So, before posting this chapter, I realised it was 10,000 words long. After about an hour of debating, I decided to split it up, because I'm secretly cruel. When my at-the-time girlfriend read this chapter (when it wasn't split up), she suffered from secondhand embarrassment because of what happens in the second half (being posted next week) and all that goes down. Because of that, you can say I'm super excited to post this.

As of what I have total of this entire story typed up, we're officially past the halfway point! I still have a few more chapters to write, so don't think this fan fiction is ending any time soon.

I hope you guys enjoy!

Dick was released from the hospital two days after he woke up. Honestly, he hadn't minded being there. That time around, he wasn't in a sick bed because everyone was certain that he was insane (at least, the nurses didn't seem to think so). He was there because, according to a blonde nurse who looked like she hated her life, Dick had simply been dehydrated.

It wasn't a far stretch, especially after Dick had told her about his eating and drinking habits as of late - or lack thereof. A doctor afterwards came in to try and talk to him about possibilities for antidepressants, but when Dick had explained that he was already being given medication, all the doctor did was put in an IV and tell him to take a break from school.

Dick was sincerely tired of taking breaks from school, but if it meant that he would stop fainting in public, maybe it was for the best. It was as if he were allergic to his education.

The manor was silent. It had always been silent, but before, Dick had taken that as a challenge to be even louder. The longer that time went on, though, the heavier the silence became. It was an oppressive silence, but oppressive of what, Dick didn't care to know.

He rarely saw Bruce around, but he rarely saw Alfred, either. Then again, that was his own fault. Dick had retreated to locking himself in his room, because if he was going to be forbidden from doing anything involving the outdoors or even parts of the indoors, he might as well stop trying to be an active youth. His eyes burned from the glare of his computer and television screens at ungodly hours of the night, and he slept in so late that the breakfast Alfred left on his bedside table with his medication was too stiff and cold to comfortably eat when he found it. He normally threw it out, his appetite too far gone, causing him to want to puke an hour later because taking medication on an empty stomach was never a good idea. It didn't exactly stop him.

Ever since being released from the hospital, his 'condition' of dehydration had only gotten progressively worse. He wasn't naive enough to think that it was completely from lack of liquids. The possibility of that being a contributing factor was great, but the entire reason? He didn't think that shakiness, fever-like hazes, and odd bouts of confusion were caused by drying up from the inside out, but at least he wasn't in public. Dick, in the privacy of his own room, was free to stare miserably at his ceiling, only snapping out of it every few days during the seconds where he forgot why he wasn't at school.

He only went out when it was time to go to another session. Talking to Miss. Frances amounted to his complete time of socialisation, and he didn't really feel the need to change that. However, apart from his unwillingness to talk to other human beings, Dick hated feeling like he was forced to do something like stay at home, even if it was something that he was going to do anyway, so he expressed his concerns about his symptoms to Miss. Frances on the first visit after his hospital stay.

"Your body is just adjusting to the medication," she said. "Make sure to drink lots of liquids and eat some good food, okay? I hear that your butler is an extraordinary cook." Then, later to Alfred: "Here is the new schedule. We're going to start increasing his doses. No hallucinations, you said? Then he seems to be doing relatively well."

Barbara called that Friday, minutes after the clock said that school had been released. Dick was lying on the floor, his knees and calves tucked against his hips as he stretched back and tried to touch his desk legs. It would have been a yoga pose had the position not felt so natural for him. Snapping up, no one had called him in a long time (which wasn't anyone's fault, really, his only friends were Barbara and Young Justice, the living members of which didn't know his phone number), Dick stared blankly at the wall before lunging for his cell. He was surprised at how enthusiastic he was. Seconds ago, he had been mildly irritated at the thought of anyone trying to disturb his inner thoughts (which honestly consisted of nothing at that point).

"Hello?" Dick asked tentatively into the line.

"Dick!" Barbara all but yelled into his ear. "What happened? I heard you fainted! I wanted to call you earlier, but dad thinks you need to get your rest so I was trying to give you that, but come on, you're probably just trolling some poor sap on the internet anyway-"

Dick gave a breathy laugh, but a smile didn't come. He felt the tendrils of happiness warm his stomach, but its arms just weren't long enough to touch his lips. "I did. And it's okay, I've actually been kind of bored."

"Are you feeling any better?" Barbara demanded.

No. Far, far worse. "Yeah."

Dick could practically hear her relieved smile. "Good, because you're required to come over. Dad told me to invite you to dinner when I was finally 'able' to talk to you. I'm pretty sure he just knows that I was going to call you whether or not he approved, though. Mr. Wayne can come, too, if he isn't too busy. I don't know if he and my dad have really sat down and talked. Maybe it could squeeze a friendship where you could come over more often."

"I'm sure they've talked before"-under the cloak of darkness, with one of them wearing a mask-"but it probably wouldn't hurt. Maybe some other time." Dick felt some waves of nausea at the thought of re-entering society. People would probably look at him weirdly. They probably all knew already about his mysterious 'sickness'. It had probably gone on the news - the kids at Gotham Academy loved to tell stories. Maybe the press had already asked Miss. Frances about it, and Miss. Frances had told them. Maybe Miss. Frances-

"'Other time'?" Barbara echoed, bemused. "Why not now? I'm free, you're definitely free, and both of us are mostly healthy."

"Just some other time," Dick repeated, feeling his neck itch with something suspicious.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, all good."

"Okay," Barbara answered suspiciously, "but you've been acting weird. I mean, more weird than usual, and apart from being sick and all." She paused for a moment before jesting, "Do you have some sort of alternate agenda that I don't know about? Do you secretly actually have a social life? Rude. I want to party, too."

Th-thump, th-thump, went Dick's heart. "No," he said, perhaps a bit too quickly, and what for? Wasn't he supposed to be good at lying?

Barbara paused. "O.K.," she drawled awkwardly. "Uh, so, what're you up to?" she said in a tone that suggested a long, amusing few hours full of joking with the possibility of later escalating into a Skype call.

But Dick was feeling twitchy and nervous, and he no longer wanted to talk. "Nothing," he answered curtly.

"Come on, I bet you're up to something mischievous," the girl pressed.

"No," the boy defensively insisted.

There was a crackle and a pause on the other end. "Oh, uh," stammered Barbara, "then… Well. My dad's here to pick me up. School just ended. I'll...call you later?"

Dick didn't say anything. He only hung up, his fingerprint smeared onto his phone's screen cover with how hard he punched the End button.

He wanted to go to Barbara's house, he really did, but something in his gut was telling him not to.

"Master Richard?" Alfred called through the door. His knuckles rapped softly against the wood, and Dick hummed in response. He didn't expect Alfred to hear him. "Master Richard, I'm here to inform you that we seem to have missed your doctor's appointment to see how your medication has been doing. It has been rescheduled."

Dick shrugged to himself, pretending that Alfred could appreciate the reply. Alfred said no more, and Dick listened as the man's sharp footsteps echoed back down the hallway.

He wanted to get up, but something was holding him back. Something weighed him down and cemented his ankles to the floor. It made it so that he couldn't go to Barbara's, didn't think it was the right idea. It made it so he couldn't muster up the courage to simply project his voice so that Alfred knew that he was alive. It was frightening. What was it?

Alfred came in at half past six to place a plate of dinner on Dick's bedside table. Dick honestly had never seen the day coming when Alfred wouldn't drag him by his hair downstairs to eat, but the butler must have realised that making Dick move if he wanted to eat wouldn't work when Dick didn't want to eat. He felt cold sweat stick his shirt to his back as he closed his eyes and listened to Alfred adjust the sheets on his bed. In the last few hours, Dick had migrated to lying under his window in order to mess around with the loose threads of his curtains. There was a rush of irritation at the thought of anyone having the audacity to interrupt his peace. Though it had been days of laying there without speaking, he felt as though people were constantly disturbing him. The anger was uncalled for and that annoyed Dick, too, the idea that he was being unreasonable and that he knew it.

Alfred moved to leave, but he ended up loitering by the door instead. "Master Richard, please do get up," he asked. Dick had the strangest notion that it kind of sounded like he was begging. Dick took a deep breath, bracing himself for the effort needed to stand, before realising that he actually didn't care enough to do so.

"I will in a bit," he mumbled. "You can leave."

"I'll leave when I see that you've started eating your dinner," Alfred said sternly. "I didn't see any dent in last night's plate when I picked it up this morning. It took an hour of airing this room out for the stale smell to flee."

It took a few seconds of mental convincing, but Dick finally managed to take a deep breath and roll onto his feet. It was hard, as if something were trying to hold him down. He felt the effort cause another roll of sweat to crawl down his spine. He shakily walked over to his bed and sat heavily on his mattress, casting Alfred a pointed look. Alfred shot the look right back, and Dick resigned himself to the fact that he'd have to eat. He took a nauseating bite of meatball.

Alfred nodded and left. Dick put the fork back down and plopped onto his covers again, but swallowing the meat had awoken something in his stomach and his sudden appetite found him eating the rest of the plate. He didn't want to eat, the food tasted funny, but something in the back of his mind made him. The aftertaste stuck uncomfortably to his throat and on the tip of his tongue was a mysterious flavour which he couldn't pick out. Alfred's spaghetti had never tasted like that.

Looking at the medicine, he wanted to take it, but something stopped him. Controlled him. Forced him not to.

Dick credited that to the fact that he couldn't be bothered, and he soon fell into a fitful sleep.

He was awoken in the morning by Alfred, right as the sun was rising judging from the light streaming through the window. Dick only snapped awake easily because he had already awoken multiple times throughout the night. He blinked into full alertness the moment that he opened his eyes, right into Alfred's unreadable face. There was an expression there, but it was one that Dick couldn't decipher.

"You didn't take your medicine." It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Dick only stared at him, waiting for him to continue. Alfred's lips pursed disapprovingly. "You can't skip parts of your routine, or else your body will adjust poorly and you'll get sick again."

He always felt sick, so the news didn't feel like much to grieve over. Dick watched as Alfred placed two small tablets into his hand and gestured to the hot plate of breakfast sitting right where last night's dinner had sat. And the breakfast and dinner before that. Dick didn't even know what day it was anymore, and dinner still sat heavily at the bottom of his stomach. Dick heard the words before he realised that he was saying them. "I don't want to."

Alfred frowned. "Why is that?"

Dick stared intently at the tablets in his palm, as if his look alone could fry them. Sometimes he wished he were Superman. "I don't know."

"You can't not want to do something without a reason, Master Dick," Alfred advised patiently.

Frustrated, Dick harshly shoved the tablets onto the table. "I don't want to eat them." He glared at his breakfast. "Or that."

Alfred gently lifted Dick's fingers from the death grip he had on the table and laid them on the covers. "Master Bruce will permit you to visit Miss Barbara today if you take your medicine and eat your breakfast," he said, and at Dick's suspicious look added, "she called last night. I decided that it would do you good to go out."

"I don't want to go," insisted Dick. Alfred's movements slowed even more, if that were possible.

"I thought you wished to leave the manor? Is that not why you snuck out?"

"Not anymore."

"Why is that?"

"I just don't want to," Dick scowled. "Why is that so hard to understand?"

Alfred seemed startled by something and went silent for a few moments. Finally, he got up, patted the covers beside Dick's thigh, and left. He left the food and the medicine, too. In a strange feeling of guilt, Dick finally succumbed to taking the medicine a few hours later, the fact that he no longer saw Wally since first taking the medication proved that he needed it, but he regretted it the moment that it disappeared down his throat.

The very smell of his breakfast made him feel sick, and when he looked at the seemingly innocent scrambled eggs, he could only remember the suspicious ingredient that he had tasted from dinner. He thought that he could still taste it on his tongue through a disgusting layer of saliva, but it didn't taste like anything that he could identify.

Bruce was in his room by half past noon. Dick was instantly alert. "Why aren't you at work?" he demanded, straightening up as the strangest rush of adrenaline coursed steadily through his veins. What was the man doing there? It was unlike Bruce. It was unlike Bruce's schedule. There was no reason for Bruce's schedule to be interrupted.

"Eat your breakfast," he demanded. Dick couldn't tell whether or not it was unkindly, but it didn't settle well with Dick. It was Dick's health, not Bruce's. Why would Bruce be so adamant about Dick eating food? There had to be a reason. There was a reason for everything.

Maybe it was the strange ingredient Dick had tasted earlier. Maybe Bruce was putting something into his food. "No," he snapped quickly as the thought sent a fresh wave of panic through him. His eyes were blown wide and Bruce faltered in his steady pace towards Dick's bed.

"Yes," Bruce persisted, standing awkwardly in front of his ward. "And then you're going to Barbara's house. I already called the Commissioner and he's coming to pick you up."

"Why? You didn't want me going anywhere before," Dick claimed as he began to backpedal on his sheets to the other end of the bed. Bruce firmly grabbed his foot and dragged him back, but that only caused Dick to kick towards his face with his other foot on reflex. Bruce's other hand grabbed that, too. The man let both feet drop and stared at Dick with a scrunched face.

"Because you were grounded. Now I'm starting to feel like grounding you was what you wanted. It's getting unhealthy," Bruce stated factually.

"What do you want from me, then?" Dick exclaimed. "I don't listen to you, I get taken away from my friends. I listen to you, I get punished. I'm honest with you, you think I'm crazy. I lie to you and the cycle begins again!" Could Dick really get nothing right? Is that what the strange ingredient was for, and why Bruce wanted him to eat his food so badly? Clearly, Bruce didn't want Dick around if all he did was shut Dick up in the manor and away from the world. And right then, the one day that Bruce was home, he didn't want Dick in the manor with him, so he was sending Dick away for the day. Bruce wanted to get rid of Dick. It was the only explanation. The ingredient was something to shut Dick up, to make sure that he didn't bother Mr. High-And-Mighty Bruce Wayne. Maybe it was sleep medication. Maybe it was poison.

"You're over-exaggerating," Bruce scowled.

Maybe Dick wasn't going to Barbara's at all. Maybe Bruce was sending him far, far away. Good thing that he hadn't eaten the breakfast. "Yeah? How? How am I over-exaggerating?" Why did he suddenly have so much energy? Did the thing in the food make him tired? Is that what was causing him to be so lethargic? "And why don't you take me to Barbara's yourself, huh? Why aren't you at work?"

"I have work to do here. Work that doesn't require Bruce Wayne," insisted Bruce. "The Commissioner offered to take you to their house." Bruce was growing steadily frustrated, and Dick knew it. He knew it and that only fueled his own panic.

"We have a butler for that," he glared suspiciously.

"Jim insisted. Practically begged. Now eat, or you're going to get sick. Didn't Miss. Frances say that you can't have medicine on an empty stomach?"

"What do you know about what Miss. Frances said? You've never been there," Dick spat.

Bruce frowned, the breakfast plate clutched in his white knuckled grip. Finally, he forcibly attempted to relax, dropping his shoulders. He didn't seem to succeed. "Fine," he relented. "I'll make sure to tell Jim to feed you," he mumbled with a huff of impatience, leaving without another word.

With an air of irony, the door shut softly behind him. Dick reached for his phone and fiddled around with Pandora, closing his eyes as the alarmingly loud blast of music drowned his ears.

His door was slammed open thirty minutes later, causing Dick to fall in surprise onto the ground from where he was practicing a yoga pose on the edge of his bed. "Dick!" was the exclamation as a firm hand shot out and hauled him up.

"Hey, Babs," Dick greeted neutrally, attempting to recover from the scare as the girl practically draped herself over his shoulders. He felt a rush of annoyance flood through him.

"You're such a dick!" she said, irritated. "You're picking yoga over me now? Come on, my annoying neighbour has been trying to convince me to play soccer with him for hours and I need an excuse not to. Having to play hostess for a billionaire playboy philanthropist's ward will have to suffice." Dick wondered why everyone was fighting for his attention that day, but he had no room to protest as he was quite literally dragged downstairs, only leaving time for him to grab his phone and turn off his station.

Dick had been apprehensive when he had approached the front door to the manor, fully expecting to see a van and suddenly find that a rag was being stuffed over his nose. Nothing of that sort had happened. Instead, he had been greeted by the waving and smiling face of Gotham's police commissioner.

By the time they had reached the Gordon residence, he had already flown through millions of possibilities as to why things had not turned out the way he had thought they would. Bruce wanted to get rid of Dick. That much he was certain of. Bruce was slipping something into Dick's food to make him quiet and compliant, and Alfred was possibly in on it because he was the one who gave Dick his food. But, instead of sending Dick far away to who knew where, he sent Dick to Dick's best friend's house (the only best friend he had left, at least. He never saw Wally anymore, so the medication had to be working. Which meant that Wally had never been real after all). It either meant that the Gordon family knew about Bruce's plan and were going along with it, or they knew of his plan and were trying to protect Dick. Except, if they were trying to protect Dick, they would tell Dick about it, so they were probably going along with it.

And that was what made his heart thump in anxiety as he remembered Bruce saying that the commissioner would make him food. He was right to be anxious when he walked through the front door and was assaulted with the smell of casserole cooking in the kitchen.

"Mmm, that smells good," Barbara said with excitement. Jim was close behind the two of them with an appreciative head nod.

"Dinner at 2? That's different," he commented.

Barbara patted Dick on the back in response. "Well, Dick's here, isn't he? Everything's different when he's here. It's great." Dick stiffened. He wondered how different things were when he wasn't there.

Five minutes later, everyone was gathered around the coffee table in the living room. Mrs. Gordon had tried persuading them to the dining table, but Jim was insistent that Dick was familiar enough with the house and the family to not need to bother with manners reserved for dinner parties. "Want some bread?" Barbara mumbled through a mouthful of dinner roll, and Dick was about to refuse until he realised that she was eating bread from the same basket and cautiously took one for himself.

"How about some dinner?" Jim chuckled, and Dick froze as he glanced sheepishly down at his empty plate. The policeman leaned over and whispered loudly: "Might want to grab some quick before my wife comes back in. At least that way you can actually choose for yourself how much you want."

"I heard that," the wife in question called, and Dick hurriedly began shuffling food onto his plate, much to Barbara and Jim's amusement.

He didn't really eat much, mostly playing around by ripping off bits of bread to eat in order to stall. In fact, Dick still felt a wave of paranoia every time a bread piece touched his tongue. He had never had Mrs. Gordon's cooking before, and that went for what sort of bread she bought. He couldn't tell if anything was sprinkled on it because he didn't know how it normally tasted, but it was probably the safest thing on the menu considering it was easier to tell if anything had been added to dinner rolls rather than something with lots of added spices.

"Dick? Are you going to eat?" Mrs. Gordon's concerned voice came from where she sat on the couch that had Dick's back to it. Dick froze as the other two participators of eating paused to look on curiously.

"Uh, I'm not really hungry," Dick mumbled.

Jim frowned. "Bruce said that you haven't eaten today," he pointed out, but Dick had the feeling that it was more so directed at his wife than Dick. Dick's palms began to sweat. It was a problem that Dick hadn't eaten because it meant that he hadn't ingested whatever poison was contaminating his food. He was about to congratulate himself on trusting his gut and not eating the food until Barbara nudged him with a worried look, and his momentary lapse in judgement figured that Barbara wouldn't let him be poisoned. Barbara was his new best friend.

Dick gave an apologetic smile to Mrs. Gordon and took a bite of the casserole. He concentrated so hard on the individual flavours that he didn't even register when everyone had started talking again. At first, he was overwhelmed from mentally categorising so many different tastes, but when he finally swallowed the food and sorted the aftertaste, he knew that he recognised the mystery flavour again.

He wanted his old best friend back.

What's being put in Dick's food? Is Bruce doing it? Is Alfred? Is the Commissioner? What about Mrs. Gordon? Is it sleeping medication? Is it poison? Is Barbara trying to kill Dick? What's going on here?!