Prompt: Toxin/Poison

can you tell i ran out of steam?

Half of the work that came with working in Gotham was keeping up with the different variants of poisons and toxins villains cooked up in hopes of finally succeeding. They'd seen toxins so vile they personally saw to it that every molecule of it was destroyed and poisons that were so stupid you had to ask how in the world they thought that would work. It was rare they saw a poison that hung on the villain being caught to work. 

"Are you nervous?" Damian asked wryly. One of his eyebrows was raised condescendingly and in that moment, he was every bit his father. His question had Dick confused though. He hadn't said anything, he wasn't sweating buckets and he wasn't nervous. There was nothing to be nervous about. He'd been to a million galas in his time, probably more, and he didn't sweat the social interactions that came with them no matter how awkward they were. "Your hand is trembling," the boy added when he noticed the confusion.

"It is?" he questioned as he looked down. His right hand, the one he'd shoved in his pocket, was trembling slightly when he brought it out. "Good eye."

"It's my job. It should be yours to know your hand is trembling in the first place," Damian argued although he seemed more concerned now. 

"It's probably from the caffeine. I've pulled a few all-nighters," he explained. It happened from time to time, more so in his youth when he drank more energy drinks than breathed air. He shoved his hand back in his pocket to hide it. People here smelt weakness like bloodhounds and the last thing he needed was the press diagnosing him with twenty different illnesses he didn't have. 

"You weren't trembling on the way here."

"Maybe it just hit," he suggested. Damian narrowed his gaze, unconvinced but he left him alone all the same. It wouldn't be the last time he brought it up that evening but Dick knew it was nothing serious. His hand was just a little shaky. 

An hour into the gala, Dick noticed the shaking in his hand was now passed to the other and seemed to shoot up into his shoulders. A few people had asked if he was that cold and he made a few jokes to deter any rumours. It was easy to handle to upper class patrons but it required a lot more tact to manage the press. One brave reporter had asked about the trembling and he pointed to his workout routine, effectively boring them out of trying to dig any further as he went through his intense routine fit for a marine rather than a billionaire's foster kid. He threw in some extra mundane topics like swearing by ice baths so they could at least get a clickbait article out of him.

Then his heart started to flutter. He discreetly checked his pulse as he spoke with the shareholders of a business he didn't care to get the name of and found it was going too fast for comfort. He excused himself, saying he needed to check on his siblings before exiting the gala and moving into the garden. There were a couple of people out there, mostly teens who were trying to have a private moment with their partners without their parents or journalists sticking their noses in. He had to travel around the back of the building to get his own private spot where no one would see.  

He squatted down by the wall and put his hands out in front of him. The tremors had definitely gotten worse since he last spoke to Damian and with his pulse racing, he concluded that he must be having an anxiety attack. Nothing inside had triggered it but the great thing about anxiety is that it could jump out at any moment and take hold of him. He took a deep breath in, held it and then let it out. It wouldn't fix him immediately but he could sit there and wait for the worst of it. He secured his hands to the wall, pressing them into the brick to fool himself into thinking they stopped shaking. 

Dick wasn't sure how long he'd been out there but when he heard the sound of feet coming towards him, he knew it'd been long enough for someone to come looking. He shot up and swallowed nervously when he felt his knees join his hands in the shaking. Quickly, he leaned against the wall with mock nonchalantness and began racing through explanations for what he was doing. 

Thankfully, he didn't need them. When the person finally came out, he realised it was Bruce. That relief was short-lived when he saw his mentor's expression. Grim. He expected amusement or disappointment at skipping out on a party but not grim. He still leaned against the wall though.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"I got a call. Three people are in the hospital after being exposed to Ivy's new toxin," Bruce began. "Those three were involved in the bust you did."

Dick remembered the bust. A typical hostage situation where Poison Ivy threatened to take over the world and the usual plant ideology she spouted. He'd learned to tune it out at this point. To his knowledge though, they hadn't been exposed to anything. She didn't have time to do much more than wrap them up in vines. He got his own taste of the thorns and didn't notice anything odd about it. 

"But she didn't give them anything," he pointed out.

"Not in a way they noticed," his mentor countered. "A thorn was found in one of their jackets. After the hospital tested it, they found an unknown toxin they believe to be the cause of their conditions." 

"If you're here to yell at me for not checking-"

"I'm not here to yell." Dick didn't believe him. He could already see them standing in the cave whilst he was scolded like a child. "You couldn't have known. It's slow acting, the symptoms have only just become prominent enough for them to seek medical help." He relaxed slightly but he also didn't like the tentative way he was going around saying this.

"Do I have anything to be worried about?" 

"Are you wearing make-up?" Bruce asked. He nodded. They all did this to cover up marks from their work. He was hiding a bruise on his cheekbone from a lucky right hook and some pretty heavy eye bags. He always went a little further and added some to his hands when he noticed they were a little raw from the fight. "Did you notice anything odd before putting it on?" He shook his head. "Were you hit with any of the thorns?"

"A few times. Mostly my neck and hands."

"Can you wipe some of your make-up off?" Bruce asked although it was more like a demand when he readily pulled out a napkin to use. Dick took it and wiped his knuckles and the back of his hand. Underneath the foundation were dark blotches presumably where the thorns had pierced his skin. They both stared at the evidence now with matching grim expressions. "We need to get you home. Now." 

Dick hated hospitals but he didn't mind the medbay in the cave. It was still rather clinical, the harsh white lighting and the sterile white bedsheets but there was something homely about it. He could see out into the cave where he'd spent most of his childhood and knew there would only ever be familiar faces to greet him.  

He'd been stripped of his suit and changed into pyjama pants. Another benefit to being treated at home was the lack of paper gowns with no cover in the back. They forewent a shirt so they could place all the monitors they needed without issue. 

He watched Bruce go back and forth, noting things down and grumbling to himself. He'd taken a few blood samples but whatever the poison was, it wasn't on their radar before. They had to build a cure from scratch. They were in the best place to do at least. Bruce poured half his paycheck just on medical and medical adjacent equipment for cases like these. 

Damian stuck by his side though. Watching him in anticipation for something worse to happen. His eyes would sometimes flicker to their father but Dick kept his attention more than anything else. It would be sweet if his eyes weren't so piercing. They drilled holes down to his core and he couldn't help but avoid the younger's gaze.

The shaking had gotten worse to a full-body constant vibration. His muscles already ached from the never-ending movement. He kept his mouth clenched shut for fear of accidentally biting his tongue when his jaw jittered and his hands locked together so at least they shook in time. 

He couldn't help but wish for the other shoe to drop. At least then, he'd know what the goal was. What was the point of a poison that just made you shake like a leaf in a hurricane? There had to be something else going on. Maybe his brain was being eaten away by some plant mutant and the shaking was a side effect. His pulse was faster than usual, maybe his heart was being attacked and flushing his body with adrenaline. There was an end goal to this that would somehow benefit Ivy but he couldn't think of any. Well done, you made a few people shake, I'm sure that will fuel your eco-terrorism campaign better than ever. 

A sense of dread hit Dick with full force. He didn't know why it was suddenly coming in and he couldn't place where the dread was aimed. It would make logical sense that he dreaded what may be on the horizon if they didn't pin the poison down but that didn't connect right. He wasn't dreading something in the future perse. More so something that was just about to happen. It was like looking right and left before crossing the street but no matter how busy the road was, you were about to step into traffic. 

His mouth began to fill with saliva as though he was about to throw up but his stomach didn't clench and he didn't feel particularly sit. He tried to swallow as much as he could but it seemed as soon as he did, more would come flowing in. 

Tingling followed. Pins and needles were flowing through his body, latching onto his cells and refusing to let go. He assumed it was due to the constant movement although surely that would result in a feeling closer to a stitch. 

"Grayson?" Damian said somewhere distant. A thousand miles away. Why was he so far away now? Did he leave at some point? He tried to find where the voice had come from but he wasn't sure if he was actually moving. He felt floaty. Was he there? Was he ever there? Was he here?

Something seemed to click and everything stopped.

Damian didn't know what he was seeing but he knew he didn't like it. Dick had been shaking for well over two hours now and he hadn't worsened nor gotten better. He listened to Bruce talk to someone from the hospital as he tried to get more information on the poison. They didn't seem to know much by the sounds of it and his father was growing more frustrated by the second. 

His eavesdropping was stopped by a low groan Dick had made. It came from the back of his throat and didn't sound right. Damian focused back on the acrobat and watched as a small line of drool escaped the corner of his lips. He made no move to wipe it away which was weird because Dick took special care in keeping himself put together. He'd swipe his hair into something stylish whilst bleeding out if he could. 

"Grayson?" he called. There wasn't a response. Not even a glance his way. He slowly rose out of his seat and brought a hand into Dick's field of vision. He expected that to get some attention but he may as well have done nothing at all. "Father!"

"What?" Bruce asked, rushing into the room ready to see some unspeakable horror.

"He's unresponsive." The older went to Dick's bedside and snapped his fingers close to his face. Not even a flinch. 

"Staring spell. Drool. Did he say anything before?"

"No, he's been quiet since we got home but not unresponsive like this." 

"Dick? Can you hear me?" Bruce asked as his eyes scanned the monitors. His heart rate had increased further. Not fast enough for him to be calling a doctor or attempting to restart his heart to get it back into rhythm but it was definitely faster. 

Then Dick's head snapped back and the shaking they'd become accustomed to now turned into convulsions. 

"He's having a seizure." He reached under the bed to grab a latch, putting the bed flat. Damian got the idea and quickly put up the sidebars so the acrobat didn't go rolling off the bed as he fitted. "Time beginning seizure, 10:02. Remember that." Damian nodded. 

"Did this happen to the others?" he asked hesitantly. Anything to fill the dead space only occupied by the occasional grunts from Dick. Bruce nodded, his gaze narrowed in but not on Dick nor his monitors. It was somewhere past Damian's shoulder but he couldn't turn around to see. He knew not looking at his older brother wouldn't kill him yet he couldn't tear his eyes away. 

At 10:05, the seizure subsided but the shaking continued on. Dick's eyes peeled away from the back of his skull and he stared at the ceiling as though it were a piece of fan art. He traced the lines in the ceiling tiles and the dots in the material it was made from. He then slid his gaze over to Damian and his eyebrows knotted together as he tried to make the shapes piece together into something understandable. 

"Grayson?" He looked more confused at the sound of his last name. "Richard?" Damian tried again. Still, confusion. 

"Rich...ard," he repeated slowly, the words feeling heavy on his tongue. He hummed. "Richard."

"It lasted three minutes," the boy stated instead of asking what the hell was going on.

"Confusion is to be expected," Bruce assured him. "Watch him. Tell me if he has another staring spell."

"Where are you going?"

"I have a potential antidote. It's hard to say without the original but it should at least allow the shaking to subside."

"And if it doesn't?"

"I'll keep trying."

"Is there nothing you can give him?"

"Any sort of muscle relaxant could have adverse effects. We can't risk this getting worse."

"Worse," Dick repeated.

"Not if I can help it, chum," Bruce told him sternly. He nodded jerkily.

It may have been hours, or it may have been half that, but Bruce eventually strode in with a vial and didn't waste any time injecting it into his ward. His confidence in his work was something to awe at, and Damian could only aspire to it. It was one thing to claim you found a cure and another entirely to readily put it into your son's bloodstream. Dick had just watched on with slight interest. The same way dogs glance at you when you go to the kitchen. 

"Wassit?" he asked.

"Something to make you better."

"Shakin," he commented.

"You are," Bruce agreed. The agreement had Dick content and decided the room was a lot more interesting than whatever was going on to cure him. He stopped when the needle was taken away and a cotton ball was applied.

"Is cold."

"The injection was cold? Or you're cold?"

"Mhm, sure," he replied.

"How long will the confusion last?" Damian questioned.

"It can take a while to go away. Although the seizure wasn't long enough to warrant a hospital trip, it's still a shock to the system."

"How can we be sure this isn't the poison progressing?"

"The other three didn't have the same symptom. One had confusion, two showed emotional instability. Symptoms of the postical stage of a seizure." Damian wasn't as easy to calm as Dick but he didn't interrogate any further. 

"How long until we know it's worked?"

"Likely when the shaking stops."

"Likely?"

"I didn't exactly finish med school," Bruce joked dryly.