Brothers To The Bitter End

16

Damian peered cautiously outside the window before slipping out into the chill air. He silently leapt from theh window and landed on the cold ground, wincing at the slight crunch his feet made on the frozen ground. He slipped around the front of the house and into the night. Damian almost smiled at how easy it had been to escape. It had been three months since he'd started slipping out like Jason to do vigilante business, and he already knew he loved it. It wasn't the same as being an assassin, but it was almost as good. He wore a modified version of his old League uniform that helped him blend into the darkness.

Damian slipped unseen through the shadows and tuned into the police radar. As soon as the call about a robbery came in, he was off. In less than half an hour, he had captured the offender and left him with a sticky note for the cops. He almost chuckled as he kept from rooftop to rooftop aided by his grappling gun. It was so easy! Tim and Cass had gone back to Bruce's for the school year, Stephanie swung in and out depending on what villain she was after at the moment, and Roy and Wally slept like rocks. Jason had found out about Damian's antics about a week after he had started. Jason had made the decision to keep it between the two of them for now, however, partly because it made a lot less work for him and partly because nothing short of telling Dick would make any difference to the young vigilante. And telling Dick might get Jason kicked out of the house for being a "bad influence." And since Jason abhorred menial labor, he had no real choice but let the kid be an idiot. At least that's what he said. The fact was that Jason was just too lazy to bring it up to Dick and hated confrontation.

"So easy," Damian muttered with a smirk.

"Not as easy as you think," a dark voice commented as an extremely painful shock ran through Damian's body. "Not as easy at all,"
*******************
When Damian woke he was tied upside down from the rafters of an abandoned warehouse. He struggled, but to no avail. He was stuck. Whoever had tied him up obviously knew all the tricks as all of his knives, katanas, throwing stars, and anything else that might be used as a weapon had been removed. Which essentially left him dangling from the rafter in nothing but his underwear.

"Hey! Whoever you are, you don't know who you're dealing with! And really, my pants too? I'm cold up here!"

There was no answer. Damian proceeded to scream out insults and threats in every language he knew, which amounted to a lot of multilingual swearing. And yet there was no reply at all. "Great! They're gone. And left me in this cold, abandoned, cold, very cold, warehouse. Seriously, it's only September! It shouldn't be this cold yet!"
***********
Jason stumbled out of bed, barely able to comprehend what was going on downstairs.

"I told you that we should nail his window shut! He could be anywhere by now! Dick's going to kill us!"

"Kill you, you mean. I had nothing to do with watching the demon brat."

"Roy, this is serious!"

Jason stumbled into the kitchen and found Roy and Wally, wearing a yellow and red apron that said "dinner in a flash!" in glittery red letters, having a standoff while Lian and Richey played on the floor with what looked like a banana.

"What happened?" Jason asked groggily.

Roy and Wally looked up sheepishly. "Uh, we kinda have a situation," Wally managed.

Roy chuckled. "Again, I wasn't supposed to watch him while Dick went on emergency patrol last night for one of his sick teammates."

"Damian snuck off, and I don't know where he is, and Dick is going to kill me!" Wally spit out in a rush. "Jay, you have to help us!"

"Relax," Jason poured himself coffee calmly. "The Demon Spawn probably just got held up on patrol or took a nap somewhere."

"Patrol?!" Wally and Roy exclaimed.

"You know how Dick feels about superhero stuff!" Wally added.

Jason shrugged and pulled a muffin out of the fridge (what it was doing there, no one could say. In fact, no one could even determine what kind of muffin it had been anymore.) "Like anyone could stop him from doing stuff he wants to. He can take care of himself." Jason yawned. "If that's all, I'm going back to sleep. You're both off today so I don't have to watch the kids."

Jason tromped back upstairs and ignored the gaping faces of the two men who watched him leave. After all, the Demon Spawn was Ra's al Ghul's grandson. Nothing could hurt the brat.

Right?
**************
Damian woke from his extremely uncomfortable nap to a light shining in his face. "Wha . . . Hello?" He smacked his lips a couple of times, wishing he could rub the goop out of his eyes. "Who's there?" He tried to sound fierce, but only ended up sounding groggy.

"Who do you think?" asked a hard, familiar voice.

It was in that moment that Damian knew he was in the worst trouble in his life. If he had been captured by the Joker, Lex Luthor, Lady Shiva, and his mother, he couldn't be in any worse trouble. Out of the shadows walked a tall, fit man wearing a black suit emblazoned with a blue bird symbol. His face showed several day's stubble on it, and most of his face was hidden by a dark domino mask. But perhaps most terrifying of all was the hardness in the cold blue eyes of the man's face.

"Uh-oh," Damian whimpered.

"Uh-oh is right." Dick strolled out into the lit area of the warehouse. "You are in big trouble."
**************
The ride back to the house was filled with stifling silence. Damian had tried to talk to Dick about something, anything, but Dick had resolutely given his younger brother the silent treatment since cutting him down from the rafters and providing him with jeans, a t-shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes. Damian's inquiries about his suit had gone unanswered verbally, but the young boy had a feeling that his brother had burned it.

They finally reached the front door, and Dick silently walked up to the front door, not bothering to even check if Damian had exited as well before locking it. Damian followed in a subdued manner and watched as Dick opened the front door.

Inside, there was utter chaos. Jason was chasing Lian for bathtime, Wally was frantically trying to clear smoke from the kitchen before it set off the fire alarm, and Roy was talking to someone on the phone and judging from his deep frown it must've been Jade.

As soon as Dick walked in the door, Wally ran up to him and threw himself at Dick's feet. "Dick! I'm so sorry but I lost Damian and he hasn't shown up and I don't know where to look but I didn't think I should file a missing person's report yet . . ." Wally's words had been trailing out of his mouth at a mile a second until he saw Damian standing there. "DAMIAN!!! I'M SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU!!!"

Damian smiled briefly at the speedster's antics and glanced up at Dick, expecting to see the usual bemused expression he wore whenever he dealt with frantic Wally. Dick's face, however, remained creased in a disapproving frown. "Yes, Wally, I found him. Now I advise you get whatever you're burning out of the oven before the smoke alarm starts blaring."

Wally didn't appear to notice Dick's cold tone as he yelped and sped back into the kitchen.

"Hey, Demon, you're actually alive! Great!" Jason grinned as he dragged Lian into the foyer. "I bet Dick's happy to . . . see . . ." Jason trailed off as he finally took in Dick's displeased expression.

"Jason, if you'll please escort . . . the child to his room, I have other business to attend to." Dick stated in a manner that made Damian want to climb into a hole. Dick turned back to the front door and began to walk back outside.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Damian blurted.

Dick turned back long enough to give Damian a side long look before he closed the front door behind himself and disappeared.

"Wow," Jason ran a hand through his hair. "I don't think I've ever seen Dick this angry."

Damian sighed and trudged upstairs, locking himself in his room. He sat with his back against the door and hot tears began streaming down his face. How could he have messed things up this badly? He knew Dick hated vigilantes. Would Dick ever be able to forgive him?