Chapter 3: Jason's P.O.V
I woke up in a dimly lit room, and the first thing I noticed was that Bruce was sitting next to me.
"Jason are you alright?" Bruce sounded really worried
"I'm fine"
"The bullet barely missed an artery, if it had hit that artery, I very much doubt you would be breathing right now"
"What do you care?"
Bruce looked me directly into the eyes "You think I don't care about you?"
"Well why would you"
"Because your my son"
"No, i'm no-one's son"
"Jason"
"Can we just focus on Dick"
Bruce hesitated and spoke reluctantly "Yeah, sure"
'Bruce doesn't sound too psyched about helping Dick, maybe he isn't such a golden child after all'
Bruce passed me some crutches and we left the 'medical room'. Tim looked up for a brief moment and scowled.
"So I see Mr. Sombre is awake"
"Shut it Replacement"
Tim was about to say something else but was cut off by Batman
"Tim, Jason both of you shut up!, Dick is missing and we need to find him" He turned to me "Tell us exactly what happened"
I explained what happened in full detail, (except for the fact that I wanted popcorn, I thought it was better to leave that out). I noticed how scared Tim looked, he was already imagining the worst 'Typical' I thought rolling my eyes.
"Do you think he'll be okay?" Tim's voice sounded so small it actually made me feel sad.
"Dick's a tough guy, i'm sure he'll be fine" I told him.
He looked up at me with despondent eyes and I felt my heart fall apart but I would never let them know. Bruce's voice broke the brief silence.
"Ra's is a very dangerous man and until we find out why he wanted Dick we can probably assume the worst"
"Why?" I asked stupidly
Bruce turned to fully face me "Because the only reason I can think of Ra's taking Dick is for revenge on me"
"Why, what did you do?"
"I didn't kill him"
Tim walked over to the 'Bat-seat' as Dick had named it years ago.
"He's a madman just like Joker, you can't let what happened to me, happen to him" I whispered to him after Tim walked away. Bruce eyes were pain filled.
"I'll try my best but my best wasn't good enough when it was you, I can't guarantee anything" He whispered back and walked over to Tim.
I felt terrible 'How could I let him take Dick?, what could he be going through because of me?' I walked over to them.
"So what do we do?" I asked
"Assuming Ra's is after revenge, he'll probably contact me somehow to gloat"
"And if he doesn't?"
"Then chances are he's already dead"
"We can't think like that!" Tim shouted
"The Replacement's right" I said ignoring the annoyed glare Tim shot me, then a though occured to me. "How long was I out?"
"About 5 hours"
"WHAT!" I noticed Tim wince when I shouted and lowered my voice. "And you didn't found anything?"
"No, only a syringe with Dick's DNA"
"Maybe it was filled with some kind of knockout liquid?"
"No, it's almost impossible to inject someone with a knockout liquid and have them survive"
"There is no trace of anything in the syringe" Tim added
"Yeah, got that dim-wit" Then his stupid remark gave me an idea. "What if the syringe wasn't filled with anything?" Bruce and Tim gave me a confused look. "I'm fairly sure that Ra's had been planning to capture Nightwing, he was probably originally planning to plant the empty syringe there with Dick's DNA on it, figuring you'd find it when you activated his tracker, after taking him so that you would become super worried and he would ignore you for a while, to make you scared and frantic, then he contacts you and does whatever he wants to do after that, but my showing up changed his plans slightly, so i'm not sure why he would still do that"
"He probably thought you would just run off and forget any of it even happened" Tim shrugged "And you probably would've if you didn't get knocked out before we got there"
"Listen, just because I don't hang here and be such a goody-two-shoes like you, doesn't mean I don't care about any of you! Ok?"
Tim shrunk back a little and looked away back to the screen, which flickered green and revealed a gruesome sight. Dick was shackled to the wall his arms spread out like wings, his feet tied in chains behind him so he was kneeling, his head hanging down, his mask removed, blood covered his suit dripping down into a large blood pool and his left shoulder was obviously dislocated. Tim jumped off the seat and ran backwards from the screen, tripped over and fell into my arms, he was hyperventilating and I pulled him into a hug, which amazingly he didn't reject, instead he leaned into my embrace 'Poor kid will be traumatized for the rest of his life, goodbye sleep hello nightmares'. I looked back up at the screen and felt tears run down my face 'This is all my fault, I should have been able to stop this'
Ra's walked into the line of sight, stood next to Dick and held a knife up to his throat.
"Good evening Detective"
"What do you want Ra's?" Bruce growled
"I just wanted to teach you a lesson, I told you that you should have killed me when you had the chance, now your original little Boy Wonder can pay the price" He pressed the blade against Dick's throat producing a thin cut and line of blood. Dick looked directly at the camera with pleading eyes.
"LET HIM GO RA'S!"Bruce screamed. Tim was still hyperventilating his eyes glued to the screen and his tears dripping down onto the ground making annoying 'Plip Plop' noises.
Ra's took the knife away and Dick dropped his head down again, (from exhaustion, relief or shame? I don't know, probably all three).
Ra's laughed "I will kill him, but not yet, you have two days to save him, good luck Detective" The computer flickered back to the previous image of files. Tim was still in my arms crying and struggling to breathe.
"It'll be alright Tim, your not gonna help Dick in this state, okay?, Come on Timmy, you need to collect yourself for Dick's sake" I spoke softly and gently rocked him back and forth until he stopped he stopped hyperventilating and got better control of himself, he stood up and wiped his tears away. I stood up and followed over to the computer where Bruce was sitting.
"You should go to bed Tim" He said
"NO, no way, not while Dick's in the hands of that madman!, I will not abandon him"
"You won't be any help if your tired"
"I'm not tired"
"I have to look over the tape and I don't think you want to be here for that"
"No I don't really want to relive that, but I have to, I might spot a clue that you'll miss, I need to help my brother and it doesn't matter if I re-watch it, I already know it's gonna turn up in my sleep for the rest of my life, so sleeping would be a bad idea anyway"
Bruce sighed "Fine"
I inwardly smiled 'Maybe Tim isn't so bad'. Bruce started the video again (which he had recorded) he muted the audio searching for background noise and finding nothing (to everyone's surprise). We re-re-watched the video looking for any signs of where they were and again, found nothing.
Bruce sighed and leant back in his chair, I was positive Tim was about to cry again and I was thinking of the best way too kill Ra's if we failed to save Dick.
"What now?" I asked breaking the silence. No-one answered.