Chapter Text
I determined that I should spend the night that night, so I texted Jay.
Hey, I’m gonna spend the night with Steph and Cass tn :(
Ok, no prob
Ok, love you
Love you too
I do go check on Soda, before heading in for the night.
“Hey baby!” I kiss to him and he leans his neck over the stall door waiting for me.
“Hello, psycho.” I say glumly to Jewel, who also leans his head over the door. I don’t much like thoroughbreds, they’re too bite-y.
“Awww, hims my squishy baby.” I pet his face up and down, trying to detangle the raggedy mane. I haven’t really detangled it in a few days, and his is pretty long. I’ll have to give him a bath tomorrow.
I fed him extra and made sure he’s all cozy for the night, then I headed back in to our room. We all spend the night in the same one, so it’s easier to watch movies and stuff. Plus, when I say ‘room’, I mean like triple the size of an average room.
“So what are we gonna watch tonight?” Steph asked, throwing herself onto the bed. We were already in pajamas, Steph likes the matching sets and me and Cass just wear whatever is laying around.
“Horror?” I suggested. “I haven’t seen that new ‘Smile’ one yet.”
“Me either,” Cass says to Steph. “Either that or we could watch ‘Coraline’.”
“Mmm, I already watched ‘Coraline’ the other day.” I groan.
“What about ‘Sex and the City’?” Steph suggests.
“Nooo…” Cass and I both whined. Neither of us likes movies like that, funnily enough.
“Fine,” Steph gives up. “We can just click around until we find something good.”
We scroll on Netflix for a while, and end up agreeing on a new cartoon that looks good.
Steph ends up being the first one to sleep, snoring insanely loud.
“Do you wanna sleep on the couch?” I whispered to Cass after the movie is done.
“Yeah.” She rolls her eyes towards Steph and we laugh as quietly as we can.
We slept for a long time on the couch, Alfred had to wake us all up while he was cleaning.
“Oh, I should probably get going.” I checked the time, it’s about an hour later than when I wanted to head out.
“You’re not even gonna stay for pancakes?” Steph gave me the puppy eyes.
“Alfred, did you even agree to making pancakes?” I ask him, still looking at Steph amusedly.
“Not that I was aware of, Miss Lydia.” Alfred dusts everything precisely, not missing a single spot.
I try to compromise. “Just lemme go home to Jay for a little bit and then why don’t we do brunch somewhere?”
“Ughhh, ok.” Steph turns away, still pretending to be sad.
“You’ll be ok for a few hours.” I pick up my bag from the bedroom and put on my jacket. “Bye, Alfred! Bye, Cass.” Cass is still fast asleep on the couch. I don’t know how either one of them can sleep so much.
“We gotta go visit Roy.” Jay said as soon as I made it in the door.
“Huh?” My eyebrows twitched as I went to pick up Matisse, cuddling him and his largeness. Matisse has grown increasingly large over the last month or so, I suspect he’s at least ten pounds now.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“He asked for us.”
“Well if you wanna go just be safe and-“
“No, he wants both of us.”
I rear my head subtly in confusion. I still feel mildly guilty about what happened, I would hate to come between anything they have.
“Why? I don’t want to intervene with your…friendship or anything.”
“Please come.” His eyes looked pleading, and I don’t want to upset him.
“Ok…” I started slowly, “I can wait in the car or something, but we should bring him tribute.” My eyes flash to the kitchen, but we don’t have a lot of good tribute to offer. I also don’t know if the rehab would allow tribute.
“We don’t have any tribute do we?” He asked, sensing my frustration.
“No, we’re gonna have to go find some.” I put a hand on my hip and look around, but no tribute appears.
Jason claims not to have any idea what he likes, but as soon as we enter the store he bee-lines for some comics he says Roy ‘might’ like. Huh- they’re the same ones I like to read.
We ride over to it, it’s a short distance from our apartment. He holds my leg as we drive, but I think it’s more comforting to him than for me. I’ll allow it.
“How long has it been?” I ask softly as we drive, holding the comics.
“Almost a month.” He doesn’t look up from straight ahead, I let him drive my car this time.
“Wow,” I see my eyes reflect off the window. “It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.”
It starts pouring by the time we get there, but it seems like a nice place. At least from my perspective. I briefly wonder who’s paying for this-it doesn’t seem like Roy has a ton of money right now. But Jason and I have separate accounts, and neither of us gets involved with each other’s finances. It’s not my business if he’s paying or not.
“I really can just wait in the car..” I offered weakly.
He gave me a look, and I knew immediately I should go in.
We find Roy in a sitting area slightly apart from the rest after we check in. Gotta use made up names, obviously. I settle on ‘Ari’ and Jason goes with the more subtle, and more ridiculous ‘Mason’. I don’t ask questions anymore, to be honest.
We approach him in silence apart from the “Hey, buddy.” he sends Jason’s way. I hesitate to sit down, this is a little awkward for everybody.
“Um, are you gonna sit down or what?” Roy shifts his position in his own chair.
I glance to Jay and smile the best I can. “Yeah, I guess.”
Jason slides the comics his way. “So how’ve you been?”
“Ehh, could be worse.” Roy gestures around, staring down one of the prettier nurses walking by. “Good food, and good views.”
I snort at this. “‘Good views’ is crazy.” I say, covering my face already. Roy and I pretend like we don’t have the same humor, but we mostly do. It’s fun to annoy Jason with.
“I see you’ve been having fun.” Roy glances at the half-hidden bruises on Jason. “Training or-“
“Roy.” Jay says sharply, pretending to be annoyed with him and covering himself up more with his jacket.
“Yeah, let’s go with that.” I try to hold in smoke that I was about to let out. I don’t like people to know I’m meta.
“You guys been doing anything else fun?” He asks interestedly. It almost makes me feel bad we left him here, but he does look a lot better already. More alive, somehow.
I tilt my head partially to Jason, letting him talk first. I don’t want to dictate the conversation in any way if I can help it.
“Just working on a few things.” He says shortly. I try my best to give him ‘the mom look’ and press my knee into his. He’s the one that wanted to come here, now he’s gonna have to at least make an effort with the conversation.
“Well that’s boring.” Roy rolls his eyes and throws up his hands in defeat. “What about you, Liddie?”
I sigh hopelessly. “I don’t think you’re gonna wanna hear about anything I’ve been doing. And what’s with the nicknames?”
“It’s his thing,” Jay sets his arm over the chair rail. He can barely fit in the chair, and even me and Roy are having to really squish into ours.
Roy continues. “Well as long as it doesn’t have to do with shit or having pee or something thrown at you, then I’m all ears.”
“Mmm,..well I did get to see a really bad case of gangrene the other day.” I say smugly.
“You’re the only girl I’ve ever seen who would get excited about gangrene.” Jason turns away, but I can tell he’s smiling.
“What can I say, I have issues .” I cross my legs and set one arm over the back of the chair. These chairs really hurt my ass, they’re not comfy at all.
“I think we all do.” Roy says, shifting himself more to Jason. I can’t tell if they wanna talk alone or not, I’m gonna assume yes.
“I’m gonna let y’all talk for a little while-“ I say, cocking my thumb toward the exit.
“No, don’t leave me alone with him.” Roy whines dramatically pointing to Jason. “I’ll die of boredom if nothing else.”
I glance at Jason teasingly. “He’s not that boring.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re the one who gets to f-“
“Roy!” This time Jason is the one to give Roy the mom look, and I think it’s hilarious.
We talk for some time, about little things here and there. Finally, Jason and I think it’s getting late, and we decide to leave.
“Bye!” I wave happily to Roy, feeling less guarded than before.
“When I get outta here we’re gonna go have fun together, right?” He calls to us.
“Depends on your definition of fun.” Jason tells him, putting on his own jacket.
I wait for Jason, and we leave feeling at least a little better about the situation. That is, until I got the call on the way home.
“Miss Lydia?” It’s Alfred, and he sounds very concerned.
“Yeah? Is everything ok?” I ask, glancing to Jason.
“I’m afraid not. We need you here as urgently as possible. It’s Master Tim- he was somehow attacked by the Joker while out on patrol..” I heard what sounded like screaming in the background.
“Shit.” I gestured for Jason to turn on the road going to Bruce’s. “We’re on the way.” I could feel my eyes blazing wildly with worry. Why was he even going out by himself?
As soon as we park at Bruce’s, I rush out of the car and sprint inside to the cave. Some people are already down there. I see that Dick is back already.
“What’s going on?” I ask desperately, hearing maniacal laughs and screams echoing in the cave.
“Lydia, help!”
Everyone is doing all different things. Dick and Duke are holding Tim back, who is wildly clawing and screaming at Steph and Cass. They look to me for help, and I have no idea what’s going on.
“What do we do, Blood?” Damian asked me as urgently as he’s willing to.
“Don’t call me ‘Blood’.” I told him firmly.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I run up to the med cabinet, whipping out whatever I can find and slamming it onto the bedside table.
“What happened?” I ask Dick aggressively as I move, my body twisting and whirling around the ‘room’.
“He told Steph he was going out and then wouldn’t answer his phone. Thankfully Damian was following him-“ Dick grunted as Tim tried to buck away. “And found him like this.”
I turn to Damian as I start setting up the random selection of supplies that I thought would help. “Did you see what happened?” My eyes blaze with fury, no way this piece of shit Joker just messed with my family.
“No,” he said quickly. “I just found him like this. He was going to kill someone.” Damian glared at Tim, as if it were his fault he’s going bananas.
“Fuck!” Flames slide over my arms and onto the floor at my feet. “Ok,” I inhale deeply. “Everybody who’s not helping, get out.” I try to say as calmly as I can. “If I think about this too much, I’m gonna lose my shit.” I glare at Dick promptly. “Where’s Bruce?”
“He’s on his way. We already told him as soon as it happened.”
“Ok, and nobody saw how much he got hit with?” I realize I’m waving my arms around too much, and let them drop slightly.
“What do you mean ‘hit’ with?” Duke asked, his arms rippling as he tries to hold a still-screeching Tim.
“Those damn samples!” I point to them at their place on the counter. “They have a shit-ton of all kinds of crazy stuff in them. Like very, very poisonous stuff!” I take a deep breath again, exhaling a large amount of smoke.
“Ok, you stay, you stay, and you stay-“ I point to Dick, Duke, and Jason. “Everybody else out, now.”
“But-“ Damian tries to protest.
“No,” I face him more aggressively than I wished I had. “I don’t want you to have to see this.” I put a hand on his shoulder, mostly to calm myself down. “Go be with your sisters, ok? And don’t argue.”
He doesn’t argue, and they leave the room, but I’m sure they’re still in the cave listening.
“Ok, fuck.” I whip around. “I don’t know what to do.” I put a hand on my forehead, trying to think. Flames are flowing around the floor now, burning it slowly.
“Ok, I’ve got narcan, I’ve got… can’t do the ketamine, no, we’ll have to try something else..”
“Lydia, we can’t just hold him like this all day,” Dick tells me, voice raised.
“You’re right, you’re right.” I have to pull myself together, they’re looking to me for guidance. And I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, especially with no other medical staff here.”
“Ok, first thing- we’re gonna have to get him down better. Duke, help me with his arms.”
I get a short distance from Tim, trying to make sure he doesn’t know what’s going on..hopefully.
“Are you in there or not?” I ask him urgently, searching his eyes for any sign. No, he’s not there. The pupils are almost completely dilated, and all that streams from him is a weird mix of scream-laughing.
“Ok, well then I’m not gonna feel that bad about this.” I rip the restraints from the bottom drawer, tossing the two lower ones to Jason.
“Click them under the bed, there should be a little-“ I gasp as I almost get kicked. “There should be a place for them to tie in.”
“What the hell is going on?” Jason asked me as we’re wrangling Tim’s legs. Dick and Duke have the pleasure of dealing with the upper half.
“It’s the serum that Scarecrow and joker made,” I climb onto the bed partially, pulling up tightly on one of the straps. “It’s got some of the wildest stuff I’ve ever seen in it. I didn’t want to say this around them, but I don’t know what the survival rate is.” I turn to Dick in fear. “I don’t have any information on what it can do besides what the computer told me.”
Tim claws at Dick, and I have to think even faster than I already was. “Ok, swap places.” I shift myself closer to one arm, while Dick holds down the rest.
“Why is he so strong all of the sudden?” Dick growled out, barely able to push Tim down.
“It has something to do with the drugs.” I click the restraint around the bottom of the bed. “It makes them basically immune to pain and all kinds of other stuff.” I put my foot up against the bed for support as I pull on the strap as tight as it will go. “Super aggressive and the computer said something about being homicidal.” I glance up to them all, Tim still making loud noises.
“I’m not taking any chances.” I tell Jason, who stares in a mix of fear and concern.
“Ok, what now?” Duke is able to back away, breathing heavily.
I frantically look around for my stuff. “Now, I don’t know. My plan was to just start with the basics.” I start filling up one of the syringes I laid out with the narcan. “I don’t know if this is gonna do anything.” I say partially to them, partially to myself.
“Can somebody go find Bruce, please?”
“I’m on it, if you’re sure you’ll be ok for a few minutes.” Dick lowered his eyes to me as I rushed to Tim’s arm.
“Uhh, I’ll be ok as I can be.” Tim starts wildly snapping at me. “What the literal fuck-stop.” I tell him, although that won’t help.
I incline my head to Dick again. “Just hurry.”
My eyes flutter up to Duke. “Can you help me with this arm? He’s slinging around too much- I’m not gonna be able to get it.”
Duke rushes to my side, pressing a lot of his weight onto Tim’s arm. I inject him the best I can, and toss the first needle in our bin quickly.
“Where’s the monitor?”
“Right here.”
“Get him on it, now. I need to see what the vitals are.”
I grab the monitor and sling it towards myself to see the screen.
“Ok…ok..” I rapidly look everything over. “Pulse rate is 138, oxygen is fine, but respiration rate isn’t reading, pressure is 175/103…” I list these off to myself, I know nobody else knows what I’m talking about.
“Let’s do propranolol and maybe a few other things to get the vitals down.” I tell Duke.
“Uhh, let’s do it.” He says nervously. “Is he gonna be ok?”
I pause shortly and consider this. “I don’t know.” I start ripping through the drawers again, more harshly. “Bruce needs to get here, now.”
“I’m right here.” Bruce appeared in the make-shift doorway. “Damian told me what happened.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I repeat to him, ripping open one of the kits that is an antidote to cyanide poisoning. I have no clue how this will interact with the narcan. “I’m just gonna guess on a lot of this stuff.”
Bruce says nothing, but instead pulls up one of the only chairs in the room and sits by Tim. “Is there anything I can do?” He asks, he says it calmly but I hear the fear in his voice. The anger.
“No,” I start opening supplies for the IV. “I don’t even think there’s that much I can do.”
Tim has stopped shrieking as much, but the vitals are still out of whack.
“Duke, why don’t you go check on everybody else?” I ask him, but I’m heavily implying for him to leave. Nobody needs to see this is something escalates. “Don’t tell them any updates.” I clenched my jaw, almost involuntarily.
“Ok.” Duke breaks his gaze from Tim and leaves reluctantly. Jason is still here, hovering just beyond my workspace.
I do all I can, I load up multiple things, I start some fluids, and I wait. That’s all I can do. Bruce and Jason say nothing, they only watch. When I feel like I’ve done everything, I sit by the bed.
“Bruce?”
His eyes flicker toward mine.
“I’m scared.”
“I am, too.”
He must have seen the surprise on my face. “It’s ok to be scared sometimes.”
I blink, the heat of all of it slowly fading to my base level. I get very overheated in bad situations like this.
“I don’t know what to do.” I repeat to myself, pulling my legs in closer.
Jason leaves his place in the corner and comes to sit by me. I stare at the monitor for a long time. The vitals haven’t fixed themselves yet.
“I’m gonna have to stay here tonight, so I can watch all this stuff.” I half-ask, half-tell Bruce.
“Alfred and I can get you anything you need, just ask.” He lifts his hand to Tim’s and bows his head. Like I’ve said many times before, I don’t believe in good men. But Jason is one. And Bruce is one.
The three of us sit there all night, mostly in silence. I lean into Jason when my body can’t sit up anymore, but I still watch the monitor and Tim.
I spotted the site where Joker must have injected him. Or maybe Scarecrow did it. I don’t see how we’ll ever know. This kind of thing isn’t something that you can just easily recover from mentally.
Around 4:00 am, I have to bring myself to stand up so I can change out the fluids that are complete. I turned off the light while I was up.
“You’re gonna catch them, right?” I ask Bruce weakly as I adjust some of the meds.
“If it’s the last thing I do.” Bruce still watches Tim intently, never breaking away.
I return to my place on the other side of the bed, leaning into Jay with one hand and holding Tim’s in the other.
“Lydia?”
“Huh?” I must have zoned out for a minute.
“You should get some sleep.” Jay brushes some hair behind my ears, making it spill further onto the other side of my back.
“I can’t.” I turn away from him to face the monitor again. “This is too important.”
I see that the pulse rate has gone down from 138 to 110. Pressure is 162/99 now, and respirations I counted manually to be at 20. Ok. Maybe he won’t die. Maybe not.
“Are those any better?” Jay nodded toward the monitor softly.
“They’re not amazing but they’re better.” I tell him. I don’t even know if that’s true or not. His vitals can be fine all day, it’s the mental state I’m worried about. That was a mega dose of hallucinogens and basically all kinds of hell mixed together.
It’s day two, and I’m still waiting for anything to change. Bruce leaves periodically, I think to track down the Joker, and Jason only leaves to use the bathroom and bring food. I do not leave. I only chart, and watch, and that is all. My reflection in the small mirror we have gets worse and worse everyday. I haven’t slept this whole time, and barely eaten. I can’t. If he dies, I simply will kill somebody. It’s not up for discussion or debate. I will. I will find them, and they will suffer.
“I’m gonna have to take those off.” I tell Jason when he returns with food. I pull at one of the restraint straps. “It’s like super illegal for them to be left on that long. Technically illegal anyways since there’s no doctor order.” I brush my hands through my hair in distress.
“Why don’t you eat something first?” Jay offers food, it’s my favorite. Southern food.
“I can’t, lemme take care of this and then I will.” I unlock Tim, who is not awake yet. He’s said some things here and there, things about his parents, but it’s mostly things I don’t understand.
I decide to do a small assessment, just to make sure there’s nothing I missed during the craziness of the night before.
Ok, lungs are good. Pulse is still a little abnormal. And..
“Hey, what’s this scar from you think?” I ask Jay from behind me. He’s waiting on me to eat, which I think is very nice and loving.
“Some emergency surgery, I think,” Jason waits patiently on the floor. “Pretty sure he got impaled by Slade.”
“Are you serious?” I half-laughed. “That’s the same exact thing that happened to me.” I press softly on the site, it does seem like a very old injury. “Slade is such an asshole, he really is.”
I glance up to Tim to see him trying to say something.
“Yes?” I hold his arm and lean in, desperately hoping he’s able to make sense.
“…needles?” He whispers quietly. I’m confused.
“No, no needles anymore. Not unless you’re gonna try to attack us again.” I blink at him, trying to hide my excitement that he’s not a complete dead man.
“…good…hate needles…” and that was all he would say, I heard nothing else.
“Ok.” I say to Jay in relief. “Maybe he won’t completely die.”
The day after, everyone wanted updates from me, updates that I didn’t much have.
“Can we please see him?” Steph asked, her eyes still scared.
“You can,” I say cautiously. “But he’s not gonna be super interactive right now.”
Steph takes hold of Cass’s arm and they dart downstairs before I can say anything else.
“Lydia?” It’s Dick.
“Yeah?” I crack open a bottle of water from the fridge. If anything, I’m probably more dehydrated than Tim. It takes me around three gallons a day to be hydrated, since the temperature burns a lot of the water out of my body.
“Thank you.” I haven’t even completely turned around yet when I feel his body wrap around mine. “We can’t lose anybody else.” I allow him to hug me, it’s not like I could move my arms if I wanted to, but also I am stunned.
“You-you’re welcome.” I try to screw on the water bottle lid with one hand. “But he’s not completely fine yet, I’m gonna have to be here for a few more days.”
He breaks away, allowing me to step by. “I don’t think Bruce cares how long you stay.” He says kindly. He is usually this nice to everyone, but me and him usually clash. It’s odd to say the least. But then again, I did just somehow save his brother from being completely screwed.