Chapter Eight
There were many things that Damian Wayne could handle. He had no issues with the fact that his father was Batman. Nor did he have a problem understanding and accepting that his mother was essentially the heiress to a league of bloodthirsty assassins; or that his grandfather, thanks to the Lazarus Pits, would most likely never actually die. Damian reasoned, that with his genetically enhanced intellect, there were many, many things that he could handle that would cause an adult man to wet himself, let alone an eleven-year-old boy. This, being stranded on this godforsaken island, with Grayson in some type of significant danger, and himself currently alone with Drake, however, was not one of those things.
He was trying. He was trying, very hard damn it, not to lash out as he walked side by side with Drake. They had been walking like this, silently, for at least ten minutes, and Damian, who normally found solace in the quite, couldn't help the feeling of his skin crawling. The anger that was boiling up inside of him was becoming too much. The real problem was that he had no one to direct this anger at. Damian Wayne had to deal with the undeniable fact that he was angry with himself. It was not something he was accustomed to.
Damian watched Drake more than he watched the area around him. It only made him more disgusted with himself. He felt he should have been able to do both.
"Here," Drake said, putting out a hand to stop him. Damian flinched back from the contact, earning him an eye roll from the older boy. "There's no need to be so over dramatic, Damian."
"No names in the field, Red Robin," Damian scoffed. When he allowed himself a moment to look around, blocking out Drake's heavy sighing, he had to admit, the area he'd found would be ideal for a pick up. They were right by the beach – plenty of room for one of his father's planes to land smoothly. The vegetation around them would also do well to conceal them until a rescue could be arranged. Damian had to quickly snap himself back to reality as he realized Drake was speaking to him.
"Look, Robin," Drake continued. Damian didn't approve of the sarcasm, but he allowed it for now. "I know what you're doing. And you can't."
"What are you prattling on about now, Drake?" Damn, Damian cursed internally. He hadn't meant to revert back to real names, especially not after chiding the now smirking annoyance in front of him.
"Uh-huh," Drake continued, the smirk on his face now insufferable. "Anyway, I know you're blaming yourself. You did screw up royally, but-" Damian caught him with a glare, but Drake continued anyway. "But, you weren't the one who came flying in like a pack of idiots with no plan."
"You could not even begin to fathom my thought process," Damian scoffed imperiously in response. His ire rose when Drake had the audacity laugh at him.
"Please," he said. "I have been doing self-doubt and blaming since before your mother handed you a sword. I'm the expert in this family."
Damian was about to fire off another scathing remark when his mind flashed him back to the cell they had not too long ago been sharing, and the looks of self-loathing that had seemed permanently etched onto Robin III's face. Damian replayed as much of it as he could in his mind, trying hard to shake the haze of the drugs from his memories.
He remembered being angry, thinking that Drake had been the one to tell Grayson of how Oracle had been injured. But if he pushed himself, he realized the look of self-loathing had been on Timothy Drake's face the instant that horror show had begun playing out before them.
"You blame yourself," he stated simply, blandly, as though it were not some revelations he had just had. "You blame yourself for Oracle." Damian keenly observed the way Drake's body tensed.
"What does it matter?" Drake counted, pretending not to care, pretending that they hadn't just tracked into territory that made him immensely uncomfortable. "He does. At least a part of him does, or he wouldn't have dreamed it, would he?"
"Tt. You are aware he's heavily drugged, yes?" Damian sneered. He couldn't believe he was actually trying to comfort Drake. The other boy shrugged.
"It doesn't matter," he stated resolutely.
"Tt."
When Drake didn't respond, Damian gave him the silence he had earned. What did he care if the fool chose to blame himself for something he couldn't control? Why should it matter to him if Drake wanted to carry that burden of guilt?
After another few minutes of wandering, Drake stopped him again with a hand on his arm. This time, Damian Wayne managed not to flinch.
"We should go back. Jay is pretty beat up too, if they get swarmed, something bad could happen."
Damian chose not to grace Drake with a response, but did turn himself, albeit slowly, around. He was still trying to sort out some of the wooziness in his movements.
"You all right?" Drake asked, actually sounding concerned.
"Tt. Like you care." Timothy Drake did an odd thing then. He paused, taking both of his hands and wrapping them around Damian's biceps.
"I do, you little idiot. I don't hate you, you know." Damian jerked himself away, trying hard to cover the slight stumble in his movements.
"Please. If I honestly cared what you thought then I'd…" But Drake's obnoxious laughter cut him off…again.
"You care. Try all you want, kid, but I know you care what we think. Why else would you have tried so hard to show how tough you are?" Damian only scoffed at his words. This conversation was bordering far closer to the emotional side than he would have liked. "Damian, all of us have done it. All of us have run off trying to prove that we were worthy of whatever mask we were wearing at the time. Hell, on some level, all of us are still trying to prove ourselves to Him."
Damian had a retort on the tip of his tongue. A piece of him longed to let it fly; to let the venom he felt fall from his lips as he assured Drake that he, as the only blood son, would always be worthy of his father. But he didn't. Damian held the words close to his chest, before letting them go. It wasn't the time, he realized. Nor was it ever, really.
Barbara hated waiting. She hated not knowing what was going on, and the fact that there was nothing that she could do. She slid her fingers across her keyboard idly; the sound of her nails scraping the keys failing to calm her as it normally did. She began to chew her lip.
"I'm going to kill him," she whispered to no one. She knew it wasn't fair to blame Dick for this – at least not for all of it, but that didn't mean she didn't want to. It didn't mean that she didn't want to scream at him until he came back to his senses, or until she came back to hers. Slowly, Barbara counted back from five, but every number she hit fixed a new picture in her head.
Five: She saw the way he smiled when he lied; when he said everything was fine.
Four: She saw him walk away, not realizing he'd be leaving her for years without a word.
Three: She saw the tight hold of his eyes when he refused to cry, even though everyone around him was.
Two: She saw his body go limp as he was knocked out cold and thrown across the room.
One: She saw scars on the body of the boy she wouldn't admit to still loving.
Barbara shook her head as she swore, raking her fingers through her lose hair. There were days she hated her memory and the way it chose to torture her. She flicked her left hand to the side clicking on her communicator.
"What's your ETA, ladies?" she called, surprised at how clam her voice sounded.
"Like you don't already know," Tigress's voice responded, filling the room. "We're close," She added. "But we're still flying in blind."
Barbara considered this. It was something she had been trying to work out for the past few hours. Santa Prisca wasn't huge, by any means, but there was still plenty of jungle for the boys to be camped out in, and that was only if they had managed to break into the factory, grab the Brat Wonder, and get back out, all without getting themselves severely damaged in the process. Barbara didn't feel particularly confident about their odds right now. She signed heavily, catching herself before she ran her hands over her face.
"I'm working on it," she said. "Did Alfred get you guys properly equipped?"
"Of course," Steph's voice rang. "We've got sandwiches and three first aid kits." Barbara couldn't help the morbid laugh that escaped her lips.
"Only three? Who do you think won't need their own?"
"Damian," Cass replied. Barbara figured she was probably right. The smallest of the batboys had an uncanny ability to avoid being injured. It was probably what gave him his inflated sense of invulnerability. She was about to say more when a sharp ping stopped her cold. Whirling her chair around, Barbara began typing furiously.
"O?" Tigress questioned.
"Give me a sec." Barbara had to work to keep the hope from her voice. She wasn't ready to feel it, not yet. Quickly, she brought up the message alert on her screen. A set of coordinates flashed before her, an SOS, and an odd mangling of Timmy and Dick's electronic signature… which meant… Which meant Tim must have sent message after hacking the two computers together. Only Timmy would have thought to do that.
"Batgirl, you're going to need to kiss Red Robin when you see him. I'm sending the coordinates to your navigation system now." Barbara's fingers raced across the keys, pinpoint the location on the south east side of the island.
"Coordinates received," Tigress answered back. Barbara could hear Steph's happy whoop in the background, and she dared to let herself hope.
"Go get'em ladies. Patch me through when you've made contact. Oracle over and out." They had found them. One hard part down, one to go. Barbara smiled to herself as she downed the last of her coffee. Maybe, just maybe, the last part wouldn't be so bad. She could hope.
Cass self-identified as a watcher. It was what she did – how she learned, and how she came to better understand those around her. Perspicacious, Jason had once called her. It was supposed to mean that she had the ability to notice and understand things that are difficult or not obvious. She knew: she had looked it up. She didn't completely agree with him, however. Because, while she had no problem observing the things that went on around her, the minute details that other missed, she often struggled to understand them. Right now, there was a lot of little things going on, a lot of little details for her to compile and understand all at once.
Stephanie was sitting in her chair – the copilot's seat, her fingers busy at the keys of a small on-board navigation computer. The location of the boy's - Tim's - SOS flair was already locked in. Cass looked harder, and corrected herself. One set of Stephanie's fingers was busy at the computer, the other, glove still on, was by her mouth. Cass knew that under the padding and protection of Steph's glove the fingernails of her left hand were ragged and chewed. It was her tick, her way of admitting that she was nervous without saying it aloud. Cass wouldn't say it either, but she was nervous too.
Artemis, the mask of her Tigress uniform in her lap, was slightly harder to read. Harder, but not impossible. Artemis held her eyes straight forward. She didn't engage them in conversation, and really hadn't for most of the flight. It was the woman's stoic features that gave her away – the tight set to her jaw that indicated her own nerves. Cass looked harder here too, and saw that ever so slightly, the thumb of Artemis's left hand, unnecessarily resting on the controls of the auto-piloted plane, thrummed with activity. She was moving it so fast it nearly seemed to vibrate. Barbara had once told her it was a tick Artemis had picked up long ago from the first Kid Flash. Cass found it a little odd that ticks and habits could be picked up from other people, particularly those you cared for. Carefully, she fingered a pouch on her belt, feeling the two carefully wrapped cylinders kept there. That was a habit she knew she would not be picking up from another.
"We're nearing the coordinates now," Steph called. "Exact location is in the trees. We'll have to bring it down…" She trailed off, Cass watching as she drew her bottom lip in between her teeth.
"I got a spot," Artemis replied, moving her hands from the controls only to snap the orange and black mask back onto her face. "I'll put us in stealth mode, but I can see them combing the tress from here." She turned to look at Cass. "Mask on, Black B, we're going in hot." Cass nodded in response, bringing the high tipped mask to her face. She watched as Stephanie and Artemis both ran hands over their gear, a last weapons check before the action began.
"Ready to break things?" Steph whispered to her, a smile playing over her pink lips. Cass nodded strongly.
"And bring them home," she said.
The whine of the Bat-plane's engines died as the older woman put the technological marvel into stealth mode. Cass unclipped herself from her seat, making her way to the back of the plane, gripping a bulkhead tightly. She knew what was coming next.
Stephanie, apparently, did not.
Artemis put the Bat-plane into a steep dive, pointing its nose at the black island below. Cass tensed her body against the dive, tightening her grip on the bulkhead and locking her legs to stop herself from flying backward. She heard a slight yelp of surprise from Steph before the younger blonde began stammering.
"Uh... Artemis. The island's coming up kind of fast..." The older blonde didn't respond. There was no thrumming in her left hand now. Artemis' hands were locked in a death grip on the Bat-plane's controls, and Cass imagined her gaze held the same steely resolve her hands did.
"Artemis, we should really..." Steph didn't get to finish her sentence. Artemis pulled back on the controls suddenly, and even Cass, who had been expecting the maneuver, stumbled forward slightly. As the plane was still descending, now nose in the air, the gangway in front of Cass opened up, the dust and sand kicked up starting to fill the cabin.
The gangway wasn't completely open, nor was the Bat-plane touching the ground yet when Cass dropped herself through the opening. Though deliberative in thought and action, she was not eager to let their element of surprise disappear. Artemis, and the Bat-plane's thrust vectoring engines, had kicked up a good amount of sand and dust when they approached the beach. That cloud of cover had been pushed right towards the tree line, and Cass intended to make every use of it.
She was sure Stephanie was delivering her grievances to Artemis as the Bat-plane touched down behind her, but Cass would have to listen to her sister's complaints another time. She was already a few dozen feet away from the transport, nearly to the tree line, and the reduced noise allowed her to begin to hear the frantic shouts of their enemies.
She ducked and rolled to her right as she entered the jungle, rising to strike the first goon she saw in the throat. He clutched at it, eyes wide, mouth opening with a slight gurgle as Cass leapt, her foot connecting with his face. The man dropped to the undergrowth with a soft thud.
Cass knew she wanted to finish this fight, or at least take out as many as possible, before her much louder comrades got onto the beach. That wasn't fair to them necessarily. They didn't have her upbringing. But her younger sister had an annoying habit of letting out something akin to a war whoop during fighting. And Artemis wasn't the quietest fighter either. Cass didn't see anything wrong, per se, with their fighting styles. But on an island full of enemies, the less attention they could attract, the better.
A quick shimmy up a tree put her above the eye-line of the two thugs that came towards the beach, and her. Almost silently, she dropped behind them, her leg swinging to catch of them in the knees. He buckled towards the ground as the other turned, raising his weapon. Cass' arm was a blur of motion as she struck him under his chin with the heel of her palm, his jaw closing with a satisfying crack as his body dropped. The first man was on his knees, trying to scramble back to his feet when her knee slammed into his temple.
The jungle was silent now. Artemis had finally shut down the Bat-plane completely. The stillness allowed her to hear the next attack long before she would have seen it. Cass ducked and rolled to the side as a crackle of gunfire thundered through the night air. Another burst followed that one. They were close. Reaching into her belt, she pulled out one of the batarangs that every one of Bruce's adopted children carried. Without looking, she flung it to the right, away from her, away from the source of the gunfire. It impacted a tree about thirty feet away with a thwak. Cass moved to her left quickly as the goons turned to fire on that tree, already grabbing one of the smoke balls from her utility belt. She threw it in between the two men. The ball immediately expelled a black cloud that turned the already black night of the jungle into something out of nightmares.
The two goons shouted and coughed in confusion as Cass leapt in between them. She didn't need to see them to know what was coming next. Cass loved the darkness, it was her natural habitat. Their weakness, relying on their eyesight, was her strength. She used her other senses to know exactly where they were. An elbow to the stomach of one and a fist to the kidney of the other bent them both over. She put her hands behind their heads, and brought them together. Hard. Both goons dropped to the ground as the smoke screen cleared.
"Equipo dieciséis, informe." A radio one of the men wore shouted to life. Cass immediately dropped to her knees, and lowered the volume. Intelligence on Bane had said his goons travelled in squads of six. The squad's final member was trying to reach out to his teammates.
"¡Equipo dieciséis!¡Adelante!" With the volume lowered, Cass could hear the man now. He wasn't far. She turned the volume all the way down on the radio, taking it with her as she circled around behind him. He was easily the youngest of the squad, and was visibly shaking as he crept through the jungle. She had no problem coming up right behind him.
As he reached for his radio again, Cass turned the volume up on hers. The young man swung around, rifle rising, as he heard his own voice behind him. Cass grabbed the rifle, twisting it out of his hands. She swung it like a bat, the butt end of the gun striking the man in the face. The crack reverberated through the jungle. He fell to the ground, and did not move again.
The jungle was silent, though not for long. Artemis and Stephanie were running into the jungle now, the latter letting out one of her aforementioned war whoops. They both stopped as they saw Cass drop the gun onto the last goon. She saw her sister's shoulders sag is disappointment.
"Oh come on, Cass," Steph's voice was a whine. "You were supposed to leave one for me." Leave one for her? Cass wasn't sure if Steph was joking or serious. She had always been told to eliminate your enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible. She didn't leave table scraps.
"No," Cass answered simply.
The older blonde stood behind Steph, a hip cocked to the side with a hand resting on it. Her head was tilted, and even in the darkness, Cass could tell that she was squinting at her. Cass couldn't tell if Artemis was impressed or annoyed with her efforts. She decided it was impressed.
The three women moved farther into the jungle, Artemis holding a small tracking device that pointed the way to where the signal had come from. Cass walked off to the side of the two women, keeping her ears perked for any sound of other squads.
A clearing appeared before them. All three stopped at the tree line, kneeling and looking for any sign of Bane's thugs. They didn't see any. Cass and Artemis stepped out into the clearing first, Steph hanging back. A sudden crack of a twig made Cass twirl, dropping to a crouch and raising a batarang.
"Black Bat! Tigress!" She recognized the voice. Tim. As she slowly lowered the batarang and rose, a squeal of delight actually startled her.
"Timmy!" In a flash, Steph shot past her at a dead sprint and jumped into the third Robin's arms before he even made it into the clearing. The blonde wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms encircling his neck as she kissed him deeply. At least she had followed Barbara's orders. Cass never understood such excessive displays of affection, but she knew where they came from. She felt something, relief maybe, at knowing they had at least found one of the boys.
After breaking the kiss, Steph dropped to the ground and punched Tim in the arm. Hard. Physical violence had always been a part of Stephanie's relationships, either from her, as was the case with Tim, or mutually, as was the case with Jason.
As Steph began to scold Tim, Cass didn't focus on what she was saying. She knew there would be more scoldings to come. A smaller form walked out of the darkness of the jungle into the relative light of the clearing. Damian. The boy that his brothers had come to save. He looked relatively undamaged; yet, different from the last time that Cass had seen him. The meal in the diner seemed like forever ago.
The youngest boy made his way to stand in front of both Cass and Artemis, just as much to get away from Steph and Tim as it was to greet them, she guessed.
"Black Bat. Tigress." His voice was low, still to the point as it always was, but it finally hit Cass what was different about the blood son. He was ashamed.
"Robin, where are the others?" Artemis spoke first. Which was good because Cass hadn't planned on speaking. Her attention was tuned back to the jungle around them, as both other women were distracted.
Damian merely pointed back behind the tree line where he and Tim had been waiting. Artemis nodded and gestured for him to lead the way. The two of them followed the boy, picking up Steph and Tim along the way. It wasn't very far back that they found the other two boys they'd been sent to rescue.
Jason was exhausted, perhaps more so than Cass had ever seen him. It was in his eyes, the dark circles under them, and the sagging of his shoulders. His breathing was slightly labored, from what Cass could only guess was an injury to his midsection somewhere. Maybe a broken rib? She couldn't be certain.
Dick was another story entirely. He was bleeding from a number of places on his face, and the lower half of his right leg was swollen to two or three times its normal size. While Jason's breathing might have been slightly labored, Dick's could only be described as erratic. It came in short, shallow rasps, sometimes stopping completely, sometimes slow and soft.
Artemis nodded to Jason as he stood and she kneeled beside the first Robin. Steph, who had been walking hand in hand with Tim, released her grip on him and threw her arms around Jason at a jog. A slight whine escaped from the large man's lips.
"Easy there, Blondie," Jason said, a clear wince on his face. "I'm a little worse for wear than the last time you saw me." He cracked a smile at his own joke, but Cass could see the pain in his eyes. He'd seen more than he wanted to on this rescue mission, and Cass knew it. She didn't know what had damaged the most damaged of them so, but she was certain he would tell her later, at a more quiet moment.
Steph released Jason from her hug, shooting him a disapproving glare from behind her cowl. He offered her a weak smile as he slowly walked over towards Cass. Off to the side, she saw Artemis open one of Dick's eyelids, shining a light in. His pupils were cloudy, unfocused. His breathing was still shallow, his chest barely rising as he drew in air.
As Jason stood in front of her, Cass looked up at him, a hand sliding down to her utility belt. A small grin crossed Jason's lips as he spoke.
"What? No overtures of joy at seeing me alive, Cassie?" She didn't answer, but instead pulled two cigarettes from her belt pouch and held them in front of her chest.
For the first time all night, she allowed herself a small smile.
Jason smiled wider. She knew what he needed more than anyone else. While Steph had offered him physical affection and Artemis might offer him something practical like water or painkillers, Cass seemed to know exactly what he needed most right then and there.
Sweet, sweet, nicotine.
He couldn't help but notice where she was holding the two cigarettes - directly in front of her breasts. Cass didn't mean it in a sexual way, and Jason knew that. She was most likely trying to hide them from everyone else, since no one approved of his habit. Cass didn't either, but she was at least kind enough to help end his suffering.
He carefully removed the cigarettes from her fingers, making sure not to let them touch anything else. Jason twirled the first cigarette in his fingers for a moment before lighting it off the chest plate of his armor. Putting what his brothers so affectionately called a death stick in between his teeth, he took a long drag. A very, very long drag. He basically pulled the entire thing down at once. Jason let the savory smoke fill his lungs for a moment before blowing it back out through his mouth and nose. He smiled at Cass as he lit the second cigarette off the first one.
"Thank you, angel," Jason said softly. Her lips curled into a soft smile. He'd have to find some way to let her know how much he appreciated her when they got back.
If they got back. He still wasn't sure if they were going to make it off this island. Though the odds were certainly looking better now. And better looking.
"Red. Hood." The voice that had almost shouted his name could only have belonged to the little shit. Jason turned slowly, the second cigarette still in between his lips as he looked down at the boy who was the reason they were all on this godforsaken island.
"Where did you get that?" Damian was obviously referring to the cigarette in his mouth. Jason shrugged.
"Found it in a pocket I'd forgotten about. Figured it'll help me get out alive."
"If it doesn't kill you first." Jason decided to let the younger boy's snarky comment go. As much as he was pissed off at Damian right now, Jason knew the boy's lashing out was his way of dealing with how responsible he felt for Dick. That didn't mean Jason wasn't going to smack him if he kept it up, but he'd let it slide for now.
"We need to get Nightwing out of here. He's in shock." Artemis' voice silenced all of them. Jason finished the second cigarette and put it out on the ground. Walking over, he knelt next to her.
"How far away did you ladies land?" His voice was low, head tilted close to hers.
"Close enough. You think you can get him there?"
"If it's the last time I have to carry his lazy ass, I'll be fine." Jason chuckled, then winced as he immediately regretted it. Taking a deep breath, he slipped his arm under Dick and then lifted. The pain that had slightly subsided came shooting back through his side. He bit down on his lip to stop a groan of pain from escaping through his lips. Jason shifted his older brother's weight over his shoulder to even him out and then turn to Artemis.
"So, did you bring me a gun?" He held out his free hand in anticipation.
"Of course not, Jay," she said, her voice soft. Of course she didn't. None of them approved of his use of guns. He felt something larger but lighter than a gun press into his hand as Artemis leaned up and pressed her lips to his cheek.
"I'm glad you're relatively okay, killer." Jason smiled and looked down. One of her crossbows was in his hand. He frowned.
"This is utterly unsatisfying." Before Artemis could respond with a witty retort that he was sure she had right on the tip of her tongue, a shouted order in Spanish shattered the night air, followed by the quick chatter of gunfire. Jason turned to see Bane's goons charging at them through the jungle. He raised the crossbow, and squeezed the trigger. A short dart flew through the air and embedded itself into a goon's chest. Jason looked down, a bemused smile tugging at his lips.
"But effective." Again, any retort from Artemis was cut off as bullets began peppering the trees around them. Both began running, stopping only for brief seconds to fire darts back into the trees. Ahead, Jason saw Steph grab a spare bo from her belt and toss it to Tim. Both took wide, rangy swings at thugs trying to cut them off from the sides. Damian had acquired a pair of escrima sticks from somewhere - Jason was guessing Cass - and was using them to fend off enemies coming from the other side.
Suddenly, the youngest boy turned, planting his feet and throwing one of the escrimas hard at Jason. The older man turned his body at the last moment, just in time to watch an electrified escrima stick whiz past his head. Before he could open his mouth to scold the little shit, he heard a scream and saw a goon drop to the ground out of the corner of his eye, an electrified escrima stick on his chest. Jason merely nodded to Damian and the group kept running.
They blew through the small clearing, and towards the beach. Artemis was already on the sand, calmly shooting a crossbow from each hand, picking off thugs who dared to get in her range. She ran out of arrows at one point, and dropped her crossbow, throwing a knife into stomach of a charging goon.
Jason himself turned and started squeezing the trigger at anything that moved as he backed out onto the beach. He continued firing until a rapid click click click let him know he was dry. His foot hit something hard and metal in the sand. Jason bent over, ignoring the screaming pain in his side, and picked up a rifle from an unconscious goon. He started backing up, firing short bursts into the jungle.
"Hood, come on!" The shout came from the gangway of the Bat-plane, its engines already whining for takeoff. "Hood, we've got to go!" Jason turned and saw Steph. Her blue-green eyes were pleading with him. He wanted to stay here; he wanted to kill them all for what they'd done to Dick, to Damian. To him.
"Jason!" Her voice screamed over the jet engines. And then his rifle was out of ammo. Jason threw the rifle to the ground and charged for the gangway, grabbing Steph by the back of her cowl and pulling her up with him. At the top, he slammed a fist into the gangway control button just as he felt the Bat-plane start to rise.
Tim and Cass helped him lower Dick onto a makeshift bed, just before he collapsed against the bulkhead, more pain shooting through his side. The roar of the engines was still strong, and Jason was certain by now that they were home free.
They were in the air for maybe three minutes when a click, and then the sound of Barbara's voice filled the space.
"Steph," Barbara's voice was clear, and in control. "Lenses down, give me a visual." Jason figured Barbara had done just about all the waiting she could handle. She wanted to see the boys for herself. More importantly, she wanted to see Dick. Jason didn't envy Steph; she would be the only one not permitted to look away as they all tried to ignore the shaking rasps of breathing. Out of respect, they all ignored the sharp gasp from Oracle. To her credit, by the time she spoke again, Barbara's voice was back in control.
"I'm going to be patching Doctor Thompkins in now. Tim, you're probably the best one to answer her questions." Jason watched as Timmy nodded before kneeling down next to Dick. While he knew the plane could essentially fly itself home, no one was going to mention that Artemis had stayed at the controls instead of coming back. She was done, Jason knew. This was one of those things she couldn't handle.
"Goodness." Dr. Thompkins' voice over the intercom forced Jason to look away from the where the older blonde sat, eyes on the sky. The older woman began rattling of questions one by one and Tim answered them to the best of his abilities.
Dick's pulse was erratic. His breathing was labored. And yes, his temperature was elevated. There was some blood loss, but that was mostly from the hits Dick had taken from the Joker. Jason noticed the way Timmy shook as he inspected the damage to Dick's knee.
"Right," Doctor Thompkins confirmed. "Last question, has anyone tried to give him anything since the incident?" Jason had to bite back a sarcastic laugh. The incident? Is that what they were going to be calling it? It took a nudge from Cass for him to realize that Timmy was staring at him.
"No," he responded, exhausted. "No, I tried to get him to drink some water, but…" he trailed off. "Yeah, that didn't go so well – I figured shoving pills down his throat would be a losing fight."
"Good," Leslie replied. Every last one of them ignored Barbara's sigh, which she tried to cover with a cough that fooled no one. The Doctor continued as though nothing had happened. "I'm going to arrange for transport to the lockdown wing of Gotham General. I'll send you an address as soon as I have it."
Fuck.
Jason had really, really, been hoping Doc was going to send them home and meet them there. He'd been hoping, but even he knew they weren't that lucky. He caught the tail end of the Doctor explaining that she'd have a cover story worked out for them soon – and that she expected them to all be in civilian clothes before they landed. The woman didn't bother signing off; as soon as she'd said her piece, her end of the conversation went dark. She wasn't leaving any part of this up for debate.
"You heard her," Barbara's voice came back, loud and clear. "You will be in civvies when you land. I'll be waiting for you." Jason suspected her sudden, albeit it familiarly bossy tone was an attempt to hide the way her voice was shaking. It might have fooled the kids, but there was no way she was going to slip it past him. Stephanie flipped the lenses of her mask back up, a clear indication that the conversation was over. She turned her eyes towards Jason before pulling down her cowl and pulling the comm. link from her ear.
"She wants to talk to you," Steph offered weakly, handing him the small device. Jason frowned, but put it in his ear any way.
"Jason?" He glanced around and saw that Cass, Steph, Tim, and Damian were already starting to shift away – moving towards food, coffee, or a clean change of clothes. They all looked like hell.
"Yeah?" he responded softly. If any of the others heard him, they ignored it. They all knew what it was like to have the voice of Oracle in their heads.
"Jay?" She repeated, this time not even bothering to hide the way her voice shook. Jason figured her whole body was probably shaking at this point. The weight of it made his heart hurt.
A part of him wanted to give her Dick's apology – it was on the tip of his tongue, but then he stopped. It wouldn't help. He sighed, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes.
"Yeah, Babs?"
"Do you know how to disarm the security locks on the Nightwing armor, or do you need me to walk you through it?" Jason briefly wondered when the last time Barbara had disarmed the locks was, but he knew better than to ask. He hesitated just long enough to pull his own domino mask from his eyes.
"I got it," he promised, fingers reaching out to a small panel on Dick's right wrist – right where the master "off switch" had been since they were kids, no mater what uniform Dick had had on. Slowly, Jason let his fingers type in the password: 0923BG. Barbara Gordon's birthday. He laughed to himself when the green light flashed, signaling the all clear. "Code's still good," he said. She didn't say anything, but Jason knew Barbara was still there.
Carefully, he began peeling the mask from Dick's face, pushing his bangs out of the way as he went. Just as Jason had gotten it off, already moving to the gauntlets, Dick's face contorted painfully as another pathetic whimper escaped his lips – one that sounded a whole lot like Barbara's name.
Fuck.
"I gotta go," Barbara said quickly in his ear, and Jason nodded even though he knew she couldn't see him. "I'll meet you at the pick up site. Oracle out."
Gotham General Hospital was one of his least favorite places. In fact, he avoided it entirely if he could. But tonight, Dick Grayson could not avoid it. He had known his destination ever since he'd seen the news while browsing the web briefly in some Eastern European hellhole.
Daughter of Gotham City Police Commissioner Jim Gordon Shot; In Critical Condition.
They hadn't even put her name in the headline. She was just "Police Commissioner Jim Gordon's Daughter" to them. He knew they weren't trying to be disrespectful. The press didn't know about her exploits as Batgirl, how she'd helped save that city, save the world, more times than he could count. The city didn't know the name Barbara Gordon; it meant nothing to them.
But it meant the world to him.
When he got back into town, he'd called the hospital, pretending to be a cousin she didn't have. Getting her room number was easy enough, even though he was told she wasn't taking visitors. But he wasn't visiting.
Reading the news of her shooting had made him realize just how much she meant to him, how he had taken her for granted. That feeling of his stomach leaping into his throat whenever she was put into danger was amplified by millions when he read about her being injured like this. And then came the guilt, the guilt of having not been there, of not protecting her.
He landed softly on the ledge outside her window. Checking quickly, Dick saw her room was empty except for Barbara herself, her crimson hair splayed on the pillow around her head, her skin paler than usual.
Setting the flowers he had brought softly on the window's ledge, he carefully opened it and slipped inside. Gotham's night wind lightly blew the curtains towards the center of the room, framing Dick like the opening of a show as he walked in. His steps were soft, measured, and steady, but a growing dread was rising within him. What if she never woke up? What if he never had the chance to say the words that he never should have held back?
He pulled a chair over next to her bed, setting the yellow daisies on the table next to her head. Dick looked around for a glass, something to put them in, but couldn't see one. It didn't matter. He'd get one later. His fingers brushed over the blankets covering her body before tracing over her hand. Dick locked his hand around hers, feeling the faintest bit of warmth through his gloves.
"I'm so sorry, Barb. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you." His voice, even at a whisper, cracked. He could feel the tears welling up behind his still-on domino mask. Dick opened his mouth to speak again.
"I'm never going to leav-" The sound of the door's handle moving stopped him, and in a flash, he was out of the hospital room, standing on the ledge with his back pressed against the outside wall of the hospital, deep in a shadow.
Dick could hear footsteps walking into the room, over to Barbara, the chair he had been sitting in, and over to the window. If the owner of those footsteps looked out the window, they'd see him standing there, clear as day. But they were so close, Dick couldn't move or he would be seen.
"It's okay if you don't wan to see me right now, Bruce, I understand." Dick recognized the voice immediately. Barbara's father, Commissioner Jim Gordon. He must think that I'm Bruce, Dicksaid mentally. Maybe if I just go in, I can explain everything, maybe he'll let me stay.
"I want you to know that I don't blame you, Bruce. Barbara is an adult, she can make her own decisions. She was doing what was right. And I know you did everything you could for her." The Commissioner's voice faltered, and Dick heard him shuffling his feet for a moment before he cleared his throat and spoke again, his voice harder this time.
"But if you see that boy of yours, you tell him to stay the hell away from her. It's been two weeks, and he hasn't called, hasn't written, hasn't stopped by to see her. If he really loved her, he wouldn't have left in the first place, but if he cared about her at all, he'd be here now." Dick felt like he'd been shot, like he'd just read about Barbara being shot all over again, like he'd just lost Jason again. Like he'd just lost Wally again. He kept his mouth shut.
"You tell him that, Bruce. You tell him I never want to see him around my Barbara ever again." The window slammed shut, and Dick heard the latch lock. He bowed his head before looking up at the cloudless Gotham night. Poking his head around the window one last time to see Barbara's face, her father hunched over her bed, he fired his grappling hook and swung away.
Gotham wasn't home anymore.