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A trembling hand frantically hit the buttons for the entrance code. The other hand was pressing down on an actively bleeding wound on Dick’s side. The warm, sticky liquid seeps in between his fingers.
“Fuck.” Dick bites out. “Why did I make the stupid tower so hard to get into?”
Pressing a few more buttons, there is finally a light ding as the door slides open. Dick pushes in between the doors before they’re fully open, stepping into the elevator. He frantically presses the button to close the doors.
Sighing as the doors finally close and the elevator starts to rise, Dick leans against the wall. He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath, breathing through the pain. He opens his eyes and presses the comm button built into the building.
A static response resounds in the elevator.
“Fuckity fuck.” Dick mutters. He reaches into his utility belt and starts to pull out gauze, wrapping his torso. His fingers tremble as he tightens it around him. He glances up at the elevator numbers, almost to the top floor. There better be some fucking Titans up there.
The elevator doors slide open to a dark floor, the emergency lights the only aid in his visibility. Dick rests his head against the cool metal of the elevator. He glances out into the open hallway. He can’t stay here. If he can get to his room, he’ll have weapons. Or he needs to get to the zeta tubes.
Keeping one hand over his side protectively, Dick steps out carefully into the hallway. He pulls out one of his escrima sticks. His eyes search the hallway as he walks, waiting for any sign of anyone else. His own, slightly, erratic breathing is the only thing he can hear.
A muffled scream from down the hall has Dick moving faster. His feet stumble slightly underneath him as he moves quicker.
Dick steps into the living area only to be met with flipped furniture. The coffee table is broken into pieces and one of the couches was knocked over. There are several bullets in the large flat screen TV.
Dick scans the room for anyone as he steps into it.
“How did Slade beat me here with enough time to do this?” Dick mutters, kicking a small stack of papers. Dick shakes his head, moving through the room. Glass crunches under his feet as he moves.
Wincing, Dick steps up the stairs to the hallway. He makes his way down the hallway that holds most of the Titan’s rooms. That holds his room. He can’t go to the zeta tubes if one of his teammates could be getting hurt. Maybe he can still get his extra supplies.
“Hold fucking still!” A modulated voice bellows. A gunshot follows.
Dick ignores his bleeding side, leaving his hand from his side and pulls out his escrima stick. He runs down the hall. Coming to a small garden area they have, Dick sees a batarang fly past a plant in the room.
“Robin.” Dick breathes. He sees a hulking shape hidden half way from view behind a plant. The shape of Slade’s helmet is prominent. Dick sneaks behind Slade and jumps from behind him, hitting him across the head with both Escrima sticks. The other man falls over slightly from the force. Dick tucks and rolls to land from his jump. He winces as he stands, positioning himself in front of Slade. Dick growls, “Slade.”
The other man stands up straight and looks at Nightwing. And nightwing takes a small step back, straightening slightly. “Uh, not Slade.”
The other man laughs, sounding robotic. “Yeah, not Slade.” Nightwing could hear the smirk in his voice. “Red Hood.”
Red Hood. Nightwing had heard of him. New drug lord in Gotham, taking over territory extremely fast, killing lots of criminals, taking care of Crime Alley.
Dick holds an escrima stick out towards Red Hood, electricity crackling, “What are you doing here?”
“I was going to teach the Replacement a lesson,” Red Hood spins a gun in his hand. He looks around Nightwing and yells, “But he keeps running away!”
Nightwing laughs, “No can do, Hood. Can’t let you beat up my brother.”
“Oh, so this one can’t get beat up a little, but the other one can get beaten to death?” Red Hood laughs, “How sweet. ”
The blue light crackles shining off of Red Hood’s helmet. Nightwing bares his teeth and leaps forward, one hand swings towards Red Hood’s head. The other hand jabs into Red Hoods stomach. Nightwing ducks under an arm that swings at him. He dances to the side of Red Hood, jabbing the electric current into his side.
“Don’t say shit about my brother,” Nightwing snarls. He brings his arm up and blocks a hit, but leaves himself open to a hit to the face. Hood punches Nightwing in the face. Nightwing falls with the punch to absorb the impact. He rolls to the other side of Hood, standing near the doorway again. Nightwing couches there for a moment, looking up at Hood, waiting.
Nightwing lurches forward, a small surprised scream escaping his lips as something impales his shoulder. Hood hasn’t moved. Nightwing looks over his shoulder. The red emergency lights outline the silhouette of Deathstroke. He’s moving slowly, meticulously down the walkway. Dick watches as he pulls a sword out of its sheath.
Nightwing grins, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “Nice of you to join us, Slade. Now it’s a party.”
“Us?” Slade laughs darkly, his footsteps thundering in the hall. “I checked the system for tonight. Nice bluff though, pretty bird.”
Nightwing groans, standing up, taking a step to the side of the room, away from both men he’s fighting.
“Am I the only one who didn’t check the fucking itinerary?” Nightwing gripes.
“Fuck.” Nightwing hears beside him, he glances over to see Hood raise his gun. “Wasn’t planning on fighting the terminator tonight. Really just planned on scaring the kid a little.”
Nightwing laughs a little at that surprise. “Ah, sorry, Hood, is Deathstroke too much for you?”
Hood scoffs, “Not too much. Just an unnecessary hassle.”
Nightwing chuckles as he throws a wingding down the hallway. There is a clinking sound as Deathstroke knocks it to the side.
“Any chance this means we can have a truce for now then?” Nightwing takes another glance at Red Hood. “I’d rather not have to fight both of you at the same time. And I can’t do both while I keep Robin safe. Speaking of-”
Nightwing walks backwards further into the room. “Robin,” Nightwing hisses. “If you can hear me, I need you to get to the zeta’s unseen and get back up.” Nightwing sees a plant ruffle slightly to the side. “Do not engage with either of them. You need to do this. Okay?”
The plant ruffles again and then nothing. Nightwing looks back at Red Hood who is staring intently at the plant. Nightwing side steps in front of it. He holds out his escrima stick. “Pick now, Hood. I either take you down quick and easy right now, you leave, or you help me fight Deathstroke.”
Red Hood freezes then looks at Nightwing. “I turned off the zetas. I put a code in it to temporarily freeze it.” Nightwing groans. “But, I have the codes to unlock them. I can unlock them if you let me pass you.”
Nightwings hand tightens on his escrima stick.
“Little Bird.” A voice chuckles, getting closer, “Are you really going to make me come all the way to you.”
“Fuck.”
Red Hood’s hand squeezes around his gun before he holds it out towards Nightwing. Nightwing looks from Hood to the gun and back.
“Truce, for now.” Red Hood says, holding out the gun. “I swear that I won’t hurt the precious little Robin for now. Even he doesn’t need to get that dicks treatment.”
“Fuck.” Nightwing swears again. He steps forward latching his hand to the gun in front of him. Nightwing pulls Hood towards him and growls, “I swear to every god there is: if you hurt a single hair on his head, I will kill you. I will make you understand why Deathstroke the Terminator is so obsessed with me. I don’t have the Bat’s same black and white moral code. I have killed for my brothers before, and I will again if I need to.”
Nightwing yanks the gun from Hood’s hand.
Hood stands stock still for a moment. He jumps as a gunshot echoes, followed by a laugh.
“Awe, pretty bird, you shot me.” Slade laughs. “I knew you had it in you. Shoot me a few more times in the same spot and you might actually break my armor.”
“Go,” Nightwing hisses at Hood. “Don’t make me have to come kill you later. Get that zeta up and running.”
Hood finally moves, pushing through the plants along the edge of the room. He runs, hearing the usually comforting sounds of gunshots ring. Laughter follows each shot taken.
—
Jason steps into the room to see Robin squatting behind a podium, wrist computer attached to the zeta computer. Robin looks up as Jason walks into the room. He pulls a batarang out on sight.
“Smart, Kid.” Jason says. “But, I’m not here to fight you anymore. I’m having a little bit of an internal conflict right now over all the shit, Dickface in there said.”
Robin raises an eyebrow at the word choice, storing the nickname away.
“GFC334890.” Hood says, walking towards Robin with his hands up. “That’s the code to override what I did.”
Robin shoots Hood a glance before quickly typing in the code. Immediately the zeta beeps as it starts to turn back on.
“It’s going to take at least three minutes before it’ll be powered up enough to use.” Robin says, looking at Hood.
“Nightwing doesn’t have that kind of time,” Hood grunts, throwing his hands up. Robin flinches back at the movement. “Sorry kid. Not gonna hurt you anymore. I wasn’t gonna leave you hurt in the long run anyways.” Hood shrugs. “Just wanted to scare you.”
“Cause that makes it better.” Robin mutters, typing on his gauntlet.
Red Hood snorts. “You have some balls kid. Maybe you’re not that bad. “
Robin side eyes Hood, “Uh, thanks, I guess.”
“I really just hate Bats. He shouldn’t have pulled another kid into his war.”
“He didn’t. Pull me in, that is. I did. I tracked him down and-”
Robin cuts off as a scream echoes down the hallway.
“Fuck.” Red Hood straightens and pats his side. He looks over at Robin. “Give me your bo staff.”
“No.” Robin argues, squeezing his bo staff. Another scream ricochets down the hall.
“Now, Replacement,” Hood growls, reaching forward. “I didn’t bring a shit ton of weapons and you won’t stand a chance against Deathstroke.”
Reluctantly, Robin hands the bo staff to Red Hood.
Red Hood hums, “Titanium alloy?” Robin nods. “Nice. Okay, you have to wait out this last minute or so and immediately jump through that zeta to another hero. Go get Supes or something. But you do not come back, got it?”
Robin nods his head.
“Good. I better not see your face again.” Hood says, before turning and running towards the hallway. He freezes at the hallway and looks over his shoulder at Robin. Hood’s hand squeezes the bo staff. “Did Nightwing kill the Joker?”
Robin’s head shoots up, white eyes of the mask widening. “How’d you know that?”
Hood grits his teeth. “That’s all I needed to know.”
He runs back down the hallway apparently towards the one person in this god forsaken family who gave a damn that he died.
The scene that Red Hood comes back to isn’t pretty. The lights are still off, limiting the visibility in the room, but most of the plants have been knocked over and there is dirt all over the floor. Deathstroke's helmet is on the ground. Whether he took it off or it was knocked off, Hood can’t tell. Deathstroke for his part has some dirt on him and some blood on his face, but unlike Nightwing, Deathstroke is standing tall. He circles Nightwing predatorily. Nightwing definitely has an extra dagger stuck in him that he didn’t have when Jason had run off and is covered in dirt, almost as if a plant had been thrown or broke over him.
Jason sneaks into the room, keeping to the edges for the moment.
“Really, Grayson,” Jason stills at the name drop. Slade continues, “you’re making a real mess of things. You could just join me and we wouldn’t have to do this little dance.”
Nightwing cracks a smile, the electricity from his escrima sticks making him look maniacal. “Awe, you think it’s a dance too. I thought it was just me who enjoyed these little date nights.”
Deathstroke rolls his eye. “Don’t tempt fate by calling them date nights, pretty bird.” Deathstroke smiles, “Unless of course you want that.”
Pretending to gag, Nightwing circles Deathstroke. “Ew. Don’t take my jokes seriously, Slade. It grosses me out. I thought you were supposed to be a father to me .” Nightwing finishes his sentences mockingly.
“Think about it. Who’s teaching and moral code do you follow better? Mine or the Bat’s?” Nightwing swipes at Deathstroke and he parries. Red Hood tenses, ready to jump in. “I saw the work you did to the clown, some brutal work.”
Nightwing’s foot misses a step and Slade strikes. Nightwing falls to the ground with a scream as the dagger in his shoulder is jostled.
Slade tuts, “We can’t have you messing up the shoulder.” He kicks Nightwing over and reaches down, yanking out the dagger. Nightwing bites his lip to stifle a theme.
Seeing green, Jason jumps in, swinging the bo staff at Slade. Slade reaches his hand out and grabs the staff before it can make contact. He glances at Red Hood then back down at Nightwing. “Ah, so you do have some friends here tonight.” Slade looks back up at Hood, before he kicks his boot into Hood’s stomach, sending Hood sprawling.
Slade laughs, “Pathetic.” He leans down and grabs the scruff of Nightwing's hair, pulling him up. “Are you ready to go now?”
Slade grunts and drops Nightwing as someone jumps on his back. Slade balls his hand into a fist and starts punching the helmet of Red Hood repeatedly. Slade’s other hand grabs an arm that’s around his neck and squeezes it, pulling it away.
Prying Hood off, Slade throws him onto the ground. Slade slams the helmet into the ground until it starts to crack. Slade freezes before prying the helmet the rest of the way off. Slade hums, “How interesting, another little bird flying a little too far from the nest.”
Slade drops Jason who groans as he hits the ground. Slade leans over Nightwing, whose eyes are falling shut. Slade grabs Nightwing by the chin and tilts his head. “You did better today than usual. Keep practicing, maybe next time you’ll get more than just my helmet off.”
Voices start shouting down the hallway and the lights flicker. “That’s my que, kids.” Slade says standing up. “Here hold this.” Slade picks his dagger back up and stabs it back into Nightwings shoulder with a scream. Slade smiles, walking away. He picks his helmet back up and slips it on. “Until next time.”
Nightwing watches blurrily as Deathstroke salutes him and jumps out the window. Nightwing blinks as a dark figure leans over him. A calloused hand brushes against Nightwing’s cheek gently.
“Batman,” a stoic voice bleeds through the air, “You’re going to want to see this. It’s- gods- I think it’s Ja-”
Nightwing blinks again and lets the darkness seep into all the edges.