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Dick wasn’t usually one for alcohol; none of the Bats were, really. None of them could afford to be. The loss of control—and the hero-complex induced anxiety— that came alongside just wasn’t worth it when the entire population of Gotham was potentially at stake any given second of any given day.
That being said, sometimes certain situations came up in which avoiding alcohol or pulling the classic libation-in-a-potted-plant ruse wasn’t feasible. Certain situations, like schmoozing, where ambitious socialites and aspiring business partners would do their best to get any of the Waynes alone to talk, and Dick Grayson, not officially adopted ward of Brucie Wayne was still close enough.
Dick had tried to get out of it once. He’d tried to float the argument that since he wasn’t technically a Wayne by virtue of never having officially been adopted, maybe he shouldn’t still be forced to go to every gala that came up. Like this one. It wasn’t even one of the more important social events of the season. There had been a new development in a case he’d been working on, and he really didn’t feel that his presence would be necessary at some Bristol-bred silver-spoon’s debut into Gotham’s political soirées. Bruce could be a logical, reasonable man; Dick was sure he could convince him that his evening could be more valuable spent as Nightwing. They could say he was sick! Tim had helped him draft a social media post explaining how he’d run into some sketchy sushi on his recently on his documented trip to (insert most recent public appearance) months ago, complete with an sympathetically posed picture of himself curled up with a bowl of soup in front of his tv. He’d grabbed a bucket to put in the shot and everything.
His master plan had run into a surprisingly Jason Todd-shaped brick wall as soon as the reasoning left his mouth. He’d only narrowly missed catching a torque rod to the face when his brother had turned around, his normally tanned face pale with an emotion Dick couldn’t quite place.
“Are you fucking kidding me with this shit, Dickface?” He’d said, his voice as hard to interpret as his face had been. “I could see Timbecile trying to pull something like this, but you? You’re supposed to be the emotionally intelligent one, asshole. If Bruce heard you even think you’re less a part of this family than the rest of us he’d be devastated, don’t even fuckin’ act like he wouldn’t react poorly.” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose in an uncannily Bruce-like motion. Dick watched him visibly compose himself, taking a deep breath before continuing, “I’m pretty sure the only reason he hasn’t come after you with The Papers is because he thinks you don’t want them.”
After his tirade, Jason had stormed out of the Cave as he was wont to do. Dick knew he’d probably be out for hours, doing whatever it was that Jason did to blow off steam these days.
His reaction had shaken Dick so much, he’d scrapped the idea and never even considered it again.
≡ ≡ ≡
Right about now, he was contemplating whether pretending to be under some kind of mind control to walk out of the gala, or if that would be too obvious. He was pretty sure he could be convincing. Dick was a great actor.
It was—ironically—the same politician—or, more accurately his father—throwing some sort of election year-driven charity ball benefitting one universally liked cause or another that was hosting. Dick was keeping himself sane by having an argument with himself on whether the man was the world’s worst conversational partner, or just the continent’s. On second thought, that… maybe wasn’t something a person succeeding at keeping himself sane would do. Hm. Much to think about. Like thinking about what kind of crisis would have to happen to excuse him standing up from the table they’d been chatting at and walking out.
He was about to make an escape to the restroom to see how Jason, Cass, and Steph were handling the night’s patrol when the feeling hit. There were simultaneous sensations of tipping forward and tilting backward while not actually physically moving from his seated position was almost nauseating. Had someone drugged him? He tried to do a quick, discreet scan of his body to determine if there happened to be a dart sticking out of his neck or something, when his eyes lit on the half-finished glass of sparkling water in front of him at the table.
Dick needed to get someone’s attention. Someone needed to get Bruce. Bruce would know what to do, right? Was this targeted to just him, or was this a broad attack on the entire attendance of the gala?
Oh God, Tim and Damian were here. He had to make sure they were safe! He opened his mouth to say something, anything. Get Bruce he tried to say. Please let my brothers be safe. Instead, all that came out his mouth was a soft exhalation of air, barely enough to catch anyone’s attention. He wanted to scream, but it was as though his voicebox was numb.
“Hey, Richie?” The politician! He’d noticed Dick’s obvious crisis at least. Dick took back anything he’d said about the man being boring, his past self was an idiot, obviously. “You feeling okay there, Grayson? You look about ready to pass out.” Dick felt like he was about ready to pass out. The man—what was his name again? Think, Grayson—waved a hand in front of his eyes, watching as they tried to follow, glazing slowly over. He turned to the other person at the table—when had she gotten there? Dick hadn’t even noticed, Damian would never let him hear the end of this—
“He’s so fuckin’ past it, babe. What the hell did you hit him with?”
Dick tried to furrow his brow, but it didn’t really feel like anything had happened. Did Senator McCongressman drug him? He didn’t even have time to mentally process any of that before he was swamped with a series of questions. Why would a Gotham politician try to target Dick Grayson? Did he know? If he knew, who else did? He obviously had an accomplice. What were they trying to pull? He felt an arm reach from behind him; a tastefully manicured hand lightly took hold of his wrist, picking it up an inch or two off the table before letting go. It fell back to the table’s surface before he even finished the thought of holding it up.
What had they given him?
Dick tried again to call out, to thrash, to throw his deadweight around enough to topple over the chair; at this point he would settle for blinking in Morse code, if he thought he could coordinate the movement.
“Aw, he’s freaking the fuck out,” the woman whispered, voice coming from right behind his left ear. Dick felt a muted sense of irritation at her acting like he wasn’t in the room, which ended when she giggled coquettishly, and addressed him directly. “Relax, baby. Not like you really have another choice in the matter right now, anyway.” Her hand ghosted its way down his arm from his shoulder, before stopping delicately at his wrist again, wrapping her fingers around it. She was taking his pulse, he realized. “Your heart is going so wild, baby, it’s adorable. All that adrenaline with nowhere. To. Go.” Her other hand came up to poke at his cheek with each of the last three words, before flattening against his face and turning his head so he could look toward her. His vision was so unfocused that all he could register was blonde hair, and crisply applied lipstick. She smiled, sweetly. “It’s alright, baby. I like to watch you panic.”
She swiped her thumb under his eye; he caught a glimpse of her nail polish in his peripheral vision.
Was he crying? His face was going numb, he hadn’t even noticed.
“Alright, tiger, up and at ‘em,” the man was back. Had he left? Dick was having trouble paying attention. The two of them leveraged him out of his chair, casually. Was no one going to notice? Did anyone even see that there was something wrong? “Looks like someone’s overindulged, a bit,” the man was chuckling, nudging one of the other guests of the gala.
What was he doing?
“No, no, don’t worry about it. Suzanne and I will get him to a room for the night. Just one of the responsibilities of the host, you know! A Lindahl is always prepared!”
The two maneuvered him a few more steps, uncaring of his unresponsive limbs. They’d just finished explaining to another table of concerned socialites when Dick heard a familiar voice.
“I appreciate the thought, but your assistance will not be necessary.” Dick had never been so happy to hear Bruce’s stupid Brucie voice. “Drinks all hit you at once, chum?” Dick couldn’t see Bruce’s face, but from his tone he could picture the sympathetic grin—the one where his eyes crinkled just the tiniest bit in the corners. Jason always made fun of him when he did it, pointing out his slowly deepening crows feet and laugh lines; evidence that the Batman did, in fact, have a sense of humor. “I’ll take it from here, Representative Lindahl. Thank you for looking out for my son.”
For a second, Dick was certain his would-be-abductors were going to argue, to insist that Dick sleep it off in a guest room, but with a slightly stilted laugh, Lindahl let him go.
“Not at all, Wayne, it was my pleasure. Make sure he gets home safe, will you?”
The woman tittered out another shrill laugh, prodding his back in a way that caused him to tip precariously before swooning into Bruce’s big, stupid chest. Dick exhaled, finally allowing himself to close his eyes. It would be okay, now. Bruce was here.
≡ ≡ ≡
He must have lost some time, somewhere, because suddenly Dick found himself in the backseat of Bruce’s Bentley. Tim was there, strapping his seatbelt and exuding worry like a space heater.
“Dick! Are you okay?” Under different circumstances, he would probably have laughed it off, tried to play down the severity of the situation, but right now he had all the energy of a limp noodle, and the expressive control of one, too. “Damian said something didn’t look right about your body language and went to tell Bruce.”
Dick listened, bonelessly, and tried to keep up. Tim tended to speak more quickly when he was scared or nervous—Dick would never tell him, but he was pretty sure it was a habit borne from trying to get things he wanted to say out before his parents were gone. “B’s already had Alfred come to pick him up, we were worried someone was going to end up in the hospital with stab wounds.”
If he could move his face, Dick would have smiled at that. Instead he just struggled to keep his heavy eyelids open.
“Hey, Dick? Are you—can you hear me? How many fingers am I holding up? Dick? Hey, hey, can you look at me? Dick! Bruce? I can’t… he’s not responsive! Dick, please—“
The end of whatever Tim was going on about went quiet as Dick finally, exhaustedly, let himself go.
≡ ≡ ≡
He awoke, as was all too common—in the medical area of the cave. He swam back to consciousness, following the chittering of the bats. Bracing himself for failure, Dick tried to wiggle his toes.
He’d never been so thankful for the pins and needles of a limb waking up. He pried his eyes open, and saw his entire family around him.
Damian and his menagerie of pets were curled up on his lower legs, which was probably why they’d fallen asleep. Cass was sprawled over the side of the hospital bed—it always shocked Dick how her aura of grace all but vanished while she slept. Duke (who hadn’t been forced to go to the gala) gave him a sympathetic smile from the armchair where he was methodically changing all the stickers on one of Tim’s Rubix cubes. He raised one finger to his lips; flicking his eyes to the floor, where Tim still had his hand in the position it had been when he no doubt fell asleep playing with it. Jason was passed out in the other armchair, sporting a delightfully pink Sharpie’d on moustache. Steph (the only real suspect) was lounging on the floor nearby Tim, kicking her feet in the air like a teenager on the phone with their crush. She was idly putting neon-colored planet themed stickers over the eyes on the Red Hood helmet.
Dick let his head fall sideways on the pillow, smiling at the sight of Bruce and Alfred puzzling over the Medbay computer. They were looking at his tox-screen, he would guess. Alfred caught a glimpse of Dick’s (barely) conscious state, and gently nudged Bruce, who dropped everything to hurry over.
“Dick,” he murmured, touching the back of his hand to his son’s forehead as though checking for a fever. “I’m glad you’re awake. You really gave us a scare, chum. No, no, Dick, you don’t have to explain anything. Lindahl wasn’t as thorough as he thought. Tim managed to snag your glass on the way out to test; he won’t be pulling this on anyone else again.”
Dick smiled weakly. At least some good came of the flaming dumpster fire of his night. He opened his mouth to reply, half-afraid he still wouldn’t have any control over his voice.
“Came for me,” he managed, unsurprised at the hoarse croak of his words. Three syllables, and he was already feeling the pull of sleep dragging him back.
“Of course I came, chum,” came the low rumble of Bruce’s reply. “You’re my son. I’ll always come for you.”