Work Text:
“Now get going, ya hear? It’s going to rain soon.”
Red Hood was doing his normal routine swing around Crime Alley having just sending a couple street kids towards the Martha Wayne kids home for the night when he chances a glance around the old warehouse portion of the area when he hears a crash. He pats down his belts and does a mental list of what weapons he still had ammo for, then ducks into one of the nearest buildings. After looking through the first floor and finding nothing but layers of dust, he moves on to the second floor, from his spot on the stairs he sees a trail of disturbed dust. Staying to the shadows, Red Hood follows the trail, then he finds the reason for his unease: an unconscious Robin in a pool of blood.
But it wasn’t Robin, it was Damian. The little dude wasn’t in his traffic light color uniform, but his civvies surrounded by pushed over crates and boxes. Red Hood does not panic, so when he feels his heart stop and all his breath leave him, he keeps his ears open and eyes sweeping the room for any movement. Red Hood does not let himself be lost in his head, so when his mind starts asking things like “Where’s Bruce? What happened? Where’s the bomb? Where is the Joker?”, he shuts his brain off and goes off his instincts. They tell him to check the little guy and get them the heck out of there and deal with the ramifications later, so he checks Damian’s breathing, pick him up, and bolts out of the warehouse. He knows he should go to the Batcave, but he doesn’t know if Damian could make it there, so he plots the fastest way to one of his safehouses and jumps.
Red Hood does his best not to jerk the kid too much, but without any type of transportation, he is stuck with jumping across roofs and parkouring his way to a safehouse while keeping one arm around the bleeding tyke and the other on his grappling hook.
Just as it starts pouring rain, he lands close to one of his more stocked safehouses and undoes the locks in the least graceful way possible, but he gets the kid in, shucks off his gloves. When he starts to pull his head out of his helmet, a clap of thunder jars a thought: he should tell someone he has the kid. He ignores it for now, now is when he needs to focus on getting Damian stable enough to be left alone so he can call someone. Thus, he starts a basic examination; Damian has multiple cuts, a splattering of bruises, and enough blood loss that is the biggest concern. He starts an IV line and begins to get blood in the kids system, then checks Damian’s head for any major bumps and wraps it in gauze, after that he disinfects and stitch the larger sword slices close before moving to bandage the smaller wounds close.
Finally, roughly an hour later, when he can take a break, he takes stock of his bedroom/mini med center. Damian is laying on the bed, more bandages than skin showing, no doubt with a concussion, a few broken ribs, and a makeshift IV line working through another bag of blood. He picks up a couple of empty saline and blood bags throws them in a bag to dispose them when lightning strikes and the clap of thunder follows shortly after and his eyes land on his thrown helmet and remembers the thought from earlier. He needs to call someone, so he picks up his phone with a secured line and stumbles to a chair in the corner of the bedroom, before he calls the first person he thinks of.
“Wayne Residence, I’m afraid that we are very busy at the moment,” the British voice comes from the speaker.
“Hey Alfred.”
“Master Jason, I-“
“Its fine, Alfred. I actually called with some good news, I found something of yours. About 4’10” black hair-“
He can feel the relief through the phone, though Alfred does not sigh or raise his voice, “You found Master Damian? I’m so glad, someone took him from school during lunch today. But nevermind that, where are you both?” He tells Alfred the address of the safehouse, about Damian’s injuries, then they both make a plan to get Damian to the Batcave.
After finishing his call, Jason slumps his shoulders, he feels his thoughts finally attack. Where was Bruce? Dick? Everyone else? Did Damian run off again? Damian was more important than Jason so were they looking for him? Why didn’t they call him? Did he get to Damian in time? What if he didn’t get to Damian in time? What if Damian ended up like Jason did? Alone in a warehouse, waiting for someone to help, bu—
“-dd. Todd. Breathe, Todd. Can you hear me?” a voice was calling out to him. Jason’s head shot up and forced his breathing and heart to slow to a normal pace. He holds up a finger, he just needs a second. He sees the IV drip from the bag to the tube (he ignores the sight of green hair). He listens to the rain hit the glass of the window, the clap of thunder, Damian’s breathing (he ignores the sound of a laughter). He tastes the copper of blood from his bitten lip (he ignores the taste of ash). He feels his heart beat in his chest, the cold vented air prick at his skin (he ignores the feeling of a strike from a crow bar). He smells the dirt on his uniform (he ignores the smell of smoke).
After a few minutes, with his heart and breathing slower, Jason chokes out, “Yes, I can hear you. How are you feeling?”
“I am better than I was earlier,” Damian says, though that does not comfort Jason in the slightest. Once Jason feels less lightheaded, he stands and sweeps his eyes across Damian. Damian lays stock still, though the blanket has shifted so Jason can tell that Damian tried to sit up at least.
“That’s good, I guess.”
“What time is it?”
“From what I can tell, you hit your head pretty hard, do you have problem remembering anything?”
“My memory is fine, thank you, Todd.”
“That’s great. Who did this?” Jason asks, expecting a fight for an answer, but willing to go a few rounds, Crime Alley was his no matter what Bruce said. However, what Jason did not expect was Damian to look at the blanket covering him and beginning to mumble into the fabric. So instead of letting go of a sigh, Jason asks, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“… my mother…”