Chapter Text
Tim’s not sure what exactly he’d expected to come of tonight's patrol, but this certainly isn’t it.
This consists of the Bat’s comm frequency being hacked for the first time since Tim rebuilt the whole system several years ago, back when he started as Robin. Which isn’t a thing that he is anymore. But y’know. He’s not bitter or anything.
Okay, he’s a little bitter. But admittedly he’s a lot less bitter than he used to be, because at this point he just isn’t invested enough. He’s lost the energy to be angry and upset all the time. He’s decided it’s kind of like getting bored of a TV show and missing a few seasons: maybe you used to really like those characters, that plot line, but with time you become disconnected and can’t bring yourself to be interested anymore.
In the back of his mind, though, he knows that’s not it. He knows that he’s empty inside, that it should scare him how little he cares anymore, how little he cares about making it out of any given situation and through any given night. He feels flat. He feels like his entire life of losses and pain has finally come down and crushed him flat, and it’s only a matter of time before his 2D corpse decomposes into something somebody can put through the paper shredder.
Tim has always been a people pleaser, always eager to help and impress and be useful, searching for love, for validation, and isn’t that what everyone is looking for? Doesn’t every person just want to be loved? Isn’t that the point of life?
So why does it sound so laughable when it’s coming from Tim?
Well. Probably because everyone in his life has made it very clear that they don’t want him around, albeit some more subtly than others. At least Damian tells it like it is; he comes after Tim directly, with scathing words and the petulant arrogance of a child with a superiority complex that his parents only encourage. Because Talia and Ra’s absolutely encouraged it, knowing them (and Tim does, not that the Bats need to know that), and neither Bruce nor Dick have done anything to stop it. So yeah, the brat is a total prick who thinks he’s entitled to the world just because of his name, but at least he’s honest.
They others just dance around him like they’re playing fucking Minesweeper. They all send him their cases, transfer their business, ask him to find them intel, and then disappear with an awkward text or less. Oddly enough, Jason is the only one who ever comes to see him in person. Jason at least tries, which he appreciates. Sometimes he just kind of shows up on Tim’s balcony, asking for intel that Tim knows he can find by himself, but Tim always gives it to him and then shuts his mouth because he knows that’s what he’s expected to do. Of course it is. What else did they keep him around for, if not to be their little encyclopedia? He’d served every other purpose he’d had already. Dick replaced him as both Robin and his little brother, Jason still calls him Replacement himself and has just barely gotten over trying to kill him, Damian is practically still trying to kill him and lets him know how unwanted he is every single day whether they see each other or not, and even after Tim went through everything to bring Bruce back, nothing changed with him or any of them. That’s probably when his last vestiges of hope finally snaked down the drain and the realization that he’s nothing to them really set in. These days it’s been confirmed for him so many times that he’s moved past accepting that and into the realm of not caring about it. He knows they don’t care about him, don’t want him in the family, only keep him around to use his brain. Well, at least he can keep up this hero shit for a while and save a few people who can have a better life. At least while he waits for something to come along and kill him.
He hasn’t really been back to the manor since he dropped off Bruce. It had kind of been his final test, even though he really should’ve been long past needing confirmation: if he brought Bruce home, pulled their family back together, proved himself as fully and completely as he possibly could, and still nothing changed, that was the end. And it was. Effectively, Tim had dropped off the map for almost as long as Bruce had, and he very well could’ve been dead for all they knew, but when he walked back in through those painfully familiar doors, nobody even batted an eye at his presence. They cried, yes, cried and hugged and apologized, but not to him. To Bruce, to each other, to Alfred. But not to the one who had gone through hell and worse to fix them all. Not to Tim. So that was the end, and he was gone within the hour, before everyone had even stopped crying over all the things they actually cared about. He slipped back through the doors and hasn’t been back since.
Well, that’s not entirely true; one time he stopped by to visit Alfred, but even being near the manor had made his skin crawl so badly that he was out within five minutes. Since then, they’ve just been getting lunch together in town once or twice a month instead, which was Alfred’s idea. Tim appreciates it more than he could ever know. Alfred is just about the only thing even keeping Tim around at this point. Alfred probably cares, if only because he’s invested now.
He misses the Bats sometimes. He does. And it’s still true that Tim would do anything to save one of them; he’d proved that when he was the only one who’d believed in Bruce. But they don’t miss him, and he’s learned to be okay with that, despite the sickly betrayal always itching under his skin. Really, it’s his fault for letting his guard down, for allowing himself to believe that anyone would keep him around on purpose. Sometimes Dick pretends, gives him that wide smile plagued with the guilt in his eyes that Tim has always been able to read so easily, but he knows Dick’s only doing it to make himself feel better about all the shit he’s done. Like trying to convince him he was insane, for example. Threatening to have him committed to Arkham with the criminals they had put away together, once upon a time. Not believing in him, replacing him with Damian without a second thought or a single word, throwing him to the curb like he’s yesterday’s trash. It doesn’t matter, though. Tim doesn’t care. He doesn’t. He’s just waiting for his borrowed time to run out.
But tonight… Tonight might not be borrowed time. Because tonight their comms are being hacked for the first time ever, and for an instant Tim feels dread drain into his stomach at the thought of the disappointment in Bruce’s eyes because he didn’t building the system better, because he put the rest of them in danger, but then a distant voice crackles to life on the other side and he realizes that this isn’t a hack; it’s a backdoor he installed himself. And it makes that dread curl into his organs for another reason.
“Red Robin…come in…” Comes a familiar, panting voice from the other side, and Tim freezes. He can hear the other Bats chattering in the background, confused and concerned, but he can’t afford to be listening to them right now because he knows this voice, croaky and dense and slightly electronic, and knows what it means when it’s coming through the Bat’s comms like this.
Without thinking, he shushes the Bats sharply, and Bruce and Jason stop talking while Dick and Damian don’t, their annoying chattering filling his ears and his brain and every fucking crevice of where his body used to be and it’s disgusting.
“Look at this, Red Robin,” Damian sneers. “It seems that your pathetic communicators are a threat to our identities. Of course only a worthless wannabe hero like you would make such a stupid mistake.”
The others don’t even say anything, don’t protest or tell him what’s acceptable and what’s not. Tim just hears the ragged breathing at the distant end of the line — the ragged breathing that Damian is preventing him from smoothing out. Damian is stopping him from saving a life just for the sake of telling him he’s worthless.
Maybe he really is that worthless to him — to them. But he has a job to do and he can’t do it with the kid’s petulant commentary.
Suddenly furious and grateful to finally be feeling something solid, Tim lets himself fall into his anger. “Shut the fuck up!” He snarls, vicious and resounding, for once completely abandoning the need to be an invisible shadow, and the comm drops into stunned silence a second later. Tim doesn’t care. The anger bleeds from his chest and roils in his stomach, being saved for when he’ll undoubtedly need it later, but now his heart fills with ice and concern. He touches his fingers lightly to the device in his ear, and the thought of what the Bats will say in a moment doesn’t even cross his mind. This is too important. “Pru?” He says gently, but loudly enough to be heard over most background noise. He ignores a confused grunt from someone because they seem to cut themselves off halfway through. He receives no answer and purses his lips, teeth clenching hard. “Pru, answer me. Is that you?”
“...Red?”
Relief clenches in his throat, and he can’t help the little sigh he heaves in reply with his next words. “Hey, yeah, it’s me. Where are you?” She breathlessly gives him a set of coordinates, and then repeats them, making more sure that she has them right than that he does, even though they both know neither would ever make that mistake. Tim instantly inputs them into his wrist computer, which zeroes in on a location in Egypt. It’s pretty close to an airport, and to one of his hacked League of Assassins transporters; he’ll be fastest on foot or stealing a car once he gets there, but he’ll take his bike from where he is now to his nearest equally-hacked Zeta entrance. The Justice League has honestly never been very good at recognizing when their systems are compromised. Ra’s is better, but nobody is as good as Tim. He may be worthless to the Bats, but he’s nothing if not prepared; he has hacked transporters and safe houses the world over. He jumps down to street level, already calling his bike to him. “I’m on my way,” he tells Pru, still ignoring the growing restless mumblings of the Bats; he doesn’t care. He won’t let go of the only person who still cares if he lives or dies. He won’t . “Hang on, soldier.”
Tim mounts his bike and is off in two seconds flat, ignoring the Bat’s startled shouts of what are you doing? and wait, come back! and you need backup!
As if Tim believes they would give him that.
. . .
He finds her seven minutes later, out past the city limits of Sharm El-Sheikh. Out in the desert.
It’s not the same one, it’s not, but it’s more than enough to bring back memories that burn into his ribs, memories of Owens and Z lying lifeless in the blood-painted sand, of the gut-wrenching pain in his torso, of the horrible wheezing sound that came from Pru’s mouth in place of words. But it’s in the past. He doesn’t need to think about that right now; he has more important things to worry about.
He’s in an old Jeep with no roof or doors, just the skeleton of a well-loved machine, and here, gunning this old engine and flying at a hundred and ten miles an hour across the desert, kicking up sand and dust and his emotions, he feels… good. Well, not good, but free. More free than he has since he came back to Gotham with a living Bruce. His cowl, cape, cross-belt and comm unit are discarded on the floor between the seats, and if he doesn’t think too hard, it almost feels like he’s not connected to the Bats at all. Damn. If he survives to adulthood, maybe he’ll move away to Europe or Africa. Start a new life. Meet people who care. If they exist, that is. His only evidence for them is in possibly mortal danger right now.
He zeroes in on Pru’s location and presses the gas pedal down to the floor. It doesn’t change the pace of the Jeep — it’s already pushing top speed — but it makes him feel like he’s trying harder to get there. He left Gotham six minutes and thirty seconds ago — that’s more than enough time for Pru to be dead. The thought sends a shock of ice through his chest and he forces it away just as quickly, reignites the fire in his veins because he won’t let that happen. He’ll make it in time. He’ll make it.
And he does. When he arrives at what looks like a cluster of rock formations, he slams on the break and jumps out of the car before it even stops moving, bolting around the side of the rocks and shouting a series of random words as loudly as he can. Tim’s not stupid; he knows that all his screaming with alert any dangerous people in the area, and in fact, he’s banking on that. He needs those people away from Pru, needs their attention on him, but he knows that calling her name could draw the kind of attention that turns her into a hostage, and that’s not really what he’s looking for.
When he rounds a corner, he’s met with a few dozen ninja, and he sighs heavily while pulling out his bo staff. He’d expected this, honestly. This was why he’d left his cowl in the car; these guys already know who he is, what he looks like. They know his name, his face, the way he fights, and the cowl won’t help him now. He’s stripped down, by his own volition, to nothing but the red and black body armor of his suit, a bo staff, and a utility belt. Tim is free to fight this battle his way, for once, even have fun doing it if he wants. The thought washes over him and a small, wicked smile pulls at his lips.
Tim cracks his neck to the side, more for effect than anything, and jams one end of his staff into the ground, leaping up and using the weapon as a pole-vault to launch himself forward and kick the first ninja in the face with both feet. He hears the crunch of the man’s nose under his mask and shifts, dropping his feet from the ninja’s face to his shoulders and pushing him the rest of the way to the ground. He doesn’t get back up. Tim steps off the unconscious body and sets his feet in the sand, shoulder width apart in an L, twirling his staff in one hand. He feels a light breeze flit through his hair and over his chest and face, sand grinding under his boots, and suddenly he wants them off, wants to feel the sand sift between his toes, but he knows better than that; he’ll take them off when he wins.
Tim twists around a swipe from a katana and brings his staff down on the hands holding it, slamming it back into the ninja’s jaw after he lets go. Tim is admittedly tempted to pick up the fallen sword — Desmond The Sword Guy had trained him well when he was working with the Assassins — but he’s always liked the bo staff better, and he doesn’t want to kill anyone today. Maybe someday he could casually bait Damian into sparring with him; he’d love to kick the brat’s ass with his own weapon. If he ever sees him again.
Okay, where did that come from?
But— alright, wait… wait. What if Tim just… doesn’t go back? He couldn’t stay in Egypt, the Bats might have already tracked his comm by now just so they could come force him to solve all their cases for them, but he could disable the tracker now and get the hell out of town. He could… he could leave. Never have to deal with Damian’s cruelty or Jason’s indifference or Bruce’s disappointment or Dick’s distrust. He would never have to bear the weight of his pain, the loss of his parents, of Conner, Bart, Steph… he could be done with it.
But… no. It’s cowardly to run, and the Bats will come after him. He won’t make it far against all of them, no matter how good he is. Besides, he unfortunately owes his life to them, at least until something else takes it. He has to go back.
Tim jolts out of his thoughts in a panic when he swings his staff and it doesn’t connect, thinking he’s made a careless mistake, but when he looks around he realizes all of the ninja are scattered on the sandy ground around him, unconscious. A lot of them have broken noses, arms, collarbones. Ribs, too, probably. He hopes he didn’t cause too much internal bleeding.
Shaking his head as if that might clear his thoughts, Tim starts running again, sprinting around the rocks and yelling random words like a total lunatic, and he ends up almost right in front of his car again. Really, he sounds ridiculous, just shouting about shit he sees around him or anything that comes to mind: “Sand! Water! Jeep! Hat! Canadian goose! Executive! Desert! Bilbo Baggins!” Yeah, he looks insane, but it’s not like there’s anybody here to see him, and it’s not like he’d care if there was; all he needs is for Pru to recognize his voice, not make sense of what he’s saying.
A strangled, electronic sound comes from two rocks ahead of him, right across from his Jeep: “Tim.”
There.
Tim dashes in the voice’s direction, kicking up sand behind him, electing to ignore for now how he missed something so obvious beside his vehicle, and he finds himself grinding to a stop outside of a cave between two of the rock formations. There, sitting at the back of the crevice, is Pru, a bit bruised and bloody, and with both of her legs twisted at odd angles. Tim winces and shudders hard at the sight, but is at her side in an instant, crouching in front of her with his hands hovering over her grotesque limbs. He winces again — it’s just such an unnerving sight — but pulls himself together just as quickly and looks up at her face.
Her brows are pulled downward in pain, her jaw is locked tight with her teeth clenched together, and there’s a single tear track running over her face — just one. Tim holds back a sigh; sometimes she’s too tough for her own good. She gives a strained laugh and looks at the cave ceiling to breathe carefully, clutching her hands to her thighs. “Hey, Timmy,” she hisses, and the slight electronic buzz of her fake vocal cords is more pronounced than usual, her throat tight with pain. “Nice ride.”
Tim rolls his eyes and scoffs, not yet willing to disturb her legs. “Thanks. I stole it.”
She laughs again, though it was barked enough that he knew it was concealing a sob. Tim can’t keep his eyes from narrowing slightly with a kind of suspicious sympathy. He’s seen Pru in a lot of pain a lot of times since he’s known her, and it’s uncommon for her to try to hide it when she’s really hurting because when she is, it means something is wrong wrong. She groans quietly, which honestly calms his nerves a little bit. “I really fucked up this time, huh?”
Tim gives her a small smile, but it’s genuine, and he realizes how different it feels from the smiles he’s been placating Dick with all this time. “You say that like you don’t fuck up every other time.”
She barks another laugh, and it’s genuine, too, and Tim feels his smile growing. “Hold on, make that us who fuck up every time. You don’t get to duck out on this one.” Her eyes are looking into his, and he feels a pang of nervousness as he looks back, but behind them it’s just… her. Just Pru. No judgement, no disappointment, no stepping on eggshells. She isn’t asking him for anything, to do anything, she’s just here, being his friend.
His friend who is an incredibly lethal assassin and also injured at the moment. Right.
Still, he grins, beginning to carefully assess her left leg from the thigh down. He needs to keep her talking, because shit, no matter how gentle he tries to be, this is gonna hurt like a bitch. “When did I become a part of fucking up every time? I wasn’t even here. Still sounds like a you fucking up situation to me.”
She grunts uncomfortably when Tim prods at her knee and tilts her bald head back to rest against the rock, staring up at the ceiling. “You’re damn lucky you’re cute, Red.” She sighs theatrically, though it hitches for an instant, and sucks her teeth. “The pretty boys always get away with talking shit.” She’s holding up well, honestly, considering the fact that her left tibia is clearly snapped in at least three places, and the fact that Tim had to do a lot of poking to figure that out.
“Who’re you calling a pretty boy?” Tim says, flipping his hair like a model and batting his long eyelashes.
Pru laughs again and coughs, and Tim is just moving on to her right leg when her pupils suddenly narrow to pinpricks and her face pales. For a half a second, she tries to get words out, but they must be too loud because her artificial vocal cords don’t create the sound. She goes to shove him, then, but the distance he manages to stumble to the right isn’t enough, and it’s too late. Tim has let his guard slip, left himself exposed to the opening of the cave like a total rookie, not tied up the ninja or contained them somehow, and as he feels a blade enter his back, split his skin and slide cleanly between his ribs, he’s a little sad that his only thought is oh.
And then pain.
Pain, pain, more pain than he’s ever experienced in his whole life of pain and suffering, because when the ninja goes to remove the blade from his back, it doesn’t work. It’s stuck. Pru is yelling something. It’s stuck because the ninja has managed to slide it perfectly between Tim’s ribs, and he can see the tip of the blade sticking out of his torso in the front, coated dark red and steaming slightly in the cold desert wind. He watches the steam curl around the sword, drift a few inches into the air before dissipating. It’s fascinating. The ninja tries to pull the blade out again, and it slides an inch and bites into bone and Tim screams , crumpling to his knees involuntarily, and the ninja gives one more tug and the sword comes out with a stilted wet sliding sound just as Pru gets a hold on her gun and puts a bullet in his head.
Tim remembers the story of Excalibur, a sword that you had to be worthy of wielding in order to pull out of a stone. Is there anything more fitting than Tim being the stone? The never talked about, never remembered, constantly stepped on stone of Tim Drake. He wants to laugh, but finds that he can’t.
The ninja and his steaming red sword are dead behind him, and he presses his hands into the sand to try to keep himself on his knees and not on the ground. Pru is still sitting beside the wall, her face twisted in pain as she leans as far forward as she can, still yelling something Tim can’t really hear. He’s bleeding out. Again. On the desert floor, again, alongside his crazy assassin friend Pru, again. It’s all happening again. And this time, he almost wants to roll over and let it happen. This time he has no goal to fight for, nothing to push him forward towards survival, nothing except for Pru, sitting there in pain because she can’t move to him, can’t get back to town by herself. Tim realizes that he’s the one with the working legs right now; he has to get Pru back. He has to save her, because there’s no way in hell he's letting go of the only person he’s never lost, even if it means losing his life in the process.
“Pru,” he grunts, voice thin and croaky, like the last dregs of an oxygen tank. He needs her right now, but not for comfort; right now he needs her to be a soldier, an assassin. He needs her to focus on getting them out, and that means getting Tim on his feet, because he’s worthless and can’t do it himself. Of course.
“Tim!” She calls, careful to keep her voice in audible range although it’s equally strained. “Tim, listen to me. I need you to take two pressure patches from your belt and apply them to your injuries. Now.”
Tim’s mind responds to the sharpness of the command and he drags himself upright, chest rolling painfully, and he leans back on the wall as he blindly digs around in his belt for first aid supplies. He finds them, drops a few random bandaids and medications on the desert floor and ignores it, peeling off the backs of the patches and fixing them over the horrible wounds on his chest. He can still feel the writhing blade slithering in and out of his body, scraping past his skin and bones like nails on a chalkboard. He ties the arms of his suit down around his waist like one would a wetsuit, and because he’s obviously about to fucking die, he knows he can’t sit down now or he won’t get back up. Blood is dripping steadily from the tied sleeve of his suit. It’s everywhere, actually, absolutely fucking everywhere, coagulating instantly when it hits the sand in little grain-covered droplets. He remembers building a sandcastle with Dick, once, the only time he’s ever built one because Dick had insisted, and he remembers what the dry sand looked like when it was suddenly covered in water from a bucket, like it was underneath a plate of darkness that could be lifted if you tried hard enough. It’s the same now, except now it’s red and darker and steaming, and there’s a dead man behind hima. The pain in his chest is making his head swim, curling inwards like burned tree bark. It hurts because of the wound. It hurts because he’s dying. It hurts because he misses his big brother who replaced him so easily.
“Tim,” Pru says, and it’s not an affirmation or a question, she’s just trying to tell him what needs to happen, but he already knows. His head nods loosely, lolling as he forces his eyes not to roll back with it. Her face is twisted in pain, he can see that, but so is his, and they’re about to go through hell no matter what happens. If she passes out he won’t be able to carry her deadweight. He’s not even sure he’s going to be able to carry her as is, but he’s got to try.
“Tim,” she says again, and he looks over at her, holding his eyes as steady as he can. She nods harshly. “Listen. You need to walk to your car, get your comm, and call your Bats.”
Tim heaves a breathless, choked gag when he tries to speak, but he swallows it and tries again, tasting hot metal on his lips. “No,” he manages to retch out, and his chest hates him for even breathing, so talking is just some fun additional hell. He shakes his head, hoping for the growing throbbing there to distract him from the pain in his ribs. “No… c-can’t… they won’t… won’t help, Pru, can’t… get here… used a tran-... transporter…”
“Shit,” she hisses, but the situation has been made clear. Tim’s got the pressure patches, but there’s only so much they can do, and he’s fading fast; if they’re going to get to the car, they need to go now, and Pru knows that. He fixes her with a deadly, determined glare, does his best to let anger and adrenaline take over and fuel his broken body. She purses her lips and nods once, reaches her arms up for him to grab, and he does, turns his back to her and yanks her arms over his shoulders. Pru chokes on a scream, her vocal cords cutting it off halfway through, and Tim wheezes and retches again like a drowning man, and neither of them apologize because they can’t afford to and they already know.
Tim hoists her up by her arms onto his wounded back and tries not to wince at her horrible groan, strangling his own grunts and gags and screams, and shuffles forward one step, pushing his foot through the sand. It’s agony. It’s worse than agony. He’s pretty sure he’s supposed to be long dead by now, from this wound alone but from a million other things, too. The ninja must’ve stabbed him at such an angle that he avoided his lung, even though he probably should’ve punctured it, because Tim doesn’t hear any whistling and he can still (sort of) breathe, which is a damn miracle, if this situation can be called one. He pushes his other foot forward, left beside right, shuffling and shifting through the loose desert sand. He knows it takes a lot of work to walk through the sand instead of over it, but it has to be easier than lifting his feet at this point, and that’s all he’s looking for.
He hears Pru in his ear, choking out encouragement and orders, and the child soldier in him clings to the sound, wraps himself around it and feels it in his veins and in his muscles. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. He doesn’t allow himself to pause; if he does, he might not keep going. It’s only about ten yards to the Jeep, but that distance stretches out before him, a line of fate that hasn’t yet been cut.
Left foot. Right foot.
Left foot. Right foot. He’s made it out of one cave. But he doesn’t need to make it all the way to the other Cave; he just needs to make it back to Gotham. Pru’s right, this isn’t something he can handle by himself. He doesn’t know how to set her legs when they’re broken this bad, doesn’t know how to splint or cast something like this either, and Pru can’t go to a regular hospital because there’s no doubt she’ll be arrested. Tim is the only person who can take her to the Cave to get the medical treatment she needs. He’s useful. He’s needed. He’s going to save his friend, and then he’ll be done. It’ll be over, he will have helped someone he cares about, will have not run away, will have seen this thing through to the very end and get to just rest and be done. Thank god.
Both of them have stopped grinding their teeth and stifling pain, allowing their wounded cries to ring out in the empty desert where nobody will care if they die. Not that anybody will care when Tim dies anyway, but that’s okay. That’s okay. He’ll save Pru. He’ll save her. He will.
Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.
He stumbles slightly and Pru gasps, but he forces balance into his legs and wobbles back to solid footing. Forward. Go forward. His head drops and he rolls his eyes up as far as they can go, staring forward, forward, forward at the Jeep and his only hope of saving Pru.
Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right.
Tim makes it to the passenger side, body trembling as agony radiates down every nerve. Blood has long since started leaking out of the pressure patches — that started almost immediately after he applied them — and he leaves a perfect red handprint when he nearly trips and catches himself on the bare frame of the car with a sound like a dying animal. Uh, well. That’s what he basically is, but y’know. He turns around and tries his best to lower himself to set Pru down in the passenger seat. It doesn’t really work, but at least she’s hanging over it.
From her tentative position being half-carried half-dragged behind him, Pru throws out a blind hand and fumbles for purchase on the old canvas seats of the car, heaving a strangled wail as she forces her arms down and pulls herself the rest of the way inside. Tim almost collapses with the sudden disappearance of her weight, but she catches him with one arm, shoves him back to his feet. “Get in,” she growls, and Tim does as he’s told, holding himself up on the hood of the car to drag his way around to the driver’s side. He’s just about past screaming at this point; his eyes are clouding over, glassy and barely seeing, and his feet won’t stop shuffling forward even though he no longer needs them to. His chest feels like it’s being crushed by something; a collapsing warehouse, maybe, or a crowbar. He shudders hard and sees the blood pooling against his stomach where it meets his suit. There’s too much volume. His fingers are starting to go cold; he’s on the clock. He’s on the clock and he has to save Pru.
The aching haze in his skull thins a bit with adrenaline, just enough for him to shove his offline comm back in his ear, turn the ignition and force the gas pedal down. He swerves the car around and they both clench their teeth from the jolt and ignore it, and Tim guns the engine again and floors it back towards the transporter.
He doesn’t remember the rest of the drive. All he knows is that he remembers seeing the large black dumpster that hides the transporter entrance and remembers driving into it, ramming it out of the way, and the shock of pain that comes from that. He remembers grabbing Pru’s left wrist, but not her right one, and then suddenly they’re both in the entrance and he’s wheezing out his authorization code, and there’s a flash of bright light before he’s shrouded in darkness. Just before his hearing cuts out, he picks up the crackly feedback sound of something being removed from inside his ear, and he hears a little click and a series of tinny, startled voices before a louder one, just next to his head, speaks.
“You have to help us,” the buzzing voice says. “He’s dying.”
Oh,
he thinks, and everything falls away.