74 hours before: (4 days)
10 pm
Secret location

Dick was slowly but surely fraying at the edges. He had escaped his first apprenticeship by infesting himself with the same nanobots Slade had blackmailed him with (that had been one heck of a painful misadventure), but this time around, he held no leverage whatsoever, Slade had all the cards.

So, when the mercenary ordered him to follow, he'd done so with little complaint (his siblings did not have the same restraint, but all their threats and promises hadn't put the mercenary off).

He'd been led through sparse hallways and empty rooms, bare lightbulbs the only source of light. A tight staircase led up to a large hall, the wide walls covered by various monitors and electronic devices. The back of the hall was decked out in pale blue mats, similar to the ones used in the Batcave. Expansive training and exercise equipment littered the ground, and one wall was used as weaponry; daggers, knives, swords, guns (most of which Dick couldn't name), and dull training weapons were put up on display.

The room gave him a horrible sense of déjà-vu. He barely suppressed a shudder as Deathstroke turned his pale eye to him. "I tried to make it as close to the original as possible," he said, his words dripping with certain cruelty.

He knows exactly how this is affecting me, Dick realized tiredly. The hall was an almost exact replica of the training- and debriefing room of Slade's last hideout Dick had been to. The one where he had been held captive and forced to endure terrible training for weeks.

"What are we doing here?" he asked.
Slade regarded him for a moment and pulled off his bi-colored masked, a sly grin prominent on his face.
"I may have given you a deadline to sign the contract-"
"A deadline to sign over my life. Permanently. Through magic."
Slade's grin widened into a smirk.
"Didn't take you long to figure out. Good. My apprentice has to have a sharp mind."

Dick scoffed, not bothering to mention that not he had discovered the merc's ploy.

Slade turned toward the biggest screen and the keyboard beneath, pressing a few buttons. A man's profile popped up, showing name, family, profession, similar data.

"Jones Walker. Politician. I was hired to take him out. I want you to do it for me. It will be your first mission in a line of plenty."

Dick sucked in a sharp breath. The data said Walker had a husband and two adopted kids.

The floor swayed beneath his feet and seemed to swallow him whole. Deathstroke couldn't really expect Dick to take another man's life. Deathstroke knew he couldn't, so why would he demand this of him, why now, without breaking down his defenses first? He couldn't... Dick would never...
His breath hitched, but he did his best no to betray the nausea roiling in his gut.

"I'm not your apprentice yet, Slade, I won't commit murder for you."

"Not even at your family's expanse?"

There wasn't much Dick wouldn't sacrifice for his loved ones, but there were lines he couldn't cross. He swallowed down vomit. Jason was in critical condition, had lost too much blood, and was running a high fever, probably the effect of an infection.

Nervously, the seventeen-year-old shuffled his feet. If he didn't comply, who else would end up like Jason?
But...

"If I did this, they would never forgive me." And maybe that was Deathstroke's angle.

"Could you forgive yourself if I tortured them to insanity?"

Dick flinched. Could he? Does it matter? He wished he could tell Deathstroke he'd do it, would break the rule. But he'd rather live with a guilt-weighed heart than have his siblings look at him with contempt and disappointment. Their mission was to save lives, to make the world a better, safer place, and Dick would not put a kill in their names on his siblings' conscience.

He steeled himself. "I won't kill for you, Slade. Not now, not ever."

73 hours before
11 pm

Damian perched on the gargoyle overshadowing the entrance to the Gotham Zoo. There had been reports of illegal trafficking, the director had gotten to good money in a very short amount of time, and Damian was more than willing to show those inhumane criminals what happens if you mess with Robin.

The night vision in his lenses allowed him to spy a black van rolling up to the entrance gate. Two men jumped out, another opened the trunk, giving Damian a perfect view of a row of dirty cages. The man pulled two to the front, opened them, and then joined his companions as a woman wearing the working clothes of the zoo opened the gate for them.

Damian swiftly scaled down the building, wedging his feet into groves between lose bricks. His slight stature allowed him to touch the ground in little over a minute, silent as a shadow. He moved into the cover of the van, examining the cages closer. The metal did its job well enough, the locks heavy.

The traffickers didn't sedate the animals but had soundproofed the back of their vehicle instead. The smell hit Damian with hot veracity and he wrinkled his nose. Stale, damp air, smelling of wet hair, and animal excrements. The two cages in the front were small, cleaner than the rest.

In the last five months, three animals from the zoo had gone missing, five more from other cities, all by the same group. Damian was going to put a stop to it and save the poor animals once and for all. "This shows just why animals are so much better than humans," he whispered, before sneaking around the van, crossing the short distance to the wall.

He stayed in the shadows, sneaking through the still-open gate and moving through the dark, trailing his targets.

The woman lead the three men through the carnivore cages, past tigers, lions, and even a white wolf. Then came the birds section. Damian's face heated with rage the further they went. Animals were not meant to be stuck in cages. They were filled with sorrow, could no one see that? Bird of prey cawed and flapped their wing as the four adults passed until the group stopped in front of a beautiful eagle, a new addition to the zoo, very rare and very expensive. It had been all over the Gotham Gazette.

The shortest of the traffickers brandished a thick bag as he was let inside by the zoo employee. The other two men stayed outside.

Robin took his chance. He threw a smoke bomb, watched as the two traffickers reached for their weapons first in confusion, then fear. Robin jumped the first one from behind, knocking him out with a well-placed punch to the temple.

The second man swiveled around, raised his gun, and Damian was on him, kicking the firearm out of his hand with a roundhouse kick, crouching low and slamming the enforced heel of his boot into his shin with a crack, an uppercut silencing the man before he could cry out in pain.

Then he vanished into the shadows again, taking the guns with him.

Seconds later, the last two criminals piled out of the cage, looking around furiously, not even checking to see if their accomplices were still alive.

"Who's there?" yelled the short man, and the woman cuffed him in the back of his head, silencing him with a look. Both had their guns drawn.

Two batarangs later had the man crying out, his gun exploding in his hand. The woman took one look at the infamous weapons and bolted.

Damian cursed, catching the bleeding man with his elbow in the face to take him out of the equation, then gave chase.

The panicked woman rushed back the way they'd come and Damian took out his grappling gun, fired, swung around the low-hanging branch of a tree to gain the high ground and build up momentum, and planted his feet on her back.

The woman cried out, twisting to the right at the last second, throwing Damian's aim off course.
She stumbled sideways, crashed into the railing of an open cage, and plummeted over it, down 14 feet.

Robin froze, the sound of her head splitting open on the rough stones echoing around his head.
His breath caught in his throat, his grappling gun slipping from his fingers.

"What did you do?"
The words were nothing more than a whisper, and Damian spun around, color draining from his face. Grayson stood behind him, the blue on his chest a stark contrast to the shadows covering his face.

"Grayson-"
"Batcave," the older ordered, voice cold and hard as steel. "Now."
Damian flinched. Grayson had used that tone of voice before, but never with him.

He swallowed hard, glancing back at the woman, a pool of blood spreading around her head like a grotesque halo.

Riding his motorcycle, Damian had to focus an unnecessary amount of energy on breathing. He could not get the look Grayson had regarded him with out of his head. Cold, indifferent, disappointed.

It was an accident. He released a shuddering breath. Once Grayson realized Damian had never intended to kill the woman, he'd be back to normal. He had to be.

But once they reached the Batcave, Grayson pinned him with that look again, and Damian stayed rooted on the spot.

"Was it on purpose?"

Damian shook his head vehemently, stepping closer. "No, no, she moved to the side and the momentum took her over the railing!"

There was a moment of silence.

"Grayson? I... you know I'm not that anymore. I don't kill. Never again."

Richard's eyes were like fractured glass, sharp and distorted.

"You should now better. You were trained by your mother and grandfather, as well as Bruce and me. We don't get to make mistakes like that. We don't make those mistakes. Were you aware of your surrounding? Did you know where she was going?"

Damian couldn't breathe. He felt like drowning, his lungs heaving as his chest constricted. There was blood rushing in his ears. He doesn't believe me. The realization came with crushing clarity.

"I didn't know. The kick was directed at the middle of her back! She would have landed on the walkway! I swear."

But Grayson wasn't listening anymore. Damian's breath shattered, his mind fogging. His fingers twitched, his heart shuddered.

"Please."

His whisper went unheard.

72,5 hours before
11:30 pm

Damian came to slowly, his head pounding. His breathing was uneven, a stutter to his exhale he forced himself to ignore.

He lifted his head, the pounding worsening. He bit back a pained groan. Grayson, Cain, Brown, Drake, and Todd laid unconscious around him.

The last thing he remembered was Grayson being shoved into their cell, the door slamming shut behind him. Then a sharp hiss as the room had begun to fill with gas.

His breath hitched, the memories of his dream stealing its way into his mind.

He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting a full body shiver. Not real, he reminded himself, leaning his back heavily against the wall.

A groan directed his direction to his fellow vigilantes. They were beginning to stir (aside from Todd, who was getting paler by the hour).

Not five minutes later (in which Damian did his best to recollect himself) the others were awake, sporting headaches and spells of nausea.

Drake was the first to speak. "Did..." He hesitated, casting a quick glance at Damian. Damian bristled. "Did you guys just spend a mission inside Damian's body, too?"

Again, Damian felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. There was no way everyone had seen what Damian had. Right? They couldn't... no one could know. Not about that.

It was Dick who finally broke the silence. "It's a new form of fear gas," he explained quietly, eyes trained on Damian. The youngest Robin couldn't look him in the eye. "It's a gas that can be directed at a certain person, but everyone else who inhales it will be sucked into the same vision, experiencing emotions, fears, pain the way the target does. Deathstroke explained it to me before... before he used it on us."

He shifted closer to Damian, who had begun trembling all over. "I am not afraid of accidentally killing someone," he spat, and Grayson sighed, stopping close enough for Damian to touch. "You know I would never assume you would kill someone willingly. Accidents happen. They shouldn't, but they do. To you, me, Cass, Tim, hell, even Bruce."

He gently grasped Damian's shoulder. "I believe in you, Damian, always have, always will. And nothing you can ever do will make me love you less."
Damian sniffed, turning his head away to hide treacherous tears. "I have no idea why you would think I care what any of you imbeciles think of me."

Drake snort. "Demon."
Damian sneered at him.
Grayson shook his head.