Fic: Break Us Back Together
This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not when things were so close to finally going right!
He shoved at the rubble again, the broken edges of stone cutting through his gauntlet and digging into his palm. He tried to jostle it, pry it upward with short bursts of strength, but his left hand remained firmly wedged within the warehouse wreckage.
This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.
They thought they were prepared.
Nearly two weeks ago, a new meta had shown up in Gotham. A nine-foot behemoth going by the name of ‘Seismic’. With the earthquake still fresh in their memories, the name was a psychological low blow.
Simply put, the man was a mountain on legs with a nasty habit of robbing the newest buildings in Gotham and leaving them piles of twisted metal, crumbling stonework, and human carnage.
Technically put, Seismic was a 9’ 2 ½“, 584lb, male metahuman, with thick pale skin, black eyes, and medium brown hair. Peak physical fitness, capable of lifting several tons (maximum weight load undetermined), average intelligence, below average speed, no noticeable training in any known martial art. Uses what have been dubbed, “seismic gloves,” capable of creating focused bursts of seismic energy with enough force to bring down building walls. Best fought at long-distance, utilize stealth and speed, stay out of arms reach at all cost.
This shouldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.
Dick’s eyes franticly scanned the warehouse. Bruce was pinned by an I-beam against what little was left of the west wall. He could see Bruce struggling against his iron prison, which at least meant he wasn’t too badly injured, but it appeared that only his head and right arm were free. Damn.
Timmy wasn’t too far from where Dick was. His left ankle was suspended, caught by some of the fallen ceiling frame. Another piece of the same roofing had pinned both his other leg and his lower back to the floor. Dick could see blood seeping out from a cut on the teenager’s thigh, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down as he attempted to wriggle free.
And as for Jason… oh Jason.
This couldn’t be happening.
They hadn’t planned to work together. It had just worked out that way.
Dick and Jason had run into each other trying to follow Seismic from separate leads. The original contact was less than friendly, but at least it stuck to venomous insults and thinly veiled threats without any physical blows. It probably would have escalated into fisticuffs if the building they were standing on hadn’t collapsed.
The next few hours were spent pulling survivors out of the wreckage. The two of them worked together to pry people out of what had once been a high-end apartment complex. Dick twisted into the tight spots and small crevices to provide leverage while Jason yanked the people free. By the time the emergency efforts arrived, their clothing was torn, their bodies were bruised, and there was no sign of Seismic; but there were at least fifteen people who wouldn’t have been alive otherwise.
They had retreated to a different building top and collapsed to catch their breath. Neither one said anything for seven minutes, Dick had counted. It had been somewhat unreal, just sitting there, sharing an exhausted but comfortable silence.
Their farewell had been… awkward to say the least. It somehow ended with a handshake, a thank you, and a tentative agreement to not work against each other. Which had lead to a tentative agreement to work with each other.
So for the past few days, Batman, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood had been grudgingly working together. It was tense between them, but they were together nonetheless.
And now… oh Jason.
This just couldn’t be happening.
Jason was trapped near the center of the room. His legs were pinned out in front of him by some mangled mass of ceiling. Dick could see him trying to push the concrete-metal amalgamation off so he could pull himself backwards, away from the approaching giant. Jason’s gun lay glinting on the other side of the warehouse, where the wall was still intact. It might as well be sitting in the African Serengeti for all the good it would do him. For the first time he could recall, Dick desperately wished that Jason had his gun.
He strained at the rubble again, legs adding to the force of from his right arm. He ignored the pain from his bleeding hand, aching cracked ribs, and searing shard of shrapnel sunk into his left shoulder. But his left arm remained firmly buried elbow deep in the wreckage.
This honestly couldn’t be happening.
They had been fighting so well together. Jason could read them as clearly as ever and Dick found they could do the same. They were easily staying out of Seismic’s range. They could see him wearing down under the volleys of projectiles. They were even in an area where they wouldn’t have to worry about civilians. It had been in the bag.
And then the world had come falling down, literally.
Seismic had always demolished his crime scenes from the outside. It was a pattern. Criminals were supposed to follow patterns! (Unless they were the Joker, that is.) But not this guy, no, he had to bring half of the damn building down on all of them. If it weren’t for the current situation, Dick would’ve been thankful they hadn’t been fighting in an abandoned skyscraper.
The thing pulled a crooked I-beam from a pile of scrapped roofing as it advanced. Dick wasn’t there when Jason had died. He’d been half a galaxy away. There was nothing he could’ve done. But now, now he was less than fifteen feet away, and he still couldn’t do anything!
He desperately pulled again, beads of sweat dripping down his forehead, and tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. His shoulder was screaming as curses and prayers slipped together through his gritted teeth. The concrete still held firm. Fuck!
This couldn’t be happening.
Please don’t let this be happening!
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Jason grappled with the twisted iron that was currently digging into his hip.
This seriously couldn’t be happening…
That’s what he gets for working with Ol' Dark ‘n Gruesome and the Birdettes. He soundly chose to ignore that he had once been one too. He should’ve just stuck to his policy of isolationism.
Shit! This stuff weighed a ton!
And here comes the ‘epicenter’ of this fiasco, his big, lumbering self! God, couldn’t this thing move faster than a snails pace? He’d die of starvation before it reached him!
Bruce was stuck closer to the wall than a Playboy poster in a college boy’s dorm room, the baby bird was doing something that looked like a yoga instructor’s nightmare, and Golden Boy was having a very long, unfriendly handshake with some concrete. Jason was screwed.
Shit, that guy moves a bit faster than he thought…
And he’s carrying an I-beam. A fucking I-beam for fuck’s sake! He was going to be killed, again, by being beaten with the granddaddy of all crowbars. What the fuck!?!
Hands, slick with blood and sweat, slipped as they tore at the wreckage.
Damn it! He’s in the things shadow now.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
His eyes stayed trained on the I-beam clenched in Seismic’s hand.
This couldn’t be happening! This couldn’t be happening!!!
… It didn’t.
The crowba-, no, I-beam, landed a few feet to his right. It had been knocked out of the big pale hand by a black clad boot, one of a pair, which were now firmly planted in front of him. He gulped greedily on the air as he took in the form before him. The same lean form he had known since he'd worn the red and green.
…There was too much blood. Crimson liquid flowed down the left side of Dick’s body from where his left arm should have connected.
There was nothing there. Nothing. Just ripped Nomex, red flesh, and a glint of scarlet streaked bone. Jason felt like he would be sick.
He forced himself to glance left, and there was the missing appendage, still stuck in its damn stony handshake. He really was going to be sick.
“Never again.”
Jason turned towards Dick’s voice as he addressed the slightly stunned meta.
“You’ll have to go through my cold, breathless body before I ever let you take any of them.”
The behemoth brought its fist back to punch, and Dick was moving: moving like he wasn’t missing an arm, like he wasn’t bleeding out on his feet. He danced around blows staying insanely close to his adversary.
“I will not just watch my family fall apart again!” he was yelling by now.
He was landing kicks up close in vital areas. Bouncing himself off of his single bloodied hand. His liquid life-force was splattered across the floor creating slick shadows of his path.
Jason could only stare as Nightwing moved like a thing possessed. He slipped around Seismic like winter wind, as his adversary grew more enraged.
The seismic gloves crashed into the ground as their owner let out an aggravated roar. Nightwing bounced into the air simultaneously, avoiding the earth born energy and landed a spectacular kick to Siesmic’s unguarded temple, dropping him like one of his demolition sites.
The waves traveled through the ground, shifting the rubble, and allowing Jason to pull himself free. Tim’s left ankle was freed so he could roll out from under the roofing, and part of the wall behind Bruce crumbled, giving him enough space to escape.
“Never threaten my brothers.” Dick’s whisper carried around the dilapidated warehouse as he stared down at the unconscious body at his feet.
“I will break myself into a thousand pieces before I ever let anything take my family away again.”
Jason had just reached him as his knees gave out. Jason helped ease him to the ground, letting him lean heavily against his chest.
“Easy Dick, easy.” He tried to sooth the visibly shaking vigilante.
He watched as Dick brought his hand to the carnage that used to be his left arm. He drew the hand back, regarding the blood on his fingertips as if it was his was first experience seeing the color red. It was only then that he let pain read on his face. Jason held him closer as strangled sounds pushed past his lips, causing his whole body to convulse, his mouth open in silent screams.
Bruce and Tim had reached them by this time, regarding the pair with unguarded concern.
“Dick?” Tim asked.
Bruce was already beginning to bind the open wound with his cape, “Tim, get an ambulance here, now.”
Tim nodded once, activating his com link. “Oracle. We need a cape friendly ambulance down at warehouse three in the old industrial section stat. Nightwing’s in critical condition.” His voice was controlled in a way that belied how hard he was trying to keep it from trembling.
Jason didn’t hear anything else Robin said and he ignored Bruce's hands feverishly applying pressure to the empty socket.
He simply held onto Dick. Clutching him like the lifeline he had never known he had.
He watched as bright blue eyes lost their fight to remain open and flashing red, blue, and white lights began casting their hues over what should have been naturally tan skin, now several shades too pale.
This couldn’t be happening. Not now, when things finally have the chance to be right again!
This just couldn’t be happening.
Please…
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END