#rayewriting

“Don’t leave me,” he whispers into the night. The rain and clouds making the city lights misty coating everything with a layer of water. It was almost beautiful, watching the light twinkle from the roof of a tall building. But this night, neither of them were watching the lights or weather.

The teen grips the railing, knuckles turning white.

“Why, pray tell, should I not? It is apparent to me everyone was perfectly fine leaving me. Why, why should I be the one that is always left behind? Between my parents, siblings, and friends, everyone was so preoccupied with themselves that they never remembered the one sitting alone at home.”

“I never wanted to leave you. Never wanted you to feel alone. Never wanted you to think no one cares,” the man explains, his voice layered with grief like how the mist layered water on his hair and face.

“Well, too bad. I was left. I was alone. I thought no cares. If I am being completely honest, I still think that way. I am tired of being angry, of being lonely, of being thinking that I am the problem.”

“Damian—”

“No!” he screams, slamming his hands onto the railing, “I’m done with this-this push and pull of family! Days where people walk in and out of my life like a revolving door. People you told me that should stay. You told me that family doesn’t desert each other. And it seems like that’s all this family does!”

“I’m sorry!” Dick yells back, hands clenched in fists, “Is that what you want to hear? I’m sorry that I had to go save the world—”

“I’m not angry that you went to save the world!” Damian’s voice still raging against the night before dropping low, “I’m angry because you and Father put on a sham for making your family to believe you were dead. I’m angry that all that this family is not a family at all.  All we do is offended each other, abandon each other…” Reaching his small hands towards his face, he wipes the small amount to water gathering in his eyes.

“And I’m angry that I can’t seem to make myself leave. That I keep coming back, no matter how many times I pick up the pieces of myself that this family uses then discards like garbage.”

“Damian, look at me,” Dick begs slowly closing the gap between them, “please?”

Placing his large hands on the teen’s shoulders, Dick slowly, so slow as if too fast would make Damian run away, turns Damian around. Finally facing each other, Dick looks, really looks, at his little brother, taking in the changes since Dick left.

The bags under his young eyes that have seen too much too soon. The ashen sheen that means too little sunlight on his previously dark skin. The limp in his hair he used to take so much pride in. The shaking muscles that speaks to how much he is overworking his body.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you and everyone else by tricking you into thinking I was dead.”

Damian’s eyes widen at the word. Hurt. That’s what he felt wasn’t it? Hurt? He was hurt because Damian was becoming the scapegoat for everyone’s problems it seemed.

Drake was angry? Damian must have messed with something.

Todd was brooding? Damian must have said something.

Grayson was pouting? Damian must have done something.

Father was being abnormally silent? Damian must have disobeyed.

It seemed that being Damian meant being a failure.

And it hurt.

“Now get going, ya hear? It’s going to rain soon.”

Red Hood was doing his normal routine swing around Crime Alley having just sending a couple street kids towards the Martha Wayne kids home for the night when he chances a glance around the old warehouse portion of the area when he hears a crash. He pats down his belts and does a mental list of what weapons he still had ammo for, then ducks into one of the nearest buildings. After looking through the first floor and finding nothing but layers of dust, he moves on to the second floor, from his spot on the stairs he sees a trail of disturbed dust. Staying to the shadows, Red Hood follows the trail, then he finds the reason for his unease: an unconscious Robin in a pool of blood.

But it wasn’t Robin, it was Damian. The little dude wasn’t in his traffic light color uniform, but his civvies surrounded by pushed over crates and boxes. Red Hood does not panic, so when he feels his heart stop and all his breath leave him, he keeps his ears open and eyes sweeping the room for any movement. Red Hood does not let himself be lost in his head, so when his mind starts asking things like “Where’s Bruce? What happened? Where’s the bomb? Where is the Joker?”, he shuts his brain off and goes off his instincts. They tell him to check the little guy and get them the heck out of there and deal with the ramifications later, so he checks Damian’s breathing, pick him up, and bolts out of the warehouse. He knows he should go to the Batcave, but he doesn’t know if Damian could make it there, so he plots the fastest way to one of his safehouses and jumps.

Red Hood does his best not to jerk the kid too much, but without any type of transportation, he is stuck with jumping across roofs and parkouring his way to a safehouse while keeping one arm around the bleeding tyke and the other on his grappling hook.

Just as it starts pouring rain, he lands close to one of his more stocked safehouses and undoes the locks in the least graceful way possible, but he gets the kid in, shucks off his gloves. When he starts to pull his head out of his helmet, a clap of thunder jars a thought: he should tell someone he has the kid. He ignores it for now, now is when he needs to focus on getting Damian stable enough to be left alone so he can call someone. Thus, he starts a basic examination; Damian has multiple cuts, a splattering of bruises, and enough blood loss that is the biggest concern. He starts an IV line and begins to get blood in the kids system, then checks Damian’s head for any major bumps and wraps it in gauze, after that he  disinfects and stitch the larger sword slices close before moving to bandage the smaller wounds close.

Finally, roughly an hour later, when he can take a break, he takes stock of his bedroom/mini med center. Damian is laying on the bed, more bandages than skin showing, no doubt with a concussion, a few broken ribs, and a makeshift IV line working through another bag of blood. He picks up a couple of empty saline and blood bags throws them in a bag to dispose them when lightning strikes and the clap of thunder follows shortly after and his eyes land on his thrown helmet and remembers the thought from earlier. He needs to call someone, so he picks up his phone with a secured line and stumbles to a chair in the corner of the bedroom, before he calls the first person he thinks of.

“Wayne Residence, I’m afraid that we are very busy at the moment,” the British voice comes from the speaker.

“Hey Alfred.”

“Master Jason, I-“

“Its fine, Alfred. I actually called with some good news, I found something of yours. About 4’10” black hair-“

He can feel the relief through the phone, though Alfred does not sigh or raise his voice, “You found Master Damian? I’m so glad, someone took him from school during lunch today. But nevermind that, where are you both?” He tells Alfred the address of the safehouse, about Damian’s injuries, then they both make a plan to get Damian to the Batcave.

After finishing his call, Jason slumps his shoulders, he feels his thoughts finally attack.  Where was Bruce? Dick? Everyone else? Did Damian run off again? Damian was more important than Jason so were they looking for him? Why didn’t they call him? Did he get to Damian in time? What if he didn’t get to Damian in time? What if Damian ended up like Jason did? Alone in a warehouse, waiting for someone to help, bu—

“-dd. Todd. Breathe, Todd. Can you hear me?” a voice was calling out to him. Jason’s head shot up and forced his breathing and heart to slow to a normal pace. He holds up a finger, he just needs a second. He sees the IV drip from the bag to the tube (he ignores the sight of green hair). He listens to the rain hit the glass of the window, the clap of thunder, Damian’s breathing (he ignores the sound of a laughter). He tastes the copper of blood from his bitten lip (he ignores the taste of ash). He feels his heart beat in his chest, the cold vented air prick at his skin (he ignores the feeling of a strike from a crow bar). He smells the dirt on his uniform (he ignores the smell of smoke).

After a few minutes, with his heart and breathing slower, Jason chokes out, “Yes, I can hear you. How are you feeling?”

“I am better than I was earlier,” Damian says, though that does not comfort Jason in the slightest. Once Jason feels less lightheaded, he stands and sweeps his eyes across Damian. Damian lays stock still, though the blanket has shifted so Jason can tell that Damian tried to sit up at least.

“That’s good, I guess.”

“What time is it?”

“From what I can tell, you hit your head pretty hard, do you have problem remembering anything?”

“My memory is fine, thank you, Todd.”

“That’s great. Who did this?” Jason asks, expecting a fight for an answer, but willing to go a few rounds, Crime Alley was his no matter what Bruce said. However, what Jason did not expect was Damian to look at the blanket covering him and beginning to mumble into the fabric. So instead of letting go of a sigh, Jason asks, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

It was a regular patrol, sadly; Dick thinks as he shoves one man and woman to the side as rifle bullets start to rain down from an abandoned office building. “Run to safety, and call 911!” he says to the couple before they take off down the sidewalk. He taps his earpiece and begins to talk, “Hey, O? You there? I’ve got a shooting in progress, unknown number of hostiles.”

Barbara’s voice is slightly miffed as she answers, “Of course I’m here. Someone has to watch out for all you, or else you will depend on 911.” She lets out a sigh and begins to deal out information while Nightwing begins to direct civilians to cover, “Okay, so it looks like you have a raid. I’m counting ten hostiles and they don’t look armed, so I don’t know who is shooting, yet. I’m going to send someone to— Oh.”

Nightwing was about to ask what “Oh,” meant when hears it, dropping from a rooftop.

“You know, we really need to stop meeting like this,” Red Hood yells out as he swings from his grapple, picks up a child then slides across a hood of a car, hiding from the incoming bullets.

Nightwing grabs a lone, elder man and ducks behind a wall and calls out, “But this is so exciting, Little Wing!” After giving the civilians directions to protection, they disappear.

During a pause in the enemy’s fire, Red Hood stands and shoots back at the sniper, slowly walking towards the building where the sniper is hiding in. “If by exciting, you mean ulcer-inducing then I agree, Dickwing.”

“You know you love it,” Nightwing responds as he jumps away from his cover, then begins to engage with the thugs on the ground as Hood draws the sniper’s attention, both men temporarily taking interest away from the potential goods the criminals were going after.

Red Hood scoffs at Nightwing before saying, “I need to reload, get behind something,” then he throws a thug into two other ones and flips a metal table to crouch behind. He sees Nightwing drag one man behind another wall and tie his arms together. “Hey, O, do you have an idea what these dirtbags are after?” Jason asks as he reload his guns.

“The building used to be a weapons facility that was scheduled for clean out later this week. The government already sent all workers home, except the security, but looks like whoever these guys are already got past them since the sniper is on the second floor. I’m pulling up blueprints for the building now.”

Red Hood begins to fire back at the sniper as Nightwing is pushed out into the open by three thugs, but Nightwing ducks out of the way of an incoming punch and calls out, “I’ll keep these guys and the sniper busy, just get him to stop shooting, for all our sakes!” as he finishes speaking, he decks a thug in the face and knocks him out, “Now, go!”

Red Hood does a quick glance and sees that nearly half the ground force tied up already. “Okay. Call in when you are finished taking out the trash.”

Nightwing lets out an affirmative noise as he slings his body around another man and brings him to the ground head first and leaves him unconscious. When he sees that Red Hood has seemingly vanished, he engages the rest of the thugs and therefore draws the attention of the sniper away from the missing vigilante. It is a little difficult to keep everyone focused on himself, but he has been in worse situations with less help and managed to get out of them alright. So, Nightwing begins his dance of punches, kicks, and bullets with the grace of a Flying Grayson and also the ferocity of a bat, listening to Jason as he deals with the sniper and their guards.

With a last kick to a man’s face, Nightwing begins to tie them up and notifies over the comms, “I’m done here, how is everything on your end, Hood?”

“I’m all good here, Big Bird. Just started a very enlightening conversation with my new best friend, would you care to join us? I’ll be sure to save some questions for you,” Jason informs in his ear.

“Yeah, I could use some brushing up on my interrogation skills, Little Wing. I’m on my way,” Nightwing says as he jogs up to the building and enters through the door following the unconscious bodies to the correct room. “Damn, just leave a trail of breadcrumbs next time, Gretel,” Nightwing utters as he pushes the door open and walks up to Red Hood.

“Screw you, Dickhead—”

“Hate to interrupt a lovely conversation, boys, but the police are almost there. So, if you want any information, get a move on,” Oracle’s voice pierced through their comm links.

So, Red Hood copies the sniper’s phone while Nightwing finishes the interrogation before the police show up. handing him and the other criminals to the police, the pair of brothers head to the roof, bantering together at each other’s quips and jokes. Once they reach the ledge of the rooftop, Nightwing says to Red Hood while aiming his grapple, “Don’t forget to give the evidence to O. She is updating the Batcomputer tonight and that needs to get to B.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill,” Red Hood utters as he digs through his pockets.

Nightwing smiles then asks, “I’ll see you at the next family meeting, yeah? Alfred’s making chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies.” Then without waiting for a response, jumps with a shout of joy as he disappears into the night.

Take stock of what you have before choosing a plan. This lesson was one of the first things Damian was taught when he began his tactician training under his mother’s and father’s instruction, so that is what he did as he was shoved onto the sand below him. He had his sword and a knife in his boot still but no utility belt, the left side of his mask was shattered and showing his bruised green eye, his uniform was torn and stained with mud, blood, and sweat in various places, and Tim was laying in a pool of his blood and unconscious. Damian can feel the exhaustion in his bones, blood pumping in veins, and adrenaline fading from his system. As he moves to stand his muscles protests, but his mind screaming at him to keep going, racing with various plans, odds, but most importantly, Tim.

How much time does he have? How much blood left in his veins? He can’t last much longer before he—

He cuts that thought before it can fully form. Because Tim can’t. He just can’t. Damian won’t let him go.

With aching feet, he stands and lifts his sword with throbbing arms and hands, pointing the tip of his blade towards his opponent.

“Oh, you are so foolish, Grandson. You have no way out, or contacting anyone. Why do you think you can win?” Ras mocks, his voice smooth yet Damian can feel it grate against his skin.

Damian keeps his eyes trained on Ra’s, and begins to place his plan into action. “I do not expect to win,” he says with a calm, confident voice.

Ra’s raises an eyebrow at his words, intrigued by the teen’s words. “Then why do you fight, if not to win?”

“I fight to keep my family away from you and your evil plans and excruciating manipulations. No one should suffer as I and my mother have. I will make sure of it.”

“So, you are delaying the inevitable?”

“Perhaps, but it will be enough,” Damian speaks with assurance, akin to someone pointing out the obvious. Because Damian knows that what he does has to be enough, otherwise Damian is going to die and he is not interested to do that again, at least not until he reaches his twenties.

Maybe he could live to his thirties, that would be splendid.

Ra’s gives Damian a disappointed look, and when Damian was younger that look always made him feel worthless. However, now it drives him and gives him the strength to continue, because if he was disappointing Ra’s then Damian knew he was doing something right. When Ra’s speaks again his voice is oozing with disgust, “You have become more foolish every time I see you.” Then Ra’s brings his sword against Damian’s, then his voice morphs to a calm tone, “But if you are determined to act this way, it is up to me to punish you.”

“At least I have a family. Since Mother has left your cult, you have no family, no heir,” Damian says, beginning to put his plan into action, “You have no one. Is why you dragged Timothy out here? For you to have a protégé? Or a second in command? Perhaps you were going to take his body over instead, since you could not have mine.” As he continues his speech, Damian backs up, slowly making his way to Tim. He hears Tim’s shallow breaths and a glance down tells Damian that Tim’s eyes are beginning to open.

Perfect.

“I think when you took my brother, you were not only trying to pick a new participant for your pathetic council, but also trying to hurt my family by taking a vital member of it. But there is one problem with your plans.”

“What is that, Grandson?”

Damian runs at Ra’s sword swinging, but dropping at the last second and slides between Ra’s’ legs, then swings his sword to block Ra’s’ sword coming down on him.

Ra’s eyes grow wide as a knife was sunk into his back.

“We keep each other safe,” Tim says as Ra’s turns to face the older Robin, “and you never seem to learn that lesson.”

Ra’s shoves Tim off of him, Tim rips the knife out of Ra’s back, and Damian swings his sword causing Ra’s to jump back. “I will not let you children stop me!” he shouts and begins to hack at both the Robins. Damian and Tim split and surround Ra’s, fighting in sync, where one would block the other would attack, and when one would get hit the other would distract Ra’s till the he recovered. The three fought with fluidity, as if this was a routine dance that they have practiced hundreds of times.

Soon the wind picked up and sound of a gun being fired echoing through the battle field, causing the three to halt their dangerous dance. Tim could see a red helmet stick out of the door, blue flash jump out of the helicopter and run to them, and he feels Damian and himself relax slightly to see their brothers.

“Hey! You took some people that aren’t yours!” Jason shouts from his place.

“I didn’t know you collected little birds, Ra’s. Too bad these already have a perfectly good home!” Dick quips as he lands a kick to the old man’s jaw.

 ***

The sound of rain hitting puddles and the remorseful feeling fills the gated area. The vicinity’s stones have dates that vary, some a couple centuries past and others fairly recent, few are owned by people with names handed down through a few generations and majority are differing from one another. However, each marker tells their own story; stories of Wayne generations, close friends- of sons.

But there are a few unmarked gravestones in the back, away from outside eyes, for the unexplainable stories and for the people that need a place to grieve. Because with their family, there are always going to be unexplainable things- no matter how hard they try to not let that happen. No matter how young they are, how trained they are, how much they get along -or don’t- they all seem to leave their lives too short to be complete.

As the storm continues, in front of one of the unmarked stones is a boy with black hair and unhealthy pale skin, he is shivering yet makes no move to conserve heat, only in his t-shirt and jeans. Tim’s eyes dart around and he looks defeated yet determined, like he doesn’t know he should be here but needing to do something. Suddenly he falls to his knees, pants soaking in the mud and puddles, hands are clenching so hard his knuckles turn white and resting on his thighs, his shoulders where hunched and his head bowing, facing the grass. “I didn’t want you to leave, no matter what I said—I swear, I didn’t mean it, Damian…” his voice is hoarse like he’s been appealing for hours, yet receiving no reply.

 Why did you leave? Why did I say I wanted you to leave? How come we never gave each other a second chance?

 Why did you protect us, when most of us wanted nothing to do with you? I can understand with my head- you wanting to protect your family- but I can’t force my heart to believe that you actually cared about us- about me.

Why do I always get left behind? Here alone, attempting to pick up the pieces of the fractured family that I forced myself into, again.

 For a while, Tim just kneels there, letting his emotions come to the surface of his mind and heart. His anger at the twerp for every interaction that ended with emotional, mental, or physical damage-cause even after his death, Damian was still a brat that tried to kill him-. His guilt for how he never saw what Damian actually went through under his mother’s care- how that affected him so much, yet Tim didn’t care. His dashed hope for what they both could have been in the future. They were brothers, dammit, and no matter what people thought both Damian and Tim grew to care about each other in some capacity.

 His eyes grow hot at that thought for what seems to be the millionth time that morning.

 But Tim’s former hope didn’t matter. His old dreams of having a caring family didn’t matter. His want of having a little brother didn’t matter.

 Tears start to swell in his eyes once more.

 Because Damian— he was— he wasn’t coming back.  Because Jason was the exception, not the standard. And Bruce was never gone like that in the first place.

 Tim hiccups start again.

 Because he is dead.

 The tears stream down his cheeks.

 Say it.

 He slams his hands on his knees.

 You coward.

 “You’re dead! No matter how much I did, how much Bruce did, how much Dick did, you still died! You were a child, a child, and yet you were killed for stupid ambitions. You were killed because your mother’s insanity and your family’s inability to protect you. If we can’t protect our own, how the hell can we protect the world? Is that what you want to hear?” Tim’s voice cracks as he yells. “And, dammit, its not fair! You little brat, you go off and die on us, just as you and I were getting along!”