Steady On Forward

Chapter 1

"Me too," Cass added.

"Ambulance is on the way for the victims." Stephanie's voice paused, presumably as she assessed Tim. "I don't think the antidote did anything, he's still shaking pretty bad."

"Spotted," Cass cut back in. "Scarecrow, Ninth and East Street."

Dick pulled up just in time to see Cass in front of a run-down flower shop, zip-tying the hands of an unconscious Scarecrow behind his back. 

"Well, I feel a bit useless," he joked. Truthfully, he didn't really care, he was just glad that somebody had brought him down.

Cass grinned up at him. Or, at least, he assumed she did — it was hard to tell with the cowl.

She leaned back down and pulled a full syringe (which was thankfully still in one piece) from Scarecrow's pocket.

"I can take that back to B, if you're good to stay here and wait 'til they haul him away. I was planning on heading back to the Cave for some research after this anyway."

Cass nodded and handed the syringe over.

By the time he got to the Cave, Bruce and Tim were already back.

"Hey B, I got a sample of the fear toxin Scarecrow was using," he announced, heading back to the medical area.

"Thank you, Nightwing." He held his hand out for it without looking up. "I was able to quell some of the side effects, but I was hoping somebody would get some to help synthesize an actual antidote more quickly."

Tim looked pale where he was lying on the medical gurney, and he was still trembling slightly, eyes clenched tightly shut as beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

"You think he's gonna try to claw my face off if I touch him?"

"Doesn't seem to be that type of fear toxin this time, thankfully. Batgirl and I were able to get him into the Batmobile just fine."

"Good." Dick picked Tim's trembling hand up off the stiff sheets, and squeezed it tightly. Tim squeezed back.

Dick stayed by his bedside, squeezing his hand and stroking his hair back from his forehead, talking to him calmingly as Bruce worked.

"Hold his arm still for me," Bruce grunted, filling a clean syringe with antidote.

Bruce flicked the side of the syringe and pushed the plunger up a bit to get rid of the air bubbles, then came up beside Dick. Dick was holding Tim's arm to keep it from trembling, one hand a few inches above the inside of his elbow, and the other a few inches below.

"The good thing about being so tense is at least the veins stand out well," Bruce muttered, swiping an alcohol pad over the area. He quickly slid the needle into the vein in the inside of Tim's elbow and depressed the plunger.

Tim gave a full-body shudder as Bruce pulled the needle out and slapped a Hello Kitty bandaid on.

Dick raised an eyebrow at the bandaid. "Didn't know you were such a fan."

"Hn. Mysteriously all we had left."

Dick grinned. Oh yeah, he had forgotten Jason had switched out all the bandaids in the Cave last week to annoy Bruce.

Tim's tensed muscles finally started to relax. "Gah, I'm achy," he croaked after a minute.

"Having your entire body tensed up for over an hour will do that," Dick said.

Tim grimaced. "Yeah." He shook his head a little. "So that was fucking awful. Remind me not to go after Scarecrow ever again."

"You need help getting upstairs?" Dick asked.