#geekery

Now, the first thing you need to know is that this story also hearkens back to a panel from Prodigal that lives in my head rent free. This one.

that’s such a Normal thing to say to your father figure dickie.

Keep this panel in mind. It will be relevant as we go along. Now, let’s get to our story.

It starts off in media res on page one with Bruce in some kind of snowfield facing off against bad guys. Page two cuts to Bludhaven and Dick’s apartment, where Clancy’s trying to get him to go out except that he’s got a previous engagement. It’s the anniversary of his parents’ deaths.

Side note: This is one of a handful of comics to say when it falls on a timeline, since Dick tells her he’s had this engagement for “about twenty years” [which, if he uses that term the way I do, means it could be anywhere from 16 to 22 years ago, but still. Anyway.]

Clancy offers company, but Dick declines and heads up to Gotham.

dick pls this is not an episode of csi

On the way he passes a car full of kids all hyped up on ice cream and cotton candy – and if you think circus brat Dick Grayson can’t recognize real, fresh cotton candy when he sees it you are wrong – which then draws his attention to this billboard.

Look at that smile. What a bean.

Meanwhile, back in the snowfield, Bruce is in bad shape. Something Is Wrong, probably with his heart, but we have no idea what. We just know he’s collapsed in the snow, gripping what looks like a batarang with lights on. Cut back to Dickie, who’s somehow managed to talk his way into getting one trip on the trapeze at the Gotham City Circus and is remembering his parents’ training.

"Remember, son–when you're in that tuck you're spinning too fast to see anything. If you try to look it'll throw you off, so don't. Just close your eyes, remember your training...and trust your partner to be there for you."

Remember this moment. It may be relevant later.

As Dick’s hands grip the other aerialist’s however, Bruce crushes the bat-tracker and – with the signal suddenly lost – makes Alfred choke on his tea and call Dick in what is undoubtedly a very restrained British panic. The next page has a couple things to comment on, so I’ll try to break it down here.

First: Dick has no idea what’s going on, but all he needs is an urgent tone from Alfred and mention of Bruce in trouble and he’s breaking speed limits. And then kicking himself for not driving faster when he sees Alfred’s face. A lovely introduction to his Normalcy about his batdad mentor.

Second: Alfred calls him ‘sir’ and this is clearly unusual. Dick doesn’t outwardly comment but he notices it and questions the use in his inner monologue. Another hint at how concerned Alfred is and how bad the situation could be, doubtless; with Bruce gone, Dick is pretty much the ranking member of the household here.

Third, and arguably the most important point here: Bruce leaves flowers for Dick’s parents every year. Not only that, but he does it without Dick knowing. Dick’s seen the flowers before, clearly, but for some reason has always assumed they were Alfred’s doing. To find out that it’s been Bruce, and that Bruce has never once missed this anniversary – and to find out on said anniversary, when Bruce is quite possibly in mortal danger – has to be a gut punch. But one that gets almost instantly compartmentalized because Dick has other shit to focus on, like what the fuck is going on with Bruce.

We learn, as Alfred takes him down to the Cave, that crushing that tracker was indeed intentional and – for whatever reason – Bruce does not want to be found. We also learn that Alfred’s called Tim in on this, which Dick is not a fan of, but Alfred’s reasoning is pretty damned sound.

but also dick that is such a bruce line omg.

They’re all worried as fuck, and this is apparently Tim’s first time realizing that sometimes Bruce purposefully erases mission files when he goes out solo.

not that it works

Tim, being Tim, has recovered most of them anyway, and so we learn that the whole mission began with a Russian virologist. Dick zones out into a flashback of his time as Robin, quite possibly the first time he ever saw Bruce get shot and got scared the man would die. Which, of course, didn’t happen, and in true Bruce fashion he brushed it off and assured Dick he’d dodged the bullet, but that didn’t stop young Dickie from sneaking down to the Cave later and finding the bullet hole in the center of the Batsuit’s chest.

And then we cut to the snowfields of northern Siberia. Dick’s dazed from having his jet shot down, doesn’t remember much between talking to Tim in the Cave and right this very moment, but he’s recovering. Taking stock of the situation. He’s been shot down by some kind of rebel militia that’s now trying to take him prisoner. As he fights his way free, another rebel lets loose with a rocket launcher and destroys not only the ATVs that Dick was going to make use of, but also the rest of the jet and all his gear that hadn’t been actually on his person.

Which means now he’s stuck in the Siberian snow near the Arctic Circle with not a blessed thing to his name but his standard suit – thermal suit went up with the jet – and a heartbeat sensor with a 20 foot range, on foot, with a 5-mile-wide circle for a search area.

Oh, and there’s a storm coming in.

gotta calculate that risk tho

So off he goes. Starts with one valley and does a full sweep with no results. We have no idea how long it takes or how many valleys he makes it through, but somehow through sheer plot device luck he all but stumbles across an unconscious Bruce. There’s a very tense moment when Dick’s feeling for a pulse – because the heartbeat sensor hasn’t detected a damned thing – and this is when I remind you that he got the news of Bruce’s disappearance on the anniversary of his parents’ deaths and so is almost certainly all the more desperate for that, but finally he gets a pulse and the relief is palpable.

I guarantee you he was clinging to bruce for a solid minute before moving on.

Unfortunately Dickie’s still suffering from a pretty bad concussion himself, so even as he’s trying to carry Bruce to shelter he stumbles, which is enough to bring Bruce back to consciousness enough to A: register that it’s Dick there with him and B: tell Dick to leave him behind. Which Dick, naturally, does not do. He keeps carrying Bruce through the snow to an old, theoretically abandoned way station that will hopefully offer at least some shelter through the coming storm. When he kicks the door open, however, it turns out the shelter is occupied by someone else. A woman, who is both surprised and alarmed at the intrusion. Dick demands blankets and warm water, on the assumption that Bruce is near freezing to death, only to realize Bruce is in fact running a fever.

And then Dick’s still-recovering memory throws up another card. The woman they’ve found is the virologist Tim mentioned. Her parents were murdered by Siberian rebels right in front of her – this will be important later – and she’s since developed a viral compound so virulent it makes the Clench look like hay fever. And Bruce has just dropped a mysterious vial of Something on the floor as he passed back out.

uh-oh.

Naturally Dick turns to the virologist to ask what to do next, only to find she’s run off. So he follows her, rescues her from a rebel, and drags her back to the way station only to see Bruce being hauled out to a waiting helicopter by more rebels. Naturally, he does the only logical thing here, which is charge in, race up the woodpile to the roof, and jump up to grab the landing strut on the helicopter to try and get Bruce back. The rebels, however, have other ideas and open fire through the floor, forcing him to let go and plummet back to the snow-covered tundra.

When he comes to again, there’s the virologist, and Dickie is done playing nice. He grabs her by the throat and barks a demand for information.

nightwing does not fuck around okay

Fortunately for her, the virologist claims there is a cure located in her lab, and she’s actually taken them there. Of course, it’s currently occupied by rebels, but that’s a minor matter. Dick gives her some instruction along with a warning – “Double-cross me and you’ll regret it.” – and the virologist offers something that is almost but not quite an apology, to which Dick’s response is less than charitable.

‘I’m not a monster’ says woman responsible for potentially-continent-killing plague.

Now, here’s the thing. He’s calling Bruce his friend here which, okay. They’re both in uniform, giving more information is dangerous and something he’s trained against. But for me, given the history between these two, that also tells me that Bruce hasn’t formally adopted Dick yet. But Bruce is so clearly more than just a friend here. The narrative sets that up and makes it clear, even if you don’t have the weight of the rest of pre-Flashpoint canon [or, hell, just the rest of canon itself] bearing down on you.

Dick is nigh feral at this point, his focus 100% on getting Bruce out of there alive, and his usual at-least-civil exterior is gone. “I’m not a monster,” says the virologist whose creation is directly threatening Bruce’s life. “Sure you aren’t,” snaps Nightwing who is in no mood to coddle someone who will, if she doesn’t help him fix this, be directly responsible for the death of his second father as far as he’s concerned.

He single-handedly takes out every guard between the virologist and her lab, though the final one cuts it close and she sees him haul a grown-ass man up into an air vent without much difficulty. She’s also seen him jump from a cabin roof to a moving helicopter without a second’s hesitation or a break in her stride. Point being, she should have some idea of what he’s capable of here. But as he’s tying up one last rebel and she’s behind the desk typing in an access code she sees reinforcements heading for the lab and says absolutely nothing.

Instead, she grabs the cure and says nothing until she’s already standing behind closing security doors, leaving Dick behind to deal with the reinforcements but showing him clearly she has the vial in hand.

Remember what he said about not double-crossing him?

We don’t get to see what happens in the lab once she runs, but we do see one last rebel get kicked through the front doors hard enough to knock them off their hinges. Nightwing is pissed. Enough so that when he catches up to the truck the virologist stole he just punches through the driver’s side window, grabs her with one hand and spins the wheel violently with the other, sending the truck skidding hard enough to turn over and dragging her out of it at the same time.

As he insists on continuing on to the rebel stronghold, however, the virologist hits him with another gut punch. That vial doesn’t hold a cure; it holds a vaccine. There is no cure. It’s too late for Bruce in her eyes, he’s doomed, so there’s no point in going to the rebel stronghold. Dick, understandably, doesn’t take this well. He actually collapses for a second there in the snow, because she’s just told him his father mentor is dying and there’s no way to save him at all. And then we get this exchange.

remember her tragic backstory?

Dick is probably near tears at this point, out of rage or frustration or pain or all three at once, and I can’t help but hear his tone as absolutely scathing. “Was it worth it?” Killing a man who had nothing to do with her grudge? “I’ll bet he saved your life at one point.” That may well have been why Bruce was out there to begin with, he knows; to stop her virus falling into the wrong hands if not to destroy it completely. “So...are you happy now?” Now that she’s killed a man who was trying to help her? “Feel better?” And if she says yes he cannot be held responsible for his reaction.

And then she comes out with that. Of all the people to say that to, and of all the times to say it, it had to be Nightwing, hard on the heels of the anniversary of his parents’ murder, while he’s trying to save a man who is also a victim of that very same tragedy. The virologist, of course, has no idea about any of this – how could she? – but that doesn’t stop Dick whirling on her to snap out his response.

well he meets her criteria for saying that

And then he’s moving again. Back to the helicopter he’s commandeered, demanding she come along, because he’s got a plan. It might be half-baked and absolutely insane, but it’s a plan and he has to try it. The virologist still insists that it’s pointless, that there’s no way his friend could still be alive, and Dick’s only response to that is:

The stony determination on his face says it all: he has absolute faith that Bruce can pull through anything, because he has to. Dick’s not stupid, and he’s not blind; he went into this knowing there was a chance he might find a corpse. But he also knows that Bruce’s heart was still beating when he found the man, and he has to hope. He has to, because if he stops hoping then he’s going to shatter and he can’t let that happen. Not until it’s proven beyond a doubt that there really is no chance at all. So as long as there’s even a single shred, even the barest iota of a chance that Bruce could still be alive, Dick’s going to cling to it and use it as fuel to push himself through everything else. He’s good at weaponizing hope like that.

And it works. He gets them to the rebel stronghold and drags her in with him. Just why he does this becomes pretty clear once they’re inside; it would’ve been easier for him to go in alone rather than drag her along clinging to cliff faces and dodging guards, but this way she gets to see what the rebels are gearing up to do with her creation. The virus she created as vengeance is about to destroy untold numbers of lives; the room they find, with rows of empty beds awaiting occupants, is almost certainly just the first drop in the barrel, and even she admits she’d never even considered this.

But while she’s wrestling with that Dick’s already moved to Bruce’s side. Bruce, who is strapped to a table with his vital signs being monitored, and who is still clinging to life. Dick then launches into what is almost certainly an extremely simplified explanation of how vaccines work, but it gets the point across. A vaccine sparks a response from the body’s immune system, nudging it into creating antibodies to fight whichever illness it’s for and thus filling the bloodstream of a vaccinated individual with those antibodies and giving the body the necessary boost in defense it needs to fight off the illness.

And then he reveals his plan.

you fuckin what mate

Turns out he’s taken the vaccine at some point between shoving her in the helicopter and arriving at the stronghold. It’s an absolutely bonkers plan, since the vaccine likely has had barely any time to really have much effect, but we’re using comic book logic here so fuck it. It’s still an absolutely bonkers plan even with comic book logic, because that vaccine was experimental and not even its creator knows if it will actually work or not. He could just wind up contracting the virus himself.

It’s at this point that Dick’s passive suicidal tendencies show themselves, and that I remind you all of the panel from Prodigal that started this whole thing. Remember that? Now look at this.

“Then I’ve got nothing to lose.” “I’d die for you, Bruce.”

There is not an ounce of hesitation. There was no question or wavering. Dick saw one single path through this, one potential chance to save Bruce, and he did not care if it cost him his life. If it works then Bruce survives and maybe Dick does too, and if he does that’s great but if he doesn’t at least his death will have been worth it. If it doesn’t work, then who cares if he lives or not?

But it’s only passive, because he still has the will and determination to give the virologist one last – and probably, honestly, terrifying – warning. “Even with half a blood supply, I can still stop you if you try anything.” Betray him again and see what happens, when he’s already told you he has nothing to lose.

But she doesn’t. She does exactly what he needs her to, sets up the transfusion, keeps it going. The virus starts taking hold of Dick and it’s painful, or at least his mind thinks it’s painful. His heart is pounding, he can feel the fever set in and spike, and then the *boom*s that he hears translate into the rebels busting into the room through the barricade he’d set up to buy them time.

Clearly not enough of it, though.

The virologist wants to cut off the transfusion and get them out of there, but Dick refuses. And he keeps refusing until the last possible minute, at which point he’s pulling the needle out and diving into battle. The narration is really what makes the next few panels, which are all still images of the ensuing fight.

Fever dream. Shapes blurring around me. Screams and thuds surrounding me. No tactics. No strategies. Blind instinct. A lifetime of training. My lifetime. His training. All I have now...is what he gave me.

Remember back at the beginning, when Dick was recalling John Grayson’s words? “Just close your eyes, remember your training.” One father’s advice bleeding into another’s training in a way that is almost seamless unless you’re looking for it. And then there’s that last line.

On the surface Dick’s talking about his combat training. All the skills and techniques he’s learned from Bruce over the course of his life. But peel back that first layer and you find that dogged determination, the willpower. Dick came to Bruce with his fair share of that to begin with, yes, but you cannot tell me that Bruce’s training didn’t strengthen it, sharpen it to a point. Dick had the will, but Bruce showed him how to temper it into another weapon, into a shield.

And then, below even that, you have Dick’s own life. A life that Bruce gave him. Without Bruce, Dick’s life would have been completely different. Dick has said at least once that he considers Bruce to have saved him. Without Bruce, it’s reasonable to suppose, Dick is fairly certain he’d be dead by now.

All I have now is what he gave me.

His fighting skill. His determination. His very life. And he’s putting every last bit of it to use, fighting through a band of rebels on his own until he’s confronting their leader, who is a giant of a man wielding a battle-axe. And Dick is getting tired. He’s fighting the virus as much as he’s fighting other people right now. He knows he’s flagging, but he has to keep going. Has to keep fighting. And the narration here lays bare a part of him that, if anyone’s been reading Nightwing‘96, comes as no surprise.

Dick fears letting Bruce down. In other shocking news, the pope has been confirmed as catholic. More at 11.

I see it now. Clearly. My greatest fear. Not that he would fall, but that I would fail him. That he would need me someday...and my best truest effort would be... ...not quite enough.

There is a point in Nightwing ‘96, not long after Dick’s settled in Bludhaven, where he faces off against Scarecrow and spends at least a day or two dosed on fear toxin. We learn then that Dick’s deepest fear is failure. Is not measuring up. Is for his best to just not be good enough. This moment, right here, digs deeper into that and, I think, nails it perfectly.

Dick has always tried to measure up to Bruce’s expectations. He has to be perfect, because that’s what he thinks Bruce wants. And by this point in his life, he’s also learned that when he’s not perfect, people get hurt. People die. He has to be perfect. He has to be. And right now, with Bruce’s life on the line, if he can’t win this fight, if he can’t push through this, if he can’t find a better best to pull out, then the consequences are unthinkable.

Failure is Dick’s worst fear, but failing Bruce - not being able to catch his father partner when the chips are down and it’s literally do or die – is his worst nightmare.

And finally his body just. Gives out. He can’t get back up. He’s straining, he’s trying, because in his head Bruce would, but he can’t. The rebel leader towers over him, the axe about to fall, but there in he background is a familiar silhouette just before everything fades to black.

Then we cut back to the Cave, where Alfred and Bruce are in the middle of a discussion about the virologist, who apparently was convinced to destroy a lifetime of work, though not by Bruce. We don’t actually learn what did convince her, though, because Tim interrupts them to inform them that Dick’s awake, and then to assure Dick that he’ll be fine.

It’s the last two lines, and the final panel, though, that really cement things for me. Because of all the things either one of them could say, of all the things that have to be going through Bruce’s mind or through Dick’s, not a single one makes it into words. For a second Bruce just stands there in silence before offering a single word of thanks, and a hand. And Dick just takes the hand, and smiles, and responds with another single word that carries about a ton of emotional weight regardless of how light his tone might be when he says it.

who needs actual conversation am I right

“Anytime.”

Let’s recap just what he did here. He took a jet into what he knew was going to be hostile territory and got shot down for his troubles. He forged ahead into an oncoming snowstorm, on foot with no supplies or gear, to find a man who might be dead anyway, when he could have tried to salvage enough gear to take shelter and GTFO. He risked his life to obtain a cure that turned out to be an experimental vaccine which he took without hesitation or asking for more information about because a whole-body full blood transfusion to flood Bruce’s body with hopefully-effectively-vaccinated blood was the one insane idea he had even if the odds were astronomically in favor of him dying in the process, and then he exacerbated those odds by fighting off half a rebel army in order to buy Bruce time to recover, because let’s be real here, Dick couldn’t have expected Bruce to recover enough to actually fight right then. Likely his hope was that he could buy enough time for the virologist to get Bruce out of there, or that he’d get lucky enough that he could live up to what he thought he needed to and finish the fight himself to give them both collapse-and-recover time.

He pulled off what should have been an impossible mission, one that Bruce himself had deemed too dangerous to allow backup on. He could have died. Arguably he *should have* died. He took a risk that anyone else would have deemed absolutely batshit-bananas insane, and they both know it. And then he simply brushes it off with “Anytime.”

And he means it.

And they both know that, too.

This is one of my absolute favorite one-shot stories purely from a Bruce-and-Dick dynamic perspective, because it nails Dick’s side of things and it nails a side of him that so rarely gets shown. No matter what’s going on, no matter what’s happening – because at the time of this comic, things are once again a little rocky between them – if Bruce needs his help Dick will drop everything else to be there, and Dick will do whatever it takes to get him out of trouble. Even at the cost of his own life. And when someone he cares about – especially when it’s one of his family – is in mortal danger, he stops pulling punches, he stops playing nice, he threatens and he’s harsh and he’s rough and he shows a side of himself that even those he’s trying to defend would be surprised to see, because he hides it so goddamned well that people forget it even exists.