Late Night Surgery

They were working late, trying to figure out yet another serial murder. Outside, the rain that had started only an hour ago was coming down in torrents.

"Are you all right?" Frank asked, seeing Dick surreptitiously at his knee.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Dick replied, and the fact that he didn't bite Frank's head off was as great an indicator of his pain as anything was.

"No you aren't," Frank insisted, not allowing himself to be deterred by Dick's glare. "And you know it. I get it, you're tough, but you have to take care of yourself."

"Fine, I'm in pain," Dick snapped. "But that doesn't change the fact that there's a serial killer out there."

"And you think we're going to catch him tonight, when you're in pain and we're both sleep deprived?" Frank shot back. "Come on, I'll drop you at your place."

"I don't need a ride," Dick said irritably.

"Like I'm going to let my partner take a motorcycle in this weather," Frank said sarcastically. "Especially since I know what you call driving."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with my driving!" Dick insisted, just as he always did. But then he admitted, "A ride would be good. But I'm not going to let you leave me without transportation so you'll have to stay over. We can work on the case." He tossed the file into his backpack.

***

"This is it," Dick said. "You can park anywhere." Frank parked as close to the door as he could. At the door, Dick entered what must be a 20-digit passcode into a keypad, his fingers moving too quickly for Frank to catch any of the digits. Only then did he put his key into the lock. "Electrified if you don't do it right," he explained with a grin.

Inside the building, Dick stuck their umbrellas in an umbrella holder, and who really had one of those? The downstairs rooms seemed to be mostly unused, which was confirmed when Dick started up the stairs. Frank followed with a mental shrug.

"So what is this place?" he asked. "It looked like an apartment building from the outside, and I can see that a little on the inside too, but it's clear that you're the only one who lives here."

"It was an apartment building," Dick replied. "But I didn't buy it so I could collect rent."

"Wait, so…you're loaded like Tim is?" Frank asked.

"It isn't difficult to collect a bit of money when you pay attention," Dick said enigmatically. For a second Frank wondered if he was dirty, but it was Dick. There wasn't a chance that he was anything other than squeaky clean. "Make yourself at home." He limped into the kitchen and grabbed a pill bottle. "It's true, you know," he said, filling a glass with water. "The rain makes it hurt more. And not just my knee, although that's certainly the worst."

"You have other old injuries?" Frank knew he did; he'd seen Dick's arms, covered with old scars, when they were in Gotham.

"I broke a lot of bones when I was a kid." Dick was more relaxed here, to the point of hopping up to sit on the counter. Frank thought he saw a glimmer of what Dick had been like before the shooting. "I mean, a lot. My X-rays are interesting to look at."

"Why did you break so many bones? I mean, was it abuse or what?"

A private smile appeared on Dick's face. "No way. My parents were great. But we were trapeze artists in Haly's Circus. Then after they died I had a…very physical afterschool job. Like pro sports level of physical."

"You were a trapeze artist?" Frank had heard from the other detectives about how active Dick had been before he got shot, but he didn't think any of them knew how active he'd been before he'd become a cop.

"Like I said, when I was a kid." He smirked. "I'd offer to show you my trapeze, but it's in a warehouse."

"You have a trapeze?" The amusement Frank felt was evident in his voice.

"Doesn't everybody?" Dick tossed back with a grin, but almost immediately the grin was wiped off. "Did you hear that?" Dick asked, and didn't wait for a reply before he hopped down from the counter and began limping through the rooms. Frank trailed behind, although he hadn't heard anything. He hurried to catch up, though, when Dick stopped dead in a doorway and started muttering curses. On the floor of what looked like a den, in front of an open window through which so much rain was coming that the carpet was already soaked, was Batman. The water around him was already turning red.

"Close the window and do what you can," Dick said, and left the room. Frank couldn't figure out why, but he did what Dick asked, but besides closing the window all he could do was turn Batman over and make sure he was breathing. He couldn't figure out how to get the armor off. He was reaching for the mask when he got hit on the back of his hand with Dick's cane. "Don't," Dick warned, and started removing things from the cart he had been pushing.

"I couldn't figure out how to get the costume off," Frank told him.

"Probably a good thing that you didn't try harder," Dick said. "It's booby-trapped."

"Who booby traps their clothes?" Frank asked. "Wait, how do you know?"

Dick didn't reply other than to start cursing under his breath again. He did something to Batman's belt, and then quickly removed the apparently disarmed costume to reveal a body with scars upon scars, and fresh wounds leaking a lot of blood. "Do you know any first aid or am I going to have to do this all myself?" Dick asked, then cut himself off. "Whatever. Just get the gauze out and apply pressure to the wounds and I'll do the rest." He started rummaging through the cart.

"Shouldn't we call an ambulance?" Frank ventured, applying pressure. "He doesn't look like he's in good shape."

"Don't worry," Dick replied. "I can handle a few bullet wounds."

"You do seem rather, um, stocked up on medical supplies," Frank said. His mind was still spinning. How had Dick known how to remove Batman's costume? The only possibility he could think of involved both Dick and Batman being gay, and Dick was too much of a ladies' man for him to believe that. "So do you know Batman?"

"I used to live in Gotham," Dick said as if it explained everything, attaching a bag filled with a clear liquid to Batman's arm with a needle and tubing. It looked like he'd done it before. He was wearing latex gloves now. He shooed Frank away from the wounds and peeked at them, and handed Frank a tray with surgical instruments on it.

"Somehow I don't think every Gothamite knows how to remove Batman's booby-trapped costume," Frank said pointedly.

"You're fishing," Dick growled, using something like pliers to pull a bullet out of Batman. It fell in the metal dish with a rattle, and he switched to a prethreaded needle.

"Do you blame me?"

"No." Dick's stitches were sure, his hands steady. "But the less you know, the less that can be tortured out of you."

"Just tell me one thing and I'll drop it."

Dick switched to the next wound. "What." It wasn't a question, wasn't a guarantee that he'd answer, but it was enough.

"Were you two, you know…"

"In a relationship?" amusement colored Dick's voice. "Not the way you mean it, no. I…helped him with some cases." Again there was the pause to consider phrasing that Dick used a lot when he talked about his past, like he wanted to tell the truth but not in a way that actually told anything.

Frank nodded and never brought it up again. In the morning Batman was gone.