Five reviews or more to keep me posting! this is where the Richard whump and angst come in so buckle up fan girls! it's a short chapter so savor...more coming soon! (well maybe with enough reviews)

Richard's POV

I felt a harsh 'crack' on the back of my skull, nearly splitting it open. White dots blinded my vision, I was not out. But I was down.

I crashed to the roof. Onto all fours crawling like a dog to regain my footing, it was hard to see. A warm trickle of blood caught in the cavities of my ear. I blinked away the white and faced my attacker.

His familiar orange and black burning a hole in the depths of my mind.

"Deathstroke" I mumble through numbing lips, he had hit me hard, but he didn't hit me hard enough. That much I knew was on purpose. He had a Bo staff, much like mine in his hands. He was leaning on it nonchalantly staring at me like a snake does a rodent.

I was the rodent.

My hands balled into fists at my sides, you fool. You don't want to make me mad. I'm already mad.

I lunged at him, sloppily. The blood dripping from my ear to my cheek. He easily side stepped me and drove a knee into my thigh. A pressure point. My leg went numb. Useless. Limp. I balanced on the other. Cupping a hand to my throbbing thigh, dragging it behind me as we circled each other venomously.

"Are you going to at least tell me what you want?" my voice was husky with pain. He grinned through his mask.

"To kill you of course" of course. I wasn't surprised. He lunged for me and I back pedaled tripping on my own damn, limp leg. I drove my other leg up as I fell, lodging the ball of my foot right into the crook of his neck. He heaved and sprung back breathless. I scrambled to my feet. Or foot. And attacked again.

I grabbed his skull and bashed it down on my knee. A difficult task with one leg. He seemed impressed as he staggered.

"Very innovative" he praised, what the hell? He came at me again a flurry of rapid kicks and punches, with one leg I had no chance. I held my own for a while but got drained quickly. He grabbed my arm, shattering the socket bone in my shoulder. I screeched.

Yes, screeched. Agony coursing through my body, I convulsed. He ripped my arm behind me, pinning it between his body and my back.

He was a good head taller than me, I could feel his jock strap in my lower back. I cringed and tried to twist away, instead he grabbed my other wrist and pinned that behind my neck with his other hand. I was hopelessly stuck. My hips twitched to get freedom from the awkward position.

Damn it, Damian. I don't know why I blamed him, but I did. I should have been home with my family. Not alone on the streets of a cruel city.

Alfred had warned me. Grayson, you idiot. I could feel him reaching for something in his belt. And strained my neck to see what it was. I caught a glint of metal. Hell no. I jerked again to free myself. No avail.

Damn it, Damian.

He was holding me up by my shattered shoulder, my limp leg bent below me. I felt hot pain across my thigh. He was cutting me, deeply. I screamed and tried to jerk away.

Deathstroke was breathing heavily behind me, his hard cup still pressed into my back.

"I want to make you suffer first" he cut deeper, I felt the handle press onto my skin. He twisted it. I couldn't help it, I screamed. Giving him satisfaction. "You've been a pain in my ass for too long" my breath was raggedy, short, desperate pants. My limp leg wobbled dangerously. Bile burning my lungs.

Oh God, stop. Please.

Please.

My head was dipping to my chest with shock, the hot pain in my leg and shoulder driving me near unconsciousness. I hear a thud and my head twitches to register the sound.

"Put him down" it's a desperate, threatening growl. My father. Thank God. I feel Deathstroke slowly pull the length of the curved blade from my thigh, my flesh sucking together trying to heal itself. Blood is running in a torrent down my thigh. He drops me. Crouching behind me the knife near my collar bone. His breath is hot on my neck.

I hit the ground hard. I manage to stay sitting and not fall over, I look up at my dad from a curtain of shaggy hair, I'm sweating. Batman sends me a short, ghostly glance of concern. I send him a short, ghostly reassuring smile. He's not buying it.

My knees are facing each other my heels by my ass. Blood is pooling around me. My limp leg. My arm hanging uselessly by my side, I'm holding it close to my body. Trying not to move it. Shoots of pain flood my veins. I've been through worse, hell, I've been through much worse. But I still had pent up emotional pain nibbling at my mind and it was intensifying my injuries.

Damian, wanted me to die. My own brother. For some reason, I didn't blame him. I did try too hard to love him. Maybe I was better off just dead.

That's idiotic. But in that moment I believed it to be true.

Bruce, disguised as Batman steps towards me, to protect me from the man behind me.

"I'm disappointed in you Nightwing." His voice drawing out, thick and obnoxiously sweet, dripping in my ears like molasses. The blood from my ear had traveled down my neck. "You usually fight with such heart, passion…tonight you seem preoccupied." I struggled to my injured legs, stumbling some. Deathstroke rose with me keeping on arm around my neck, snugly. And the blade resting on my collar bone.

He maneuvered his arm around my neck so that his fingers entangled in the back of my hair holding me in place, sticky words tickled my ear

"Do not move" I shot him a glare he couldn't see but stayed still. Deathstroke had the advantage here.

'What do you want?" I turned my head quickly to see the familiar get up of Red Robin, he was perched on the air conditioner I had sat on earlier, a splatter of my blood. My blood. Was on the ground. When I turned Deathstroke's knife cut into my skin drawing a thin line of blood. I hissed. My brother and father squinted. Stay cool, my eyes warned. Stay cool.

My eye's met the masked ones of my younger brother, he was trying to hide his concern, his eyes apologetic.

"I want him dead" their eye's squinted more. I shook my head softly. Please. Not wanting them to get hurt for me. It's not worth it.

I'm not worth it.

Bruce's POV

Red Robin was with me in the bat mobile, Batgirl and Robin were on the R cycle, Red Hood well…who really knows. Tim and I would search the eastern end of BludHavën, Stephanie and Damian the western and Jason the north. The south end had been abandoned after the radiation crisis.

We had left the car by now and were searching rooftops.

"RH to BM" I answered

"BM here"

"Wing's apartment's is empty, he left a while ago" I hang up, Dick you idiot. He had gone patrolling. My heart was in my temples. You never patrol when upset. Ever. That was rule number one.

Richard you idiot.

I found my rage towards my youngest. Damn it Damian!

"Red Robin. Check the alley's, I'll take the rooftops" His eyes said 'find my brother, dad' but he curtly nodded and took off, a mad dash. When he was out of sight, I looked to the sky. Grayson you idiot, if you get hurt…

"CRACK" I jumped and drew a batarang as the loud noise echoed in the eerily silent dark. I knew this sound well. It was a skull meeting a staff. Or the other ways around.

"Shit" I hadn't even known I had cursed, soon I was flying across roof tops. The sound hadn't been that far away. In the dusk of the moon I saw a struggle on a roof top near me. Dick. He was fighting upset. You never win when you're upset.

I quickly looked over my son's injuries. A gash on his head which was bleeding sluggishly, a bruise on his cheek, a thin trickle of blood from his nose. A limp leg, a broken arm? And then the busy knife.

Deathstroke was twisting it in my son's thigh, his painful screams echoing in the darkness.

I sprang into action.

"Put him down" it rumbled past my sneer like a growl. Deathstroke removed the blade, it was longer than I thought, curved viciously. And dropped Dick on his ass crouching down behind him with the knife on his neck. My son's masked eyes were painful and my heart dropped. He smiled. I didn't buy it.

The brave boy tried to stand, Deathstroke's fingers in my son's hair.

this was my baby boy. The one who picked me up and kept me walking when I stumbled. the one who understood and yet never really did, and that kept me real. the one who kept me from killing. or going mad.

The screams had drawn my other son, Red Robin perched on the air conditioner and eyed his elder brother anxiously.

"What do you want?" He said his voice as venomous as mine. Richard winced as the blade cut down on him slightly, I shot my younger a glance 'Don't, Tim" as he twitched in rage.

I knew we had lost when Nightwing turned his eyes to look at me and the only thing I saw pooling in the whites of his mask…was defeat.

Oh Damian. What have you done?

Well there.

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