Ingenious >>>(Young Justice/Dick Grayson)<<<

Chapter 5

March 5th
02:34
Wayne Manor

Dick woke when he heard a scream from down the hallway. He jumped out of his bed and ran toward the origin of the sound. He heard a second yell come from Parker's room.

He threw the door open and saw the younger girl writhing in her sleep, clearly dreaming of pain. She muttered incomprehensible words, some possibly in another language. She cringed and tossed her head back and forth on her pillow. She clawed at herself, trying to rip herself apart. She flailed helplessly, alone in her dream.

Dick, after getting over his brief moment of shock, remembered what Bruce had told him about vivid nightmares. The small amount of medic training Robin had received had touched upon the sleeping science, and what to do if ever a situation of trauma should arise.

For a second he recalled the reasons behind the living nightmares. Bruce had started by explaining the dreaming process, a scientific field that was still much of a mystery. As the brain processes and organizes information, it attempts to make sense of all the random thoughts and memories that had appeared during the day. It tries to fit everything into a 'story' of sorts and make sense of all of the information it is receiving.

During REM sleep, the part of the brain called the pons send a signal to the spine, shutting off the neurons. The resulting paralysis makes sure the sleeper does not move whilst sleeping.

The nightmare would come if something was wrong with the way the pons delivered the message. The brain would be aware of the paralysis, but not the reason why it could not move. Warning signals would be everywhere, causing everything to panic, including the dream. The result would be a hell inside the person's mind, one fueled by fear.

The pons' incomplete or incorrect work was normally caused by extreme stress or trauma. The person would experience a bad memory, or be living in an endgame world where everything just went haywire.

Dick could not tell why, exactly, she was having nightmares, but he knew what he needed to do. A nightmare disorder was unhealthy. To have those kinds of dream at her age was not a good sign. He had to wake her up.

The first thing to do was to stop her uncontrollable fit. He jumped on her bed and tackled her. Being much stronger than Parker was an advantage he possessed. He held her arms straight out with his hands and placed his feet on her's, using his arms to try and control the rest of her body. Dick shouted her name, hoping the sound would shock her out of the nightmare.

The effort was enough to finally open her eyes. Her hyperventilating was a direct result of the nightmare, he knew. He crawled off of her. Parker stared in front of her, clearing recovering from a panic attack. Her unblinking gaze shifted to his eyes. The terror she felt filled her usually confident orbs.

She shivered from fear, gasping as she intook breath. She avoided looking directly at him and look back at the nearest wall. Her hands were fisted together involuntarily.

Dick sat down next to her and did the next thing he had been taught to do. He hugged her, holding her head close to his chest. When she did not object, he knew she had subconsciously wanted something of the sort. He remembered something else he had been told: when a victim is getting over a panic attack, one of the best things to help them recover was to hold them, unless the panic attack had been a result of being touched wrongly.

Whatever Parker had been dreaming about, Dick showed her that she was not alone; someone was there for her. At that point, it would not have mattered who it was holding her. He had his arms wrapped comfortingly around her.

For a few minutes, they just sat there. After a long silence, Dick spoke. "Do you want to talk about it?" He asked. He felt her sake her head. "Ok." He said calmly. The final step, start talking. He had to make sure she would be fine, and to do that he had to make sure she could speak. It did not matter what she spoke about, as long as she could hold a conversation with him for a minute. "Does this happen often?"