Chapter 28
The Promised Day
"Rahat, Rahat! RAHAT!" Dick slammed his fist against the door control to the stairs.
"Language." Damian piped up, causing the majority of the crowd, who had also made it to the stairs, to moan, and a few people to chuckle.
"I can't hack this fast enough. We only have 15 minutes left, and we're several floors underground, I'm sure."
"So… What do we do?" Another teenager piped up nearby. Dick hesitated.
"15 minutes until what?" A smaller voice piped up farther away.
"Until we're all dead if we don't do something. Those" he pointed to the countdown clocks on the wall, "are bombs. I think I can deactivate some of them, but not all. We need to pick a place and barricade the ceiling and the floor and deactivate the bombs around it."
"How about the Target Dump?" A kid, Dick thought his name might be Chris, piped up. He balked as everyone turned to look at him. "Th-there's probably some kids in there already, and it would be hard to move them. Plus, there's probably a good amount of water hidden in there, so we'll be okay if they can't dig us out right away."
All heads turned to Dick, looking for his decision. Dick didn't really understand why they were looking at him—there were older kids there, although maybe not more experienced—but he'd take it. "That'll work. Does anyone know how to get there?"
"I do," a brunette said.
"Lead the way."
Frankly, Alex never thought they actually had fire alarms, much less that one would go off, and the bluemen would not leave all the kids inside. Well, it was federal regulation. They had probably been installed when the building was built, and not inspected since then. After all, the bluemen didn't really care about them, just their use as test subjects. When the alarm went off, he grabbed his book of names and slipped it into his waistband. He pulled his shirt over it so the bluemen wouldn't see it. Alex did a quick once over for Batkitty, but Damian took it with him when he and Dick disappeared three days ago.
When the door opened, Alex slipped into the hallway, and followed the mess of kids down the stairs. He stood up on his tiptoes occasionally, looking for a messy, mostly white head of hair with a black head right next to it, for Dick would certainly pick Damian up so the kid didn't get trampled. There was no sign of them, but there were enough kids that Alex refused to give up hope.
The crowd filed outside into an area surrounded by bluemen with guns. There were several in the circle shoving kids onto buses and into vans as they filed out. Alex tried to relax a bit. Damian and Dick were probably already on a bus. That, of course, was when there was a small explosion behind the building. A wave of whispers spread through the crowd of kids. They surged forward, shoving out of the building into the circle the bluemen created.
"Sir!" A bluemen shouted about the din. "That's full."
"All of you! Against the wall!" Whispers rippled out amongst the crowd of remaining kids as they moved against the wall. There was another explosion and flames flared into being on the building, not too far from where the kids were being lined up. "On your knees! Hands on your head!" Alex felt his stomach sink. Were they planning on keeping them like this until the buses got back? That could be hours, and the fire would definitely spread to here by then.
"They're gonna kill us." The kid next to Alex, Miriam, he thought her name might be, suddenly whined.
"What makes you think that?" Alex asked.
"There aren't enough buses." She said. Yeah, he'd go with Miriam until corrected.
"So?"
"So, there aren't enough buses and they're lining us up next to a building on fire. They all have guns. They're destroying evidence."
"Oh. Merda." He paused. "We need to get rid of those guns."
Miriam gave him an incredulous stare. "How? They'll shoot us if we get close."
"They'll shoot us either way. Maybe this way we can take some of them out with us."
"Is this what boys talk about at night? How to die efficiently?"
"You know us so well. What do you think video games are?"
"QUIET!" A hush immediately fell over the crowd of kids. The bluemen nudged a few more kids against the wall and then stepped back to form a line with the rest.
"I don't wanna die." Miriam whimpered. Alex slowly shifted, putting an arm around her covertly and pulling her close. The bluemen lifted their guns, pointing them towards the kids, whose frantic whispers grew louder and more panicked.
SWOOSH. The guns were gone. SWOOSH. Something, or someone, impacted with the line of bluemen, knocking them over like dominoes until someone was smart enough, and fast enough, to move.
"Timber!" A voice yelled as they fell. A red and yellow blur sharpened into a person, standing in between the kids and the bluemen. "So, which of you baddies wants a piece of Kid Flash?"
"That's the last of the ones in view." Dick said to Dibble, who had been helping him and Damian with the bombs, as Dick disabled his fifth bomb. "We need to do a perimeter check for any more though. The last thing we want is for a bomb to go off behind the room because we didn't realize it was there. There were ones on the sides we passed." The bomb was stopped at 8 minutes 50 seconds, but it had stopped counting at least 20 seconds ago. Dibble nodded, and gathered up the tools they had been using. Dick swooped Damian up so he wouldn't limp through the halls with his booted ankle.
"How's the barricade coming?" He called into the Target Dump.
"Almost finished!" came the reply. "The bombs?"
"All the ones in sight are deactivated. We're going to do a quick sweep for any more around the perimeter and then come back."
"Do you have time?"
"About seven and a half to eight minutes. If we're not back in five, close the barricade."
"And leave you outside?"
"It's better than everyone inside getting killed and closing the barricade will take a few minutes. We can squeeze through a small gap if there's still time left, but there should only be the smallest gap or it won't be able to close quickly. We'll be back."
"Fine. Go."
Dick nodded to the kid inside. "Coming or staying, Damian?" He asked his little brother.
"Coming." Damian said.
"Alright. Let's go so we can get back." Dick said to Dibble, and led the way around the corner to any remaining bombs that would have an effect on the Target Dump. "Let's do this fast."
Kid Flash slowed to a stop, barely avoiding crashing into Flash who grabbed him so he wouldn't fall. Flash crouched down, pulling Kid Flash down with him. Charlie climbed off Flash's back.
"We need to wait for the rest of the League to arrive before making a move. Kid, I need you to do a fast perimeter. Stealth mode. Tell me what you see. Don't get caught. It could be a disaster."
"Gotcha." Kid Flash did a quick perimeter, and stopped just inside the tree line, staring in horror. The building was on fire, and a giant group of kids was being shoved into buses and vans by people in blue scrub-like clothing, holding guns. He ran back to Flash and Charlie. "They're moving the kids!"
"What?" Flash resisted the urge to curse. "They must have found out we were coming."
"How?"
"We'll find that out later. For now, we need a plan. If they're moving the kids, we can't plan on the rest of the League arriving in time. Charlie, give me the backpack." Charlie instantly handed it over. Flash rifled through it and pulled out a bunch of small trackers. "Charlie, stay here. We'll send all the kids we can your way. Grab a few members of the team as a guard when they arrive."
"The team?"
"Sidekicks."
"Partners." Kid Flash coughed.
"Partners." Flash rolled his eyes. "The younger heroes." They left. Kid Flash followed Flash to the edge of the forest. They went relatively slowly so as to not alert the guards to their presence.
"Shit." Kid Flash said. The buses were fully loaded sans a line of bluemen who were lining the kids up against the wall. "That's an execution line."
"Stay here." Flash said. He zoomed over to the vehicles and put a tracking device on each as quickly as he could do quietly and zoomed back to Kid Flash who was scanning the group of kids anxiously.
"I don't see him."
"Focus, Kid. We'll find him. I'm going to take the guns, and then you're going to start taking out the guards. Distract them and protect the kids. I'll ditch the guns and start evacuating them towards the woods. They should be safe there for now. Once I have the kids evacuated, we'll switch. Hopefully, by that point, the rest of the League and the team will be here. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Go."
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! Kid Flash knocked into one of the guards on the edge of the gun line knocking him over into the next. "TIMBER!" He tripped two more and then slowed to a stop in between the guards and the line of kids. "So, which of you baddies wants a piece of Kid Flash?"
There was silence for a moment as Kid Flash stared down the monsters that had been prepared to mow down a line of innocent children. Fire crackled in the building, as it slowly spread. Whispers sprouted up behind him, mostly on the vein of "Who's that?" and "Kid Flash," and a few names (e.g. Flash Kid and Speedy) that were clearly supposed to be him but not. He paid them no mind, for once, humming with energy while he waited for someone to make a move. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Flash stop near the edge of the line of kids, ready to evacuate them.
In the end, a loud sound from the building propelled them into motion. Part of the fifth floor collapsed onto the fourth. A bunch of the kids startled, and a few of the guards turned and ran to the buses, probably hoping to get away. One of the vans started up and took off down the road with a screech. Kid Flash let it go. Flash had put the tracker in place and he had a fight on his hands.
Taking down lots of gunmen, he couldn't really get an accurate count of how many he'd gotten; it was hard to take them out even without their weapons. Kid Flash had to redirect them several times from the weapons pile and the crowd of kids. Luckily, it didn't take much longer after that for the League and team to arrive, and the fight became a bit more even. Kid Flash switched to the part of the team guarding the kids at Aqualad's say, so that he could grab a quick breather, eat a protein bar for some more energy, and search for his best friend. Flash took off after the van that had left.
Less than ten minutes after the heroes arrived, all the bluemen were down and in the process of being tied up. The kids on the buses in the vans were unloaded into the swarm that had been in the execution line. There were even more kids there than had been at the Belgian embassy. Dick, however, was nowhere to be seen, making Wally want to cry out in frustration.
"There's people still inside!" Superman suddenly called out to the rest of the heroes. There were several quick kid-appropriate curses, and several not-so-kid appropriate curses, a quick activity assignment, and then Superman, Wonder Woman, Superboy, Red Tornado, and one of the Green Lanterns entered the building to find any kids still inside and bring them out.
Dick hadn't thought when he'd dashed forward and pushed Damian out of the way when the ceiling gave in. He should have grabbed him and jumped back. Then they would be on the right side of the wall. As the dust settled, all he could see was little blinking lights, everywhere! All the knobs he'd stared at idly in the past before or after the torment of the day began were twinkling merrily at him as they counted down to inevitable doom. Of course it had to be this room! As if he hadn't been tortured enough in here, he had to die in here too? Maybe, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. At least it would be fast. Excruciating pain as the bombs went off, but only for a few seconds at most. And then, then there would be pure nothingness. No pain, no fear, no anything. He would be at peace. A tear slid down his cheek.
"Dick?" A quiet, unsure voice piped up next to him, grounding him in reality. No. Dick couldn't bring Dami down with him. He couldn't. There had to be a way out. Dick forced himself to push the fear to the back of his consciousness. He could be strong. He had to be. Dick pulled his little brother into a hug to try to calm his own tremors, as well as Damian's. "Dick, what do we do?"
"Hey! Hey, are you guys alive in there?"
"Dibble?" Dick called back. He'd forgotten about him.
"I'll take that as a yes. I'm going to try to dig you out." There were some scuffling noises.
"NO!"
"Huh?"
"No, you could accidentally bury us alive."
"I'll be careful!"
"There isn't enough time." As Dick spoke, Damian clenched him tighter, sinking into the older boy. "Get back to the Target Dump and barricade the door. You need to make sure everyone else makes it."
"I can't just leave you guys here!"
"You can and you will! You need to get to safety. Damian and I will figure something out. We'll be okay."
"You only have five minutes!"
"Even more reason for you to go."
"But you might not make it!"
"Dibble, please! The longer you take, the less time we have. If, if we don't make it, then I need you to pass a message on for me. You can be my hero in that respect as well as a hero to the other kids by returning to them before it's too late and giving them extra time to reinforce the barricade. Tell my dad… Tell my dad that I love him and tell my brother Jason that I'm proud of him. Tell them it's not their fault. We will make it though."
"You will make it?"
"Yes. Please, go Dibble."
Dick heard him retreating, and turned back to study the room at large. He chewed his lip as he looked around at all the controls and supplies. Standing up, he moved towards a large, thick rope he might be able to use to create a secure harness and makeshift grappling hook. "Damian, can you run me through exactly what you saw them do to make the swirly lights for Sigmore, including the exact buttons they pressed? I think I have a plan that might get us out alive."
Alex hesitated as he moved through the crowd towards the green skinned girl standing on the edge of the crowd interrogating one of the bluemen. He hugged the book of names to his chest, having pulled it out from his waistband once he felt safe enough to do so. He planned to give it to the League to take some sort of attendance or something as soon as someone was free. Batman was talking to the pilot, who had to be Alfred, of a large black jet, occasionally scanning the crowd for his kid. A line of kids were in the process of boarding or waiting to board. Robin wasn't really being all that discrete as he weaved through the crowd, (What WAS he wearing? Alex could not see Dick in that. As similar as Jason looked, the idea of Dick in that was too hilarious. Was he even going by Robin anymore?) but Alex wasn't brave enough to face his roommates' family without more concrete information. Three days was longer than either of the boys had been gone before, but Alex REALLY didn't want to believe they were dead.
The rest of Dick's team and the members of the Justice League who were there were putting out the fire, and trying to enter to search for kids inside, but Kid Flash, Dick's best friend, Artemis, the girl he'd been with when he'd been kidnapped who thankfully hadn't been kidnapped as well, and this girl, Miss Martian he reminded himself, were guarding the kids in case they had missed any bluemen, offering comfort where they could. The second Green Lantern had made a ship around a group of kids and taken off with them to wherever they were planning to take them for their safety. The rumor was the escapees had made it to an embassy, and the embassy was the current base of operations.
Miss Martian, she might be the ticket to the information Alex craved. She could read minds after all. Maybe she could track Dick. It was the best way Alex could think of without confronting a tense Batman about his still missing son. It was better than using the line Dick had suggested if Alex made it out, but he didn't. "Hey, Batman? I'm a friend of your son, Robin. Umm. He's in that building over there, last I knew—yes, the one that's currently on fire—but I don't know if he's still alive. He was three days ago." How about no.
"Ex-excuse me, Miss." Alex said. She didn't react. He reached forward and tapped her on the arm. "Miss Martian?" Now, he got a reaction.
"What?" She said, clearly irritated.
"Please. I need to know. My roommates, I can't find them. I need to know if they're still… still…"
"Oh! I'm sorry, but I can't contact anyone I don't know right now. There's too many people and interference." Alex forced himself not to slump. He nervously checked the surrounding area to be sure no one was paying any attention to them. The blueman had passed out. He'd taken a bit of a beating from someone before being interrogated by Miss Martian. DaddyBats maybe?
"But you could contact someone you do know? Even if you hadn't talked to them recently?" He whispered.
"Well, yes, but-"
"Great! Because you should know one of my roommates! Umm." He lowered his voice even more, did a quick cursory check, and leaned towards her. "He used to be Robin." Alex whispered.
Miss Martian stared at him in shock for a moment, and then her eyes started glowing. Alex decided that was probably a good sign.
Dick was tying the final knots in his makeshift harness, securing Damian to his chest, when the blessed voice of one of his friends entered his head.
"Robin?" He froze mid-knot.
"M-M'gann?"
"Robin! You're okay!" Dick glanced up at the clock. Three minutes 44 seconds.
"Sure. Relatively. I'm traught. You're here? Is-is Tati, I mean, Batman here too?"
"Yes! It's so good to hear you. We've all missed you so much. One moment!" There was a brief pause. "Batman?"
"What?" An irate mental voice grunted.
"Batman!"
"Dick!? Are you alright?"
"I'm managing." Dick turned his main attention back to his baby brother, cinched the last knot attaching a long rope of which Damian was messing with one end, and moved to the control panel. "Did you know that Talia had a kid? He's yours and he's adorable."
"Where are you?"
"His name is Damian. He thinks you're a vampire."
"I'm here. We're here. We'll find you. Just, keep breathing. I'm coming in there."
"NO! You need to get out of the building. There're bombs everywhere. We…, down here, there's a safe zone, but the rest of the building is about to go. There's only a couple minutes left. We're underground. You won't be able to get to us in time. The stairways are blocked."
Hesitation. "There's a safe zone?"
"Yes."
"You're there? Both of you? You're safe?"
Dick hesitated himself, and pressed the final button. One minute 45 seconds. The automatic shutdown would take place in one minute 30 seconds. That gave him a 30 second window.
"Not exactly, but I have a plan." He pulled his goggles over his eyes, and pushed Damian's head down. The kid immediately closed his eyes and tightened his hold on both Dick and Batkitty, who Damian had given his own harness. Dick gave his brother a peck.
"YOU'RE NOT IN THE SAFE ZONE? GET THERE NOW! I'M NOT LOSING YOU! NOT NOW-That's an ORDER!"
"I love you, Tati. Thank you... for everything. Tell Jay I love him and I'm proud of him. I have a plan, but if it doesn't work… If it doesn't work, know that this isn't your fault. It's not either of your faults."
A red bulb on the wall, not one of the bombs, suddenly started blaring and flashing a warning. That's probably not good.
"Dick?"
"Ready, Dami?" There was a nod against his chest.
ERROR. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED.
Ignoring that.
"Richard?" Dick took a deep breath, focused on home, and took a step forward.
"RICHARD JOHN GRAYSON-WAYNE! YOU ANSWER ME RIGHT-"
BOOM
A/N
Review, please. :)
I had no idea how fast paced this chapter was or how much it changed POV until I uploaded and went through it again. I mean, I knew it switched a bit, but there were a lot more line breaks than I expected.
Also, Dick has gotten out of practice with choosing which thoughts to pass on the mind link, so Bruce does know there's a problem with Dick's plan, beyond the obvious. He just doesn't know what.
On another note, why is "Blue Jay" so popular? Jason's still Blue Jay in this chapter. It's just that Alex, whose POV it was, only knows him as Jason or Robin. I'm kind of lost about why the name's so popular though. I picture him in a similar outfit as Disco!wing with less sparkles.
I hope you enjoyed The Medium Between. I'll have a wrap up chapter up soon-ish and then maybe an epilogue and onto the sequel. Can't leave all those kids and heroes stuck under rubble for too long.
Keep an eye on TMB If Only, if you're reading it, between now and the sequel. I'm still trying to figure out the plotline of the sequel, so it's very open to suggestion and will likely take a while to be released. I'm set on the beginning, but past that point... well, there are some factors in common between the many ideas. Anyways, TMB If Only will keep updating between now and whenever that is.