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A violent kick from the Joker and the door opened.
Damian felt the cold night air, even through the black cloth the clown had put on his head.
"Walk little bird, walk." He whispered in his ear in a disgusting and lascivious tone.
He tried to reply, but the gag in his mouth reminded him of the swollen lip as well as the purple right eye, the one he could barely open. He also had a cable that joined his hands in front and was so tight that small drops of blood ran out of the gloves from his wounded wrists.
Everything hurt, and he thought he had at least two broken ribs.
The Joker had captured him.
Everything had been summed up to make terrible decisions, to escape without warning and not wanting to hear Grayson, who insisted on the 'Never underestimate the Joker.'
Not to mention that the clown had tortured him. So brutal, cruel and ruthless ... not even in the league of murderers no one was like that. That crazy.
"Batman!" the Joker exclaimed in a deranged laugh. He pushed Damien more roughly, who had been paralyzed for a moment, trying to recognize Grayson's real presence there.
Little Wayne started whining and trying to talk to the disgusting cloth inside his mouth, but the Joker's grip became harder.
'Grayson speaks. Talk to me damn it! '
"Robin." Damian heard the unmistakable voice of his Batman. Full of concern. Then a sense of relief that embarrassed him, flowed through him. He bit the gag harder and clenched his eyes, which he felt burning.
"Leave it Joker. It's me what you want!" Dick shouted in anguish and anger, while his hands shook uncontrollably.
When Dick had learned about Damian's kidnapping, he had remained calm knowing his Robin's abilities. When one day had passed, despair had become unsustainable. It had been the 3 worst days of his life, he had not slept, eaten, or stopped a second, checking Gotham from end to end, following clues, questioning the worst of the city, hitting, running, suffering.
Now more than ever he understood Bruce and Jason.
But he would never let Damian be killed. Never.
The joker's laugh made a cold shiver run down his spine.
"That's right, Bats jr." The clown said as he took the cloth from Damien's head.
The boy looked where they were. They were on the roof of some building, in the middle of the night.
"Robin." he heard Batman calling him, but he didn't look up from the ground. Damian felt too ashamed, humiliated and weak to look at his mentor, as if to look at Dick, the only person who was not willing to disappoint and whom he had tried to impress 3 days earlier with these painful results.
The Joker forced Damian to lift his face from the chin, which resisted.
"Isn't he cute?" he asked and laughed, watching as Batman's real pissed off expression went to fear as he saw the madman take out a gun and put the barrel in the child's temple. "And how much will it be with a hole in his head?"
"Joker no!" Batman ordered in a tone that Damian thought was terrifying. He felt the sweat and the cold barrel of the gun touch his skin. He tried to think calmly and decided that this time he would follow Dick since he didn't even know how he was still standing, when he had not been sleeping or eating for 3 days, when he had been physically, psychologically tortured ...
The clown crouched down and laughed harder, then Dick saw an opportunity to attack. He could no longer be a second more watching Damian's deplorable state, being sure he would pass out at any moment. But the Joker acted with surprising speed, took out a knife and stabbed Damian in the stomach, who was surprised to see how the edge entered him.
"Robin!" Dick roared, shifting his direction against the Joker, toward Damian who, through the gag, screamed in pain in a way that made the acrobat's heart shrink.
The child stunned by the pain receded to the edge of the building.
The Joker then used the gun while laughing and shot Batman over the hip. At least a couple of bullets pierced the kevlar.
Batman omitted that and with the adrenaline blinding the pain, he stamped his fist on the face of the Joker, throwing it in a dry sound against the ground to which he fell unconscious when hitting the cement.
Without stopping, Dick watched Damian stumble over the edge and fall 18 floors down.
Without even thinking Batman jump too.
Little Robin desperate and deaf to everything, except his pain, with both hands still tied, he took the knife out of his gut in a scream worse than when he entered. Squeezing with his teeth even the gag that was suffocating him, he cut the ties from his hands with the knife and then took the cloth from his mouth, breathing the cold air as he fell.
The weapon slipped through his fingers. He no longer had strength, he was losing consciousness.
Stunned saw how his blood left a red path in the air. And among the drops that dotted his face, he could see the black shadow that fell towards him, the dark knight.
He felt his heart pounding his chest hard, while his eyes filled with tears.
"ROBIN!" Dick shouted, stretching his arms toward the wounded child.
And as a reflex act Damian stretched his arms too.
"Dick ..." Robin replied to Grayson's surprise. Damian wasn't calling Batman, he was calling him, Dick.
They looked at each other for a few seconds when everything was silent and there were only two of them.
Batman with stretched fingers reached to touch the child's palm, then the hand completely and then linked their fingers.
Dick shot Damian towards himself. He brushed her ribs with one hand and his fingers could grab him from behind, until he finally hugged him.
Damian's hands slid by brushing Dick's cheeks, until he hugged him from the neck, who shrugged feeling small when he was hugged by Batman.
"Damian." Dick let out with premature relief in the child's ear, which smelled of blood and sweat.
The boy didn't answer, he was almost unconscious. Feeling in the elder's arms, he had turned off all his interior alarms. He didn't even care that they fell and there were only a couple of floors left before they crashed on the cold asphalt.
He was being hugged by Grayson, and nothing mattered anymore. Don't even die.
Batman hugged him tighter, realizing that the adrenaline had almost passed, and the shots of the Joker cornered his body and he could no longer move. Pulling a rope from his belt and saving himself was an impossible task, so while he fell he made weight with the body and left Damian on him, when they crashed, he would receive the whole blow.
So it was.
They crashed into a car, in a thunderous sound that rumbled on Gotham's night.
"Are you alright, brat?"
Damian heard inside his unconsciousness. It was Grayson's voice, only more bitter, and scratchy than before. He also heard slow beats in his ear, so slow that he thought they would stop at any moment.
Robin opened his eyes.
He was still being hugged by Batman, and had his head resting on the warm chest of the dark knight.
He looked up at his mentor who was smiling.
"Grayson idiot ..." Damian smiled but his smile vanished instantly. From under Batman's mask, blood flowed from his nose, as well as from his mouth.
He heard in the distance the voice of Alfred, Batgirl, maybe Red Robin too, that they moved quickly to get them out of there.
Damian had hardly received damage from the fall, all the impact Dick had received.
"Don't look at me like that, I'm not as bad as you, disobedient brat."
Then Damian felt fear for the first time in his life. Not the Joker, or his tortures, or the knife, or the fall.
Dick was dying.
He clenched his fingers on Dick's chest, watching as he had a large blood stain on his abdomen, which was not because of the knife, but the bullets that had pierced Batman's suit.
He leaned against Dick's chest again, the one who began stroking his black, wet hair with sweat.
"... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry ..." Damian muttered in bitter tears, beginning to sob.
"It's okay." Batman whispered, feeling like he was fading, while feeling the warm, kind hands of Alfie that separated them.
And before he passed out completely, he smiled when he heard his little protected whisper between sobs:
"... if you die Grayson, I will never forgive you. Never."
"...I know, I know..."