Work Text:
Dick Grayson was currently the reason everyone here was alive, but he was also holding the outcome of their lives in his head, and without him they weren't going to make it out of this tunnel before it collapsed.
Which made Dick getting stabbed all the more difficult. The only person who knew the way out was also the person currently fighting off unconsciousness with every passing second.
Dick, or Nightwing, was currently slumped between his two friends. Roy on his right and Wally on his left. They were trailing through the cave at a brisk pace, Dick's feet stumbling beneath him as he kept trying to find his footing.
Dick's eyes were going from open to closed as they walked, he knew if he closed them for too long he would lose his battle to stay awake and he couldn't do that until he knew his friends were safe. He opened his eyes once more when Roy and Wally suddenly stopped walking.
Dick figured out why relatively quickly, when he saw a fork in the road.
"Flash, just run ahead" there was a pause as Dick's head bobbed up and down and he took a sharp breath, "and find the exit".
The idea of Wally running ahead to find all possible exits was suggested a few times by Nightwing, who kept forgetting that Wally was currently out of juice and couldn't run any faster than Roy.
Roy and Wally exchanged a look.
"You sure you didn't get hit in the head there Grayson? You suggested that like three times already." Roy said, surveying his friend.
Blood loss was a bitch.
And the blood loss was currently coming out of Dick's side, a hard place to try and stop the bleeding, so time was of the essence here.
Dick assumed Wally or Roy had been trying to ask him something because what he felt like was a second later, someone was poking him in said stab wound.
"Ow." Dick said, opening his eyes to try and glare at the culprit.
"Sorry Grayson, but we gotta get you out of here, we don't know what way to go."
Dick swore to get Roy back for poking him, but for now he settled for opening his eyes and trying to focus on their surroundings.
Being underground had disabled their comms and any of their connection to the blueprints. Luckily, one of Bruce's cardinal rules was to never rely on technology. Dick had the layout of the cave memorized before they even arrived.
He looked down each pathway, surveying the rocks and layout.
"Is this the second or third fork? Dick asked, closing his eyes and racking his brain for the mental map.
"Second." Wally said.
"Go left." Dick said and Wally and Roy immediately began walking again. Dick let out a small groan at the sudden movement.
"Hang on Dick." Wally said, adjusting his grip on Dick as they continued walking down the corridor. After a few minutes passed in silence, Dick spoke.
"Something's wrong." Dick said, and once again Wally and Roy stopped in their tracks. Dick let out another groan.
"What? We're going the wrong way?" Roy asked. He knew his tone came out harsher than he wanted, but he was just worried. He wanted to get Dick out of here as fast as possible and the guy clearly wasn't very coherent right now.
"No, not that. This is the right way." Dick said, and Wally and Roy started walking again, this time a little slower in case Dick had been wrong about the way they were going.
"My head hurts." Dick said it more as a question than a statement and that only added to their confusion.
"Yeah, you probably got hit at some point." Roy pointed out, picking up their pace a little more.
"No. I didn't." Dick sounded sure of himself, but one of the symptoms of a concussion was forgetting things, so Roy wasn't too worried about that.
Before they could follow up, they hit another fork in the road.
Roy jostled Dick a little to get his eyes open.
"Hey. What way now?" Dick opened his eyes and looked at his surroundings once more.
"Left again." Dick said, and they kept walking.
When Dick was quiet for a long time, Roy started talking again.
"Maybe you just don't remember hitting your head." Roy suggested, but Dick didn't seem to like that response.
"No. I remember not hitting my head." Dick snarkily replied. He was getting tired. He wanted to sleep now.
"Maybe it's just normal headache stuff. You know, from when you got shot?" Wally pointed out. Dick wanted to send him a glare, but even the thought of opening his eyes was taking too much energy out of him.
He knew his friends just wanted him to be okay, but Dick knew himself. He knew what was a normal headache and what was a normal stab wound. And neither of these were.
"I think." Dick paused to take a breath and collect his thoughts. He didn't want to panic his friends any more than they needed to be. "The blade was poisoned."
That was enough for Roy and Wally.
Dick felt Roy and Wally pick up the pace and no one said anything for a moment or two. Dick spoke up again.
"Only maybe." Dick said, trying to shrug his shoulders.
"Dick. If you think you were poisoned. You probably were." Roy said.
"Yeah and its better to be-" Whatever Wally was about to say was cut off when the ground began shaking.
Dick didn't even bother to open his eyes, he knew they still had some time before the whole thing collapsed. Roy and Wally were moving a lot faster now and Dick was struggling to keep up with them. In fact, he was pretty sure they could make it out of here by themselves at this point. He let unconsciousness take over, until somehow he was jostled back into the land of the living. This time he was sitting down with his back against something cold.
"Hey. Open your eyes." Something cold and wet splashed over Dick's head and Dick's eyes shot open.
"Not cool." Dick said, one arm holding his side and the other arm trying to wipe the water from his face.
"I told him not to-" Wally started saying defensively before he was interrupted by Roy's yelling.
"Are you kidding right now? Look around. You cornered us Grayson." Dick looked around and saw that they were at a dead end. But he knew the layout he knew which ways to go, so how did they end up at a dead end? "You don't even know where we are. We're all gonna die down here and it'll be your fault." Roy pointed a finger at Dick before starting to pace back and forth.
"Kinda harsh, man." Wally said, sitting next to a dazed and confused Nightwing. Wally tried to get a look at Dick's wound, but Dick was doing a good job at hiding it with his hand.
"Yeah. Thought you had a little bit more faith in me." Dick sounded a lot more out of breath for a guy who had just been sitting on the floor for 5 minutes should be.
Roy turned around, ready to yell at his friend again for some reason or another, but looking at Dick felt like he had been slapped the face.
His face was completely drained of any color, and Roy could tell that some of the water on his face wasn't from the water he poured on him. His hands were shaking, and the way he was partially curled in on himself had Roy thinking that he was in an immense amount of pain.
"Shit, listen-"
"The rocks behind me are loose." Realization had begun to sunk in. He knew he had made the right turn. Dick moved his hand to gesture to the rocks at his back. His reaction time wasn't matching his words, which was all the more concerning.
"They break off 3 and a half feet from the end of the wall in that corner." Dick pointed once more to the end of the wall.
"Once we're through there should be a set of stairs. And we're out."
Wally smirked.
Dick gave Roy a sad thumbs up and a small smile. Wally and Roy wordlessly began removing the rocks from the wall.
"How did you remember all this shit?" Roy asked, he was almost through pulling the rocks out when the ground began to shake again. Roy moved faster and spared a glance over at Dick, who was still sitting up against the wall, eyes open watching his friends.
"Perks of training with the bat."
They finally got all the rocks out and Roy peered through the hole, he could see the staircase.
"Alright Dick, you first-" Roy and Wally turned to see Dick, now completely slumped over on the ground, unconscious.