Wounded Birds

(rough draft; sequel to Guardian Angel)

A Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

A/N: I tried to write this one in third person, but it refused to work, so I had to resort to first person perspective again.

Part 1 (Dick)

A loud bang jerks me awake in a panic, and I don't relax much when I see what caused the noise.

I fell asleep at the kitchen table... There's a crick in my neck now, but I barely notice it. All my attention is on Damian, who apparently hurled the closest expandable object across the room and is now stalking back and forth, swearing as he grips his own hair in both fists.

"Damian?" I start toward him in concern, but pause when he jabs a finger at his laptop. I change direction to look at the screen, where I find a new joint mission for us.

...Well.

I flinch at the violent clatter of Damian sweeping his arm across a work table, knocking everything on it to the floor. "Damian." I move to intercept him and take his face in both my hands. He glares up at me, his features twisted with emotion, unshed tears glistening in his eyes. "Hey," I say, as gently as I can. "It's okay, Dami. This is good news."

"How?" he hisses. "How?"

He would have realized it himself by now if he wasn't so sleep-deprived. "Damian, nothing can kill him, not even us. This'll be the first contact we've had since our abduction. He'll figure out what's going on, Damian."

He draws in a shaky breath and then, to my surprise, wraps his arms around my neck and clings to me. I think this is the first genuine 'comfort me' gesture he's initiated since we've been here. "It'll be okay, Dami," I whisper as I hug him back. "He'll save us. That's his job. He'll save us."

o.o.o.o.o

I have to be careful with this recon: good enough that I don't seem out of the ordinary to the Owls, but just sloppy enough for him to notice and hopefully recognize me.

I'm in the crowd during his press conference. I'm close to his table that night when he takes three beautiful women to dinner. He's so good at not letting on that I don't know for sure until the next day, when I see the two new 'bodyguards' he's acquired.

Jason Todd and Cassandra Cain. They're in suits, sunglasses, and wigs, but I'd recognize my siblings anywhere.

o.o.o.o.o

We were unmasked soon after our capture, and once the true identities of Nightwing and Robin are known, it's pretty obvious who Batman is.

Damian and I have gained a lot of their trust during our time here (well, Damian has, anyway), but the Owls know better than to ever trust us completely. We've had free-ish rein during most of our missions, but this one will be different. The Court of Owls knows how crucial this assignment is as a test of our loyalty.

They will be watching us.

o.o.o.o.o

Some things never change... It seems we can still plan things together without ever being in contact.

Bruce Wayne and his highest-profile son, Tim Drake, host a public event together. They eat out afterward, shadowed by their two new bodyguards. Then they meander on the streets, heading in the direction of a nearby theater.

They pass through a dark, deserted street to get there.

They know that's where we'll strike. We know that's where they plan to catch us.

Of course the fight has to be real, and of course that jerk Jay is enjoying it. Damian soon takes him off my hands, but then that leaves me with Cass, which is both worse and better... She knows exactly how much to pull her punches, but she's also a better fighter than Jay - better than anyone in the world, probably - and as careful as she is with me, getting beat up by her still hurts.

She makes embarrassingly short work of me, leaving me dangling upside-down from a street lamp so she can go rescue Jay, whom Damian's just knocked unconscious. Bruce and Tim in their civvies can't help with the battle too much and are stuck pretending to dither, but Tim's fingers are flying on his wrist computer. Damian's throwing a fit in Cass's hold like he always does the rare times he gets bested in a fight.

I've been working to get myself free of the grappling rope Cass strung me up in, but I have to pause when Bruce comes right up to me. "Dick," he says softly, recognizing me despite the mask, laying a hand against my cheek. My first instinct is to close my eyes and relax at his touch, but...I can't. I feel like I'm safe now, but I'm not, I'm not, that thing is still in my neck and they're watching and if I don't do this right, they'll blow me up and Bruce will get hurt, too. "Dick, please-"

"Talon to base," I say into my comm, "mission failed; aborting." I can't tear my eyes away from Bruce's. His widen as I speak.

There's no response in my ear, which is odd; then my whole body goes rigid when I hear Damian's panicked scream. "NO!" I want to protect him from whatever's terrifying him so much, but now here he is-

Blood.

"Mission complete, mission-!

"I TOLD you, it's done, we're en route-

"-OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES.

I feel dazed. I don't remember getting free of the rope, much less making it to this car. I thought Damian was raging at someone on his comm, but right now he's silent except for his heavy breathing as he drives; maybe I imagined his shouting.

blood

I can't look at him, I can't look at him, I'm shaking, I don't want to see Bruce's blood on him. "Did you kill him?" I whisper. That's all I can see now - the swirl of Damian's cloak behind Bruce; the bloodied sword tip bursting through the white dress shirt; the shock on Bruce's face...

"If Batman ever let a single stab wound kill him, I'd be ashamed to call him my father," Damian grinds out through clenched teeth.

I bury my face in my hands and rock back and forth, desperately trying to stay present, to not disappear into another dissociative episode right on the heels of the last one. "He's alive...he's alive...he's alive..."

"They were going to kill you, Grayson," Damian chokes out. "You're...expendable enough...to them..."

Now I'm crying, gross uncontrolled sobs because I am a complete wreck and the smallest thing can set me off these days. Everything is always my fault. If I didn't suck so much at my job, if I'd tried to make myself useful instead just doing the bare minimum... They were going to set off my implant because they didn't mind sacrificing me in order to hurt Bruce. If I'd given them more reason to hesitate, maybe my little brother wouldn't have been forced to drive a sword through the one person who could rescue us.

I gulp in air and stab at the radio, finding pop songs and oldies to sing along to, trying to drown out the memories of Bruce's blood. After a while, Damian starts singing along with the choruses in a voice that sounds thin and broken.

When we get home, he rips off his blood-stained uniform, hurling each article of clothing across the room, then marches in his underwear to the bathroom. I don't know if he meant to shower or if he intended from the start to stab a pair of daggers into his reflection. In any case, I drag him away from the shattered mirror and wrap a blanket around him and pull him onto the couch with me.

He cries for a long time, tight sobs muffled by my shoulder, until at last he falls asleep in my arms. In all the months we've been here, Damian has never once cried before now. He's never slept for so long at a time, and he's never been this long away from his computer.

It feels wrong that his weakness seems to give me strength, but I feel better, calmer, as I hold my sleeping partner and watch over him. I have to be strong for him. He's done so much, taken on such heavy burdens, I'm surprised he didn't crack sooner. I hate myself for being such a weight around his neck, but even though he's been dragging us both along in this race, I'm determined to do what I can for him. Despite everything, he's still my little brother.

When I wake up, Damian is showered and dressed in shorts and a tank top, sprawled on the ground next to a half-eaten bowl of cereal as he listlessly flips through channels on TV.

"...You said you wouldn't give up, Damian."

There's a pause. His hand with the remote in it slowly sags to the floor, and he closes his eyes.

"Okay, look, I haven't showered since before last night's mission and I'm gross. By the time I get out of the bathroom, your tracker's gonna be hacked and my mission brief will be ready and waiting, got it?"

"What's the point of anything," he says tonelessly.

"...Okay, and then after today's recon, you're also going to give me your mission brief, and I'm going to tie you up so we can claim I stole your assignment, then I'll do my best but still probably botch the assassination and they'll punish me and then we'll start it all over again the next day, okay? You won't have to hurt anyone ever again."

"I killed him."

My breath hitches. Damn it, he triggered me deliberately. "N-N-Nope, Batman, he's Batman, can't kill the Bat, no sirree! C-Crazier men than you have t-tried, and...l-look where...it got..." I can't breathe.

Damian comes over and looks at me and says, still in that dead voice, "You belong in a mental hospital. I belong in jail. Both of us should be in graves. The whole world would be better off if we die."

I'm curled in on myself and crying, hating him, feeling my heart bleed for him, hating myself... I just...want to...

Lost some time again. I have no idea how long; I'm still on the floor, Damian's sitting unmoving at the table with his head buried in his arms, the TV's playing softly in the background.

I sit up shakily and take deep, slow breaths. Then I get up and make my way over to my brother and rest my hands on his shoulders. "Damian."

Without looking up, he reaches for a fork and drags it close and presses the tines hard against his forehead. I wrestle the fork out of his hand and seize his shoulders and crouch down, forcing him to face me. "Damian."

He gazes at me, his expression blank, blood welling from his head.

I'm losing him. ...Just like he was losing me. He had to figure out how to pull me back from the brink, had to make himself my reason to keep going. Now I have to make myself his. "Damian, you know I can't survive this without you."

He blinks. I feel weak with relief when I see a spark of life ignite in his eyes. His shoulders straighten. "...What would you do without me, Grayson?"

I smile. "Just stumble around pathetically in the dark, I guess."

"Right." He pulls free and marches back to the couch, switching off the TV and stabbing at his computer keyboard with more violence than necessary. "Go shower, you stink. Then make me a real breakfast."

"Aye aye, boss."

Halfway through my shower, two Owl henchmen come bursting in. They drag me wet and naked (and cold, geez) into the living room, where Damian's standing between two more thugs, his expression closed and his laptop nowhere in sight. "We've been summoned," he informs me brusquely.

My heart rate picks up. They probably wouldn't have sent the escort unless we were in trouble. Still, my voice is steady as I say, "Mind if I get dressed first, fellas?" They let me put on the basics of my uniform; Damian takes the opportunity to change out of his sleepwear and throw on a cloak.

We're marched out of the apartment. I'm surprised when Damian takes hold of my hand, until I realize he's tapping in code against my palm: "Distraction." Although he managed to hide the laptop, he's probably got a microcomputer hidden up his sleeve and needs time to undo whatever he's done to his implant. Can't risk the Owls looking too closely during this change in routine.

I lift my arms and pretend to stretch. "Whooooo, what a night! Couldn't sleep well, still all hyped up; look, I bet you guys've never seen this trick!" I take a running leap up to the light fixture just ahead, trying to give off more of a 'childish idiot' vibe than 'attempting escape' - I just want them to be distracted, not on high alert. "Aaahhh!" As I'd figured, my weight causes the light fixture to give way, and I go crashing to the floor, executing a failed backflip on the way down. "Ohhhh, I'm out of practice... No, no, wait, let me try again!"

I keep the goons chasing me around the hallway until Damian signals that he's finished. I let them catch me, then regret it... A fist cracks across my face. They're ticked off and not shy about taking out their annoyance on me.

"Enough," Damian says in his Bow Before Me voice. "I will keep my partner under control. Talon, heel."

"Heel? Did you just order me to heel?" I'm laughing as I obey, because I can't actually tell whether he's joking or not.

o.o.o.o.o

We're brought before the Court, and it's clear that this is a trial of sorts rather than an ordinary meeting.

"It has come to our attention that Bruce Wayne survived the attempt on his life last night."

I close my eyes briefly, trying not to let my relief show.

"We will not tolerate failure." The man's voice is full of venom, and now I'm afraid again, this time for Damian's and my sakes. "We expected better of you, Ibn al Xu'ffasch."

"You underestimated him," Damian says flatly. "I told you to let me handle the prep. Even the best assassin in the world can't take down Bruce Wayne when forced to stick to your idiotic plans."

"We know Wayne best," I try, wondering if I'm making a mistake by daring to speak up. "The only people who have a hope of ending him for good are ones who were in his innermost circle."

They all look at me coldly. "Your counsel is worthless, Talon. Your abysmal performance on this mission once again hindered our best agent." He raises his voice. "Xu'ffasch, we've indulged you long enough. It's clear that this 'partnership' of yours is detrimental to the Court's goals."

My breath starts coming short.

"This farce ends now. Xu'ffasch, you will be expected from now on to perform at your peak potential. No more partners - you've proven time and again that you work best alone. Regarding your recent failure, you were warned what would happen the next time you allowed your judgment to be clouded. The two of you will be reassigned to separate quarters, effective immediately, and all communication is forbidden-"

I'm being dumped on the floor somewhere. Afternoon sunlight shines into an unfamiliar apartment. The door slams behind me, and I lie in the silence for several minutes before I finally put enough of my brain back together to realize I lost time again.

Damian is nowhere in sight.

...They took me away from Damian. They took...me...

It's nighttime. The microwave clock glows 9:09. My body aches, I must have been lying here for hours...it feels like minutes. It's getting worse, I've lost so much time in just one day, they took Damian, they took Damian...

10:22, I'm shivering against a chair with no memory of the last hour or of crawling across the floor. "Pull yourself together, Grayson, Damian is fine." Talking to myself out loud helps a little, especially if I avoid triggers.

I drag myself to my feet. "Man, I'm starving, wonder what there is to eat around here, hope there's some ramen, really don't feel like cooking, maybe I can order a pizza once I figure out what the address is here so they can deliver it, ha ha ha ha ha..." I force myself to inspect the apartment. There's nothing in the fridge, but there's canned food in the cabinets. I grab some soup and pour it into a bowl, singing the advertising jingle for the soup brand. As it's heating up in the microwave, I peer out the windows and determine that I'm halfway across town from where they had us living before.

'Damian...'

I miss him so much. I miss him so much. The tears burst out and I wrap my arms around myself, trying to stop my broken heart from tumbling out of my chest. At least I'm not dissociating again, so I let myself cry. "Dami...Dami, come back..."

I find myself talking for both of us. "'Pull yourself together, Grayson. We've got more important things to worry about.' Sorry, Dami; it's just, when your one reason for living vanishes into thin air, you tend to have a little meltdown or two. I didn't even get to say goodbye. 'No goodbyes, Grayson. You think I won't be able to find you again, that this Court of Fools can keep us apart for long?' Sorry for doubting you, Damian, my mistake, I know you'll find a way out of this. You're the best, Damian..."

I talk until I finally feel strong enough to drag myself over to the microwave and get my soup. It's gone cool by now, but I eat it anyway, one spoonful at a time. "Miss you, Dami...love you, Dami...I'll wait for you, Damian..."

To be continued...