Merry Christmas @thebluejayawe! Here is your gift for the winter whumperland/ @whumpexchange. It has been a while since I’ve seen Young Justice so this has been fun. Hopefully this has fixed the formatting but posting via mobile is apparently a nightmare.
Prompt: bc of previous injury, character A passes out and falls into water, team has to rescue
It was all because he was looking out for Robin it happened in the first place.
Dick knew better. This was not his first rodeo after all and Batman had trained him better than that. But this was Jason’s first mission with the team and he was a bit distracted. A rookie mistake of course but he had promised Batman that Jason would be ok and he at least nailed that.
It was supposed to be a simple mission, not that the team ever knew how to handle them without at least something small blowing up. They were supposed to get in, grab the intel, and make it back out without anyone seeing them. Hence why it was him, Robin, Batgirl and M’Gann to maximise the stealth of the team.
They got in without a problem and it didn’t take long for him and Robin to decrypt the security and transfer all the information they needed. It was sheer dumb luck that one of the guards happened to look up at the wrong time while they were heading back out and had to be silenced. M’Gann and Batgirl had already made it out and Robin was just ahead with the guard directly underneath him. Nightwing saw the guard’s eyes widen and had two seconds to jump down and take him out before an alarm could be raised or the gun he was holding be pointed at Robin.
Taking out that one guard wasn’t that hard. It was the one behind him that was trouble. It was a brief fight, over before Robin had a chance to jump down himself, but it was long enough for the second guard to pull a knife and sloppily slice it through his side. It was only a well-timed aerial that saved him for getting properly stabbed instead of the light scratch he actually received. It was further dumb luck however that the knife happened to find the only weak spot in his new suit and allowed it to actually reach his skin. The guard was out before he could get a good look at who he was stabbing and well before he could strike again.
It didn’t really hurt. He was just mad it happened in the first place. And there was no way in hell Batman was hearing about this. No way, not after all the fuss he just made about ‘being his own hero’ and ‘too old for a mentor anymore.’
“Whoa Nightwing, How’d’ya do that so fast?” Robin half whispered excitedly as he landed with his own little flip.
Nightwing grunted as he stood up from examining the now unconscious guard. “Practice,” he replied stiffly, not annoyed at Jason but very annoyed at himself.
Jason looked like he was about to add way more so Dick cut him off.
“We need to get out of here before more guards come and notice these two. Once they do our cover is well and truly blown,” he said, before adding via the psychic link. ‘Is the ship ready M’Gann? We might have some trouble.’
Nightwing was able to jump back up to the rafter while Robin needed to grapple his way up.
‘Yes. She’s all good to go,’ M’Gann replied.
‘What’s taking you two so long?’ Batgirl added.
Nightwing was ready to ignore them but Jason didn’t give him the chance.
‘There were these guards, and Nightwing took them out before I could even get down. It was so cool,’ Jason replied in a rush as he reached the window that would take them outside. Nightwing could see the outline of the ship just by the window sill, only faintly visible because he knew what to look for.
Nightwing sighed to himself before adding. ‘Somehow we found the one guard who knows how to look up. Don’t worry, they won’t be a problem.’ Out loud he said quietly to Jason. “Be careful. The ship is just there. Wait for M’Gann to open the door.”
He could feel Batgirl’s judgment as he entered the ship. Jason had already rushed up to the window so he could watch the country side as they made it back to the cave.
“So, what happened to make sure nobody knows we were here?” She asked as he made his way past her to sit down.
“He wasn’t investigating a noise. He just looked up at the wrong time. Not a lot I could do about that. He was about to see Robin though. I don’t think either of them saw me as I took them out,” he replied.
“Uh huh,” Batgirl didn’t look convinced but dropped the matter as she took her own seat.
“Everything ok?” M’Gann asked cheerfully from the control panel, ignoring the vague iciness coming from the back of the ship.
“Yeah,” Dick added, forcing the annoyance out of his voice. “All good.”
Debrief could have gone a lot worse. They almost got away with delivering their mission report to Black Canary before Batman walked in right at the worst moment. Which was typical of his and Dick’s interactions since he’d become Nightwing.
“We got the files without a problem. Only two guards needed to be subdued on the way out but there were no casualties, and no alarms raised,” Dick finished, unaware that his mentor was behind him. Black Canary nodded as she watched the files transfer from the USB to the Cave’s main computer.
“Are you sure no one saw who you were?” Batman asked with no trace of emotion in his voice. Dick stiffened.
“Fairly. It was a dark corridor,” he replied neutrally.
“It was over so quick B! I didn’t even have time to get to the ground he got them so fast,” Jason added from the other side of the room, barely able to keep himself still.
It was only because Dick knew him so well that he could see the faint tug of a smile at Batman’s lips as he turned to face Jason.
“Is that so?” he added. “Well just in case we will need to monitor their security. I would recommend that anyway, just to be sure they haven’t noticed the security breach. But now it is even more important. Nightwing, you and Mal could keep an eye on that.”
“Of course,” Dick responded.
“Robin, it’s getting late and we have our own patrol to do,” Batman added before giving a brief nod to Black Canary and heading towards the Zeta Tube.
This appeared to be everyone’s cue to leave as Jason started too bound towards the door and Batgirl and M’Gann followed at a more sedate pace.
“One last thing, I take it there are no injuries to report?” Black Canary asked as the team headed towards the kitchen, and in Jason’s case after his mentor.
“No, none to report,” Nightwing replied, having forgotten about the knife that had almost become acquainted with his kidneys not three hours ago.
“Ok then, enjoy the rest of your night.”
It wasn’t until later that night that Dick remembered he’d been stabbed. He was back in his room, and he could finally relax, and his side started itching. It was more annoying than anything else, he was tired and wanted to go to bed and now he had to deal with treating this. It was a small thing, long but not very deep. So he bound it up and gave it no more thought. It was odd though. It had looked like the slightest scratch but in the morning it appeared to be red and slightly inflamed.
Dick just sighed and decided to ignore it after pouring iodine over it. They had another mission today, one with only original members, which meant chances were low that he’d be that distracted again.
Breakfast was a loud affair. Much louder than it had any right to be. But otherwise nothing noteworthy happened. Even prepping for the mission was relatively mundane. Wally and M’Gann did not need much, and Kaldur always prepared the night before a mission if he could.
He was grateful that it was Black Canary giving their mission brief, he wasn’t sure he wanted Batman to notice anything was off about him. Not that anything was of course.
“How long has it been since it was just us? Pity Conner and Artemis are needed for the beta team,” M’Gann cheerfully said as they boarded the Bioship.
“Well it cuts down on the couples by 200%, so I can only hope the focus will drastically improve,” Kaldur said mildly.
Dick smirked at this, throwing an arm around Wally.
“That’s fine Kaldur. There will still be enough bromance to fill the team quota right here,” he replied, barely managing to avoid wincing as the motion pulled at the wound at his side. Dick had not been so grateful for the psychic link to not be active in a long time.
“Yeah, there’s enough love to go ‘round Kaldur,” Wally cheerfully added, not noticing his friends discomfort.
Taking his seat Dick shivered slightly. The Bioship was normally this cold, but he brushed it off. The trip was going to take a few hours, so if it became a problem he could easily ask M’Gann to turn the heat up.
He almost didn’t notice at first, the pain at first was vague and easy to ignore. But by the time they reached their destination it was a lot harder to ignore. It seemed that the cold he’d felt earlier wasn’t from the Bioship after all. Everything was starting to hurt. One minute he was freezing and couldn’t get warm for the life of him, and the next it felt like he was stuck in the middle of a volcano. There was no in between and there was no relief.
He should say something. He knew he should say something and that it was dangerous not to. But he couldn’t. There was no good way to explain this and if he gave in now it would seem like he’d given up Robin too soon. That he’d made a mistake.
Lucky for him his stubbornness was relieved by Wally.
“Dude, you ok? You seem, I dunno, kinda quiet?” Wally asked, with enough tact to keep his voice low.
“I’ll be fine,” Dick replied as another shiver ran through him. Even through the mask Dick could see his friends’ eyebrow rise in disbelief.
“Yeak, ok. Sure. You wanna try again?” Wally replied.
“I mean I feel kinda crappy, but I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll make it through.”
“Ok. You wanna tell me what’s wrong? Before we start?”
“Dude, I’m good. Let’s just catch up with the others alright.”
Dick didn’t give his friend a chance to respond as he went to leave the ship, but Wally was far faster than him. Not that he should have expected anything less. Wally gave a hiss as he grabbed his friends arm.
“Yeah, wow, you’re really warm. I really don’t think you should go now.”
“Wally. It’s cool, I got this. We’ve got to go,” he replied, shooting his grappling hook down.
He was wrong. He was so, so, wrong. He did not in fact have this. This was probably one of the biggest mistakes of his life, and he’d worked while sick and injured before. This shouldn’t have been any different, he couldn’t understand why this time was different. He had to be missing something.
The mission started out fine. He was able to ignore the pain in his side and what was clearly a growing fever. Now that he didn’t have an over excited kid to look out for anyway. They had worked long enough as a team by this point that everyone knew their part well and the main objective went off without a hitch.
The trouble came while they were making their way back to the Bioship. He and Kaldur were skulking along the dock towards the woods where the ship had been left. As she usually did M’Gann had flown ahead to prep the ship, and after a long moments consideration Wally had run after her.
The pain in his side had grown now, and any clumsy attempts he’d made at warding off infection had clearly failed. He was too close to the dock. He wanted to stumble away but he couldn’t see where the solid land was and where the water was. He wanted nothing more than to be in Bioship, or his room at the Cave, but to achieve that he had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
He couldn’t focus on anything else. He as getting dizzy and lightheaded, and it was lucky for him that this section of dockland had been all but abandoned because he wasn’t feeling particularly stealthy at that moment.
He didn’t see the water coming towards him. He didn’t even realise he was falling in until he was in the water and suddenly couldn’t breathe. It was cold, far colder than he had been before, and it dark. He had to kick up to the surface, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out where that was. He was still dizzy, he hadn’t started in the best position and he didn’t think he could help himself. One of his last thoughts before fading from consciousness was that his rebreather was in his belt and his he couldn’t find the surface he should at least grab that. His last thought was, what was the dark glowing shape coming up to him.
The next thing he knew he was staring at the sky. The starts were far brighter than they had any right to be, but he was glad he could see them.
“Nightwing, can you hear me?” a deep voice came from beside him. A very familiar voice. “Don’t move. M’Gann is coming with the ship.”
It was Kaldur. That explained the glowing at least. He sat up, hissing at the pain in his side.
“I’m ok,” he clearly wasn’t but he meant it in a more I’m-alive way then everything-is-good way.
“I don’t doubt that my friend,” he did, but saying that was pointless. “But I think it would be best to get you checked out.”
Nightwing just nodded, beyond the point of caring now.
Wally hadn’t been the only one to notice Nightwing had been struggling. It hadn’t been obvious at the start of the journey over, if it had there was a good chance Black Canary wouldn’t have cleared him to come in the first place. And he and Wally had been their usually almost slightly obnoxious selves for the first half an hour. It was after that that Nightwing had gradually become quitter and quitter until he was barely saying anything. Kaldur didn’t mind the permission banter, he had long ago gotten over the need for silence before starting a mission, but he did appreciate it when it happened. Wally didn’t say anything about it so Kaldur didn’t think anything of it.
That was until they were making their way back to the ship.
There weren’t many circumstances where Nightwing lost his grace, and any opportunity he got he would show off his acrobatics. But tonight it seemed he was off, and there were a lot less acrobatics coming from him. But they achieved their mission and all they had to do was get back to the ship.
It Nightwing had seem a little off earlier, now he seem completely off. He kept wondering over to the side of the docks and back, and even though this area was allegedly abandoned that did not mean they didn’t need to be vigilant.
“Nightwing? Are you ok?” Kaldur asked when they both paused. Rather than in the shade of the buildings they were beside the water, which made Kaldur a little uneasy by the way his friend was stumbling back. Because he was half paying attention to if anything was coming from behind them, he almost missed it when Nightwing fall into the water.
Even as the splash his friend caused rose from the water Kaldur swore and jumped in after him.
The bay was far deeper than it had any right to be, as shipping bays usually are. Swimming towards him Kaldur could see Nightwing struggle, kicking the wrong way towards the surface and then reaching for his belt. Right as Kaldur got to him he stopped struggling and was limp as he dragged him towards the surface.
As they broke the surface of the water there was a heart stopping moment where it seemed like Nightwing wasn’t breathing. But the moment passed and though he was still limp he was gasping for breath, so Kaldur’s worst fears were not realised.
“M’gann,” he called into the comm link. “I’m going to need you to bring the Bioship to the docks. Nightwing is down.”
“Oh my gosh! Is he ok? I’ll bring it right down,” she replied.
Satisfied with this Kaldur pulled Nightwing onto the dock’s surface. It did not take long for him to regain consciousness, though with the mask the only indication of this that Kaldur got was the soft groan he gave.
“Nightwing? Can you hear me?” he asked, crouching down next to him.
The wound on his side was a deep streaky red and very clearly infected.
As he had lifted the side of his suit up Wally gave a long whistle. “Wow, where did you get that? And don’t say you didn’t notice because wow,” he said.
“Last mission, I didn’t want the guard to engage Robin and I didn’t see the second one. It was pretty much fine this morning, looked like a scratch,” Nightwing replied as M’Gann came over with the first aid kit.
“So why didn’t you say something yesterday?” Kaldur asked. Nightwing shrugged in response.
“Honestly I had forgotten that it’d happened,” he replied, before groaning. “And this means Robin won’t take me seriously when I tell him to report everything. Batman is going to kill me.”
“Yeah, the new Robin seems, enthusiastic to say the least,” he added unhelpfully.
Nightwing winced as M’Gann dabbed antiseptic over the wound and bound it up. Once that was done he rolled his suit down again. M’Gann was looking at the team thoughtfully, he could almost see the gears turning in her head.
“Well, I don’t think we can hide this from Batman, sorry Nightwing but you clearly need treatment. But I do think we can keep this from the rest of the team. Besides Conner and Artemis, they don’t really need to know,” she said after a moment of silence.
Wally nodded. “Yeah, we got you bro.”
Kaldur nodded. “It would be best to not broadcast this I agree.”
Nightwing smiled. He still felt awful, and he was certainly going to hear about this from Batman. But at least his team had his back.
“Alright,” M’Gann said cheerfully, now that the danger seemed to have passed. “Let’s get you back to the Cave.”
