A/N: I made some small changes to the previous chapter, if you want to reread that.
"If it's not already in the cave, I'm not getting it. Just a heads up," the second oldest said as he closed the door behind him.
Damian watched as Jason exited the room, semi-slamming the door behind him. He would've berated Todd for such an inconsiderate action causing excessively loud noise had he not known Grayson would not have heard it being on the amount of sedatives flowing through his system. Looking across from him, he watched the even rise and fall Grayson's chest as he slept. Beside him, Drake moved to sit in a chair positioned near the foot of the bed. The sight was comforting because it ensured that Grayson was safe.
He had heard Todd's words from earlier as he was feigning sleep. He had woken up as soon as Drake had entered the room. He would insist to Father that both Drake and Todd be given more stealth training seeing as they cannot even communicate quietly, but for now he would stay with Grayson, even if it meant he had to be in the same room with Drake for who knows how many more hours.
The youngest bat did not know that the excitement of tonight's events was a result of the fear toxin. Damian didn't even think that of a possibility at a time. When Todd had mentioned it, it had all made sense. How stupid was he! Of course it was out of character for Grayson to act as harshly as he did! The only logical explanation would have been fear toxin! Stupid!
The question now is, will the toxin have after effects? Has Father already developed an antidote for future use? Will they be able to apprehend Crane before he is able to further its development?
"Your face could get stuck like that, ya know?"
The voice that broke him out of his thoughts belonged to Drake. The older hero had regained his position in the chair beside the injured hero and was hunched forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands on his chin, turned towards him.
"What are you on about, Drake?"
"You're thinking too hard," the older responded, sitting up in the chair. "Your face is all," he waved his hand aimlessly over his own face. "All scrunched up. Your thinking face."
"I was not," he responded childishly. Okay, yes, he was, but he wanted Drake to feel like he was wrong. As Todd put it, "It's what little brother's do."
Drake shook his head and returned to his previous position, only this time looking at the occupant of the bed, studying his face intently. "Sure you weren't," he said quietly.
The two sat in silence for a few minutes, both searching for any signs of change in their injured brother all the while waiting to see if Todd stayed true to his word and brought them what they requested.
Speaking of Todd, Damian found himself thinking back to what he had said earlier.
"What Todd said was true? Grayson will be fine?" The words left Damian's mouth before he could think.
"That's what Bruce says. He's still running some tests, but yeah. He'll be okay…We'll make sure of it," Drake added as an afterthought.
He received a low hum in confirmation as a response and a brief, comfortable silence between the two followed, each left to their own thoughts.
"You didn't know the gun wasn't loaded either, I take it?" The teen vigilante's voice broke the silence.
"He was a fool for bringing guns into the cave, regardless if they were loaded or not. I'm surprised Father continues to allow it." No. I did not.
Drake only nodded knowingly in response and continued observing the first Robin.
Neither could imagine how badly the night could have ended had the guns been loaded - how easy it could have been to have a life end right there in their homefront. Damian began fiddling with the sheets, and fluffing his pillow to a more adequate, comfortable position. He was not leaving the room until Grayson had awakened to reassure that there were no lasting effects of the toxin. He'd suggest to Father to furnish the recovery rooms with futons, at the very least. Leather couches were not comfortable in the slightest.
"Knock, knock, bat kids," Todd's obnoxious voice said as he opened the door after a few short minutes. "Here's your iPod, kid," he said as he tossed the iPod in his direction. Damian caught it with one hand.
"Where's my laptop," Drake asked bluntly, already knowing that the Red Hood likely did not grab it for him.
"I didn't know where it was," Todd responded with a smirk.
"It was right by Damian's iPod by the locker rooms."
"Yeah, I saw that."
"You didn't grab it."
"What do I look like? Alfred? Get it yourself," Todd said smiling wide as he turned and left the room, leaving the door open behind him.
"How? How did I know he was going to do that?" Drake said standing up, presumably to retrieve his laptop.
Damian already began to put the earbuds in his ears. "Obviously you did not, or you would have gotten up earlier."
Drake rolled his eyes in response, but he saw the small, hidden smile on his lips as he turned out of the room.
The numbness of unconsciousness was fleeting quickly as Dick's mind began to awaken. His mind told him he was awake, but he decided to access his surroundings before opening his eyes.
He tackled smell first. With a deep inhale, his nose was met with a light smell of some citrus-y disinfectant. Like the one Alfie uses to wipe down the counters of the kitchen. But, he wasn't in the kitchen, obviously. That'd be kind of weird.
Why was he lying down? Okay, well he was lying down because he was just asleep. That much made sense.
Could he hear anything? He held his breath to focus. Yeah. There was the distance sounds of bats screeching, which would mean he was probably in the cave. He connected the sound to the smell: med-bay, maybe? Not one of the surgery rooms, which thankfully, they rarely used. Those usually smelled like a different disinfectant to, he guessed, sterilize things?
Okay, back to sound; he could hear, shifting? Like someone else was in the room with him. He focused on the sounds of the other occupant and could hear light snoring from two different people. Yeah, he was probably in one of the recovery rooms waiting for someone to wake up.
Wait, recovery room? Someone was injured. Who? He tried to recall the last thing he remembered, but he was drawing a blank.
Ok, back to senses. He was on something soft and warm. He could feel the pressure of a light blanket draped on top of him. It was nice. He took another deep inhale to appreciate the comfort of the bed, but the pain came back to him like he was hit by a truck.
Okay, yup. Definitely him. Injured. Yeah.
The multi-city vigilante felt sore. Sore, like, all over. His entire body felt like it was covered in bruises. The pain was mostly concentrated in his chest, and his left arm. He could feel the pressure of bandages wrapped tightly around those areas, and a stinging pain in his left hand. A light pinch could be felt at the crook of his arm, most likely from an IV. It wasn't an overwhelming pain, thanks to probably the cocktail of drugs pumping through his system.
Everything he was feeling could be summarized into one word:
"Ow," he groaned as he opened his eyes, and immediately clenched them tightly.
Although the lights in the room where dim, his eyes still needed to adjust to them.
How long have I been asleep, he asked himself.
"About nine hours," came a gruff voice from his left.
Did I ask that out loud?
"Yeah, you did, Dickiebird," the voice replied calmly.
Turning his head towards the voice, he saw Jason leaning against the frame of the doorway, a towel draped around his neck. He wore a gray T-shirt, and loose black sweatpants. His hair was wet and sticking to his face, seemingly having just gotten out of the shower. Picking up one end of the towel, he began scrubbing at his hair to dry it, making the white streak stick out at odd ends.
"Came in to check on you," he said now using the towel to rub behind his ears. He stopped, and titled his head slightly, observing. "Yeah," he conceded. "Still look like shit."
Dick felt his lips quirk up in a smile, "Wow, how nice of you, Jaybird." Careful not to rip the IV out, Dick attempted to sit up while continuing to observe his surroundings. He was correct: he was definitely in the recovery room. The light snoring he heard came from two people: Tim and Damian. Damian was lying peacefully on the leather couch that took up most of the far wall, while Tim was in a chair beside him, resting his head on the bed near Dick's feet.
"What if I had kicked him in my sleep," he jokingly asked out loud as he watched Tim's shoulders rise and fall evenly.
"Then it would have been fucking hilarious," Jason said as he walked closer beside the bed. "How are you feeling, really," he asked as he adjusted the bed to come up to a sitting position. The movement caused the sleeping Red Robin to shoot up, alert.
"Wha-," he began to question tiredly. The teen shook his head to clear the sleep, and blinked a few times to wake himself up. His eyes then focused on the occupant of the bed, now sitting up and awake. "Hey! You're up," he said excitedly, but quietly as to not wake the Robin still asleep on the couch.
Dick smiled, then crossed his legs and stretched his arms dramatically. He hissed, as the movement caused the pain to flare up in his chest. "Yeah, I'm awake. Very much awake. Ow," he said wrapping his arms around his torso.
Jason wordlessly handed him a cup of water, and a few pain killers. Dick smiled in thanks as he downed the pills and water in a few gulps. He then walked around the bed to sit on the space that Dick's feet previously took up.
"OK, down to business," Jason began. "What do you remember?"
Tim, still seated, looked up at him expectantly.
Dick's gaze shifted between his two brothers, "Excellent question." He closed his eyes and willed his mind to remember.
What did he remember? Memories were coming back to him in fragments. Now that he was fully awake, he could concentrate better.
Mission in Gotham. He had driven there immediately after his shift with the BPD.
Crane had escaped a few weeks before, but they found him. Their mission was to take him back to Arkham as soon as possible.
The Batfam had split up. The Reds and Batman were to take out the men outside and buy them some time, while he and Dami took out Crane...
Damian. Him and Damian. They found Scarecrow, but Batman told them not to engage...
Nightwing made a bad call...
A bad call that got his baby brother hurt.
He walked his baby brother right into a trap.
He remembered a little bit of the car ride back to the cave, and Alfred patching him up. He remembered seeing Damian's injuries, and giving a debrief, but not much else.
Did he pass out after the debrief? How come he didn't remember getting to the med-bay?
Dick opened his eyes after a minute and looked towards the sleeping boy on the couch across the room, "Is he alright?"
Both boys looked in the direction the oldest was. "Yeah, he's fine," Tim began quietly. "A little shaken up. He's woken up a few times, but wouldn't leave."
"We tried to take him to his room, but he wasn't having it," Jason said looking back at Dick. "We settled for bringing him his iPod and just letting him chill in here until you woke up." The earbuds blaring music from his MP3 was probably the only reason the kid wasn't awake right now.
"He's been in here the whole time," he asked curiously. Dami was not anything short of loyal, but Dick figured he'd be mad at him for not listening when Robin reasserted Batman's instructions of not engaging.
"Maybe he wanted to make sure you didn't do anything stupid once you woke up." Jason had meant it as a joke, but Dick winced.
"Hey, I made a bad call. No need to rub it in my face," he said looking down sadly at his lap.
Jason raised a brow and titled his head. "That's...that's not what I'm talking about."
Dick looked up to see Tim and Jason exchanging calculated looks. "Dick," Tim began hesitantly as he looked back at his oldest brother. "What's the very last thing you remember?"
"The mission debrief." Dick face palmed. "Shit, Bruce is going to kill me."
The two Red's winced at his choice of words. "Why would he do that," Jason asked slowly as if expecting a specific answer.
Dick's eyes widened in surprise. They were both there for the mission debrief, weren't they? They definitely heard him explain how badly he messed up. "Because," Dick began slowly. "I lead us into a trap, even after Batman told us not to engage."
"Dude," Jason said after observing his brother for a moment, then standing up. "B already yelled at you."
Tim got up from the chair at the same time and walked up to one of the cabinets lining the walls. He pulled out an empty syringe and removed the plastic casing from it.
"You really don't remember any of it," Jason had probably meant it as a question, but it came out as a statement.
The injured hero's head jutted back in surprise. "Remember any of what?"
Jason exchanged another glance with Tim before looking back at Dick. "Fear toxin," he stated tersely. "It was bad."
"I'm taking a blood sample," Tim said as he plunged the syringe into the arm the IV was not in. Dick didn't even flinch as the needle punctured his flesh and began drawing blood.
"But, nothing happened. I was fine after I was injected, and after I breathed that stuff in, right? I was fine," Bludhaven's hero was speaking rapidly, trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about.
"We thought so too," Tim was already heading for the door, with the blood sample in hand. "The blood test said otherwise. I'm going to go make sure none of it is still in your system. Don't worry - it should be gone by now, but just as a precaution," he added as Dick's eyes widened. "We may have overlooked something. We can analyze and compare the time space between your blood tests to see if there is any progression in your blood composition due to the toxin. Maybe one that associates with memory loss, because, definitely not something to forget about," Tim said rapidly as he was walking out the door.
Dick rolled his eyes at his little brother's antics. Tim tended to go off on tangents when he thought out loud. "Jay," he said to the only other conscious person in the room. "How bad was it?"
Jason had walked over and was now leaning back on the doorway as Dick had first seen him when he woke up. "Uh, not nearly as bad as it could have been, I guess." Dick responded with his, 'no nonsense' face when Jason didn't give him a straight answer.
The anti-hero rolled his eyes. "Okay, yeah. It was pretty bad. It was completely unexpected. Scared the shit out of us, especially the kid," he jutted his chin towards the still sleeping boy. Dick was about to ask again, what happened, but Jason cut him off. "I was supposed to tell Bruce as soon as you woke up. I'm going to go get him, and we'll explain everything, okay?"
"Fine," he huffed in response. Why was everyone avoiding his question? Dick watched as Jason turned to leave, opening the door, which allowed Damian's Great Dane, Titus, to enter the room.
"Hey, bud," he said quietly to the dog, and with a quick ruffle of the head, Jason left and causing the automatic door to slide closed again.
Titus excitedly trotted over to Dick, who was still seated cross legged on the bed. "Hey, boy, ya miss me," he cooed as he lifted his right hand to pet the beast of a Great Dane.
He stopped himself as he looked down at the thick white bandages that covered his left hand up to just below his wrist.
Dick titled his head to examine the bandage, not recalling how he injured his hand. It must have had something to do with the toxin trip he supposedly took hours before.
"I don't suppose you know what happened, do you, Titus?" He jokingly asked his baby brother's dog as he began unwrapping the bandages to see the damage.
Titus only titled his head in response, then trotted over to his person still asleep on the couch.
A/N: WAKEY WAKEY, DAMIAN. Review's are fun to read, tbh. So drop one if you feel like it, but don't feel compelled to!