Chapter Text
The explosive sound of firearms going off echoed throughout the warehouse, filling the air with gunsmoke and the darkness with bright, quick flashes.
Jason brought a hand up to his ear, wincing at the throbbing coming from the side of his head. "Oracle," he hissed, hoping his comm wasn't as fried as he thought it was. "O, come in. I could use a little help here!"
Nothing but static. Dammit.
Why had Jason thought it was a good idea to come here in civilian clothing, again?
One of the children at his side whimpered, twisting her fist tighter into his jacket. On her other side, her older sister had an arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders and was visibly biting down her own sounds of fear.
Right. The kids.
Inwardly sighing, Jason cocked his pistol and shifted his weight, trying not to dislodge the traumatized little girl. And to think, he just wanted a single relaxed night off.
He'd decided to treat himself to takeout earlier that night; there was a really good Chinese place near one of his more comfortable safehouses, one of the ones belonging to him under a civilian alias. No reason to bring any vigilante gear at all, aside from the handgun he kept in a concealed-carry holster at his back and the extra domino in his pocket.
No reason... except of course, on the one night he put aside for himself, he'd heard screams. When he got to the scene, he was just in time to see these two girls being hustled into the back of a van. No time to gear up, so he just slapped on the domino, yanked up the hood of his jacket, and hitched a ride on the back of the vehicle.
Just his luck to get wrapped up in a fledgling trafficking operation with only one weapon, two terrified kids to protect, and no backup.
Well... no backup was kinda his fault. One of the idiots had gotten the drop on him and nearly brained him with a crowbar while he was trying to sneak in. Needless to say, that guy wasn't going to be walking anywhere any time soon, but it had blown his cover.
So now he was here, solo, with a couple of scared-outta-their-minds kids he needed to keep safe.
Jason swore under his breath as shots hit the crates they were crouched behind. The girls yelped and tucked themselves closer to him. The younger one started to cry silently, tears barely visible in the shadows as they trickled down her cheeks. Jason ducked around the edge of the crates to return fire, and one of the shooters fell, bullets through his knee and wrist. The other gunmen reacted with a barrage that slammed into the crates like deadly hail, sending dust and woodchips raining down onto their heads.
The older girl had a hand over her mouth, eyes blown wide as she looked at Jason, while the younger one sobbed quietly and smushed her face into his arm. He stopped halfway into checking how much ammo he had left and looked down at them both, noting the way they were shaking.
He only had four bullets left. They needed to get out of here, ASAP.
"Hey," he said, then winced when it came out gruffer than he intended. Channelling as much of Dick's big-brother-voice as he could, Jason tried again. "Hey. We're gonna get outta this, alright? Just-"
They all flinched when another round hit the concrete, to the side this time, and kicked up a storm of sparks. Jason blew out a breath.
"-Just stay calm, yeah? I've got you," he finished.
He wanted to tell them I swear I won't let anything happen to you, or I promise you'll be safe, but years of experience and cynicism wouldn't allow the words to leave his lips. At his side, the girls both let out jerky nods.
Jason leaned back around the crates and aimed upward this time, pistol cracking once. From the rusted catwalk above the half-smashed warehouse loading doors, a scream of pain rang out and a body tipped backward off of the platform. Jason ducked back into cover before it hit the floor but, judging by the massive POP-BOOM and the confused yelling echoing around the room, the guy's rifle had exploded from the impact.
Fuck, he'd aimed for the guy's kneecap, he wasn't expecting him to fall. Ah, well. That's what they get for using sub-par ammo and cobbled together gun parts.
It created a lull in the shooting at least, and Jason took a moment to re-evaluate his surroundings. They were practically cornered, with a wall only a few feet directly in front of them, another one a bit to the right, and the crates at their backs. Over to the side was a heavily padlocked metal door, which Jason had been eyeballing for the past few minutes. If they could just get to it...
His fingers tightened around his pistol grip as he weighed options. Stay here and wait for the GCPD or another Bat to show up, or cross a very open space in plain view of a bunch of wackos with firearms and try to break down a door that looked like it could withstand Bane.
Not much of a choice was it? If they waited, they would most likely end up dead, but if they ran... then at least he had three bullets left.
The amount of shouting coming from the kidnappers told him they were getting their act together again, and fast. He tried his comm one more time.
"Oracle, this is Hood. We could really use some help here," he bit out, reaching over to wrap an arm around both of the girls and pull them all into a ready crouch. They tucked into his side, completely trusting, watching him with wide eyes. "Oracle? Red Robin? C'mon, someone pick up!"
Still nothing except white noise. Jason swore under his breath, then again, louder.
He couldn't contact anyone, which meant he had a single option. If they could get out of this building, they could lose the thugs in the streets and make their way to a safehouse or something. Difficult, but possible. Probably.
"Alright," he huffed, tightening his hold on the girls, who were still staring at him. "Here's what we're gonna do. See that door over there?"
The little one didn't peel her face off of Jason's arm, but the older one glanced over and pursed her lips, nodding once. She knew exactly what their chances were, he could tell, but trust flickered in her eyes as she looked back at him.
"Right," Jason continued, ignoring the heavy feeling that settled in his chest, "At my count, we're gonna hustle over there, and I'm gonna break the lock. Once we're outside, I need you both to run as a fast as you can toward the Narrows, 'kay? I'll follow and keep these dirtbags off our tail."
He shifted, and the little one whimpered slightly. In one smooth motion, he curled an arm around her and lifted her up to settle against his chest. She only reacted by wrapping both arms around his neck and both legs around his chest, burying her face into his shoulder. Jason turned to her sister, who was balancing on the balls of her feet, ready to move when he was because dammit, she trusted him.
"If anything happens," he said lowly, "Take your sister and find a Bat, or a safe place to hole up until the police arrive, got it?"
At that, a flash of fear crossed the older girl's face. "Okay," she whispered, the first word she'd said during this whole mess.
Jason nodded tersely. "Ready? One..."
The men on the other side of the crates had gone from disorganized yelling to shouts of anger and the harsh sound of guns being cocked.
"...Two..."
One of the thugs called out to take that bastard Bat out, already! which was, personally, kind of offensive. Confident footsteps stomped toward their hiding place.
"...Three!"
Shoving the older girl in front of him, Jason burst out of cover right behind her with her little sister in his arms, his body blocking them both from the ten gun barrels aimed their way. A few of the kidnappers actually yelped, clearly not having expected that.
Jason raised his gun as they sprinted, and the padlock on the door exploded from his well-placed shot. Two bullets left.
The men recovered quickly and the ground around them lit up with sparks and ricocheted ammo. The little girl buried her scream in his shoulder, and he pushed faster.
Fueled by terror and adrenaline, the older one reached the door ahead of him and yanked the remains of the padlock away as rounds slammed into the wall next to her face. Jason caught up a second later, but something thwacked into his shoulder and sent him staggering. He yanked the older girl into his arms as well, slammed his full weight into the metal door, and they burst out into the Gotham night.
Balance disrupted, Jason tucked and rolled, taking the impact as his arm screamed in pain. The heavy door rebounded off the outside wall and slammed shut again, momentarily blocking more bullets.
Jason pulled himself and the girls into a crouch, checking them over. They were shaken but fine, just bruised.
The older one shook her head, hair half-covering her young face, and her eyes widened when she looked at him. "R-Red Hood, your-" she gasped, eyes locked on his arm.
He could feel blood, warm and sticky, trickling down his bicep and back, but he didn't have time to focus on it. Quickly, he shoved the little one into her sister's arms.
"I'm fine," he gritted out, "You need to run."
She lifted her sister easily and Jason helped her stand, but she hesitated, eyes locked on him. Behind them, the door clanged open again.
With a short glance over his back, Jason shot the leading guy in the shoulder, shattering his collarbone and sending him flying back into his friends with a scream of agony. It bought them only seconds, slightly helped by the heavy door slamming shut yet again. He had one bullet left.
His head whipped back around to the girl. "I said RUN!"
Flinching slightly, the girl backed up, twisted on her heel, and sprinted into the darkness.
Jason was hardly thinking as he flung himself into the shadows next to the door. Instinct embedded by a crap-ton of training forced him to slow his breaths and go silent, even though the bullet in his bicep sent searing agony up his neck and down his arm.
He needed another weapon. One bullet wasn't going to cut it in this situation.
The door flew open for a third time, and a deadly hail of ammunition cut up the alleyway and brick walls for a few seconds before the gang seemed to notice their victims weren't there. Nine men in dark, grimy street clothes filed into the alley, various sizes of firearms raised cautiously.
Jason kept himself perfectly still, despite the fire in his arm and the blood still trickling into his ear from the crowbar hit.
"Ain't here," one of the thugs called out unnecessarily.
Another one swore profusely. "Bats and Birds are gonna be all over us after this-"
Jason's eyes narrowed. You have no idea, pal.
"Hey! I think they went this way!" one guy called, from the entrance to the side-street the girls had just disappeared down.
Craning his neck, Jason could just barely see the small footprints left near a grimy mud puddle. In any other situation, they would have gone completely unnoticed, but of course the only perceptive street thug in all of Gotham had to be with these guys. Just his luck.
Several of the kidnappers cocked their guns, and one growled, "Even if the deal's a bust, we can still put 'em down before they get the cops."
There were sadistic smirks of agreement all around as the gang moved toward the side-street. Panic, intermixed with a boiling, hot anger, bubbled up in Jason's chest.
He had to keep those kids safe.
Shifting slightly now that the gang's backs were turned to him, Jason felt his foot hit something hard. When he looked down, he saw several crooked pieces of rebar under his boot, half-buried in a crumbled pile of bricks. Noiselessly, ghost-like, he crouched and pulled them out. His eyes shifted back to the gang members.
They were grouping up, checking their ammo as they stomped toward the street, determined in their goal to murder two innocent children. A few even looked excited about the idea.
Jason melted out of the shadows with the stealth of a predator, rage burning in his throat, a pistol with a single bullet in one hand and three twisted lengths of metal in the other.
The gang didn't know what hit them.
Red Hood descended on the men with the force of an explosion, taking them utterly by surprise. The first three thugs were writhing on the floor before they knew what was happening, heavily concussed or screaming out in pain from a shattered limb.
By the time everyone else had whirled around, Jason had moved onto a fourth guy, crushing his shin with a blow from the rebar before sending a vicious uppercut into his jaw. The man fell, and then there were five.
It would be a lie to say that Jason didn't enjoy the sheer thrill of a wildly outnumbered fight at least a little.
A panicked barrage of bullets whipped past Jason's face and torso that he just barely managed to duck, and he launched himself under the killer hail to throw two pieces of rebar like makeshift knives. They thwacked into the arms of two of the men, and caused them to drop their rifles to clutch at the metal embedded in their flesh. Jason was on them in a second, smashing his fists into their faces to finish up, ignoring the way the impact jarred his wound.
As those two dropped, more shots rang out. Fire raced along Jason's ribs when one of the bullets grazed him narrowly, and he responded by body-slamming the nearest thug. The man's gun rattled away and Jason grabbed the guy's face to smash his head against the ground.
There couldn't be many left, judging by the amount of people littering the alley's grimy floor.
Something hard crunched into his side and Jason staggered back. The thug didn't have a rifle like his buddies, but his handgun was pointed directly at Jason, meaning there was probably now a bullet embdded in his ribcage somewhere. Not even pausing, the vigilante whipped his last piece of rebar at the guy and watched in slight satisfaction as it hit the guy's femur with a wet shunk. The man screamed and crumpled, and Jason stalked over to knee him in the face and send him sprawling.
Jason was breathing hard, limbs buzzing and chest heaving as he stepped away from the man. The itch in his fingers to just finish the job made him twitch, so he looked away and tried to control the green edging his vision.
He'd barely straightened up, eyes flicking over the mess of bloodily unconscious gang members, when one last shot burst into the air.
It punched into Jason's back like a white-hot dagger, knocking his breath away and sending him stumbling forward, unbalanced.
A cough raked over his throat and Jason tasted warm iron. It was a miracle that he was able to keep his feet as he slowly, deliberately, turned around.
He'd miscounted, apparently. There was one thug remaining, with a rough-looking rifle aimed at the vigilante. An utterly panicked expression was on the guy's face as he pressed the trigger again and again, but all that came out was a sharp clicking noise.
Jason spat a globfull of blood and raised his pistol. He still had one bullet left.
The man's eyes hardly had time to widen before the pistol cracked and his left kneecap exploded in a gory mess.
Ignoring the guy's screams, Jason lowered his arm and pocketed the now-empty handgun. He could feel the blood pouring from his wounds in a steady stream, darkening his civilian clothing beyond recognition and dripping down his body onto the street. The sweet rush of adrenaline was all that was keeping him upright right now, and that was already starting to fade.
Which was bad news. He still had to find the girls and make sure they were safe.
Jason took a step and nearly fell over as his vision wavered. Pain came rushing in, too thick and blinding to ignore any longer. A short gasp escaped his lips and he tasted blood again.
Swaying, Jason reached up to his ear. "Oracle," he said hoarsely. "O, I could- I could really use an extraction right about now."
Nothing, not even white noise anymore. Jason's fingers found the tacky blood smeared on the little device, then his arm dropped, suddenly too heavy.
"Shoulda known this is how it would go," he muttered to himself. "Shoulda expected this."
So, still no backup. He had to find those girls, regardless.
It was an act of sheer stubborn willpower that Jason was able to trip over to the entrance of the side-street. His blood left a little jagged trail behind him, clear for anyone to follow, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
One of his hands found the wall on one side of the little road. Somehow, by luck or a force of will even Jason didn't know he had, he began to walk unsteadily in the direction the girls had vanished.
His head was starting to fog up. More of his weight dragged against the wall as he reached for the comm again. Yes, he knew it was probably broken, but that didn't stop the need to try.
"Guys," he rasped. "Someone better pick up right now, or I swear... I-I'm gonna..."
Silence.
In spite of his efforts to hold it in, Jason coughed out a weak sound and felt blood run down his jaw. That probably wasn't good news, huh.
"Just- just answer me..." he murmured, and was cut off by a rush of lightheadedness. It would probably be better to focus on walking, he decided.
Jason didn't make it much further after that.
One moment, he was shuffling slowly forward, body on fire while he leaned practically all his weight on the wall, the next, he was on his face on the slimy ground with lightning-like pain ripping through his flesh from the impact. He couldn't even cry out, only able to choke on his own stuttering breaths as the torment washed over him.
He lay there for a long, long moment.
His own blood no longer felt warm as it pooled under him, and he shivered. Every inch of his skin was prickling and his eyelids were so, so heavy, but he refused to close them all the way.
Losing too much blood, he thought, and it made him panic.
With a monumental effort, Jason dragged an arm up to his chest and shoved at the ground. It took the last of his draining strength, and his other arm wasn't responding right for some reason, but he managed to push himself forward, inch by inch.
He crawled to the wall and collapsed on his side against it. The concrete was a cool touch to his forehead. Wet crimson leaked in uneven streaks around him, and he was nearly overwhelmed by the worst sense of deja vu in the entire universe.
Jason had died before. He knew what it felt like.
His eyes stung, with fear or with anger, he didn't know. Probably both.
"B-Bruce," he whispered, unable to speak any louder because it was getting hard to breathe. "Dick. Tim. Anyone, please."
He knew it was useless. They couldn't hear him.
He was angry, but not at them. At himself, for going in alone, for not bothering to tell Babs where he was, for taking the stupid hit with the stupid crowbar that broke his stupid comm and getting shot four times. For letting those girls down, because now they'd either have to find someone else to help them or navigate Gotham's crime-ridden streets on their own.
And he was afraid. So, so afraid.
"Help," he choked. "P-please, someone..."
His breath hitched and suddenly his lungs wouldn't fill up all the way, leaving him wheezing. Past the blinding rush of panic that seared his chest, Jason vaguely remembered that this was how it'd felt the first time, too, lungs crushed by the merciless beating and the force of the explosion.
He coughed blood, words bubbly with liquid when he tried to speak again.
"I need- I-I can't-"
His head was getting murkier by the second, the pain was receding despite the desperate heaving of his chest, and none of that was good. His hands and feet and lips were numb.
"I d-didn't get to s-say goodbye... last time," he gasped.
A small part of his mind registered the tears running down his face, but it didn't matter much, because he couldn't go like this. He'd promised Damian he would play chess with him and promised Alfred he would help him make the cake for Duke's upcoming birthday. He had to get the kid a present, and make sure Tim didn't run himself into collapse with the case he was working on, and help Steph with her English paper, and let Cass beat him in sparring, and challenge Dick to a Mario Kart rematch. He had to apologize to Bruce for their latest argument, had to tell him- tell all of them-
"I can't- I can't do this again, p-please."
His eyes drifted shut. It was weird, the way his panic was fading into the background, replaced by a heavy, heavy sadness.
"I don't wanna die alone again," he breathed.
Tired. He was so tired. The noise of the city went soft around him, and he didn't mind. He couldn't find it in himself to care.
He just wished... he wished a lot of things. Wished that he could've helped those girls. That his family was here. That he could for once in his life do something good without it being an abysmal failure.
There was a strange tapping somewhere nearby, getting closer even as his hearing faded further. A small rush of displaced air, and noise that he couldn't and didn't want to focus on. A voice, maybe.
He could almost imagine it was one of his brothers, arriving at his last moments.
Dying wish come true.
Jason let himself succumb to the shadows.