Prompts

hidden injury | waking up disoriented | can’t pass out

Chapter 4: dead on your feet

A hand slides through Dick’s hair.

Dick starts away from it. “No,” he says, trying to open his eyes, trying to wake up. “No—”

The hand pets his hair again.

It doesn’t hurt.

Dick opens his eyes. He’s lying down. He can’t move. Or—he twitches his leg. Lifts his hand and lets it fall back to the bed. He can move.

He doesn’t want to move.

The bed is firm, but the sheets are soft. The low light is tinted blue. The ceiling above him is plain metal spars, bolted in place. Not the cave. The cave is all yellow light and stark shadows and rock. This looks like the Watchtower.

The Watchtower? Was I on the Watchtower? He can’t remember.

A hand brushes through his hair. Dick turns his head and sees the edge of an armored suit—a weary face—dark hair, uncovered.

“…Bruce?”

“Hm.” A low, rumbling sound. Dick can’t quite see his face—he’s sitting too close to the head of the bed—but he doesn’t sound worried.

“What happened?”

Bruce strokes his hair. Dick closes his eyes, savoring the touch. It must have been pretty bad if Bruce stayed long enough to see him wake up. It was bad. Dick can feel it, through the familiar haze of unconsciousness. His body is in a lot of pain.

“What do you remember?”

“Hm.” Dick nestles into Bruce’s touch. He can’t remember the last time Bruce touched him so gently. He’s going to enjoy it while it lasts. “I got stabbed?”

“Correct.” The barest edge of humor in Bruce’s voice.

“…On the Watchtower?” That part doesn’t make sense. Who would stab him on the Watchtower? Dick opens his eyes again to look at the ceiling. That doesn’t look like the ceiling in the Watchtower infirmary, either—

Because it’s not.

He remembers. A knife in his gut—Superwoman’s frigid glare—rough hands holding him as he fell.

Strangers’ hands. On his skin.

He pulls away from the hand. He tries to sit up—only for pain to spear through his gut. He falls back, and that hurts too. He has an exit wound on his back. An exit wound from a knife.

“Don’t move,” says Bruce—not Bruce—the soft, rough voice attached to the gentle hand, the voice that sounds so much like Bruce it makes Dick want to cry. “You’ll tear your stitches.”

“Who,” Dick breathes. He—he should know this. He knows their names. He heard—but there wasn’t another Batman—but he wouldn’t be called Batman, none of them have the same names, and he didn’t think about this, he didn’t plan—

“You’re stable,” B—he says. His voice is level. Dick can’t see his face—only his arm, only the edge of his suit—all black and grey and harsh lines— “But you’ll do yourself no favors if you try to do too much too fast.”

He sounds like Bruce. He sounds so much like Bruce. Dick could be back in the Batcave, half-listening to another post-mission lecture, only he isn’t. He’s on the Watchtower, in the middle of an invasion, trapped in a holding cell with Bruce’s double.

“Don’t—” He tries to sit up again. It hurts. Dick heaves. That hurts worse. “Don’t touch me.”

He scoffs. “You didn’t have any objections a minute ago.”

Dick wants to throw up. He gets an elbow under him and sits up halfway. He looks sideways, through a haze of pain, at the man sitting next to him.

He sees metal armor. Sleek, sharp panels layered over black kevlar. A square jaw, a lined face, pale blue eyes. His nose a little too small, his cheeks a little too gaunt, his mouth fixed in a grim line.

Owlman.

He was there. When Superwoman ripped off his mask, he was there. When Arkham was attacked—

“What did you do?” Dick holds an arm over his stomach. He wants to get away. He wants to roll off the bed and flip across the room and run. He’d rather be anywhere else.

Owlman watches him. “I carried you out of the control room,” he says. “I removed the knife and reconstructed your intestinal tract. I stitched up the entry and exit wounds in your abdomen and bandaged them to prevent further damage.” He looks at Dick’s bare, bandaged torso. “I saved your life.”

Dick curls his fingers against his side. He doesn’t want Owlman to look at him. He doesn’t want anyone to look at him. He wants to bury himself in oversized sweaters and blankets. He wants somewhere safe where he can sleep for a week. He wants—

He wants Bruce.

“He was soft with you.”

Dick tenses. It doesn’t matter what he wants. He’s here. He’s on a bed in the Watchtower, recovering from a stab wound, at the mercy of a villain from another Earth. He has to deal with this first.

“He made you soft,” Owlman says. He looks at Dick’s face. His gaze is unblinking, unsettling, but at least his eyes are on Dick’s face instead of his body. “He almost ruined you.”

Dick glares at him. Responses race through his brain—why do you care, what do you want, why should I care what you think—but he stays quiet. Owlman is already talking. If Dick lets him talk, lets him fill the silence, he’ll get more information than if he goes on the offensive.

“It’s not your fault,” Owlman says. “He was all you had. You couldn’t have known any better.”

He reaches out. Dick tries to move away, but pain rips through his stomach. He can’t move more than a few inches. He can’t stop Owlman from touching his face.

“Stop,” he says, almost against his will. He knows it won’t matter. Owlman won’t listen.

“It’s alright,” Owlman says. His voice is quiet. “I’m here now. I’ll teach you. I’ll do what he was always too weak to do.”

His thumb strokes across Dick’s cheekbone. Dick pulls away, biting down on a hiss of pain. Owlman’s mouth twitches. The corner of his mouth turns just slightly up. He looks—

No. Stop. Don’t think about it.

He looks just like Bruce.

“You’ll be better than him,” Owlman says. “Better than any of them. You’ll see.”