Chapter Text
The night had started off promising. Well they always do don’t they? Tim had made some extensive research on the targets and he had made a solid plan that really only could be spoiled by some major unforeseen event. Damien had been following the targets for weeks and knew every move that was made in the headquarters of the traffickers they were presently trying to take out of business. Jason and Dick had not had a fight in weeks and everyone was on speaking terms. Everything pointed to an easy mission, beat up some bad guys, save some children, make Gotham a better place.
Jason had discovered a new child trafficking ring on his turf, and had realised it was bigger then anything he could handle on his own. The Red Hood had contacted Red Robin, who had asked Nightwing, who had brought Robin along since Batman was doing other missions in China with Black bat.
The place was a dump, an old wear house down by the docks. Too far away from the busy areas to be noticed, but still close enough to the city and ship routs to snatch a few kids of the streets and send them of to their personal hell. It was well guarded but nothing they could not handle as a team.
“Is everyone in position?” Red Robin asked over the com link from his place on a roof top facing the east side of the building. A chorus of yes answered him as everyone were more then ready to begin the mission that had take up most of their time for the last tree weeks.
“Nightwing and Hood, go in first and engage the armed guards, while Robin and I search for the prisoners”
“Copy that, Red no.2”
“Let’s just get this over with”
“Roger that!”
They set the plan in motion. It was simple, get in and get out with the children. In the basement of the wear house, Tim and Damien found dozens of dirty, hungry and scared kids, some no more then five years old. After the masked vigilantes had dealt with the few guards stationed there, they quickly got them out of the cages they were held in and out of the building. They had been in contact with some civilians, civilian clothed cops really, that had realised something was wrong when the reports of missing children had stated to come in, when an upper class kid had been taken. The cops also realised that they could do next to nothing by themselves and had actually been the ones to tip the Red Hood off about the events. The off duty cops were waiting on the other side of the street to take care of the children as the vigilantes took care of the criminals.
On an other floor Dick and Jason were struggling to subdue a higher number of armed men then they had actually planed for. But it was nothing they couldn’t handle. Well that was until one of the lowlifes thought he was special and took out some kind of modified cattle prod, that gave off some pretty impressive sparks every time it came in contact with another material. Material such as the Red Hood’s back.
Jason was having a great time; he was beating scumbags into bloody plumps in the name of justice. Not in rage or revenge or in pain.
No killing, but he found that he was strangely okay with that as long as he could do it together with his brothers. After all the tings he had done, all the lives he had ended, they still trusted him to have their backs in a battle. He still had his doubts about the demon child, but he too was coming around.
He saw the gun across the room before he registered what was happening. Nightwing was too occupied with trying not to get stabbed by the men surrounding him to notice the gun aimed at his head. Jason shouted to Dick to get his attention and turned to throw a knife at the man with the gun. The knife hit the man in the arm and the shoot missed its target, narrowly missing Dick’s throat, hitting the wall behind. But as Jason threw the knife, he turned his back to his own opponents. He saw the alarm in Dick’s eyes before he felt the pain. The oversized cattle prod hit his back, sending a massive amount of electricity through his body. The pain reached excruciating levels before he hit the floor. Convulsing and rapidly loosing his grasp on reality Jason saw a blur of blue, and then red, and green and yellow coming towards him before he blacked out.
Dick more saw Jason shout at him then heard him as the shot meant for his head hit the wall over his shoulder. And time seemed to slow down as he watched Jay get tased and brought down hard. He flinched when Jason’s head connected with the concrete floor. Luckily he did not need to call for backup as his little brothers were already bursting through the back door. Dick and Tim took care of the rest of the criminals still standing as Damien rushed to Jason’s side, after nearly throwing the cattle prod wielding smuggler through a window.
When Jason came to his head was in Dick’s lap, Tim was walking back and forth while calling the GCPD, and Damien was staring him intently in the face.
“Okay, lets mark that down as something I don’t want to do ever again” his head felt like it had been slammed into more than just concrete.
“You okay there little wing?”
Jason pushed himself up right, checking if anything felt worse than his head and when he didn’t find anything he got to his feet.
“Except for the date my head just had with the floor and the lasting memory of actually being hit with a oversized cattle prod” he shrugged, “I feel fine”.
“we should check on you when we get to the cave, there can be some left over effects” Dick mused as Tim got of the phone and Damien kept staring at Jason, or was he observing him? The former robin could never really tell.
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They walked back into the manor laughing and joking, the mission had had a happy ending. The kidnapped children were saved and safely returned to their families, and the Bats were all in one piece. Despite Jason insisting that he was fine and he had hit his head enough times in his life to know if he had a concussion or not, and in this case he had not thank you very much. Tim had checked on him and cleared him anyway.
The job was done and it was time for a break in the crime fighting to enjoy some free time, something all of them had earned and surly needed.
Tim had been doing too much research and too little sleep. Dick and Damien had covered all of Tim’s patrols as well as Batman’s while Bruce was away on business in Asia, followed by Cassandra. The Red Hood had actually covered for batgirl as Steph had finals and had taken a some what reluctant pause from the vigilantly life to focus on her academic career. They were good, the family was hanging together. It was dysfunctional and emotions was either repressed or taken to extremes, yes, but they were okay and more times then not they were actually acting as a family.
The brothers were looking forward to spending a couple of hours in front of some cheesy movie and a long nights sleep as they walked towards the kitchen to get some of Alfred’s snacks. But fate had other plans for them tonight.
Tim and Jason were debating what kind of effect the presence or absence a certain movie genre could have had on Damien’s personality. Including phrases like “I sincerely doubt Talia would stand behind access to Disney Channel as a Childhood insecurity, although I could be wrong”. Damien only shrugged and let them theorize, as Dick had given up keeping a straight face since he got out of his uniform and mask. All his brothers where getting along, laughing and enjoying each others’ company. This moment was so far away from how it used to be. The trust they felt now had not come cheap, there had been so much pain, anger, and fear, for so long.
One moment Jason was laughing at tim’s crappy taste in children’s cartoons, and the next he collapsed, falling to the floor. Time seemed to slow for the second time that night as the other brothers realised what was happening. Jason was still on the floor, too still, and he was not getting up.