It has been too long.
I'm going to start by saying throughout these past few weeks, my life has gone to shit. I've had anxiety since I was five years old, but a few weeks ago- it started getting worse. it came to a head a few weeks ago, with debilitating panic attacks. I was afraid to leave the house, I always had to leave the room at school, I couldn't focus, and i felt so... useless, that I couldn't even control myself or my feelings.
I've been out of school the past week, meeting with my doctors and getting medication readjusted. But I'm atill afraid to return to school- though I WILL go back tomorrow.
My medication has been adjusted, and I'm on a new diet and, so far, am doing well.
That being said, I felt as though I owed you guys an explanation as to the long wait. I apologize, but no matter how much I love you guys- my health comes before fics.
Wish me luck at school tomorrow, and thank you so much for all your support/reviews.
It was raining. The four siblings had situated themselves in the batcave, intent on waiting out the storm of police and nosy newscasters that'd been hampering them for the past few days.
But with the incoming of a major thunderstorm and the cleanup of the crime scene, the press had quickly packed up and left, leaving them alone together.
Scarlet looked over another online tabloid, scoffing at the headline- Trauma in the Wayne Household. It was full of bullshit- stating that Tim was traumatized in therapy, Dick had come home, and she, in her distress, had attempted suicide, and Bruce Wayne was frantically struggling to keep the family together, though he was still reeling himself from Jason's death. They'd have written about Damian, as well, she had no doubt- if they knew about his existence. They hadn't broken the news to the public about him... yet.
Dick sat down lightly beside her, on her favorite smooth stone ledge in the rock face of the cave. He peered idly over her shoulder, eyes scanning the article, before looking away, disinterested.
"I told you not to read those." he spoke quietly.
She shrugged. "I was bored. Besides- it's like a fucking soap opera- listen to this- Tim is apparently in shock and hasn't spoken for days, I apparently fell into deep depression after Jason's death, and apparently this pushed me over the edge and I attempted suicide three days ago, prompting your return home so suddenly."
Dick scoffed slightly, as well. Scarlet was often the subject of ridicule in the tabloids, as was he- because technically, they were heirs to the Wayne fortune, and since they never really appeared in the public eye much, it was incredibly easy to craft lies about them.
Still, she exited the webpage, going back to passively editing a program she'd been designing, and the cave was filled yet again with silence. It wasn't the comfortable kind if silence, either- it was the kind of silence made by people who were too shellshocked and tired to speak.
The only sound was the trickling of water and the muffled sound of thunder in the distance, seeping in from some opening in the cave that led to the outside.
Bruce strode into the cave, then, and his brood quietly looked up for a moment before settling back to what they were doing.
Tim was pretending to go through old case files he'd already committed to memory long ago, and Damian was huddled in a dark recess, pouring over some arabic text he'd found.
He couldn't say he wasn't concerned. These past few days had been hard on everyone, especially Tim. It had to have been the worst crime scene the boy had seen, and in his home, no less...
The ones who seemed to be taking it the best were Scarlet and Dick, which was to be expected, since they were the most experienced.
He nodded to his younger children, before approaching the two eldest.
"I have to attend a meeting. Think you two can handle Gotham tonight?"
Dick and Scarlet exchanged glances. Bruce rarely let ANY of them out of his sight, this was a big deal...
"No problem. What about them?" Dick turned, jerking his head towards Tim and Damian slightly.
"Just you two. Run a few sweeps. They aren't ready..."
"I'm fine." Tim had strode over from where he'd sat in front of the computer, arms crossed, eyes serious.
Bruce shook his head. "Scarlet and Dick can handle it, Tim." he said firmly.
Damian was watching the exchange carefully from the darkness.
"It's just a quick sweep, anyways. I'll be back in a few hours." Bruce's gaze lingered on his two eldest, slightly concerned- Be careful.
Dick raised his head almost imperceptibly, a gesture Bruce knew well. We will.
And he'd pulled up the cowl and disappeared into the zeta tubes.
Damian scoffed from where he was seated in the corner, a muffled, "Ttt." escaping his lips. Tim, too, looked disheartened...
"It'll be a quick sweep, he said." Dick reassured him, grabbing his escrima sticks and holstering them in their usual place, the pouch attatched to his right thigh.
"We'll be back soon."
And the pair of siblings ducked into the Bat Mobile and were gone.
Gotham turned out to be quite nice that night- except for the freezing rain. They dodged across rooftops carefully, taking care not to lose their footing on the slick cement that was Gotham city.
Eve then, few criminals were out in the rain. It was when the concussive thunder stopped, and the lowlifes came alive around them, that they knew they were in for an interesting night.
They hadn't even noticed the man who watched them from the shadows yet.
They stopped three muggings, one armed robbery, and interrupted a drug deal near the docks, waiting in the shadows if the fire escape to garner more information.
"Yeah. Diablo's comin' in tonight- it's gonna be a damn orgy. Best quality stuff yet- that's why I'm sellin' out to you. Need cash to hold in my stake, if ya see what I'm putting down..."
The cloud that'd been covering the moon receded, and a moment later Dick was in the air, flying overhead and flipping once, to land perfectly on the pavement, blocking the escape route out of the alley that led to the streets.
"Care to share a little more information?" he asked, twirling his escrima stick idly in his hand.
The men exchanged glances, before both making a bolt deeper into the alley...
A swift sidekick landed the seller on his ass in the pavement, and the buyer, panicked, pulled a gun...
Scarlet had roundhouse kicked the gun from his shaking hands in a simple move, and the instrument of death fell to the pavement, useless.
Nightwing smiled at his sister's prowess, smirking triumphantly.
"I wouldn't try that if I were you. She's a little... liberal... with force."
The buyer was beginning to hyperventilate, eyes wide and dilated, skin going ashen.
"I... I don't know nuthin'... i swear!"
"Then go." Nightwing was eying the seller, the man who'd spoken of 'Diablo', from where he sat on the pavement, eyes dangerously narrow...
The buyer's eyes darted frantically towards his pistol, which laid, glinting on the pavement...
"Leave the gun." God knows you'll be able to get ahold of another one by the end of the night. Nighthawk said, sounding disgusted. If there was one thing she hated, it was the incredible black market for firearms in Gotham.
The buyer seemed to concede, as he raced past her into the night, glad to be out of the mess.
Nightwing approached the seller, the winded man who still sat on the pavement, crouching before him.
"Now- who's this Diablo character?" he asked skeptically.
The man-clearly nervous- swallowed. "I ain't sayin' nothin'..."
"Nighthawk. Handle him." Nightwing ordered.
A grin blossomed on Scarlet's face as she pulled the dagger from her boot, nodding.
Nightwing turned and began to walk away.
"Hey!" the man called after him, panicked. "Youse a hero! Heroes don't kill!" he sounded desperate, and Nightwing turned, grinning.
"I'm a hero. I DON'T kill. But that doesn't mean I have to protect you from people like HER." Nightwing nodded towards Nighthawk.
Scarlet ran her tongue over the blade of her dagger sensually, tasting the cold steel. Her eyes appeared wild, and it was clear in this moment, dressed in all black with no emblem on her chest, that she appeared to be anything but a hero.
The seller seemed to think so, as well. "I'll talk, I'll talk!" he burst out frantically, eyes never leaving Scarlet.
Nightwing turned on heel and grinned. "Thought so. Spill."
"I met the guy twice- all I know it, it's comin' in on the docks tonight." the man spat, stumbling over his own words in his haste. His eyes were wide and frantic as he looked between Scarlet, who was still staring at her blade like it was some holy relic, and Nightwing. "That's all I know. You gotta believe me, you just GOTTA..." he sounded close to tears.
"I do." Nightwing assured him.
A dissatisfied growl sounded from Scarlet, and Nightwing rolled his eyes as the man stumbled to his feet.
"I know I said you could have him. We'll find another one..."Nightwing reassured her, and the seller, frantic to escape the girl deemed phsyco, sprinted out of the alley...
Scarlet laughed slightly, and Nightwing grinned himself. "Good performance. Could've used a little more phsyco, though." he admitted. It was nice to have someone who wasn't as well known in the hero world to play bad cop.
Scarlet rolled her eyes at him. "Whatever."
Dick grinned. "Good job, though. Wanna go bust a drug deal?"
She scoffed, punching his shoulder. "Like you even had to ask."
Tim heaved a weary sigh, pulling on his gloves.
Damian looked over at him quizzically. "My father instructed us to remain behind."
Tim scoffed. "Like you're one to talk. You defied orders on, what, the first night? You're lucky Scarlet saw you."
"At least I'm Bruce's TRUE son." Damian snarled.
Tim's head snapped up from where he'd been equipping his utility belt, about to make a snappy retort, when he heaved a sigh. This had been going from conversation to brawl real fast, and that was the last thing he needed right now.
"Look. Scarlet and Dick aren't answering their communicators. I think something is going down. Are you going to stand here arguing with me, or let me go help?"
Damian looked to be pondering the question for a moment, and Tim looked towards the R-cycle impatiently.
"Well?"
Damian seized his red hoodie, pulling it on.
"You don't expect me to allow you to go alone, do you?"
Tim rolled his eyes. "Then get on the damn bike."
They crouched on the beams beneath the pier, listening to the silence of the night. The black waters of Gotham Harbor lapped against the supporting woodposts, and they watched the black horizon, which seemed to fuse with the black waters perfectly, from below, listening for any tell-tale signs of activity.
This had to be the place- from what they'd heard about the shipment and it's sheer size, not to mention the pier's secluded location- it had to be here.
There. A snatch of conversation to their left, near where a loading dock was situated, adjacent to the pier.
Nightwing nodded to her, and they deftly leapt from beam to beam, until they were directly beneath the loading dock, listening to the conversation going on above.
"Calm the fuck down. He'll be here- fresh from Columbia- with the load he promised. For Christ's sake, man, put the gun away- the last thing we need are the pigs comin'."
"I'll do what I want, asshole. I got a lotta people depending on this shipment..."
"Yeah, well you ain't the only one. So shut it, or I'll shut it for ya."
Scarlet peered up from beneath the boards of the dock, utilizing a knothole to see. Feet- lots of feet- at least six pair. And three more on the edge, watching the horizon eagerly, no doubt armed guards to make sure no shit went down when Diablo arrived. Until then- they could care less about whatever went down.
She motioned to Nightwing carefully. Nine men. He clearly got the message and nodded, before they fell back to stillness, listening to the exchange going on above.
"You really wanna test me..." there was the sound of metal against skin, then, and the slap of a body hitting the docks. A bit of crimson dripped between the crack between the board, and some gruff laughter sounded from above.
"Asshole got what was comin' to him." one of them muttered.
"Calm your tits, boys- Diablo is here." one of the guards growled.
Sure enough, they heard the faint sound of a motor in the distance. The vague outline of a boat became vosible in the distance, and money began to change hands ad the man docked and began using a pulley-system to manuver up his narcotics from the bosr below.
Their eyes met from where they waited beneath the docks. Scarlet looked to Dick, waiting for him to give the signal and them to throw cowboy on those assholes...
Something roared across the dock.
"It's Robin!"
All the color drained from Nightwing's face in an instant, as the sound of the R-cycle screeching across the docks could be heard.
"Plug 'em!"
The very idea of using the element of surprise went to hell, as both siblings vaulted onto the docks and the air rippled with gunfire.
"Can't you go any faster?" Damian demanded, as they were hunched over on the R-cycle, braced against the wind rushing past them.
Tim grit his teeth in frustration. "No, I can't. So shut up and get ready for a fi-"
He wasn't able to finish his sentence, as the R-cycle hit a massive bump and went careening across the pier, right in the middle of the drug-deal.
Tim lost all sense of orientation, freeing himself from the twisting and tumbling metal and jumping down in time to hear alarmed shouts and gunfire...
There was a pool of blood at his feet. He stared, shocked, to see a thug unconcious at his feet, blood dripping from his nose...
"Tim! Get down!" Dick screamed the order desperately, and Scarlet's dagger flew through the air, suceeding in knocking the gun from the hand of a thug who'd been about to shoot him, point blank.
Head in the game. A moment later he'd moved, feeling bullets rush past him and cuffing the man Scarlet had disarmed with a right hook, seizing his ears and bringing his knee to the man's jaw, leaving him to hit the ground, unconscious...
Scarlet's boot found purchase in a man's groin, and he doubled over, allowing her the opportunity to shove him off the docks and into the churning harbor below, before she leapt at her next opponent, flipping off his shoulders and using a judo throw to slam him onto the boards of the dock.
Dick roundhouse kicked one man, swiftly switching legs to nail another with a hook kick, and blocking a switchblade knife with his escrima stick, braining the man weilding it by nailing him in the head with the hilt of his stick and laying him out.
Throughout the absolute chaos that was their battlefield, no one noticed the shadowy figure perched atop the crates, wielding two glocks and a silencer, making sure none of the bullets crept too close to his party by providing non-lethal shots. He hadn't intended to intervene tonight, but there was no way he'd stand watching the last two people who cared about him get slaughtered.
Dick had two men on him, while Tim was locked in fierce combat with another.
No one had accounted for the drug lord behind all of this, however. Diablo. And no one had accounted for Damian, who'd been pinned beneath the fallen R-cycle, and was scrabbling to get free and render aid...
Diablo noticed him. Scarlet saw the feral look in the man's eyes as he raised his gun, knew what was going to happen before it did... She was closest. She was wearing Kevlar. Damian wasn't. Some primal instinct to protect took over, and she raced in front of Damian as the gun went off...
She slid on her knees, shielding him with her own body. The impact of the bullets hitting rippled through her, sending her jerking back. She'd been shot before- what she wasn't prepared for, however, was the sudden excruciating pain in her shoulder, and the way the impact sent her careering back, off the side of the pier- falling through the night air, clinging to consciousness by threads, before she hit the water.
"NIGHTHAWK!" Nightwing's cry of anguish split the air, he moved towards the edge of the pier, only to remember Damian, as if as after thought, exposed and trapped. He moved, a swift flip ending with a harsh blow that surely fractured Diablo's skull and sent him crumbling into a heap.
No one noticed the shadowy figure abandon his guns and drive off the pier after her.
From there he turned to Tim, who'd been distracted by the fact that his surrogate sister had just fallen some forty feet off the pier after being shot multiple times. He was staring in shock, no longer playing heed to the knife-wielding thug... Nightwing successfully trapped thr assaliant by throwing a bola, rushing over to Damian, near the dock's edge...
He noticed the growing pool of crimson beneath Damian, and forgot about Scarlet for a moment, struggling to lift the bike off the boy.
"I-I'm fine! Save her!" Damian managed to stutter out, eyes wide with both shock and fear.
Nightwing scrabbled over to the right, staring down at the water. It was black, smooth black, unbroken by the night of anyone treading water.
"SCARLET!"
Pain. She was falling. The bullets had slammed into her chest, knocked the wind from her, she couldn't breathe... But nothing comoared to the burning agony in her left shoulder.
All of this registered in promptly a second, before she hit the water with enough jostling force to nearly knock her out. Water. It was fighting her, ontop of her, forcing her beneath it.
The dark green depths swallowed her. She tried frantically to swim upwards, but the pain exploded into flashes of colors before her eyes, and it was all she could do to cling to consciousness, and continue sinking.
A stream of bubbles escaped her mouth- she looked to the right, dulled awareness turning to alarm as she saw tendrils of crimson seeping from her burning shoulder and into the green water around her. Wisps of her own blood danced around her face before gray started to seep into the edges of her vision. She was running out of air- she could hold her breath for two, three minutes tops. Couple that with a bullet to the shoulder...
She gave in. So this was what dying felt like. Sinking deeper, unable to swim, loosing blood, losing air- it was far more peaceful than she expected. She'd died before- once. On a mission with the team, the original team. She been knocked unconscious and landed facedown in water, had stopped breathing for two minutes.
Both Dick and Bruce had nearly lost it. She felt a pang of regret. She didn't want to leave them, any of them, behind.
But dying was surprisingly nice, almost peaceful. Her lungs burned, she could feel blackness enclosing around her. So this was it. This was how she slipped away. She stared idly up at the surface, growing farther and farther away...
Suddenly the calm sheet of green glass that was the water above her exploded into a burst of white bubbles and foam, ripples rocking the entire surface.
Someone was coming for her. She watched them paddle frantically towards her, long, elegant strokes...
It was Jason. She could see his face, the raven hair, vibrant green eyes, it was her brother, he was either back from the dead or here to guide her through it. She reached out frantically, desperate to get to him, to see him- her mouth opened to scream his name and water rushed in, before blackness enveloped her.
