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There was no one in the building but them.
He was still reeling from the sudden change. From the dead silence to the rush of the sudden explosion.
He’d only just been able to grab Tim, and drag the younger underneath himself. He didn’t know where Cass was, or Damian, or Jason, and god, fuck him if they let Jason die in an explosion again.
His ears were still ringing, and dust and ash were still floating around him, making it impossible to see. He couldn’t hear, but he still hauled Tim up anyway, physically checked him for any injury. Tim looked dazed, staring around their lunar-esque landscape in confusion.
Dick didn’t blame him – they didn’t know the place was wired.
There was one other problem, one huge, glaring problem, but he couldn’t worry about that now, not when he didn’t know the condition of the building, or where his siblings were. Not when Tim was still alive under his hands and he didn’t know how long he had to keep it that way.
Tim was talking, loud but far away, and Dick couldn’t understand him. He couldn’t understand himself, as he spoke too. The dust wasn’t settling as fast as he wanted, and it was like walking through a snowstorm, trying to drag Tim to the entryway they’d come in.
Ceiling panels were still falling, wires sparking as they shuffled down the hall. The steps were covered in debris, but Dick maneuvered them well enough, even with Tim curled into his side, limping.
Now all he could hear was his own breathing. Tim’s breath was breaking through that mental fog too.
He was still, faintly, trying to figure out what happened. It was an abandoned building out in the country, an old courthouse, and they were looking for Harvey Dent’s stash of weapons and drugs and all kinds of other unsavory things. Their tech didn’t find any explosives – and they’d checked.
The door to the building had been blown off, so he and Tim hobbled out of the empty doorway. The air was cool out here, calm, with only the faint crackle of fire behind them.
“There…” Tim rasped, and suddenly Dick could hear him. Barely, but he could, and that was good enough. Dick blinked, it felt like it took a thousand years to do so, and looked down. Tim’s eyes were straight forward, behind the half torn mask. Carefully, he lifted his arm, pointing. “There!”
Dick blinked again and looked up.
There were three shadowy figures on the ridge, one of each size, small, medium and large. The largest was standing alone, hunched, though, like in pain or exhausted. The smallest was slumped against the middle-sized person, and they had their arm wrapped around the littlest, their heads leaned together.
There, indeed.
Tim shouted, and Dick couldn’t make out the word as his arm slid away from Tim and he tried to move forward on his own, at a slightly faster, still horribly pained, pace.
Tim shouted again, and the medium size person lifted their head. And relief flooded Dick’s system as he recognized the eyes of his sister. Of Cass, as she held Damian up, and Jason stood watch over them both.
His run was pathetic, but run he tried as Jason and Damian looked now too, and Damian stepped away from Cass. Dick engulfed the child in his arms as he collapsed to his knees, tears brimming in his eyes as he inhaled the scent of smoke already embedded in Damian’s hair.
“Oh, thank god.” Dick wheezed, as he felt Tim come up behind him, and collapse to the grass next to him, between Cass and Jason. “Thank god.”
“Good to see you too.” Jason huffed, breathing still heavy as he recovered from his own escape. Dick wondered where he and the others had been in the building. “Where’d the bomb come from?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Dick could feel the dirt covering his youngest brother, and a little more than a tiny bit of blood, too. Jason had the same covering his face, though a little more blood than dirt. “…Any sign of…?”
And he didn’t want to say it, not here, in the happiness that was his siblings alive. He didn’t want to mention what was missing.
He didn’t have to, though. Jason just frowned and looked back towards the collapsed building. That was answer enough.
Dick closed his eyes in response, and held Damian a little tighter. This was what was important right now, he decided, as he could already feel Damian’s swollen muscles and gashes under his gloves. Just this. Damian and Cassie and Tim and Jay. Their safety, their health.
He wasn’t going to lose his family again, and tonight, he didn’t. Not really. Not if you didn’t look close enough.
“Okay.” Dick whispered, leaning back a little, but keeping his hands hooked around Damian’s elbows. There was blood on his face too, matching Jason’s, and Dick didn’t want to give him the opportunity to fall because of any potential loss. “Okay, can everybody walk? Don’t be afraid to say no, we can help each other here.”
No one answered.
“Good enough.” Dick decided. “The cops will be here soon, I’m sure. I’ll stick around to talk to them. Cass, Jay, I’m putting you two in charge. It’s your jobs to get everyone home, including each other. No lone hero crap, got it?”
Damian looked back at Tim, and then Cassandra.
“We deal with injuries first, and crime scene later. I trust Gordon to handle this mostly on his own, but we’ll check in with GCPD in the morning anyway. I’ll be sure to call Babs on my way back to le-”
“Grayson.” Damian’s voice was small, and it stopped Dick in his tracks. “Father was in there too.”
Dick could only sigh, and look down.
“Grayson.” Damian repeated. “Father hasn’t come out yet. We can’t leave.”
Dick swallowed the lump in his throat, as he pulled Damian back in, and tucked him under his chin. He could feel Damian’s panic and mourning – could feel everybody’s – and knew there was nothing he could do about it.
The fire crackled behind them.
“…He’d want all of us getting home and patched up before we looked for him.” Dick hummed, looking up at Jason. “Like I said, I’ll stick around with Gordon for a while, and if nothing happens, we’ll start the search in a few hours. After daybreak.”
No one argued, and he knew they all hated that plan.
“Harvey probably set that bomb up, so in the morning we’ll need to collect any fragments we can. It didn’t come up on any sensors, so he must have bought it special.” There was a burst of sparks in the rubble, and he felt Damian look back over his shoulder. “Tim, as soon as Alfred fixes you up, I want you to look for any sales of military explosives, or new tech being developed and already on the market.”
“Will do.” Tim nodded.
“Cassie, Babs is going to have a whole lot of files that she’ll be sending to the cave.” Dick continued, ignoring Damian’s movement, as he twisted more in Dick’s arms to look back. “I’m going to need you to manage our downloads, and make sure everything actually comes through, and maybe brainstorm some new leads with Oracle. Anything you girls can think up will help.”
Cassandra nodded, already pulling out her communicator.
“Jason, no doubt Harvey planted this bomb to kill us. So I need you to lead back to the cave. Make it quiet and unnoticed. Back allies, change clothes, walk, I don’t care. Just get everyone back to the cave, and start a sleep rotation. Right now I vote Damian takes first shift, but it’s up to all of you once you get back to the cave.”
“At least one of us are going to have to help Alfie with the med stuff.” Jason added, watching as Damian escaped Dick’s embrace, and stumbled clumsily to the side, eyes still glued on the burning wreckage. “I’ll think up a rotation while we’re heading back into town.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Jay.” Dick continued. “When I get back, hopefully I’ll have some evidence from Gordon and the boys we can analyze. Alfred’s good, so I’m assuming you’ll all be patched up by then, which means we can st-”
“Damian.” Tim suddenly called, leaning around Dick. Dick spun around, reaching out to grab Damian’s closest elbow. “Don’t go too far. We’re at a safe range here, in case there’s other bombs, but if you get too close-”
“Shh!” Damian whispered over his shoulder. His siblings listened, turning their own eyes to the demolished building. “I thought…”
The fire kept crackling.
“Damian.” Dick murmured, tugging Damian’s arm gently. “You’re in shock. There’s nothing-”
“Shh!” Damian pushed, though didn’t pull his arm away. “Listen!”
And they did.
And there was nothing.
They waited a full ten seconds, before Jason sighed.
“Kiddo, there’s nothing.” Dick assured, pulling Damian back. Damian pursed his lips, but let himself be dragged backwards, back into Dick’s embrace. But he had just put his hand on Damian’s shoulder, about to cocoon him once more, when there was a light pop! from the building, followed by what looked like a piece of debris flying through the air in a purposeful arc.
Damian had jerked away from his hand before he could blink, rushing forward a few steps. Jason called after him this time, and stepped forward himself.
They all waited with baited breath. Was it the force of the flames, throwing inanimate objects around, or were they really all that fucking lucky?
More things flew through the air and, now, they could all hear the crashes and bangs that Damian already had. The sounds of someone trying to dig themselves out of a deep, dark, hole.
Dick felt his fingers twitching, wanting to lash out and grab Damian before he ran back into danger. Back into that unstable foundation and flames. Bruce would never forgive him, but more, Dick would never forgive himself, if Damian got hurt here after all.
But Damian didn’t run. Just stood on the edge of their group, holding his breath in desperate hope. Watching the flames as if his life depended on it.
(It did. All of theirs did.)
And Bruce never could be anything but dramatic, Dick realized with a choked laugh, as one last wave of sparks flew into the air, and with the increased oxygen, the flames grew higher. As, in the shadow of those flames, a caped mass emerged from the rubble.
He had barely hobbled away from the fire, barely gotten down what was left of the old stone stairs, before Damian was taking off across the field. He didn’t say anything, didn’t call his father’s name, or shout in relief. Didn’t care about his own potential injuries or blood loss. Just ran.
Bruce didn’t see the child until he was feet from him, and even then it was too late. Damian body-slammed him so hard, Bruce stumbled backwards, clutched at a shattered support nearby, even while wrapping a protective arm around Damian and lifting him into the air.
From their distance, they couldn’t hear anything that was said, but watched in pure relief, as Bruce let go of the support beam, and wrapped his other arm just as tightly around his son’s trembling shoulders, burying his face in the fabric of that yellow cape.
“…He made it.” Dick whispered, reaching out blindly, and grabbing the first person he felt. It turned out to be Cassandra, and he pulled her tightly into his arms. She immediately returned the embrace, ducking her head under his chin, even as Tim flopped back in the grass in relief. “He made it.”
“He always does.” Jason said, and there was a smile in his voice. Impressed and relieved, but most of all…proud. “He always does.”
Bruce spotted them on the hillside almost immediately and, shielding Damian from the heat of the fires, made his way quickly towards them.
Dick watched them approach happily, leaning his head against Cass’s as in his periphery, he saw Jason help Tim to his feet. Because these nights were rare. In this moment, Dick couldn’t recall a night where they didn’t come home broken and beaten and shattered, with a whole lot less than what they set out that night with in the first place.
But tonight, nothing was missing. No pieces were being left behind. No fathers or sisters or sons.
Tonight, despite everything, everybody lived.
Tonight, they went home whole.