TW: SERIOUS INJURY

It was supposed to be Dick's day off, a rare one at that, but he was never one for a quiet night in. Damian called him around midnight asking if he could cover his shift since something came up. That something, as Dick found out through Bruce when he asked for Damian's route, was his cat getting sick. He didn't retract his answer though. He knew that Damian wouldn't be able to concentrate if he knew one of his beloved pets was ill without him by their side. He'd only get himself hurt. Besides, he had nothing better to do.

So, on his night off, Dick donned his Nightwing suit and flipped about Gotham for a few hours. He was supposed to stop at around three in the morning so there went his hope for a decent night's sleep but Damian could be called in for a favour in the future. The teen could take over in Bludhaven for a bit so he could have a night off sometime else. It might be nice for him to have some independence and a taste of what it was like to handle a city singlehandedly.

He'd gotten through the night with little to show for it. It seemed that everyone heard Nightwing was in town and decided they'd have themselves the night off to plot or whatever criminals did when they weren't committing crimes. He was heading back home, filing the night away as a bust, but was halted by the smell of smoke. It didn't take much to find the source and he quickly made his way over to help.

The fire had set Gotham's sky orange and red, the smoke billowing and settling thick in the air. As the source came into view he realised it was one of the older apartment blocks. If they weren't careful, half the city skyline would go up in flames. He watched as firemen ducked in and out to save anyone they could. A line of ambulances was consistently carting off victims whilst those who thankfully didn't receive injuries were forced to join the police-controlled crowds as their homes went up in flames. Children in their pyjamas wrapped up in coats or silver blankets from the fire crew clung onto their parents in horror, incapable of comprehending just how bad the damage would be.

Ever the hero, he jumped into action.

"Evening folks, where do you want me?" he asked one of the free firefighters.

"Oh thank God, there are people trapped on the higher floors still. Think you can get up there?" He smirked and nodded, already shooting his grappling hook up. His suit was flame-resistant to an extent. He couldn't chill in a fire for hours on end but he could dip in and out to save families without the thing setting alight so he didn't see the job as anything more dangerous than a mugging.

It took some manoeuvring around fires bursting out of windows but Nightwing finally managed to get inside the building and got to work finding people. He was wary of the fire licking the walls and eating away at the occupants' possessions, but he still didn't regard the fire on the same level as his more dangerous antics. It was just a building fire that was probably started by someone frying a little recklessly or sleeping with their candles lit. This was all in a day's work in his opinion. How bad could it get?

Batman heard about the fire over the radio. He didn't think much of it at first since firefighters were already on the scene and chose a robbery at Wayne Labs over it. He may not trust the city's police to do their job but he trusted the firefighters to do as much as they could.

He felt some guilt as he turned away from the fire until he heard Nightwing was on the scene and decided it would be well handled. The firefighters plus his protege? Everything would be okay. He trusted Nightwing to be on his game and he'd funnelled enough money into the city fire service over the years to prevent understaffing or faulty equipment. They were trained well enough, weren't they? They'd be fine.

Yet, there was this feeling that kept digging into him as he drove to Wayne Labs. One that told him something was off but he couldn't put his finger on what so he kept dipping into the channel for the fire every now and then for some reassurance. There were updates on civilians being helped out of the building by Nightwing and each of them had a few injuries here and there. It seemed no one had died so he assumed the worst was over. He eventually turned off the report to deal with the robbers.

There was an almighty creak above Nightwing's head as the fire ravaged the building much faster than previously expected. He felt terrible for pushing people out of the window when they were clearly terrified of leaping at such a great height but he needed to keep funnelling the civilians out before the whole place collapsed. Below they'd be captured by the firemen so he couldn't feel too bad when he heard them screech in fear. It didn't make him feel much better though.

Luckily, the building was short compared to the apartment blocks surrounding it and he could see why. This place would never get clearance for such a thing when it was made out of pure fire fuel. He dreaded to think about the possibilities of what would have happened had it been taller.

Bruce had tried in previous years to ensure lower-rent apartments were up to code but he couldn't find everywhere. Although it shouldn't be, it was hard to maintain quality control when building companies knew all the shortcuts and Bruce couldn't vet every building personally. It would only take one inspector to have an off day or want to finish earlier for something to go unnoticed.

Nightwing reached the top floor after helping someone else out of the window and he began to yell out for anyone and everyone left behind. His lungs and nose were starting to burn from the black smoke consuming the air and he was sweating buckets from the pure heat of the fire slowly cooking him alive. He felt like a lobster being boiled and he was sure he looked like it too. He'd have to get out of the pot soon. The last civilian had commented on his flushed cheeks and told him to get the fuck out of dodge but he was never one for self-preservation. Not with innocent lives on the line.

"Hello? Anyone here?" he yelled but there came no reply. The fire was deep into the foundations now, getting at everything that held the floors up, and he knew that he should get out now but what if someone was unconscious in their flat and couldn't hear his calls? He couldn't damn them to burn. The thought made him sick. What if there was an older woman trapped in her flat because her walker was on the other side of the room? What if there was a kid too terrified to move to even attempt to flee?

Coughing and spluttering, he kicked open doors to each of the apartments before running around them for a quick scan of the area and then repeating the process. The air was becoming heavy and breathing much harder as the fire greedily took the oxygen to fuel itself to burn harder but he had to keep going just in case.

There was another creak as the fire reached the roof but when he heard a crack he looked up instead of down. Had he looked down, he would've noted that the cracks were actually coming from the floors being weakened by the fires. His search for non-existent cracks on the ceiling had him caught off guard when he fell through the flooring. A scream ripped out of him as he went tumbling through and landed on the ground below. He was sprawled out for just a moment but it was a moment long enough that more flooring from above could break off and slam down on his left arm, pinning it beneath the rubble.

Another scream was torn out of him but he doubted anyone heard. He was the only one in the building or at least he hoped that was the case. The rubble was boiling hot from the fire and he felt it burn his skin and suit into some sort of congealed mess due to it being pressed down with such pressure. Alongside the burning, he'd suffered enough broken bones to know this was really bad. It was as though he could feel every part of his bone splinter and shatter, pressing on the inside of his skin attempting to break out of it.

Sobs of agony greeted him as he tried desperately to pull his arm away and somehow move it from under the debris. There was no use to it because whichever way he moved, it wouldn't budge. He was trapped. His mind was swimming from the pain and heat, dots beginning to appear in his vision along with tears. Despite his fight to escape, he couldn't fight back his body's mercy of making him unconscious for a bitter end for long. He weakly pushed at the rubble hoping it had fallen at just the right angle that if he shoved it, it would topple off. Logically, he knew that couldn't happen but he still had to try because he didn't want to go out like this.

"Help!" he screamed into the night only for no one to hear. He knew nobody would hear. The firefighters specifically asked him to check these floors because they couldn't get to them. He knew that no one was following him up here.

"Help!" Was he screaming it in expectancy of a response or was it just for fighting to keep himself awake? Maybe he just wanted to put the energy out there that he wasn't going to accept his fate. Surely he still had a bit of luck in him to fight another day. Surely he was meant to go out to save the universe. Perhaps it was egotistical to think this wasn't a hero's death but he didn't care. He refused to die like this.

"Help!" Noticeably weaker this time. The fire was drawing closer, like a pack of hungry wolves waiting to rip into him. He heard that when you were burned to death, you didn't feel it once your nerves were gone since there would be nothing to send the pain signal. Guess he'd find out. Blackness drew in and he couldn't help but run to it for comfort. No one was coming. He may as well take the small mercy whilst it was still being offered up to him. With a whine of defeat, he let his eyes slip closed. It may not be a hero's death but he'd saved at least a handful of people who would otherwise be suffering the same. He could try to be content with that.

When Batman re-entered the Batmobile, he turned on the radio and could've jumped had he been not so well trained by the loud frantic voices. It took a minute to translate the noise into words but when he did, he slammed his foot on the gas pedal.

Nightwing was in the building and hadn't left before it began collapsing. The firefighters were asking if anyone had seen him yet there was a general sense of them knowing if he wasn't out of there already, there was nothing they could do. Batman was sure he broke the speed limit five times over to get to the burning building. That dark swirling feeling in his stomach told him that he needed to get there fast or he'd live to regret it.

They had close calls all the time, it came with the job, and he wouldn't usually think this was an issue but that feeling was there. He'd felt it before. He felt it whenever he heard his kid was in trouble and they couldn't get out of it without help. The feeling had never failed in warning him before so he wasn't going to ignore it now. Faster wasn't fast enough. Times like these made him wish he had superpowers that allowed him to teleport, run faster than light or fly faster than a speeding bullet.

Then he heard yelling about screaming. The radio couldn't pick it up but he believed them. Civilians could mistake the noises of a building falling apart as screams but these were professionals. They'd been to so many sites over the years to know the difference and he didn't doubt them.

Nightwing was indeed still in the building that was collapsing more and more by the minute and he was screaming.

Nightwing would know no one could save him.

Nightwing was screaming knowing he wouldn't receive help.

Nightwing screamed because he thought this was the end and he knew his son well enough that he wouldn't leave this world in silence. It wasn't his nature.

Batman felt his heart leap to his throat and the whole car journey went by in a blur until suddenly he found himself running up to the flaming apartments. There was no more screaming but he knew better than to take that as a reason to give up. There was always a chance. They'd danced with the devil enough times to come close to the end, some of them even meeting it, but they always got back up. He wasn't going to believe his boy was gone until he saw it with his own eyes and even then, he wouldn't truly believe it until he saw that casket enter the ground.

He ran past the firefighters and studied the building for a split second before he found his in.

"He's above the seventh floor!" one of the civilians shouted. He nodded to himself and shot his grappling hook at a neighbouring complex. His mind was screaming at him to go faster as he pulled himself up and crashed through a seventh-floor window.

Looking around the fire-consumed floor, there was nobody to be found so he continued up the stairs to the eighth-floor hallway where he found his protege.

"Nightwing!" he shouted as he dashed over.

Horrible-looking blisters had appeared on his skin from the heat swarming his neck and his cheek, his suit interlacing them as it melted to his body, and his face was beet red but that's not what worried Batman. Blood was pouring out from where his arm was crushed by debris and he got a sinking feeling when he saw how the little part of it showing was covered in an intense burn. Batman swore he could see the bone tearing at the already damaged flesh.

The culprit appeared to be a sharp piece of fake marble flooring. It took his breath away in all the worst ways but he knew he couldn't stop to take it all in. The fire was crawling ever closer to them and they didn't have much time before it all collapsed.

A rush of adrenaline ran through him as he attempted to push off the burning debris off his former protege's arm and, had the robbery been more intense to handle or had he been in a fight with a bigger villain, he wouldn't have had the strength needed to push it a few precious inches away. Dread swept through him when he was greeted with the truly mangled remains of Nightwing's arm. It was broken in almost every way he could imagine and through the rips of his suit, he noticed that his skin was discoloured. It was already dead.

Shaking his head, Batman knelt down and swept him up into his arms before getting out. Pieces of the floor above and the floor below were breaking apart and soon enough there would be no floor to stand on and no ceiling to stand beneath. He felt a brief surge of panic run through him but he shoved it back down before it could try to consume him. Through the flames, he found one route that had the least fire around it and he took it as his shining beacon of hope. He ran towards it with Nightwing cradled close to his chest and prepared himself for the pain as he crashed through the window, shielding the injured hero as he did.

The brief free fall was halted when he shot another grappling hook line to an opposing building and swung himself down to the street level where an ambulance had been on standby from when the fire began. The paramedics were by his side with a stretcher and he felt numb as he told them to pack up, one taking the time to tell the hospital they had a hero coming in whilst trying to help. They yelled to and over one another as they rushed Nightwing to the ambulance.

At one point, he heard the word amputation which made his knees weak and stole his breath. It wouldn't end Nightwing's career if he had one arm, he could tell you that for nothing, but it was something irreversible. They couldn't give him the old arm back. He'd have to learn a new way. It was a testament to how close this had been. He'd nearly lost his son the night he wasn't even supposed to be working.

Soft steady beeps replaced the roar of the fire Dick had passed out to. He'd woken up in enough hospitals to recognise it as a heart monitor.

Slowly, he began to do a check of his body. It was something he started doing to stop himself from panicking but soon became a mundane task that helped him figure out what stupid thing had gotten him on bed rest now.

The first thing he noticed was the painful throb of his burns but other than that he didn't think there was anything for him to worry about. Certainly, nothing that warranted a heart monitor. Perhaps he'd breathed in too much smoke by the time he was saved. His throat did burn but he didn't feel like it was bad enough. He'd also passed out in the fire. Maybe his brain had been partially cooked in the time it took for someone to save him.

A good while later, he opened his eyes and when he did, he hissed at the feeling of burned skin being moved. He wondered if his domino mask had melted onto his skin. He didn't look forward to seeing his reflection. The pain was mostly on his left side so he could just turn to the other side when people took photos. His right side was always his best side anyway.

Not too bad considering he was stuck in a burning building so he couldn't be too unhappy with it. He thought he was going to die the last time he was conscious so it could only go up from there, right? Anything was better than dying in some random fire.

That was until he turned to his left side and found he didn't have a hand or a forearm resting against the white sheets. He didn't have a bicep either. In fact, the whole arm was gone, the only evidence of it ever being there was his shoulder now wrapped in thick bandages. His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath as he realised there was truly nothing there and he wasn't just seeing things weirdly. His arm wasn't there. Even after blinking a few times, it wasn't there. It was gone.

Dick found himself just staring at the empty space where it should be as though it would somehow magically appear. Like some spell would lift and he would see his trusty left arm right where he remembered it. A little worse for wear maybe since he remembered just how bad it had looked before he became unconscious but it would be intact and connected. His heartbeat was faster as it sunk in and his arm was gone. That this time his dance with fire had left him burned in more ways than one.

Tears began to well in his eyes and he let them fall but he couldn't scream out like his heart begged him to. A piece of him was missing but he couldn't shout or yell about it. He could only stare and cry silently. Shakily, he brought his right hand over and felt the bandaged stump to just make sure it really wasn't there.

"Fuck," he whispered to himself.

What else was there to say? Dick had spent the best of his life throwing himself into danger so he couldn't be surprised when he lost something. He withdrew his hand and laid it limply against the white bedsheets.

Wow.

His left arm was gone.

Sure it wasn't his best arm but it was his arm. He liked that arm.

Could be worse he supposed. He could be dead. He could still give one-armed hugs. He was definitely strong enough to keep doing his pull-ups and some sort of trapeze work although he'd have to get used to the new balance. This was fine, wasn't it? He could adapt. One-handed push-ups for life and everyone thought those were cool. Upon carefully moving what was left of his left arm, he let out a shocked shout at the jolt of pain it sent through him when he did.

Suddenly the door to the hospital room burst open and his family poured in only for him to smile awkwardly at them. He was always a performer. It was his best and worst trait. He knew that they'd probably already been briefed on the damage. They'd probably seen it too. He could imagine them anxiously waiting for the moment he woke up, preparing themselves for him to scream and sob that a part of him had been destroyed so mercilessly. Dick wouldn't do that to them.

"When I was asked to lend a hand tonight, I didn't think you meant literally," he greeted in hopes of lightening the mood. It would crush him otherwise. They were staring at him and he could see they were worried not just for now.

In their eyes, this was going to be the hit that kept him down but he wouldn't allow it. They'd work this out, he would find a way. He wouldn't let them continue to look at him as though this would kill Nightwing and everything he spent his life doing. All those experiences he missed out on and the ones he did being tainted in some way, he wouldn't let them go to waste. He couldn't. When you defied death one too many times, you find a way to make anything less than your heart-stopping work for you.

He'd hoped for a laugh with his line but the most he got was a sigh from Jason. The burns probably made it all look much worse than it was or maybe he'd been out for a long time so they couldn't count out some horrible one-in-a-million complications that would finally off him.

"Tough crowd. Cost me an arm for that joke but I've heard some people are paying a leg too." That got the same reaction as they all funnelled into the room and found their spots. He noticed that they were all staying on his right side which wasn't too surprising. "Am I giving Two-Face a run for his money?"

"Don't worry pretty boy, you've still got your looks," Barbara assured him with a small smirk. At least she was trying to volley with him, unlike the others. Should he be more like them? Maybe but he didn't want to be. He didn't want to concentrate on it because it would take one faltering smile to strip away his facade and he didn't know if he could put it back up in time. For now, it was easier to pretend everything would be okay and try to believe it as much as he could.

"I'm so sorry chum," Bruce told him. So he'd been the one to save him then, Dick assumed. He couldn't imagine how the man felt. He'd already lost one son with fire and rubble surrounding him. It must've been some nasty deja vu to see it all over again. "I couldn't get there in time. The doctors did everything they could but your arm wasn't salvageable. The bones were broken and the burns ran too deep. There was nothing they could do." He settled with that information for a moment. Vaguely, throw the fuzz of panic and fear, he remembered his arm was bad. Really bad. He didn't realize it then but he did understand now that not only had it been shattered it'd been mangled by flames.

"It's alright, we'll work something out," Dick replied, remaining optimistic. It was then he sensed the family cottoning onto what he was trying to do. They seemed relieved. He was glad to make them feel that way.

"We can work on a prosthetic arm," Tim jumped in to say. "It'll be just as good, if not better. Barbara and I can have the schematics by the end of the day. Cyborg could help too." Barbara was quick to nod encouragingly to that idea. Had they been stewing on the topic since they heard about the amputation? It was sweet of them if that was the case.

"At least it was the left arm. Never really used it. Can my new one have lights?"

"Whatever you want," Tim responded with a laugh.

"So, no left arm," the acrobat found himself saying after a beat of silence. "Did I at least get everyone out?"

"You did. They would've died without you. You did good," Bruce informed him. He nodded to himself and let out a tired sigh. No one died tonight (was it still tonight?) and he could live knowing that he'd done something good. He told himself it was worth it in hopes that he wouldn't need to tell himself that anymore. He would just know it to be true. "Go back to sleep chum."

"One more thing. Can the lights be blue? I have an aesthetic to maintain."