Panic. Blind, horrible panic filled Dick's stomach and swelled into his chest, making his limbs tremble. Jason was gone, and he had a pretty solid idea of where he went. There was no doubt in his mind the second oldest of their band of brothers had chanced it with the meth lab starting up a few blocks down. Dick cursed himself, knowing he should have paid more attention. With Jason's mixture of self-sacrificing heroics and his hatred for drugs, it was obvious what he had been planning on doing.
All he had needed was a reason, and Dick explaining their lack of money and food had been the final nail in the coffin. He hoped it wasn't the final nail in Jason's coffin, too.
"We need to get him," he said, pushing himself off the floor and getting changed. Though dirty, his best hoodie provided more pocket space for weapons and more protection against the cold and potential assaults. His best jeans hid enough knives and were lose enough to allow an extra pair underneath for additional protection.
Without a word, Tim stood up and followed Dick's lead, preparing for anything between a rescue attempt to an all-out battle. Only Damian showed restraint in his redressing, taking the time to assess what may be needed and what he would require room for.
"If we find him unharmed, I say we hurt him," the youngest said.
"We'll figure it out later," replied Dick. Truth be told, most of him agreed with Damian.
"I say he doesn't get any more cookies. That should be enough," Tim said, face creased in anxiety. "Unless he actually gets hurt. Then he can have one. You don't think he's going to get seriously hurt, do you?"
Dick turned to Tim, brows furrowed. "I don't know. We'll know when we get there."
The cold air had taken on a more bitter bite since they had arrived home hours earlier. The wind snapped in their faces as the three boys made their trek deeper into Park Row's hellish underbelly. Dick no longer cared about the junkies or prostitutes that lined the streets. His only concern was Jason, and they could worry about the rest when they knew their pseudo sibling wasn't in danger.
The warehouse meth lab looked like something out of a horror film: rusting metal window sills adorned broken panes, adding to the crumbling concrete facade. Dick shuddered at the idea of Jason being in there somewhere, and even more when he was willingly stepping inside with the younger two of their group. He was so going to kill Jason. If the boy was still alive...
Shaking off yet another bad thought, he pushed forward through the bitter wind toward the fire escape, climbing up to the second level to perch and observe the interior. Two men paced inside, their heads jerking every now and then and their steps uneven. Perfect, junkie guards. This made things so much easier.
Tim craned his neck, searching methodically up and down while Damian narrowed his eyes down at the men tweaking below.
"They would be easy to dispose of," the latter pointed out. "Their absence would aid in our search."
"You know that's not how we work," said Dick.
"Tt."
Tim didn't look away, inserting, "We don't know who may be away from the main room, and we could let them know where we are without even knowing if Jason is here or where he might be if he is here. We should stay put."
"I would alert no one," scoffed Damian.
Dick shook his head. "We're not jumping in there without thinking. That's what Jason did and we shouldn't be recreating his mistake."
"Well," Tim mumbled, briefly pulling his eyes away, "we don't even know if he is in trouble, and he was only trying to help us, right? He could be fine and we could have money for food now."
"Or he could be dead..."
"Damian!" Dick hissed. "Whatever we do, we do together. We can talk about it later. For now, we just need to find him, make sure he's okay, and get the hell back home."
"It is not home," sad Damian.
"If we were okay, we wouldn't think about stealing from a meth lab," said Tim.
Dick took a deep breath, pushing away the thoughts and doubts overwhelming him. One focus at a time. He could only think about one thing at a time, and he would figure everything else out later. Worrying about their entire living situation in this moment wasn't going to do Jason or any of them any favors. Only when they were back and safe together could he take the five seconds to remember he was miserable and too young for this mess.
Not that he had a choice.
Silence passed over them over more breaths than Dick cared to count. Waiting in lives like theirs was the worst. Waiting for food, waiting for warmth, waiting to make sure the next injury didn't get infected or the next cold didn't turn into pneumonia. If Dick had to guess, more people in the East End died of waiting for something than from anything else.
"Hey!" whispered Tim, breaking the other two from their individual thoughts. "I think I see something.
He pointed down to a door that had opened, a rope leading inside. Long and coiled, it led from a stilled machine on the main floor into the darkened room past the opened door. A man with slicked-back blond hair emerged from the room, toying with the rope as the tweaking two giggled between scratching their skin.
"What are they saying?" asked Dick.
"Impossible to tell," said Damian.
Nonetheless, the three of them strained their ears for any hint of what was happening. A moment later, they did not even need their hearing. In fact, part of them was grateful most of their senses were blocked from what happened next.
One of the tweaking guards activated the machine connected to the rope, reeling it back like a fishing lure. They watched as it tightened, pulling something closer and closer to the center of the room. Dick crossed his fingers for a bag of supplies or some box of equipment to be on the other end.
Crossing his fingers never did seem to work.
As the rope was pulled to its last few yards, a struggling form emerged. Jason kicked, punched, and spat in all directions in his attempt to get free.
"At least he is not begging," said Damian, his voice even until the last syllable. He cleared his throat at the slight shake that happened, adjusting his posture so he could get a better look through the window.
Tim grit his teeth, managing a quiet, "Jason doesn't beg," through his clenched jaws.
That didn't stop him from fighting tooth and nail, quite literally, to get out of his binds. The tweaking men continued to laugh between scratching or jerking their limbs here and there, where the blond man watched, his eyes unblinking with each pull of the small boy.
"We need to get in there," insisted Tim.
They had no plan. No clue as to what to do or how to even protect themselves from the men inside. Damian showed the knife he had confiscated the other night, but Dick knew a knife against even three mindless thugs was like pointing a B.B. gun at a raging lion.
Without a second thought, Dick reached deep into his jeans pocket and pressed the button on the batarang before turning to the other two. "We just need to distract them and get that machine to stop. We'll figure out the rest later."
Tim eyed him suspiciously for all of an instant before the three of them bolted inside. Questions, they all figured, could wait until they were whole again.
Like a trio of suicidal flying monkeys, they burst into the warehouse yelping at the top of their lungs. Their bellows caught the thugs off-guard, halting the machine and their tweaked-out plans. Dick could see Jason turn the best he could to face them, peering in several directions in a disoriented haze. A few more seconds of running toward the heap, and the eldest spotted the reasons for his daze: his eyes were swelling or swollen shut and it looked as if one of them had boxed his ears, leaving blood trickling out of one canal.
Even still, he managed a smile at his rescuers.
The scene was enough to light a fire under Dick, both from relief at seeing Jason alive—hurt, but alive—and from unbridled anger at the damage done to him. To a child by adults. It wasn't exactly a new concept to any of them how depraved adults could be, even to children, but that didn't stop the sight of it from turning Dick's stomach. He screeched and ran toward one of the guards, flipping just as the man prepared to grab him. Before his target could regain his bearings, Dick used his new momentum and height to kick him in the collarbone. A satisfying yell broke from the man, though it was quickly halted when Dick then followed up with a hit to the throat.
He knew he should be careful and mind his rage before he did any irreparable damage. While the thugs were no doubt willing to leave Jason crippled or dead, Dick knew they had to be better. That didn't stop his foot from connecting to his struggling opponent's kneecap.
Nearby, Damian didn't seem to be having the same moral struggles. The youngest pierced the other guard's thigh, sending the dulled knife clean into the thick muscle. Letting out a blood-curdling scream, the man collapsed just as Damian pulled out the knife and sending it into the man's bicep.
"Hey!" Dick shouted. "We don't do that!"
Damian leveled Dick with a look, but pulled out the knife and tossed it to the side, now attacking with his closed fists. He was a wild animal, fending off the blond and the other rabid gangster lie a whirling dervish. Beyond him, Tim was pulling the chains off of Jason and assessing his wounds.
"Anything broken?" he asked.
"Probably," coughed Jason, managing to give a half-smirk through his pain. "Half the fun."
Tim shook his head, looking half-tempted to break another bone. "You're an idiot."
"New here?" Jason struggled, holding his ribs. "I'm always an idiot."
Damian shook his head nearby, kicking his target in the clavicle. "No one is surprised."
Dick struggled between his desires to laugh and to rush over to Jason and kick him in a few more of his ribs. Over and over, he reminded himself how they got here, why Jason had rushed ahead. He had just wanted to help. Help, however, should never come from the financial stores of a meth lab. Not for the first time, Dick realized how unusual their situation was, and how ill-equipped he was to handle it.
Pushing those thoughts aside, he chose to run over to Jason, assessing as much damage as he could. Over the last couple of years, Dick had become as much of an expert on injuries as any eleven-year-old boy could be. It didn't make him a doctor, though, and Jason needed one.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he asked, trying to help lift him without exacerbating his wounds.
"I was thinking… I was hungry," groaned Jason. "And so we-were the rest of you."
Dick didn't argue. Not so much because he couldn't or wouldn't, but because a shattering interrupted his next thought, keeping his sardonic bite from lashing out at the wounded boy. All four of them looked up, readying themselves for another attacker.
Black kevlar and glass shards fell from the second floor. Or, as Dick saw, glided down before landing mere feet from them. The tweaking thugs and the blond forgot Damian and nearly collided into each other at the sight, their dilated eyes bulging. Before their misfiring brains told them to book it, Batman began pounding them to kingdom come.
Hearts racing, the four boys watched the scene like they were witnessing an action scene from some summer blockbuster. Every punch crunched unnaturally and every scream erupted in an eery wail. In a matter of moments, the three worked-over thugs were out cold and Batman shifted his attention to the children.
The other three tensed around him, but the eldest boy found his nerves calm at the sight. When did he start to feel less threatened by the dark figure? He pushed the thought away, especially the implications of safety that came with it, instead bringing his focus back to Jason.
"He's hurt," he said. No greeting, no explanation.
As Batman took a silent assessment of the child laying on the floor, Dick's young companions stared wide-eyed at him.
"How did he know we were here?" demanded Damian.
"We needed help," answered Dick, jaw clenching. He moved his gaze to Tim, the only one not looking at him like a traitor, and insisted, "I did what I needed to do."
"It was not your call to make alone," came Damian.
Jason, meanwhile, tore his gaze from Dick to the bat now looking over his injuries. When the black gloves reached down to help him take a closer look, Jason bit the closest finger. He caught a mouthful of rubber, blood, and who-the-hell knew, his small teeth barely enough to even register to the vigilante.
"Stay still," the bat ordered, yanking his hand back but otherwise unbothered.
"Hell no!" snapped Jason, the force making him cough. "You're… you're just going to… to turn us in when you're done."
"Would you rather be dead than turned over to the authorities?"
Dick tensed at his words as Jason released a savage, "Damn right!"
Tim and Damian glared between the Dark Knight and the comrade who had called him. It was like watching a split-screen documentary on fight and flight: Damian curled his fists in preparation while Tim ran the calculations on their likelihood of escape.
"You're not going to die," growled Batman. "And I am not turning you in. You have a broken collarbone, at least some bruised, if not broken, ribs, and probably some internal bleeding. You're going to a doctor."
Dick's eyes widened and he shook his head. "No! No doctors. The second you get us into a hospital, CPS will swarm all over us!"
"You—" Batman started, but he was quickly interrupted by Dick's rising panic.
"I should have known better than to signal you! You're just like the rest of the police and everyone else. We're going to get separated and locked up, or worse! No. No damn police!"
"Dick—" Batman tried again.
"No! You fix him or I'll figure out a way to do it, but we're not doing to any hospital for them to look at us like rats and—"
"RICHARD!"
All four boys jumped at Batman's harsh voice, and Tim could swear if the thugs had woken up the fear from the outburst would have knocked them right back out. A hush fell over them and stretched on as Batman stared at the target of his yell until finally Dick curled in a little, shoulders slumping.
"We are going to a clinic nearby. I know a doctor there. No one is going to be called. You have my word."
Dick took a deep breath and glanced around at the others. Between Jason's pitiful form and the exhaustion radiating off the rest of them, he knew they had no other choice. It was better than the alternative. Besides, he had asked Batman to come.
As eyes of blue, hazel, and green landed on his own, it was clear they were all thinking the same thing. Whatever happened next was on him.