Secrets hurt

Ch 7

Not me casually straying from canon again... but that's normal so you're all probably used to it :)

Dick's screams started off quiet, nothing more than drawn out whimpers, his body shifting on the bed. It wasn't long however before the screams got louder, tortured cries filled with fear splitting the air as his body writhed on the bed.

"H-he won't wake up," Damian called, eyes wide with panic.

Jason ran out of the room, coming back a few minutes later with a bucket of ice water, which he proceeded to douse Dick in.

Dick gasped, shooting up in bed, eyes darting around the room, back pressed against the wall like a scared animal.

Bruce watched in shock as Jason pulled Dick into a hug, rubbing his back as he cried. 'Night terror,' he mouthed over the elder's shoulder. He knew about those all too well.

Dick's shoulders shook as he shivered in the cold wetness of his clothes, his face pressed into Jason's shoulder.

He drew comfort from the presence of his family, taking measured breaths until he felt he could trust himself to face the world without having a breakdown.

"What happened?" He asked, tucking his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them.

"You saved me," Damian said quietly, offering Dick a towel to dry his hair.

"They injected you with something... we're still not quite sure what... but it... you... you had a seizure when we were back at the cave," Jason said, grabbing Dick's hand and squeezing it gently.

"Oh..." Dick mumbled.

"Alfred checked you out and he said everything seems to be fine. Your body was able to break down the toxin on its own," Bruce said.

Dick took a deep breath. "C-could I maybe get some time alone?" He asked.

The various family members nodded and filed out of the room, Jason giving him a worried look on the way out.

Dick immediately started a hot shower, stripping off his soaked and freezing clothes and stepping under the warm water. Letting it pound down on his skin and wash away some of the bone deep fatigue he was carrying.

Flashes of memory from his dream flitted through his mind, scraps of the horrors his brain had come up with to torment him in his sleep.

His tears mixed with the shower's warm water, mixing with the suds from his shampoo as they dripped down his face.

He rinsed off , slowly sliding down to the floor and huddling in the corner.

His eyesight blurred, the scene around him shifting as he was plunged into another flashback.

—

Everything was so white... so sterile.

Dick could feel the shackles cutting into the skin on his wrist, skin rubbed raw from trying to get away from the men with the needles.

The thin white sheet they'd covered him in was flecked in blood, drops of it still fresh.

"One more dose should do it," one of the masked people said.

Dick couldn't quite tell who though, their faces all a blur of porcelain white.

He tried to speak, tried to move, to protest in some way when he saw one of the masked figures approaching with a needle in hand.

His body wouldn't respond. He was stuck, watching as the dark liquid known to him as electrum was forced into his veins, making them run black under his skin.