Robin one shot part 3!

I see you

I'm experimenting with the style i use for my spider-man fics on ao3 so tell me how it looks here

TW:BLOOD

Sleep doesn't come easy when you're a vigilante. Especially when you were a child hero flipping and kicking your way through life until someone smacked you with reality. A good night's sleep usually came from no dreams, but those were few and far between. A liveable night's sleep was a nightmare or two before falling asleep again from sheer exhaustion. Tonight's was neither of those. Tonight's sleep for two vigilantes was restless and filled to the brim with fear. Those two were Jason and Dick. Neither were in the same home yet when night came, neither could sleep right and gave up their venture in the early hours of the morning. 

Dick had woken up with a scream and his body drenched with sweat. He groaned to himself, pressing the heels of his palms against his closed eyes as though that would chase away the remaining images of the nightmare. He had quite a few regulars he'd accumulated over the years but tonight was a classic. It almost made him nostalgic but that type of nostalgia that made you want to hug your younger self and tell them everything would be okay. His throat was raw and he wondered how long he'd been shouting for someone to help. That's what other people said he did. It made sense given this nightmare was one of the first times he thought that he wasn't going to be saved. He'd thought it would be curtains closed on Robin. Yet here he was. Dick knew why it still bothered him, the joys of childhood trauma, but he knew logically that fear shouldn't be lingering in his stomach as he sat alone in his lonely apartment. No more sleep, he decided silently. There was no getting sleep after that particular nightmare. As he got changed out of his sweaty pyjamas into an oversized Superman shirt, his mind recounted the nightmare against his will. 

It began with Two Face towering over him although when Dick was Robin that was no particularly hard feat. There was a bat but sometimes it would morph into another weapon. He just got a bat this time. His memory was so foggy that he couldn't remember if that was right or wrong. Batman yells in the background though it's overshadowed by the crunching of his bones being smashed and fractured. There's a familiar metallic taste in his mouth though he doesn't remember the hit to the face. The best way to describe the experience was to compare it to the first Saw movie's editing. Jagged and sharp cuts that are meant to be disorientating and make you seasick despite you sitting on your couch. Imagine that and you have Dick's perspective. Splashing gets louder and quieter throughout the experience as he's made to remember the man who paid with his life for Dick's prior pride. He supposed he still had that pride although it's better managed nowadays. The hits feel real and Dick can now feel the phantom pains follow him out of the nightmare as he walks around his apartment not quite sure what to do with himself. Taunts feel like hits all on their own but he knows they're not the original quotes. They've been warped to prey on whatever insecurity was floating around his brain. Then he wakes up.

With his brain finishing up the reminder he truly didn't need, Dick found himself in the kitchen and a glass in his hand. His subconscious must've had a good idea as he realised how dry his mouth was and how his throat was begging for something to soothe it. He turned on the tap and filled up the glass, chugging the contents as though he'd just finished a marathon on the way from his bedroom to the kitchen. He filled it up again and took slower sips this time, smacking his lips when he was halfway through and pouring the rest down the drain. He watched it trickle down before placing his glass on the side to be washed later. Well, that was his idea but he knew he would forget why it was there and not clean it. He was the only one there so he supposed it didn't matter. He leans against the counter and thinks to himself about what exactly he's going to do with his time now that he's sworn off sleeping and he's been forced to take a break. Luckily, or unluckily given the circumstances, his fellow Robin in Gotham hardly sleeps. It probably isn't very nice to take advantage of someone not getting rest but he can't find it in himself to care as he searched for his phone.