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It wasn’t an unknown fact that Jason Todd was very protective of his older brother. It started soon after he came back from the dead, the Team could tell that something was off with Dick that week, two weeks after Jason stopped being a crime lord. Jason never left his side until he was alright.
Now they, Dick, Jason, Artemis, and Kaldur’ahm, were on a drug bust. It’s been a year since Jason’s return to the hero world, since he stopped killing the criminals he fought. The group had been staking out these people for about four days now, they pinpointed their main base and were about to drop in when a man started talking.
“Trap is set, a fake drug sale in order to catch some birdies and bats for trafficking, genius.” He said, a laugh following his words. The man has accidentally given away his plan, and though it didn’t account for Artemis or Kaldur, Jason still tensed and moved closer to Dick. With their base being in Gotham, the criminals must have been expecting only the Bats to come bust their sale, but that was not the case.
“Their plan does not account for either of us, just be careful going in.” Kaldur said, placing a careful hand on Jason’s shoulder, which was shrugged off. Jason was just as tall and broad as Kaldur, taller than both Artemis and Dick, it helped him cover Dick as they dropped in through the ceiling. The criminals got scared when they landed and they pulled out their guns, to which Kaldur used water from a nearby water bottle to catch the bullets. Dick then disarmed them and handcuffed one of them, who shouted something in a code that the four couldn’t understand. Then everything stopped all at once. Dick was being pinned against a wall by a third guy who had come out of nowhere, Kaldur was kicked from behind and was now stuck in a fight with a fourth guy, who was armed with swords. Jason was sweeping the handcuffed guy to stop him from getting away and Artemis was shooting at the first guy with net arrows. The guy who had Dick pulled a leaver and then the two were gone, falling down a dark pit.
“Nightwing!” Jason called out, as he knocked out the guy he had and ran off to follow Dick, only to be stopped by Artemis.
“Redhood, don’t follow. We take these guys and find him later. You heard this guy’s plans, we don’t want them to have both of you.” She said, dragging her guy, now unconscious in a net, over and placing a hand on Jason’s shoulder, who huffed angrily, “I know you want to protect him, but we need to take a step back and reevaluate.”
When they got back to the Bat-Cave, yes they were in the Bat-Cave for this mission, Jason finally let out his anger.
“This is one you,” He addressed Kaldur, “You were in charge of this mission. You didn’t even think to retreat for a bit when that bastard said that it was a trap! Now my brother is alone, in a sex trafficking ring, and I pray to whatever is out there that he can hold his own!” Jason shouted, stepping closer to Kaldur’ahm with each punctuation.
“I understand your anger, I’m aware of my mistakes,” Kaldur said back, not showing any emotion from Jason’s outburst, “Dick is strong enough to hold his own, you know this.” He said, eyes the only thing showing his sympathy. This only seemed to frustrate Jason, whose eyes tinted with that lazarus green that they hadn’t seen in a while.
“You weren’t the one that stayed with him last time. You're not the one that knows that this will trigger a very specific trauma for him. Hell, you weren’t even there last time, none of you would listen to him! I’m not going to stand by while my brother gets raped, not again.” Jason shouted, then he was off. Activating a tracker he apparently had in Dick’s suit and getting on his motorcycle. Kaldur and Artemis stood in silence for a while, taking in what Jason, in his lazarus rage, had said.
“Again?” Artemis finally asked, but it faded into the dull air of the cave.
Jason followed the route of Dick’s tracker, trying again and again to connect to his communicator, to no avail. He tried not to think about what he had just told Kaldur and Artemis, what he had revealed to Dick’s friends, right now, getting to his brother should be his number one priority. The lazarus haze has yet to go away but it was fading from rage to panic. Dick had been barely able to function for a while after what Catalina Flores did to him, sure he had put on a brave face for his team but then he broke down when alone, or when with Jason. He had tried to console his brother, but he settled for just making sure that he was eating and sleeping enough. Eventually, Dick had gotten better. It was a slow recovery but Jason had refused to leave his brother during any of it. He couldn’t let his brother go through any of it again.
As he reached the location of Dick’s tracker, an old warehouse on the edge of the city, he snuck to a high window to listen in on what was going on inside.
“You put up quite the fight, little bird.” A woman said, her heels clicking across the ground as she paced, “We’ll let you keep your mask on, save some dignity.” She said, and Jason followed her with his eyes until she stood in front of Dick, who was tied up and seemingly drugged.
“He’s a pretty one, ain’t he?” A man said, he was sitting next to Dick, a hand on the hero’s upper thigh, “His friends ain’t gonna find him here.” He said, licking his lips as he looked Dick up and down.
“Sure they won’t, and he’ll sell for a pretty penny. Why don’t we get this suit off of him, yeah?” Another man said, and the woman nodded. Jason couldn’t stand to watch them strip his brother, who was conscious enough to be weakly fighting back against the men. He broke through the window, shuttering at the loud noise that it made.
“Get your hands off of him!” He yelled at them, the lazarus rage returning in full force. He attacked the three before he could think. When he came out of the fog the three criminals were beaten to shit and unconscious, he checked to make sure they were at least breathing. Then he moved to untie his brother.
“Hey, it’s just me, it’s Redhood.” Jason whispered, unsure if his brother could comprehend the words, as he gently lifted the older man and pulled out his phone to call Kaldur.
“Jason? Everything okay? We’re working on pinpointing your location.” Kaldur led as he answered his phone, looking back at Artemis.
“I’ve got him. He’s drugged out and tired but I managed to get to him before they did anything to him. Come pick us up? We’re at the old warehouse along the city border, the one that had caught fire in ‘09?”
“We’re on our way.” Kaldur said, then hung up. He and Artemis hopped into the car that they were using for this mission and headed out of the cave and towards the outskirts of town.
When they got there, they found Jason trying to stabilize a drugged-out-of-his-mind Dick, they immediately moved to help the brothers and then they noticed the three people on the floor. Artemis confirmed that they were alive and then called the police to come pick them up. She also handcuffed each of them to each other. Jason set Dick lying across the back of the car then went to his motorcycle, he set it on self drive towards the cave and let it off, then he climbed into the back seat of Kaldur’s car with Dick.
When they got back to the cave, the drugs were starting to wear off, and they were able to get Dick out of his suit and into something that was easier to evaluate his injuries in. Eventually, Dick fell asleep in the medbay, but Jason never once left his side.
When he awoke, Jason was there. The drugs had worn off and he was feeling better, it was hard to recall what had happened in detail but he knew the general premise.
“Dick? You alright?” Jason called, voice softer than it had been since… since Blockbuster.
“Yeah I’m… I’m just glad you got there in time.” He said, curling in on himself, to which Jason came and sat next to him. He didn’t say anything, much to Dick’s relief, instead just staying close to Dick, close enough to touch if needed, close enough to protect if needed.
“I won’t let it happen again.”