Across || Tim Drake + Avengers Crossover

Chapter 26

Damien stayed crouched in his position in the corner of the cage. He rolled his eyes at the other young teenage boys who were in various stages of panic and despair.

Their captors hadn't done anything, merely throwing them in a large cage structure. If only these boys had the sense to stay moderately quiet, Damien would be able to contact his brothers without giving himself away. He couldn't use Morse code nor just speak into his comms because the sobbing and panic was so loud. For goodness sake, they were acting like this was their first time being held captive.

...Oh right.

Damien sighed, standing up. Well, he was Robin so it was his duty to calm them down.

"Everyone calm down!" He shouted over the noise. Several of the boys quieted down, turning their attention to him. A couple of sniffles still ran through the group.

"You worthle-" Damien stopped himself, restarting. "You lot, nothing's going to happen if you panic or cry now. Do you think our captors will let us go if we complain and whine like some infant?"

Some boys shook their heads in response. Damien took this as a sign to continue. "Well, then shut up. You're wasting your energy."

Surprisingly, a lot of the boys listened to Damien, settling down into soft murmurs with the occasional tear. Damien was honestly expecting more protesting or shouting, but was relieved that his words had at least helped somewhat. 

Damien sat back down. Finally, enough quiet to think. Okay then, time to get to work.

He crawled over to the door, glancing at the lock wearily. He then stuck his head as far out as possible between the bars, scanning the vicinity for cameras. None that he could see. Good. 

Damien tapped a hand on his shoulder where the hidden comms were stitched into his sweatshirt. He then stuck a hand outside the bars as far as he could reach, waving it madly around. Some boys looked at him with odd expressions, but otherwise did not question what he was doing.

There was a small single beep from the communicator and the current Robin smirked. He stuck a hand to the hem of his shirt, fiddling around with it until he found the hole the brothers had prepped, carefully pulling out lock-picks from the small space. He glanced around, happy that no one had seen him... but if he started picking the lock they were bound to notice and say something about it. Stupid human curiosity.

He sighed. Was the only way really telling them what he was about to do? Surely not...

He sighed after a moment.

_______________

"Move your fucking butt out of my face!"

"Well, move your face out of my butt!"

"I would if I fucking could, dipshit."

"Wow. I couldn't agree more. You're amazing. Thanks Jason, thanks for enlightening me."

Jason grumbled as the two older brothers crawled through the vent. They were currently crawling through the vent that supposedly led to the children. The mission was going well so far with the tracker they'd placed on Damien working perfectly. It had led them to a warehouse a few blocks away from the club, making them realise that the club was merely a backdoor; a storefront to illegal activities.

"Wait."

Dick stopped and Jason quickly dodged the scabbard of Damien's sword as Dick slightly turned.

"God do we really need to bring that along?"

"Yeah how is Damien going to fight then?"

"Are you seriously asking me how Damien is going to fight without a sword?"

Dick paused and then shrugged at Jason's raised eyebrow. "I donno, I think he'd appreciate being able to fight with it."

"Well I think not. Grateful my ass."

"Guys, be quiet. You're right over a group of three." Tim's voice crackled through their comms, making the two older brothers fall silent and peer down the vents, spotting their targets.

-------

Tim watched as the dot that marked his brothers' location began moving again. He switched the cameras back to the three guys in the room below, nodding to himself as they returned to their card game. One of the guys had previously looked up momentarily, but it seemed all was good.

Tim sighed and switched tabs again before returning his attention to a loose screw on the teleportation machine. He couldn't believe he was missing out on the action because he had to work on it. Instead of being in the midst of fighting and saving civilians, he was stuck at Avengers Tower on monitor duty and fixing their machine. Of course, it was a top priority to get home, but honestly, Tim really wanted a break. Oh well.

Beep.

Tim looked up, placing the screwdriver down and pulling the keyboard closer. After switching through a few more feeds, he pressed a button. From the right corner of the screen, Damien's head popped out from behind one of the large cages. He turned around, seemingly talking to a couple of others before slinking off with one other child towards the darker areas of the room. Tim frowned slightly.

Tim held a finger to his comms, contacting his older brothers. "Okay Damien's out. He's still in the room, but he's going to be making an exit. There's another kid with him. I'm not sure why but I'll talk to him."

"Good. We're nearly there. Tell him we'll meet him in a couple of minutes at the meeting point."

"Roger that."

Tim switched channels, contacting his younger brother. "Damien, Dick and Jason are about to reach the rendezvous point. You need to get there ASAP. Why'd you bring a kid along?"

"Tell Grayson and Todd to wait. I'm going to hand the keys over to Winters in case the mission goes south."

Tim blinked. This was so uncharacteristic of his entitled, overconfident brother. He assumed the boy following him was 'Winters'. "What? Damien, you need to stick to the plan! You can't just bring in a civilian to the fight. Guard to your left."

Damien tutted and ignored Tim's remarks, darting towards the right. "Unlike you, I'm not some obdurate imbecile, Drake," he spat. "He's going to stay out of the fight." He said curtly as the two approached the huge doors which were thankfully left unmanned.

"Now tell me where the keys are, Drake."

Tim shook his head in resignation, knowing it would take too much effort to persuade his brother otherwise.

"You gotta learn some manners." There was a pause and then Tim sighed. "Just give me a moment."