Chapter 8 : Taken

Dick wakes in a forest with no recollection of how he got there, but when he finds other victims, including a familiar face, he knows they must be there for a reason. With the enemy hot on their trail, Dick must keep the civilians safe, but at what cost?

Dick's POV

The bullets didn't hit Dick, but they came close, flying past his ears at breakneck speed. He wasn't scared, after all, he had a bullet scar for every year, and a brother who made potshots at him for laughs.

He wasn't scared, but he definitely wasn't laughing, either. No aspect of this situation was funny, not to him anyway. He believed the men chasing him were probably having buckets of fun at his expense.

He'd awoken in a small building with a pounding headache, and not a clue as to how and what he may have gotten himself into this time. The building seemed to have at one point been a hunting cabin, but he couldn't think of any forests near Gotham or Blüdhaven to accommodate such a building. It had been at least a decade since someone had last been in there, told from the obscene amount of dust and grime covering every available surface. Alfred would go crazy in a place like this.

The cabin itself must've been home to an avid hunter, since mounted deer and elk heads decorated every bare inch of wall, and rifles were laid about the small room at random intervals.

Dick didn't care what situation he might've woken up to, he wasn't even touching those guns. Bruce would definitely put aside his morals just to kill him if he took a gun with him.

Turning from the guns, he moved to the door. He tried opening it, but the it stuck fast. There was no lock on the inside, so he figured there must be one preventing him from exiting on the outside. Dick looked for a window, but to no avail. There was no other choice but to bust through the door, which wasn't exactly stealthy and he didn't want to alert his captors.

There had to be someone here. There had to be someone behind this whole thing. In any case, with one barge with his shoulder, the door was down, revealing a pitch black forest that surrounded the cabin. Dick decided a torch or something might be in order. After finding a packet of matches in a drawer in the mini kitchen. He wished he was wearing his Nightwing suit, then he could use his night vision filter on his mask, and heck, the GPS built into his suit would've been extremely handy right about now.

Even just a phone, but he'd already searched himself for anything useful. He was in civvies, no mask, no high tech Kevlar, just a pair of jeans, a white shirt and an old jacket. His pockets had been emptied, even currency was missing, and he had no idea what he could possibly do with a couple of dollars in the middle of nowhere.

He pocketed the matches, and also took a hunting knife for good measure, earning a glare from the bear rug splayed on the floor. He promised himself not to use the knife lethally, only as a last ditch means of protection.

He left the cabin, lighting a match that threw out a meager supply of lighting. It was enough to see one step ahead of him, however, which was better than nothing. Dick was thankful that there was no wind tonight, otherwise his only light source would've been put out.

Dick kept walking, getting deeper and deeper into the forest until there was suddenly a light patch ahead of him. He headed towards it, and as he drew closer, he could see several figures standing before what appeared to be the headlights of a car. He crouched behind some dense shrubbery to observe the people. He wasn't stupid enough to just go running into a bunch of possible enemies. Dick spied a woman and three men. Although he couldn't see their faces, he could tell from their silhouettes at least their gender.

He put out his match and crawled closer.

One of the men turned towards the light in such a way that Dick could briefly see his face.

It was...Bruce?

Was he taken too? And what about the people he was with? How did he find them, and who were they?

Bruce suddenly growled, "I know someone's there. Come out."

Dick reluctantly revealed himself, sidestepping sheepishly from behind the bush and slipping the hunting knife in his belt.

"He's going to kill us! Do something, Mr. Wayne!" The woman stammered, grabbing at Bruce's arm.

Dick realised the hysterical woman was talking about him.

"Dick?" Bruce squinted through the darkness, and his eyes widened as Dick drew closer.

The eldest of the two men seemed surprised, "What? You know this kid?"

The younger simply said, "Who the hell is he?"

"Yeah, um, where exactly am I?" He asked, running a nervous hand through his hair.

"I don't know myself, I just woke up here." Bruce said sternly, any surprise in seeing his ward swiftly vanishing from his face, replaced by a neutral look.

"Me too, in this dodgy hunting cabin. Who are these people?"

"Well," He turned to the woman, "This is Wendy, she's a receptionist at Wayne Industries, and these two are Ian and Jensen." He gestured to the men.

Wendy looked at Bruce pointedly, crossing her arms across her chest. She had a business suit on, as if she'd come straight from the office. And she was a red head. Well, it was a definite pro, though Dick realised now was not the time to be hitting on women.

"Oh, this is my son, Richard."

"Son? I never knew about another Wayne." She muttered.

"Well, I'm adopted," Dick said irritably, his nerves were already grated and the pointless small talk was definitely not helping. "Now, how the hell did we get here, and how the hell do we get out? I've been walking for hours now, and it was all just wilderness apart from here..."

"Well, we just escaped from a load of dudes with guns, but yeah, pretty much all trees." The younger man, Jensen, nodded in agreement.

"I woke up in my car about twenty minutes ago, these guys found me." Wendy said, gesturing to the car which was acting as a light source.

"Great! Can you get it running?" Dick asked.

Ian tutted, "Don't you think we've tried that already, idiot? It's out of gas."

Right. Always good to have a smart ass in the group.

Dick rolled his eyes, and dragged Bruce away from the group. "How did you get taken, of all people?"

Bruce looked lost, "I have no idea. I can't remember anything before waking up here. I've never seen those men who chased us before, either."

Dick frowned. It was all very strange. Most of all, he'd never really seen Bruce look so confused, since he was usually above most situations, looking down on them from his level of understanding while leaving others in the dark.

Dick simply nodded, and looked out over the woods. "There's got to be a way out of here. I don't fancy being shot down by these fabled bad guys. Plus...we need to get these people out of the line of fire. Whoever's taken us could know who we are, and taken these guys as hostages."

Bruce narrowed his eyes, "I don't think they know who we are. The men who attacked us treated me like just another civilian."

"But why else would they bring bothof us here together? Unless we all have something else in common?" He suggested.

Bruce nodded, as if taking it into consideration. He made no moves to reply, and Dick assumed he would need some time to brood things over before eventually turning over an answer.

"Well, while you're mulling over that one, I'm gonna look for more people. There might've been more of us taken than these people, and I'm not leaving them for dead." Dick started to walk away when Bruce caught his arm.

"I need to go with you." He stated, leaving little room for argument.

"You 'need to'?" Dick shook his head, "Just because we've woken up here together doesn't mean I'm gonna put up with you. I get it, you feel like you have some kind of obligation to watch over me, but guess what? I'm not nine anymore, I can do this on my own."

Bruce's eyes widened in a rarely seen picture of helplessness and anger. He wanted to argue, but he couldn't risk angering his ward into going off on his own. "An obligation? Dick, I care about you!"

Still, his ward persisted, turning his nose up at the notion, "Well, you have a very odd way of showing it."

"You're certainly acting like a nine year old." Bruce remarked offhandedly, "And even if it's an odd way, it's still there."

Ian, Wendy and Jensen had by now taken interest in the conversation, crowding around to watch Bruce Wayne discipline his kid.

Dick seemed to loosen up a little, although he still pushed past Bruce, and made his way into the inky darkness of the forest.

Bruce had some difficulty finding his ward, until he struck a match in the darkness. The trio of civilians followed the billionaire as he trailed Dick on his search for more people.

"So, how comes you're not freaking out now, or something, Mr. Wayne?" Jensen asked, evoking the attention of Dick, who fell back to walk with the group. "I mean, you've been handed a civilised lifestyle on a silver platter, why aren't you complaining about the bugs and calling in a private helicopter or something?"

Bruce rolled his eyes, "They took everything apart from our clothing, how am I supposed to call a helicopter? In any case, that silver platter was stained with blood. There's a lot to me that you don't know about."

Man, Dick thought to himself, understatement of the year- no -century.

"Right." Jensen nodded, "But I mean, you must've had ninja training or something... earlier when we were chased, you knew the best way to go in order for us to evade them. You knew how to use the shadows, and when I saw Bruce Wayne help me up back in that creepy building, I was worried that I'd have to protect your sorry ass."

Bruce let out a weary chuckle. "No ninja training, just initiative."

Dick snorted. The irony of the situation was beautifully hilarious.

"Problem, young man?" Ian asked, and Dick's heart jolted at being suddenly included.

"No, sir."

"Say, Mr. Wayne, how'd you come to adopt... Dick, was it?" Wendy asked kindly, although it was obvious that she was still pretty shaken up about being kidnapped.

Dick nodded in confirmation, and Bruce gave a small smile. Dick figured it was the most emotions he'd shown in quite some time.

"Well, I guess I just didn't want him to be lonely like I was in my childhood years. I wanted him to have people around to help him."

Dick rolled his eyes. When it came to explaining his adoption, Bruce was like a broken record.

The conversation was interrupted by yells behind them. Dick couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but from the looks on the civvie trio's faces, they were the men that had attacked them earlier.

"Run!" Bruce yelled, making sure everyone was ahead of him, though Dick knew full well his father could outrun every one of them.

The bullets didn't hit Dick, but they came close, flying past his ears at breakneck speed.

He wasn't scared, after all, he had a bullet scar for every year, and a brother who made potshots at him for laughs.

He wasn't scared because he knew the bullets wouldn't hit him, he had to keep everyone else safe, so there was no time to worry about his own safety.

He wasn't scared when a bullet sliced through his side leaving an aching pain like a well placed punch to the gut. Or when the blood came streaming out, soaking his clean white shirt. Or when he fell to his knees several hundred meters later, weak from blood loss.

But he was terrified when Bruce didn't notice that somewhere in his inky black vicinity, his ward had been shot and fallen without his knowledge.

Please review! (This is a two to three part thingy)