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“You know when Batman asked me if I was free this Friday, I thought he meant a movie night or maybe even family dinner… at no point did he imply that he needed me to get kidnapped together with the Red Hood just so we could get some intel.”
Dick was hanging from a giant hook in the middle of a large, barren warehouse, his arms restrained over his head by iron shackles. If he kept perfectly still, he could balance on the tips of his toes, keeping the worst of the strain away from his shoulders. The goons had landed a few solid hits during their scuffle earlier that night, but nothing was broken. Just a couple of bruises down his ribcage, maybe a pulled muscle in his shoulder when all of this was over and done with – basically a typical Friday night.
“Oh, shut up! I didn’t need the help! Batman’s just trying to be an ass.”
Jason had lost his helmet somewhere between their staged fight in the Narrows and the chaotic drive in the back of the bad guys’ truck to their current location. As was typical for the younger vigilante, a look of pure distain decorated his expressive face. His nose was bleeding.
Jason, the weirdo, probably appreciated how unhinged it made him look.
“Don’t be like that, Hood. I’m sure Batman’s concern had nothing to do with the three bodies found in Gotham Harbor last month. Especially not since they were Black Mask’s men, right?”
Dick made sure to angle his face in Jason’s direction – they were both bound and strung up like a bunch of turkeys, but that didn’t mean Dick couldn’t annoy his little brother some. He had to get revenge for Jason blowing up his operation two months ago somehow. The bastard had simply waltzed into Blüdhaven as if he owned the city and destroyed more evidence in a single night than Dick had managed to collect during four months of careful investigation.
“You are a cunt-ass motherfucker, Nightwing, not sure if anyone has ever told you as much.”
Dick answered with a charming grin and a wink. Not that Jason could see him wink from behind his mask – but it was the thought that counted.
Their fun banter was interrupted by the return of the goons – for the last half an hour, Dick and Jason had been left alone, the warehouse in such a state of disrepair the two of them had feared for their life mostly due to all the OSHA violations taking place in their rather limited field of vision. At least they could be relatively sure no one had listened in on them. There was no wall or crate close enough – or intact enough – to place a bug on.
“We caught some rather big fish today, didn’t we?”
The Penguin stepped out from behind the small army of henchmen (and women). Dick wanted to act shocked, but it had been rather obvious the Penguin was behind the opium smuggling ring Jason was investigating even before the two of them decided to get themselves captured.
Tonight wasn’t about the Penguin, at least not really – it was about his buyers and the fact that they needed some airtight evidence on his involvement. A confession, maybe even a secondary location for some of his merchandise. Pretty standard information Jason planned on getting by pretending to be caught.
They had no open comm units on them, no way to contact their allies and friends, but Barbara had placed some near indestructible bugs on them, one of her all-seeing eyes following their every move closely.
The moment Jason said the code phrase, Barbara would get them an extraction team. Not a moment later – but also not a moment earlier. That were the rules of the game. Missions like these meant pain, maybe even torture, just to get a few recordings of evidence and future leads. It was an ungrateful job – which was why Dick took them, instead of allowing Bruce to rope Steph or Damian or Tim into situations like these.
Jason loved playing with danger – and he got rewarded for his troubles with big drug busts and high success rates. Dick didn’t want the younger kids to learn any bad habits from him. It was bad enough his gun-wielding tendencies had inspired Steph to ask for a Spoiler-Gun.
It was bad enough Dick had internalized many of the same bad habits years before Jason got adopted by Bruce.
They were two peas in a pod, which was probably the reason they fought so much. Lots of love turned sour, lots of similar bad habits that made each other worse.
“Fuck off, Oswald.” Jason was grinning, blood making his white teeth grotesque.
Yeah, Dick was pretty sure Jason enjoyed the bloody nose and the swallow cut on his cheek. Drama queen.
“Ah, if it isn’t the Red Hood… you know, boy, I had high hopes for you when you fucked with Roman’s business… but then you had to come after the Iceberg Lounge… and then you returned to daddy dearest… I have to say, you disappoint me.”
The Penguin made room for a truly unnecessary number of dramatic pauses in his little speech, as he slowly circled them. The problem with being hung from a hook in the middle of a room was the limited field of vision. The moment Oswald disappeared behind Jason’s shoulder; Dick could no longer see him at all.
Thankfully, every villain in Gotham had a truly endless penchant for dramatic speeches and villain monologues. It was unlikely the Penguin would begin his game for the night while he was still busy posturing like a bird during mating.
“What a lucky coincidence then, that I never really cared for your approval, fuckface.”
Jason was as charming as ever.
In his head he was probably quoting Shakespeare or Haruki Murakami, maybe something French to spice up the literary scene he thought himself privy to. Dick was only half-joking – Jason read a shocking amount of books for someone who lived in shitty safehouses without central heating. Much of it was trash he found in dumpsters or the For Free boxes in front of apartment buildings, but Dick knew Jason had a real fable for literature, especially when he was sick or recovering from a bullet wound in one of his shitty homes with their shitty mattresses and their random assortment of books.
There was a lot Dick had to say about that.
But since this was Jason’s mission, Dick mostly kept his witty thoughts to himself. There was no need to focus all the attention on himself. Maybe if he thought of an especially clever bird pun. But until then? He let Jason and Oswald have a go at it.
“And yet! And yet, the great and mighty Red Hood has fallen into my claws! What a delightful twist of fate this is! Ack Ack Ack!”
The Penguin’s laughter echoed through the empty warehouse, a few birds escaping from the rafters at the unnatural sound.
“Oh wow! I’m truly shaking in my boots! Newsflash, Oswald, but no one in Gotham cares for you anymore. You’re stale bread. Not even the ducks in Central Park want anything to do with you anymore.”
Jason’s words hit with surprising accuracy – the Penguin fell silent, an angry flush overtaking his usually pale face.
“How dare-! Gotham will quiver before me! My operation will ruffle their feathers worse than anything that happened since No Man’s Land! Oswald Cobblepot will return to reclaim his place at the top of the Gotham Crime Syndicate.”
While Jason was right – Penguin had been more of a constant nuisance than a big-name player in quite some time now – that didn’t mean Oswald was harmless. Which was why they were here. Using the big fights between Bane and Batman, the Court of Owls, the Joker and Black Mask as a distraction, Oswald had created an intricate drug smuggling ring not even Oracle could track down.
The Red Hood had been the only one with close enough ties to the dealers in the city to actually make any progress on this case at all – but they still needed more evidence. They needed Oswald himself to tell them what exactly he had planned.
(not that Dick was all that invested – he had his own city to protect, Gotham crime something he gladly left in Bruce’s capable hands. Usually. Except for today.)
“Oh? And how will you do that? By squawking very loudly when Roman snatches up another bit of territory straight under your beak?”
Dick couldn’t help himself – the opportunity had presented itself, and he had never been good at saying no to a pun.
Jason sent an irritated glare in his direction, but Dick could only shrug his shoulders. Mentally. Physically, it was rather impossible, considering the position of his arms and the possibility of accidentally dislocating his shoulder joints.
There was no changing the past – Jason knew that better than most, probably.
The Penguin’s attention turned towards Dick, his small eyes glittering in the low light. Why no one ever invested in better lighting and safer construction standards for villain hideouts was a question for the ages.
“Ah, yes, I had almost forgotten the second catch of the night. Nightwing, what are you doing in Gotham? I thought we had finally gotten rid of you when you moved to Blüdhaven to take care of Blockbuster and his ilk.”
“Home sickness. You know how it is – though I recently read, penguins are migratory birds. They swaddle up to seventeen thousand kilometers on their little feet just to find a mate and create new baby penguins. Maybe you should try that? I heard Santa Barbara is nice this time of the year.”
“You know, Nightwing, I liked you better when you were five feet tall and said things like ‘Holy Ice Blast, Batman!’. We held a party at the Iceberg Lounge the night after Harvey got you, did you know that? We thought we’d finally gotten rid of you. Sadly, it took another ten years before one of us actually succeeded in catching a Robin – isn’t that right, Red Hood?”
Dick could feel a headache brew behind his temples. They were getting nowhere with this – and now he had to keep an eye on Jason to make sure the younger vigilante didn’t actually explode and endanger the entire mission.
But apparently Jason had one of his good days because he only laughed – yes, it sounded as if he had swallowed a bag of glass, something wet and wrong happening in the back of his throat, but at least he wasn’t screaming.
Small mercies.
“Do you guys have nothing better to do than gossip? Is there a bimonthly knitting circle at Arkham or Blackgate that just consists of you old fucks sharing tales of better days? So, what the Joker fucking killed me – that’s old news. If I were you, I’d be a whole fucking lot more concerned with the fact that I came back.”
“I have to agree with him on that – we all know he came back wrong, and Black Mask very nearly lost his ugly head a second time because of that.”
Jason hadn’t directly worked against the Bats in years now, but it was still far too easy to evoke memories of a different time. Dick trusted Jason with his life – but he would never really forgive him for some of the things that had happened back then.
Tim was one of these things. Damian, during Dick’s stint as Batman, another.
Penguin took the bait – hook, line and sinker.
“Pah, but Roman thinks he’s something special just because he has daddy issues. He’s a businessman with a dirty little hobby. I, on the other hand? I’m Gotham born and bred. I crawled out of Gotham’s underbelly with my hands already elbow deep in crime and intrigue. If I want to topple this city? Well, then it will fall.”
“And do you want to topple it?” Jason’s voice was deceptively empty.
“I don’t have to – after tonight, sixty percent of Black Mask’s buyers will answer to me. Falcone and Maroni barely matter anymore, but tomorrow? Their names will be meaningless. If everything goes according to plan Bane won’t even be able to sell Venom anymore.”
“How?” And it was genuine curiosity that made Dick ask the question. Oswald sounded so sure of himself – something different had to be at play here. Or the operation was even larger than their highest estimate.
“You know how they say religion is the opium of the simple people? I always believed opium was the opium of the simple people.”
“That-“
That might just have been the stupidest thing Dick had ever heard, but before he could voice his thoughts on the matter, a commotion broke out in front of the warehouse. He couldn’t see what exactly was happening, but he could hear the sound of raised voices and cocky posturing.
“Ah, it seems as if our guests had arrived.”
The Penguin was grinning.
A shiver ran down Dick’s spine. He knew what he had signed up for when he told Bruce that he’d do it – but there was a difference between being okay with a little bit of pain and knowing that shit was about to hit the fan.
Oswald was done posturing, now the real party was about to start.
“What guests? Aren’t you busy with the two of us tonight?”
Jason was a phenomenal actor when he wanted to be. He really sold the role of the stupid vigilante who had no idea what he had just stumbled into. All that Shakespeare might just have paid off.
“Red Hood, please, we both know merchandise the size I am trying to move tonight needs a few extra helping hands. Investors and friends, if you will. Maybe I can make this evening even more fun for them by providing some unscheduled entertainment…”
The Penguin was scanning the room for ideas, when the large doors at the other end of the warehouse opened to admit a series of mid-level players and a handful of their trusted underlings. Dick could spot Poison Ivy and the Mad Hatter, both careful enough to always keep at least one other villain between them just in case. Even Harvey Dent was there – it had been some time since Two-Face last dabbled in the drug trade.
It was an explosive mix, and Dick could see that their presence only added to the literal powder keg that was this warehouse.
“What are they doing here? I thought this was about drugs. You said it was about drugs.” The Mad Hatter sounded even more bonkers than usual when he voiced his complains.
Dick was so sick of the weirdos Gotham produced on the regular.
“Oh, this? They are just bycatch – but I thought they could provide some fun while we wait for the refreshments to get here. Nothing better to start a business relationship with than the extermination of a few annoying Bats.”
Oswald seemed to have finally thought of a torture method suited to their needs. He was smiling. It was never a good sign when they smiled.
“Reggie! Bring the champagne tub!”
A satisfied murmur passed through the assorted group of villains. Dick knew why – a tub could mean only one thing: ice and water and a crude form of waterboarding. Damn it.
Three thugs slowly pulled a heavy tub into the middle of the room. It was covered in silver details, filled to the brim with watery ice. A dozen or more champagne bottles rested in the tub, but at a sign from Oswald and the expensive beverages were cleared from the ice.
“Waterboarding, really?”
Dick sighed, his shoulders protesting even the slight shift in position. Oh man, he would be so sore the upcoming week.
“Not inventive enough for you, Nightwing? I’m sure I can find a baseball bat somewhere.” Dent’s smile was an ugly thing, and Dick tried his best not to flinch away from the man. He was better than this. It had been years since that night – if Jason hadn’t flinched at the mention of the Joker, then Dick had no reason to act up just because Two-Face thought he had to be a dick.
“You’re working with Oswald, Harvey? And you, Pamela? I mean, I can understand Tetch, hell, even Killer Croc, but I always thought the two of you had higher standards.”
The only thing Jason got for his efforts was a punch to the gut – but Dick knew he had mostly done it to let Oracle know just what they were dealing with.
“Now, before this night turns to day – do we have a volunteer? I promise to only drown you a couple of times before we kill you for real.” The Penguin winked as he said it, as if anyone here had doubted the lack of sincerity.
The clock was ticking.
They still needed more information. They had no idea where the merchandise was stored, and how exactly the Penguin planned to enact his revenge. Jason was the leader on this mission – and he was the one who knew the code phrase. It was a risk, but all three of them – Oracle, Red Hood, Nightwing – had agreed that their mission would be the safest if Dick couldn’t accidentally cut it short by saying the code phrase without meaning to. So, Dick didn’t know what the safeword was – and Barbara would only listen if Jason’s rather distinct voice was the one to say it.
It had made sense at the time.
Now, it left them with only one option.
Damn it, Dick hated getting waterboarded.
“You know, Oswald, for a guy who really likes to act like an ugly peacock, you never know when to shut your fucking beak.”
Not Dick’s best line, but it did its job.
“I see, we have found the first guest for our luxurious birdbath!”
Dick didn’t even have to fake the exhaustion that overcame him when the goons cut him lose from the hook. His entire body fell down, as if his strings had been cut. Hours in a stress position would do that to you. Didn’t mean he didn’t make the Penguin work for it – if Jason and he acted too compliant, the villains would know something was up.
Dick made sure to bite hard enough to draw blood at least once.
While he was being carried away, his legs painfully dragging over the dirty floor, Dick made sure to signal to Jason that the plan could proceed as planned. There was no need to step in just yet – not that Dick feared Jason would do something as stupid or sentimental just for his sake.
The space between him and the bathtub full of ice grew smaller and smaller. Poison Ivy had taken a step back, while Harvey Dent had stepped closer to get a better look at Dick’s ice-cold future. Sick bastard. But at least that heightened their chances to draw this out long enough to gather plentiful intel.
“You know how this works, don’t you, Nightwing?” As the organizer of this lovely get-together, Oswald was the one to moderate the torture sessions. First come, first serve and all that.
Dick repaid his stupid comment with a bloody grin.
That’s how you do it, Jason, he tried to convey, you use the blood of others to paint your teeth red instead of your own.
“Been there, done that. You flightless cunt.”
The Penguin tutted in distain, as if he were a cartoon character, before grabbing Dick’s hair. His muscles still more or less reluctant allies, Dick was unable to do anything but follow the painful tugging movement. Soon enough he was kneeling in front of the tub, a small hiss escaping him through clenched teeth when he saw the ice water.
He really preferred the professional version of waterboarding to the DIY one.
Less chances of permanent brain damage, pneumonia, and broken ribs, when you inevitably had to get reanimated because someone miscalculated. Of course, the professional version was also prone to bouts of extreme trauma, but something told Dick he had already moved beyond that.
But there was no point in lamenting this now.
One last glance in Jason’s direction, and Dick forced a deep breath into his lungs.
Showtime, baby.
The Penguin’s hands were steady when they pushed his head under. Cold water brushed against his cheeks, his closed eyes, and mouth, icy tendrils burrowing themselves underneath his skin. Oswald was saying something, but Dick couldn’t understand him, not over the rushing of the water all around him, his heart frantically trying to keep him warm.
For the first minute or so, the thing that bothered Dick the most was the small pebble underneath his left knee, digging into the weak joint of his suit as if to beg for his attention. The pain was a welcome distraction from the cold, but as the seconds turned to minutes, it became harder and harder to focus on anything but the cold burning his skin, and the agony racing through his chest.
They wouldn’t let him drown.
Not so soon.
Not yet.
Dick knew that.
But every passing second, every moment spent underwater as his lungs screamed and begged and cried for air… it became harder to believe that. The true torture of waterboarding: the psychological terror of your impending death being forced on your mind again and again.
Dick knew three minutes had passed, when he could no longer keep his mouth closed. The cold made it so much harder to hold his breath, ice freezing his chest in place even as Dick tried his best to stay alive. A small gasp escaped him, bubbles streaming past his numb face up towards the surface.
There was no relief to be found in the release of air.
Of course not.
And yet, his brain had thought- it had thought- It was growing harder and harder to think clearly. His lungs were burning, fire dancing up his throat. He was so cold. A shiver ran down his spine, despair burying its clawed feet in his brain. It was only a question of time, until… Dick opened his mouth, breathing in a mouthful of ice water.
And then he was no longer under water. Instead, his back was laying on the dirty floor, coughs wracking his body until he was afraid he would throw up. His chest ached. Scratch that, everything hurt.
Fuck.
Waterboarding was worse than he remembered.
“Did you enjoy the show, ladies and gentlemen?” Oswald’s voice said somewhere in the distance. Dick didn’t really listen; he was mostly focused on pulling air into his abused lungs. Shit. It hurt to breathe.
“Fuckface! Stop it! All of this for what? A couple of tons of opium? Come on, guys, you know this can’t possibly be worth the Bat’s revenge!”
Jason’s screams sounded so real, so angry… Dick let himself be comforted by the knowledge that Jason was pulling his weight. He was gathering information, doing what they had come here to do. And hey, Jason almost sounded as if he was actually angry about Dick getting tortured.
A once in a lifetime actor, truly a shame he had gone and come back wrong.
“It’s not just a few tons of opium, boy! Of course not, in this moment warehouses all over Gotham-“
Dick never got to hear what Oswald had to say, because in that moment Harvey decided that he had waited long enough for the waterboarding to continue. Two-Face grabbed Dick and pushed him back under water, without giving him as much as a second to pull in a lifesaving breath.
Damn it.
Water rushed against his skin, forcing itself into his nose and mouth. This was fine. This was absolutely fine. Dick could hold his breath even like this. Maybe not as well, maybe not as long, but this was totally fine…
The world grew distant, everything shrinking down to the sensation of pain growing in his chest. There was yelling in the distance, but Dick didn’t even try to figure out what that was about. It was meaningless. The only thing that mattered was the urge to breathe in the torrents of water pressing against his tongue. It wouldn’t truly ease his pain, he knew that, and yet it seemed like the only possible way out of this misery.
In the end it wasn’t even a conscious effort – Dick swallowed, ice brushing against his throat like shards of glass.
Moments later strong hands pulled him out of the tub, gently placing him onto the ground. Hell, someone even helped him into a recovery position, not that Dick could recognize their face through the tears blurring his vision. He coughed for what felt like minutes, Jason’s yells an indistinguishable backdrop to his own pain.
“Harvey… no killing our guests just yet! We said we’d take our time – let me do this, or our deal falls flat!”
Oswald was standing over him now. It must have been one of his goons who saved Dick’s life. Slowly, Dick’s senses returned to him – first with Penguin’s obnoxious voice, and then with Jason slowly appearing as a shadow in Dick’s blurry vision.
This time Dick recognized the worry on his face as real.
Ah, well, fuck.
Dick carefully cocked his head as to ask after the intel. Jason replied with a small shake of his head. Ah, so the Penguin still had more to give. Dick could tell from the way Jason had positioned himself that he was this close to calling it all off – no, not on Dick’s watch. He shook his head, made sure Jason could see him, and tried his best to tell him with his eyes alone that he could do it.
What was a little bit of waterboarding between vigilantes, really?
Jason didn’t look happy about it, but he also didn’t question his call.
The coward within his soul really wished he had – but, no, Dick knew what he was capable of, and he knew he could survive another round of waterboarding, no stress.
The Penguin was still talking, but for once Dick chose to focus exclusively on the task at hand. He breathed in through his nose, ignoring the tight band pressing down on his ribcage, and tried his best to enrich his blood with as much oxygen as possible before his head was once again pushed below the water of the tub.
He didn’t have a lot of time. Before he felt ready, large hands were once again grabbing him, pulling him, pushing him under the surface of the icy hell that was the champagne tub. Dante’s ninth circle, if Dick recalled correctly. Maybe the guy had been onto something.
(Look, Jason, you aren’t the only one who reads!)
Which each time his head was pushed under the water, it grew harder and harder to keep the panic at bay. His lungs were exhausted, his throat sore and raw. His brain danced on the edge of oxygen deprivation, the fear forcing his mouth open even if his mind knew the only thing he could do to protect himself was keep his mouth shut.
It never worked.
Dick tried to breathe in, chocking on water instead.
Another set of arms pulling him out, another distant conversation between people that didn’t really matter. Occasionally, Dick thought he heard Jason beg, but it was hard to tell with the rushing water haunting even his moments between the endless silence underneath the surface.
He wasn’t really tracking anymore, he knew that. With how horribly he wheezed whenever he tried to breathe in deeply, he knew he would get a nasty case of pneumonia on the very least. And yet… whenever Jason begged him with his eyes to just let him end this mission, Dick told him not to.
Not until they had the intel.
Not until they had this cat – this dirty fucking penguin – in the bag.
Another round of ice-cold silence and horrible pain, another wave of a world grown distant and pale.
And then-
“I’m not even sure why you’re so desperate, Red Hood. If I take care of Nightwing for you, you could rejoin us and get your emporium back. There are bombs in all of Black Mask’s warehouses tonight, ready to destroy more than half the drugs currently residing in the city. I have allies ready to persuade Bane to leave town for his own best interest. If you wait until I make my move – the ship comes in tomorrow night – you can have a hefty portion of the Gotham market. All you need to do is let me kill Nightwing here in peace. Maybe betray daddy dearest a little bit, but Black Mask and the Narrows would be worth it, wouldn’t they?”
For a long second between the beats of his tortured heart, Dick actually thought Jason would betray him. Later he would claim the lack of oxygen, and the water slowly collecting in his lungs, as the reasons behind his momentary stupidity, but when he was slowly drowning on the cold concrete floor, it was pure fear motivating his faulty judgement.
Dick Grayson wanted to live.
Thankfully, Jason occasionally agreed with the sentiment. Or maybe he had simply had enough.
“Oh, Holy Fucking Penguin, Batman! Do you never shut up? Nightwing is already as good as dead – and all you managed to do is create tension between your lovely business partners by focusing on me instead of them! Intelligent enough to create an empire behind Black Mask’s back, maybe, but not clever enough to actually sustain it!”
Dick covered his laughter at Jason spitting the code phrase with a cough – or maybe his attempt to laugh pulled a harsh and wet cough from the depths of his chest. Oh, fuck. It hurt. Maybe laughing had been a bad idea, especially with the headache thrumming behind his temples. He was too old for this. The Penguin was yelling, maybe he was even hitting Jason, but Dick was too tired to make sure.
At some point in the last few minutes his eyes had fallen closed. How often had he almost drowned while Jason did his job? Five times? At least more than four… it was hard to tell. He was so cold. His entire body was wrecked by tremors. Tired and cold, always a shit combination.
“Hey! Nightwing! You can’t go to sleep just yet! Fuck, stay awake, you idiot!”
Jason sounded so angry, so desperate.
Gunshots sounded in the distance, followed by the sound of shattering glass. The cavalry arrived. Dick let himself fall deeper into the comforts of his suffocating body.
“Batman – get Nightwing! Waterboarding, secondary drowning… for once in your life keep one of your kids alive!”
Dick felt almost loved as he lost consciousness to the echoes of Jason’s war cry. It was the nicest Dick had heard Jason talk to Bruce in years. Surely, it wouldn’t be horrible if he simply went to sleep?
He was so cold.
His chest hurt.
Dick didn’t feel it when Bruce crashed into the tub in an effort to reach him, just as he didn’t see Cass take down the Penguin with a single kick – or Jason free himself from his restrains only to grab the gun Steph had kicked in his direction.
He saw none of that because he was already disappearing under layers of darkness.
But later, while he recovered in the Cave and then his old room in the Manor, the others would tell him what had happened. They would celebrate Jason’s success with him, and tell him about the biggest drug bust in Gotham City history… uncovered, because Dick was an idiot who thought it would be a good idea to get waterboarded seven times in a row – and Jason was stupid enough to believe him when he signaled him, he had everything under control.
Later they would celebrate – right now, Dick went to sleep.