It was only once they'd changed into dry clothes, spread out their supplies, and put a fragrant noodle mix on the stove to heat that Tim began to let some of his apprehension about sleeping in the cave go.
They had earned their shelter, that much was certain. While he had managed to scale the seven feet of sheer cliff face between the ground and the floor of the subterranean room without too much difficulty, Dick had struggled. After a few false starts he'd gotten to where Tim could grab hold and haul him in, and now he lay on the bed with his leg propped up on the food canister.
Glancing at him, the younger man grimaced. He was going to have to check his wound before they turned in for the night, and he wasn't looking forward to it. While no more blood had appeared on the bandages since morning, he was beginning to regret not stitching it up. To be fair to himself, he hadn't expected two and a half days to pass before they were rescued and taken to someone who could suture properly, but that wasn't the point. How long, he wondered, would a gash like that go before it started trying to close on its own? If it sealed up incorrectly, could it be fixed, or would his brother be stuck limping forever?
"What do you think, Timmy?" Dick's quiet voice broke into his mounting worry. "Home away from home?"
"...It's spacious, I'll give it that," he answered. They couldn't quite stand up in the space they'd found, but it was broad and deep enough that they might have erected the tent twice and still had a little room to spare. "And just about anything is better than trying to camp out in that," he added, jerking his thumb towards the entrance.
The storm had done nothing but pick up tempo since they'd slithered to safety. A gray, slanting sheet of water fell from the sky, obstructing their view of the narrow river valley outside. Fog rose as the cold precipitation hit the still-warm earth, further dampening their visibility. Occasionally the wind blew a spray of rain inside, but it couldn't reach them so long as they stayed near the back of the cave. All of that together, though, couldn't match the awful rumblings coming from the heavens, at least not in Tim's mind. The lightning seemed to have ceased, but the deafening booms of thunder lingered, and he cringed as another one went off overhead.
A hand landed atop his own and gripped his fingers. "It's okay, Timmy," Dick soothed without opening his eyes. "It's just thunder."
"...I know," he ground out. "But I still hate it. I've always hated it."
"I know. You told me. If it's any consolation, my irrational fear is-"
"Clowns," he cut him off nervously. "I remember."
"I said irrational fear. A fear of clowns is perfectly normal and reasonable. No, my irrational fear is mounted animals."
"...What?" he asked, momentarily distracted from waiting for the next thunderous blast by the oddity of that statement. "Mounted animals? Seriously?"
"Seriously. I'm...I'm afraid they're going to come back to life and decide to wreak their revenge on humanity for killing them and putting them on display."
"Dick, you have got to be kidding me with that. 'Wreak their revenge on humanity'? They're stuffed animals!"
"Hey, there are a lot of taxidermied things in the world," Dick said hotly. "If they all came back at once..." But Tim was snorting with laughter, and he trailed off. "...Yeah, you're right. It's something that could never, ever happen, and therefore it could never hurt me. But that's what makes it irrational. Thunder can't hurt you, but you're still afraid of it, right?"
"...Yeah," he sobered. "I am."
"Well...it's the same thing. So I'm just saying, don't be embarrassed if you wake up clinging to me like a limpet or something because a really bad burst goes off. So long as you don't mind me doing the same thing if we ever find ourselves in some creepy old house full of dead antelope, it's all good."
"Heh..." While he'd never thought that Dick would be ashamed of him if he did, in fact, wake up squeezing him like a teddy bear, it was nice to hear as much said out loud. "Well, we have to get out of here before we can find ourselves in a house full of stuffed animals, so..."
"We'll get out. We have to."
There was a note of concern in the other man's voice, and it was no trick to guess the cause of it. "...Bruce?" he guessed.
"Yeah. Bruce."
"Mmm..." Would anyone be safe if Batman lost two Robins in one go? He doubted it, but he didn't want to dwell on the subject. "Hungry? I think this is about ready."
Dick cracked an eyelid and shot him a knowing look, but he let the topic lie. "Starving. Dish me some out, would you?"
They ate without talking, exhaustion weighing them down. Tim nearly painted the ceiling with his soup each time a fresh roar rolled through the clouds, and ended up eating as fast he could to keep from spilling involuntarily. Washing up was simple, requiring only that they hold their cups and spoons out into the rain long enough for a good rinse. He was packing away their utensils when Dick gave a yawn. "Oh, man...bed time. You ready?"
"No," he said firmly. "I need to look at your leg."
"It's fine, Timmy. Look, it didn't even bleed any more today. Let's just leave it for tonight, huh?"
"No way. I meant to check it before bed last night, and it didn't happen. Then I was going to do it this morning, and I didn't because we were in a hurry. I'm not going to bed until I've seen it."
"What about the smell? Screwing around with it could draw our bear – or a different one, even – right to us. I don't think we're too high up here for a really determined one to get in. If that happens...if that happens, we're done."
"I know," he allowed. "But we've already cooked in here, so there's going to be a scent issue anyway. Besides, there's no evidence of anything having used this cave before, and if the bears could get into it I would think it would be perfect as a den. It's like you said when I didn't want to come into the cave; you have to weigh the risks. Frankly, the chance of you getting sick because I haven't been taking care of your leg right is way higher than a bear not only smelling us through the rain but then tracking us and climbing up here. So don't make me wrestle you into medical exam mode like we have to at home, okay?"
Dick chuckled. "...Okay, little brother," he agreed as he rolled onto his stomach. "Examine away."
It didn't look half as bad as he'd expected it to. Despite the foreign object he had pulled out of it, the rough-edged slash was only slightly reddened, and was no more inflamed than seemed normal for such an injury. In the end he simply wiped it with some antibacterial gel and called it good. "I wish I had replacements for these," he lamented, turning the bandages in search of the cleanest spot. "Or that I could at least wash them."
"Hang them out in the rain for a minute."
"They'll never dry out before morning. Besides, you can't sleep with it unwrapped." There was no telling what kind of grime had gotten into the lining of their sleeping bag since the start of the trip, and he didn't want to risk something working its way into the cut and causing an infection. If you get sick before we get out from under this force field, you're dead, Dick, he thought, gulping. No way are we going there.
In the end he just put down one of their few remaining pieces of gauze and wrapped the least-dirty section of bandage over top of it. "That's going to have to do it," he sighed. "I'm sorry it's not better."
"It's not your fault, Timmy. You've only got so much to work with."
"I know, but..." But that's not the point.
"Hey...about morning?"
"What about it?"
"What are we going to do if it's still raining?"
"We'll..." It was a hell of a question. As much as he would have liked to just sleep a rainy day away and recover some of their strength, they had neither the supplies nor the time to do so. On the other hand, it would be borderline impossible to make any meaningful progress if they had to traipse through mud or climb over fallen forests because the river was up. Plus, they were unlikely to find anywhere half as comfortable as this place was, even with the ever-present threat of collapse, and the longer they stayed warm and dry the better.
"It's just that I keep thinking about everywhere else," Dick told him before he could answer. "I mean...there must have been other quakes by now, you know? And if there are...if this person, or people, or whatever, is still going...how many people die for every hour that we delay? We have to stop to eat and sleep, I get that, but...we can't lose any more time than is absolutely necessary. Alfred would have a fit if he knew that we were even considering going into the veritable hurricane that's blowing out there, but what else can we do?"
"I..." He was torn. They needed to stay as safe and healthy as possible in order to do their job, but they couldn't preserve their own well-beings at the cost of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of lives. Then again, if the whole world was hanging in the balance...
It was too much to think about on only two hours of rest and with a full day of exertion behind him. "Let's deal with that in the morning, can we? We might wake up and find that the rain's stopped and there's nothing to think about, so why bust our brains trying to figure out what we'll do if that's not the case?"
"...Now I know you're wiped out, little brother," Dick smiled sadly. "When the planner doesn't want to plan...that's a sure sign, every time."
Tim ducked his head. "I'm sorry, I just...I just can't right now..."
"Hey...it's okay. You're tired, I'm tired...let's just have a cookie and go to bed, huh?"
"Cookies?" With everything that had happened in the thirty-six hours since they'd discovered what Alfred's surprise was, he had forgotten they had sugar left. Reminded of their stash, his mood brightened. "That sounds amazing."
Despite being almost a week old and half crumbled from its long journey, it was still the best cookie he'd ever tasted. If he closed his eyes he could almost pretend he was sitting in the manor's kitchen after a long, rainy patrol. I'll finish this, he told himself, and then just go upstairs to my bedroom...crawl under the blanket...put my head down on those thick pillows Alfred know I like...sleep for hoooooours...
The last bit of baked good slid down his throat, and his daydream faded away. "Mmm...god, I needed that," he sighed. For all that it had been brief, the momentary mental escape had fanned a tiny, weakening flame deep within him. So long as they had cookies to look forward to before bed, he mused, they could keep going. So long as there were cookies, there was hope.
"Me, too. Thank you, Alfred. And look..." Stretching, Dick reached into the pocket of the torn, bloodied, and still-soaked pants he'd been wearing until an hour earlier. A slip of paper came out with his hand, clearly damp but not ruined. "We've even still got his letter. I saved it."
Of course you did. "Read it, would you?"
"You bet."
He tidied up the few things that were still out as his brother's voice filled the cave. Dick lined out the butler's message slowly, as if he was savoring each word. Tim didn't complain, and by the time the short missive reached its conclusion he was sliding under the sleeping bag. His headlamp and their second can of bear spray went just above his head, and this time, he swore to himself, he wouldn't forget where he'd put them in an emergency. "...Dick?" he whispered just before the other man's light blacked out.
"Hmm?"
"...Read that last part again? Please?"
"Sure, Timmy. Let's see...'be safe, make good memories together, and keep yourselves hydrated and fed. I shall know if you fail on that last point.'"
"Mm...d'you think he knows?"
"I think he knows we're missing. By now he probably knows that Damian saw us. Other than that...well, we're hydrated and fed, aren't we? Besides, Alfred won't give up on us. Especially," a gentle laugh sounded, "if he thinks we still have cookies. Cookies make everything better."
It was so close to what he had just thought himself that he almost commented on it. The loudest crack of thunder they'd heard in some time went off before he could, though, and he let it go. It was strange, he pondered as the cave went dark and the older man's arm was draped across his middle, but the storm wasn't so scary when there was someone who understood his fear beside him. "...Dick?" he ventured once more.
"Mm...hmm?"
"Um...how much shit do you think I'd have to take from Damian if I started sleeping in your room every time there's a thunder storm?"
"Heheh...I don't think you'd have to take much, Timmy. You'd just have to be willing to share the bed with me and him."
"Wait..." He opened his eyes, needing to have his curiosity sated before he slept. "He's afraid of it, too?"
"He's from a desert, little brother. Thunder's not exactly something he grew up with. At least now he comes to me; I didn't know he was scared of it until I found him curled up in his closet and trying not to cry summer before last. Poor kid tried to make an excuse, but...it terrifies him as much as it does you. More, maybe. So come on in next time. You'll be in good company, and I've got two arms, so you won't even have to fight for cuddles."
"Huh." Damian, frightened of thunder, he marveled as he let his eyelids fall shut again. Imagine that. Maybe he and the kid weren't so far apart, after all...
Author's Note: It's been a while since we had a blog post, but if you check it out today you'll find a neat, easy-to-do experiment that gives a very basic idea of how clouds can form in a semi-closed system like under the force field. Also, I've started a twitter account, which you can find details on at the blog. Happy reading!