When Nightmares Come Part 6
Dick Grayson fell to his knees after the gunshot echoed throughout the house. Tears freely fell from his eyes. He laid on his side and curled into a ball. He couldn't shoot Bruce ... he couldn't kill him... he just couldn't... even if it meant the salvation of his own sanity. Loud sobs rose from his chest.
Bruce stood there looking at his son. His mind was reeling with what had happened. At the last second Dick had shot into the floor. But ... Dick had ... he was ... NO! Dick didn't want to shoot him. Someone was making Dick do this. He had been gone for almost two months.
Bruce remembered the last time he saw Dick. He thought Dick was acting a little strange when Dick told him he was going away for a few months -- that he had a friend in Arizona who needed him. Bruce knew that wasn't true. He and Barbara had tried to contact Dick, but he wasn't available. But they hadn't looked for Dick. Bruce thought Dick wanted some time alone -- away -- from him. What a mistake he had made.
Obviously, Dick had been captured and brainwashed by experts. The manipulation was thorough and almost complete.
And Bruce knew that Dick was NOT an easy person to brainwash.
He moved to his son. Dropping to his knees, he took the crying young man into his arms. "Shh. It's okay. It's all okay now. Everything will be alright."
"I ... it's all ... I am ... so ... confused. Are ... are you ... Batman?"
Bruce's eyes widened. "Don't you know?"
"Not sure ... no ... I ... yes ... I ... don't ... know."
Bruce cradled his sobbing son in his arms. "Yes you do," he quietly replied. "That's why you couldn't do it. Couldn't shoot me. You know who I am and you know who you are."
"I'm Nightwing," Dick said through gulping breaths. "I am Nightwing. It was all a lie."
Bruce stroked the boy's hair. "Shh. Yes, it was all a lie." Bruce didn't really know what had happened to his son, but he knew it had been bad. He felt a rage swell within him. He didn't know who was responsible for this, but he would find out. And God help them when he did.
***********************************************************************
Dick awoke in his bed in the Manor. He looked around the room. Bruce and Alfred had gone through painstaking efforts to return this room's details to its pre quake state. He reveled in the familiarity of it. It was comforting. He sat up and looked around. The only light was that which streamed in his bedroom window. He looked at the photograph beside his bed. It was of him and Bruce when he was nine. He smiled at the photograph as he picked it up. As he looked at it, he felt tears fall from his eyes.
What had he done? What had he almost done? Bruce could never forgive him for this. He could never forgive himself. He didn't deserve to be in this room, in this house. Not after what he had done. Not ever again.
Dick stood, surprised at how shaky his legs were, and headed toward his door. Absentmindedly, he still clutched the framed photograph in his hand.
He headed toward the stairs. The closer he came to them, he could hear voices. Unfamiliar voices. Looking over the railings he could see uniformed police officers in the entryway. He saw Bruce and Alfred talking with them. Dick felt a wave of nausea hit him and he leaned backwards against the wall. His stomach was turning.
Police? Here? For him. He knew it. He deserved it, after all. He was going to kill his father. Dick slid down the wall and sat there unmoving. He rested his head on his knees as he waited. Waited for them to come and take him away.
He didn't know how long he had sat there on the floor against the wall when he felt a strong had on his shoulder. Looking up through tear filled eyes, he saw Bruce standing over him.
"Are they ready for me?" he asked weakly.
Bruce's face showed a confused look. "Is who ready for you, Dick?"
"The police. I saw them. I know they're here for me. For what I ... I did."
"No, they aren't son," Bruce replied as he sat on the floor beside Dick. "Although, I think whoever sent you here to kill me hoped they would be. They had received an anonymous phone call about a shooting here. I told them I was cleaning a gun and it went off. Showed them the bullet hole in the floor. They aren't here for you." Bruce placed his arm around Dick's shoulder and pulled the younger man to him, "I wouldn't call the police to you Dick. You know that. You should know that."
Dick felt the comfort and warmth of Bruce's arms. He felt at home here. "I don't know anymore. I don't know what I know anymore. But I do know you never hurt me, not like Doctor Thaggan said you did. Not like you said you did."
Thaggan. Bruce had a name. That was a start. He'd see what Oracle could find for him. Like HE had said? "Dick, what do you mean like I said."
"When you came to visit me, you said you had ... it was horrible things."
"Son, that wasn't me."
"It wasn't? No it wasn't. I know that," Dick replied as he leaned his head against Bruce's chest.
"I know you're still confused. Leslie said your system's full of psychotropic drugs. But I need you to help me find the people who did this to you. Can you do that, partner?"
Dick looked up at Bruce, and, with a weak smile, he responded, "I can try."
"Where were you?"
"Arkham," he said then shaking his head he continued, "no, not Arkham. A ship. On the wharf. A prison ship, it had cells. They kept me in a cell."
Bruce made a mental note of the old military prison ship in the harbor. He knew where Batman was going tonight.
Who could look like him enough to make Dick believe it was him? Only one person. "Okay, the impostor was probably Matt Hagan." It made sense now. Hagan had impersonated Dick as well. Bruce, the great detective, hadn't realized it. That was a huge mistake and look at what it caused -- all the pain Dick had suffered.
Dick sat up straight and looked Bruce in the eye. "Clayface. I should have known. But ... but ..."
"It was the drugs in your system." You have an excuse, what do I have? "Dick, tell me about Dr. Thaggan."
"He's mid forties, gray hair, a psychiatrist. At least I think he is. He knew, they all knew, about me being Nightwing and you being Batman. They kept telling me it was a delusion in my mind. Hagan doesn't know our identities."
"Unless he's working with someone who does. Or who thinks he does."
Dick thought for a moment. The list knowing their identities was a short one. Longer than they wished, but still, a short list. Who on that list would know how to use psychiatric drugs and hypnosis to accomplish this? To try and turn Dick into Bruce's assassin? His blue eyes narrowed as one name came to mind. "Hugo Strange."
"That'd be my bet," Bruce replied. "Robin and I will go to the prison ship tonight.
"No. You and I."
"Dick, you're -- "
"You and I. Partner," Dick said determinedly.
Bruce nodded as they continued to sit together on the floor. He understood his son's need to do this -- his need for closure.
***********************************************************************
Nightwing and Batman entered the abandoned prison ship. No one appeared to be there. Nightwing stood before the cell that had housed him for so long. He shuddered inwardly as he looked into the small cold space. Batman placed his hand on Nightwing's shoulder. Turning around, they started for "Thaggan's office".
"They're gone aren't they?" Nightwing asked quietly as he walked through the empty office.
"Yes. Probably left immediately after they sent you to the Manor."
"So they get away, and now Clayface knows who we are too."
"They don't 'get away'. They're just not here," Batman replied as he picked up the phone and hit the redial button for each line. The first line was 911 -- the anonymous phone call. The second line was an airplane hanger. "Oracle," he called into his communicator, "find the airplane hanger for the number 555-6238. I need to know all planes that have filed any flight paths today coming from that hanger, as well as it's exact location."
"You've got it boss," Oracle replied.
Nightwing looked at Batman. "Do you think we'll find them?"
"We'll find them," Batman replied. His voice seemed emotionless, but the rage within him boiled. He would find Strange and he would pay for what he did to Dick.
"One plane left the hanger this afternoon. The flight path was Gotham to Chicago. But the plane never landed in Chicago," Oracle's voice piped in over their communicators.
Nightwing looked at Batman and sighed. "Any idea where it ended up?"
"Not yet hunk wonder," she replied. It was so good to hear his voice again, although she could tell the edge it had. He hadn't fully recovered. She knew Batman knew that as well.
Batman watched Nightwing tracing the patterns on the paisley chair. He saw how reticent the boy had become. He moved closer to him and placed a comforting hand on Nightwing's shoulder. "We need to investigate that hanger. Let's go."
As Nightwing led Batman down familiar corridors, his thoughts returned to his time here in captivity. He remembered running through these same hallways in his failed escape attempt.
As he opened the door leading topside, he was hit with a giant sledge hammer. Nightwing flew backwards into Batman. They both landed on the floor. They looked up to see the grotesque visage of Clayface leering at them.
Without giving them a chance to recover, Clayface attacked. Molding the living mud of his body into weapons, he continually hammered them with the weight of the mud's mass. His massive size blocked the exit trapping them in the ship.
Batman managed to pull his launching grappling hook from his utility belt. He fired it at Clayface. A hole formed in the center of Clayface and the hook flew through attaching to the ship's railing on the other side of the exit door.
"You can't hit what you can't touch, Batman -- or should I say Bruce," Clayface laughed.
Without responding to Hagan's taunts, Batman reached out for Nightwing's hand. Pushing a button, the line on the grappling hook retracted fast pulling Nightwing and Batman toward the door and into Clayface. The force pulled all three onto the deck. Batman and Nightwing immediately went into a roll going in different directions, flanking Clayface.
Clayface remolded quickly shooting vise-like claws toward the two heroes.
Nightwing could feel the pressure on his ribs as Clayface continued squeezing him. Soon his ribs would break. He looked to Batman on the other side of the mass of living mud. He was suffering the same trauma. He had to do something. They had to do something. Together. "Batman ... taser," he yelled.
Instantly, both heroes activated the taser contained in their suit. Individually, each suit contained 50,000 volts of low amp shock. The two suits combined blasted Clayface with 100,000 volts. Although mud wasn't the best conductor of electricity, the combined amperage gave the required shock to Hagan. He dropped Batman and Nightwing. Rolling into the drop, they came up on the ship side of the deck. As they turned, they watched Hagan fall over the guardrails and into Gotham Harbor.
***********************************************************************
Oracle's communicator beeped in their ears as they checked the hanger for clues. "Yes," Batman curtly replied.
"No one's been able to find Hagan's body, but they're going to keep looking. But you know as well as I do, he's probably not dead. Have you found anything on Strange?"
"Negative," Batman said as he looked at Nightwing. His son was too quiet. "Batman out." Moving to Nightwing's side, Batman asked "Nightwing?"
The younger man looked out the hanger door at the airfield. "The nightmare's over, isn't it? But, as long as Strange is out there, we'll never know when the nightmares will come again."
Batman moved near his son, his presence comforting to the young man. "I know. But right now, we've got work to do."
Nightwing smiled slightly. He knew who he was and where he belonged. He was home. Finally.
THE END . . . for now . . .
Dick Grayson fell to his knees after the gunshot echoed throughout the house. Tears freely fell from his eyes. He laid on his side and curled into a ball. He couldn't shoot Bruce ... he couldn't kill him... he just couldn't... even if it meant the salvation of his own sanity. Loud sobs rose from his chest.
Bruce stood there looking at his son. His mind was reeling with what had happened. At the last second Dick had shot into the floor. But ... Dick had ... he was ... NO! Dick didn't want to shoot him. Someone was making Dick do this. He had been gone for almost two months.
Bruce remembered the last time he saw Dick. He thought Dick was acting a little strange when Dick told him he was going away for a few months -- that he had a friend in Arizona who needed him. Bruce knew that wasn't true. He and Barbara had tried to contact Dick, but he wasn't available. But they hadn't looked for Dick. Bruce thought Dick wanted some time alone -- away -- from him. What a mistake he had made.
Obviously, Dick had been captured and brainwashed by experts. The manipulation was thorough and almost complete.
And Bruce knew that Dick was NOT an easy person to brainwash.
He moved to his son. Dropping to his knees, he took the crying young man into his arms. "Shh. It's okay. It's all okay now. Everything will be alright."
"I ... it's all ... I am ... so ... confused. Are ... are you ... Batman?"
Bruce's eyes widened. "Don't you know?"
"Not sure ... no ... I ... yes ... I ... don't ... know."
Bruce cradled his sobbing son in his arms. "Yes you do," he quietly replied. "That's why you couldn't do it. Couldn't shoot me. You know who I am and you know who you are."
"I'm Nightwing," Dick said through gulping breaths. "I am Nightwing. It was all a lie."
Bruce stroked the boy's hair. "Shh. Yes, it was all a lie." Bruce didn't really know what had happened to his son, but he knew it had been bad. He felt a rage swell within him. He didn't know who was responsible for this, but he would find out. And God help them when he did.
***********************************************************************
Dick awoke in his bed in the Manor. He looked around the room. Bruce and Alfred had gone through painstaking efforts to return this room's details to its pre quake state. He reveled in the familiarity of it. It was comforting. He sat up and looked around. The only light was that which streamed in his bedroom window. He looked at the photograph beside his bed. It was of him and Bruce when he was nine. He smiled at the photograph as he picked it up. As he looked at it, he felt tears fall from his eyes.
What had he done? What had he almost done? Bruce could never forgive him for this. He could never forgive himself. He didn't deserve to be in this room, in this house. Not after what he had done. Not ever again.
Dick stood, surprised at how shaky his legs were, and headed toward his door. Absentmindedly, he still clutched the framed photograph in his hand.
He headed toward the stairs. The closer he came to them, he could hear voices. Unfamiliar voices. Looking over the railings he could see uniformed police officers in the entryway. He saw Bruce and Alfred talking with them. Dick felt a wave of nausea hit him and he leaned backwards against the wall. His stomach was turning.
Police? Here? For him. He knew it. He deserved it, after all. He was going to kill his father. Dick slid down the wall and sat there unmoving. He rested his head on his knees as he waited. Waited for them to come and take him away.
He didn't know how long he had sat there on the floor against the wall when he felt a strong had on his shoulder. Looking up through tear filled eyes, he saw Bruce standing over him.
"Are they ready for me?" he asked weakly.
Bruce's face showed a confused look. "Is who ready for you, Dick?"
"The police. I saw them. I know they're here for me. For what I ... I did."
"No, they aren't son," Bruce replied as he sat on the floor beside Dick. "Although, I think whoever sent you here to kill me hoped they would be. They had received an anonymous phone call about a shooting here. I told them I was cleaning a gun and it went off. Showed them the bullet hole in the floor. They aren't here for you." Bruce placed his arm around Dick's shoulder and pulled the younger man to him, "I wouldn't call the police to you Dick. You know that. You should know that."
Dick felt the comfort and warmth of Bruce's arms. He felt at home here. "I don't know anymore. I don't know what I know anymore. But I do know you never hurt me, not like Doctor Thaggan said you did. Not like you said you did."
Thaggan. Bruce had a name. That was a start. He'd see what Oracle could find for him. Like HE had said? "Dick, what do you mean like I said."
"When you came to visit me, you said you had ... it was horrible things."
"Son, that wasn't me."
"It wasn't? No it wasn't. I know that," Dick replied as he leaned his head against Bruce's chest.
"I know you're still confused. Leslie said your system's full of psychotropic drugs. But I need you to help me find the people who did this to you. Can you do that, partner?"
Dick looked up at Bruce, and, with a weak smile, he responded, "I can try."
"Where were you?"
"Arkham," he said then shaking his head he continued, "no, not Arkham. A ship. On the wharf. A prison ship, it had cells. They kept me in a cell."
Bruce made a mental note of the old military prison ship in the harbor. He knew where Batman was going tonight.
Who could look like him enough to make Dick believe it was him? Only one person. "Okay, the impostor was probably Matt Hagan." It made sense now. Hagan had impersonated Dick as well. Bruce, the great detective, hadn't realized it. That was a huge mistake and look at what it caused -- all the pain Dick had suffered.
Dick sat up straight and looked Bruce in the eye. "Clayface. I should have known. But ... but ..."
"It was the drugs in your system." You have an excuse, what do I have? "Dick, tell me about Dr. Thaggan."
"He's mid forties, gray hair, a psychiatrist. At least I think he is. He knew, they all knew, about me being Nightwing and you being Batman. They kept telling me it was a delusion in my mind. Hagan doesn't know our identities."
"Unless he's working with someone who does. Or who thinks he does."
Dick thought for a moment. The list knowing their identities was a short one. Longer than they wished, but still, a short list. Who on that list would know how to use psychiatric drugs and hypnosis to accomplish this? To try and turn Dick into Bruce's assassin? His blue eyes narrowed as one name came to mind. "Hugo Strange."
"That'd be my bet," Bruce replied. "Robin and I will go to the prison ship tonight.
"No. You and I."
"Dick, you're -- "
"You and I. Partner," Dick said determinedly.
Bruce nodded as they continued to sit together on the floor. He understood his son's need to do this -- his need for closure.
***********************************************************************
Nightwing and Batman entered the abandoned prison ship. No one appeared to be there. Nightwing stood before the cell that had housed him for so long. He shuddered inwardly as he looked into the small cold space. Batman placed his hand on Nightwing's shoulder. Turning around, they started for "Thaggan's office".
"They're gone aren't they?" Nightwing asked quietly as he walked through the empty office.
"Yes. Probably left immediately after they sent you to the Manor."
"So they get away, and now Clayface knows who we are too."
"They don't 'get away'. They're just not here," Batman replied as he picked up the phone and hit the redial button for each line. The first line was 911 -- the anonymous phone call. The second line was an airplane hanger. "Oracle," he called into his communicator, "find the airplane hanger for the number 555-6238. I need to know all planes that have filed any flight paths today coming from that hanger, as well as it's exact location."
"You've got it boss," Oracle replied.
Nightwing looked at Batman. "Do you think we'll find them?"
"We'll find them," Batman replied. His voice seemed emotionless, but the rage within him boiled. He would find Strange and he would pay for what he did to Dick.
"One plane left the hanger this afternoon. The flight path was Gotham to Chicago. But the plane never landed in Chicago," Oracle's voice piped in over their communicators.
Nightwing looked at Batman and sighed. "Any idea where it ended up?"
"Not yet hunk wonder," she replied. It was so good to hear his voice again, although she could tell the edge it had. He hadn't fully recovered. She knew Batman knew that as well.
Batman watched Nightwing tracing the patterns on the paisley chair. He saw how reticent the boy had become. He moved closer to him and placed a comforting hand on Nightwing's shoulder. "We need to investigate that hanger. Let's go."
As Nightwing led Batman down familiar corridors, his thoughts returned to his time here in captivity. He remembered running through these same hallways in his failed escape attempt.
As he opened the door leading topside, he was hit with a giant sledge hammer. Nightwing flew backwards into Batman. They both landed on the floor. They looked up to see the grotesque visage of Clayface leering at them.
Without giving them a chance to recover, Clayface attacked. Molding the living mud of his body into weapons, he continually hammered them with the weight of the mud's mass. His massive size blocked the exit trapping them in the ship.
Batman managed to pull his launching grappling hook from his utility belt. He fired it at Clayface. A hole formed in the center of Clayface and the hook flew through attaching to the ship's railing on the other side of the exit door.
"You can't hit what you can't touch, Batman -- or should I say Bruce," Clayface laughed.
Without responding to Hagan's taunts, Batman reached out for Nightwing's hand. Pushing a button, the line on the grappling hook retracted fast pulling Nightwing and Batman toward the door and into Clayface. The force pulled all three onto the deck. Batman and Nightwing immediately went into a roll going in different directions, flanking Clayface.
Clayface remolded quickly shooting vise-like claws toward the two heroes.
Nightwing could feel the pressure on his ribs as Clayface continued squeezing him. Soon his ribs would break. He looked to Batman on the other side of the mass of living mud. He was suffering the same trauma. He had to do something. They had to do something. Together. "Batman ... taser," he yelled.
Instantly, both heroes activated the taser contained in their suit. Individually, each suit contained 50,000 volts of low amp shock. The two suits combined blasted Clayface with 100,000 volts. Although mud wasn't the best conductor of electricity, the combined amperage gave the required shock to Hagan. He dropped Batman and Nightwing. Rolling into the drop, they came up on the ship side of the deck. As they turned, they watched Hagan fall over the guardrails and into Gotham Harbor.
***********************************************************************
Oracle's communicator beeped in their ears as they checked the hanger for clues. "Yes," Batman curtly replied.
"No one's been able to find Hagan's body, but they're going to keep looking. But you know as well as I do, he's probably not dead. Have you found anything on Strange?"
"Negative," Batman said as he looked at Nightwing. His son was too quiet. "Batman out." Moving to Nightwing's side, Batman asked "Nightwing?"
The younger man looked out the hanger door at the airfield. "The nightmare's over, isn't it? But, as long as Strange is out there, we'll never know when the nightmares will come again."
Batman moved near his son, his presence comforting to the young man. "I know. But right now, we've got work to do."
Nightwing smiled slightly. He knew who he was and where he belonged. He was home. Finally.
THE END . . . for now . . .