Whumpee and friends are going through a cave or something like that, and as they follow their friends from behind, the floor gives way under them and Caretaker and they fall in.
Caretaker managed to escape the fall unscathed when they landed. Whumpee, however, broke their arm/leg/whatever and can't move. So Caretaker has to carry Whumpee through an unknown part of the cave/etc, and maybe fight monsters/bandits/etc along the way too.
BONUS if Whumpee and Caretaker absolutely HATED each other.
A semi-conscious character being bridal carried- weak enough to necessitate being carried and unable to hang on securely enough for a piggy-back, but able and aware enough to have one arm loosely looped 'round their carrier's neck and the other hand tremulously clutching at their shirt-front, head lolling but able to tilt it into the carrying character's shoulder, holding on just enough to keep from being a deadweight.
This is a fanfiction snippet featuring my favorite Batfamily member, Nightwing! It ended up being really long, longer than my usual stuff, so it's going under the cut!
All things considered, it was a pretty slow night. There was a weapons deal to bust, but other than that, things were going well.
“Riddle me this,” a voice announced, “what is black, blue, and red all over?”
Nightwing leapt down from the old warehouse rafters, slamming his ecrisma stick down across Riddler’s head.
“Your face, probably,” he quipped.
Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin were supposed to be at some huge gala right now, but then Oracle had informed them that she had found Riddler’s location. The tuxedos were very quickly discarded in favor of their suits and gear.
Nightwing was just about to handcuff the offending criminal when he saw the familiar glint of gunmetal out of the corner of his eye. And Tim was right in the dead zone. Absolutely not.
He pushed Red Robin out of the way just as the gun fired. Ha! Missed!
His leg erupted with white-hot waves of pain. Ah. He may have miscalculated. His knee gave out from under him, and down he went.
Dick had been shot before, so this kind of pain shouldn’t have come as a shock. However, to be fair, the bullet shouldn’t have lodged in his skin in the first place. His suit was made of a bulletproof material that still allowed for free range of motion.
And yet, the blood was pooling underneath him like a little red stream. Right, walk it off. He grit his teeth and went to stand, but a wave of dizziness washed over him so strongly that he went crashing back down into his blood-puddle.
“Well, it looks like the answer is Nightwing!” Riddler cackled.
A punch to his face and a satisfying cracking sound later, and Riddler was unconscious on the ground once more.
“You idiot!” Red Robin shouted.
Yeah, Riddler was an idiot.
“Why would you take the bullet!? You stupid, self-sacrificing-”
Oh. Tim was talking about him. Dick cracked a smile through the next wave of pain. Tim skidded onto his knees and pressed his hands into the wound, which unfortunately did cause Dick to cry out.
“Easy!” he hissed.
“Sorry, I’ll just let you bleed out then, yeah?” Tim spat.
Damian had made short work of the rest of the Riddler’s goons. The warehouse ceiling above Nightwing began to blur. Tim barked an order that he couldn’t quite make out. Damian huffed a response that was also unclear. Now it sounded like they were having a hazy, distorted argument above him.
“I’m fine,” he slurred, “just bring my bike around…”
His head lolled to the side just as a pair of combat boots came into view. Strong arms slid under his knees and behind his back.
“On three,” a gruff voice said, “One.”
Dick was hoisted into a bridal carry before the figure ever got to two. He could hear his rescuer’s heartbeat from against his chest. He squinted up at a red helmet that wouldn’t quite come into focus.
“Heyyyy Little-Wing.”
“Shut up.”
“Aw.”
He could hear the worry in Jason’s voice. He knew he had been shot, but surely it wasn’t that bad, right? His world rocked back and forth as Jason bolted from the warehouse, Tim and Damian hot on his heels.
He blinked, and his head found the armrest of one of the Batmobile’s backseats. Jason had laid him across them and taken a seat on the other side. He currently had Dick’s leg in a death-grip with his hand right over the wound.
Jason asked him something, but Dick couldn’t make it out. The Batmobile roared to life, the engine sending a rumble throughout the floor.
“Is it hot in here?” Dick mumbled.
Beads of sweat began to coat his forehead, and his hands started shaking. His vision continued to swim, and everything around him sounded like it was underwater. He registered a muffled shout just before the world blurred into nothing.
…
Clink.
That was the first sound Dick registered back in the waking world. The surface beneath him was soft, but it did nothing to quell the chill that had settled under his skin. Strange, he distinctly remembered feeling as hot as an oven.
Opening his eyes proved to be quite the struggle. It felt as though someone had glued the lids shut. Twice, Dick almost went back under. Eventually, they relented, and the Batcave came into view. Specifically, the med bay.
“When you are quite finished scaring the living daylights out of us, Master Dick, I should like to know how you are feeling.”
Alfred’s face came into view, along with Damian’s.
“I’m good,” Dick said, going to sit up, “it was just a bullet. Nothing new there.”
Jason’s hand gripped him by the shoulder and forced him to stay down.
“Imbecile,” Damian muttered.
“Do we have a reading on the bullet’s coating yet?” Jason called.
“One sec,” Tim answered.
“If you’re all going to be mad at me, you could still at least be mad at me and let me have a blanket or something. It’s freezing in here.”
He didn’t miss how Jason and Damian exchanged glances, nor how Alfred’s jaw set.
“The air conditioning is not on,” Damian finally said.
Tim eventually came over, offering a freshly printed sheet to Alfred. Jason read the contents over his shoulder.
“You’ve been poisoned,” Jason huffed, “great job.”
That explained the chills. And the blurry vision. And the trembling. And the sweating. And the-
“How long until we can synthesize an antidote, Drake?” Damian asked.
“Three hours, maybe more,” Tim answered, “Barbara already called B. He’ll be home by tomorrow morning.”
Dick groaned. Great, now Bruce was going to be all over him. Just what he needed.
“I’m going to bed,” Dick announced.
He swung his legs over the side of the cot and immediately regretted doing so. The movement sent sharp, jagged spikes of pain through his body.
“How much longer are you going to be this stupid?” Jason asked.
Jason helped him stand up, taking the bulk of Dick’s weight as he righted him. He escorted him across the med bay, out of the Batcave, and into the manor. When they got to the main staircase, Dick’s façade almost crumbled into nothing. He shivered, and his chest tightened.
“There’s really no dignified way to do this,” Jason sighed.
“Don’t you dare-”
Jason had him up in another bridal carry before he could protest.
“I can walk!” Dick wheezed.
“Walk right off this mortal plane, I know,” Jason said in a singsong, condescending manner, “shut up and let people help you.”
“Oh, like you would let someone do this to you,” he argued, “I bet if- *cough*- I bet if Tim or I tried to- *cough*- tried to carry- *cough*-”
As humiliating as it was to be carried like a fairy princess, Dick was swiftly becoming more frustrated with the string of coughs that kept interrupting his every other word. He could feel Jason tense up as he choked on air.
Between what felt like a moment and an eternity, they reached his room. Jason laid him on the bed carefully, which only made Dick uneasy. Usually, if his brother had to pick him up for anything, Dick was going to get dumped on the nearest surface like a ragdoll. Unceremoniously, and roughly. His condition must be pretty bad if Jason was being gentle now.
Speaking of Jason…
“Hey,” Dick tried to sit up again, “what were you doing at the docks anyway?”
Jason pushed him back down.
“Patrolling.”
It was a lie and they both knew it. There was absolutely zero reason Jason should’ve been at the docks tonight. Last Dick had heard, Jason was following a lead on the other side of the city.
“Patrolling on the -*cough*-wrong side of the- *cough* -city?”
“You’re a detective, figure it out,” Jason muttered, “I’m not gonna hold your hand and walk you through my motives.”
This was usually the part where Jason would leave.
Jason pulled up a chair and produced a book. Emma. Hm.
“Haven’t you read that like six times already?” Dick wheezed.
“Go to sleep, Dickie,” Jason said, not looking up.
Dick wasn’t sure when he had drifted off, but it must have been a while, because now Damian was sitting on his bed with Alfred (the cat, not the butler), and Tim was standing on his other side while Alfred (the butler, not the cat) administered a vial of yellow-green liquid.
“What is that?” Dick mumbled.
“Your antidote, Master Dick,” Alfred answered, “administered not a moment too soon.”
Dick took a deep breath. His lungs finally got to fill to their capacity. He could make out someone hiding in the shadowy corner, but given their height, he doubted it was Cass, which left only one option.
“Hey, B,” Dick said.
For what must have been the third or fourth time that night, Dick attempted to sit up. No one pushed him down this time. No one needed to. Dick’s body sent him collapsing right back against the pillows.
“I thought you gave me an antidote?” his head lolled in Alfred’s direction.
“I did, Sir,” Aflred replied innocently.
“I had him add a sedative,” Bruce answered from his corner, “you’re not going anywhere until that leg, and your system, has healed.”
Dick was going to argue that he didn’t need a sedative, but truthfully, just keeping his eyes open was taking more than enough of his energy. In all fairness, Bruce probably made the right call. He drifted off just as Alfred (the cat, not the butler) started to make biscuits on his stomach.
