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“YOU BRING HIM BACK! YOU BRING HIM BACK RIGHT NOW OR I SWEAR TO HESTIA I WILL RIP YOUR THROAT OUT WITH MY TEETH!” Jason bellowed, struggling against the enchanted chains binding him to the wall of the damp cell.
The fuckers didn’t listen to him at all, dragging the unconscious Bruce away and out of the cell. Jason lunged against the chains holding him back, to no avail. He couldn’t break the chains; he couldn’t even get them to groan against his strength.
The ropes that had been tying his arms together had long-since snapped, leaving behind fading rope burns, but the thrice-damned chains refused to budge.
Jason had lost track of the time that they had been held, they had been moved and drugged too much and too often for either of them to manage to gather their baring's. They had managed to communicate as much to each other, but not much else. Their captors had given them very little to go off of, with even Bruce unable to figure out just who it was that was holding them.
And that had been before they had been locked in a cage too small for either of them to stand up. Before they had been allowed to become lucid once more. Before they had broken the ropes holding them back, and before they had figured out that they weren’t able to break the chains.
Before Bruce had been drugged once more and hauled out of the cell.
Now Jason had nothing more to do than to fight . He had nothing left to do but to struggle against what was holding him. Well, that and desperately straining to hear any noise from outside of the damp cell. There was nothing that gave him any inkling as to what Bruce was being forced to endure.
There was nothing to tell Jason what his dad was being put through.
It would be just like the stubborn fucker to be doing it on purpose. To be forcing himself to remain silent as he was forced to suffer, so that Jason would not be subjected to listening to him vocalizing his pain.
Screaming may have been the correct word, but to Jason… it didn’t seem right to describe Bruce as someone who screamed from pain.
So Jason was left with being unable to gain any more insights from what was going on; he didn’t even know if they had left Bruce in the same area, the same warehouse or whatever type of building that he was being held in. Jason had nothing to use to figure out any more clues.
All of Bruce’s training was for nothing. All of the hours that Bruce had put into him back when… back when Bruce still cared about Jason. Back before Jason had become a killer, and put so much distance between them.
Back when Bruce had still loved him.
Back when Bruce had still been his dad.
Now Jason was simply left with the shattered remains of the closeness they had shared so briefly after all of these years from being kidnapped at the same time, by the same people.
The last thoughts that Bruce would have of Jason is how he had failed him… again .
How Jason had again been found wanting and lacking, inadequate and deficient in the way that his siblings would never be. Never could be. Found wanting and lacking because Jason wasn’t able to figure out how to free himself and save Bruce.
Bruce’s little protégé was probably rolling his eyes without knowing why he was feeling so scornful.
The fucker.
But none of Jason’s despondency and self-hatred would have to wait, though. His self-hatred wasn’t helping anything at all, all it was doing was drawing his focus away from what he should be focusing on.
Like breaking these fucking chains and then going and breaking their captors fucking face .
Jason stopped struggling to pull the chains apart with his brute strength; because clearly that wasn’t working, and forced himself to use his other options available.
He had been cast as the one who had the most brute strength for so long, he had forgotten that he had once outshone even Dickhead with his brains.
Dick might have been captain of the math team, but Jason had been studying to be a doctor. He had lived on the streets, and yet had progressed far enough in school that he had left records that had yet to be broken. Not only that, but he had also been poised to skip at least one grade.
And it was time to put that to good use.
He felt along each individual chain link, closing his eyes and feeling for any weakness. Jason forced himself to ignore his numbing, tingling fingers as he concentrated; Bruce needed him to be able to prove that how he had once been as a child was not a fluke.
Jason felt nothing at all, not one single weakness, until he reached where the chains attached to a metal plate in the slimy, grungy bricks. There, he could almost work his smallest finger underneath of the plate.
It was the first weakness he had found.
So Jason set to work, prying up the loosened screws until his fingertips ran bloody - and continuing long after his blood dripped from his elbows. He continued even after his fingers stopped sending him pain signals; Jason having worked through his body attempting to tell him that he was in pain.
Jason didn’t have time to be in pain right now.
He could be in pain later, when it was safe for him (and Bruce) to actually be in pain.
So Jason continued to work and strive to break the screws and bolts from the wall. Finally, after an eternity that Jason hadn’t been able to afford to spend on it, the bolts released and the plate fell down from the wall.
It left Jason still restrained in the chains… but chains could be some of the best weapons, so long as one knew what they were doing.
And Talia had spent a very long time ensuring that Jason knew what he was doing.
Murderously, wrathfully, viciously ; Jason was about to start pounding on the door to break it down when he forced himself back.
If he did that, there would be no hiding the fact that he had escaped. They could, and probably would, drug him again before he could escape. Jason had to be smart about this.
It was again time for him to prove why he had once set school records.
So he went to the hinges of the door, slowly working and chiselling away at the metal until he was able to break them off.
They took longer than they should, once more taking longer than Jason could afford to spend, but he managed to break the hinges off. Then it was a simple matter of prying the door open.
There were no guards outside of his cell. It made Jason’s paranoia increase drastically, which turned out to be a good thing when he came across four guards entering through the same doorway Jason was just leaving from.
They all blinked at him in shock, and Jason managed to take down two of them before they could react. The other two were a little harder, but Jason threw them over the stair railings and let them land with a splat below.
Technically, he didn’t kill them (if they were even dead). The fall was what killed him.
Not that Jason cared.
He didn’t bother to check on them, to see if they were alive or dead, he simply prowled on. He searched, methodically crossing out rooms as being where they took Bruce one by one. He was about to enter the next hallway, his hope of finding Bruce in the same location as he had been being held in fizzing out, when he heard a door open and close from the hallway.
Growling, Jason sped up and entered the hallway in a sprint. Bane was looking at him in surprise; the giant towering over even Jason’s frame.
Jason was glad that he had been forced to keep the chains on his wrists, because he was able to use his surprise to his advantage and slam them into Bane’s thick head.
The giant went to one knee, obviously hurt but not knocked out. Jason took his chains and kept beating his head, over and over again, until he was laying on the ground unconscious.
Or dead.
But Jason didn’t have time to worry about that. He searched Bane’s clothes, finding the electronic unlocking device and releasing himself at long last.
No wonder Jason hadn’t been able to break the chains; they were running with a constantly-renewing source of metal.
Jason decided then and there that Bane was an intelligent bastard that he would make sure never saw the light of day again.
But he had the unlocking device, and he was free. Now it was time for Jason to find Bruce, and then to get them out of there.
Jason, logically, tried the room that Bane had been standing in front of before Jason put his ass down. There wasn’t anything inside other than cobwebs. Scowling, Jason continued his search once more.
He was becoming frustrated and desperate, because all of the rooms that he tried were empty. There was no way that Bruce was being held somewhere else. Jason refused to believe so. Bane wouldn’t have come back to a warehouse just for Jason . Jason may have been a Bat, may have been part of the Colony; but everyone knew that he wasn’t close to them anymore. It was common knowledge that he was an outcast - he had spent years ensuring that that was how he was seen. It gave him valuable intel at times.
So Bruce had to be here. There simply wasn’t another option.
Finally, Jason opened a room that had an odd crevice at the back. He hurried over, dragging his bloodied fingers along the seam until he finally found the latch. He threw open the door, mentally bracing himself for what he knew would be behind it.
Bruce was hanging by the same chains Jason had been, held up only by his wrists with his feet off the ground. He was bruised and bleeding, and Jason could actually see how his bones had shifted under his skin due to the breaks in them, but he could also see that Bruce was breathing.
And that was all that mattered to Jason at this point.
Bruce knew better than to tense, but Jason could tell that he had registered that someone had entered the room. He had a blindfold on, and Jason wasn’t sure how many blows to the head he had taken - so he didn’t know if Bruce would be able to tell it had been Jason to enter the room and not Bane once more.
“Shit, I’m going to get you down now, B.” Jason hurried over, moving to catch Bruce if the controls he had in his hand released his wrists rather than lower him down like Jason was aiming for.
“J’s’n?” Bruce rasped. He lifted his covered head slowly, tilting it towards Jason and his footsteps.
“Yeah, B. I got out, and now it’s your turn.” Jason braced him, carefully just like Alfred instilled in all of the Colony, as he pressed the button to slowly lower Bruce down.
The first thing to go right that night, it did start to lower Bruce down and not just drop him. Jason was able to slowly move Bruce so he was laying down flat on the ground by the time that the chains stopped lowering him.
Bruce was wheezing faintly, but there wasn’t much Jason could do to help. He released the chains, and then did his best to brace his ribs so Jason wouldn’t have to deal with a punctured lung while hauling his ass out.
… Maybe Jason could see why Bruce didn’t care about him as much as the others.
Bruce’s lips moved, but Jason hadn’t been watching to lip read. Gently, he pulled off the blindfold.
“Sorry, B. I hadda wrap your ribs. Repeat?” Jason winced when he caught sight of Bruce’s eyes.
“Why did you save me? I was trying to give you a distraction to get out.” Bruce mouthed the words.
Jason was sure his voice was shot.
“I saved you because you’re B.” Jason told him. “You saved me from the streets, and all the other times after that that I can’t even count anymore. I might be your worst son, but I’m not an asshole that would leave you behind.”
“Nnn’t w’st s’n.” Bruce frowned as he tried to actually speak. “Mm’ sm’rt s’n.”
“I’m… your smart son?” Jason was taken aback. “No, I’m your worst son.”
“Nnn.” Bruce's frown deepened. Jason called it Bruce’s harder frown. “Sm’rt s’n. Nnn b’d s’ns.”
“He really does think that.” Jason jumped as Steph spoke up behind him. “You’re his smart son. Dick is his emotional son, Tim is his bright son, Duke is his caring son, Dami is his brave son, Cass is his brilliant daughter, and I’m his feisty one. He doesn’t play favourites; not even when we’re suited up.”
“Can you make some fucking noise, purple?!” Jason tried to get his heart rate back down from heart attack level. “Hestia I nearly smashed you with the chains.”
“And we’re back to not knowing an emotion if it smacked us in the face.” Steph rolled her eyes. “You spend too much time with Diana; you swear by the Greek God’s.”
“Oi, you telling me you wouldn’t want a Goddess of the home to bless us so we all make it home?!” Jason gave her a look. Steph looked considering.
“You know what, that’s actually fair. Emotional and Caring are on their way, then we’ll get B up and into the Batmobile.”
“Then straight to Alfred he goes.”
Jason and Steph were quiet for a long minute.
“Think it’ll distract Alfred enough I can paint his room blue?”
“Blue?”
“Gunna frame Dick.”
“Violet, I will subject myself to Alfred’s care to distract him for you.”
“Bet.”