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To put things mildly, it wasn’t Tim’s night by a long shot.
He grunted, ducking under a swing at his head and ramming into his opponent’s chest with his shoulder, and darted away immediately afterward.
Paholainen—Tim’s attacker—growled and whipped around to face the young vigilante.
“This is hardly fair!” Tim yelled up at the surrounding onlookers, each placing bets on who they thought would win, ducking and dodging another punch.
And, really, it so wasn’t fair. Tim’s arms were taped past his elbows, making his shoulder blades rub up against each other painfully, his feet were bare, he was bleeding from a stab wound in his hip, and it was getting harder and harder to stay focused.
Not to mention the fact that this guy he was supposed to fight looked like he was on Venom or something.
To be fair, he did partially blame himself for being in the current predicament. He’d done something he knew vigilantes could never afford; he’d underestimated the group he was investigating.
Tim cursed as Paho charged him, turning to run at the wall of the ring he was in. The sand didn’t help him move fast, but at least he was moving at a speed quicker than Paho’s.
When he neared the wall Tim chanced a look over his shoulder to see the bull-like man practically breathing down his neck.
Shit.
Tim jumped at the wall, flipping off it and over Paho as the man crashed into the cement and knocked himself out.
He landed in a crouch and straightened, flicking the hair out of his eyes, turning to look at the fallen opponent.
Lifting his head he glared up at the spectators, the harsh yellowish lights burning at his eyes.
“Are you done yet?!” he shouted. If his arms were free, he’d gesture at the four other unconscious bodies on the sand, but they were bound, so he couldn’t.
If he were to be completely and utterly, painfully honest, Tim was done with this shit. He was beyond done with it. He was absolutely sick of it. Ra’s was irritating him beyond the norm lately, WE was everywhere because of some new thing or another—Tim didn’t really remember right now—Damian seemed to renew his efforts to kill him for some reason, Lynx was becoming more and more of an issue, and the Moth Society—or whatever they called themselves, Tim didn’t care, he’s just done with it—and he could not be any more ticked off.
Add this new capture and pit fights to the mix and you’ve got an extremely peeved and irritated Red Robin who was just about ready to strangle someone.
“Will you answer our questions, now, little one?”
Make that someone the leader of this little fight match.
Tim’s eye twitched under the domino.
He opened his mouth to snap something smart back at them when a gunshot cracked through the silence like a whip and a body dropped to the sandy pit Tim was in, blood oozing from a hole in the head head, and he scrambled back from surprise.
Immediately after the first shot two others followed, and three bodies joined the first in staining the sand with crimson, Tim cursing as he jumped back to avoid the falling bodies.
A loud crash sounded among the cries of alarm as another gunshot rang out, and a black-clad body streaked through the air to tackle Tim to the ground. He cried out in pain as his arms broke his back’s fall, his shoulder blades jerking against each other sharply, and the cut in his hip felt like it opened a little more.
“Sorry little Red,” came a slightly modified voice Tim recognized.
He cracked his eyes open and squinted. “Nightwing?”
Dick flashed him a bright grin, another gunshot snapping, and winced a little. He got to his feet as he lifted Tim with him, and hurried them both to a covered section of the ring. Dick answered him as he started cutting at the thick tape wrapped around Tim’s arms.
“In the flesh!”
“What’re you doing here?”
“Saving your sorry ass, Red.”
Tim blinked at Jason’s voice in his ear.
So that was the sniper.
He knew who the voice belonged to, but he still found himself asking, “Hood?”
“Wow. No wonder Ra’s calls him The Detective. How’d you know, Baby Bird?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t look good on you, Hood.”
“Pot meet kettle.”
The loud whipping cracks of the sniper were silent, replaced by the sounds of handguns pop-pop-popping. Tim groaned when his arms were released from their bindings, the blood rushing to his hands and fingers immediately and making them tingle. Dick moved on to work on his hip, completely and easily ignoring the bullets that embed themselves in the thick concrete that shielded them.
Off-handedly he commented, “Try to keep the body count to a minimum, Hood, please.”
Jason snorted.
“Fine.”
Gunshots turned into cracking bones and crunching cartilage.
Then that was it. No arguments, no witty smartass remarks, nothing.
Tim was getting a headache.
He closed his eyes, only groaning a little as Dick secured the bandage over the ever-bleeding wound.
Dick moved around a bit—toward the mouth of the small shelter, Tim’s brain noted—and he said, “I’ll be back in a few, little Red.”
Tim hummed in an non-committal response, making himself a little more comfortable as he settled in to wait. He was done for the night. It was Dick and Jason’s turn, and he wasn’t going to do anything because he was done, and that was it.
He must’ve passed out sometime during Dick’s absence because next thing he knew he was in Jason’s arms, and they were walking, and Dick was a few feet ahead.
“Where’re we?” he mumbled, trying to blink the sleepiness away and failing miserably.
“Headed for my place, Baby Bird,” Jason easily responded. “Unless your priss-ass can’t stand the idea of a perfectly normal place.”
“Hood.”
Jason made a noise of indifference. “Yeah, yeah, Dickwad. Save me the lecture.”
“Y’r place s'fine,” Tim muttered in response, closing his eyes and turning his head a little to nudge closer to Jason’s body heat. His brother felt nice. Warm. It wasn’t helping Tim in his efforts to stay awake, though. Maybe he cared. Maybe he didn’t.
Dick said something that Jason replied to but Tim didn’t catch, so he decided to fall asleep again.
Long week, okay? He’d earned the right to let himself be cared for by his older brothers.
The next time he woke up, Tim was in some of Jason’s clothes and curled up on the bed with Dick to his right, sporting a large square bandage on the right side of his jaw, and Jason nowhere to be found in the room. Dick was wearing Jason’s clothes, too, so Tim figured Jason didn’t care about them borrowing his clothes.
Still groggy, Tim slid off the bed and onto his feet, being careful not to wake Dick, and practically stumbled down the hall to the living room, the stitches in his hip not exactly pleased with the movements as he braced a hand on the wall.
He found Jason curled up on the couch with a blanked pulled up to his chin, the white streaks of hair dangling over his closed eyes, hiding the scar on his eyebrow.
Now satisfied that both brothers were okay, Tim hobbled back to bed, flopping down unceremoniously and was promptly subjected to being Dick’s sleep cuddle object.
Again he found he didn’t mind as Dick hugged him close, muttering something in his sleep.
Tim just closed his eyes and went back to sleep knowing that, if anything were to happen and he was attacked or kidnaped (or both), his brothers would come for him. They’d protect him.
They’d have his back.