Chapter Text
Every breath Damian took in was a flittering thing, his small body struggling to maintain itself with what little blood had not been spilled all around him.
Tim knew that he was shutting down, knew all too well that they were running out of time but there were too many cuts for Tim to hold pressure on, too many wounds to be able to priories any single one.
No, no that wasn’t true.
He could prioritise, of course he could prioritise. A calm focus overcame Tim as his training finally, finally, kicked in.
Without any access to bandages, Tim was going to have to make do with what he had. He rushed to take off his belt, wrapping it around Damian’s left leg, above where a shard of glass stuck out of his thigh.
Damian roared in pain, trying and failing to knock Tim away, but Tim just pulled the belt tighter, hushing him all the while.
The fact that Damian was making sounds at all was what chilled Tim to the bone; anything severe enough that it made even Damian unable to tolerate it must be outright agonising.
New blood was already pouring from Damian’s leg, the makeshift tourniquet simply not tight enough. Tim scrambled for Damian’s abandoned backpack, finding a pen and using it to twist the belt so it became just a little bit tighter.
Damian fought against him of course, throwing his head back even as he kicked out but the blood at last had stopped pouring from the wound.
The very moment that Damian’s body went limp, Tim’s fingers rushed for a pulse point on for Damian to already be stirring once more. His skin was wrong, almost ashen, his eyes almost completely glazed over even when the boy managed to open them.
With the cut to Damian’s leg mostly controlled, Tim reassessed the rest of his little brother, needing to know for certain if there was any other significant injury that could put his life in direct danger within the time it took for the ambulance, or for Batman, to get there.
They were still on the street, Tim having been able to drag Damian from where he lay without too much blood pouring out of him. No matter what, Tim was going to need to move him anyway, another car could come at them at any point and the driver may not be able to see Tim and Damian in the setting light despite the very clearly crashed car that was still a few feet away.
That particular driver, the bastard that had hit a kid head on only to then flip their car, had fucked off the moment they were free from the wreck.
A siren wailed in the distance but it was still far away, too far, because Damian was still bleeding and he was still gasping for every breath. He could have nicked a lung, Tim realised with a jolt. He could have broken ribs and they could have torn through lungs that were already fragile from years of illnesses and injuries.
Damian’s chest stuttered, then again.
Tim’s hand glided up the left side of his rib cage, feeling for any divots while looking and hearing out for any sign of pain but Damian simply lay there gasping, nothing in his condition changing at all. Shifting his focus to Damian’s right side instead, Tim felt each and ever rib and found that these too seemed to be okay.
A fucking miracle, so long as Tim hadn’t somehow missed a break that would only be detectable on an X-Ray.
Tim’s mind screamed that he needed to check Damian’s back too, his little brother’s metal spine caused him grief on even the best of days and it could have very well been damaged either by the car or when Damian had hit the ground.
Checking Damian’s back would require risking that very same spine though; Tim had no way of keeping his hips, neck and back in line if he chose to shift him now. If Damian’s spinal cord hadn’t already been re-damaged, Tim might accidentally finish the job if he did anything too quickly or too wrong.
The driver long since gone, the ambulance still a world away, they were alone on this street.
It was a novelty, to not have a single person walking around, a novelty that Tim would trade in a thousand times if it meant getting his brother better and faster help. As it was, Tim could only do damage control.
Damage control and soft, calming reassurances because at some point tears had started spilling down Damian’s face and Damian does not cry often.
Unlike Damian’s ribs, one of his shoulders were clearly misaligned. The sooner it was set the better but his hand still had a pulse which meant for now it wasn’t actually the next priority.
Tim’s knees were drenched in Damian’s blood but he shoved away the sensation, wasting a moment instead on combing a hand through Damian’s hair.
As Tim watched, Damian’s chest stuttered.
“Easy, easy,” Tim murmured.
A hand, pale and shaking, fumbled for a hidden blade but Tim caught it instead, squeezing it tightly.
“There’s no enemies here,” Tim said. “Just stay with me, Babybird.”
No enemies because that stupid driver had ran from the stupid scene after he’d hit his stupid kid brother.
It wasn’t just Damian’s shoulder that was injured, but the arm itself too. Deep gashes ran through every part of Damian’s school uniform that had been torn, taking yet more blood from the already weakening boy.
There was blood too that had soaked part of Damian’s face and hair but Tim knew all too well that there was little he could do for a head injury right now. Tim just reminded himself time and again that head injuries bleed like crazy, even if they’re not serious, but a concussion or worse could certainly explain why Damian was allowing himself to not only make small, desperate sounds, but he had allowed himself to cry also.
Tim hushed him again, using some scissors from Damian’s pencil case to cut through his shirt.
Black bruising had already blossomed on Damian’s abdomen, trailing up to his chest where he’d been struck.
A hand grazed against the bruise, needing to know just how severe it was, and Damian’s breath really did catch then.
“I’m sorry,” Tim said. “I’ll stop soon, just stay with me little longer.”
Damian coughed, the sound wet
His non-dislocated arm shifted but Damian barely managed to get it to his own chest so Tim grasped onto it once more, squeezing it briefly before setting it down by Damian’s side again. Within moments, the hand was folded up against himself once more, his whole body trembling with the effort.
“Hold on, Damian,” Tim said. “Stay with me.”
Another cougher.
Weaker, this time.
Damian’s eyes drooped but Tim roused him, speaking to him loudly and firmly and even managing to get Damian’s gaze to flick towards him.
The ambulance was coming. It was coming and it was coming quickly and Damian just needed to hold on, he needed to hold on.
There was so much blood, pooling all around them.
Damian’s lips shifted in a word, in a name, but Tim hushed him, telling him to save his strength. He needed to rest, but not sleep, he was not under any circumstances allowed to sleep.
Tim found another broken bone but when he accidentally brushed up against it, Damian barely even flinched at all. If anything, Tim found himself wishing that Damian had just outright screamed instead.
Screaming at least meant that he was awake; that he was aware.
Sirens wailed, coming ever closer but in the split second that Tim had glanced behind himself to see if it was there yet, Damian’s eyes had slid shut.
“No, Damian, stay with me. Stay with me, Babybird. You want to make Bruce proud, yeah? Well then, you have to-”
At the mention of Bruce, Damian jolted, his eyes blowing wide. A hand, weak and shaking, went towards a hip. He scratched at it, again and again, simply not having the dexterity to do whatever it was he felt like he needed to.
He was reaching once more for a blade, Tim realised. Tim soothed him, coaxing the hand away but Damian only panicked, clawing at Tim until Tim finally managed to get the blade free and press it into Damian’s hand.
Damian’s chest heaved in relief, new tears slipping free.
Then, his hand moved again, this time to push the blade towards Tim. It wasn’t a slash, it wasn’t a blow at all, Damian was simply passing it over to him.
“I’ll keep it safe,” Tim promised.
Damian shook his head, his lip wobbling as he no doubt set off a new wave of pain.
“Mother.” Damian croaked. “You… You must… Mother.”
“Damian, no,”
“Mother.” Damian insisted.
When Damian tried to rise in order to force Tim to fully accept the blade, Tim hushed him and tried to instead give it right back to him.
Fuck the protocol about hiding blades if there was a risk of Damian being hospitalised; Tim wasn’t going to accept the stupid thing if Damian was only giving it to him because he thought he was dying or whatever because Damian wasn’t dying.
He couldn’t die.
Damian Wayne al Ghul is a ridiculous, annoying, pretentious, kind boy that had been trained since his literal birth to protect himself, he couldn’t be die like this. Like some pedestrian, crossing the road in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But then, there was so much blood pooled around them.
Damian’s breath hitched, and then again.
“Mother.” It was little more than a gasp. “Drake, swear it.”
“I’ll give it to Talia,” Tim said. “But she’s going to give it right back as soon as you’re okay again, okay?”
There was a sound then, small and afraid but Damian at last relented with a nod. Tim hid the blade away once more, this time on his own person, needing to hush his little brother again when he whined.
Damian’s hand shifted to another knife hidden within his clothes but Tim tapped him on the hand lightly.
“I’m not giving one to Bruce too,” Tim said. “This isn’t some last declaration of loyalty or whatever, you’re going to be just fine.”
The cough was weak, the slightest tinge of red gathering at the corner of his mouth. Damian’s chest shifted in a too quick breathe, then another, his body struggling to compensate for the blood loss.
“Just a little longer, Dami,” Tim said. “You have to stay with me a little longer.”
Green eyes flicked to him, tired and dulled.
“Don’t…” Damian forced out. “Don’t let her revive me.”
“Damian,”
“Don’t.”
“Damian, enough, you’re not dying, you’re just being dramatic. It’s going to be fine, you’re going to be fine.”
“Drake. Don’t. I don’t, you can’t-”
Another cough, a line of red rolling down.
Even with the blood and the injuries, it was the look of genuine terror in his little brother’s eyes that made Tim’s heart ache.
“Okay,” Tim said. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll make sure she doesn’t use the pit.”
Damian sobbed, from pain or relief Tim didn’t know.
A siren wailed in the distance, close, it was so close. Tim whipped around to greet it but when he turned back to Damian, the boy had gone still.
So still.
“No, no no no,”
Tim’s hands hovered over him, cupping his cheek, shaking his shoulder, trying and failing to rouse him.
“Damian, Damian open you eyes.”
There was no heaving breath, no trembling hand going for yet another blade, one that he would probably demand Tim give to Titus. There was no anything.
“Damian.”
The door slamming on the ambulance was like a gunshot but Tim didn’t, couldn’t, care.
“Open your eyes Babybird.”
Tim formed a fist, rubbing hard on Damian’s sternum.
“Come on, you gotta stay with me, they’re here, you’re okay now, open your eyes.”
There was a rush of movement all around him, strangers that spoke in fast words that all melded into one, a hand coming down onto Tim’s shoulder and trying to pull him away from the blood.
From Damian.
“No no no,” Tim said. “Open your eyes. Open your eyes dammit, it’s okay now, you’re okay now.”
The hand on Tim’s shoulder tugged harder but Tim couldn’t go with it, he couldn’t, he couldn’t leave his baby brother’s side.
Damian wasn’t moving.
He wasn’t moving but that’s just because he doesn’t like strangers in his space, so long as Tim got these people away from him, Damian would start moving again, start breathing again.
Tim was pulled harder and a sound was ripped from him because he couldn’t leave him, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t.
“Let them work, Son.”
That voice, that damn voice in his ear was rough as though it had been punched out of their very soul.
Tim knew that voice, knew those words, knew even more strongly that he couldn’t move away from Damian. If he moved away then Damian really was going to die but he couldn’t die, he couldn’t, he wasn’t allowed to. No one else in Tim’s life was ever allowed to die.
Bruce tugged at him again and something in Tim broke. He launched himself into Bruce’s arms, clawing at his chest, his neck, clawing at anything he could reach because Damian was hurt and he was bleeding and he was dying and he wasn’t moving and Tim was supposed to keep him safe, he needed to keep him safe.
There was a tightness in Bruce’s muscles, his gaze never fully leaving the boy on the ground even as he took Tim a little further away and Tim couldn’t leave him, he couldn’t, he couldn’t.
“You’ve done all you can,” Bruce said. “Now let them work.”
But Tim hadn’t done everything he could.
If he had, Damian wouldn’t be laying in a pool of blood in the first place. He would be safe, he would be okay.
Damian wasn’t okay.