Dick remembered what he'd dreamed about in the hotel now.

Shaking, sliding, falling...it had all come back to him as the ground had slipped away beneath his feet and dragged him with it. The flailing Tim had mentioned him doing in his sleep a few nights before had been his attempts to grab onto anything that might slow or stop his tumble, he'd recalled as he re-created the motions. Unfortunately they had been just as useless in real life as in his nightmare, a fact of which his body was sure to inform him as he swam slowly back up to full consciousness.

"Uuuugh," he moaned without opening his eyes. A cough followed, tasting of dirt and blood. Making a face, he spat blindly. The coppery flavor worried him until he found a gash on the inside of his cheek, the result of an unpleasant encounter with his teeth. Wondering what else he'd done to himself, he dragged his trembling hands into action and explored what parts of himself he could reach without sitting up. Bruises and a few mild lacerations greeted his fingers, but so far as he could tell he'd avoided major internal injury. Good, he groaned. We've still got to walk out of here... He frowned. We...we? Timmy...!

His eyelids flew upward, then slammed back down. "Fuck!" he swore involuntarily as pain exploded behind his forehead. Oops. Sorry Alfred. Blame it on the circumstances. Taking another peek at the world, he hissed and reached for the source of his throbbing agony. "...Oh," a flat tone of discovery sounded when his palm met with more wet stickiness than he'd anticipated. Scalp wound. Concussion? Maybe... His thoughts so far were clearer than he recalled them being immediately after receiving past head traumas, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. He needed to find his brother, not only to make sure that he was safe but so that the wound could be better assessed. Gotta get up, he coaxed himself. Gotta find Timmy.

Another low exhalation of discomfort exited his mouth as he pushed himself to his feet. Black dots flooded his vision for a moment, then faded. Ooooww...okay. It's okay. Gotta find Tim. Worst I've got is a little bump on the noggin; just have to make sure he's no worse off.

"Diiiiiiiick!"

He whipped around at the sound of his name, nearly falling down again in the process. The circles clouding the world were white this time, but he pushed them aside. "Ti-" His answering call started off as nothing more than a rough whisper and ended as hacking as his lungs tried to expel the dust they had taken in during his desperate efforts to not die. "...Ti-" he tried again, with the same result. ...Screw it, he thought when the second fit had calmed. He was facing the right direction now, and unless his brain was more addled than it felt he was fairly certain that his brother's cry had come from above him. Mountain knocked me down, now I'm going to climb right back up it. Gotta get to Timmy.

The slide he'd been caught in had pushed him about thirty feet before it had slowed in a small saddle. There were no insurmountable obstacles between him and the top, and the slope was only about half that of the trail they'd struggled up a little over an hour before, but for some reason his trudge was incredibly difficult. Shouldn't be...this hard, he groused as he limped along. A tiny fire lit up in his left calf with every step, suggesting that he'd acquired a decent gash in the back of his leg. It didn't matter; he could walk for now, and that meant he could get to Tim. So long as he could do that much, the rest would wait.

As he drew close to the top he discovered that the last three feet of elevation he needed to gain had transformed into a vertical bank. Stopping, he stared at it dully. Normally such a thing wouldn't have given him so much as an instant's pause, but in his current state it required thought to overcome. Well, what the hell. I'm already dirty. With that in mind he bent forward at the waist, stretched his arms over his head, and half-rolled, half-dragged the rest of his body onto the next level. There. That's done. Almost there...

Struggling to his feet once more, he found that the spot they'd eaten lunch in was obliterated. Every rock had been thrown willy-nilly, some cracking in violent collisions with their brethren, others simply rolling over and showing their damp, mossy underbellies in a submissive manner. The worn line in the earth that they had been following since the road no longer broke straight towards the far side of the ridge, but looked instead like someone had dropped a chicane in the middle of it. A ground squirrel lay nearby, dead of the sort of crushing damage that he himself had come close to sustaining. The hilltop was completely unrecognizable save one thing, and one thing only.

Dick felt a grin spread across his lips as he spotted his brother, facing away from him in the middle of the destruction with his shoulders slumped and one hand over his face in a universal gesture of despair. Timmy. You're safe.

His misbehaving foot caught a loose stone and sent it skittering away as he started forwards. The younger man stiffened, then turned around wearing an expression of wary hope. Their eyes met, and Tim's bulged. "Dick!"

Each crossed the ankle-twisting summit as quickly as he could. Tim slipped in his haste, hitting his already butchered knees and giving a yelp that left Dick wincing. He leaped back up immediately, however, and kept coming, the dirty streaks where tears had run down his cheeks becoming visible as he grew closer. They met in an embrace that was more of a crash than anything, and stood in one another's arms for several long minutes.

"...Oh, god, I was so afraid you were dead," was whined.

"I'm right here, little brother. It's okay. Also," he added, "I'm sorry."

"Huh? Why...what...?"

"I knew we were in a park, but I didn't realize it was an amusement park," he joked hoarsely. "They've certainly got the hair-raising roller coaster down pat, don't you think?"

The figure in his grasp tensed. Then a sobbing laugh broke out against his shoulder, and Tim gripped him tighter. "Dick...jesus...of all the things to come up with right now..."

"Thought I'd lighten the mood," he answered, swaying slightly. Now that he'd found his brother and his adrenalin was receding he was beginning to feel light-headed. "Uh...do you mind if we sit?"

"Just one more minute," a plea came. "Please? Unless..." Pulling back, Tim looked him up and down. "Christ, you're bleeding! Why didn't you say something?!"

"I was busy hugging you. It seemed more important at the time. Seriously, though..." He blinked hard. "...Sitting would be good."

"Over here. It's a little ways away, but you can sit on my pack. You don't want to try the ground; these rocks hurt."

"Tell me about it. Gah!" His leg tried to give out, forcing him to grab his brother's shoulder for stability. "...Sorry. I don't know what's going on with that..."

"We'll look once you're sitting. That's a pretty fantastic head wound you've got going on. Come on, this way."

Fingers still twitching with fear dug into his waist and latched around his wrist. He held on just as greedily, needing constant contact in order to keep himself from breaking down both physically and mentally. ...We both could have died just now, the seriousness of their close call began to sink in as he hitched himself forward. As big as that earthquake was, we could both still die out here. If there's an aftershock...we've got to get off of this mountain. Stick together, and get off the mountain. "Timmy-"

"Hold on. Almost there...here. Sit, I've got you."

The distance they'd traveled wasn't what he'd been about to bring up, but he didn't argue. "Eeeahh," he flinched as he was lowered onto the long side of his brother's pack. "Your bag of many things doesn't make a very comfortable bench."

"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly plan for this part of the trip."

"...I know." I'm sorry. I wish I'd known what was coming...

"I didn't mean it like that," Tim apologized. "It was a really great time until Mother Nature decided we weren't working hard enough."

"Heh. Yeah." Taking a deep breath, he coughed once more. "It was."

Neither spoke for a moment. "...Will you be okay here long enough for me to get your pack? I think it's around here somewhere, and it's got all the first-aid stuff in it."

"Um..." The last thing he wanted to do was split up, even if the distance between them would only be a few feet. Their separation had been measurable on that scale before, too, and yet Tim had been in tears by the time they found each other again. "...Just hurry?"

"I will," a nod answered. "Be right back."

He closed his eyes while he waited, hoping that by curbing the pounding in his head he might feel less woozy. We have to get out of here...poor Bruce is going to be worried sick. And Dami...if he thinks the last thing he ever said to me was that he prefers to be alone, who knows what he'll do to try and get to us. Too-early hope convinced him to brave the sunlight, and he tilted his head back to scan the sky. Finding it empty, he sighed. They'll come. There must be a lot of people in trouble after something like this, but Batman will come for us first. It was just how the man operated, and while usually Dick would have preferred that his mentor focus on the civilians first in this case he was eager to see a familiar black plane hove into view.

"Here we goooh, jesus," Tim returned with a gasp.

"…What's wrong?"

"Well, I figured out what's going on with your leg."

"Really?" Curious, he turned the limb in question. The dripping shard of scree that had lodged itself in the back of his calf protested the movement, but he persevered. "...Oh," he remarked when he spotted it. "Yup, that would explain a lot."

"We're going to have to extract that." The younger man was suddenly all business, rifling through the bag he'd retrieved until he found a plastic box. "It's going to hurt like hell, too, and all we have is ibuprofen."

"Timmy, wait." Dick reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "We can't pull it out. Not here."

"...What? Dick, it can't stay in there. We need to clean the wound out and stitch it, you know that." He peered at him. "How hard did you hit your head, exactly? We're going to have to stitch that too, I think..."

"No," he denied. "I mean, yes, but not right now. We have to get off of this hill first."

"Are you kidding? Look, it's not comfortable, I know, but this is the highest point along our path. When people come looking for us – when Batman comes look for us – this is the best possible place for us to be."

While he was glad to see that his brother's moment of frightened uncertainty had passed, Dick wished he wasn't making so much sense. "That's true," he agreed, his jaw tightening as fresh fireworks went off behind his eyes, "but what about in the meantime?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean aftershocks. I don't really want to take another fall down that same hill, do you?"

"…No." A visible shudder ran down the other man's spine. "No, I don't." His mien grew perplexed as he sat back on his haunches. "...We'll run out of water in no time up here, too," he grimaced. "And if the wind picks up it could take the tent right off of the mountain. Shit, Dick...you're right." He shook his head. "I guess I'm still a little out of sorts if you're out-logicking me with a probable concussion, huh?"

"It was a scary thing, little brother. There's no shame in being 'a little out-of-sorts' after something like that."

"Yeah, but...still. Anyway," Tim blew out a puff of air, "I'm addressing that head wound before we go anywhere. Don't argue."

"I won't. But the rock stays where it is until we're camped." There was no telling how much blood he might lose once they pried it out of the cave it had made in his leg, he knew, and he didn't want to have to be carried down to a safer location.

"Agreed. Now hold still."

He shut his eyes again and did as he'd been told, trying not to flinch as his forehead was scrubbed with both water and peroxide. To his relief his caretaker decided that sewing might not be necessary after all, and made do with butterfly closures, a thick square of gauze, and copious amounts of medical tape. Looking up as Tim announced that he was finished, he caught sight of a new problem. "What happened to your finger?!"

"Huh? Oh...I just jammed it. It's not a big deal. What do you use your pinkie for, anyway?"

"Lots of things. Pinky promises, for one." Grabbing the affected hand, he pulled it close. "...Timmy, this is more than jammed. I think you dislocated your fingertip."

"Did I? Well...look, just leave it for now. I know you want to fix it," Dick's protest was overridden, "but you were right before. We need to get out of here, and if you pop it back in right now it'll just make things harder because it will have to be buddy taped. If we're going back down this hill, I need all the functional fingers I have available. So let's do it later, okay? I'll do your leg, you can do my finger. I might have you clean out my knees, too. Deal?"

His brother was right, and he hated it. It hurt to look at the damaged joints and know that they would have to stay twisted and bloody until they were on better ground, a trek which would be delayed due to his own injuries. I can fix you, he pouted internally. Let me fix it, Timmy. I hate it when you're in pain... "Give me a couple ibuprofen," he said instead, "and take a couple yourself. We're going to need them. We'll try this whole medical thing again at...at the bottom." Assuming we make it. No…no, we'll make it. We'll stick together, and we'll make it. We can do this.

"Okay. Good. Here; I figured we'd need pills, so I already pulled them out."

"Nice work, little brother."

The downed their medicine and stood up. Before they lifted their packs onto their backs – Dick had no idea how well that would work with a pounding headache and a bad leg, but he supposed he'd cross that bridge when he came to it – they approached the edge they had come over to begin with and peered down.

"...Hey, Timmy?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really regretting not buying some of that climbing gear you suggested now." The small segments of trail that still existed were no worse than they had been before, but in between them were littered rocks and loose gravel that looked primed to send them falling to their demises at the first wrong step.

"You too, huh? Shit." A beat passed. "I'd say the other direction, but..."

"But what? Anything's got to be better than ye olde slide of death here."

"Sure, but what's the point of going further into the park? We know what's behind us, and its mostly open fields. Well...it was mostly open fields. Who knows what it is now. Probably a freaking ocean. Either way, though, if we end up having to walk the whole way to the road on our own I don't really want to have to scale this thing a second time, you know?"

"...Yeah. Okay. You have a point." I don't think I ever want to be on top of this stack of rocks again, he thought without warning. At least the grassland holds good memories. "So...down we go?"

"I guess so. Down...down we go."