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Red Robin squirmed in the thick, sticky heat, the air clinging and wrapping around him like a dense sweater. He’d abandoned his cape before heading out that night, not wanting to spend another patrol trying to keep the heavy fabric from laying on him and holding the warmth to his body. It hadn’t made much difference, but it was worth the placebo all the same.
The heatwave had come on gradually, like a slow exhale over Gotham, and in response the city had bristled. So far the night had been nonstop: shootings, a street brawl, carjackings and robberies. From the moment the sun had set, the sirens had been near constant.
Even now, crouched on the ledge of an old apartment building, he could hear the distant wails of emergency vehicles all over the city. He’d stopped trying to respond to them all, instead focusing on incidents in his vicinity or waiting for directives from Oracle.
“Temperatures and tempers,” Alfred had sighed earlier that week, watching the news coverage with a pinched brow. “When one rises the other tends to follow.”
Down below, the city flickered, lights dimming and gasping back to life as another brownout rolled through the streets. Bruce said it was only a matter of time before the lights went out and stayed that way. The city’s century-old infrastructure couldn’t take the strain of two million people running their air conditioning units at once.
If the state of the roads and sewer lines were any indication, Red couldn’t help but agree. He imagined Gotham like a living thing with blood and flesh and a nervous system. A cardiac arrest at this stage was inevitable.
His attention jerked at a rattle of gunfire to the west. With a tired groan, he stood saying, “I’ve got it.”
“Let me know if you need backup,” Nightwing said. The older boy sounded just as tired as Red felt, and Nightwing's lack of jokes or commentary throughout the night was further evidence of that fact. The comms overall had been quiet save for the requisite chatter. The silence was almost disconcerting, like being alone in a city on fire.
Red drew his grapple and found himself running and swinging from one rooftop to the next until he landed on top of a convenience store where a shop owner was shouting and waving a gun in the air. It was a small caliber semi-automatic, nothing flashy but more than enough to terrorize the retreating forms he saw disappearing down the street. They looked young, maybe a group of teens who had chosen the wrong night to break the ice cream machine.
“Hey,” Red called down to the man before dropping to the sidewalk, trying not to startle him while he still had the gun in hand.
The store owner spared him the briefest glance before returning to his tirade against the kids who had already fled the block.
“Hey, hey, whoa,” Red said placatingly, cringing as spit flew from the man’s mouth. “Easy. What’s the issue?”
“Those damn punks!” the store owner snarled, mustache twitching wildly, sweat pouring down his face and staining his collar. Huge dark spots already hung beneath his arms. “Every night this week it’s been the same damn thing! They come in here and think they can just take whatever the hell they want and get away with it!”
“You think they’re robbing you?”
“I know they are!” he shot back. ”I watched ‘em do it!”
“Okay, alright,” Red said, eyes locked on the gun as the man waved it just a little too carelessly for comfort. “How about we just put the gun down and—”
“It’s every night with this! I’ve lost hundreds of dollars already. Who’s gonna pay for that?”
“I hear you. But first you’ve gotta—”
“There! Right there!” The man jabbed the gun towards someone over Red’s shoulder, the barrel drifting past his face for one heart-stopping moment. “That’s one of ‘em!”
A young teen froze at the edge of the light spilling out of the convenience store, the fluorescents catching the whites of his eyes and little else. His arms were full of water bottles and energy drinks.
“I…I…” the teen stammered, but no other words came out.
“Fucking look at him!” the store owner bellowed almost hysterically. “All of that is stolen!”
Red shifted to stand between him and the kid. The gun was just barely out of arm’s reach. If Red moved fast enough he could disarm the man, but one wrong step and he could get himself or the kid shot.
“Gary,” Red said carefully after a glance at the man’s name tag. “Put. The gun. Down.”
Gary spluttered, veins bulging along his forehead. “You’re taking his side? I thought you were supposed to be one of the good guys! Arrest him!”
“We were just really hot and thirsty,” the teen muttered behind him, quiet and frightened.
“What did he say?” Gary demanded, trying to lean around Red to see him. “What the fuck did you just—”
“Listen,” Red cut in. “I get that you’re pissed. I would be, too. But if you don’t get a grip in the next five seconds, this night is going to get worse for you. Understand?”
The man tensed, eyes narrowing, but there was a flicker of acknowledgment in his demeanor that eased the growing knot in Red’s stomach. Slowly, too slowly, the muzzle drifted toward the ground.
“Good,” Red sighed. “Now, let’s—”
“Carter!” another young voice called from down the street. “What’re you doing?”
Red glanced over his shoulder where a few of the teens were headed back this way, apparently to collect their friend. The kid looked back at them then at the man, and it was the flash of fear in the boy’s face that wrenched Red’s attention back to the store owner.
“They’re back!” Gary shouted, leveling the gun on the boy again as if Red weren’t still standing in the way. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
The other teens saw the gun go back up and began shouting, telling the boy—Carter, apparently—to run, raining an endless volley of threats and curses at Gary. Red wished they would stop trying to help.
“Don’t do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life,” Red Robin urged, raising his voice above the chaos behind him. “Not over this.”
The man’s gaze flicked to him then back to the boy, as if drawn by some magnetic force. The gun faltered in his hand.
Red could see the cracks in his resolve. It was a good sign. This guy didn’t want to hurt anyone, not really. “You don’t have to—”
At that moment, somewhere else in the city, another spray of gunfire erupted. The man flinched at the sound, and the distant pops were joined by a much closer one. The teens screamed and ran. Red whirled to look at Carter who was still standing behind him, rooted to the sidewalk, eyes wide. One of the water bottles slipped from his grasp and rolled off the curb.
“Are you okay?” Red asked quickly, scanning him for injuries.
The boy’s head twitched up and down.
“Good.” Red looked back at Gary, choosing to ignore the fact that the gun was still raised, a wisp of smoke drifting from the barrel. “Are you?”
The man’s nod was almost identical to the boy’s. As was the fear in his eyes.
“Good,” Red said again, and on his next exhale he winced. A piercing sensation flared in his side, sharp and urgent and burning. He knew that feeling better than he’d like to admit. Red looked down at the oozing gash along his ribcage, a river of crimson already glinting in the pale store light. “Aw, man,” he groaned.
_______________
To say that Gary was apologetic would be, shockingly, an overstatement. If anything he was even more pissed than he had been earlier, especially as he let Red Robin into the shop and blood instantly covered the floor.
“Damn costumes and masks,” Gary grumbled as he rummaged through the first aid supplies near the back of the store. “Making every idiot think he’s some kind of Superman.”
“Well, we can check ‘faster than a speeding bullet’ off my list of special skills,” Red grunted. He could see the wound more clearly in here. It was a graze, nothing fatal but deep enough to become a problem if left untreated. Gary reappeared beside Red at the counter and handed over a wad of gauze. Red held it in place with a bloodied hand while the man wrapped a bandage around his torso to keep it pressed to his side. He suppressed another groan as the binding tightened.
“Are you gonna pay for all this?” Gary asked with a raised eyebrow.
At this moment, Red was seriously considering buying the whole place and turning it into a store that did nothing but hand out free water and energy drinks on hot days, but instead he responded, “What’ll you do if I don’t? Shoot me?”
The store owner just mumbled.
Hoovering by the door, Carter watched them work, something deep and profoundly sad in his eyes.
“You should go,” Red said gently, wincing as the man adjusted the bandage. “You don’t have to see this.”
“It’s not my first time.”
Red’s heart seized. Even Gary paused briefly before continuing to secure the wrap, his brows furrowed in what looked like genuine concern.
“It won’t hold long,” the man pointed out, using excess gauze to wipe some of the blood from his hands, “but it’s the best I can do.” He grabbed his phone. “Anyone I need to call for you?”
“I’ve got it covered. Thanks.” Red Robin stepped around the brilliant puddles he’d left on the tile on his way out the door as Carter ventured further into the store to set the stolen goods on the counter beside Gary. There was a muttered apology, and though Red didn’t hear Gary’s reply as the door closed behind him, he also didn’t hear anymore shouting. It felt like progress.
“Hey,” Red said into his comm, one hand pressed into his side as he stepped back into the sweltering night. He needed to see if anyone was nearby and could give him a lift back to the cave. He could get pretty far with his grapple if needed, but the thought of attempting that in this condition made his stomach turn. His gauze were already beginning to turn pink, the absorbent material swelling with blood. “I—”
“Hand me that brick,” he heard a man’s voice say from down the street. And since Red Robin couldn’t remember the last time anything good had followed a sentence like that in the dead of night, he abandoned his hopes of cutting patrol short and went to investigate.
A man in the white muscle shirt was standing on a small porch, waiting by a window while a woman snagged a stray brick from a crumbling set of porch steps next door.
Red waited in the shadows, assessing the couple. He’d seen—and been a part of—enough break ins to recognize one when he saw it, and this didn’t quite fit the bill. They didn’t look particularly dangerous or shifty. They hadn’t even bothered to hide their faces.
But as the woman handed over the brick and the man weighed it in his hand before drawing it back, eyes locked on the window, it was clear that their goal was to get into that house, and they weren’t exactly on the guest list.
“Hold it,” Red called, stepping forward. “I’m gonna stop you right there.”
The couple looked at him, but instead of fear or guilt, they looked relieved.
Definitely not a run-of-the-mill break in.
“Oh thank God,” the woman breathed. “It’s my father. He hasn’t been answering any of our calls and now he won’t answer the door. I’m afraid something might be wrong.”
“We tried calling 911 for a wellness check, but no one ever came,” the man added.
Red was already striding up the porch steps as he asked, “How old?”
“Eight-five,” the woman answered, watching him knock on the door. “He never takes care of himself like he should. I keep telling him to stay hydrated and get out more but—”
“Cara, let the boy work,” the man said gently, pulling her back to give Red some more space.
Red had the screen door propped open against his body, one ear held close to the painted wood door as he listened, trying to hear beyond the wail of sirens echoing around the city. No motion came from inside. “What’s your dad’s name?” he asked.
She swallowed. “Charles Margolis.”
“Mr. Margolis,” he called, pulling lockpicks from his belt. “I’m out here with Cara. We’re coming in to check on you, okay?” He waited another minute before inserting the thin metal tools into the lock, maneuvering them just so, and pulling them free as the lock gave way.
He put a hand on the door then paused. “How long did you say it’s been since you’ve heard from him?”
“Three days,” she answered.
Red’s stomach dropped, but he kept his voice even. “Step back a little. Wait there until I say you can come in.”
“What? But—”
“Cara, let’s just do what he says,” the man murmured to her, wrapping his hands around her shoulders. The gesture looked like it was meant to be comforting as much as it was meant as a physical restraint.
Nudging open the door, Red braced himself for the putrid stench that would signal the absolute worst case scenario. A body left alone in a suffocatingly hot house wouldn’t take long to start to turn, and though he already had to live with the knowledge of what that smelled like, he wanted to do what he could to shelter these people from it.
But as he stuck his head inside, it wasn’t a smell that hit him. It was a wall of heat, so dense and overwhelming that he recoiled briefly before stepping inside. All of the windows were shut. The lone, ancient air conditioner in the corner was off. A single recliner was angled towards the TV in the center of the room, shelves lined with sepia and black and white photos from a distant, younger time. It was the home of an elderly person who lived alone.
“Alright,” Red said, “You can come—”
“Dad?” Cara slipped past him and made a beeline for the steps while the man headed towards an archway that seemed to lead to a kitchen. Red was on the steps when the woman screamed from upstairs, “Dad!”
Then he was running, following the sound of her voice into a tiny bathroom where an old man lay unconscious on the floor in trousers and a long sleeved shirt. The room was too small for more than one person to comfortably fit inside at once, so Red hopped into the bathtub to crouch on the other side of the man while Cara frantically searched for a pulse on his flushed skin, not quite putting her fingers in any of the right spots.
Red tugged his glove off with his teeth and put a hand to the man’s neck. He exhaled somewhat when he felt the vein throb beneath his fingers, faster and threadier than what was ideal, but better than nothing.
“Is he…?” she whispered.
“Alive, but he’s burning up. Undo his shirt.” He glanced at the man watching from the door. “We need ice, a cup of water, and towels. And call 911.” The man vanished.
Red twisted around to turn on the faucet, a quick involuntary cry escaping him when the motion tore at his side. Cara glanced at him but said nothing as he yanked the faucet handle to the coldest setting, turned it on, and sealed the drain so that the tub would fill. “Help me get him inside,” Red said.
Cara nodded and grabbed her father’s legs while he hooked his hands under Mr. Margolis’ arms. The old man should have been drenched in sweat after being sealed up in this house all day, but he was practically bone dry. Not a great sign.
After some awkward maneuvering that ended with Cara having one foot in the rising water, they managed to get Margolis into the tub. Red crouched outside of the tub now, dripping all over the floor as he kept his hands under the man’s pits to hold his head above the water.
When the man who Red assumed was Cara’s husband returned with an ice tray, water, and towels, Red had him dump the ice into the tub and pass the water to Cara.
“He needs to rehydrate,” Red explained. “Put the water to his lips and pour it in slowly.”
She did as she was told, carefully tipping small sips of water into her father’s mouth. Red couldn’t see the man’s face from this angle behind him, but he was encouraged to hear the old man groan after a few minutes.
“What’s the ETA on the ambulance?” Red asked the husband still stationed by the door.
“Three minutes.”
Mr. Margolis moaned again and shifted.
Cara shushed him gently. “It’s okay, Dad,” she kept saying. “It’s just me and Tony. You’re okay.”
Slowly, the old man became more alert. He took longer sips of water, held a short exchange with Cara, noted that Red needed a haircut (Red agreed). They weren’t totally out of the woods, but the most immediate threat seemed to be behind them. When the husband took Red’s place holding Mr. Margolis upright, Red stretched and choked back another pained grunt.
“You ought to stick around for the ambulance yourself,” Cara suggested. “That doesn’t look good.”
She was probably right. His gauze and the bandages right were red through and through. He prodded the padded lump with a finger. “I’ll go get him another cup of water,” he said, taking the empty cup and gingerly making his way back down the stairs.
He was in the kitchen, the water pitcher in hand when Oracle’s voice came through the comms, “Red.”
“Yeah?”
“I need you to go check on Hood. He’s been offline for a while now. You’re the closest to his last location.”
She rattled off the address, and the next thing he knew he was out on the porch, an ambulance racing towards the house behind him as he ran further away.
_______________
He didn’t make it far before a little girl’s scream had him changing course. He spotted a girl, gradeschool age, keeping a younger boy on his feet. Desperate wheezes raked through the boy’s throat as he clutched at his chest and neck, one hand gripping the girl’s arm for balance. His eyes bulged with panic, face pink with the strain of each choked breath.
“What’s wrong?” Red asked, hurrying towards them.
“He—I don’t know,” the girl sobbed. “He just started choking. Mikey, please! Please, just breathe!”
Red examined the swollen redness around the boy’s lips, the hives creeping up from the collar of his t-shirt. “He’s not choking,” Red determined, going for the EpiPen in his belt. “He’s having an allergic reaction.”
“What?”
“Allergies,” he said. The boy’s wheezes were thinning as less and less air passed through. “Does he have any?”
She blinked, tears spilling down sunburned cheeks. “Y-yeah, but that’s…He hasn’t eaten any—”
“What are they?”
“Just peanuts. But he hasn’t eaten anything!”
“Mikey,” Red asked, grabbing the boy’s chin with his bare hand—he’d left one of his gloves in Margolis’ bathroom. “Hey. Have you eaten anything recently?”
The boy’s glassy eyes found Red’s. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a candybar wrapper.
“Wh—How’d you get that?” the girl cried as Red took it and quickly scanned the ingredients, confirming what he already suspected. “That’s mine! You weren’t—He wasn’t supposed to—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Red said. “We have to—whoa!” He lunged forward when the boy tipped sideways, catching the boy in time to keep his head from colliding with a porch railing. The catch sent bursts of light across Red’s vision, agony exploding through his ribcage. He grunted as he lowered the boy to the sun-warmed sidewalk, then doubled his efforts to find the EpiPen. But it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. It wasn’t anywhere.
He turned to the girl. “Does he have epinephrine?”
“I…I didn’t bring it.” She was very nearly hyperventilating now, her words coming in quick gasps. “I didn’t think we’d need it. He wasn’t supposed to eat anything. He wasn’t…”
“You have to breathe,” Red said as gently as he could manage, his voice rubbed ragged with pain. “Stay calm for him.”
He put a finger to his earpiece as the girl nodded and tried to regulate her breathing. It only marginally improved, but sure enough the boy was staring up at her, wide eyes searching her face for reassurance. “Oracle,” Red said, “how long would it take an ambulance to reach my location?”
“Are you okay?” Oracle responded.
“I’m fine. But there’s a kid here in anaphylactic shock.”
“God. It’s like this city implodes every time the temperature spikes.” As if to underscore her point, another round of gunfire went off somewhere in the distance, followed by a dissonant chorus of shouts. “Everything’s backed up right now. It looks like an ambulance just left your area and another one won’t be able to come back for a while. Graceway Medical is about five miles from you. Think you can make it?”
Five miles in this city could take anywhere from ten minutes to thirty on any given night.
“Do you live around here?” he asked the girl. “Could we get epinephrine from your house?”
“We took the bus here,” she whimpered. “From the other side of town.”
Red looked at the boy. The hives had reached his cheeks; his gasps were barely audible now. He didn’t have ten minutes to spare. Red would just have to be faster.
He hefted the kid into his arms, jaw clenched, and looked around.
“What’re you doing?” the girl asked, standing with him.
“Taking him to the hospital.” Red’s gaze landed on a sedan parked next to them. With a swift kick he took out the driver side window, the safety glass yielding easily under the steel toed boot. The girl screamed and covered her ears.
“Get in and keep his head up,” he directed, laying the boy along the backseat. The boy clutched at him briefly, reluctant to be set down. There was blood smeared along parts of his clothes, and the sight sent a fresh wave of panic through Red until he realized it was his own. He was bleeding in earnest now. Maybe the wound had been a little deeper than he’d thought.
“You’re going to be okay,” Red muttered to the kid before moving so that the girl could take his place in the backseat while he ducked beneath the dashboard to hot wire the car. Thankfully it was an old model, lacking any of the anti-theft protocols that might have posed a challenge.
Moments later they were flying down the streets of Gotham, Red’s eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror where he watched the girl murmur quietly to the boy he now suspected was her little brother.
All of the windows were down and the AC was blasting but it was still too soon for it to feel like anything but more hot air. It made him feel desperate and feverish and breathless as he drove through the city one handed, the other pressed to the soaked bandages at his side. He cursed every slow driver, pedestrian, and busy intersection that crossed their path.
“Mikey?” the girl gasped after a few minutes. “Mikey!”
“What is it?”
“I think he stopped breathing!”
Another glance at the rearview mirror showed the girl sobbing again, shouting the boy’s name over and over, hugging him to her chest. The boy’s head hung limp in her arms.
Red’s gloves groaned as he squeezed the wheel and jammed the gas pedal so hard he was certain it would break. He could see signs for the hospital now. Just a few more minutes. A few more blocks. A few more traffic lights.
That was when the city went dark and stayed that way.
_______________
Blackouts in Gotham were not for the faint of heart, especially on a night like this where tensions and tempers were already running high. But Red didn’t have time to care about that right now.
He slammed the breaks, and the girl squealed behind him as people shouted around them, horns blaring, and windows already shattering.
Red leapt out of the car and opened the rear door, saying, “Come on. Stay close to me.” Then he took the boy in his arms and started running. He could feel the girl clutching his belt, struggling to keep up. She was slowing him down, but he wouldn’t leave her alone out here.
The kid in his arms was utterly silent, head bouncing with each step, mouth hanging open as if still gasping for air. When they finally turned a corner and saw the massive, glowing emergency department sign—the only building with power for miles—Red’s legs nearly buckled with relief.
“Hey!” he shouted hoarsely at a nurse entering the building. The young woman glanced their way, apparently struggling to see them in the dark. “We need help out here!”
That was enough for her. She screamed something through the sliding doors then darted towards them across the parking lot, followed quickly by a cluster of other nurses and a gurney.
The transfer of the boy from Red’s arms to the gurney was fast and surprisingly smooth even in the dark parking lot. Red gave them the timeline of events as best he could, following as they wheeled the gurney towards the building.
As they entered the crisp light of the emergency department, one of the nurses blinked and exclaimed, “He’s covered in blood! I thought this was anaphylaxis!”
“It’s not his,” Red explained.
The nurse looked at him, her eyes falling to the wound at his side, then shouted, “We need another gurney here, please! Now!”
“No, it’s—I’m fine,” he stammered, but he could feel his balance slipping. The floor had blood on it all of a sudden. That wasn’t all his, was it?
“No, you’re not.” She was still moving away with the boy on the gurney as she ordered, “Stay right there and wait for someone to help you.”
The emergency department was a whirlwind of action, a reflection of the chaos outside, and with the blackout it would only get worse. It would be a while before anyone came for him, but he was surprised to find that he was willing to wait. He didn’t realize the little girl was still with him until he felt someone squeeze his hand. He tried to smile down at her. “Do you know your parents’ phone numbers?”
She nodded.
“Why don’t you go ask one of the people at the desk if you can borrow a phone and call them?”
She hurried away and he let himself sag into the wall.
“Red?” Oracle asked.
“I’m here.”
“Is the kid okay? Did he make it?”
“I think so,” he answered. But then he thought of the kid’s blue lips and corrected quietly, “I hope so.”
Oracle sighed. “Are you still able to check on Hood? You’re still the only one in the area. Everyone else is busy in other parts of the city.”
Red squeezed his eyes shut, sucked in a breath, and let it out slowly. Everything hurt; he could barely move anything on his left side without being punished for it. The earth spun and dipped beneath his feet like a top losing momentum. But still he grunted, “Yeah, just…Give me a sec.”
“Thanks.”
All of the activity in the department made it easy to find a supply closet and replace his dressing unnoticed. The process was slow and painstaking and nauseating, peeling away scabs and watching darker, older blood mingle with the fresh bright crimson. It spilled over his side until he pressed new padding to it and watched the brilliant gauze pinken beneath his fingers. He didn’t have time for sutures, and with the way his hands had begun to shake, he wouldn’t have trusted himself with those right now anyway. He just needed something solid enough to get him out there one more time. Then he’d pause and get himself fixed up.
“Okay,” he sighed, leaning against a rack of disposable gloves and surgical masks. “Tell me where to go.”
By the time Red was in the section of the city Oracle had mentioned, the looting had begun. His boots came down on a rooftop and he faltered, trying to catch his breath and blinking through the black dots that had begun to blossom across his vision. The streets were choked with abandoned cars and rowdy people, some already laden with stolen merchandise and groceries, others wielding bats and pipes and makeshift weapons, hungry for chaos.
He fixed his gaze on the dim faces, searching, scanning. It was dumb luck that he happened to look towards a cluster of people in time to spot the person at its center, red helmet flashing in the light from a nearby car fire.
“I’ve got eyes on Hood,” Red said.
“What’s his status?”
He watched Hood bodily throw someone into a trashcan and spin around to elbow another person in the jaw, and he was nearly ready to say that Hood was fine, but then Red noticed how sluggish the older boy looked. Hood went to throw a kick but took a two-by-four to the back of the head. He tried to react, but another person managed to loop a length of chain around his throat. He was outnumbered and tiring, and the crowd around him knew it.
That was when Red went from watching to jumping and then fighting.
_______________
On a good night, Hood could have taken most of these losers on his own, but this had not been a good night.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a patrol quite this exhausting—a gang turf war, a mugging, a near drowning with a few kids who’d decided the best way to cool off would be to jump into the dark harbor. And to top it off, the mugging had wrecked his comms—a solid hit to the head with an aluminum bat will do that.
And now, to put a big obnoxious bow on this nonstop thrill ride of a night, a blackout.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Hood drew his leg up and brought his boot down hard on the dude’s knee behind him, forcing him to loosen the chain around Hood’s neck enough to duck free, coughing and gasping. The flickering light from the car fire distorted the sea of faces around him, grinning and scowling and borderline otherworldly.
He heard Nightwing’s voice in his head telling him to bail, to not let his ego land him in another early grave, but he couldn’t bring himself to run. Maybe it was hubris, but he refused to give these opportunistic nobodies the satisfaction of watching him scurry away like a puppy. He might not make it out of this, but he at least intended to take a few punks with him.
That was when a blur of red dropped from the sky and suddenly a new player was in the mix, decking guys left and right like it was nothing. The crowd recoiled in surprise then started closing in on the newcomer, and it only took another second for Hood to recognize who it was and adjust accordingly.
He shifted his fighting stance to complement Red Robin’s, creating an unspoken choreography between the two of them that closed any blindspots and made it nearly impossible for the crowd to get within arm’s reach without taking a beating.
He could tell from the way Red was moving that Hood wasn’t the only one running on “empty,” but even at reduced capacity, most people didn’t stand a chance against one of them, let alone two. It didn’t take long for the crowd to start to shrink, people either too scared to keep pushing in or already unconscious. One of the last stragglers snuck in a parting hit, whacking Red square in the ribs with a section of plywood that nearly put the kid on his knees. In answer Hood nailed the idiot in the face with a haymaker. And that was the end of it.
Hood took off his helmet and let it dangle from his fingers as he sunk into a crouch, trying to catch his breath.
“Damn it,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes. “This fucking city.” His face was drenched in sweat and it had begun to get into his eyes beneath his domino mask. He felt naked out here in nothing but his body armor, but if he had come out in his leather jacket he was pretty sure he would have melted.
Hood squinted up at the sky. The clouds were still jet black. He couldn’t believe it wasn’t sunrise yet. “What time is it?” he asked.
No response. Hood glanced to where Red was leaning against a traffic light, a hand on his side, staring at him. Was the kid shaking?
“A-are you okay?” Red asked.
“What?”
“You…you weren’t responding.” Down the street, the burning car exploded as the flames reached the gas tank, causing the fire to double in size and intensity. The light caught Red’s face and glinted along something wet on his left side.
“My comms got messed up,” Hood answered slowly. ”Red, what—”
“Hood’s okay,” Red interrupted, a finger to his ear now. Hood assumed he was talking to Oracle. Then, “Uh, Hood?”
“Yeah?”
“I think, uh…I might’ve overdone it a little.”
Hood frowned, growing increasingly wary. “What do you—”
Suddenly Red slid down the pole to the sidewalk, and Hood was on his feet rushing toward him, shouting, “What the hell?”
“Got shot a little,” Red mumbled. Hood could tell his eyes were squeezed shut beneath his domino.
The older boy pulled Red’s hand away from his side and saw the bloody mess of gauze taped in place. “No kidding. Why the hell are you still out here?”
“People needed help…”
“Dammit.” He took the earpiece from Red’s ear and put it into his own ear. “Oracle. What are you doing keeping this kid out here like this?”
“Hood?” she asked. “Why do you have Red’s—”
“Answer the Goddamn question,” he cut in, dragging Red to his feet and starting towards his motorcycle.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she threw back. ”If you’re asking why I sent him your way, it’s because he was the closest to—”
“The kid’s been shot, O.”
At that, every other person on the line sprung to life as if he’d kicked a beehive. Hood had thought they were on a private channel, but he didn’t much care either way right now.
“Shot?” Nightwing demanded. “Where are you?”
“Oh my God, is he okay?” Spoiler asked.
“When?” Oracle asked, openly horrified. “When was he…I didn’t…”
“Stop freaking everyone out,” Red mumbled, staggering along at Hood’s side. “It’s just…a scratch.”
“Judging from the amount of blood on his suit, I’d say it’s been a while,” Hood surmised, ignoring Red’s mumbled complaints as they approached the bike.
“That incident he responded to earlier tonight,” Nightwing realized. “I knew I should’ve gone to help.”
“Where are you taking him?” Oracle asked, and Hood understood the unspoken question there: Was the injury something they could handle at the Cave or was it bad enough to require a hospital?
Hood examined the wound, gently peeling away the gauze and mumbling an apology when Red winced and groaned. He couldn’t tell how deep it was without better lighting.
“S’really not that bad,” Red supplied. “Just need a few stitches.”
“Oh yeah?” Hood asked with a raised eyebrow. “How do I know you’re not just trying to be a hero or some bull like that?”
Red thought for a moment. “Cause if it really were any worse I’d probably be dead by now.”
Hood tensed, but the kid had a point. “My place,” he said into the comms. Red didn’t look like he’d be able to hang on long enough on the motorcycle to get much further than that.
There was the briefest pause before Oracle answered, “Understood.”
Red looked at him “Your place?”
“Just hang on and don’t fall off,” Hood ordered, swinging a leg over his bike. He waited until Red clasped his midsection weakly before gunning it towards his neck of the woods, weaving around crowds and cars and piles of debris.
The heat hadn’t yet broken. but as the clouds blushed with the first traces of sunrise, the shadows began their retreat.
_______________
Tim refused to lose consciousness on the ride to Jason’s apartment. He refused to lose consciousness as they climbed the endless flights of stairs up to his unit in this ancient building that didn’t meet a single accessibility standard. He refused to lose consciousness as Jason helped him through the shockingly painful process of stripping off the upper part of his uniform which had practically fused to his skin with sweat and blood. Even when Jason poured water and then alcohol directly into the wound, Tim remained stubbornly awake, watching the entire process with narrowed eyes and vision swimming with dark spots.
He didn’t know why he was so determined to remain aware and alert. Only that part of him was still convinced there was work left to be done somewhere. He could still hear the commotion on the streets spilling in through Jason’s open windows, and the idea of sleeping while everyone else might still be out there working felt like some sort of betrayal.
He wouldn’t rest until he knew everyone else was okay.
“Easy,” Jason said, glancing at Tim as he fished supplies from his first aid kit that was really just a huge ziplock bag of chaos. “You’re tensing up again.”
“Sorry.”
“I wasn’t asking for an apology,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Just relax. Sit back. You sure you don’t want to take anything? I’ve got a whole stash.”
“That sounds super illegal,” Tim sighed.
“So, arrest me then. Do you want anything or not?”
Tim squirmed on the fake leather couch, cringing as his sweaty back peeled away from the cushion. “Do you have any that won’t knock me out?”
“Why would you want to be awake right now?” Jason asked, studying a pack of nylon sutures before setting them aside next to a needle. “I’m exhausted and I’m not the one who spent the night bleeding all over the place.”
Tim shrugged the one shoulder he could move that wouldn’t hurt. He didn’t think explaining himself would get him very far.
“Absolute freak,” Jason muttered, nudging a cup of water towards him.
Tim took a sip just to appease him, but he ended up draining the cup. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was.
“Ow,” he complained as the older boy stuck the needle into him, probably a little harder than necessary.
Jason’s mouth twitched into a satisfied smirk. “That’s for being an idiot.”
“I would’ve gotten help sooner, you know,” Tim grumbled. “I passed up an ambulance and the hospital to look for you.”
At that, Jason looked genuinely surprised. “Why?”
“Because I thought you were in trouble. And now you’re stabbing me over it.”
“Stop being so dramatic,” Jason said, but he sounded distracted. Pensive. They lapsed into silence, broken only by Tim's occasional hisses of pain.
“There was this little kid,” Tim remembered aloud after a while. “He was having an allergic reaction. I don’t know if I got him help in time. I don’t even remember his name.”
“Hm.”
“I couldn’t find any epinephrine. I always keep it in the same place on my belt, but I must have forgotten to replace it the last time I did inventory.” He frowned at the ceiling. With all the adrenaline last night, he’d never had a chance to actually consider what had happened. Now, he couldn’t stop thinking of all the precious minutes wasted because of him. “If he didn’t make it—”
“Tim.”
Tim fell quiet.
“Stop,” Jason said.
“I didn’t even say anything!”
“Yeah, but you’re thinking it so loud you might as well have,” Jason pointed out, shooting him a hard look. “You’re probably the only reason the kid survived.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Tim exhaled heavily. “He had a sister. Or at least, I think she was his sister. She was so scared. I shouldn’t have left her alone. I should’ve made sure someone was with her.”
“You did everything you could.”
“Then why do I feel like it still wasn’t enough?”
Jason didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t have an answer to give. Tim didn’t blame him. He let himself settle further into the overstuffed couch, careful not to disturb Jason’s steady work. Slowly but surely, he was beginning to lose the battle against unconsciousness. The pricks of the needle didn’t hurt so much anymore. He considered asking for another cup of water.
“You do that a lot, huh?” Jason asked quietly, eyes fixed on the sutures.
“What?”
“Make everything in the world your responsibility. Or your fault.”
Tim didn’t know how to respond to that. He wasn’t even sure he understood what it meant. “No?”
Jason made a strange sound in his throat, almost like a laugh. “And they say I’m the self-destructive one.” He threw the bloodied supplies away, wiped his hands, and closed the first aid baggy. “We’re done here. Now it’s time to sleep it off.”
“What if I don’t wanna sleep?” Tim challenged, but the slur in his speech undermined his conviction.
“It wasn’t a question,” Jason said, standing. “And you don’t have a choice.” He grabbed the empty cup and made a show of shaking it upside down. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to accept open drinks?”
“You…” Tim said slowly, his mind taking longer than it should have to put two and two together. “Did you drug me?”
Jason shrugged. “I put some water down. You drank it. Could say you drugged yourself.”
“I—you…” Tim wanted to protest, but it was getting harder and harder to string his thoughts together. Everything felt slow and heavy and oddly cozy. The idea of not sleeping suddenly felt preposterous.
He didn’t realize his eyes had slid closed until he felt a hand in his hair, gentle, a calloused thumb brushing his forehead. “Thanks for being an idiot.”
Tim hummed his response, somewhere between a thank you and a general noise of acknowledgement.
Distantly, he heard a frantic knock at the door, Jason crossing the room, then a chorus of urgent voices followed by a loud shushing sound.
“Is he okay? Where is he?” someone asked. It sounded like Dick.
“He’s fine,” Jason said. “He’s on the couch. Just—”
“I have to apologize.” This sounded like Barbara. “I honestly had no idea he was hurt. He never said anything.”
“I know,” Jason said, sounding frustrated. “Just—”
“Alfred is on the phone.” It was Stephanie’s voice now. “He wants to know when we’re bringing him to the manor. I can help carry him if he can’t—”
“Everyone, shut up,” Jason ordered, firm but still hushed. “You’re gonna wake him up.”
“You didn’t drug him, did you? You know he hates that,” Stephanie said, matching Jason’s muted volume.
“Actually, I didn’t,” Jason admitted. “But I made him think I did. Figured it’d be easier for him to sleep if he felt like someone else had made him do it. He’s always so weird about taking breaks.”
“Oh thank God,” Barbara breathed. “Just got word from my contact at Graceway. The kid from last night survived.”
“Should we tell him?” Stephanie asked.
“Not now,” Jason decided after a moment. “Let’s just let him sleep.”
“Careful, Jay,” Dick said playfully. “Starting to sound pretty brotherly there.”
“Shut up.” But there was the faintest trace of a smile in Jason’s voice. “I just think the kid’s earned a break, that’s all.”
And maybe there was more discussion after that. Talk of heatwaves and difficult patrols and blackouts and plans for the coming nights’ work. But Tim didn’t hear any of it, because for now all he really wanted to do was rest. And maybe Jason was right.
Maybe, at least today, he’d earned it.