Dick regained consciousness after what may have been half an hour.

Jason would be woe to admit that he was relieved, but the sound that his fellow vigilante's skull made upon a full-impact collision with metal would be reason alone to cause any vaguely sympathetic person alarm. The incident left Dick a nice, bloody gash on his temple that looked to be as deep as the Mariana's Trench, and a continuously expanding contusion that was every ghastly color of the rainbow.

When Dick first roused, he murmured something incoherent and then sucked in a big fat sip of air through his teeth as if suddenly realizing that amount of pain he was in, his entire body tensing in vindication for the obvious brain damage. His first instinct was to raise a hand to his indented cranium, but the effort to do so was quickly quashed when he realized that his hands were fastened by a chain behind his back—as were Jason's.

"Oh, man," Dick all but exhaled, looking for the world like he was having labor pains. "Shoulda gotten the license plate on the thing that hit me…"

Jason watched as his comrade struggled to let his eyes, which were no doubt sensitive to light, flicker open. "You all right?" he eventually asked. Stupid question.

If Dick processed the question, he didn't answer it. Instead he asked his own: "Where are we?"

Jason wasn't concussed, but even he didn't know how to answer that. What was supposed to be a normal night—the two of them walking around in their civvies, planning on shooting the shit at the cinema, maybe picking up a couple girls at a bar afterward—went south seven ways to Sunday in the span of probably ten minutes. One wrong turn down a shady back alley ("It's a shortcut," Dick had said) and the two vigilantes found themselves in an incredibly bad place at an incredibly bad time. Surrounded by a group of thugs, Jason figured they were just looking for a quick robbery or a senseless fight.

They ended up proving to be much more visceral than a bunch of petty criminals however, and put up a legitimate quarrel—wanting not to kill or steal, but to kidnap the two young men for god-knows-why. Jason figured that perhaps they wanted ransom captives, maybe for Gotham police headquarters—but regardless of their obscure motives, the fact was that they were no real match for the crimefighting duo, regardless of the quantitative advantage (there was eight of them). Kevlar costumes be damned.

But when Jason took on three of the mooks and one of them landed a surprisingly strong kick to his leg (which is now definitely broken) and Dick was momentarily distracted by the resultant agonized cry, one of the baddies who had been down for the count suddenly seized the precious moment and took a crowbar to his head in an MLB-style batter's swing. Grayson was out cold before he hit the ground.

Dually incapacitated, Dick and Jason ended up with burlap sacks thrown over their heads and were tossed into the back of a creepy white van—the kind that look they're made specifically for kidnapping purposes. Jason made sure to land some blows with his colorful vocabulary while his good kicking leg was out of commission. Next thing he knew, him and a slumbering Dick were thrown into a dimly-lit white-walled room, almost like a crude holding cell, with chains tethering them to the wall.

They sat there on the floor for at least thirty minutes, Dick unstirring, Jason stewing. That was, until Dick fought to make the ascent out of his comatose state.

After a moment of reflection upon all this, Jason grumpily answered his cohort's dazed inquiry: "Beats the hell out of me." He turned to get a good look at Dick's face for the first time since the latter rejoined the land of the living; frighteningly enough, even in the dim lighting, he looked—well, as if he had gotten hit in the head with a crowbar. His face was ashen, utterly drained of color except for the encrusted red that leaked out of the obnoxious gash where the metal connected, and the polychromatic bruise. Surely enough, the swelling was coming in with a vengeance. And if all that wasn't evidence enough of a pretty gnarly concussion, one of Dick's pupils was so dilated that it was markedly bigger than the other.

Jason's instinctive reaction was to suck in some air through his teeth. He wasn't easily perturbed, but something about those mismatched pupils in addition to the other obvious indicators of injury made him flinch. "Yikes."

Dick's own reaction time to that unhelpful remark was slow and dazed. His eyes and mouth drooped, making him look like a brain-dead zombie. "W-What, did I-?" he looked forward and tried to summon some recollection, tried to remember the words he wanted, looking to Jason as if he was contemplating the key to all the universe's extensive knowledge. "Did I get…hit in the head…?"

"Yes."

Dick never sounded more drunk. And Jason would know. "S'it bad…?"

"Yeah, it's pretty bad."

"Ugh…" the acrobat's head rolled back and connected with the wall, earning Dick another hiss of pain. Jason watched carefully, afraid that his comrade might keel over or begin to wretch—with head trauma like that, there was no telling what unpleasant symptoms would show up without proper medical attention, and Dick certainly looked incredibly ill. As it was, Jason was surprised that his elder brother had come around at all; a hit like that, maybe two inches to the left or three seconds quicker, could have easily killed him off.

But then again, the thugs that incited the encounter seemed adamant about keeping the duo alive. When the two of them were thrown into the van, Jason could hear one of the thugs in the vehicle's cab upbraiding the guy that had wielded the crowbar that dealt the sizable dent in his brother's skull; "You idiot!" he had shouted, "We need these boys alive!" God knew why the hell that was, but for Jason it was always throw the punches first, ask questions later.

Jason's thoughts were interrupted by Dick's slurred voice; "What…what happened?"

"You took a crowbar to the head from some thug in an alley," Jason explained, presuming that his brother's memory was as clear as mud. He couldn't but add a little quip; "And you always said I have a thick skull."

Dick didn't so much as offer a good-natured chuckle. In fact, he didn't do anything to acknowledge that he had heard a single word his wayward sibling said. "Ugh, man…head feels like…s'in a vice…Did I get—did I get hit?"

Jason's brow knitted together. "Yeah. I just said that."

"Y'did?"

"Literally ten seconds ago."

"Oh…I must, must be…"

"Concussed. We need to get you to a doctor." Jason jostled his shackles. "Soon as we get the hell out of this dump."

"I just need…just need…" Dick's head lolled back again and his eyes began to flutter as if he didn't have the strength to keep them open. His face, whiter and more drawn by the minute, began to go lax as he began to lose the battle to hang onto the waking world.

"Hey!" Jason extended his good leg and kicked Dick in the shin, earnig a yelp of pain. Jason felt (slightly) bad, but he knew that letting Dick pass out was a slippery slope. "Don't fall sleep," he demanded as Dick struggled to recover and searched like a blind man to establish eye contact. "I need you upright for when we get out of here. I got a bum leg, and there's no way I'm hauling your unconscious ass."

Dick's face suddenly morphed into a look of confusion and concern. "Your leg…what happened to your leg…?"

Jason's frown managed to get bigger. "We got mugged. In an alley. Remember?"

"Shit," Dick murmured. Jason almost chuckled. "Maybe that's why my head is…so…ah—"

"Just stay awake, alright? And if you have any brilliant insights on how to get out of here, lay it on me. I'm open to suggestions."

Dick never worked so hard to follow what somebody was saying to him in his life. It was as if everything Jay enunciated reached him three times slower after passing through a snow blower. He leaned his head back and squeezed his eyes shut, trying willfully to banish the confusion and the incredible headache—more like a migraine, really, but turned up a few notches to add subwoofer-but his efforts were mostly fruitless. Miraculously, he managed to utter a question that wasn't totally unconstructive; "Did you see…who grabbed us?"

"There were eight guys in the alley," Jason answered. "I do remember what they looked like. Stupid bastards weren't wearing masks. But I have no idea where we are. They covered our faces with sacks until we were tossed in this broom closet.

"When…Bruce doesn't hear from us, he'll…he'll figure it out…"

At the mention of Bruce and the idea of him coming to his rescue, Jason felt a certain recognizable heat rise past his neck into his cheeks. His brow narrowed and he felt like barking out at Dick, but miraculously had the wherewithal to hold back for the moment. Nonetheless, he grunted through his teeth, "I forgot. Goldie keeps in touch."

Amazingly, of all times, Dick caught that and seemed to understand the implications. His brow knitted intensively together, but he wasn't able to rebuke the way he would have on a regular day. "What...?"

"Forget it."

Dick was unrelenting, even though his head lolled forward now as if his neck was a mere thread incapable of supporting the weight of his skull. "Jay—Jason—Bruce cares about you too."

"I said, forget it." Danger was creeping into Jason's voice.

Unfortunately for the junior former robin, his elder brother was characteristically unrelenting when it came to the subject of family; appropriately enough, it was unspokenly understood that he more or less functioned as the mediator between Bruce and his perpetually bickering children, to the extent that Alfred wouldn't intervene. Jason never understood Dick's insistence upon some kind of idealistic familial image, but, then again, nobody in the family was as idealistic as Dick. Jason himself was bent upon his angry and vengeful agenda; the cerebral Timothy Drake lacked his oldest brother's people skills; and, obviously, Damien (or the devil-spawn as Jason liked to call him) was much too good to bother trying to get along with anyone.

Jason was by far the most aloof, but one way or another, intermittently found himself drawn back to his connections with the "bat family," regardless of his efforts to severe them for good. But Dick was the only one he ever vaguely got along with, although they had their fair share of squabbles. Then again, Dick seemed to be the one that everyone universally got along with anyway.

"…cared."

The sound of his brother's hoarse voice took him out of his contemplations and he looked toward the concussed robin. He had been talking, but Jason was too deep in thought to notice. "What?"

"I said—" Dick suddenly cringed and hissed in pain, even though nothing changed as far as Jason could tell. Probably the repeating pangs of a migraine. "—that he—that Bruce—always cared. But you're just—too stubborn to see it."

"Oh, piss off." Jason said, rather harshly. One look at Dick, who was trying to incite reconciliation even while horrendously concussed, and the younger vigilante felt a small pang of regret—a feeling he wasn't used to. But even he could recognize that now might not be the best time for him to act like a dick toward his brother. Accordingly, he heaved a sigh and tried again:

"Look, I think it's cute how you try to 'bring the family together' or whatever, but it's beyond me, okay? I've got bigger fish to fry. Bruce had his chance."

Dick's eyes were closed again, but his eyebrows were furrowed in such a way that made it look like he was listening. When Jason was done speaking, his head lolled toward his voice and his eyelids fluttered as if he tried to establish eye contact, but just couldn't. "Woulda thought…you v'all p'ple…would…b'lieve 'n s'cond chances…"

Jason couldn't help but feel the heat continue to rise in his face, but he managed to keep his—albeit, frustrated—voice at a reasonably calm level. "Why should I have given him the chance in the first place? He never cared, before or after. He's a farcical bastard, but you can't help but see the good in everyone." He glared ahead, not looking at Dick, not needing to clarify the event to which "before or after" referred.

Dick was still hanging on to consciousness by a thread. "Jason, he…he adopted you—"

"Don't you get it?" Jason angrily cut off, momentarily forgetting his inward pledge not to snarl at his brother just this very moment. "He didn't adopt me because he cared, or because he saw something in me. Bruce only took me under his wing because he missed you."

There was a pause, and a sudden jolt of unfounded worry had Jason forgetting about his momentary acrimony and staring at Dick, who, too incapacitated to argue further (if he even understood what Jason had just said), was visibly losing strength and slackening off as darkness overtook him.

"Dick!" Can't fall asleep. Coma. Bad news.

The elevated volume of Jason's exclamation caused Dick to flinch as if he had been electrocuted. Recoiling as much as he could while shackled to the wall, the first robin kept his eyes squeezed shut and hissed in pain. Jason demanded again for his sibling to remain conscious, but the latter dazedly disregarded the instruction and murmured something akin to "five more minutes" as if he was being dragged out of bed for school.

Jason sighed in both frustration and egregious concern. There was no telling when those goons would be coming back to do whatever the hell it was they wanted to do with their captives, and with Dick in such a state, and Jason a lame mule, there was no way to fight back. They had to figure out how to get out, and fast; waiting for Bruce to figure it out might not be the wisest course of action, but the younger vigilante was one brain down and burdened with a nearly vegetated older brother.

"Bruce…"

The second Robin was once again jostled out of his thoughts by Dick's voice; he looked wide-eyed at his brother, seeing him attempt to keep his head upright and open his eyes, but neither function would cooperate. Fresh blood from the gash in his temple dripped off his chin, and his face somehow managed to go another shade whiter, from what Jason assumed was blood loss.

Dick continued; "…M'head…is…killing me—"

The younger man was more worried now then he would ever admit. "Dick, it's me, Jason."

"Unf…Is Alfred-? Have any aspirin?"

"You're not at the manor."

"Huh?" Dick finally got his eyes to open again, suddenly, but then seemed to instantly regret it as the photosensitivity sent another hit of pain through his skull. "Oh—Jesus. Did I get—hit in the head?"

Jason heaved a deep, resigning sigh. Dick was getting worse by the minute and the clock was ticking toward the seconds that escape would be made infinitely more difficult by the return of those mooks. There was no telling when their friends and family would notice that something was wrong, but Jason imagined it would take several more hours of their disappearance to cue them on, and he had the eerie feeling that it would be too late by then. Although, even if he did, within the next few minutes, miraculously figure out how to break himself and his brother out of there, they were both arrantly incapacitated—Dick with his head trauma that was worsening by the second and Jason with only one good leg—and it was looking like immobility would be keeping them grounded. Even if Dick was able to walk—which it was looking progressively more like that would not be the case—there's no way in hell he would be able to help Jason given the state that he was in.

"Just stay awake," Jason found himself saying as his mind raced. "Don't pass out on me, alright?"

"S'ry, B.," Dick slurred. Now his eyes were rolling in the back of his head. "I j'st…have this…killer head ache…"

"I'm not Bruce. I'm Jason."

"Who?"

"Jesus Christ." Jason's teeth ground together; now he was immensely concerned. Dick was talking nonsense, edging closer to an amnesiac episode; and, despite Jason's encouragement, there was no way he was going to be able to stay awake. Jay tried not to think of the worst scenario, but he was privy to the consequences of head trauma that goes untreated—not to mention that their kidnappers probably didn't plan on being particularly gentle.

Jason's head snapped forward when he heard footsteps approaching from the corridor right outside the hostage room; looks like time was running short. Speak of the devil.

"Shit. Shit. Shit."

Jason wasn't usually one to panic, and he wouldn't define his present preoccupation with the approaching hazard as just that, but damn if he didn't feel his cool slowly but indefinitely slipping through his fingers. Sparing another glance at Dick didn't help, as his elder brother now looked dead to the world—he lost the battle to hang on to consciousness and his injured head now hung listlessly to one side.

The footsteps paused right in front of the door and Jason looked forward in visceral anticipation, bearing his teeth like a feral dog. The sound of latches clicking and jostling alerted him to the unlocking of the door; Jason could see the outline of a large, brooding figure behind the frosted window.

"Dick!" he tried, to no avail. The first Robin was out cold. "Shit."

The door finally began to open and Jason's mind raced. Time to think of a plan, and fast.