bakerstreet | picture prompt meme

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[meme] picture prompt

picture prompt meme

the picture prompt meme

— Comment with your character and any preferences.
— Others will leave a picture (or two, or three...)
— Reply to them with a setting based on the picture.
— Link to any pictures that are NSFW, please.
— Be aware that this meme will be image-heavy.

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( x | x | x | x | x | x | x )

( again w/ the cw for blood im a menace )

((gpoy.gif))

Robin? I thought the Joker snuffed the last one. Must be a new set Batman's got now. It's been long enough for him to hire out. So this one must be new--that's why he got caught like a moron. Yeah, that sounds about right. Well, how attached can the Bat be? It's been nice not having these little bastards around the last few weeks. Let's see how long it takes him to find another.

They don't try to put a message out to Batman or the police. They don't ask for terms or a ransom, they don't brag about having caught one of the Bat's brood. They just beat the shit out of him. He probably deserves it for getting caught. For being stupid enough to push himself and operating under-equipped. For pushing everyone away and trying to operate in Gotham, for being the way he is, for being the way he always is, he probably deserves this.

He doesn't think he's going to die until after he gets the S.O.S. signal out. For a long time, it feels like he can outlast it. Like they have to get tired after so long, and they do, and he can sneak his way to a shortwave radio and get a message out in morse code: red robin. black mask offshoot. s-o-s. s-o-s. s-o-s. coordinates to follow. They get a second wind when they catch him though, and when his hip gives under a boot, when the only thing he can see or taste or smell is shit leather and greased hands lodged between his teeth--it's starting to feel like he's going to die.

Sober and stupid and completely alone, and he probably deserves it, and he's probably going to die.

It's a mistake to think that simply pushing away the family ever really meant any of them were alone. Batman may as well have put microchips in every Robin he ever took in, but a series of high tech, incognito surveillance systems prevented him from resorting to such archaic methods. Though if any of them were ever to fully circumvent the obsessive paternal monitoring, it would probably be Tim. And maybe it's because Bruce considers it for the best to give him space, or because he has his hands full with a willful and out of commission Damian, but he doesn't overtly try to reestablish contact. Even well versed in trauma and the downward spirals that follow, he's far from a perfect parent.

For his part, Damian has compartmentalized the church incident. All the dismayed anger at being useless and helpless, then almost committing an atrocity, then almost dying have folded in on themselves — turned to brute determination to not be impeded by crutches, his wound healing and working back to full mobility, and returning to patrolling the city. He's back in kevlar and domino mask within six weeks, a new scar and the twinge of over-exerted sinew the only outward reminder of that night. It's business as usual, minus Red Robin, because the city is always breeding new monstrous plots that threaten the citizens, and there's no rest for her defenders. Batman and Robin are out that night, tracking a lead on the break-in at the Gotham Museum of Antiquities when the distress beacon comes in.

Message received, processed; coordinates committed to memory. Turning to his father with a defiant scowl on his face is only met by the older man tucking his chin, growling. They don't need further communication than that to drop the current mission and reroute.

He's angry as they drive through Chinatown, broiling with contempt for Red Robin's incompetence (why must he further perpetuate the stereotype that Robin's always had to get kidnapped?), and composed by the time they pass through Wallstreet. Ready for action, spoiling for a fight with an intensity he won't question the origin of. When they reach the plain, unsuspecting building just off the East End Port, Batman extends a hand. Robin, wait —

Which is summarily shaken off without so much as a no. It isn't a covert approach, there's very little shadow-sneaking or wall hugging. Damian hurls a smoke bomb through the window of an upper-level while smashing through one on the ground floor. If his father is following on his heels, he pays no mind. The interior of the building is uninspiring, drab and dark; hall lights few and far between. The infrared filter on his mask is useless this far inside, but he doesn't need technology to discern two important things: Black Mask (and all his by-product) were far from original villains, and the most cliche (effective) place to keep a prisoner was in the basement. He only encounters a handful of goons, each dispatched in record time with un-pulled punches, before finding the stairs.

It's a different enough scenario — the only one bruised and beat and broken is Tim, the enemy isn't wearing animal masks or cheap Halloween store versions of the suit, Damian is in full enough health and uninhibited by any street drugs, and the room is lit by an uncovered lightbulb above them instead of Gotham light pollution filtering through stain glass —that it doesn't launch him back into any unpleasant memories immediately. Any recent resurgence of hate for his predecessor that had grown in the recent months is unimportant, and Robin is cool under the pressure of Roman Sionis' lackeys turning their attention to the doorway he's just kicked in.

The assault freezes, gives Damian enough time to count the room from left to right. One goon, two, three, Red Robin in a bloody pile, four goons, five, a big goon, and six. Easy enough, he tells himself, reaching behind his shoulders to unsheathe his sword. "If you like your hands attached to your body, get them off him."

"You grabbed a fucking fake Robin?" Someone hisses across the party. "Which one's real?"

"They're all real." Number Five growls, and as he turns on Damian, Tim spits the blood out of his mouth to groan out a warning: "Gun."

Someone grabs the back of his neck about a split second before shooting starts. The air is thick with panic; everyone knows that it's only a matter of time now before the Bat shows up. Get rid of the runts, that's the important thing. Ditch the kids or they'll lead daddy straight to you. Three thugs converge on Robin--one gun, one pair of fists, one knife. Another sprints to clear the nearest exit.

Adrenaline spiked, rallied by allies, Red Robin lurches up and disrupts the first shot aimed at his temple. The second shot only grazes his ear, but the third doesn't come till the shooter's buddy kicks Red's legs out from under him and wrestles him to the ground. Wrists pinned under the thug's knees, head shoved to the side by a hand over his face, he can't dodge the barrel pressed against his chest--only shift enough so it goes off center. His suit doesn't stop the bullet at this range. The glove over his mouth doesn't stop the scream.

The gun first — the most immediate threat, dangerous at a distance and useless up close. He charges that thug head on, ducking at the last moment before a few calibers bury themselves in the insulation behind his head. As always it would have been much easier to dispatch the threat permenantly, to sever limbs and cut throats, but that thought no longer burns at the forefront of his mind. It will be an idle thought that eats at him when playing back the scenario in private and summarily dismissed. But still, the situation seems appropriate for a little more violence than is strictly acceptable, and with a hand around the wrist wielding the weapon, Damian twists sharply, knocks the gun from the man's fingers, and twists again until the bones snap. (He hears the first shot, figures Tim's fighting, can't look over.)

The fists next — a whirlwind of uncoordinated movement and a loud war cry cut off when his whimpering ally is used as a battering ram and the two slump against the wall in a daze. (Then the second shot, a sparing glance toward the commotion careening toward the floor, Red Robin's still fighting, he's not dead.)

Then the knife — which gets in a hit or three, the wild slashes of a mad man who doesn't realize he's not making any headway when his opponent has his arms up in defense. But it's enough that Damian can't get a decent blow in edgewise by the time the third gunshot rings out, punctuated by a loud, hair-raising scream that sets his blood on edge. The knife wielder gets a careless swipe across the face, screams himself and grabs for the blade. He lets the man have it, that frees his hands to hit him swiftly in the throat, and when the lackey's down and he can see over to the wrestling pair...

All Damian can see is red. With a furious snarl he gives no conscious consent to making, he's over the three crumpled thugs, driving both his boots into the ribs of the man pinning Tim, but Number Five is big and heavy; goes down hard but doesn't roll far enough away from his victim to no longer pose a threat. The sixth seems to panic now, thinks his friend made a wise decision to scram, but three shurikens in the back of his calf halt his progress by the time he's at the doorframe. And really, Robin ought to address all the stirring threats on the floor, ought to knock them out or restrain their hands, but instead he's on his knees. Scrabbling toward the other boy, assessing the damage.

"You're okay." He's obviously not. Been hit, and so bloodied it's almost hard to discern where. "You will be okay. Can you speak?"

He can speak, probably. He can hear, it’s just a matter of getting words to his head, or his thoughts into words, or any thought except how much he hurts in so many bright spots in so many bright spots. Shouldn’t shock be kicking in? Shouldn’t it stop soon?

He will be okay, he’s sure. He can talk, he’s sure, he can even move. Stupidly, sluggishly, the arm not attached to a shatter collarbone can sweep up over his face to hide to hide to hide. He can answer, he’s trained to think and respond. “Yes, sir,” he’s trained to say, even if it’s slurry and strained and gulping, “please. Please, sir, please—“

And it’s all he can say. It’s everything to keep from choking on the pain and the blood and the whining, wheezing noise that won’t stop leaking out him. He can’t even get it a warning about the hulking Fifth rising up behind Damian, closed fists swinging to bat him to the ground.

On a distant, objective level, this isn't good. There's Drake running his mouth on autopilot and then there's this sad, weak and oh so strained gibbering that has Damian going cold like an intravenous shot of ice water. His vision tunnels, focus narrow and fixed on ascertaining the origin of the bubbling bloodflow and applying two hand pressure. Raised up on his knees, pressing down on the bullet wound with all his weight in some vain attempt to staunch the perpetual soak of Red Robin's suit. Objectively he knows Tim needs more medical attention than he can provide right now — the med bay in the Batcave at least, a full-blown suite in a trauma ER at worst — and counts on the fact Batman had been hot on his heels, would show up any minute, would know better what to do.

On a more visceral level, his insides twist so sharply it effectively distracts from their surroundings. From the cries of the man with sliced muscles, the whimpers of the one dragging himself toward the door, the quiet rustle of the hulking beast rising up behind him...

"What were you doing? Why are you always such an idio —"

Wham. Like a musket shot to the side of the face, Five's fist connects with half of Damian's entire head, toppling him a few feet away and leaving his senses muddied. He's a crumpled pile of limbs and cape, dizzy. Vision tilted, so dizzy. Blinking far too heavily while the sound of blood rushes through both ears and his jaw throbs. There's three of their remaining assailant at first, but their images blur into one solid, hulking beast now limping to his feet square between him and Drake by the time the man's reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a blade.

Damian reaches for his belt, fumbles but manages one more batarang into his grasp. "Touch him and I'll kill you," he spits. Tries to stand, to make himself the more immediate threat than the actively dying older boy on the floor despite wanting to violently vomit. "Slowly."

"Why doncha come on over, batrunt?" Five rumbles, setting one foot square to his own shoulder and the other square into Red Robin's. When his weight yields a braying sob out of the prone vigilante, he sets it on the kid's throat instead. Five's fist bounces with the knife, beckoning Robin over. "Just give it a shot."

The distance between them shortens somewhat. Before he can react to the mechanical burst, a grappling hook knocks Five forward, towards Damian. Batman, hot on his protégé's heels.

Damian doesn't focus on what Five's doing with his feet any more than it takes to know he's moved into a fighting stance. Red Robin makes a gut-wrenching sound that is undoubtedly the goon's doing, for which Damian silently vows to make the man replicate tenfold. But he's watching the man's face, watching his hands; recognizes he's either concussed or still seeing too many stars to act as efficiently as the immediate situation demands, yet bares his teeth and prepares to run on brutal, violent muscle memory if it calls for it. On a second attempt, he stands. Shifts into a ready position.

Ready for what? Five to lunge, to slash, or to victimize Tim Drake further to the point Damian is forced to make the first move.

Instead, he gets Batman. A reliable safety net for whenever any of them rush into unknown danger and find themselves drowning in it. It's hard to think that someday, any day, that comforting dark shadow could be gone. Even if one of them were to take it up in his place, to perfectly emanate all that was the Batman, they'd fall short of the ominous cloud of anger that manifests around a father coming upon his beaten children.

Batman doesn't emerge from the shadows with a threatening declaration for the remaining criminals to stop beating kids and take on someone their own size instead. He's quiet, angry, intent. Most of the men on the floor have moved to the edge of the room and cower, or else try to make a break for it. They're useless. Five is the last real threat, which means when he stumbles from the blow to the back, Damian trusts his father will handle the broken, bleeding mess on the floor. So he engages with a wild yell. Cuts from elbow to wrist so the man drops the blade before driving the wing of the batarang into the thick muscles of his shoulders. Together they twist and roll, collide with the floor and scrabble until Damian finds his rightful perched atop Five when the man lands too heavily and is too slow to get up. Knee digging into his thick throat, and takes the opportunity to hit him in the face once, twice.

And again. And again. And over and over and over. The wet squelch of a bloody nose punctuates every blow. Facial structures and bones begin to give under his knuckles until Bruce calls him Robin so sharply it snaps the boy from his bloody reverie. Calls his attention back to their purpose here, to Red Robin in a soaking mess in Batman's arms. It's time to leave.

In an ideal situation, having two of his apprentices at once would be a one. One gets hurt, the other can help. That's the way it should work. But two is far too many to drag back home after something like this. It wasn't so long ago that the roles were reversed, and Bruce regrets having nothing to say to Tim at the time--too wound up in worry for Damian and anger (irrational, cruel) that Tim had put him in such a compromised position.

Now, with Tim compromised, both the familiar anger and worry well up again, even while Damian compresses the bullet wound, keeps Tim awake on the right side of the car. The worry has a new twist; their last conversation was a bitter argument. But Tim won't die (he won't), so Bruce dismissed the concern as best he can. The anger is nothing, would be little more than a serious discussion for the drive home if not for the situation surrounding it. He tries to dismiss that, too, bookmark it for after.

But the cockpit is altogether too tense with only the sound of Tim's wet, staggered breathing and Bruce's own blood rushing in his ears. Alfred has already been alerted. There's nothing except the worry and anger, the worry and the anger, and he only has a place to put one of the two.

"I don't want to discuss this." Batman warns, jaw stiff and attention on the road. "I'd like you to admit now that you were out of line, and we won't have to hash it out later."

"Out of line for running in recklessly, or beating a man's teeth into his spinal cord?"

Probably and rightfully both. Damian knows this, just as he knows Bruce's fingers flex, white-knuckled around the steering wheel with frustration. Just as knows that angry muscle in the Batman's jaw is clenched, which promises a lengthy lecture about blah blah code, blah blah tactical strategy sometime in the next 48 hours. That conversation would probably culminate in a heartfelt sentiment about not wanting to lose either of them, let alone both just because of some rash decisions — which Damian would then counter by asking what his father thought would happen if they'd waited. All the bruises and breaks along Drake's body hadn't been new, and the scene in the room when he'd walked in... Well, Bruce hadn't seen it.

He's not looking at his father now. Tim occupies most of the passenger seat, and Damian is blessedly small enough to fit squarely in the space between semi-conscious predecessor and the dashboard display. One foot braced against the interior of the door panel, a knee on a few inches of seat between Tim's legs and making full use of the pop-up med kit in the center console. His palms are slippery with blood now, but Damian finishes sealing the chest wound with plastic and proceeds to shove his right hand between Red Robin's back and the leather of the seat in search of an exit wound.

"You were —" Bruce starts, and something in Damian's chest pulls tight; emotion like dry leather, taught and ready to snap.

"A liability? A minute away from breaking your code?" He's finger-fumbled to another open hole beneath Tim's shoulder blade, but it doesn't feel like as much of a relief as it should. "Then yeah, I was out of line. But at least I'm not the idiot who's succumbing to bloodloss and falling asleep. Drake!"

A firm slap slap to the face, painting his cheek and the corner of his mouth all the redder. Wakey wakey, Timothy Drakey; this is no place to die just yet.

"You went overboard. You could have killed him. You would have, anyone could have seen it in your execution." Bruce answers, sharp and thin, gloves groaning around the wheel. "It isn't just a matter of philosophy, Damian, you wasted time losing your temper--"

"Sssstop--" Under Damian's loving ministrations, Tim tries for a gasp that devolves into a hiss, pain-laced and choking. It's hard to keep his eyelids open. It's hard to move. Even when fingers prod against the wound in his back, the most Tim can manage is to twist a hand in Damian's cape and tug against the hurt. "--m'sorry, just--stop, just stop." His legs tighten, thighs pinching around Damian's knee as he tries to lean forward to make searching easier. His head thuds into the crook of Damian's neck. His mouth drips with admitting, "Shoulda killed'm. Shoulda fuckin killed him."

He's bristling from high stress, higher emotion; doesn't particularly care for being told what he ought to have done in that situation by two differing parties while they're all stuck in such close quarters. The whole cockpit of the Batmobile has taken on the heavy copper scent of blood, it rests on his tongue like the aftertaste of bile. Tim is breathing against his collarbone (but at least he's breathing) and his father is disappointed, and Damian wants desperately for the car ride to end so he can be anywhere else. Anywhere less embroiled with life or death stakes.

"Can we table talking about execution for after Drake maybe survives his?" he snaps without really looking at Bruce. Quickly slaps an adhesive compress to the exit wound to stem the trickle of blood. Another plastic bandage to preemptively treat the threat of a punctured lung. Then both hands come up to the other boy's shoulders, a firm shove to manhandle him back against the seat.

"And you. Shut up. Keep talking." Contrary in nature, that's Damian in a nutshell. Again touching Tim's face, holding his head steady while peeling the domino mask off his eyes.

"M'not dying." Tim wheezes, snickers till it flares up too brightly from entry to exit wound and he has to hold his breath till he can see again. "Gonna survive. What Damian--you worried? That's so ckh--cute."

Bruce warns that this isn't funny, but Tim isn't listening, only watching Damian and tilting his head to help as much as he can--eyes on Damian as much as he can. "We get it. You're the good son. Your--pretending to give a sh--a shit--quota is--"

Under the mask, his cheekbones are rattles, sclera punctuated with bloody pools from head trauma. Try as he might, his eyes won't focus. His mind won't focus. "You hear'm when you--showed up? They thought you were dead. Both of us. Thought we were dead."

Wow thanks Tim, he hates everything from being called cute to the all too visceral callback to the last near death experience and subsequent fallout. Had to admit though, on this side of his own words thrown so casually back at him through bloody teeth, it feels a little like a slap in the face for all the effort being put in to save Red Robin’s sorry tail feathers.

Worried isn’t the right word — too simple, doesn’t really get at the underlying reason his insides seized up at the distress call and have yet to fully untangled themselves — but it’s not inaccurate either. Being so blatantly called on it brings Damian back to minding himself. Drake is awake and talking (shit), so Damian sits back a little. Folds back into perfunctory as he picks up a flashlight and shines it between subconjunctival hemorrhages.

“Joke’s on them, then, isn’t it? Follow the light.”

“No shit. You made’m—piss themselves.” One side of his mouth stays hooked in an attempted grin, but even that effort struggles to hold between the rest of his body revolting and his eyes struggling to stay open long enough to follow the light. Tim wets his mouth, and everything still tastes like iron. “I’m sorry.”

The first comes out croaked. Bruce says nothing, and his silence boils in the air. Tim’s breath catches, eyelids flutter with near-tears Humiliation, disappointment, failure, and no energy to channel it into being angry, where he’s comfortable. So Damian can see it all this close. The second time comes weaker, to nobody, and Bruce still says nothing. “...I’m sorry.”

Tight quarters and tight squeezes of emotion, uncomfortable enough that Damian’s sweep of the flashlight across Tim’s glazed eyes pauses the second quiet, woeful apologies start to spill into the air between them. His own lips zip shut, pressed into a thin, pale line and his brow above the domino mask furrows with the sudden and unpleasant realization that — yeah, sad and broken Tim Drake is maybe his least favorite Tim Drake. Tell him three hours ago that he’s miss the times the older boy mercilessly ribbed him over stupid things and Damian would have hissed with denial. Notably absent Tim Drake may still be his favorite, but notably absent for long periods of time Tim Drake got himself into situations like this. Here, covered and blood and draped in a thick silence that none of them are emotionally mature enough to break right away.

The small flashlight clicks off and for a long moment Damian just stares. Street lamps are few and far between as they leave the city proper for the sprawling roads that loop around to the manor, but the dashboard display provides more than enough light to level the other with a look.

Sorry for — what? His incompetence? For bleeding on the seats and disrupting their evening agenda? Or for something else that somehow cuts him deeper? Looking at his bloody and disoriented eyes, Damian can’t really tell. Can’t pick apart the intricacies of Drake’s psyche. He doesn’t really know him.

“Just don’t —“ Don’t cry. “...don’t do that again. It’ll be fine.”

Biting his mouth shutting, clenching his jaw--that kind of action to stem tears takes energy that he can't muster. But Tim manages, breath only shuddering once before his body notes that it hurts too much to cry. His eyes close to get out from under Damian's look (humiliating, humiliating), and it's alarmingly comfortable.

"...I can't stay awake." The panic is dulled, everything is dulled and dreamy. "Bruce--"

One hand lifts from the wheel, twists to press into Red Robin's left hip so that a bright shock of pain interrupts the dream. Tim sobs, curses, pushes against weakly the hand inflicting it, but it's what they have: "Damian. Just here. There's a break. Don't push too hard--but don't let him fall asleep."

Not till they can finish the drive home, faster still with the tension so high in the cockpit. Tim holds onto Damian's wrist, for grounding more than for protest, until Bruce has to force his hand away to get him out of the car and onto a stretcher--thereafter to the operating table that Alfred has ready.

The injuries will hobble him to the house for a few weeks. The concussions, the broken hip and shattered ribs, the partially collapsed lung and the bullet path winding through it. The injuries will keep him there at least a week, Alfred suggests once it's safe for Tim to be under anesthetic--not likely longer, as stubborn as he is. Bruce doesn't agree, evident in his silence. Damian can listen, more privy than many of the rest of the boys to the way Alfred addresses Bruce in his age: flat and exhausted, beyond the point of believing that he needs to let Bruce make his own decisions with his wards, but certainly not expecting the man to listen to advice.

"I can only do so much to encourage him to stay." Alfred explains flatly, tilting the hot lamp away from his own head. He can see to finish the sutures well enough. "And I'll do it, of course, on the condition that I'll hear no lecturing. If you hadn't insisted on it in the first place, sir--now don't be precious. If you had held your tongue for a moment, he mightn't have disappear and put us all in this situation to start."

"Robin charged them. Forced their hand, as always--"

The needle comes up to gesture sharply at Bruce, stinging even from a meager height of six inches from the skin. "I won't have you forcing his hand either."

"Two emergencies within the year, Alfred, both of them involved."

"Sounds to me like lie you have some ground to recover. The boy isn't a child, and he's well-past behaving to please you against his better judgment. Think about Jason. Think about Timothy." A beat, a fuming huff before Alfred turns his attention back to the work. "You think about them before you take another running scold at that boy."

He's silent after that. The time for assurance or comfort seems to have passed, and there are no real words to fill the front seats of the Batmobile once Tim starts slipping in and out of coherency and Bruce steps harder on the gas. Damian slips into obedience in the face of not knowing what else to do; slots a hand on Drake's broken hip and digs his thumb into the bone every time the other boy's eyes start to cross or his head starts to drag to one side. He weathers any pained outcry directly in his ears and any desperate, blood-frothy spittle sprayed across his face. The fingers around his wrist lack the strength to throw him off and that's concerning. None of it feels like enough but it keeps Tim breathing until they screech the last few feet into the docking port in the cave and fling open the doors.

He doesn't feel like enough, doesn't know how to help anymore once Bruce (unmasked and chewing on rage) and Alfred descend upon the crumpled mess that is Red Robin. Out of the car, onto the stretcher, under the lights and knives, and Damian remains rooted to the spot just outside the passenger door. Watches them from several yards away, wanting distance in case the monitors attached to Tim suddenly start wailing the banshee-like screeches of crashing vitals. But after several long minutes — maybe even an hour; there are no windows and he doesn't tear his eyes from the scene over in the medbay long enough to look at a clock — when the lines along Pennyworth's shoulders relax ever so slightly, which he takes to mean hope at the end of the tunnel, Damian slips a few steps back. Fades into the shadows of the cave, taking the long way around to come closer to the operating table while remaining out of the main line of sight. Doubts he'd draw attention even if he knocked over the rack of short staffs to his left. He watches, he listens.

Father is angry, Pennyworth is as done with that rage as he is with stitching up the children he'd helped to raise. The butler is a considerable blessing upon this house, speaks to defend both teenagers who cannot be moved to object for themselves; advocates with a logic that falls deaf on Bruce's ears. His blood still thrums with the urgency of their rescue mission, and after being scolded in regard to scolding, he takes up pacing at Drake's bedside. Damian isn't decieved to think that he's escaped a lecture at Alfred's urging, and when Bruce breaks from his treading a groove in the floor Damian braces for — something. Anything. But his father breezes right past him without acknowledgment, moves to a computer chair not far off and starts to pull up and compile files about the night's adventures.

When he can tug his attention away from the back of Bruce's head, he makes eye contact with Pennyworth, who offers a thin-pressed mouth and the slightest of reassuring nods before returning to stitching Tim up. It isn't until the man starts cleaning his surgical instruments that Damian again steps back, finds the shadows along the edge of the cave and makes a silent exit up to the manor.

He's scolded several hours later, once the sun is up and he's washed the blood from his person. Bruce finds him crouched at the base of the entryway's grand staircase, no less angry than he had been, though perhaps a hair more measured in his approach. "You were reckless." It isn't even a rhetorical question this time; the conversation is one-sided and requires no participation on Damian's part. "I told you to wait and you didn't even stop to consider that there was a reason behind it. It's been years, Damian, and you still fall back to brute force attacks without even thinking about the consequences that approach can have. There is a good chance that Black Mask's men might not have shot Tim any time soon if they hadn't seen you as a threat the moment you stepped into that room. You could have created a distraction, you could have waited until we could coordinate a two-pronged attack, but you didn't think. You didn't use your head, and you both could have died. Robin cannot be that careless, and you're not worthy of the title if you haven't learned that by now."

It might have been kinder if Bruce had yelled at him, rather than come at him with this firm, end-all-be-all approach. Around the seize in his throat, Damian manages to sound far more contemptuous than he feels. "I guess that makes five of us who've failed to live up to your expectations."

The lines around Bruce's mouth harden, deeper set in his face. "I still can't trust you out there. What can I do with you if I can't trust you?"

"Ground me."

Not exactly the mutually constructive route Bruce seemed to have seen this conversation going to, and too much for the man's frayed temper. He favors Damian with a long, hard stare before walking away from him. It hadn't been a serious suggestion, but when the next evening rolls around and Damian descends halfway down the stairs into the cave again, the echo of tire squeals are already fading against the rush of the waterfall, and he takes that to mean he's benched. Perhaps indefinitely.

Damian avoids all human contact for the next five days. He's a ghost in his own house, heavily aware of which wing of the manor his father is in at all times. Darting around corners to hide from Pennyworth when the man attempts to seek him out, and refusing to go anywhere near the secret door behind the grandfather clock that leads to the sickbed of Timothy Drake. Titus is a near-constant companion, but he even ventures out onto the grounds and climbs a tree to avoid being too near to anything and anyone from time to time. It's the tail-end of summer, and easy to fall into the background now that he's somewhat removed himself from vigilante duties. But there are no cases, no school, and only so much self-imposed extracurriculars before Damian starts going as stir-crazy as he had been while bedridden. Three days in he starts to monitor Alfred's disappearances into the cave, clocks the hours between doses of heavy-duty painkillers administered to the wounded boy below. If Batman's outings and Red Robin's opioid-induced slumber ever coincide, Damian has taken to tiptoeing down the step, sequestering himself at one of the smaller archival computers in the corner and reading whatever new entries he's missed out on since setting aside his cape and boots.

But Bruce must know. Bruce knows everything, and must still resent his involvement because, on the fifth night when Damian attempts to read up on the most recent updates to the case at the Museum of Antiquities, the supercomputer rejects his biometrics. USER NOT AUTHORIZED blinks across the screen in glaring, offensive red lettering and Damian swears — "God dammit." — momentarily forgetting the sleeping ("sleeping"?) figure several paces away.

It's hard to gauge how long it's been. He can't even really tell based on his recovery. No one is volunteering to let him anywhere near a mirror. No one is volunteering to let him anywhere at all because, as Alfred hums over him during one of his wakeful moments, he's recovering from hip surgery. Pins and cement, Alfred hums like a song, and Tim starts running calculations on how much longer he'll be able to do this damn job. It's hard to think past the fact that Bruce will want him staying here (trapped here) till he's healed. That could take nearly half a year. He can't be here longer than a week.

Two weeks, maybe. He has no idea how long it's been that he's been here.

That could be calculated. Risk is always worth considering when it comes to more serious injuries, but it's not as if he's broken his spine. Still, Alfred doesn't comment on why he hasn't been relegated to his old room aside from muttering about the equipment. A curated collection of books, a notepad and a pencil, a radio--he's been appropriately ensconced with things to do for the limited hours he can keep his eyes open. Pacifying strategies to keep him contented at a basic level, enough to do till he falls back asleep, occupation to distract him from the fact that he can't see the sun rising and falling down here.

The swearing over by the main console gives him a clue though. He usually catches the beginning or end of Damian's excursions down here. Hasn't timed or counted them. But Damian can be patient when he needs to, and Tim can't imagine any universe in which Bruce didn't bench him.

It must have been a few days if Bruce got out of his ass long enough to realize that he needed to lock down the computer.

Tim snorts from the bed, and it sets him coughing, which sets him hissing, which only accentuates the quiet smirk cast at the ceiling. "Yeah, that sounds--about right."

It's just not his day. The frustration of now being completely cut off from a rather big part of his life is now joined by an additional level of agitation that his isolation has been witnessed by another, and for several long moments, Damian considers making a beeline back to the stairs without acknowledging that he's been caught. Human interaction of any sort is still the last thing he wants to entertain, let alone the grating type of company Tim only ever seems to offer. Especially when he couldn't resort to smacking the other boy for being an ass because he'd almost died less than a week ago. But running would be cowardly, so after a beat of hesitation, the slow squeak of the swivel chair accompanies his slow turn to face him.

And then he gets stuck. Anger bristles beneath the surface but feels misdirected here. The overarching desire to seem cool and unaffected has an apathetic oh, you survived is on the tip of his tongue, whereas the more scathing and immediate address of their situation — this is all your fault — rests heavier in the back of his throat. He hears that choked hiss as well, and also wants to know how much it hurts. Indecision has Damian grinding his teeth in the meantime, chases responses around his brain until it's dizzying.

"Apparently saving your life was careless and I'm to be punished for it." Defensive. Commiserating. Reclined in the chair with an air of casual, but digging his thumbnail aggressively beneath his pinky nail that it smarts.

"Obviously." This time, the laugh is mostly air. Lesson learned. He has to tilt his head sideways to see Damian, but it isn't uncomfortable. He has to wonder how much of it is healing and how much is drugs. The stitches along his hairline are still there, the red spots on the whites of his eyes--but the swelling is fading well around his sockets and mouth, mostly purple and yellow. "How long are you out of the game?"

A shrug, like his exile isn't the main reason he's going slowly and completely insane and sneaking around the Batcave like a dejected puppy. "Until Father finds me to be a trustworthy sidekick again."

An vague, open ended assessment of his character that has no concrete end-date. Damian's suspension could last a week, or be indefinite and mark the end of his career as Robin and not knowing is... hard. He casts his gaze to picking at his hands, focuses on picking at his nail beds like it's the most fascinating thing in the world — which it is, when his only other options are staring into shadows, the computer screen, or the remnants of victimization left so plainly across Tim's face.

Digging at his nails, Damian can't see the tremendous eye roll that actually hurts Tim's head. Not more than thinking about Bruce's horseshit, but still. "This is when you start freelancing, in my--experience." A coughing break, and he assures, much quieter--terribly quiet, "You could. You were amazing."

It isn’t the call to solo vigilantism that catches his full attention. That’s par for the course, really — Robin becomes Nightwing, becomes the Red Hood, becomes Red Robin, etc. And Damian had put thought towards who he would become several times over the years, but always got stuck with the name. It was hard to think past that when he still perpetually imagined a future where he was Batman.

No, that quiet, almost conspiratorial praise — that drags his attention away from his nail bed. Drags it to look Tim in the face, brow furrowed with a healthy dose of suspicion. Damian has excused everything the other boy had said in the car ride back, from the urgent call for the assailants death to complimenting his scare tactics to the apology. He’d been out of his mind in pain, probably convinced he was dying, babbling anything and everything with no filter. Damian had been there before. But now?

“You were concussed.”

no one gets to dismember you but me pt 2

:, )

here 👏 for 👏 heartbreak 👏 and 👏 hugs 👏

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kisses this post, I was just thinking about it a few days ago!!

i missed it a lot! i may always be late to the party but i usually show up!

the party dont start till u walk in, never worry please

♥♥♥ you're too good to me

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i took some liberties AND only got about halfway--would you mind writing them a few days forward?

absolutely! i live for a good timeskip, lmk if any of this doesn't work

orzzzzzzz

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