Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“ALERT. CRITICAL CORE FAILURE. PLEASE PROCEED TO LIFEPODS IN AN ORDERLY FASHION.”

The emergency announcement blared. Jason’s eardrums screamed in protest, the alarm so loud he almost couldn’t process what it was saying. Red emergency lights flashed everywhere, the main corridor lighting flickering as the Aurora’s systems tried to spread the insufficient auxiliary power to too many places. He frantically whipped his head around, trying to get a headcount of his adoptive siblings. He caught B and Dickface doing the same – eyes wide and flitting around, mouthing their counting. They were all doing their utmost to not get separated despite the panicked throngs of passengers pushing around them, clinging tightly to hands and clothing to not get pulled away. Their many hours of combat training were coming in handy; Jason knew on some level that without it, they would have certainly panicked with the rest of the crowd at the initial warnings and would never have been able to form up like this.

Of course, said training was also the reason they were trying to find another batch of multi-person evac pods, having immediately ensured all the families in the lounge they had been in were safely tucked away and jettisoned, with no thought to their own escape. Damn altruism to hell. With the lives they led, Jason had figured he’d die shooting corporates. Whatever.
“Damn it!” Dick cried from ahead as the last of the multiperson pods in the batch in front of them jettisoned.

“Language”, Bruce chided softly, reflexively. Any other time, Jason would have cracked a joke. If B was chiding for profanity in a crisis, though, it meant he was running on autopilot while planning, which meant that shit was about ten times worse than appearances suggested.

And appearances suggested that shit was really bad.

The crowds in the hallways were thinning some now, and the family pushed towards the interior walls, going into a near run to find another batch of pods. Now that he could see his family, from his position at the rear Jason could assess their condition better. Steph was definitely favoring her right ankle, but still pushing forward admirably. Dick had caught a stray blow to the cheek early on, and as he turned back Jason could see the beginnings of a nasty bruise. Tim was, somehow, rummaging through the ship’s feed while being tugged along between Dick and Cass, pulling stars knew what onto the local storage in his interface.

Damian was holding Jason’s hand behind him, and he turned and caught the kid looking as panicked as he’d ever seen him. For a nine year old (nine and a HALF, he would have been corrected ordinarily) it didn’t look like much, remarkably stoic actually. But Jason knew his baby brother well enough to see the unshed tears, the trembling lip. Plus, he only came up to Jason’s sternum when standing on his tiptoes (not Jason’s fault puberty had turned him into a brick shithouse), and the crowd had battered him quite a bit. Jason adjusted his grip and, in a move Damian had protested every SINGLE time they practiced it, pulled Damian up and onto his back without faltering. His glance back had also clocked Alfred just behind, a tad rumpled from the crowd but poised and dignified even as he ran, his own military training allowing him to keep up with the family.

They ran into an outer corridor with a wide transparent viewport, and the scene was startling enough to pause the family in its tracks. Far below them was a huge planet, almost completely blue, with a few dark specks here and there on the surface. However, the curved viewport let them see the ship stretching to the left and right.

It was on fire.

Flames curled around the curved hull, occasionally billowing outward with distant rumbles heard in the ship. Debris floated haphazardly around nearby, and they could see some straggling evac pods still deploying from the jettison ports.

“How is that even possible? There’s no air in space to fuel the flames,” Dick muttered aloud.

“Multiple hull breaches in oxygenated parts of the ship” Tim said, still buried in the feed, evidently pulling damage reports and data. “Looks like there was a major impact to the main power cells.”

“That’s impossible,” Bruce said, “the main cells are heavily shielded, no meteor or debris could hit them directly like that.”

“I know, but that’s what the data says.” Tim countered, looking as perturbed as Bruce did.

Jason looked at the hull leading towards the bow. “Look there!” he pointed. “You can see the impact!” Sure enough, there was a higher concentration of debris and flame, with beams bent outward. “Looks like they’re…melted? Maybe from the reactor going critical?”

Tim hummed. “But that still doesn’t make any sense. From what we can see, it’s like whatever hit us that shouldn’t have been able to came from … the planet.”

Bruce shook himself. “Analyze later, evac now” he ordered firmly. None of his kids complained.

As they stepped forward, another plume of flame shot out of the ship, this time much closer to their position. Corridor lights went out fully, and the family braced together in case the grav systems failed. When nothing immediately went to shit, they breathed out a sigh of relief.

Then things immediately went to shit.

The floor shook violently and knocked them to the ground, deep cracks forming like ice breaking apart. Another rumble and the ceiling exploded, raining flaming debris onto everyone’s heads. Several ceiling struts fell toward Alfred, who leapt backwards. Jason surged to his feet, hearing Brucing calling to his father figure from behind. “Alfie! Stay put, we’ll get to you!”

“There is no time, Master Jason!” Alfred shouted back. “Get the family to a jettison! I will take care of myself! I will find you all!”

Another rumble and more debris falling. Alfred was completely blocked off.

“Multiple decompression warnings!” Tim shouted.

Bruce looked around. Ahead the atmospheric bulkheads had sealed, to block the breaches, and behind was a pile of flaming debris. Then he spotted it! Two small ports marked with red lettering. Emergency jettisons for crew members, maybe designed for two people each. They’d have to make do.

“Follow me! Over here!” he shouted, tugging Dick to his feet. The rest of the family hauled each other up and towards the jettison ports. Tim, the hacking multitasking genius that he was, had already managed to bypass the crew credential security. Bruce tried the manual release and, despite the company who built the damn ship being cheap greedy bastards, they worked. The two hatches spiraled open, the interiors of the pods lit only by weak emergency lighting, leaving them mostly dark.

“These pods are going to be cramped. We have to split up.” Bruce said tightly. Alfred was already separated, and he despised the idea of splitting up his children, but they had no choice. Some of the children protested, but Dick gave them a look that simultaneously told them to be quiet and that everything would be okay. He was magic like that.

“Dick, take Tim and Steph into this pod. Tim, start prepping for launch, see if we can’t try to pair the pods’ trajectories. Jason, Cass, and Damian with me.”

Bruce’s eldest nodded stiffly, shoving a squawking Tim in before helping Steph climb in carefully, mindful of her bad ankle. Bruce and Jason loaded Damian and Cass into the other pod before climbing in themselves. Bruce carefully strapped Damian and Cass into one seat (in the back of his mind, Jason wondered how Bruce had managed to think of putting the two smallest Waynes together to save space), while Jason strapped in. One of the displays in the pod lit up, and Tim’s voice could be heard faintly, largely drowned out by the alarms.

“Okay, I had to hack some more systems, but it looks like I should be able to pair the launch trajectories. Unfortunately with all the debris we’ll be at least a mile apart on touchdown, but the pods have transponders and comm systems, so we should be able to find each other.” Bruce made an affirmative sound as he braced against the bulkhead. He’d get knocked around, but the old man was tough stuff.

“What about Alfie?” Jason called to the monitor

“...”

“Tim?”

“Alfred will be fine, I think. Lord knows he’s more competent than most of us put together.” Everyone in the pod nodded in agreement, but worried nonetheless about their adoptive father/grandfather.

The pod signaled a launch countdown, and everyone tensed as the pod cleared the outer hull.

“Alright, pods are clear! Calculating burn-in vectors and-”

Tim’s voice over the comm cut out abruptly as the pod jolted violently. The Wayne’s were whipped back and forth viciously. Bruce lost his grip and slammed into the opposite wall, crumpling into a heap. Cass was squeezing Damian securely, while the cut looked damn near tears. Jason too felt ready to panic. He could faintly see the display showing time to touchdown and they seemed to be approaching a lot faster than Jason would’ve expected.

3..2..1…

The strangely soft and wobbly impact knocked Jason’s head against the wall, and everything went dark.

Chapter Text

Dick hummed to himself nonchalantly, ignoring the sounds of nearby muttering (it was part and parcel of being a Wayne, so he was very good at ignoring it) as he examined the viewport, considering the results of their latest mission. They had been deep in the Corporation Rim, an ultra-capitalist area of the galaxy ruled solely by currency flow and whatever the megaconglomerates could get away with to minimize costs and maximize profits. This included espionage, murder, and evidently indentured servitude. Many citizens of the rim signed contracts trading their personal labor and wellbeing for a large payout and the end of their “tenure” (read “indenture”; In all senses except legal it was indenture). 

Of course, this was assuming that they didn’t die from the minimal (*cough* non-existent *cough*) safety protocols, and ignoring the fact that basic necessities like food, clothing, and medical care, including preventative care, were taken out of their final payouts. Some of the damn corporations even had “proprietary calendars”, meaning that people who weren’t careful (or desperate, so literally anyone who signed up for these programs) might think they were signing for a period of twenty years, but actually sign for two or three times that. 

This was what had happened to the contract laborers of Biggis Industries’ outpost in an asteroid belt known as the Narrows. They had been indentured so long that their children were born in the mining outpost, and the phrasing of their parent’s contracts conveniently let BI claim the children as indentured as well. The Bats had gone undercover to smuggle the great-grandchildren of the original contractees out of the facility to a new Wayne Enterprises terraforming colony. 

In the Corporation Rim, colonies and colonists were also legal property of whatever corporation owned the terraforming equipment, the idea being that the company provided equipment in exchange for labor and harvesting the planet’s resources (seeing a theme yet?). However, unbeknownst to the rest of the CR, Wayne Enterprises’ “colonies” were an elaborate cover, offering legal protection that no corporation would dream of challenging, and a new home for the refugees the Waynes took in. Wayne Enterprises did not collect planetary resources or require manual labor, instead ensuring the colonies became self-sufficient, then generating a charter to protect the citizens without them being legal property of Wayne Enterprises.

While Wayne Enterprises did the public do-gooding, the Bats worked behind the scenes, infiltrating corporate headquarters, blackmailing executives, sabotaging operations, and generally being nuisances to the conglomerates of the Corporation Rim. Were they criminals? One-hundred percent. This was a point of pride among Bruce’s kids, and any claims to the contrary would be met with scorn by every member of the Batfamily (except Alfred, but that’s only because if he’s committed any crimes he’s hidden the evidence very well). Are they bad guys? Well, if Corporation law was good and just, then maybe. But it wasn’t. It was shitty and designed to ruin the lives of as many people as was profitable. So the Bats continued the fight, for every person those laws had screwed over.

Dick still remembered the early days of the crusade. 

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It wasn’t long after the first reports of a giant bat mysteriously infiltrating corporation headquarters. A figure cloaked all in black would infiltrate corporate headquaters or the residences of corporate management mere days before those corporations went under or found themselves undergoing a management change. Dick had travelled to a Rim transit station with his parents. They were activists, professional acrobats who amassed crowds with their performances, where they then called attention to the many crimes of various corporations, and countered misinformation about life outside the Rim (people seemed think that they were simpletons at best, and savage cannibals at worst. It was by design of course; corporations knew that they couldn’t profit off masses that knew there was a better life for them elsewhere). Dick was their pride and joy, and joined them at an early age. Eventually though, the Flying Graysons got too loud. The cables that his parents checked meticulously snapped, and his parents had fallen to their deaths before his eyes, and Dick knew it had been no accident.

Then his life was a whirlwind; with no extended family to take Dick, some mysterious corporate head honcho had swept in and taken guardianship of him. Dick hated the man, hated everything he stood for. The jerk didn’t even have any clue how to handle a kid, leaving him alone with an aging butler for supervision in some penthouse in a huge transit station. Dick had wanted desperately to run away, but he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere. Even if it was ridiculously easy to escape the swanky apartment, he had no status or family on his home planet. Not to mention how fast bounty hunters would pounce on the reward for returning the ward of Bruce Fricking Wayne, head of Wayne Enterprises, the rich and ditzy playboy who any corporate exec would fawn over to get at a tiny sliver of the wealth he governed. 

And of course, now they had Richard Grayson, Brucie’s latest charity case. Dick was paraded through galas, cooed at and fawned over while his guardian made an utter clown of himself (seriously, the guy was flirting with a marble statue). Dick pointedly ignored the comments about his unimpressive backwater heritage or the questions about his life in the “circus”. So, when he was alone, Dick immersed himself in stories of this mysterious Bat. Bruce had a lot of media access, so Dick was able to track down basically every story about the masked figure cloaked in black. Security systems never spotted them. Guards were found unconscious or bloodied (interestingly, the Bat only really beat up people who were often later convicted or implicated in cases of abuse, drug trafficking, and intimidation scams). This figure, branded a criminal by the news sources, only targeted suspicious corporations, with shady dealings being brought to light, or corrupt executives mysteriously retiring. Dick wanted so badly to fight the Bat’s fight, to avenge his parents and continue their cause. 

But he was trapped here.

Eventually, one day Dick was playing in Bruce’s study (the one place he was forbidden from playing in, but if Brucie wanted Dick to listen then he should be there to enforce the rules himself). He glanced at the piano in the corner, and remembered how beautifully his mother used to play. He walked over and started pressing some keys, saddened that he could only make discordant noise. 

*Click*

Dick looked around, and saw a panel in the wall sliding to the side. It stopped and a light flicked on, revealing a hidden passage. Dick looked around sneakily. Well, he wasn’t supposed to play in the study, so he should probably leave.

Dick entered the secret room.

It was small, metal cabinets filling the space aside from a metal closet and a sleek-looking computer. Dick peered into a drawer. Weird spiky metal disc-things and some cool looking guns were arranged neatly. That was probably why he wasn’t supposed to be here, even though he knew perfectly well how to handle a weapon. He looked in other drawers, seeing other gadgets and such. Finally, he opened the closet.

He looked.

And looked.

And then he processed what he was seeing.

Sleek, black metal armor. A black cape.  A mask with rather comical pointed ears.

And on the chest, a symbol. Dick knew that symbol, it was left at all the locations in the news stories Dick had been so avidly following.

A silhouette of an Earth mammal. The only winged mammal in existence.

A nocturnal animal, flying through the shadows, seeing through the darkness.

A bat.

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“Chum?”

“Yeah Dad?”

“Why are you sitting on that art installation?”

Oh yeah. That’s why people were muttering. He had been reminiscing while lounging on a freeform hanging art piece. Something about representing a nebula or supernova? Whatever it was, it was comfy. Dick hopped down gracefully, performing a tuck-and-roll and bouncing up on his feet. Bruce didn’t even flinch, but Dick could see the flash of worry in his father’s eyes. Thankfully, Dick knew by now that Bruce trusted him and his abilities completely. Dick was his son, though, and Bruce would always worry about his kids.

“That thing is hanging thirty feet in the air, how…? No, I don’t even want to know.”

“I would’ve thought you’d stop questioning finding your kids in impossible places by now.” Dick smirked. “Besides, this has been a really quiet trip for the Waynes. Needed something to remind the public that we’re crazy rich people and not crazy space vigilantes.”

Bruce smiled tiredly. “If I stop questioning it, then you’d all lose your enjoyment of getting into impossible places. Far be it from me to deprive my darling children of their fun.” Bruce exaggeratedly draped himself over Dick’s shoulders in a one-armed hug and Dick groaned inwardly at the display. Yeah, he’d asked for that.

Bruce stood up and smiled. “I just wanted to tell you that Tim may or may not have bribed a crew member to put Spaceballs on the big display in the lounge.”

Dick threw his head back and laughed. “And they did this without us? Come on, let's go!” He raced off to the family lounge, Bruce following amiably. Little did anyone know how badly shit was gonna hit the fan.

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Urgh

Everything hurt. Why did everything hurt?

The ringing in his ears subsided, and he heard the shrill buzz of some kind of computerized alert. Not much better than the ringing, honestly.

Dick forced his eyes open. The world was blurry. He touched the back of his head and winced, stifling a gasp of agony. When he pulled his hand away, there was blood.

Sticky. Injury isn’t too fresh. Possible…scratch that, probable concussion. I’m awake, so blood loss isn’t critical. Overall…could be worse.

(Hey, nobody said being a vigilante was easy. Dick had actually dealt with worse)

He winced as he slowly dragged himself to his feet, willing the world into focus through the pounding ache in his skull.

He was in a tiny room. Red lights were flashing. Sparks were coming from somewhere. The metal wall was blown out into jagged edges in some places. 

Right. He remembered now. The explosion. The evacuation. The pod. Another explosion.

Fuck.

No time for worrying right now. He remembered splitting up… his siblings! He looked around frantically, but the sudden motion sent stabbing pain through his skull. Steph was awake; Dick realized she must have been trying to get his attention, but it seemed her voice was gone from screaming. He staggered over. His training had him checking her for injuries immediately, thankfully without too much thinking on his part. Scrapes and bruises, but nothing major. The buckle on her seat was wrent and stuck. Dick hoped she hadn’t been trapped for too long while he was unconscious.

Something was tapping his shoulder. It was Steph. She was trying to say something, but her voice was still shot. She was gesturing at the other seat.

At Tim.

Dick lurched over. The world was unsteady. The floor was rocking back and forth. Dick had forgotten how badly concussions sucked.

(WARNING: MEDICAL GROSSNESS)

Dick checked Tim over. He was unconscious. There was a nasty cut on his forehead, and blood was dripping into his face. Dick allowed himself a moment of panic. How long had Tim been unconscious from his head injury? Upon inspection though, the laceration was superficial, with no further evidence of cranial trauma (yes, the medical terminology was hurting his head.)

Dick continued his exam and realized Tim had two elbows in his right arm.

Wait…

That wasn’t right.

Oh shit.

Tim’s upper arm was broken completely and resting at an odd angle. That would explain the lack of conciousness; Tim must have blacked out.

(MEDICAL GROSSNESS OVER)

“Tim.” Dick’s voice cracked from disuse. He tried again.

“Timmy. Baby bro. Wake up.”

Tim groaned as he stirred.

“Five more minutes…” Tim mumbled. He tried to move and his eyes snapped open as he gasped in pain.

“Fuck…” Tim hissed.

“Stay still Redwing, your arm is broken. Steph is stuck, so I’ll free her and then we’ll take care of your arm.” Tim winced and grunted an affirmative. 

Dick staggered back to Steph before remembering he didn’t have his knife. He searched around and found a jagged metal edge in the wall that he could twist off. He sliced his fingers some but hardly noticed. 

He finally staggered over and cut Steph loose. She tried to look away and hide her trembling lip, the wetness building in her eyes. Even with a concussion, though, Dick’s older brother senses were still sharp. He tugged her into his arms and held her as she fell apart for a moment, the fear and stress of recent events overwhelming her.

As Steph pulled herself together, Dick realized that this was, quite possibly, the tightest spot the Bats had ever been in. They had no gear, his family was split up on a strange planet, and Alfred was…

M.I.A., Dick thought to himself. 

Alfred isn’t…he can’t be…he’s just M.I.A.

Dick felt the fear and stress overtaking him as well and took a deep, shuddering breath. No, this wasn’t the time. Right now his siblings needed him.

Steph’s tears had died down to sniffles now. Dick gave her a questioning look, and Steph gave him a firm nod. She would be okay for now.

Together, they stumbled back over to Tim. Dick noticed Steph's unsteady gait and worried that he had missed a head injury, but he reasoned that he would be a little off too if he had been trapped in a wrecked pod unable to help two unconscious siblings. They got back to Tim, who was taking deep, slow breaths to ground himself as he assessed the situation. Thank god their dad was a genius, splitting up the two smartest Waynes in case there were tech issues.

(WARNING: MEDICAL GROSSNESS)

Dick gingerly took Tim’s arm and winced in sympathy as Tim hissed again. He counted down and set Tim’s arm with a nasty crunch. Dick pulled off his shirt and set to work binding the arm to Tim’s torso to keep it set until they could come up with something better.

(MEDICAL GROSSNESS OVER)

“Why’s the world rocking?” Tim groaned.

Dick and Steph shot each other a look of concern, and Steph moved to examine Tim’s head again.

“Steph…is the world rocking for you too?” Dick asked hesitantly.

Steph paused, then nodded.

“I assumed that was just my concussion, but I have a major headache and bleeding from the back of my head. I don’t think I missed any major head injuries on either of you, or any other indications of concussion.”

“...You’re right. I don’t feel concussed.” Steph murmured.

“Neither do I,” mumbled Tim. “But the only time I’ve been concussed was when someone hit me with a brick.” He smirked at Steph.

“Hey!” Steph playfully whacked his good arm, but Dick was pleased to see them both smiling a bit. “I apologized for that.”

“Steph, can you get anything from the sensors?”

Steph moved to the flashing monitor and mercifully silenced the alarm. Dick breathed a sigh of relief as his headache lessened a tad.

“The scanners must be broken.” Steph announced. “Terrasensors report solid ground…about twenty meters beneath us. Some valleys and caves, but all at least twenty meters below our position”

Tim frowned in thought. “What do the hygrometer and salinity sensors read?”

Steph clicked her tongue as she tried to find the data. “Salinity… twenty-nine point eight ppt? Hygrometer reads…one hundred percent.”

Tim’s eyes widened. “Guys, remember the planet in the viewport?”

“It was blue, completely,” Steph said, tilting her head in question.

“Those readings are consistent with…Earth oceans. We’re on a sea planet.”

“Well…fuck,” said Steph.

Dick thought that about summed it up.