Hi! Love your work. Any thoughts for circus whump prompts perchance?
Ofc ofc:
First of all: old, gruff caretaker taking pity on the new, young whumpee who is trying (and failing) to hide their illness/injury.
Whumpees unable to hold their balance - either from dizziness or an injury, resulting in a fall.
Whumpees just missing the mark/catch resulting in either themselves - or their partner - falling.
Speaking about just missing the mark. What happens when the arrow/knife/projectile doesn't hit the centre of the target (regardless of the ridiculous premise) Are they punished? Do they punish themselves?
As a punishment, they could be tied to the knife-throw board, and the whumper knows just how close they can the knives to be uncomfortable (and where they can just nick the skin.)
Whumpees being forced to perform despite being unwell/injured, resulting in worsening the ailment.
Passing. Out. Mid. Performance. That is all.
Recovering in tents/buildings that aren't built for the environment they're in.
The caretakers having to haul the whumpee into the nearest town to get help.
I can imagine it's going to be makeshift-splints-galore in this setting - especially if the leader doesn't allow them to waste money on medical help.
What happens if equipment fails as they're on it? Does the safety net collapse? Does the trapeze rope snap? Does a balance beam splinter?
Maybe an illness passes between the performers/crew, forcing the whumpee to work just as hard, and resulting in the illness hitting them even harder.
Following that, the overworked and underfed whumpee is always a classic trope to build-upon.
This is specific, but I think it would be fitting to give your whumpee pneumonia in this setting.
^ Or some kind of infection, especially if their living conditions aren't the cleanest/they tend to animals frequently.
Makeshift Splint | Self-Done First Aid | Sloppy Bandages
No Capes AU
Whumptober 2022
Note: I took French in high school, all Spanish is Google Translate.
Could be read as slash, could be read as platonic friends --- up to you
Dick woke up slowly, his eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks before he opened them. He found himself staring at stark white ceiling paint. He was laying on a bed, that much he could tell. He could also tell it wasn’t his bed. He blinked a few times as he tried to get his barring, he turned his head to the left and then to the right before pushing himself up straight. White hot pain shot through his left arm, and he cried out, collapsing back into the pillows.
“Easy there, Richie Rich, you’re going to hurt yourself.”
Dick’s eyebrows shot up and he turned sharply toward the voice. Sitting in the corner of the room with a book propped on his lap was a man. He was wearing a brown leather jacket with a red hoodie underneath and dark blue jeans.
“Who’re you?” Dick tried his best to sound demanding, but instead he found himself squeaking out the words.
“I’m Jason. And you need to lie down.” Jason popped a bookmark into his book and the dropped it onto the small table to his left, then stood up to stand next to Dick.
“Is this a ransom thing?” Dick looked down at his throbbing arm. There was, what looked like, the end of a wooden broom, secured with white fabric splinting his arm. In between the two rods was messy, stained red gauze, tapped to his arm with scotch tape. “What did you do to me?”
The other man frowned at him and crossed his arms over his chest, “I didn’t do anything to you. You have compound fracture of your radius and ulna. Which was, by the way, not from me.”
Dick blew a strand of hair out of his face and grunted, “Why should I believe you?”
“Believe what you want, but I’m trying to save your life. Roy says we’re just going to go pick up a package for the boss, ‘I’ll take Jason and Tony’ he says. No big deal. I could use the extra money, man’s gotta eat. Then, we roll up to the diner on fifth and Richard fucking Grayson comes out. Next thing I know, Tony’s checking the ammo in his Glock and Roy’s unlocking the door and we’re shoving you into an alley. You fell real hard, broke the fuck out of your arm, saw your bones, and then passed out.”
“Okay, so where’s the part where you’re saving my life? Because it sounds like you and your buddies kidnapped me.”
“We were supposed to kill you. But, I didn’t sign up to kill no body, definitely not the son of Bruce Wayne.”
“Ex-Ward.” Dick spits back.
“Ward-ever. Either way, we’re supposed to kill you to pump the breaks on the grant going to reform Crime Alley. Figure, Wayne isn’t going to pour money into the place where his son got killed. The money is going to create legit jobs, push out a lot of the gang activity, and put emergency services in the neighborhood.” Jason looks at Dick, his eyebrows are knitted together into a frown. Dick looks back with his own confused frown,
“Okay, so why didn’t you kill me then? Are you not… in a gang?”
Jason scratches the back of his neck and shrugs, “No one wants to be in a gang, not really, but when you live around here, you’re either with a gang or you’re hungry—sometimes you’re both. I’ve lived here my whole life, yanno Crime Alley. I… I don’t want to pump the breaks on the grant. It’s goin’ to help a lot of people; my friends and my neighbors.”
“That’s… That’s fair.” Dick hums and runs his good hand through his hair, “So what now, Jason?”
“I don’t know. I gotta get you to a real police station or maybe Wayne Enterprises. But, they’re lookin’ for us. We can’t just walk out of here. I don’t have my phone and neither do you.” Jason strides away from the bed to the window to crack open the blinds and peak out. “I give it a few more hours until they’re busting doors down.”
Dick grunts as he pushes himself up onto his uninjured arm and then into a sitting position, “Then we have to go before they do that.”
“Your arm is really broken!” Jason looks at him with wide eyes, his arms out in front of him as if he’s ready to push Dick back onto the bed.
“If they’re going to start busting doors down, then people are going to start getting hurt. We need a plan before it comes to that.” Dick throws his legs over the edge of the bed with effort. “Is there anyone in this building who can let us use a phone?”
“Everyone is scared, Richard.” Jason’s voice is low and serious. “No one is going to help us at the cost of their life. Reform grant be damned.”
“Dick.”
Jason’s eyebrows fly up, “Excuse me?”
“That’s what people call me, not Richard, Dick.” The older man shots Jason a crooked smile. “And there has to be someone who will help. People are braver than you would think. Like you.”
Jason’s cheeks visibly blush, and he runs a hand through his hair, “Okay, Dick, what do you think we should do.”
“We’re in an apartment building, right? We need to make a phone call.”
**
How Jason got roped into running up three flights of stairs with his red hood pulled over his face, he isn’t quite sure. Regardless, he’s knocking rapidly on 23C with his mouth pressed to the seam of the door,
“Tienes que ir, Jason! Ellos van a saber que estas aqui! ” No you have to go, Jason! They’re going to know you’re here.
Jason presses his forehead to the door, and knocks one more time with a closed fist, “Lamento venir aquí! Necesito tu ayuda! Necesito usar tu teléfono!” I’m sorry to come here! I need your help! I need to use your phone!
“Yo tengo una familia, Jason!” I have a family, Jason. His heart aches at the desperation in her voice, he knows she’s scared. He’s scared, too.
“Una vida major para tu familia, Carmen.” A better life for your family, Carmen.
There is silence on the other side of the door. Jason’s shoulders hunch in defeat. That was it, she was the only one.
Just as he is about to turn away and head back to his apartment to think of a plan B, the door is cracked open. He turns sharply to see a small hand pushing a cheap prepaid cell phone across the threshold. The woman looks at him with wide eyes,
“Para mi familia, Jason.”
“Gracias.” Jason nods in thanks, scooping up the cell phone and then taking long strides back to where Dick was waiting. He practically throws the door open and then slams it shut behind him, holding the phone out in victory.
Dick throws him a wide smile, “I told you, Jay, there are always brave people.”
**
“We can’t call Bruce. His line is secure, unknown numbers won’t get through. We could call Wayne Enterprises, but you never know who’s going to answer or how far this goes up.” Dick taps his finger against the hard wood of Jason’s dinette.
“People at W.E. want to keep Crime Alley a slum?” Jason frowned with confusion, what do rich people care about Crime Alley?
“There are a lot of investors against it. They don’t want to put the Wayne Enterprises name on it, but shoving money into a community isn’t going to inspire change. The support of WE is an essential part. The Wanye’s get the final say since we have the biggest share. There are good people everywhere and bad people everywhere, Jason.” Dick pinches the bridge of his nose. “Who can we call who wouldn’t be tapped?”
“Do you have a friend who could come get you?” Jason asks optimistically. “A friend with a bulletproof car.”
“Us.”
Jason’s face morphs into confusion, “What?”
“Someone to come get us. Or are you not going to get offed the minute your boss finds you?”
Tony and Roy were probably singing like canaries about what Jason had done. He winces, “Okay, and Carmen and her family.”
“Okay, we’ll fill up the hypothetical car. Let’s work on getting a car first.” Dick’s eyes light up for a moment. “We can call my brother.”
“The one from TV? Isn’t he like seventeen?”
“Unless you have a better idea.” Dick waits, looking at Jason with a knowing expression. The younger man just shrugs and pushes the phone towards him. Dick makes quick work of punching the numbers in and the both of them hold their breaths as it rings.
On the third ring, the line opens up and there’s a heavy sigh, “I’m not buying whatever your selling—”
“Robin.” Dick says sharply. Here is a moment of silence on the other line and for a moment, Jason worries that the boy has hung up.
“For serious?”
“As a heart attack.” Dick presses his lips together and waits again. There is more deafening silence before there is shuffling on the other end of the phone.
“Okay.”
Then the line goes dead.
Jason looks at Dick with his mouth open in a surprised ‘o’, “That’s it? We risked other people’s lives for that. For you to say five words to some teenager?”
Dick glares at him and crosses his arms, “Tim will know what to do. We need to get to the roof.”
“This is just great!” Jason stands up abruptly, pushing his chair out from the table. “You rich people really live in your own little world, don’t you? What does it mean? Is it an extraction code or something? You don’t give a fuck about us! You get to go home to your cushy life while we all rot here. I bet you’re going to tell your dad to pull the funding, too! Do understand the sacrifice a woman might have just made to get us that phone? A woman with two kids. And you use that to call—”
Before he can finish, there’s a loud banging on the apartment door,
“We know you’re in there, Todd! Get your ass out here, with Wayne’s kid, or we’re going to kill your friend.”
“Por favor no!”
“Listen, Jason.” Dick uses his good arm to make Jason look at him, focusing his horrified look away from the door and to the older man. “I know it’s hard, I know you’re scared, but I need you to go out the fire escape and up to the roof.”
Jason splutters, shaking his head back and forth, “They’re going to kill her!”
“Hey!” Dick’s words are quiet but firm. “They’re going to kill all of us if you don’t do as I say. It’s probably going to take Tim thirty minutes to get here. When he does, because he will, the team he sends is going to need someone to be up on the roof.”
“The roof? Dick what are you talking about? This isn’t a spy movie! I’m not just going to run away while they kill Carmen! I—”
The banging continued. The door to Jason’s apartment was fairly sturdy and had good number of locks on it, but it wouldn’t stand for ever.
“Remember that bullet proof car we talked about?” Jason nods. “Well, there’s no car. It’s going to be a helicopter and the guys in it are going to need to know exactly where we are as soon as it touches down. If you stay, your friends outside are going to shoot you in the head, then your friend, and come look for me. It has to be you, Jason. I swear on my life, I’m going to do everything I can to keep your friend alive, but I need you to do what I say. Do you understand?”
Jason gapes at him for a second, his eyes flickering between Dick and the shaking door.
“Jason! Do you understand?”
“Yeah, Dick, I understand.” Jason nodded quickly, turning to the small bedroom to escape out the window. He’s out the window and climbing up the first rung of the stairs when he glances back, just in time to see Dick open the front door and get thrown face first onto the floor. He hears the older man cry out when his arm is grabbed as he continues up as quickly as he can. He reaches the roof in record time, bringing up his wrist to check his watch. Dick said thirty minutes. Jason tugs at locks of his hair, pacing across the roof. Dick could be dead in thirty minutes.
**
As Jason turns to the bedroom window, Dick turns to the front door. The four dead bolts that run down the seam are shaking as the person on the other side rams into it. Dick has half a mind to look through the peep hole, but the thought of getting hot through his eyeball keeps his curiosity away.
“I’m coming!” He unlocks the door quickly, swinging it open to come face to face with four meaty looking men. “Can’t a man take a nap without having the door busted down—”
The man directly in front of him grabs him by the front of his shirt and throws him down onto the carpeted floor. Dick can’t hold back the cry of pain that slips past his lips when his broken arm is wrenched up behind his back and zip tied there with his other arm. The pain is white hot, and it travels up his arm to his shoulder, from where his nose is pushed into the rough carpet, Dick has to blink stars out of his eyes.
He sees the feet of three other men stomp into the small apartment followed by a small, curly haired, Hispanic woman being dragged behind them. She has tear tracks running down her face and her arms are also zip tied behind her back. As Dick feels guilt begin to swallow him, he is yanked up by his broken arm and forced to stand on wobbly feet between two bulky men.
“Where is Todd, Richard?”
“Dick.” The man in front of him reeled back and punched him in the face. Dick would have fallen over if not for the two men flanking him and taking most of his weight. “My name is Dick god damnnit!”
The man to his right huffed out a laugh but stifled it when the leader gave him a hard look. He then turned his attention to Dick, grabbing him roughly by his jaw and forcing him to look at him,
“You’re going to tell us where that little bastard is or we’re going to kill the bitch and then her kids, and then everyone else in this goddamn shit hole, until we find that little traitor!” Dick wanted to flinch when spit flew from the man’s mouth but settled for morphing his face into that of disgust.
“I don’t know where the other guy went.” He lied. “I woke up with a broken arm and some kid trying to ransom me back to Bruce. I hit him in the head and hid here.”
The man threw a fist into his stomach, and he groaned loudly, “Wrong answer?”
“Jason thinks he’s a hero: helpin’ old ladies across the street and giving food to the kids with cracked out parents. I don’t believe for a goddamn second that he tried to ransom you to anyone.”
Dick laughed, “Okay, you got me. But I still don’t know where he is.”
This time the punch hit his left temple, leaving his vision swirling with stars. He spit a mouth full of blood out onto the floor, blinking rapidly, “Look, man, whatever you think you’re going to get from this: you’re not. Bruce is going to pour money into this neighborhood whether you kill me or not. It’s a done deal. So, why don’t you rub your two little brain cells together and make the smart decision: get out of dodge.”
The man’s nostrils flared, and he landed two heavy punches to his ribcage, Dick tried to double over but the two men at his sides held steady. He looked up at the clock, stall for fifteen more minutes.
“You tell me where Jason is, I’ll let you live.”
Dick snorted, “Fat chance.”
The man sighed before pulling his gun out of the holster at his waist and jamming it up into the soft skin under Dick’s jaw, “Okay, Dick, how about you tell me where Jason is, and I kill you quickly?”
Dick winced at the cold metal pinching into his skin relentlessly, “How about you kill me, then my dad has feds chase you down for the rest of your miserable life while he still pours money into the community.” Dick smiles, showing bloody, red teeth. “You don’t win. Doesn’t matter how this plays out, you Dick, you are going to lose.”
The man releases the pressure on the underside of Dick’s jaw and slams the butt of his gun against the side of his face. Dick feels warm blood well up in the new cut on his face. His vision goes black for five seconds, the two men at his sides let go of his arms, and he drops forward onto the floor heavily. Dick blinks slowly, trying not to let the ringing in his ears overcome him. He can hear the man above him screaming at him, but the words are muffled. Dick rests his cheek on the floor and he’s in direct eye contact with where Carmen was sitting. Except, she wasn’t sitting there anymore. Instead, there was an open window behind where she should have been and the steady red blinking of a smoke grenade.
The smoke grenade went off just as Dick’s eyes slid shut.
**
Jason paced on the roof for exactly twenty-eight minutes before he heard the loud chopping of wind. He squints his eyes to find the source of the noise through the brightness of the sun. When he sees it, his eyes are wide, he’s never seen a helicopter before. It lands on the other side of the roof and an eight-man tactical team pours out of the sliding door followed by a dark haired, scrawny looking kid, Tim his mind supplies, and then Bruce Wayne himself. Jason gapes as the two Wayne’s make their way toward him. Bruce reaches him first, reaching out a hand, which Jason shakes slowly,
“I’m Bruce, this is Tim. You are…?”
“J—Jason.”
“Jason. Tell us what you know.”
Bruce listens with his lips pinched into a tight line. Humming in agreement once and a while and grunting in disagreement a few times as Jason explains the past twenty-four hours to him as quickly as he can. He tells them exactly where Dick is, and then where Carmen’s kids should be. At the end, Bruce nods in thanks and turns on his heel toward the tactical team, leaving him and Tim looking at each other.
“Thanks for coming.” Jason says, mostly to fill the space but also because he is grateful.
“Thanks for not killing my brother.” Tim cracks him a smile and takes a sip of the coffee Jason didn’t even realize the boy had been holding.
Jason scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Yeah, about that, am I going to get arrested after this?”
The two of them turn as the tactical team repel off the roof. Then, Tim laughs and shakes his head, “I’m sure Bruce would have you arrested. But, from what you’ve said, I’m sure it would be over Dick’s dead body… Hopefully, not literally.”
Jason winced at the bad timing of the joke, “I thought Wayne wanted to reform the neighborhood? Arresting twenty-three-year-olds isn’t very reformative.”
Tim laughs again, “It’s not Bruce who wants to reform Crime Alley. It’s Dick. He’s using his whole trust fund to pay for the grant, with Wayne Enterprise’s logo stamped on it.”
Jason gapes for the second time in twenty minutes, “Why would he do that?”
Tim shrugs, “His favorite diner is here. He says he’s met a lot of good people here and they deserve a real chance at life. He thinks that the support of Wayne Enterprises is a critical part to real change.”
“What about his fortune?”
“He’ll still be rich. Bruce, Dick, Damian, and I all hold twenty percent of Wayne Enterprises, and the rest is split by investors. He will be a lot less rich, like millions, but he will definitely still be wealthy. But Dick doesn’t care about money.”
Jason stands silent for a moment, absorbing the information he’d just been given. Then, a second helicopter lands on the roof and Dick Grayson is being pushed through the roof access door. Bruce and Tim are at his side in seconds, asking questions and holding his free hand. Dick catches sight of Jason and pulls the oxygen mask down,
“Thank you, Jason.”
Jason doesn’t have time to reply as Dick is wheeled into the second, smaller helicopter. He just stares as it lifts off the roof and then moves toward the sun.
**
Exactly two weeks later, Jason is standing at his kitchen sink listening to the news play behind him when there is a knock on the door. He turns off the water and dries his hands. A generous donation to his landlord has his rent paid for the next two years, in addition to his bloody carpet replaced with a new, softer one and his broken door fixed. He doesn’t bother to check his phone to see who it is, even though he could sine the same generous donation installed fancy camera doorbells and good locks on everyone’s door.
He pulls open the door and makes a surprised noise,
“Dick.” He looks down the hall as if someone was going to jump out at him. “I… How are you?”
Dick’s previously broken arm is wrapped in a black fiberglass cast and he has stitches running along his cheek, but his smile is bright as ever,
“Howdy, Neighbor! I’m good! Just came over to say ‘hi’!”
Jason frowned, “Neighbor?”
Dick nodded, “I’m moving in next door. Bruce put me in charge of a lot of the spending of the funds in the Park Row grant, so I figured what better way to put the money to good use than to integrate myself into the community?”
Jason hummed, “Yeah, your brother told me somethin’ funny about that. Something about it being your money with Wayne’s name on it?”
Dick rubbed his neck and smiled sheepishly, “He told you that?”
“He didn’t tell me that you are the generous donor behind my two years of paid rent, my new carpet, all the doorbell cameras, and setting up Carmen and her boys in metropolis; I put that one together myself.”
Dick chuckled, “Well, Bruce paid for your carpet.”
“You throw an awful lot of money into Crime Alley. Why didn’t you say anything when I was basically calling you a stuck-up douche?”
“Ah… You know, I never want my money to feel like a power play between me and my friends.” Dick smiles wider at the last word.
“We’re not friends.” Jason huffs.
Dick pushed past him and into his apartment, making himself at home and dropping himself on the couch with a sigh, “We definitely are friends. We spent a lot of time together a few weeks ago!”
“Because I basically tried to murder you…”
Dick snuggled deeper into the couch and smiled lazily,
