TITLE: Snowbound
AUTHOR: Anonymous
RECIPIENT:
PAIRING: Dick/Dami (Gen)
WARNINGS: None
SUMMARY: Dick and Damian are trapped on a mountain in a blizzard. None of their tech works, and their uniforms are definitely not rated for snow like this. How will they make it through?

They'd been in worse jams than this, Dick told himself. He couldn't think of any off the top of his head, but surely there were some. After all, the ropes they'd been tied with had been dry, brittle things, easily snapped, and they weren't dead.

They'd been drugged and left for dead on top of a mountain in a winter blizzard, which was pretty bad, sure, but it wasn't risk of instant death bad.

"I'm starting to rethink Todd's position on the permanent elimination of villains," Damian grumbled through chattering teeth. He had his cape pulled tight around himself with one hand, the other shielding his eyes as he scanned the stark white landscape, and Dick made a mental note to apologize for insulting his hood later. That was going to come in handy.

"Victor's not usually one of the bad ones," Dick said, crunching through the snow to stand next to Damian so he could tuck his own cape around him. Damian gave him a withering look, and Dick shrugged, forcing his frozen face into a smile. "You have to give him points for being on theme, though."

"Of all the people to be trapped on a mountain with," Damian muttered, but stuck close to Dick's side anyway, for warmth. Their suits hadn't been built to withstand these kinds of temperatures. Regular winter cold, sure - but this snow was wet and heavy, and if they didn't find shelter soon, they'd start losing their extremities. Dick already felt a burning in the tips of his ears under the cowl.

"I know, pretty lucky, right?" Dick quipped, squeezing Damian's shoulder. "Come on, we need to find shelter."

Damian grumped about it, but it was pretty much the first rule of survival under the circumstances, so when Dick started moving downhill, Damian followed. They moved carefully, their bootprints swallowed up by snow seconds after they made them. Dick had spotted the top of a tree sticking up out of the drifts, which meant they were deep - and one wrong step could leave them stuck up to their ears, or worse, skewered on buried branches. The winter had been bad enough in Gotham, but up here it was miserable.

He wondered where they'd landed. All he remembered was a sharp prick under his jaw mid-fistfight with Freeze's latest gang of themed goons, and then this bone-shattering cold. They could be miles from home. His best guess was the Adierondacks, or maybe the Catskills - then again, this might not be a mountain at all, just a glorified hill in the middle of nowhere.

After what felt like hours of teeth-chattering hiking, Damian stopped with a hoarse cry, jabbing a frost-covered glove at a square of dark between two leaning tree trunks. Dick tried to shout a warning about bears, but Damian was already wading towards the little cave, arms tucked tight around him. Dick armed himself with an extra-large baterang, the kind meant for Venom-imbued underlings, and trudged after him.

The cave was miraculously bear-free. Most of it was just a roof of tangled tree limbs caked in snow, but a few feet back there was a sloped rocky floor and a jumble of boulders forming a shallow cavern. It was just big enough for the both of them to sit comfortably - or as comfortable as they could be sitting on rocks in a blizzard.

"See? Five-star digs. Is this living or what?" Dick said, determined to stay cheery. Damian flicked a pebble at him, then resumed his huddle, drawing his knees up.

"S-start a f-fire, Grayson," he growled. "I ref-f-fuse to die of c-cold. It's undignified."

Dick obliged him, thankful that Bruce had planned for every eventuality with his utility belt, and thankful that he himself hadn't taken everything out for weight reduction. One of the pouches held a long-burning brick of fuel and some quick-start tinder, enough for a small fire that'd burn for at least a few hours.

Once he had a good blaze going, Dick started emptying the rest of the pouches on his belt, realizing with dismay that almost every electronic gadget had been fried by the combination of cold and wet. This must be why Bruce always kept a snowsuit on reserve - the normal stuff wasn't quite up to these conditions. They had no GPS, no comms, not even a damn cellphone.

"Fantastic," Damian muttered through grit teeth. "Now what are we going to do? This blizzard could last for days."

"Let me check one more thing, little D," Dick said in his most reassuring voice. He noticed with some trepidation that Damian hadn't bothered to correct him. "Our locators may still be on."

"Tt," Damian snorted, but fished down in his boot anyway for the little locator tab tucked on the inside. Dick did the same with the one mounted inside his cowl, shivering as he pulled the protective material down off his head. The momentary discomfort was worth it, though - the little red lights on the locators still blinked a reassuring red. Even if they didn't know where they were, Alfred would, and when he realized they'd gone missing he'd come to rescue them. Bruce too, probably, except that he was halfway across the world right now.

"See?" Dicks said with genuine cheerfulness, tucking both locators safely back away. "We'll be off this mountain in no time."

Damian grudgingly gave into relief and slumped down against the wall, sticking his hands out over the fire to warm them. "Hmph. If I survive your company, that is."

"It could be worse, kid. You could be stuck up here with Tim. Or your dad."

Damian pulled a face. "Drake would not survive. And my father..."

"It's just snow, soldier," Dick growled, turning down the corners of his mouth and furrowing his brows. "Keep moving."

"Tt, Grayson, that's not it at all. More like-" He squared his shoulders and glared, looking remarkably like his dad, only pint-sized. "Stop shivering, Robin. It's time for justice."

Dick cracked up, laughing so hard he worried he might cause an avalanche. "That's freaky, little D, you sound just like him!"

Damian looked a little startled by his own audacity, like Batman might swoop down on him for real for his impersonation. "It's called genetics. You should google it sometime."

"Yeah, but you're two feet tall and your voice hasn't even dropped yet."

"I'll drop you right off a cliff," Damian growled, flicking another pebble at him.

Dick laughed and deflected it. "What, and miss the hot cocoa and ghost stories?"

Damian groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. "Grayson! This is not a camp-out!"

Dick scooted around the fire and dragged Damian into an embrace, throwing an arm over his shoulder and ruffling his hair. The poor kid was still shaking a little, and Dick didn't want him to wind up in shock or with hypothermia. His smaller mass meant that even with the fire going, he was still losing heat.

Hence the cocoa.

"You sit tight, little D, and I'll make it a camp-out. Hand me that empty belt pouch."

Damian watched with deep suspicion as Dick crumbled one of their chocolate-flavored ration bars into the empty pouch, and then filled it with snow. He suspended the strange concoction over the fire with a couple of forked sticks, then sat back and pulled Damian onto his lap again, looking deeply pleased.

"You're so weird," Damian said, but looked intrigued despite himself. "That's going to taste foul."

"Oh, ye of little faith." Dick tucked his cape around them more securely, glad that Damian was too cold and tired to fight him. He remembered many a night when he'd clambered onto Bruce's lap much like this on a long stake-out, and how long it'd taken for Bruce to stop grumping about it. Like father, like son, he supposed. The thought of Bruce perched on his lap sent him into a fit of snorted laughter, and when Damian shot him a questioning look, Dick figured it was best not to explain.

"How about spooky stories while we wait for the cocoa to finish?"

"Nothing scares me," Damian snorted. "Do your worst."

"You're gonna regret that," Dick grinned. He gave the cocoa a little stir, then sat back, thinking for a moment.

"Some say that under Gotham's streets, deep in the sewers, there lives a huge primordial lizard from the dawn of time."

"Tt. Killer croc. Boring."

"They say the lizard rises every full moon to eat the flesh of the innocent. But sometimes, he's not looking for the innocent - sometimes he wants something different."

"Get to the point, Grayson."

"Every third full moon on a Wednesday, little brats who aren't scared of ghost stories had better stay indoors, because if they don't, the mystical power of the moon turns them into... sushi. And the Killer Croc eats them up!"

He grabbed Damian's sides, earning a startled yelp and a punch to the jaw. "Grayson! I hate you!"

"Got you," Dick grinned, rubbing his chin. "Quit squirming, you're going to spill the cocoa."

Damian grumbled, but settled down anyway. "That was a stupid story."

"Ok, then, short stack, it's your turn next. But first, taste this."

Damian accepted the cocoa-filled utility belt pouch gingerly, eyeballing the contents like it might jump out and eat him. "It looks lumpy."

"Yeah, kind of hard to dissolve all the rations without a whisk. But it has protein and stuff in it. It'll keep us going."

Damian took a sip, wrinkling his nose at first, then looking contemplative. "That's... shockingly palatable."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Dick grinned. "I mean, it's not Alfred's cocoa, but what is?"

Damian settled down under Dick's cape to drink the cocoa, looking sleepier by the moment. The warmth and excitement of the day were getting to him. He couldn't sleep, though - it was still too cold for that.

"Tell me a story, little D," Dick encouraged, squeezing his shoulder. "I bet you're good at it."

"I'm good at everything." Damian straightened up a little, brow furrowed in concentration. "Ok. I'll tell you a story about he scariest thing there is - ninja robots."

---

When Alfred found them, the Bat-Coptor's rotors scattering snow every which way, he expected the worst. Frostbite, shock, injury - long-term convalescence, at the best. Instead, he found them tucked away inside a little cave, a cheerful fire blazing, drinking some kind of strange concoction from a belt compartment, arguing about ninjas and pirates. Alfred was almost tempted to leave them in there a little longer - he hadn't seen Damian so at ease in a long time.

"Masters Richard and Damian," he said, poking his head into their makeshift shelter, "There are hot turkey sandwiches and a thermos of gravy waiting in the helicopter."

He was almost bowled over by the pair dashing for the copter's ladder. Dick let Damian up first, of course - there'd be plenty of gravy to go around.
They continued their pirates vs ninjas debate the entire ride home, though.