Archive of Our Own ^beta

Hour One

The Joker has targeted Gotham’s slums tonight; specifically the apartment buildings scattered through Park Row. He’s planted bombs in the basements of buildings up and down the whole block, requiring the Bats to bring out all hands on deck tonight. They’ve been working for hours alongside Gotham’s police force and the bomb squad to evacuate civilians from the apartment buildings and track down each of the explosives before they can be triggered.

They’ve been at this for hours, and everyone is exhausted, but no one rests. Not until this is finished.

“No one does confetti cannon gags anymore,” Batgirl—Stephanie—is saying over the comms. “You ever think about that? Back when Nightwing was in the booty shorts, it was all confetti and water guns. Remember that? At the time it was annoying, but man—” A pause as she orders the next civilian to evacuate. “What I wouldn’t give to be back in those days.”

“Weren’t you in middle school during those days?” Nightwing says.

“I watched the news!”

“What’s the point in having vigilantes, then, if it’s all confetti?” Damian wonders. He’s just finished clearing the building he was assigned. He steps aside to let the bomb squad in. So far there have been no casualties. The bombs appear to be vibration-triggered. It’s pure luck that no innocents have accidentally set one off yet, with the shaking from each explosion meant to set off the ones next to it like dominos. “My side is clear, by the way.”

“What’s the point in having confetti if there’s no bombs to put it in?” Nightwing says. Damian can’t see him, but he can hear his stupid grin. “I’m close to you, baby bird. Just got mine out too. Meet me in the middle and we can work together to track down that litter of kittens you were crying about.”

Damian can hear the others laughing at him over the comms. His face turns beet red, which he hides under his hood. He starts stalking in Nightwing’s direction across the dirt lot. “I was not crying. I was simply expressing healthy concern for the tenants’ pets, and I saw a kitten running under the—”

On his next step, something clicks and depresses under his heel. Damian freezes.

“You mean the black and white ones?” Batgirl says. “Oh, I found those in a shoebox earlier and brought them to the evac center. Turns out one of the tenants’ cats had a steamy love affair with the tomcat from next door, and they—”

Damian yanks out his earpiece. He can’t listen to her babbling right now. He doesn’t flex a single muscle in his body, doesn’t step off, doesn’t twitch. He definitely felt something shift under him when he stepped down. It could be a tin can, he reasons, or a child’s toy. It could be nothing.

Keeping the rest of his body completely still, Damian looks down. It’s difficult to see in this light, but Damian can just make out the shine of something metallic peaking out under the patch of dirt and dried-out grass under his foot. Round, metallic, and purple. Like the bombs in the buildings.

Damian stops breathing.

Across the lot he can see Nightwing jogging over. “Robin, you okay?” he calls. “You stopped responding over the radio.”

“Stop!” Damian holds out a hand, palm-out, keeping Dick at bay. “Don’t—don’t come any closer.”

Dick obediently stops in his tracks, frowning in confusion. He glances around them for the invisible danger, then scans Damian up and down for visible wounds. “What are you—” Then he sees it. Damian’s foot. The device beneath, lazily hidden under the grass and dirt to the point where Damian will be embarrassed later for not seeing it. If he survives, that is. Dick goes pale. “Oh. That’s not good.”

“You have to…evacuate the area,” Damian gets out. He forces himself not to be afraid. That isn’t his job right now. “Clear the remaining buildings as soon as possible. You too, you need to get out of here. We don’t know how stable this device is.”

Dick’s masked eyes have not left the spot where the landmine is half-buried under Damian’s unmoving foot. “Damian—”

“We don’t have time for this. Contact the others and tell them not to trust any empty patches of ground. Have the bomb squad check over every inch of the surrounding area. We need to clear a perimeter at least two hundred meters around this point; we don’t know what the blast radius—”

Dick raises his hands. “Hold on, just—stop for a second, okay? Breathe. Let me think.”

It’s generous that he hasn’t already run away screaming. More generous of the circumstances that it was Damian who stumbled into this situation in the first place and not Dick. He’ll be crushed by Damian’s death, but he’s survived it before. He can do it again. Damian, on the other hand, wouldn’t be able to handle losing his favorite brother. It’s better this way for everyone.

After a moment of consideration, Dick takes a small step forward.

“Stop,” Damian gasps, powerless to do anything to actually keep him at bay, short of flinging a batarang his way. Even that would be too much movement for him to risk. “You need to leave. I mean it, Grayson, get the hell out of here."

“It’s all right,” Dick says, trying to be comforting, which is impossible when they are both so clearly terrified. He’s light as a tightrope walker as he slowly, slowly makes his way over to Damian. When he’s close enough, he carefully puts a hand on Damian’s shoulder and squeezes without jostling him. “I’m not leaving you. That thing’s not going anywhere if you don’t move, right? So you won’t move. That’ll give us enough time to find a way to disarm it.”

He’s succeeded in more extreme tests of stamina in the past. Damian once held a plank position for five hours straight over a bed of hot coals during his time with the League. Standing in one spot for a few hours is nothing, but how long can he go? He could be stuck here for over a day. They need to be prepared for the worst.

Damian’s hands are shaking, but he keeps the rest of himself still as stone. Budge an inch and they’re both dead. He could wipe out everything in a hundred-meter radius with a sneeze. “You need to get out of range,” he urges. “Please.” He can’t hold his brother’s life in his hands when it would be so easy to lose it. He won’t be the reason Dick Grayson dies.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dick promises him. He's nervous, but he's doing his best to be strong for Damian's sake. With his free hand, he touches his earpiece. “Batman, this is Nightwing. Open a separate channel with just you and me for a minute. I need to speak to you privately.” He explains the situation to Bruce, Damian's stomach sinking further as he hears the words out loud. He is well and truly fucked.

There’s a moment of silence as Dick listens to whatever Bruce is saying. “It’s hard to tell,” he answers. Gingerly, he bends down so he can get closer to the device without jostling anything. “It doesn’t look like the bombs in the buildings. This one clearly has a different trigger mechanism. There’s no way of knowing how to disarm it without getting a good look at the thing, so we need to take every precaution we can.”

Damian is almost glad his father isn’t close by for this conversation. He wouldn’t be able to handle the look on Bruce’s face as he realizes the fatal situation his youngest son has found himself in.

“Have everyone clear the remaining buildings as soon as possible,” Dick goes on. “Have the bomb squad scan for metal under every empty lot in the next two miles. Set up a barricade two hundred meters out. No one gets in except for us. Nothing that could risk this thing going off before we find a way to deactivate it.”

It means shutting down the subway system running underneath this segment of the city. It means ending all construction work nearby. Nothing with heavy machinery. Even the slightest vibration of the ground could set this bomb off, and they’re taking no risks. For Damian.

“Most importantly,” Dick continues, his voice taking on a hard edge, “find the Joker. I don’t care if we have to scour every inch of this city. Find out what this thing is made of and how to disarm it. Break every bone in the bastard’s body if you have to. We’re not losing anyone today.”

When he’s finished, Dick faces Damian again and gives him as reassuring a smile as he can muster. “We’ve got everyone on this. We’ll find the Joker, make him tell us how to deactivate it, and everything will be fine. You and I are just going to stay here for now, okay? We just have to be a little patient."

He makes it sound so simple, but Damian knows there isn’t a sure way out of this—he messed up, he wasn’t looking, and this is what he gets for his carelessness. He just prays that Dick isn’t anywhere near him when the time comes.

It’s going to be a long night.

Hour Three

Dick won’t leave Damian’s side no matter how much he pleads and tries to make him see reason. It doesn’t make sense for them both to have to be blown to smithereens, but Dick is adamant. He isn’t going anywhere. He won’t even sit, choosing to stand the entire time out of solidarity. Damian is still standing, so they are both still standing.

The block has been cleared by now, the surrounding area blocked off with a sufficient barricade. The bombs in the buildings have all been disarmed, which is their sole victory of the night. Apparently there were only two landmines buried; the one Damian is standing on now, and another down the street in front of a playground. That one went off on its own before they could check it, but thankfully the only casualty there was a flock of unlucky pigeons. The playground is no longer standing.

Damian and Dick have taken off their masks by this point. The barricade is far enough no one can see them up close anyway, and Damian would prefer to die as himself. Dick has been doing his best to distract Damian, but it’s hard to take one’s mind off a literal ticking time bomb beneath one’s feet. Especially when all he can picture is his own body scattered into pieces. He's never died in an explosion before, but he can imagine it isn't pleasant. Jason certainly didn't appreciate it.

Dick has resorted to forcing Damian to watch godawful pimple-popping videos on his phone for the past hour as his current distraction method. Damian can’t even move to turn it off.

“You’re disgusting,” Damian says, wrinkling his nose at the horrors on the screen.

“But it’s so satisfying!” Dick insists, the freak. “See all that pus? Wait, here, this one is my favorite. Check out the length of this ingrown hair.” He swipes to another video. Damian could throw up if he were allowed to move that much.

Hour Nine

All things considered, Damian’s situation could be a lot worse. Nine hours without moving would be impressive under any other circumstances. At least it isn’t raining. And Drake bought him a twenty-piece McNugget out of sympathy, plus a box of apple juice. Damian isn't comfortable by any means, and the bomb beneath his heel is still ever-present and terrifying, but it could be worse. He could be alone.

“Okay, twenty-six down,” Dick says, reading off the book of word games Stephanie brought for them. “Definition is ‘To swindle.” Three letters, and the second letter is a Y.”

Damian thinks on it, chewing his nugget. “Gyp.”

“Damn, that was quick. See, this is why you and Bruce are terrible to play games with. You never let anyone else get the answer first.”

“Just think faster and you wouldn’t have that problem.”

Damian’s body has gone stiff as a board after being tensed for so long, but it’s probably a good thing. It's better than the pins and needles from earlier. The worst part is a pesky itch on his ankle that only gets more bothersome the more he thinks about it. It’s so hard not to move, but he can do it. He’ll hold out for as long as he needs to—or at least for however long it takes for Dick to give up and leave so Damian can blow himself up with a clear conscience.

It’s seven in the morning now. They’ve been standing here all night and through the dawn. Bruce had to call Damian’s school to inform them he’s ill with the flu and will be tragically absent today.

Oracle pings in on the comms after their third crossword puzzle. Dick’s had his radio on speakerphone so that Damian can be included in all updates regarding his situation. “Good news, boys,” she says, “Batman found the Joker’s hideout.”

“About damn time,” Dick says, abandoning the crossword. “Well?”

“Had to beat the clown bloody and knock out most of his teeth, but he got the information we need on the bomb.”

Damian exhales with relief. “How do we disarm it?”

“So, that’s where things get tricky. Batman has all the info on how to deactivate it, but he’s only able to get at the parts he needs from the bottom of the device.”

It takes a moment for him to realize what she's getting at, and then Damian’s stomach sinks. “Oh.” He’s not exactly surprised. A botched failsafe like that is right up the bastard’s alley: The only way to deactivate the bomb is by stepping off it, but stepping off means he’ll die and take everyone and everything down with him.

Damian has had nine hours to make peace with the knowledge that he’ll probably die here today in a rainstorm of pink mist and bits of flesh, but with his brother beside him promising they’d both make it out of this alive, it was hard for his stupid hope not to be contagious.

“So what can we do?” Dick says, always hopeful, always looking for the third option. “There has to be a way.”

“There is,” Oracle says tentatively. “We could potentially freeze the device long enough to buy him time to disarm it, but it’s going to be close. And we need to alter one of Freeze’s guns to reach the right intensity to pull this off.”

“How long will that take?”

“A few more hours. Just try and hang in there for a little while longer,” she says to Damian. “I’ll call you guys when I have another update. We’re going to get you out of this, Damian.”

Everyone has been saying that, like they can speak the future into existence by repeating it enough times. Damian wishes he could share their confidence.

Hour Eleven

Everything is ready. Dick and Bruce both refuse to leave Damian’s side no matter how fervently he begs them to do so. He’s getting shakier the longer this goes on. His knee keeps twitching, and he’s not about to get this far only to fuck up and set the bomb off with his father and brother in range.

“I’m going to start counting in a minute,” Bruce says. He’s got the freeze gun ready to go. Dick stands at Damian’s side holding his hand. “On three, I need you to step off, son. Do you understand?”

Damian shuts his eyes tightly and shakes his head. “You both need to go. It’s going to kill you.”

He can’t be the reason they both die. He’s the one who landed himself here, he’s the only one who should pay for it. They won’t listen to him.

“Hey, it’s all right,” Dick promises him. “No one is going anywhere. You trust us, right?” He waits for Damian’s nod. “Then trust that we’ve got this. It’ll be over in a second. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

Damian doesn’t have a choice. If it were up to him, he’d stand here alone until his legs gave out and face the consequences alone. It’s selfish, but he’s almost glad that Bruce and Dick are too stubborn to listen to him. Much as he should be alone, he childishly doesn’t want to be.

Resigned, Damian finally nods. “Do it.”

He keeps his eyes closed when he hears the gun powering up, and doesn’t look when his father gets to work methodically freezing the mine. Damian stays completely still and waits for the explosion and the heat to kill him. He hopes it at least gives a warning before it blows up, some pop or click so the others have time to get away.

“One,” Bruce counts slowly. “Two.”

He hopes it’s a quick death. Last time it took several minutes for Damian to die from the sword plunged through his gut. He wants to go quickly this time.

“Three.”

Damian steps off.

He is immediately pulled into Dick’s embrace, his strong arms wrapping around Damian and walking him several steps away from the landmine. He covers Damian’s head, shielding him with his own body with his back facing the bomb.

There is a terribly silent moment as they wait for something to happen.

Then Damian hears a click, and nothing more.

“Clear,” Bruce calls out to them, sighing with relief.

Damian’s legs are jelly. He sags to his knees as exhaustion washes over him, but Dick is ready for him. He goes down with Damian, keeping the boy in a firm hug. He tucks Damian’s head under his chin, squeezing him tight. “Oh, thank god. You’re okay, buddy. You did so good. I’m so proud of you." 

Damian should do something—check that the bomb is truly secure, get up and scold the both of them for risking their lives in front of live ammunition—but for now, Damian just sits, breathes, and lets his brother hold him.