A/N: Just a short little doodad I scribbled out late at night because I haven't done anything in a while. It's not quite short enough to be a drabble and not really long enough that I consider it a short story, but here you go nonetheless. Not my greatest work, of course, but maybe someone will still enjoy it :)

xOxOx

Somehow, Dick feels that if he closes his eyes tight enough, the laughter will stop. But it grows in volume and intensity and its right in his ear. He clutches at his abdomen—it hurts, hurts like it's shrinking—and tries to roll to his side, but something holds him down. Keeps him still. Tries to.

"Stop laughing," Dick croaks. He can't handle the sound. It hacks away at his sanity like an ice pick. "Shut—shut up."

Someone hushes him. Shh, shh. Then something rubs over his damp hair. The contact startles him and the laughter hitches, going one octave higher. What's so funny, he wants to know, because he doesn't get it, but the laughter keeps raging on. Dick refuses to open his eyes, but he opens his mouth, jaw sore, "Stop laughing, I said."

It sounds more like begging, which is nothing like he intends. He doesn't possess the gravel that Bruce does. That cold connotation. He isn't begging though, he's not. It's just. He can hardly hear himself think.

A warm, deep rumbling vibrates against the base of his hairline. Dick can feel lips moving against his neck but he can't make out the words right now. There is a sharp pain in his side and chest, from the inside it feels like, like he's drowning without water. He keeps his eyes closed, still. Pinched shut.

"This isn't… isn't funny," he gasps, trying to fold into himself, but someone or something pries him apart, trying to keep him flattened on the ground. "Stop laughing," he says again. "Just stop laughing."

There is a pressure gliding across his face, pushing his hair back and shh, shh, he hears again, overlapping the laughter. He can still hear it, though. Fears he'll never stop hearing it and he moans, "Stooop."

By some miracle, the laughter does seem to die away, and the soft shushing becomes more prominent. At the same time, the ache in his body starts to ease, and Dick comes to realize that no one was ever laughing at him. The laughter had been his own. He had been dying from it.

He sucks in air now, between short fits of guttural giggling. The muscles of his belly are sore and spasming, and finally he opens his eyes.

The presence he had been feeling had been Bruce, who stares at him now through his cowl. "It's over, it's over," he chants, and Dick believes him, because even though he knows things will never truly be over, it's over for now, and that's enough. "It's over."

Minutes pass. His chuckling is reduced to sporadic, uncontrollable puffs of air. Bruce pulls Dick to his feet and walks him out, heavy hand on his shoulder and squeezing to keep him grounded. Dick counts the steps it takes to get back to the car—128 for himself and 97 for Bruce—and fills the passenger seat without a word.

It's a long, quiet ride home, which is nothing unusual. Dick prefers the silence today because it's such a contrast to the racket he'd been producing earlier.

It's why he jumps a little when Bruce clears his throat, and then Dick wants to laugh at himself for real, but doesn't.

"Your antidote," Bruce says, and Dick knows it is a question. His fingers automatically brush over the pouch that has the cure for Joker Venom and tries to remember why he hadn't used it at the time. He only remembers waking up to laughter. Waking up laughing.

"Must have injected me while I was already out," he says, which is embarrassing to admit.

"Hm," Bruce responds, and logs the answer away.

They pull into the cave and when Dick opens the car door, he hears the constant echo of bats nattering away from above. Dick actually does laugh this time, a short but genuine snigger—though Bruce cranes his neck to look at him analytically—because, well, the actual bats are far chattier than Batman, and that is actually kind of funny.