Chapter Text
Tim wakes up to the world screaming. Sounds assaulting his ear drums like he was standing next to a marching band. It was a chaotic cacophony of explosions, yells, loud bangs and clangs that blended together into a grating mess that had him leaping to his feet in a panic.
Or at least try to. But after the third time he finds the world tilting, he stays on his knees. Blinking away the dark spots as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. It's a fruitless effort until he hears a familiar voice breaking through the confusing bubble with a vicious snarl.
"GET AWAY FROM HIM!!!"
Tim turns his head so fast he can hear his neck crack.
"Dick?" He calls out but the sound that rises from his throat is a hoarse whisper and it's than that he realizes how much his throat burned.
In reflex he reaches up towards his neck, a scream of alarm rising in his throat at the thick rope he finds wrapped around it.
The flurry of panic has him scrambling to pull it off, feet kicking away absentmindedly at invisible assailants.
To his embarrassment it takes him longer than it should to get it off but when he does he finds his dizziness faded enough that he tries again to get to his feet.
"Dick....?" He starts to call out again, only to feel a hand grabbing at his shoulder.
"GET DOWN!"
The different but also familiar voice has Tim reaching out in confusion. "Jaso...."
"Not here bro....." was the immediately reply. But the hand on his shoulder tightens and Tim allows it to hold him down.
But he can't stifle the way his heart beats wildly in his chest. Eyes darting across the room looking for another familiar figure.
"Where's... Di... Nightwing, Where's Nightwing?"
"Well since half of the rooms been cleared, I'm thinking he's doing his job creating a distraction so we can sneak out"
"We can't leave him"
"Don't worry replacement. We won't. But my jobs taking you back to the car so let's worry about that first"
And before he can squeeze in another word, Tim feels the breath knocked out of him when Jason heaves the teen onto his broad shoulders in a firemans carry.
“Hood!” Tim manages to gasp but its cut short by his own rattling teeth as his savior broke into a brisk run for the exit.
The wide open doors of the warehouse seemed only a few feet away when suddenly a deafening explosion shook its walls right down to its foundation. The wooden floorboards beneath them cracked like splintered ice and fire rained down on them both. Eating away at the timber like kindling. So loud was the destruction around them that Tim barely heard the torrent of curses streaming from Jason at finding their exit-way blocked. They were trapped!
A tightened grip around his waist is the only warning he gets before he hears the ‘schling’ of a grappling hook and his body is jerked painfully though the air towards the skylight. But his eyes catch the loose shingle a second too late and almost as if time had been slowed down for him to see, the hook pries itself clean and both of them start to fall. The air around them so thick with smoke that Tim can't help but wonder if he’ll suffocate first before the drop can kill him.
“ROLL AND COVER!”
Tim reacts to the sound of Dicks voice on almost 10 years of ingrained instinct. Ignoring the painful throb of his muscles and curling up around Jason like a ball.
For the second time that night, Tim has the wind knocked out of him when Dick crashes into them both. His older brother turned in the air to take the brunt of the impact when their momentum sent them crashing through the warehouse wall. But the angle was all wrong and with a sharp cry, Dicks grip on both them and his grappling hook loosened.
Tim breaths in just as they crash into the cold murky harbor. The warehouse behind them curling into ash as it finally crumbled from its own weight. The last thing Tim remembers is the desperate burn in his lungs and a gasp of air when he broke the surface before everything finally went black.
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The first thing Tim wakes up to is again the noise. The jarring blend of panicked yells, wild beeps and a familiar, ear-splitting screech followed by a thump of a body smashing into a gurney.
“CLEAR!”
‘THUMP’
“Come on Dick, come on dammit breath!”
“CLEAR!”
‘THUMP’
“Bruce it’s not working! He need’s intubation!”
“It won’t work if we don’t have a pulse! Alfred!”
“CLEAR!”
‘THUMP’
“Wait!! Just give it a second!”
“Master Bruce. Master Jason might have a point. If it’s smoke suffocation he needs a bronchodilator…..”
“I know Alfred, I’ve already given it to him! Keep going!”
“CLEAR!”
‘THUMP’
Tim opens his eyes just as he hears a sudden tortured gasp. Followed by what sounded like an attempt at choking out a lung and a flurry of scattered panicked movement. Bruce reaches out to calm his eldest son just as Tim lurches upward.
“NIGHTWING!”
Multiples eyes instantly turn towards him in surprise and Tim uses the short second to ask again for his big brother. Though his voice somehow sounded worse than before as if he'd been grating his vocals with a peeler. But Alfred doesn’t seem to hear him at all as he turns away to continue his work, attaching clips onto his wards slowly rising chest and slipping an inhaler over his mouth, still held open from the first gasp of air just moments before.
Bruce and Jason on the other hand are staring at each other. An argument drifting under the surface of their stern gaze and silence until finally Jason relents and turns away thought not before he reached out to grasp his big brothers shoulder in a comforting grip.
“He’s ok Timbo. Come on let’s get you looked after”
But Tim refused to budge. Insisting instead to root himself where he sat on his own gurney and only begrudgingly agreeing to be treated when Dick’s heartbeat finally regained its gentle rhythm. Though even than it was only because his arm had begun to throb, prompting him to finally notice he had a splinter of wood half a foot long sticking out of his arm.
So that’s why he’d been feeling like someone had jabbed a million needles into his elbow.
“Come on Tim.”
He looks up from the bleeding mess of a limb to see Bruce gently coaxing him to lie back on the sick-bed. A prick in his upper shoulder tells him he’s not going to be feeling the pain any longer but he can’t help how even in his daze, he finds himself curling up in his adopted father’s arms. Digging his fingers into Bruce’s shirt and finding it impossible to turn away from the haunted, tortured eyes that stared back into his just before he closes them and see’s nothing more