Chapter Text
Everything had been going great for Tim. He was caught up on current WE work and had even started some projects that weren’t due for another week. He solved three cold cases within the last month and had even gotten a full four hours of sleep each night for the last week! Him and Steph were supposed to go on a vacation over the weekend which Tim had greatly been looking forward to. He only had two more days before spending time with his incredibly hot girlfriend on sandy beaches.
Bruce was on a mission in space with the league and wasn’t due back for weeks which meant Tim didn’t have to paranoidly watch his back for trackers or bugs. It’s endearing in a way that Bruce worries about them but, come on. There is a thing called boundaries.
Alfred had flown to England to visit family for a much needed respite. The only people currently in Gotham were the four male robins. Even the rouges had seemed to understand that summer was coming to a close and everyone was taking it easy before the school year started back up.
Tim was staying in his apartment despite Dick’s attempts to have him stay at the manor. Nothing could ruin his mood better than the demon brat. Even though they actually had been able to stand near each other without it resulting in violence for longer periods of time. He still didn’t want to chance it when everything was going so smoothly. His inner Alpha bristled every time he came in contact with the kid.
Heck, last week Tim, Dick, and Jason had teamed up to stop Slade Wilson from assassinating the mayor with little to no effort. When the three of them had teamed up they were easily able to cover all bases and protect the mayor's campaign speech. Tim was still in the process of figuring out who hired Slade but that item was at the bottom of his priority list. Slade had disappeared after his drastic failure so Tim assumed that he had time.
He went to bed that night after talking to Steph, with a smile on his lips and a satisfied sigh. Life was pretty good right now and the weekend couldn't come fast enough.
If sleep came a little too suddenly and accompanied by the sharp sting of a needle to the neck Tim was none the wiser.
Dick truly appreciated all that Bruce did for him, he really did, but sometimes life was a bit less…..stressful without him around. Dick had taken the job of watching over Damian while Bruce was away and the lack of tension in the pup’s shoulders when it was just the two of them wasn’t missed. Sure Dami loved his dad but he still clearly felt the need to prove his worth in his fathers eyes. A burden he didn’t feel the need to carry with Dick.
The pup had come a long way since his initial disaster of an introduction. When he first came to the manor with all the fiery rage that a ten year old assassin child could muster. He had challenged everyone around him trying to assert himself. He had almost killed Tim in his attempts to just be noticed by his father. Dick was making progress in teaching Damian how to be a normal kid, but then Bruce would take over with all of his emotional constipation and Dicks hard work would be set back.
Bruce being gone for a few weeks gave Dick the chance to check in with Damian and see what needed to be worked on. Currently Dick was trying to make the pup understand that he had a place in the family with or without being Robin.
He had started to have Damian sit out on the occasional patrol for no reason other than to devote time to doing something he liked. Although the kid was very upset when he missed out on beating Slade Wilson’s plot last week, even then Dick felt that he was still getting somewhere. Damian had excitedly showed Dick the picture he had painted of the view from the penthouse. Dick almost cried with paternal admiration.
Damian had less tantrums and there was minimal push back when Dick would ask him to do things that he didn’t want to. They hadn’t had a phone call from the school the entire last quarter and Damian actually seemed to look forward to the start of the new school year. It helped that Jon went to the same school as him. Galas were starting to become boring again since Dami was behaving himself more and more.
Dick couldn’t be prouder of his little brother. Things were looking up in the Wayne household so Dick was more casual than usual on patrol as Batman with a Robin by his side. He even managed to wrangle Damian into a game of rooftop tag.
Dick was content with the flow of things and felt like he was on top of the mountain of stress that he calls his life.
Of course that was when he felt something sharp slide into the small patch of skin just under his jaw and the world went black.
Jason didn’t particularly care what plans the bats had. He only knew that Bruce wasn’t currently on Earth due to Dicks incessant texts and phone calls asking him to come to the manor for “brotherly bonding.” Jason had caved for just one night and ended up scented by his fellow Alpha brother until he couldn’t even smell himself anymore.
He felt bad for the brat having to suffer the mother hen named Dick all by himself but not sorry enough to do anything about it. Jason could only handle the pup’s posturing for so long.
That kid had all the makings of an Alpha and Jason dreaded the day he presented. Those hormones weren’t going to do any of them any favors. Hopefully Dickie would sort the kid out in the next few years and they wouldn’t have to worry about it. The age of presentation hit usually between 15-18 but there of course were a few outliers as early as 13.
Jason felt like the Wayne’s wouldn’t be lucky enough to wait for Damian to mature.
After the night of “bonding” was over, Jason accompanied Dick and Tim on a patrol to check out some rumors of an assassination attempt being made on the Mayor. Their intel had been a bit delayed so they didn’t know that the actual attempt was going to be that night!
Fortunately they were able to work as a team and save the Mayor. But Jason was certain things were far from over. No lay person could hire Slade Wilson. It had to be someone with lots of cash to burn. Jason fully intended to follow up with Timmers on the money trail the following day.
Tonight he had planned to get some groceries before retiring to his safe house to settle in for a Netflix binge session with a home cooked meal.
He was on his way back from the store. Holding two full paper bags and texting Roy and Star back about a meet up with the Outlaws. He was distracted by a meme that Harper had sent him and was left unprepared for the foot to the back of the knee.
He fell hard onto his knees dropping his bags. He noticed his perfectly good tomato roll onto the dirty sidewalk and thought “now I have to buy new groceries.”
Quickly spinning around he brought an arm up to block the hit he knew was coming. Except it didn’t. Instead his reflexes weren’t fast enough to stop a spray to the face from what looked like a can of pepper spray.
He coughed and immediately felt dizzy but didn’t let that stop him from fighting back. He got one leg underneath him before his attacker kicked him in the chest. At that point the drug must’ve really kicked in because getting up suddenly became a lot harder to manage and going to sleep sounded like a really swell plan.
His last thought before succumbing to the darkness was oh shit.