Work Text:
Damian Wayne spat blood and glared at the person standing above him, their fist covered with his own blood. The man leered at him, his lips twisted into a cruel smile as he looked down at Damian like he was the punk kid of a billionaire that everyone thought he was. If only they knew the truth.
He spat another ball of blood, this time aiming for the man’s face. It hit home, blood and spit smearing across his left cheek. “When my father gets here,” Damian hissed, low and lethal, “you’re all going to wish that you hadn’t touched me.”
The man wiped away the blood and grabbed a fistful of Damian’s shirt, tugging him close until their faces were inches apart, and snarled, “You’re father is going to do nothing but pay the pretty price that I’ve put on your head, or he’ll be receiving it in a box.”
The man let go of him, and Damian slumped back to the floor, trying not to let the pain from his arms being wrenched behind him show on his face. He bared his teeth.
The man only laughed, the sound grating on every last one of his nerves, before moving across the room and joining the group of men who had kidnapped.
Grunting Damian propped himself up against the post that the men had chained him to, trying to get as comfortable as he could, given the fact the chains were tight enough that they were leaving blisters and wrenching his arms nearly out of his sockets. He wished that he could break out of these already. This waiting game that Father made him promise to play whenever he got kidnaped was really starting to wear on his nerves. Especially since Father was taking so long to get here. He was getting tired of pretending to be the spoiled, helpless rich kid that these men thought he was.
He’d been kidnapped for a good three hours now. That should have been plenty of time for Father to find him and bust him out of here. It wasn’t like these were some professional criminals. They barely even passed as good criminals. Or a smart one.
None of them had even patted him down before chaining him up. All of Damian’s lock picks and weapons were still on him. He could be out of these chains within ten minutes and have the half a dozen men rounded up within the next five. It’d be child’s play.
Suddenly there was a sharp knock on the door. Damian sighed through his nose. Finally.
Except when one of them got up and opened the door, it wasn’t Batman. It was a dozen more mercenaries.
And between them were Dick and Tim, both bound and bruised and glaring daggers at their captives.
Damian swore.
He didn’t realize it was out loud until Dick’s and Tim’s heads snapped to him, their eyes going wide as they took him in, just like he took them in. Minimal bruising, a split lip on Dick and a bleeding temple on Tim, but besides that they looked mostly fine. And from the relief on Dick’s face, he knew that he’d come to the same conclusion about him.
Neither Tim nor Dick struggled too much as the mercs pushed them over to the same pole that Damian was tied to and tied them to the same pole – a stupid mood given that they could now talk – before hissing a warning and walking to the half-dozen mercs that had brought Damian here.
Damian couldn’t help but tense as he looked at the mercs. Two dozen of them. All of them now armed with automatic rifles that the second group had brought. All of them now wearing full body armor and looking for all the world like they were about to go to war.
Whatever this was, whatever was going on, it was bad. Very, very bad.
“What are you doing here?” Dick hissed, his hand slipping into Damian’s and squeezing lightly. Damian didn’t know if it was to reassure Dick that he was alright or Dick’s way of checking to make sure that Damian was actually here. He didn’t really care. Even still, he gave Dick’s hand a squeeze in return – for Dick’s sake.
“Six of them jumped me when I was getting out of school,” Damian growled, his hands balling into fists. “The man with the awful haircut hit me over the head before I could fight back.”
“Same with us,” Tim said, leaning his head against the pillar. “They’ve obviously been planning this – whatever this is – for a while.”
“Not well enough to pat me down,” Damian murmured, voice low. “I still have my lock pick and weapons on me.”
“Me too,” Dick said.
Tim shifted, the chains rattling. “So they’re underestimating us – we can use that.”
That they could. They’d been in enough situations like this since Damian had gotten here a year ago – both in and out of the uniform – that he knew exactly how to use people’s underestimation of them to his advantage.
Dick sighed, shaking his head. “They say anything useful Dami?”
“Just that they were going to get a pretty sum of money for us from Father.”
Tim snorted. Damian had to agree. Father would never hand money over to criminals. He’d rather cut off his own hand.
They fell silent as a few of the mercs neared, a video camera in hand. Damian snarled at it, and from the way he felt Dick and Tim tense they were no doubt glaring at it as well. The mercs merely kept recording them, letting the video trail on for a good fifteen seconds, before snapping the camera off and walking back to the others. No doubt that was going to be sent to Father to hurry this process along.
When they moved back out of earshot Dick asked, “How long have you been here?”
“Three hours and twenty seven minutes,” Damian said.
“Bruce should be here soon then,” Tim said. The sound of chains clinking echoed again. No doubt they were testing out the chains. “Or he’s already here and simply scoping out the area.”
“When he gets here,” Dick said, voice low, “we need to be ready to get out of here. As soon as we see him, we work our way out of these chains and towards the nearest exit. No fighting the mercs.”
Damian glared. Like hell. He wasn’t going to let them kidnap the three of them and then not bash a few of them over the head.
“Damian,” Dick hissed, kicking him.
“Fine,” he muttered, even though he hated it. He hated running. And why should he? He was Robin. He was Batman’s partner. He didn’t run. He fought.
But if Dick wanted them to get out, he’d listen. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d listen.
“He’ll take care of it,” Tim reasoned. “You know he will.”
He knew that. Batman would deal with all of these mercs and leave a few more bruises than normal for taking them. Damian had no doubt about that. But it didn’t change that fact that he wanted to leave a few bruises of his own.
Damian opened his mouth to either tell Tim off or growl that he knew that, but didn’t get a chance. Not when a single gunshot pierced the air.
His eyes snapped to the mercs. To the one who shouted out in pain and clutched at the knee that was now spurting blood.
Damian repressed a groan. Great. Todd was here to save them.
More gunshots echoed through the air, and the mercs went down one-by-one, clutching at their knees. Damian couldn’t even figure out where Jason was. And honestly he didn’t quite care right now. Not when he was distracting every single merc and taking their random spurts of return fire that were haphazard at best.
He was already working on his cuffs when Dick finally hissed, “Move.”
Painful seconds ticked by as they worked themselves free. Gunshots punctuated the air. Curses cut through it. And there, in the distance, was Todd’s maniac laughter. Damian couldn’t help the small smile that twitched over his face at the sound.
Thirty-seconds later the lock popped and the chains fell of his wrist. “Clear.”
“Clear,” Tim said, seconds later.
A full ten seconds later Dick said, “Clear. Stay low, head for the crates at our four.”
They did, scrambling nearly on all fours to the stacks of crates that would hide them from the mercs view. Damian led – mostly because Dick shoved him in front of him and there was no way he was following Drake – until they were safely behind the crates.
And not a second too soon. As Dick slid behind the crate one of the mercs shouted, “Hey! The brats are gone!”
Damian’s lips pulled back. Brat? He was not a brat.
He made to climb over the crates so that he could punch the man in the face, but Dick all but sat on him and said, “No way, babybat. No fighting, remember? We’re getting out of here.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Damian hissed, squirming out from under Dick’s leg. “Jason’s started a fire fight with them and the only way to the exit is through it. We can’t get there.”
“There’s another exit at the opposite end,” Tim said, pulling up a blueprint of the building on his watch.
“No, there isn’t,” Damian argued. “It’s welded shut. I heard them complaining about it.”
“They could be lying.”
“They weren’t.”
“And you know this because you’re a human lie detector?”
“No, because I’m actually good at telling lies, so I know when others are lying to me.”
“Oh, so I’m not good at telling lies? I don’t see how that’s a bad thi–”
The skylight shattered in a rain of glass. Batman landed easily on the ground, tucking into a roll, and came up and socked one of the mercs in the face. Damian could almost hear the man’s nose break.
Before they could start arguing again, Dick said, “Our only option is to go around them to get to the door. Now that they’re not swapping fire, we should be fine. Stick near the wall and the shadows. Reach the door, and then go through it and head two blocks straight out, got it?”
“Nice plan bigbird,” Todd said, dropping next to Damian. He didn’t flinch. He did, however, glare at Todd. If he wasn’t wearing the hood, Damian knew Todd would have given him a shit-eating grin. “I’ll cover you.”
“Be careful littlewing,” Dick said, because he was Dick and of course he would, and then he was shoving him and Drake in front of him and saying, “Move.”
So they did, slinking against the wall in the pockets of shadow, with Todd’s gunshots echoing through the air any time it looked like someone spotted them or when a merc got a little too close to Batman’s six. And then they were out of the door, the crisp air biting into his lungs, running away from the building.
They stopped two blocks away. Two blocks, and not even a minute later Batman and the Red Hood appeared, both breathing hard but neither one of them obviously harmed.
Something loosened in Damian’s chest – even if he’d never admit that.
“Are you three alright?” Batman asked, his voice rough in the still night.
“Yeah,” Dick said, leaning against the wall. “Bruised, but we’ve all dealt with worse.”
The bruises Damian received barely counted as wounds. They were nothing compared to what he normally dealt with – what any of them normally dealt with. They probably got more bruises during patrol then they’d gotten tonight.
“Good,” Batman said, his voice softening. If Damian didn’t know better, he would have thought it sounded like relief. “Let’s head home.”
The four of them piled into the batmobile, Dick in the front while he and Drake got the back. Todd had went home, saying that he’d done his part and that they now owed him a favor – something that Damian did not intend to fulfill, no matter what Todd said.
Leaning his head against the cool class, Damian closed his eyes and listened to the hum of the engine as they headed home. He was barely tired. Barely exhausted. Honestly, he wasn’t even really surprised at this point.
After all, tonight was just another night when it came to their family.