Chapter Text
It’s really incredible, Dick thinks, how much malice a nine-year-old can radiate. He can practically feel it searing into his back as he works.
He huffs, giving up on trying to disable the electronic lock on the door with nothing more than a piece of plastic stripped from his sneaker. It was a long shot and he knew it before he even started.
“This is your fault,” Damian snarls from the corner he’s tucked himself into. “If you hadn’t allowed yourself to be kidnapped like some sort of brainless idiot -”
“There were witnesses, Dami,” Dick wearily tries to explain. Again. “I couldn’t fight back, because they weren’t kidnapping Robin or Nightwing, they were after Bruce Wayne’s son. There are protocols for this exact event for a reason, you’re the one that didn’t follow them.” He bites his tongue as soon as he says it. He will not blame Damian for this.
The frustration isn’t real, it’s just a manifestation of the small knot of anxiety balled up in his stomach, anxiety that wouldn’t be there if Damian had just done what he was told and run away.
Dick isn’t worried for himself. He has no doubt that Bruce and the others are already well on their way to finding them, and he knows he can handle whatever happens in the meantime. Normally, he wouldn’t even be that concerned for Damian, who’s perfectly capable of defending himself. But right now, they’re unarmed and without their gear, and based on the number and training of the men who’d wrestled them into the van on their way to the museum, whoever’s taken them is no slouch.
Still, they’re expecting rich brats, not vigilantes. If it were just Dick, he’s pretty sure he would be able to find an opportunity to slip free.
But Damian might make that a bit more complicated.
“We’re going to miss the exhibition opening,” Damian says petulantly. “The protocols are stupid and nonsensical, and if they allowed for a more reasonable amount of violence, we would be there at this very moment.”
“The protocols make plenty of sense,” Dick counters, now trying to see if there’s a way to detach the door at its hinges. “They’re designed to keep us and the rest of the family safe. I follow my protocols, and you follow yours, and your first move should always be to get yourself out of danger and wait for one of the others to come collect you. That way, you’re safe, and if me or whoever else you’re with needs help, the rest can focus on helping them.”
He glances back to see that Damian has scrunched down even more in his corner. “Father’s rules rely heavily on you being competent enough to defend yourself without any weapons, which clearly you are not,” he responds mulishly.
Dick pauses, frowning over his shoulder at the kid as he parses the words. As with so many things Damian says, they sound like nothing more than an insult, until you really think about what he’s saying. “Damian,” he says gently, unable to resist the fond smile spreading across his face, “did you come back instead of running away because you were trying to protect me?”
The gentler tone seems to make Damian curl in on himself even more. When he answers, the words are muffled by his knees. “As I have already said, you are clearly too incompetent to do so yourself.”
Dick barely resists the urge to coo. He’s been lightly stabbed too many times for that lesson not to have sunk in. “That’s not your responsibility, baby bat,” he says softly. “You’re the youngest, that means you get youngest sibling privileges, like letting your brother handle getting kidnapped.”
“You’re patronizing me,” Damian snaps.
“I’m sharing arcane brotherly knowledge that even the league doesn’t know,” he counters with a grin.
“Your knowledge is woefully lacking,” Damian mumbles. “It’s no wonder Drake is the smart one.”
He immediately looks like he’s sucking on a lemon made of regret when Dick’s face lights up with glee. “Oh, I’m so telling him you said that.”
“Comparatively,” he quickly tries to add. “Comparatively the smart one. It’s hardly praise.”
“I’m telling him he’s your favorite brother and that you think he’s a genius,” Dick singsongs, only to be smacked in the arm hard enough to definitely leave a bruise. Completely worth it for the way Damian has unfolded, the way the malice he’s radiating now is almost entirely furious little sibling, calm enough now that they could almost just be bickering at a museum exhibit.
There’s motion in the hallway outside the door, and the tension returns tenfold. In a flash, Dick shifts to put himself between Damian and the door, crouched low and protective over him as Damian growls like a feral cat behind him.
The door swings open, and several men walk in. The first one, who Dick quickly identifies as the leader, smirks at the display before him. “Aww, so cute,” he tuts. The look in his eyes sends a shiver down Dick’s spine. “I hope you can keep that charming brotherly energy up on camera.”
Dick narrows his eyes. “If it’s money you want, our father will pay, there’s no need for this to be any worse than it is now.”
“Oh, we have no doubt he’ll pay,” the man says coldly. “But there’s no harm in a little extra convincing, hm?” He kneels down in front of them, and Damian’s growl gets a little louder. Dick leans forward, keeping himself between their kidnapper and Damian as much as he physically can. Partially because he really doesn’t like the way the man is studying Damian, a curious glint in his gaze, and partially because he can sense the tightly-coiled tension in the smaller boy that definitely means he’s on the verge of launching himself at the man with all the fury his nine-year-old body can contain.
Dick almost wishes he could let him at the man, let him make good use of the violent skills he usually keeps reluctantly suppressed.
But Damian is as unarmed as Dick is, not to mention outnumbered, and he doesn’t at all want to see what the consequences of that attack would turn out to be. Even trained as both of them are, it would be a long shot of a fight, and that’s without even worrying about their secret identities.
So, he keeps himself between the two bodies, tiny on one side and looming on the other, and he stares at the man levelly, ignoring the pounding of his heart. “You really only need one of us for a video,” he says, as calmly as he can, mind buzzing. “Why don’t you take me?” Being separated isn’t great, but he knows Bruce and their siblings will be hot on the trail. He just needs to buy some time, and to keep Damian safe until the others can get them the hell out of here. He feels Damian tense sharply against him, and he lightly presses his palm back against his shoulder. If the man spots it, it must look like a comforting gesture, not the restraint it’s half meant as.
The man tilts his head, considering. Then he smiles a shark’s smile. “Well, we’re hardly in any rush. Why not? We might as well start with his oldest son and move on to the youngest once the first one breaks.”
Damian lets out a quiet snarl, but to Dick’s eternal gratitude, bites his tongue for once.
Dick raises his chin, meeting the man’s steady gaze as he rises to his feet, though he keeps a wary eye on the other men still blocking the front of the room.
The man smirks. “Alright, rich kid, let’s go.”
Dick spares one a last glance back at his little brother before he goes, shooting him what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “It’s going to be okay, Dami,” he murmurs. Damian isn’t even looking at him. He’s staring at the man with such blatant and undisguised hatred that he’s shocked the man doesn’t spontaneously combust. It would certainly make things easier for them if he did.
Unfortunately, they rarely get their way so easily.
Damian’s eyes meet his in the last second before the men close around him, shepherding him out with their hands resting on their guns. Damian’s face is closed off and hard, and Dick realizes with a sharp pang that the kid is scared.
For a moment he almost reconsiders letting them be separated, but then he flashes back to the look in the man’s eyes as he talked about breaking Dick, and he knows it’s for the best that Damian doesn’t come with him wherever he’s going.
The hallway they lead him down is bleak and cold, the ceiling tiles water-stained and the carpet dusty. It looks to have been an office building at some point in the ancient history of Gotham. The lock on the door had looked newly-installed, so they’ve clearly put some thought into planning this particular kidnapping.
Dick just appreciates that it’s a step up from the abandoned warehouses they usually find themselves in.
He sizes up the men around him. They’re menacing, at least at first glance. All look to have had some trained experience, possibly in some sort of security, possibly just lucky enough to have made a career out of being hired goons without getting killed along the way. The one to his right has some military background, based on his posture and buzzcut.
He’s still confident he could take down the whole lot of them if he was Nightwing right now. He’s also confident that these aren’t the only goons in the building, and Damian is unprotected. He follows without resistance.
The room they take him to is larger than the one they’d been storing him and Damian in, some sort of conference room. There’s a single bare light bulb strung from the ceiling over an empty chair, and he barely holds back a snort. Based on the messy wiring up near the base of the cord, the regular fluorescent lights worked just fine, and they had to rig that bulb up themselves just to maintain the aesthetic. He stashes that fact away for later. It’ll definitely get a good laugh out of Jason when he tells him.
What probably won’t get a laugh is the ten men already waiting in the room, all of whom perk up when he enters.
One of the ones who came in with him grabs him without warning, and he forces himself to resist the instinct to break the hand clamped around his upper arm as he’s turned around and shoved back into the chair. He opens his mouth, ready to snarl acidic words at the goon who just manhandled him, but the click of a gun cocking stops him in his tracks.
Slowly, he turns his head to face the leader, who’s smirking at him, gun leveled at his head. “Are you going to be an obedient little brat, or am I going to have to use this and go get your little brother?”
Dick swallows, shutting his mouth, and the man looks pleased. He glances at one of the others, giving him a quick jerk of his head. “Get the camera set up.” The gun never wavers as the tripod is set up, waiting patiently as the henchmen fiddles with the settings.
He surveys the room, hiding his scanning eyes under the pretense of fear. Things could be worse. He doesn’t see any instruments of torture, not yet at least, and they haven’t tied him down to the chair. It seems possible that the video will be more about intimidation than anything else, footage of a gun pointed at a rich kid’s head to send to his freaked-out father to encourage them to cash up. Bruce will hate it for sure, and probably find a dozen excuses to lecture Dick when he gets home because the man never learned how to express affection and concern in a healthy manner, but they’ve all had much worse.
A little red light blinks to life on the camera, and the minion behind it gives a thumbs up. The leader takes a couple steps back, and Dick senses that he’s been left alone in the center of the frame.
“Mr. Wayne,” the leader begins. His voice is calm, pleasant. Hollow. “You know this routine. We have your sons, and we will keep them until you send us the money we’ve asked you for. I won’t waste your time with idle threats. I’ll simply demonstrate them. Now,” and it’s clear as Dick meets his shadowed eyes that whatever comes next is meant for him, “Strip.”
It’s as though someone has poured ice water down his spine. “What?” he chokes out.
He knows the answer. It’s not a true question. Asking is just the only thing he can do.
“Your clothes. Strip,” the man repeats. He flicks the gun, a hurry up gesture. “Take them off yourself or they’ll be torn off you.”
Dick’s keeps his breathing carefully even, because he knows if he doesn’t the panic is going to claw its way out of his chest. No one is touching him, not yet.
He can feel the ghosts of fingers whispering across his skin, her voice murmuring in his ear as the rain soaks his clothes, and he shivers. “No,” he says, the word rasping against his throat on the way out.
What else can he do but say it?
The man’s expression shifts. On a different face, he might have said it softened. But it looks wrong on him, his eyes remaining flint-hard even as he gives him a sympathetic look. He takes a few steps closer, and all of Dick’s muscles tense as he moves. “Sweetheart, I’m not asking,” he says softly. “You’re going to show us that pretty little body, or I’m going to have one of my men go fetch that charming little brother of yours, and then I’ll rip your clothes off myself, and let him watch what comes next.”
The red light blinks like a glowing flare in the periphery of Dick’s vision, overtaking whatever weak and pale light drips from the bulb above him. The room is cast in red and shadow.
In the blackness behind the camera, the henchman seems distorted, too broad and tall, a smear of darkness given form as he watches him. Red flashes, and shadows brush the floor around him like a cape. He tilts his head, and white lenses glint from the void where his face should be.
Dick squeezes his eyes shut against the vision.
The idea that Bruce will have to see this sears the back of his throat like bile, but at least that knowledge is a step removed from him. Bruce isn’t here, he isn’t watching this right now, and Dick can compartmentalize. He won’t have to see the horror and rage on his father’s face as this happens.
But Damian?
He can’t let him be brought into the room. That - that will break something in him, something he will never be able to repair.
With shaking hands, he reaches up to undo the buttons on his shirt.
“There’s a good boy,” the man croons, a current of excitement running under his tone, and Dick clenches his jaw so hard it’s a miracle he doesn’t crack a tooth.
He works as slowly as he thinks he can get away with, but all too soon, there’s no buttons left. He has to fight the instinct to fold in on himself, guarding his exposed torso from the heavy gazes he can almost feel raking across his skin, painted phantom fingernails trailing after them.
The man tsks lightly at him. “All the way off,” he instructs.
Dick grips the fabric as though it’ll solidify into his escrima sticks in his grasp, if he can only apply enough pressure. The shirt slips off his shoulders. Dropping it on the floor leaves his chest hollow, the barrier between him and the room reduced by half. He forces himself not to shiver. There’s an appreciative murmur from several of the men, faint rustles of fabric as they shift, but he pointedly doesn’t look at them.
“Now the rest,” the leader coaxes. The gun isn’t pointed at him anymore, hanging loose and relaxed at his side.
It doesn’t even matter. He’s standing far enough away that he knows he could raise it again before Dick would have a chance at reaching him, and that’s ignoring the room full of armed goons around them. He smiles coldly at Dick, and his stomach rolls. “Let’s see those pretty gymnest’s legs, sweetheart.”
The camera blinks. His fingers feel numb as they hook into the belt loops of his pants. There’s a collective sigh from around him, and his muscles seem to lock up as he swallows convulsively against the bile burning at the back of his throat.
The leader makes an impatient noise, stepping closer. “Do we need to have this conversation aga-”
The fire alarm hits his eardrums like a scream.
The men around him flinch, several reaching up instinctively to try and protect their ears from the deafening banshee-screech of the old alarm system. The leader snarls, spinning towards the door. The gun is half-raised again, but it’s not pointed at Dick anymore. “Stay where you are,” he barks at Dick. “You two, guard the door,” he singles out two of the other men. “The rest of you, with me. I don’t trust you to keep your hands to yourself,” he growls at the rest, who all follow him out without arguing, though with expressions of undisguised annoyance and longing glances back at Dick, as though he’s a particularly delicious-looking dinner they’ve been called away from before they could even take a bite.
The door slams shut behind them, and Dick is left alone, the sensation of teeth embedded in him nonetheless. The order to stay put seems almost unnecessary; he’s frozen where he stands. He takes a deep breath, then another one.
Something clatters above his head, and his muscles unlock through sheer instinct, staggering backwards just in time to dodge the ceiling tile that crashes into the floor right where he was just standing. He stares up at the new hole that’s suddenly appeared in the ceiling, his brain lagging as it takes a hard moment to reset.
A small, dusty, scowling face pokes out to glower at him. He blinks, and the scowl deepens, though it’s lacking any real ferocity. “Is your escape plan to stare at me like an imbecile all day, Grayson, or are you going to behave like a worthy member of this family and get out of this place?” he snaps, loud enough to be heard over the still-blaring alarm. “And why on Earth is your shirt off?”
Dick’s brain comes back online, information rapidly processing as the gears start turning again. The grin he slips on feels as natural as pasting on a domino mask. “Well, look at you, Baby Bat!” he chirps, like fingers aren’t still running across his skin as gentle as frostbite. “I had a feeling a little locked door wasn’t going to be enough to keep you down!”
A lie, a weak one that wouldn’t have fooled Bruce or Jason or Tim, and certainly wouldn’t have fooled Cass. It wouldn’t even have fooled Damian, if anyone but Dick had been the one saying it.
He puffs up slightly, the way he always does when someone praises him. Trusting Dick without question. “Better than I can say for you, evidently,” he responds smugly. “Now hurry up.”
Dick is already snatching his shirt off the ground, yanking it over his shoulders without bothering to shake off the dust from the ceiling that’s fallen on it. A knot in his chest finally unravels at the feeling of something between his skin and the world again, though as his fingers fumble with the buttons he has a strong suspicion that he’s going to have to burn this shirt when he gets home. There’s no way he’s going to be able to take it off again without remembering.
It doesn’t matter now, though. He grabs the chair and pulls it over to the space under the ceiling, Damian shuffling backwards to give him room to jump, when something else draws his attention. He steps back down off the chair.
The camera feels like it burns his hands when he picks it up. The fall cracks the lens, the glass splintering where it hits the ground. The plastic casing makes a wonderful crunch as he brings his heel down on it, again and again, fragments of circuitry grinding into the carpet.
He takes a deep, even breath before turning around again. Damian is watching him, head hanging upside down out of the ceiling.
The fire alarm cuts out abruptly.
He doesn’t ask any questions, just moves backwards again as Dick climbs back onto the chair, leaping gracefully upwards and pulling himself into the ventilation system as easily as hopping onto a kitchen counter. He’s careful not to catch the edges of the surrounding tiles and risk pulling them down too as he does. Without the alarm to cover it, he doubts the guards outside would miss another such crash, and they’re on a ticking clock as is.
It’s a tight fit inside the vents, clearly not designed for people to crawl around in. Damian fits snugly enough, but Dick has to fold his joints in on himself in a way that takes some effort even for his acrobat’s frame. “If Todd were here, we’d most certainly be dead,” Damian mutters from behind him, managing to draw a quiet snicker out of Dick.
“Climb over the gap carefully,” he instructs unnecessarily, as confirmed by the exasperated huff he gets in response. “We’ll go this way, see what we can find.”
Dick knows more or less what they’re looking for. He knows they’re on the top floor of the building, a move probably meant to limit their chances of escape or rescue. While on the one hand it would certainly be more convenient if they could simply slip out at ground level, on the other, a roof isn’t much worse for a couple of bats.
They move through the ceiling as quickly and quietly as possible. There are vents roughly every fifteen feet or so, and at each one Dick studies the areas they pass. Empty conference rooms, hallways, a breakroom.
A stairwell.
“Here,” he commands, flattening himself against the vent to be able to peer as far as possible down the stairs. Empty.
A furious male voice bellows from the way they just came, echoing through the enclosed metal warren. Time to move fast, then.
He doesn’t bother to try and soften the sound of the vent cover as he lets it fall into the stairwell, clattering against the steps. He unfolds himself, dropping swiftly onto the stairs and reaching automatically up to help Damian down after him, keeping a sharp ear out for the sound of any footsteps coming up the stairs. He knows there will be before long.
The heavy rooftop door swings open with a groan, letting in a rush of chilly spring air. Damian is a step ahead of him as he darts out, and Dick grabs the slightly bent vent cover. He shuts the door behind them, jamming the metal grate into the doorframe at the hinges as he does. It won’t hold up for long, not to any real force, but it’ll buy them time.
The younger boy beelines straight for the top of the fire escape as he works, Dick following the moments he’s satisfied with the door.
He realizes before he’s made it halfway across the roof that something is wrong.
Damian is on the edge of the roof, but he’s not making any move to climb down. He’s just staring over the rim, hands gripping the brick ledge and shoulders tense.
Dick sees what he’s looking at as soon as he joins him, and barely bites back a curse. The fire escape is mostly gone, leaving only a few chunks of rusted railing and a crumbling platform. The rest looks to have been torn from the building years ago, probably in whatever rogue attack resulted in this building being abandoned in the first place. They’re not going to make it to the ground this way.
Behind them, there’s the bang of someone slamming their shoulder into the door.
The younger boy spins to face the approaching threat, teeth bared and body tense. Dick doesn’t bother, his eyes scanning the skyline, heart sinking with every second that passes with no flash of a cape or inked slash of a grappling line.
There’s no doubt in his mind that they’re coming. But he knows as well as anyone that that doesn’t mean they’re going to reach them in time.
The vent creaks ominously under the pressure as someone rushes the door, again and again, and he turns his gaze downward.
They’re four stories up, the concrete stretching out beneath them. A mere skip and a jump if they had a grappling line, but as it stands it might as well be a cliff’s edge, too far to fall for Dick and even further for Damian. There’s no way they’ll make it without at least catastrophic injury, unless there’s something to cushion their fall…
The vent begins to crunch, and he turns on his heel and covers the couple of steps to Damian in the span of a breath. “We can get to the ground,” he says, reaching down to tug on the younger boy’s wrist. It says a lot about how far they’ve come that Dick doesn’t immediately lose that hand, that Damian actually lets himself be drawn towards the edge.
“Have you suddenly developed the ability to summon a grappling hook?” he says dubiously.
Dick grins, his brightest, I-figured-it-out grin, the one that always makes Jason groan and Tim roll his eyes. “There’s a dumpster,” he responds. “We’re going to jump, and you’re going to hold on to me. I’m the acrobat, I can make sure we land safely.”
Damian scowls, though he looks more baffled than angry. “That’s an insane plan, there’s still a high chance of injury, especially as you cannot possibly know the contents of what we’re landing on,” he fires back. “I propose we fight back. Father will certainly not be worried about witnesses here, we can have a proper fight.” He tries to pull his wrist out of his grasp.
Any other time, Dick would let him go without hesitation, always careful to make sure his personal space is respected.
This time, he catches his other wrist as well, gentle but firm as he crouches down to make eye contact. “Hey,” he says, smiling gently. “Do you trust me?”
Damian tilts his head, his forehead creased. “I do not understand why you are asking me this,” he says. He doesn’t pull his hands away, and that’s answer enough.
The vent snaps, and quick as a snake Dick draws him close. He wraps himself around the tiny body in his arms as the door slams open. Two large steps back. A gun glints.
Empty air against his back as he lets himself fall.
There is no time to be afraid of the empty ground rushing up to meet them. He makes himself broad, putting all of him that there is between his brother and the concrete, guiding his head to rest against his chest, the best and only cushion he can offer.
Did his parents feel like this? Nothing but relief that their child would outlive them?
He hopes so.
He estimated it would take them only about two seconds to hit the ground. It’s barely one when his ribs crack on impact, his head striking brick, and he thinks of nothing more.