Author's Note. This is an extremely dark chapter. A lot of Batman comes out in Dick Grayson, and that's on purpose. This is extremely personal to him. Once again not the best at writing Nightwing, but I think I managed. When you read his anger and wonder why it seems out of character, it's all based on his background, namely losing his family, not only the Graysons, but Jason Todd as well. Combine that with the harm done to his team, and hopefully that explains his reactions. Let me know what you think. R & R please, thanks to new followers, and hopefully enjoy.
Why Teach Us At All
Hard times had hit most of the farming districts in an around small towns like Mittenwald, Leutash, Seefeld and a dozen other southern German cities. Much like in America, the German government subsidized owners not to farm their lands and in an attempt to offset heavy losses due to drought and slumping crop prices in an already oversaturated market. Farmers trying to stay afloat financially, grouped together with other land owners, and got together and spilt the subsidy while sharing the workloads on open farming lands together. Not the perfect solution by any means, but enough to keep everyone above water until the economy recovered. Unfortunately this meant abandoning their homesteads for periods at a time. And when the offer of an off the books rental of their house came through, the money was something most dislocated farmers could not pass up.
Such was the case of the farmhouse on Ainger Lane, an isolated home, miles away from the closest neighbor, connected only by an old unpaved road four miles from the nearest street junction. This was the target. The two Russians made it to this location every other day like clockwork. Their travel route changed constantly which intrigued Dick. He surmised it was an attempt to ensure they were never followed, the route being quite complex with plenty of stops to check for tag alongs. They had no idea who they were dealing with.
Nightwing had surveilled the house for the last five days. Windows were papered up from the inside, allowing no light to enter or exit the house. At least three additional men were present and residing in the house at all times performing the role of prison guards he assumed. From what he had observed, these men were never allowed into town, spending most of their time inside while one guarded the perimeter.
Dressed in his dark fatigues, Dick easily blended in with the moonless night behind the trees of the wooded lane. Through the lenses of his night vision goggles he watched the abduction team packing up to leave the farm. More equipment was loaded than usual, indicating tonight could be the night they would strike again. The Russians had been extremely punctual in their movements and tonight they appeared to be on a tight schedule.
It was time to strike. Divide and conquer would be his strategy, and since children were involved extreme prejudice would be used for good measure. These men were about to pay for their crimes.
According to the reports Dick had hacked from INTERPOL, the agency had identified these two as Dimitri Aristov and Igor Datsik, members of The Brother Circle, a splinter group of the Bravta Mafia that reigned during the early 1970's Soviet regime. These were dangerous men with even more dangerous bosses. Back in the day this would have been mission his entire team would have taken part in, but those days were now long past. They closed the trunk and entered the battered car they had bought to blend in. The motor started and they were halfway down the main road when the engine and lights cut out completely. Russian curse were exclaimed and both men got out of the car and raised the hood to investigate.
"God Damnit Igor, why did you purchase such junk? Go to the trunk and see if there is some sort of tool box back there."
"Dah" Igor grumbled, but complied and made his way to the back and forced open the small trunk. It was beginning to snow and they were on a timetable.
The timer of the miniature EMP Nightwing had placed under the engine block had gone off to the nanosecond it had been programmed, and neither man, unless educated in the microelectronics, would even know what to look for.
Dimitri wiggled the battery cables, looking for a spark to form. Nothing, completely dead.
The larger of the two Russians began to get frustrated with his comrades slow return.
"Would you hurry up damnit!" he yelled, and finally fed up, walked to the back of the car only to find his partner gone.
Dimitri threw of his Ushanka hat in anger, assured his teammate had left to go back to the house without him.
He yelled his name and squinted off in the distance looking for his silhouette. He had not been back their long, how had Igor gotten so far ahead so quickly he wondered.
The Russian returned to the engine to retrieve his flashlight and begin his trek back to the farmhouse, but it was gone as well. That's when he began to get nervous. He unsnapped the holster of his weapon out of reflex, not knowing how closely he was being stalked. He turned one final time to strain his eyes to find his comrade presumably carrying the flashlight that had been his moment before. He saw nothing with the exception of Nightwing's fist.
The same man that had manhandled the drunk at the bar Dick had played, was suddenly absorbing vicious blow after blow, barely able to breathe thanks to the shot to the throat Nightwing had just thrown. One minute he was irritably searching for his friend, the next he was on his back in agonizing pain.
He looked up at the young brunette in the mask smiling evilly back down at him, trying desperately to breath.
"How many?"
"Что?(What)?"
"How many men? If you lie to me, you will spend the rest of your days being spoon fed in some hospice. Paralysis is a bitch I hear. I dare you to test me."
"Just one," he rasped.
"That's funny; your comrade over there said three. I'm going to break your spine now. I hope the police find you before the wolverines do."
Dick rolled the man onto his back and placed a heavy steel reinforced combat boot on the Russians lower back, testing the area for the spinal column.
"Three," he screamed, "Just three."
"Weapons?" Dick demanded.
"AK's and PSS silencers." The Russian groaned.
Dick rolled the man back over and placed the boot on his throat.
"How many kids?"
The Russian hesitated and three savage shot to his jaw later, Nightwing asked again.
"How many Dmitri? I'm losing my patience:"
He coughed up blood and spoke. "Five. Just five. They have food and water; they haven't been…..touched or harmed. Just let me go. You can have them and the men inside. You can have that fool Igor too. Just let me go."
"You're not going anywhere. If I find one of those kids has been hurt in anyway. If there is one bruise on their body, one hair out of place I will be the last thing you see until hell lets you in."
"Who are you?" he slurred through blood and broken teeth.
"I'm Vengeance you son of a bitch," as his foot came down on the man's already broken nose knocking him unconscious. Dick knew exactly who he sounded like; at the moment just didn't care.
With the abduction team bagged and tagged, Dick made his way to the farmhouse. Currently only one man walked the perimeter. Dressed in heavy outdoor ware and armed, he yawned and made his way around the farmhouse. His shift had lasted much longer than expected, and he was ready to come in and warm himself by the fire and finish the Vodka that had been calling his name since before dark.
Nightwing ran his hand across his utility belt and found his next armament. The name of the game was stealth. If hostages hadn't been present, Nightwing could take these men out in minutes, but he did not have a clear layout of what was on the other side of the wall, or the abductees' exact whereabouts, so ninja it was.
The man followed basically the same perimeter pattern. His posture gave away telltale signs. He was bored and felt guard duty was beneath him. All of this body language, and he had no idea what he was broadcasting. The one thing that concerned Dick was the man walked with his finger on the trigger. It was not Dick's own safety, but the fear that an attack could inadvertently cause him to press down and fire, and then the game would be up. The weapon needed to be removed swiftly and quietly.
At the apex of his pattern, he would approach the van parked near the front of the house. As he got close to the vehicle, he could hear the slightest hiss coming from the driver's side. It was faint, but the wind had died down and he could finally differentiate between the night noises. He walked past the minivan and found the source. An old rusty barn nail stuck into the steel belted tread of the worn tire.
The Russian cursed, so tired of the task he felt was beneath him, and now a flat that he would not doubt be ordered to change in the morning. He bent down and placed his rifle on the ground to carefully pull out the nail when two steel protrusions gently touched the he nape of his neck and 90000 volts shot through his body. Dick zip tied him like the other two and quietly made his way to the front of the house.
He knelt down at the base of the door and placed a quarter sized disc through the door jam. It was a gamble, one of the guards inside could open the door with him kneeling there at any moment. If it happened he would just have to improvise. Times like this he envied Wally's speed, but for a non meta he more than held his own. Nightwing pushed the disc threw the door and retreated to a dark corner of the courtyard where rolled up his sleeve and activated the holographic projector on his forearm. When he activated the disc, a three dimensional computer image from the high frequency ultrasonic wave appeared in front of him complete with the layout of the one story farmhouse. One guard lay motionless in the back corner room, more than likely asleep. The other guard sat in the den next to an object letting off a strong energy signature that Dick assumed was the television. Intermittent signatures flickered on and off as Nightwing turned up the intensity, and that's when the five figures appeared in what appeared to be the root cellar under the home. He had found them.
The man sitting in the den watched old American movies dubbed in Czechian and Russin. He had seen them at least a twenty times, but there was no satellite service out where they were, and if there had been, they would have never have requisitioned it. His stomach grumbled and he got up and made his way to the kitchen. It was dark and he flipped the light switch several times try to get some illumination. That's when he felt an arm wrap around his neck. Dick tightened and squeezed, the crook of his arm wrapped tightly around the man jugular. The Russian struggled mightily swinging the smaller Nightwing into the wall. Dick counted five seconds and the man fell hard to the floor. Nightwing was concerned about the resulting noise of the short lived battle along with the guard falling hard on the creaky wooden floor. Dick froze wondering if it his sleeping partner had been alerted. He quickly found the pantry, stepped inside the dark closet and turned on his holo-projector one final time to determine the last conscious occupant's location. He adjusted the settings and rotated the diagram discovering the bedroom was empty, that's when the bullet came through the pantry door, landing in Nightwing's shoulder.
"I believe you chose the wrong house little comrade. You will rise slowly out of there and go to the den and there we will discuss your intrusion
Dick opened the door and slowly rose to his feet, hands in front of him at all times. The blood was dripping down his arm and pooling onto the floor. The Russian looked very pleased with himself as he grabbed Dick by the injured shoulder and swing him around, pushing him towards the den. Inside the room, he shoved Dick to the couch and grabbed a chair and pulled it up in front of the masked figure, gun at the ready. Dick crossed his arms, sat back and made himself look entirely too comfortable.
"So I take it my men are down. Where is the rest of your team?"
"You're looking at them," Nightwing replied
"I sincerely doubt it." the Russian countered
Nightwing crossed his legs carefully, and in an almost arrogant manner, addressed the man who currently had a weapon trained on his chest. "Don't kid yourself Vladimir, your ring here does not even register on anyone's radar. You just happen to pick a town that I care about."
"So you know who I am, good." the Russian smiled.
"You sure? Dick smiled
"You are funny little one. If you know me then you know who my bosses are, and what they are going to do to you. Why would I be disappointed that my business has been going unnoticed by those fool small town detectives?"
"Because no one is coming to rescue you," Dick replied, the previous smile completely leaving his face.
"I am not the one who needs rescuing little comrade."
"Not from where I'm standing."
"Who are you? "The Russian growled, finally tired of the back and forth he and the intruder had been playing.
"I'm the end. "
"The end of what?"
"You." Nightwing said emotionless with a steel intensity, channeling the man from Gotham who trained him.
Dick kept staring intently behind the large Russian to the point that paranoia begin to set in, and the abductor finally had to turn momentarily, curios as to what piqued the brunette interest.
Dick lightly tapped his forearm control pad twice and the flash bangs he had placed earlier erupted in a blinding explosion of light, while simultaneously activating his contact lenses; an iris sized blast shield darkened and covered his pupils. The ear buds in his lobes also blocked out the high pitched scream of the grenades. Unfortunately the Russian had not come as well equipped. The man could not have been in a worse position when the bright phosphorus dug into his retina. He might not be able to see again due to his proximity to the blinding light, but that didn't stop his finger from squeezing the trigger.
Dick anticipating the involuntary motion, dove to the right, landing to the floor on his damaged shoulder, next to the Russian writhing in pain from the blinding exposure.
Nightwing's shoulder was screaming, but this was not the first time Dick had been shot, nor the last more than likely. He would endure. He got to his knees and straddled the man. Normally a right handed fighter, Dick let lose a barrage from his left, thankful for ambidextrous training the Batman demanded.
"Say hello to Satan for me Vladimir."
Vladimir feeling the blood dripping on his clothing from Nightwing's wound, blindly searched his assistant for the wound he inflicted, finding the shoulder and squeezing the bullet hole. Dick bit down on his tongue as hard as he could without splitting it, and blocked the mobsters arms back down, landing his next punch o the Russians blown ear drums causing him to scream again.
"Location!" Dick growled.
"What?" Vladimir coughed , blood spraying form his mouth, barely hearing Nightwing's demand.
"Where is the storage faculty, for all the other kids you have taken? I'm only going to ask you once."
"He'll kill me," Vladimir pleaded.
"What do you think I'm going to do? Which is the better option? Living today with the chance you can take your measly savings and start a new life outside of the mob, or dying in five minutes. I think I'd like my chances of running, but that's just me."
"Choose now!" the hero screamed, loud enough that even through his perforated ear drums, the Russian could clearly make out his words, and the threat behind them.
It took seconds for the Russian to spill everything he knew. Later with the mobster secured and unconscious from the final vicious blow Dick delivered, he stumbled to the back of the house finally finding the cellar door.
It was a small enclosure carved out of the dirt. He opened it slowly to find the five children, knees to their chests, faces covered in dirt and grime. The light from the open door escaping in caused the children below to shield their eyes.
"Are you all ok?" Dick asked in a calm friendly tone. He needed the kids to know they were safe, and that this was not more of the mind games they had suffered for weeks.
The children nodded nervously. Dick reached down with his good arm and helped them out of the hole.
"Don't be scared, I'm one of the good guys."
The timid children were nervous and distrustful until they saw the bruised and bloody form of one of their captors, lying prone in the other room.
Nightwing carefully guided the children, as they made their way through the den. The oldest girl looked down on her abductor's unconscious body and kicked him viciously. She could barely keep her composure, as tears began to erupt form her, finally breaking down from the torture and anguish she suffered through, while trying her best to protect the younger abductees that had looked to her for strength and guidance.
He gently pulled the young girl away and held her in his arms
"It's going to be ok. Don't stoop to his level. Don't give him the satisfaction."
He kneeled down in the middle of their group. "Do you all know your home phone numbers, or some relatives? It's time to call you parents. You're going home."
They nodded excitedly, realizing perhaps for the first time their nightmare was finally over, Nightwing found the Russians' phones and began dialing it for them. All the kids smiled and hugged him, their looks of happiness and gratitude the only reward Dick ever wanted. This had been extremely personal for him. Parents and children being forcibly separated would always be a pain he would carry in his heart, along with not being able to save Jason Todd . A day hardly went by that he didn't' think of, or miss his family, and realized that despite his cold exterior, Bruce Wayne felt the exact same way. Being able to make a difference and reunite these kids reminded him why he had put on the mask in the first place. It wasn't for vengeance, it was for justice.
When the local police arrived, they found the five abductees sitting on the coach eating food they had only dreamed about for weeks, The Russians were zip tied outside in a line , lying face down in the newly fallen snow, finally coming to consciousness and realizing their days of freedom were over. On top of Vladimir lay a complete confession along with a list of his superiors and the locations of other holding facilities in and around Germany. Later the police would make calls to the Bundesnachrichtendienst Federal Intelligence Service, only to find they had been tipped of hours earlier by an anonymous call, and were already in route.
The girls would give the vaguest of description of their liberator per his request, and prepared themselves to be reunited why their families. In hours, the reunion would be beautiful and heartbreaking while the police would take the culprits into custody, their last hours of freedom behind them.
Dick limped into his motel room and stripped of the bloody fatigues. He opened his utility bet and removed the sewing kit and began to clean and mend the bullet wound he had suffered. He took a small book from the nightstand and bit down on it as he dug the bullet out. The pain was tolerable, but Dick had always had a high threshold for these things. As waves of agony shot up his arm, Dick smiled. It felt great. Not just the wound, not the just rescue, not the smiles. All of it combined into a feeling that squashed the guilt and sadness he had carried for months now. He one again remembered what it felt like to be a hero. He had channeled Batman today and his hash cold ways, but still was able to remain Nightwing. And Nightwing had saved innocent lives today, without putting anyone at risk but himself, and that made the Dick Grayson inside him smile.