Archive of Our Own

THIS FANFICTION IS HOSTED ON ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN, WHERE YOU CAN READ IT FOR FREE. IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON A DIFFERENT WEBSITE, IT WAS POSTED THERE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR’S CONSENT.

“Don’t,” the tiny speck of a child said, gazing up at Bruce. “Don’t say goodbye. Not like that. Like you’re checking it off your ‘if I don’t make it back’ to do list.”

Bruce opened his mouth, then closed it again. He crouched down. “Alright. How about ‘be good, and when I get back, we’ll have a night off’?”

Instead of responding, Dick flung himself at him, arms in a strangling hold around Bruce’s neck. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

It wasn’t a memory Bruce thought of often – there had been so many goodbyes, so many glances at each and every one of his allies as they stepped onto a battlefield. The earlier ones were overshadowed by the returns, by the relief on Dick and Alfred’s faces when he stumbled out of the Batmobile.

But now, he was the one on the other end of the phone, clutching the steering wheel in clammy hands as he raced down Gotham streets. He was lucky it was that perfect time at night when it was simultaneously too early and too late for there to be much traffic. The streetlights reflected off the wet asphalt as the Batmobile tore down the road.

The comms unit in his ear was giving off bursts of static every few seconds, and it set Bruce’s nerves on edge. He waited, hoping, for the message that would mean that everyone had gotten off the ship, that everything was fine. He braced himself for getting exactly the opposite.

The pier was only a kilometre away, but the piled-up containers blocked Bruce’s view of the waters. He knew that Damian and Tim had been amongst the first off – they’d been a big part of getting people off the ship, and then from there to the pier.

But that was before a pipe had burst and the entire ship had gone up in flames. Bruce could see the clouds of smoke rising up.

He ran across the dock, immediately spotting Damian and Tim. They had the civilians and crew in little groups, going around offering emergency first aid to those that they could help before the ambulances got here.

“Status?” he barked, nearing them.

“Did the comms stop working?” Tim said, looking up at him from where he was bandaging a large gash on a man’s unconscious form. Then he shook his head. “Uh, we got pretty much everyone off. Nightwing was doing one last check.”

“There was no one else on board?”

Tim shook his head. “Not that we saw. But half these people weren’t technically on board when we first looked, y’know?”

That would explain a lot of things, including the malnourished look these people had, the tattered clothing, the dark, haunted circles beneath their eyes. Bruce nodded.

“Emergency services should be here soon.”

“Batman, there’s a group over there you can attend to,” Robin called out, seeing him look towards the ship on fire. 

Bruce nodded, fighting back a distant wave of amusement at Damian’s words. It’d been something the young boy had picked up on rather quickly – distraction via work. He had no doubt that Damian was also glancing towards the water every few seconds, but the fact that he spent that anxious energy on medical assistance made Bruce proud to no end.

A broken arm here, an infected scratch there… Soon Bruce was up to his elbows in wounds, most of them resulting from the long voyage. Gotham’s hospitals weren’t great, but they should’ve been here at least ten minutes ago.

There was another burst of static, but this time, a voice came through.

“Batman?” Nightwing said, coughing loudly.

“Nightwing. Status?” Bruce’s hands had paused, but he forced them to resume their job.

“I… There’s no one left in here,” Dick’s words were broken up by more hacking noises, “but I… B, I don’t know if I can—”

“Yes, you can,” Bruce said. His voice held no room for contradictions. “Get yourself out of there.”

“Yeah, B, but if I don’t, tell—”

“You will,” Bruce said, heart hammering in his throat, because he couldn’t crouch here watching that ship that was still on fire, and have Dick in his ear saying his goodbyes. “You understand me? You’ll be fine—"

That was when the ship blew up.

Bruce instinctively crouched behind the container he was next to, ducking his head into his chest to weather the blow. It wasn’t a big explosion – they barely felt it, beyond the waves of water splashing higher up onto the pier, and the faintest of tremors.

Everyone stared as parts of the ship were scattered everywhere, bits of debris floating towards them. There was a giant cloud of smoke and dust and other bits blown too fine to settle immediately, obscuring the view of where the ship had been.

Bruce wouldn’t jump to conclusions. He stood there, heart in his throat, as waited for a rescue boat to come out of the haze, or even a figure staying afloat using a plank of wood.

There was nothing.

“Batman?”

Had Bruce been less experienced, he might’ve jumped. As it was, he had to physically yank his brain away from the remains of the ship and onto the paramedic who stood before him.

“Was anyone else on the ship?”

Bruce shook his head. “No civilians,” he said, words sounding like they were coming from a distance. “Excuse me.”

He ran over to the nearest boat that had a motor, releasing the rope that kept it docked. After a little bit of fiddling, he got it started, and immediately aimed towards the wreckage. After an explosion like that, there was only the slimmest of chances that Dick’s comms would still be functioning, or that he’d even be able to hear anything over the ringing in his ears, but that didn’t stop Bruce from trying to contact him anyway.

He should've gone with his gut instincts and headed to the ship like he'd wanted to, instead of allowing Dick to take care of it. He trusted Dick, of course he trusted Dick, but there were things that required multiple people to handle. And sometimes, it just helped to have someone else there.

Bruce slowed down once he got closer, not wanting to miss anything in his haste. The cowl helped make things out through the haze, the heat tracking mode both aiding and hindering his search.

There were so many bits of debris floating around that it was practically impossible to find anyone in this mess. In this gloomy light, with the water black and murky, unless Dick was conscious and waved to him, there was almost no chance that Bruce would spot him.

Bruce took in a breath, and told his calculations to shut up. He called out Dick’s name, turning off the motor of the boat so he’d hear any unusual noises.

There was static over his comms. “Anything?” Tim asked.

“Not yet,” Bruce said. He didn’t have it in himself to say ‘nothing’.

There was something bright blue floating in the waves. Bruce unclipped his cape, diving into the water in an instant, swimming as fast as he could over to it. He grabbed towards it, but even from a metre away, he knew that it was only a scrap of fabric.

Bruce clutched at it, looking around him wildly. If this was here, then surely Dick couldn’t be far away. He dove down into the waves once again, looking to see if Dick had gone under and hadn’t been able to come back up.

He did that three more times, in a little radius around where he’d found the cloth. He didn’t give in to the desperation that was threatening to drown him, knowing that if he did so, the already low chances of finding Dick amongst this mess of a ship would drop even lower.

And then he saw it. Another flash of blue. It was a wonder he’d spotted it at all, seeing how it was buried in a little pile of metal. Bruce had never swam so fast in his life, but no matter how hard he pushed himself, he couldn’t get there soon enough.

A hand was sticking out, two of the fingers blue.

“Nightwing,” Bruce said, mostly in relief. And then he tried assessing his son’s condition. “Nightwing.”

The fingers twitched a little.

Bruce removed the topmost sheet of steel, working his way downwards. Dick was stuck between two slivers of metal sheets, each jagged enough to look like they could cut through bone. He was as careful as he could be, with Dick still unconscious and in a precarious position atop the water.

“Dick,” Bruce tried. “Wake up.”

This time, Dick stirred a little. Bruce could see how his breathing changed just the slightest, coming to with a hitched breath and jerk of his body.

“Hey, hey, keep still,” Bruce said, trying not to betray just how limp he’d gone with sheer relief at the fact that Dick was conscious. “I’m trying to get you out."

“B?” Dick’s mouth formed the words, but all that came out was a cough and explosion of water.

He turned his head to the side, making a small noise when his trapped arm pulled at the movement.

“Nightwing,” Bruce said, struggling to hold the pieces of metal in position so they wouldn’t fall onto Dick. “I need you to pull yourself out. When I say so. You need to be fast, you understand?”

Dick looked at him blearily, but he nodded. “Gotcha, boss,” he said in a voice that was barely there.

Bruce would’ve preferred to wait until Dick had woken up a little more, but there wasn’t enough time. Neither of them would be able to keep this up for much longer, and they needed to examine Dick before he caught something like pneumonia. And who knew what other injuries he had from the explosion.

Bruce counted down, noting how Dick tensed up and braced himself for movement. With a grunt, Bruce hoisted the last of the debris upwards and forward, as far as it could go. In a flash, Dick had rolled himself towards the side and off the little box that’d been keeping him afloat.

He immediately went under, sinking down in a flurry of limbs and splashes.

Bruce followed him down, after kicking what was left of the planks and sheets away from them. The underwater vision of the cowl let him find Dick immediately, and he swam downwards, grabbing him by the armpits and dragging him back up.

Dick cried out when Bruce grabbed him, air releasing from his lungs in a wave of bubbles. There were red clouds coming from his body that made Bruce’s mouth form a thin line, but there was nothing he could do about that until they got back to the speedboat.

“You with me?” he said when they’d surfaced.

Dick was barely moving against Bruce’s side, but he still had it in himself to nod once. “Yeah,” he said. And then he jerked his head up a little, showing more energy than Bruce though him currently capable of. “Tim and Damian?”

“They’re fine,” Bruce reassured him as they began wading back to the boat. “Everyone got out.”

Dick didn’t respond, just focusing on helping Bruce swim as much as he could.

 Hoisting Dick up onto the boat was another issue. Bruce looked at the ledge, and then back at Dick in his arms.

“Will you be able to tread water while I climb up?” he asked. “Be honest.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “’Course.”

Bruce gave him a contemplating look, but he let go, watching for half a second to make sure Dick didn’t suddenly drown. Then, he clambered on board, with a fraction of the grace he normally displayed.

Leaning over the side, he reached out an arm. “Grab onto me,” he said.

Dick complied, holding Bruce’s forearm with one hand while grabbing the edge of the boat with another. Bruce braced himself with his knees, tugging Dick over with all the strength he had. Dick scrabbled against the side of the boat, clawing upwards. He left wet red stripes wherever he touched.

Finally, the two of them collapsed on the floor of the speedboat. Bruce dragged himself over to the motor, starting it up once more and steering around towards land. He could see two colourful figures standing there, waiting for them, and he closed his eyes in relief that this hadn’t ended badly.