed. "Come on, I'm pretty sure moving you back to bed is a two man job." Dick shrugged his shoulders and let Tim drag him up. He was good at dragging Dick around, although he did have a lot of practice at this point. "Could you possibly just stay in bed this time?" he asked as he covered Dick up.
"Maybe," he murmured. "Damian?"
"What?" he asked.
"Be careful okay? Something about this isn't right. Just, watch your back."
"We'll be fine," Damian said a little scornfully. He grabbed the blankets and pulled them up a little higher on Dick's chest.
Dick tried, very, very hard to say something back but at best be managed a mumble.
At two thirty seven in the morning Dick woke up. It took him about three seconds to wonder why and about three more to realize what had been hanging around at the edge of his mind for the whole day. "Oh shit," he groaned.
Of course he didn't have a com or anything useful like that and he had to tell them right now because they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
Dick threw off this blankets and lurched to his feet. He hit the ground too fast and couldn't get his balance back. Instead he went careening forwards with his head down. He managed to aim at the wall, in hopes that he could use it to straighten himself up. It didn't go well because the top of his head found it first.
It was so painful he blacked out for a second, hit the floor and only managed to avoid choking on his own vomit by sheer dumb luck. Shuttering he rolled away from the mess, spat and managed to drag himself up the wall. His head was thundering so much he couldn't see but he'd had the layout of the Batcave memorized since he was ten so he didn't need to.
"Red Robin, Robin, come in," he slurred frantically.
"Nighwing? Not a good time," Tim's voice came back clipped and Dick could hear the sound of fighting in the background.
"Red Robin, you need to get out now," Dick groaned desperately. "'Member when I told you something about it was bugging me? Well I figure it out and you have to get out now. You're not after a normal assassin, he's just the bait."
"Crap," Tim muttered. "That explains it. Can't talk right."
"Red Robin, are you okay?" Dick shouted while one arm clamped around his stomach which was enthusiastically throwing itself around in side him. "Where's Robin?"
"Here," Damian snapped urgently.
"Can't talk now," Tim said suddenly. "We'll check in in a minute."
"I'll call Batgirl."
"Do not send anyone else after us Nightwing," Tim sounded slightly desperate "This isn't the kind of fight where more backup's going to help."
"No!" Dick shouted. He stood up, not really meaning to and took a few steps towards the Batsuit but be couldn't get much further, he crashed into the floor again. "No!" he shouted again.
"Are you okay?" Damian panted through the link.
"I need to help you," he moaned.
"We'll be fine Nigthwing," Tim said desperately. He sounded winded like he'd just taken a punch. Dick groaned again.
"Tim," he said breathlessly. "Damian's okay?"
"Yes," Tim said. "I'll get back to you as quickly as I can. Stay there, don't do anything stupid, we'll be fine."
He shut off the com. Dick gasped and struggled a bit but he couldn't seem to get his limbs to do what they were supposed to, other than twitch and shutter. "No," he whimpered, rolling himself over in case he was about to puke again. He couldn't think of a more embarrassing way to die than choke to death on his own sick. Damian would probably blow off his funeral if that's how he died.
For at least thirty seconds gagging and the painful contractions of his stomach were all he could think about but once that passed the crippling fear for Damian and Tim came back.
He managed to drag himself a few inches closer to his costume, but it was pretty much useless. He wasn't going to be able to put it on, that was for sure. He couldn't even stand.
"Red Robin?" he asked again. "Are you okay?"
"Not so much," Tim answered. "I'm not sure what we're fighting, but he's making Bane look calm."
"One minute," Dick moaned.
It took him way more than a minute to crawl across the floor, grab onto the chair and drag himself up onto it. He was breathing so hard he couldn't see through each gasp. He threw up again, carefully not on the computer. "Robins where are you?" he managed to more or less spit into his communicator.
"On Seventh street, just north of Wayne Tower," Damian answered.
"Kay," Dick grunted at him.
Dick was completely sure that it was only the adrenaline that was the only thing that was holding him upright and capable of using his fingers at all. "Found you," he whispered when he called up the footage for the rooftop. "Okay, okay," Dick muttered. "Shit you never pick easy enemies do you?"
"Anything useful to add?" Damian snapped.
"Yes," Dick murmured. "He uses a weird, super unstable Venom compound. It's intense but short lived. If you can just keep him going for another I don't know, half hour he'll have a heart attack. Alternatively you can try to administer a sedative but you need to be careful which ones you try."
"What'll work?" Tim asked. "I've only got morphine."
"No."
"Damian what do you have?" Tim asked.
"Nothing," Damian answered. Dick watched the really large thug grab Damian as he leaped in from behind with a flying kick and slam him into the roof.
"Damian," Dick shouted as Tim landed in front of him and kicked the guy in the face while Damian crawled away. "Damian, are you okay?"
"Uh," he grunted.
"Nightwing, we need tips if we've got to keep alive for another half hour. Got any?" Tim sounded breathless and Dick could see that he was taking a pounding.
"His hearing is pretty bad," Dick mumbled. Damian, who was using the wall to stand himself back up, immediately throw a fistful of small explosives at his head. His head snapped around in confusion, giving Tim a few seconds to back away and catch his breath.
"Great," Tim agreed. "Don't suppose you can run any interference from where you are?"
"I'll try," Dick agreed. "Just stay alive okay?"
"Working on it," Tim answered.
Dick called Jim Gordon. "Turn your sirens on," was all he could manage to explain. "Anything that's loud. Run it all." He hacked into the sound system for the building next to the one they were fighting on and started blaring music through it.
"Did that help?" he asked. Or he tried to ask, he wasn't sure that words came out as more than a mumble. No one answered but when he looked at the cameras he could see that both of them were alive, looking exhausted but like they were doing a little better. At least, the Venom guy looked like he was struggling a lot more to land punches.
Quite suddenly he staggered, without being hit and fell down.
The second that happened Damian was on him. Dick could just imagine what Damian was snarling at him but suddenly he couldn't see very well again. He groaned and tried to push himself back from the computer because he was pretty sure more vomit was inevitable and he didn't want it to be all over Bruce's computer.
The world lurched underneath him throwing him violently to one side. "Damian," he groaned. "You okay?"
"Yes," he thought he heard back, but it was hard to tell over the roaring of the blood in his ears. He didn't want to fall that way, he'd thrown up on the floor earlier. He didn't want to lie in puke until Tim got home.
"Tim," he whispered, dragging himself with his arms and the desk in the other direction. If Tim replied, he didn't hear it. He didn't hear anything. "Damian."