Try to Stay Whelmed

oOo

All in all, the party was uneventful and the four of them excused themselves early after receiving an alert that Scarecrow had been spotted on the other side of town. If Scarecrow hadn’t been spotted terrorizing civilians with fear gas, Dick might’ve been able to enjoy the free ticket out of the gala.

“Shit,” Tim mutters.

“What?” Dick asks, not taking his eyes off of Scarecrow.

“Forgot to grab a new rebreather. I still have the busted one from the other night.”

Dick pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a breath before grabbing his own rebreather. “Here.”

Tim pushes it back toward him, shaking his head. “It’s fine. I messed up; I can deal with the consequences.”

“I’m offering you the solution,” Dick insists, pushing back. “We don’t have time to argue. Take the rebreather so we can move in.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, I don’t need you to protect me like I’m,” Tim looks away, down, “like I’m Robin. Besides, I think we both know that I’ll be able to handle fear gas better than you.”

Dick clenches his jaw, then relaxes it. Not the time. “Maybe, but I’m in charge right now. So: take the rebreather or you’re playing look-out for the rest of the night.”

Tim’s head shoots up, eyes scanning Dick to see how serious he is. Tim takes the rebreather, shoving it into his belt. “Happy?”

“Thrilled. Let’s go.”

oOo

If anyone had to get gassed, Dick’s glad it was him. Even though he has an objectively bad reaction and treatment isn’t always effective, he has more experience and can deal with it better than his siblings. During and after. On top of that, Tim was and continues to be his responsibility; his top priority was getting Tim home safe. From those perspectives, it was logical for Dick to take the lungful of fear toxin.

Then there’s the selfish, probably more powerful perspective: Dick can’t stand seeing Tim on fear gas. The screaming, the tears, the things he says, the inability to comfort him and take the pain away. It’s awful to see once, and Dick’s seen it countless times, in real life and in nightmares. He’d do anything to avoid it—for Tim’s sake and, when Dick’s being honest, his own. He knows his family probably feels the same way about him, but that just means they’d act out of selfishness too. 

Tonight, Dick had more say, so Tim got the rebreather and Dick got more than a lungful of gas.

“Sorry again,” Tim mumbles, passing Dick a fresh ice pack. “About the rebreather.”

Dick takes the ice pack and presses it against his right shoulder, which he agitated at some point during their fight with Scarecrow. “’S fine. Knowing you, you’ll triple check next time to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“No kidding,” Tim mumbles, running a hand through his hair. He stifles a yawn. “Need anything else?”

“Nah.” Dick starts reciting pi in his head, trying to drown out the voices he knows aren’t real. “Get some sleep. And good work tonight.”

Even with the gassing, he and Tim were able to take down Scarecrow fairly easily. It’s nice to know that the two of them can still work well together, even when the circumstances aren’t entirely ideal.

“Thanks, you too.” Tim bounces on the balls of his feet and fails to stifle another yawn. This time, Dick yawns too. “You don’t want company or anything?”

“I’m good. Besides, I’ll probably just try to sleep until Alfred is happy with the blood work.”

Tim shrugs and takes a few steps backward. “If you change your mind.”

“Night, Timmers.”

“Night.” Tim turns around and makes his exit.

Dick throws his good arm over his eyes and tries to sleep.

oOo

Unconsciousness comes in waves, broken by adrenaline spikes and Alfred or Bruce checking on him. But no matter his consciousness status, Dick’s reality is shadowed and manipulated by voices and figures, hallucinations and lies that feel like absolute truths. It’s hard to tell the difference between sleep and wakefulness, but the shaking is a good tell. He doesn’t usually shake in his nightmares.

He's in his room, lying in his bed and shaking. He doesn’t remember coming here, but that doesn’t say much. He’d been having a dream, something that felt real, but wrong. Something adjacent to reality.

A camera kept flashing in his face, the photographer morphing into something less and less human. And Bruce, Bruce had been there. Yelling at him, telling him to—

No. That hadn’t happened, and now that he’s awake, Dick can barely remember the lies.

Dick kicks at his sheets, trying to reach the cool air above them. At first it’s a relief, but soon it’s not enough because he’s hot and sweaty and something keeps telling him to run. He glances out the window, trying to figure out if he could survive the fall—

No. He’s fine. He’s fine.

Dick pushes himself upright, takes some deep breaths, tries to recite pi. 

He jumps at the knock on his door.

“Dick?” the door creaks open to reveal Bruce, who enters the room before Dick can answer. “What are you still doing here?”

“I—” Dick feels hot, his palms are sweating again and he can feel his heart pounding against his chest, trying to escape. He blinks, twists the skin on his forearm until it hurts.

Bruce is in front of him, sitting down on the bed. “I trained you to be a detective. Can’t you piece together the clues? You’re not wanted. Get out of my house and stay away from my family.”

Dick shakes his head, fists his hair. The room feels like it’s getting smaller, twisted and darker. Louder. Wrong. This is a sign, but Dick can’t remember for what. “But you—no. You trusted me with Damian, you said—” 

What had Bruce said? He’s a master manipulator when he wants to be, needs to be. He might’ve trusted him with Damian, or maybe, just maybe, he was only trying to protect Alfred in case Damian had been given orders to assassinate them. He’d already attacked Tim, after all, and keeping that fact in mind, Bruce would have needed to consider safety and who he’d be willing to lose in order to protect someone else. Dick’s death and its repercussions would have felt minuscule if it meant Alfred would be saved.

Hands tug at his wrists. It’s three fourteen. The voice is lying.

“Shh. Take a breath.” Dick tries, but it’s like his chest has stalled. “Tell me how many posters are in your room.”

“There’s—”

“Take them and go. I don’t want any trace of you left in this house.”

“Dick, you’re alright. Take a breath.” Hands are on Dick’s shoulders, trying to restrain him. He brushes them off, tries to get to the window. “I’m out of patience. I won’t be subtle any longer—I’ve regretted taking you in from the moment you moved in. Go!”  

His fingers barely brush against the window’s lock before he’s slammed into the ground. His shoulder pops, making him grunt.

“You’re not thinking clearly. Focus. Wait it out.”

Dick struggles against the weight on top of him, but it doesn’t give, not even when he resorts to biting. The hands simply shift from his chest to his stomach, and his attacker doesn’t even make a sound.

The voices in his head build up. There are millions, all shouting conspiracies at him, all of them sounding too true. His heart pounds so hard that it must be bruising his chest, and he’s so hot that his brain must be about to melt. And, and—he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He’s going to die. This is it—he’s going to die.

A hand forces his head down, and it’s not until then that he realizes he’s been slamming it against the ground in an attempt to silence the voices.

“Shh, shh. You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

“Leave! Jump out the window, you’d be doing everyone a favor!”

Dick tries to lift his head again, but the hold is firm. There’s not enough room to hit it against the ground, there’s not enough room to shut the voices out.

“No one will miss you!”

The familiar feeling of a needle slides into his arm.

“Shh.”

Something happens. The room shifts, he shifts, and he realizes that he’s no longer shaking. It’s a sign.

The hallucinations shift into a nightmare that feels too real.

oOo

Dick wakes up to nausea and a headache. He tries to move his hand to rub at his head only to find that he’s been restrained. Bad night then.

He opens his eyes and turns his head. There’s an empty chair by his bed and the bedroom door is cracked open. 

“Bruce,” he calls. 

Damian steps into view, pushing the door open a little wider. The quick response tells Dick that Damian has been listening from the hallway. “Father is answering a call from Kent. Would you like me to collect him?”

"It can wait.” 

Damian still hasn’t entered the room, and it makes Dick wonder how much he’d heard last night, how much last night has to do with the distance, the hesitance. He doesn’t remember seeing Damian at all, but he probably came back when Dick was still in the Cave. And even if they hadn’t seen each other, it’s not like Dick’s bedroom is soundproof.

“Everything okay, kiddo?” He can remember Bruce having a handful of especially bad reactions to fear gas from when Dick was a kid—they’d been terrifying, seeing Bruce like that had made them terrifying.

“Of course. You are the one who was incapacitated.” Damian tugs on the sleeve of his sweatshirt, pulling it halfway down his hand. “But you are alright now?”

Dick quirks his lips into a smile. “I’m fine.”

“Good. I imagine last night was quite difficult,” Damian begins. “Titus woke up several times.” Damian tugs on his sleeve again, he looks like he wants to ask something.

Damian’s head turns abruptly, and whatever he sees causes him to take a step back. Into the hallway, he says, “Richard is awake.”

Now that he’s paying attention, Dick can hear Bruce’s footsteps. Bruce pauses outside of Dick’s bedroom, and he and Damian exchange words in quiet voices that Dick can’t understand. Then Bruce steps inside and closes the door behind him. 

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asks.

“Lucid,” Dick starts. Bruce tilts his head, expectant. “Not great overall, and I still feel a little on edge, but I think the worst of it is over.”

“Hnn.” Bruce looks him over for a moment, trying to confirm Dick’s self-evaluation. He must pass because soon Bruce is taking off the restraints. 

“Did I . . .” Dick tries to think back to last night and work out what was nightmare and what was hallucination and what was reality. “Did I try to jump out a window last night?”

“Yes. I had to hold you down until a sedative was administered. After that, we decided it would be safer to use restraints until the toxin wore off.”

Dick sits up as the last of the restraints are removed. He stretches his ankles and wrists. “Did the antidote not work or something?”

“It either wore off early or the toxin was stronger than usual. Possibly both, considering how you reacted to additional doses,” Bruce explains. 

Dick frowns. “How many doses did you give me?”  

“Three. You probably won’t need a fourth, but we’ll check your blood in a few hours to make sure that the traces still in your system are gone, or at least decreasing.”

Dick groans and slides back down against his pillow, draping his arms over his face. The fear toxin antidote, while helpful, isn’t without side-effects. With three doses, those effects will stick around for days.

Bruce, the bastard, has the audacity to chuckle at him. Dick blindly throws a pillow at him, smiling when he hears it meet its target.

Then, “Are you hungry?”

“Not even a little.”

Bruce runs a hand through Dick’s hair. “Sleep.”

He doesn’t have to be told twice. 

oOo

Dick wakes up alone again, but this time the chair is gone and the door is completely shut. It’s a good sign, and since Dick isn’t currently disoriented, very much preferred. 

It’s much later in the day now, a little past noon, but he knows he could very easily close his eyes and sleep for another few hours. Possibly until the next morning. But to his misfortune, his stomach growls in protest.

With a dramatic sigh that no one can hear, he gets out of bed, quickly showers and dresses, and goes downstairs to find something to eat.

"I was just about to check on you," Alfred says when he spots him entering the kitchen. "How are you feeling?"

Dick shrugs. “Tired.” It’s a side-effect of the antidote, but the nightmares probably hadn’t helped. “Did you guys have lunch already?”

“It would seem that everyone has gotten a rather late start to the day. We were just about to settle in for a brunch of sorts.”

“Do you need help?” Dick asks.

Alfred points toward a tray of what looks like buckwheat pancakes. “If you could bring that tray into the dining room, please.”

Dick hums and grabs the tray, carrying it into the dining room with Alfred behind him. He’s just setting the tray down when Titus storms in, running into his legs with a force that threatens to knock him over.

He takes a step back with a small laugh, reaching down to pet Titus. His tail thumps against the ground as he takes a seat on top of Dick’s feet.

“Master Damian!” Alfred shouts, setting a bowl of fruit down on the table.

“What’s up with you, buddy?” Dick asks the dog as he bends down to pet him better. Titus doesn’t usually tackle him, especially not when they just saw each other the day before. “What’s goin’ on?”

Alfred tsks to the room at large.

“Yes, Pennyworth?” Damian asks when he eventually reaches the room.

“What have I told you about animals in the dining room, especially during meal times?”

Damian rolls his eyes, prompting another “Master Damian!” from Alfred. Dick almost laughs, but the adult in him tells him to stand up and keep his mouth shut.

“Titus, come,” Damian says.

Titus whines.

“Titus, come,” Damian repeats.

Titus obeys, tail low as Damian leads him out of the room.

“And please gather the others before returning.”

Damian mumbles something under his breath that Alfred claims to have heard. Despite the resistance, Tim comes into the room a minute later, so Damian must’ve done as Alfred asked.

“Morning,” Tim says. He juts his thumb toward the hall. “What’s Damian mad about?”

“Oh.” Dick huffs a small laugh. “Titus ran in here and Alfred kind of went off on him.”

“Ugh, and I missed it? Bummer.” Tim takes a seat next to him and steals a piece of fruit from the bowl. “Feeling any better? Bruce said you had a rough night.”

Sometimes a little fear toxin exposure can be so mundane and minuscule that it isn’t mentioned the following morning. Dick wishes this was one of those times.

“Yup.” Dick taps his fingers on the table. “What happened to your ankle? You didn’t report it last night.”

Tim looks down at the ACE bandage wrapped around his left foot. “Oh. Just an old injury that started acting up this morning. I can still kick your ass at sparring later, though.”

Dick snorts and grabs one of the buckwheat pancakes, deciding he can’t wait any longer. “You wish.”

oOo

Breakfast is uneventful, aside from Dick literally falling asleep on the table. Bruce shakes him awake after breakfast and then drags Dick down to the Cave to check his blood levels. Titus joins them, pressing himself against Dick’s legs and nearly tripping him as they make their way down the Cave’s stairs.

One blood test later and they learn that the toxin levels haven’t budged. Bruce decides to give him another dose of the antidote.

“Fourth time’s the charm, right?” Dick says.

“Hnn.”

Bruce sets a timer on his phone, just like he used to do in the early days. Draw blood, antidote, set a timer, draw more blood. That had been the routine for so much of his life.

Although, Dick supposes, they hadn’t really had antidotes back then; they’d had attempts at treatments, desperate attempts to manage symptoms just enough to make them bearable. None of them had been tested, all of it had been theory and desperation. It was risky by definition, but it was better than nothing. They just needed to take precautions: monitor each other not only for effectiveness but also for the inevitable side effects.

Dick will never forget the time an “antidote” caused his throat to swell up and chest to stall. The timer had only had a minute left, too—they’d increased the time after that, and Dick hadn’t complained about having to wait the whole time for almost a year.

These days, monitoring isn’t always part of the routine, and when it is, it’s mostly to check for effectiveness. Usually. Since this is Dick’s fourth dose in a relatively short timeframe, his risk for adverse effects is higher and he needs to be monitored. Bruce will probably force him to stay at the manor until all side effects of the treatment subside, longer if new side effects arise.

“Have you been able to get any restful sleep?”

Dick jerks as he’s pulled from his thoughts. “Uh,” he starts, needing a second to process what Bruce just said. “No. Not really, no.”

“Someone can patrol in Bludhaven while you recover.”

It’s an offer, Bruce trying to be helpful. Dick knows that, but something makes it feel like an order, proof that Bruce thinks he’s incompetent.

“I’m fine on my own.”

Funny how Dick’s still trying to prove that, after all these years. He remembers when he was eight and first moved in with Bruce, how he’d been adamant about not needing a parent, not needing Bruce, but he became attached anyway. He’d told himself Bruce was a want, not a need, but sometimes it was hard to convince himself that Bruce felt the same way. That even if Bruce didn’t need Dick, he wanted him.

That feeling of uncertainty, insecurity, persisted and worsened as he’d gotten older. It was accelerated after Two-Face nearly killed him and Bruce promptly fired him from being Robin. He was twelve and lost, and in what he now knows was just his twisted, hurt kid brain, he’d convinced himself that Bruce didn’t need nor want him, as Robin or anything else. And he’d desperately needed to be wanted. Needs.

Back then, he’d been certain that pity and guilt were the only things stopping Bruce from tossing Dick out onto the streets. He’d felt like a burden, and he’d hated everything about his life in those moments. So, he’d done the only thing he could think of—he ran.

And Bruce—Bruce didn’t chase him.

That was—maybe is—the important bit, the part that Dick still thinks about. Not the initial rejection, not being fired—that Bruce didn’t come after him.

After all, that’s what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? For Bruce to prove him wrong, for Bruce to chase after him, fight for him. Want him.

Bruce fought for Jason, then for Tim and, eventually, Damian. It’s clear that they are and always will be wanted, and Dick knows it’s stupid, but he doesn’t always know if that’s true for himself. At the end of the day, his brothers all have Bruce’s name, and all Dick has is a man who stopped being his legal guardian when he turned eighteen.

Dick is useful, even needed on the rare occasion, but he’s not always sure that he’s wanted.

“Something’s . . . bothering you.” Bruce’s brows are furrowed, searching Dick’s face and trying to find the clues that will tell him what went wrong and where.

Dick scratches behind Titus’s ears, looking at him instead of Bruce. “Just the toxin.”

“Hnn.” Bruce sits down next to Dick, grunting slightly as settles. “I imagine that the photographer’s comments last night didn’t help.”

Sometimes Dick hates how well Bruce knows him.

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Maybe. But fear toxin twists things, and it’s been known to draw on recent events, especially the latest versions.”

Dick says nothing, just nods in acknowledgment as he attends to Titus.

“Dick, you are my family, in every sense of the word. And I . . . I was bothered by the comment last night that implied otherwise.”

Bruce reaches over and squeezes Dick’s knee, and Dick wonders how much he’d said last night when the fear toxin was in control.

“You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just—” Dick sighs, leans his head against Bruce’s shoulder. “Sometimes I don’t.”

Bruce shifts. He cups the back of Dick’s head and pulls him toward his chest, pressing a kiss into his hair. “I love you, okay? And you are wanted here. So, so wanted.” Bruce holds him in a tight hug and traces circles into his hair. “I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it.”