Chapter Fifteen

Tonight was clusterfuck beyond even the normal standards. Oracle was at the end of her patience, and shit just kept pushing the damn line. It had been a normal night, just your regular Friday.

Batman and Robin were dealing with reports of goon movement in the sewer tunnels on the south side. That turned out to be nothing more than some gunrunning from Penguin, easily disrupted. Until it wasn’t, and goddamned Bane dropped out of nowhere and damn near put Batman out of action and straight up knocked out Robin for a while.

Then Scarecrow had shown up and dosed Red Hood whilst Bane had them busy, and that meant that both Black Bat and Batgirl were diverted to containing the chaos storm that was Red Hood when you mixed the Pit rage with almost any new variety of fear toxin. That was still on-going.

Then Riddler trapped Red Robin in some underground complex somewhere and was besetting him with all manners of traps, tricks, and puzzles that even the most erudite of the Robins couldn’t get through any faster. The only people that weren’t hooked into some Rogue plot or another was Oracle herself, Agent A at the cave, and Nightwing- who, obviously, didn’t have his fucking commlink turned on! Literally the only mercy she had right now was the general health monitor that Dick had given her before Spyral. He knew how she worried about not knowing, even back then.

“Oracle to Batman. RR is on the fourth room of puzzles, Hood is still inoperative with both Batgirl and Black Bat occupied on him, Nightwing is still offline. If one or more of the current situations do not resolve in the next half-hour, I’m calling in outside support, regardless of your rule-”

“Oracle, absolutely n-” Batman cut off with a sharp grunt for a minute.

After a short while, he returned, sounding worse for wear, “None of the core League. Agent A knows protocol. Bane, Scarecrow, Riddler, and another are working together. Try and find who the fourth is.”

The line clicked as he stopped and began fighting again, and she swiftly tapped out a message to the butler waiting on the cave, only to have a message ping up from him with the necessary list of names in order of priority to call, as the man himself spoke over the line, “I have sent the information promptly, Miss.”

She ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach from the thought that Batman was willingly breaking his rule, and set off her custom program as the butler spoke some more to her, searching the various channels and cameras for any unusual activity, and was about to move to the list when a far distant boom echoed, and a distinct, clear alarm beep began to sound in the loft space.

She froze. No. No,no,no, nonononono…

She abandoned the workstation, ignoring the raised questions of Alfred and one or two other voices, the noise blending into the dull background behind the insistence of that alarm. The wheels of her chair almost skidded with the speed she tried to propel herself across the loft space towards where a small black box sat on her countertop, tiny red light flashing.

No.

She reached it and snagged it up, scanning eyes over it in panic. Then- a small sigh of relief. He wasn’t dead. But- a frown. His vitals were wrong. Very wrong. If he was **** like this suggested, the heart rate should have been lower. She wheeled herself back to the station, Dick’s monitor in a surprisingly shaky hand. She carefully placed it down and searched her Bludhaven feeds, finding the problem quickly.

“Oracle to Batman. No word from Nightwing, but a warehouse in Bludhaven has just exploded. He’s in trouble.”

“...Nightwing is experienced. Leave him and focus on calling help to calm Red Hood and helping Red Robin out of his trap.”

Barbara stopped for a moment, mouth slightly agape. She…she told him Dick was in trouble, and he didn’t even get her to send someone to check on him? What the…

…She had a job to do, for the other Bats, but fuck Bruce’s instruction. She whipped out her phone from her pocket, pulling up a very rarely used contact and sending off a quick message.

Barbara Gordon: SOS, I think Dick’s in trouble. Dockside of Bludhaven. You’ll see it. No Bats available. Watch out for Gotham Rogues.

Barely a second passed before a response appeared.

Donna Troy: I am leaving immediately. I will keep you updated when able.

Donna had always been the most reliable of Dick’s past teammates. Alright, good. Oracle turned away from her phone and returned to the task at hand. She had allies to call and Bats to help.

—-

It had been too long. There could be no denying of that. Kori had realised that Richard’s contact had taken too long, and with no other method of the technology to speak to him, she had contacted her allies and informed them she would be otherwise occupied for the time of being that was required. It had taken entirely too long to do so, delaying her by many of the days, multiple weeks. Fortunately, after it was done, with no city she personally called her own, she simply packed a small to-go pack and flew her way to Richard’s chosen city, the Haven of Blood. Blud? She still was not the most fluent when it came to the spelling of languages, but she had at least managed to stop slipping into her native tongue unintentionally during conversation.

She realised that she had mistimed her arrival within only a short time of flying, and as expected, she arrived in the early hours of the morning, before the sun had risen. Starfire recalled the dislike that the family of Bat heroes held for meta-humans operating within their city- or cities, as the case may be for Richard- and she kept herself as discreet as she was physically able. She could admit that she was quite an obvious figure, when in use of her powers, but she was still in possession of the stealthy skills to some degree.

Despite that, she was rapidly faced with a significant conundrum. A large pillar of the black smoke was brightly illuminated on the side of the river. Obviously a warehouse, but…what was she meant to do? The Batman’s rule insisted that no superpowered individuals assist in his city. She had seen this rule enforced. He was a frightening man, when his anger was aroused, especially for a human without any special powers, and yet…How could Starfire call herself a hero, as she did, if she were to simply watch as people may be hurt, or even dying?

Did she respect the rule against metahumans and stand by? Or did Starfire fly in and aid in their operations, even against the wishes of the legendary Batman?

…

This was not his city. This was not Gotham. Batman was Gotham’s dark spectre of fear. No, this was Bludhaven, and it was Richard Grayson who lived here. It was Nightwing who stood against the vast darkness and proclaimed that he would be this city’s guardian angel.

And Richard would never want her to stand by when she could provide the aid.

Starfire swooped down to the fire, glad for deciding to wear her costume.

—

Everything felt strange. Dick was sure he’d been dosed with something now. Not fear toxin, thank god, but something trying to knock him out. His vision kept warping, his blood felt like it was on fire, and phantoms kept trying to appear. There weren’t many things he thanked Bruce for these days, but the resistance training of years past was really coming in clutch right now.

Nightwing was barely retaining conscious awareness of himself as he stumbled and staggered across the rooftops slowly. He was also becoming aware of a dampness in the skin against his suit on the left side of his torso. That was persistent. Not an illusion or hallucination then. Which meant an injury.

‘Good’

The unbidden thought almost made Nightwing fall to the ground. It was distinctly uncomfortable how comforting the thought of a chest injury was to him. He should be hurrying home for the panic button, not crawling on his knees across a random rooftop with his building in sight.

He slowly rolled over, sitting up. The concrete lip of the rooftop was oddly comfortable against his back. Gee golly, that was a lot of blood behind him. He shouldn’t be stopping. He needed to get home. For the detox kit, and the first aid, and…

…It would make things easier, though. His eyes started to drift shut, with that thought. Sure, he was going to be disappointing some people, but most wouldn’t care. Definitely not Kori or the Titans. Not Donna either. Maybe Zee, but not any others in Young Justice…Damian would be disappointed.

But when had Dick ever failed to disappoint the people he cared for? Dami would be fine without him, better without caring for him. Everyone would, what else was new?

He was letting himself slip away to the sweet darkness of unconsciousness when that was roughly yanked away from him by a certain crazy Brooklyn accent laced with sheer panic.

“OH FUCK! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuckin’ shittin’ fuck!”

He internally sighed to himself at the sound. It was so close, the dark and quiet…

“Bird-brain?! Dickhead, c’mon, open ya eyes, ya can’t go now. Wake up! Don’t you fuckin’ well die on me Robin!”

…maybe there was someone who needed him. Someone who would miss him. Dick never could let people need his help and stand by. Nightwing groaned as the dizzying symptoms, uncertainty of verifiable reality, and concerning slight dampness returned. He really considered if it was worth it for a moment.

Then he opened his eyes to meet a pair of ocean blue eyes that had never seemed quite so pretty as they did in the open concern and sheer panic they expressed right now.

“Hehe…You’ve got pretty eyes Harls-” He caught himself with a slight start. He had not meant to say that, and said to the startled ex-villainess in a slur that got progressively worse, “Symptoms gettin’ worrsh. S-somethin’ para- paralse…numbin’. Gotta…gotta get to- get to-”

He knew whatever toxin he was under that was getting worse, because he could have sworn he saw Donna drop out of the sky somehow, and it stopped him. At least, until she spoke, “Rob- I mean Nightwing! Damn it to Hades, codenames can wait, what happened?! You have to stay conscious, tell me what happened.”

“Huh…you’re reallll?” Her eyes shot with murderous intent over him to the blonde kneeling on his other side, and though it took his addled mind a moment, he realised the idea his best friend was getting, “Harrps- Harls- Harley’s. Good.”

He was down to short phrases or words, short and bitten off for clarity. Consciousness was going to go soon. He needed her to know. “Wonda. Twin.” Instantly, he had her attention.

“Harley. Trusht. Need nesht.” Donna’s eyes went wide with surprise. He couldn’t blame her. He was asking her to take a worse-than-crippled Bat to his super duper secret HQ that she shouldn’t even know about, and to bring along an ex-Rogue from Batman’s Gallery whilst she was at it.

Her eyes flicked from his, to Harley, and back again, then she started to say, “Wing, are you sure-”

“I trusht. Do it.” She looked uncertain still, and he couldn’t stop the pitiful noise that pulled from his ****-induced haze, hating that he’d put her in this position, “Am sorry Dee…” Slowly, but unavoidably, he felt his eyelids begin to slide shut, that close and quiet darkness tempting him for a while.

This time, though, he had a good feeling he would wake up. Against all odds, two of the only people he trusted to make sure of that had found him. Donna Troy and Harley Quinn dragging Dick Grayson back to Nightwing’s Nest. Heh, it almost sounded like the start of a bad joke…