Ice in His Veins (Shredded Fingertips)

This is new. Joker wasn’t there when Mr. Freeze threw Duke into the river and iced it over top of him, and Duke doesn’t know why he’s there now but he needs to find out — Gotham’s villains rarely work together, and it’s never a good thing when they do.“Well, Mr. J, as they say. You’ve gotta fight ice with ice!”“That’s not a saying,” Duke gasps, borderline hysterical, nearly throwing himself off the bridge in his effort to doge the ice rays winding past his legs. His words come out wrong and slurred, even to his own ears, and while adrenaline and numbing shields fractions of the pain, he distantly realizes that something is wrong with him.His comm bursts to life in his ear, and Duke’s headache peaks. Black dots cradle the edges of his vision. “Signal, Red Robin and Red Hood are on their way.” —He loses himself sometime during the beating. His fingertips are a bloodied, blurry mess where they lay on the ground before his eyes, and they burn like hellfire. The ice in his veins and the fiery pain is a nauseating combination, leaving his hands in flames but his wrists numb and his stomach in knots.—Or: Duke gets hurt on patrol. Family cuddles ensue.