Prompts

shaking hands | seizures | silent panic attack

Chapter 7: the way you shake and shiver

Dick’s body starts to heal. 

Owlman leaves him alone. After the transfusion, Owlman leaves the cell, and Dick doesn’t see him again until he brings a tray of food. 

He doesn’t say anything then. He brings the food, slides it through a slot in the door, and leaves. 

He brings two more meals the same way. Each one is the same: applesauce, mashed potatoes, and scrambled eggs. It all has the slightly mushy texture of food that comes out of a package. They’re raiding the infirmary supplies, Dick thinks. He wonders how many members of the Crime Syndicate actually need to eat. 

After the third meal—one day after the blood transfusion, by Dick’s reckoning—Owlman disappears. An old man with chalk-white skin and grotesquely curving lips brings the food instead. He tries to talk to Dick. He coughs out laughter between his words. Haha. Haha. He calls Dick “Mister Grayson.” 

Dick doesn’t speak to him. Eventually, he leaves. 

Two meals after that—three days after the transfusion—Owlman comes back. 

He doesn’t bring food. It’s not time yet—even Dick, with his tenuous grasp on the passage of time, knows that. He sits up from the bed, just slow enough to avoid pulling his stitches. The stab wound is healing, although not as fast as he would like. It’ll be some time before the stitches dissolve. His torso doesn’t hurt so much anymore; the healing bruises have turned a truly breathtaking array of colors. His ankle is still a little tender, but it holds his weight. 

He stands up. Owlman opens the cell door and steps inside. He closes it behind him. They stand facing each other. 

Dick’s ankle twinges. He shifts some of his weight to his other foot. This is unsustainable.

“What do you want?” he says. He’s been captured by villains before. Worse villains than Owlman, with his weird possessiveness and his painstaking medical care. They always want something. Dick’s head is clear, his body is healing, and he’s ready to know what that something is. 

Owlman tilts his head to the side. He’s wearing his helmet. It covers about as much of his face as Bruce’s cowl does, but the metallic edges are unsettling. The nose guard forms the shape of a razor-sharp beak. 

Owlman says, “You.”

Dick does not flinch. His breath does not stutter. He plants his feet on the floor and pretends that Owlman’s voice doesn't make his skin crawl. 

“I’m flattered,” he says, in Nightwing’s most sarcastic tone, “but my girlfriend might have something to say about that.”

“Barbara Gordon. The police commissioner’s daughter. Twenty-eight years old. Works for the Gotham Public Library. Paralyzed from the waist down.” Owlman stares at him. “That girlfriend?”

Dick does not flinch. He looks into the helmet’s round blue lenses. 

“No,” he says. “The other one.”

This is a classic power move. I know who you are, I know who you associate with, and none of them are safe. It’s a classic because it works. Dick’s heart beats faster at the reminder that he doesn’t know where Babs is, if she’s alive, if she’s safe. But one key name is missing from Owlman’s intimidation play: Oracle. 

If he knew Babs was Oracle, Dick thinks he would have said so. If Oracle’s identity is safe, that means her network is still active. Even if—God forbid—Barbara is dead, Oracle lives on.

If Oracle is alive, there's a chance the rest of the Bats are too. 

The corner of Owlman’s mouth twitches. It tilts up, a slight movement that wouldn’t mean anything to most people—but Dick has seen it before. He’s seen it more times than he can count, and still not as often as he’d like, on Bruce’s face. It’s a genuine smile. It’s Bruce’s genuine smile. 

Owlman smiles the same way. 

“I need you, Dick,” he says. Dick curls his fingers into a fist. “Your mind. Your skills. I know what you can do.” He pauses, just long enough for Dick to brace himself for whatever threat is coming next. “I need your help.”

Dick blinks. He can count on one hand the number of times Bruce has said that to him. And this isn’t Bruce, but—if anything he thought Owlman would be worse. 

“Help,” he says. This is new. This is something he didn’t think Owlman would try. “With what?”

“Saving the world,” Owlman says. He smiles again. “Saving your world. You’ve done that before. Haven’t you?”

He reaches up and takes off his helmet—his cowl, lined with metal. His eyes aren’t cold anymore. He looks at Dick with—something like warmth, something like desire, something that makes Dick curl his hands into fists so he doesn’t see them shaking. 

“Of course you have,” Owlman says. Dick lets him talk. Let them talk and eventually they’ll let something slip. “I’ve heard how they talk about you. Even with your mask gone, your identity known to everyone, your life in ruins… they still call you a hero. You must have earned that.”

He pauses. Dick’s fingernails dig into his palms. Let them talk and eventually they’ll let something slip. Let him talk and eventually he’ll go away. He wants Owlman to go away. He’s sick of sitting here listening to a murderous fascist spew poison with Bruce’s voice—

“I’m proud of you.”

Dick freezes.

“You’ve done so well,” Owlman says. He sounds—“You’re strong. Even here, in this world, you made yourself strong. You did well.”

He sounds like he means it. 

“Stop,” Dick croaks. This isn’t real. He knows that, he knows it’s just another manipulation tactic, but it sounds—

“It’s the truth, Dick.”

It sounds so real. 

“Stop,” Dick says. “Leave me alone—” Then he can’t say anything else. He doesn’t have enough air. Shallow gasps tear from his throat, trying and failing to fill his lungs. He backs up until he hits the wall. 

It’s not real. It’s not real. It doesn’t matter how Owlman looks at him. It doesn’t matter how he holds his body, relaxed and open, like Dick could stumble forward and the man would give him a hug—

It’s not real. This isn’t real. Dick will tell him, tell him that he knows this trick and he isn’t going to fall for it, as soon as he remembers how to breathe. He knows—he knows how to breathe, and he’s been in much worse places than this, he knows, he knows, so why—

“Are you alright?” 

“Get away from me!” Dick’s voice cracks. Too much air in his mouth, not enough in his lungs—why can’t he breathe—

He curls away from Owlman. He curls into a ball, wedged into the corner where the wall meets the floor, shoulders lifted to protect his battered torso. This is stupid. He should not be doing this. He should be on his feet, eyes open, facing the threat, refusing to back down. That’s what Nightwing would do. But Nightwing is—

Your mask gone. Your identity known to everyone. 

Nightwing is gone, maybe forever, and if Dick has to look at the man who took it away for another second, he will start crying. And that would be worse.

This is so stupid. 

He’s panicking. He should not be panicking. He knows better. He’s been in much worse places—he’s been shot, stabbed, beaten, electrocuted, strangled, and never once cracked, but this—somehow this is what triggers a panic attack?

Owlman moves closer. Owlman stands over him. Dick’s breath hitches—he can’t stop it—but at least he has breath. He’s breathing. 

He lifts his head. He meets Owlman’s eyes. Owlman stands over him, looking down at him, with something dark and wanting in his eyes. 

Then he crouches down. 

“You asked what I want,” he says. “Earlier.” 

“Same question,” Dick spits. Owlman smiles. Dick hates it. 

“My name is Thomas Wayne, Jr.,” he says. He looks at Dick. Their eyes meet. “In another world, you called me the brother you never had. And… you were the brother I always hoped for.” 

He reaches out. Dick pulls back, but there’s nowhere to go. The wall pens him in. Owlman touches his face. Strong, calloused fingers stroke his bruised cheek. 

“You are my second chance,” he says. His voice is hardly more than a whisper. “I want to do things right this time.”