Dick Grayson one shots

I can't breathe

Bruce found out at a very inconvenient time that Dick couldn't swim. Inconvenient meaning the aforementioned acrobat was currently under water and had been for the past 2 minutes.

There was nothing he could do however, as he was currently still working on picking the chains attaching him firmly to the door of an idling truck. They were planning on dragging him behind them as they made their escape apparently. He didn't care about that though as he gave the chains another desperate tug.

A gun went off, one of the men shooting a spray of bullets into the water where Dick had been thrown in earlier.

Bruce screamed, violently tugging at the chains that bound his hands. "Robin!" He shouted, voice breaking.

"Dude!" One of the other lackeys said, shoving the man who'd shot into the water. "You just killed a kid!"

"He was going to die anyway," the other man retorted, shoving back. "The little whelp couldn't swim."

Bruce fell to his knees, an anguished cry clawing its way from his throat. The world around him seemed to fade away, eclipsed by the pure agony of losing his son.

Hands grabbed him, restraining him while others wrapped him with more chains. He didn't care enough to fight them... he hardly had a reason to anymore.

His stomach rolled as the men around him started congratulating themselves on taking him down. He leaned forward and emptied the contents of his stomach on a polished pair of boots, earning himself a sharp kick to the stomach.

He found himself wondering if Dick would've held out longer if their roles had been reversed... he'd been so young... would he have been able to deal with the loss of yet another family member? Would he have fought back against these men? His musings were interrupted by a few of the men who dragged him to his feet, removed the original chains from his hands, and shoved him into the bed of the truck.

Why? Out of everyone who lived in the hellish pit that was Gotham... why did Dick Grayson have to die?

Bruce felt the loss as if it were a physical pain, the ache in his heart drawing gasping breaths from his lungs. He didn't care who heard him, the "emotionless Batman" struggling not to cry.

His son was gone.

As the truck bumped and swerved down cursed Gotham roads Bruce began to cry.

—

Bruce sat in the chair he'd been chained to, head hanging in a way that would surely cause his neck to ache if he kept it there. Not that he cared.

He heard a door open, not bothering to so much as look up. His captors weren't worth the energy it would take to pry his gaze from the drainage hole at his feet.

His mind could practically walk him through what he knew would follow.

They'd offer him food, they always had something with them when they came. He wouldn't eat it, refusing like he'd refused each of the other attempts they'd made. When they saw he wouldn't eat it they'd inevitably be angry.

Some of the men satisfied themselves with simply yelling at him, while others viewed it as their personal duty to teach him a lesson the hard way.

He still refused to eat. It hadn't been that long anyway, about 24 hours if his guess was correct. He could outlast them, someone was bound to come looking eventually. And if they didn't then he'd somehow find the will to rescue himself.

The pattern he was expecting was broken with the sound of a wet splat, the smell of Gotham's dirty water permeating the room.

Bruce's gaze flicked over to the source of the noise... his breath caught in his throat.

A bright red cape lay on the ground, its color darkened by the murky water that leaked out of it and onto the floor. Bullet holes pockmarked the surface.

Bruce squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pretend he hadn't just seen his son's bullet riddled cape, the little R Alfred had stitched onto the clasp marking it unmistakably Dick's.

"This is all that's left of your little one," A man with foul smelling breath said, his announcement followed by a hiss of laughter. "The swimmers guess some animal must've gotten the rest of him."

Bruce growled, straining against his bonds. Rage burned through him. How could this man say such horrible things to a grieving father?

The man just laughed again, throwing whatever food he'd brought with him on the floor at Bruce's feet before waltzing out of the room.

Bruce sagged in his restraints, his tears wetting his cowl as he cried. He couldn't seem to look away from the taunting red of Dick's cape... it looked so much like the color of blood... the color that had surrounded his parents as they died... the color that had been dragged after his son's body as it was shot full of bullets.

He closed his eyes again, trying to clear his mind. It wasn't working, but he kept trying... he was the Batman after all, and Dick had once told him that Batman could do anything.

—

The creek of rusted hinges awakened Bruce from his fitful sleep.

Footsteps tapped across the floor.

Bruce wondered what they'd found to taunt him with this time. He kept his eyes closed.

His chains rattled as they dropped to the floor one by one. Were they moving him somewhere? Would they set him free? Questions swirled through his mind.

The tornado of thoughts stopped suddenly when small hands came to rest on the sides of his face.

Bruce's eyes shot open.

Dick stood in front of him, his hair a mess, his Robin suit still partially wet.

Bruce slid off of the chair he'd been chained to, wrapping the little boy in a tight hug and holding him.

Dick's small fists grasped at Bruce's cape, holding just as fiercely to his father.

"You're alive," Bruce breathed, squeezing the acrobat just a bit tighter as if to prove to himself that he wasn't hallucinating. "How?" He asked.

"Alfred makes me keep floaties in my utility belt," Dick said, resting his head on Bruce's shoulder. "I was under the water for a long time... I think my cape was what made me too heavy, but once I got that off I just kinda grabbed the water and kicked until there was air and not water and I could get the floaties out."

Bruce let out a tear choked chuckle. "That's my smart boy," he said. "Figuring out how to swim all on your own."

Dick hummed. "And then I came here and tied up all of those mean men while they were taking naps," he added.

"Good job bud," Bruce praised, the pair of them lapsing into comfortable silence.

"I'm stinky," Dick whined after a few minutes of quiet, assuming Bruce wouldn't want to continue holding him and trying to give him an easy out.

"I don't care," Bruce replied, making an overly loud sniffing noise and giving his son a little squeeze as the 9 year old laughed.

Dick settled once again in his father's arms, content to remain in the safety of the embrace.

Bruce continued to hold his son tightly in his arms, and he wasn't planning on letting anything change that any time soon.