Chapter Text
Dick is far more amused than he knows Bruce is, but more than that he’s desperately anxious. Defending Gotham against a mystical threat already made today just a bit stressful. It is not something that normally happens in Gotham, for the most part. They fight magic in other settings, not on their home turf.
The short conversation that happened over comms had somehow been both concerning and reassuring. Dick does not like the idea that Tim and his friends just took on Harm by himself, especially given the escalation of Harm’s strength since the first time he appeared several years ago. But Tim also sounds confident. He really believes that they dealt with Harm properly. And as much as Bruce, and a lot of the League probably, don’t want Tim calling in random vigilantes they haven’t screened, they don’t seem to realize that the ‘strange, unknown heroes’ mean that Tim and the others his age, usually impulsive (it’s literally Bart’s name) and fiercely independent, are calling in backup. And it seems to have worked.
As soon as he and Bruce land in the leveled clearing, which is troubling but not the point right now, he heads for the group. Jaime is holding Bart back as the speedster tries to search Cassie for injuries, while the girl in question has a quiet conversation with… a demon? That has to be Eddie, because he’s the one Dick doesn’t recognize, but the dude’s got bright red skin, paper white hair, and horns. Didn’t Constantine say this kid was alright? Next to the literal demon child, Tim is leaning against Kon’s shoulder. His suit is torn up and some pieces are sticking up from the back, which sets off alarm bells because his back is where the super strong shield technology is.
“Cardinal,” he demands immediately, reaching out to Tim, “Are you alright?” Tim doesn’t move as Dick tries to move him slightly, to get him a bit away from the others for a proper physical conversation.
He explains after he has waved Dick off, “Got the business end of a blast of hellfire. It kinda sucked.” He turns around, showing massive holes melted in his cape and, in places, suit, where the skin is not only red and bubbling but also torn up and bleeding. “Superboy’s TTK might be the only thing keeping me upright at the moment. Without it, my back probably couldn’t support me properly given the current state of it.”
Dick carefully examines Tim, but there is only so much he can figure out just from looking at everything. He waves Bruce, who is brooding at a slight distance and glaring daggers at the poor teenaged demon, over. “He’s pretty badly burned and the injured skin is all torn up. We should get him back to the Cave or… the Cave?” The former being Mount Justice and the latter being the BatCave. They make their bases in Caves too often. “Who else is hurt?” He demands of the surrounding heroes.
Cassie steps forward, giving Bruce a glance and stepping slightly in front of Eddie, “Me, Superboy, and Red Devil took the brunt of the beating; I’m not sure how bad Impulse and Blue Beetle are.” Beat up and bruised isn’t good, but a bad beating and some exhaustion shouldn't be too bad as long as there aren’t underlying injuries. They still all need proper examinations, and this Eddie kid needs… every test they can scrape together.
But the demon in question stands, putting a hand on Cassie’s shoulder so she doesn’t move in front of him once more. “Hi, Mr. Batman, Mr. Nightwing. It’s an honor to meet you and all that, seriously. I’m Eddie Bloomberg, a.k.a. Red Devil, formerly Blue Devil’s sidekick. If it counts for anything, Cardinal and John Constantine would vouch for me.”
Dick chuckles, a little desolate, “You should be aware, John Constantine’s opinion would be working against you in any other circumstance, but in this one you’re lucky. And even if you’re still a stranger to us, that’s not a crime. Therefore, we don’t actually have much reason to be hostile. That,” he gestures at Bruce’s terrifying intensity, “is mostly going to be directed at him,” he points at Tim.
“I regret nothing,” Tim supplies helpfully. Dick suppresses a sigh, resisting the urge to smack his brother only because he is already hurt.
“Martian Manhunter,” Dick huffs into his comm link, "Please circle around with the bioship, we’ve gotta get this lot back. Everyone was, for the most part, in their own jurisdiction, so unless you reach out then I assume you all have things to do.”
With the combined force of Kon and Dick’s peer pressure, they get Tim to sit down again. Dick directs Kon to carefully peel back pieces of Tim’s suit using his powers and to clear away anything aggravating the blistering skin. Bruce distributes some strong pain killers and gives the other teens, Eddie included, brief examinations for injuries. Even Jaime under his armor and Kon with his powers are bruised like peaches and even covered in small cuts. Dick doesn’t miss the way Tim’s eyes are glued to a small open wound on Kon’s chest, but with how many things that will be contributing to Tim being horrified and overstimulated, he doesn’t say anything. If it goes on, Dick will bring it up later.
Luckily, J’onn is close by, at least by the standards of how fucking fast the bioship can travel, so it only takes a few minuets for their transport to arrive. M’gann is with him, and she flies over immediately. Kon helps Tim up again, and Dick silently thanks the lord that TTK exists because it really is helping Tim with what would be a much more painful experience. He doesn’t say it out loud for the sake of Kon not becoming obnoxious about the power once more.
Dick keeps an eye on them as they make their way to the ship, but J’onn helps them board easily, so he turns his attention to his other troublemakers. None of the teens want to accept help, obviously, but they’re all visibly exhausted. They can’t really turn down the assistance either.
Now, Dick turns his attention to Eddie Bloomberg. “Come on, kid,” he nods to the ship, “We don’t leave clearly powerful and likely troubled young adults on their own or to their own devices.” The boy chuckles, hesitating for a moment but following the path the others took.
“For the record,” Eddie mutters, “I’m not a demon or a monster. Just regular old cursed.”
”Ah, of course,” Jaime looks over his shoulder, “Just a normal, average curse. Not something weird like a demon or, god forbid, an alien.” Eddie rolls his eyes dramatically only to get distracted as he takes in the bioship with awe. Dick, meanwhile, tucks that short interaction away for later, because they really should keep track of what, exactly, Eddie is, and what the consequences are.
J’onn floats over to him, feet just off the ground, “I do not see Impulse.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, the teenaged speedster zips into the clearing, skidding to a stop in front of them.
“I’m here,” he chirps innocently. Dick lets out a long, exasperated sigh because he can’t muster up the energy to scold the younger man. He knows that the disappointment and ‘in trouble-ness’ translates. Dick is too young for this shit anyway.
“Get on the damn ship,” he shoves the boy toward the ramps.
J’onn chuckles lightly, “You must admit, their loyalty to one another is admirable.” Dick hates him so much for saying that, because that’s exactly how he feels, but as a former teen hero he has to ‘set an example’ while the fully fledged League members get to just voice whatever opinions they have. Dick wants to see Bruce scold Martian Manhunter for making a point.
Dick takes the duration of the trip to observe the group. They all sit more or less together, all blatantly exhausted and therefore not really making conversation but nonetheless in a group. Bart hovers around the outside, examining Tim’s back and then leaning over Eddie’s shoulder to whisper something then grabbing Cassie’s limbs to look over her bruises. Eddie is explaining what he does know about hellfire while Tim tries to get his friends to stop hovering around him.
Dick sighs, stepping over and nudging Bruce with his shoulder, “I think you need to accept that Tim made a good call here. Should he be going over our heads and making his own executive decisions? Probably not. Did it end up going pretty well, as usual? Yes.”
“That doesn't mean—”
”Just take it into consideration. We’ve never really had control of him, B. No one is ever going to have control of him ever again.” Dick walks away instead of starting a fight, just wanting to leave off his message and remind Bruce fully that Tim wasn’t raised like a normal kid.
They arrive at the Cave rather quickly, and Dick finally forces the group to split up. Kon is beat up and exhausted and should not be carrying Tim, and Tim needs very careful medical attention. Dick has to grab Tim by the wrist, “You’re getting on a fucking gurney.” He makes sure not to leave the least bit of room for argument.
M’gann floats the gurney into the ship and helps Tim onto it, and Dick steps in to hook his arm around Kon’s back. Even as he visibly fights to hide it, it’s easy to see that he’s exhausted. His arms are starting to show bruises, which isn’t something he normally has to deal with, which will only make this experience more miserable.
Artemis rushes in and helps support Cassie, Wally doing the same for his pseudo-brother-cousin-friend. Jaime is the one who steps in and offers a hand to Eddie, helping him out of his seat when Constantine strolls onboard.
“Well, look at that, kid,” Constantine shakes his head. “I told ‘ya you’d end up a hero. The training don’t wear off of you bloody do-gooders.”
Eddie huffs, grinning slightly, “Yeah, yeah, old man. No one seems to be letting me become a hero just yet.”
“Ay,” Constantine stops in front of him, putting a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and examining him closely, “No one lets you be or makes you a hero. You are or you ain’t. And believe me, ‘ya little troublemaker, you are one.”
Kaldur has appeared close behind him, watching with what Dick knows is approval. The kid isn’t so unlike them when they started this Team at all, and Kaldur definitely agrees with Constantine’s sentiment. Now, he steps forward, fixing Jaime with a stern look. “You’re also injured, Jaime. Come.” He steps up to Jaime’s side as the Blue Beetle armor draws away, while Eddie reaches out an arm to slump into Constantine.
“Come on, ‘ya brat,” Constantine snorts, patting Eddie’s chest. “You’ve done your share of good today.”
Once they have all of the exhausted heroes in the medical bay, things seem to settle. The members of the Team hover, but several of the other heroes show up and when Batman goes to speak with them, Dick follows.
Superman looks at him as he arrives, “Nightwing—“
“I know, I know, it’s a mentor meeting,” Dick acquiesces. “I only showed up to stop you because you’re going to feed each others’ righteous indignation and you’re going to come to conclusions on your own.”
Barry grimaces, “Hold on—“
A sharp gust of wind and Wally is at his side, “Why? He’s not saying that’s your plan, but that it is what’s going to happen. And he’s right.”
“You’re not having this conversation until Tim is up to explaining everything.” Nightwing specifically turns to his father, “So everyone cool off and go actually check on your various pseudo-children.”
Wally snickers, glancing over to wink at Dick. This is why Wally is always the one Dick would want to go into battle with. Wally always has his back.
“He’s way too much like us,” Wally mutters once the heroes are making their way out.
“I was thirteen though,” Dick snorts. “With us it was stupidity, Tim’s actually thinking it through and making informed decisions. It’s why it’s turning out better for him.” Wally chuckles, throwing an arm over his shoulders and guiding him back the way they came.
Treatments take some time. The more resilient of the lot are treated for internal injuries as well as all the ‘bumps and bruises’, and a couple of cuts and burns are wrapped up. Eddie’s body is pretty overheated, just because the hellfire didn’t hurt him doesn’t mean he isn’t roasting, and Bart’s burns are healing only pretty fast as opposed to super fast, so he actually needs just a bit of treatment. Tim is further in, getting some careful examination. As far as Dick is made aware, someone, probably Constantine, gets a little bit of magic involved before the intensive burn treatment goes into full effect.
Tim is still in there, they won’t be able to take him home until tonight, when the rest of the young heroes have mostly recovered. Jaime and Cassie especially resist when they try to take Eddie away just to talk to them, but Dick calms them down. He can approve as long as Black Canary and Red Tornado are there. Dinah knows what she’s doing when it comes to dealing with Bruce, and Red Tornado… well, these are his kids.
From what Bruce reports, Eddie’s recounting of pretty much his whole life since heroism got involved in it lines up. Working with Blue Devil, losing his one living family member— the aunt who raised him— and making an ill thought out deal with a demon after finding out that it was his treasured mentor that inadvertently caused the death of his aunt. Being alone and on the run when he had no one he trusted and a massively deformed body, going around trying to thwart the demon Neron wherever he could, leading to his pursuit of Harm, and Tim proceeding to track him down. Run-ins with Constantine are dropped into the story intermittently.
As far as they can see, Eddie is being honest. He’s a good kid with a heart of gold and nowhere to go, and he’s already got training and involvement in the hero world. And even Tim’s choices and strategies line up, they were logical and well thought out. Bruce, and all of them really, we just upset that this went on behind the backs of all the adults. Dick agrees with that, of course, he is also pissed that this group of morons decided to take on all of this by themselves. But Tim is like a latchkey kid on steroids. He’s never had reasonable supervision until after Cadmus; the kid isn’t disrespectful, he literally doesn’t know how to operate in a world when the adults around him can actually be trusted to be competent. His mind just doesn’t have that assumption built in the way so many people do.
But it isn’t Bruce or Dick who raise the final decision after various Leaguers get done scolding their respective mentees. “I see no reason for hesitance,” Red Tornado states flatly. “This team is a place for people like Eddie, young people with greatly unusual circumstances who will not be dissuaded from doing good in the world. Tim made an excellent call. This is where Eddie needs to be, we are certainly not to throw him back onto the streets to fend for himself.”
Several people look like they are going to offer counter points, but by the end of the short speech everyone has been silenced. It isn’t like there are any solid counter arguments for anything Tornado said. They all know privately that the only argument is ‘but this is all so sudden and we are reeling’. So everyone wisely shuts up, because in this mountain, Red Tornado’s words tend to be final.
Dick walks up to Bruce, who is brooding in front of the medbay. “What’s the word on Tim?”
”We can move him soon, but he’s asleep.” Bruce sighs silently, “I’ve already contacted A to prepare transport to the Cave.”
Dick casts a glance at the teenagers loitering around the entrance, “Maybe we should let him be. They’ll want to see him.”
”I know, but he should be home to heal.” Bruce is right, of course, it would be preferable that they tuck Tim in at home while he’s knocked out. But Dick just feels a bit guilty, knowing how these kids are at this point. So he walks over to them, instead.
”We’re going to take him home, alright?” Kon looks up, upset but not startled, but Bart’s face is painted with betrayal. Dick holds up his hands, “He won’t even need it, I guarantee, but I’ll make sure he contacts you as soon as he wakes up. I swear. We just want to get him into a more relaxed environment and out of his suit and all that stuff.”
Kon glowers up at him, and Dick is reminded distantly that if he hadn’t known the kryptonian for so long, he would be very intimidating. Kon has sharp features and visible strength, and right now he is very much in disagreement with Dick’s decision. It isn’t intimidating, though, it’s comforting, it always is when he sees first hand how protective Kon is of Tim. It’s plain to see at times like this that Dick’s little brother will always have good people in his corner.
Cassie puts a hand on Kon’s shoulder, “It’s probably for the best. You know that.” Kon ducks his head away, still brooding but not arguing. Cassie looks up at Dick and nods seriously, not even looking over as she grabs Bart’s wrist and drags him back down to the floor. Dick gives her an appreciative grin.
They essentially pack Tim up like a fragile artifact to drag him back to Gotham. They don’t use the zeta tubes, for the issue of transportation once they get out of the zetas. Instead, they load him up into the Batplane and zip off back home. Dick holds onto Tim’s bed as they land, despite the fact that they are on one of the most stable aircrafts on the planet. Bruce moves to the back of the jet to help Dick get Tim out of the plane, and Alfred is waiting for them at the edge of the landing zone.
“I will bring him upstairs,” Alfred supplies, “Get undressed and deal with your injuries. The others have been treated already, I trust you two to keep one another in check. You can come check on him when you’re done.”
Dick does have to bully Bruce just a bit, but neither of them got too roughed up today anyway, so they don’t take very long. When they make their way above ground, everyone is sulking in the hallway outside of Tim’s room.
“Alfred instructed us not to come in so that he may coerce Tim to go back to sleep,” Damian explains promptly, wearing a sour expression. Dick stifles his laugh and shakes his head, stepping around Cass to peek in the door. Alfred was clearly successful in his endeavor, helped by the fact that Tim is completely exhausted, so he gestures Dick to come in.
“He is not injured too badly other than the burn, so he will be quite alright.” Alfred gives all of them a firm look, “I’m sure he’ll be up and about by tomorrow, so leave him to sleep.” Once they all get a proper view of him tucked safely into bed, patched up and peaceful, they can put their minds at ease. They like to pretend they are more different than they are.
Things have been hectic around the Wayne house recently, especially for Tim. But now that he sleeps soundly, in a house and a world full of people looking out for him, with an important mission successfully behind him, Dick thinks that for once he doesn’t have any bad dreams.