Before The Truth

Ch 15

Wiping away the tears in his eyes, Bruce knelt down and went to scoop up his son.

When Bruce touched him Dick let out a soft cry of pain, and then lay whimpering on the ground.

"No... please, no more..." Dick pleaded in a whisper. "Maybe it's time..."

"Come on Dick, you have to fight! You have to live..." Bruce stared into Dick's foggy eyes, willing him to try.

Dick just clenched his jaw, and gave Bruce a slight nod.

Bruce picked up the trembling boy, and quickly carried him over to the Batwing. Tim was already in the back seat, and Bruce laid Dick in the back with him so that Tim was cradling his head and shoulders.

Batman flew as fast as he could to the Batcave. On the way he called Alfred, and asked him to prepare a medical bed, and supplies. He also called Leslie Thompkins, begging her to help him.

"You and your boys, always getting into trouble." Leslie said over the phone, not realizing the full gravity of the situation.

"Leslie, he's dying."

There was silence from the other end of the phone. Then Bruce heard Leslie say, "I'm on my way."

Bruce almost cried from relief, he was almost back to the Batcave now. "Thank you so much."

"I won't be there for a little bit, I'll go as fast as I can, but I can only go so fast."

"I understand." Bruce replied.

"The first thing you need to do when you get him to the cave is to triage his injuries, look for the most life threatening ones and do what you can. You'll need to put a pressure bandage on any open, bleeding, wounds until I can get there. After that you need to take his temperature, it should be around 97 degrees. The last thing that I'll need you to do is put an IV catheter into his arm. Do you remember how to do that?"

"Yes I remember."

"Good. If his temperature is off, then do what you can to get it back to 97."

"Alright, bye."

"Bye."

When they got to the cave Bruce rushed to do what Leslie had told him. He figured the poison was the most life threatening problem, so he took a blood sample and went over to his centrifuge and loaded the blood to be separated.

The centrifuge took about 15 minutes to separate the blood, and during that time Bruce was in a panic. He paced back and forth, continually checking the centrifuge and looking over his shoulder at Dick.

After the centrifuge had been spinning for about 5 minutes Bruce really started panicking. Dick was looking worse every second, and there was still 10 minutes to go, not to mention the time it would actually take for Bruce to make the antidote.

Bruce started breathing faster and faster. Realizing that he was hyperventilating, Bruce started taking more controlled breaths, holding them for 3 seconds before he let them out again.

When he finally calmed down he readied his lab equipment as well as his existing anti-toxin supply. Then he stared at the centrifuge as it spun.

When it was done spinning he removed the sample, and used a pipette to carefully remove the blood plasma to be tested for the poison.

When the test results came back Bruce could see that the poison was similar to the poison of the diamondback rattlesnake. He would be able to use rattlesnake antivenom as a base for the antidote.

Alfred had already applied a pressure wrap to the cut on Dick's side, and was now continuing to monitor his condition.

Because of the anticoagulant properties of the rattlesnake venom Dick's blood refused to clot normally. Alfred had done his best to stop the bleeding, but they would need Leslie's help to close the wound properly.