As he blinked his eyes open, a coughing fit consumed his body. When it passed, Dick raised his head slowly off the concrete floor, feeling as though weighted down by a hundred bricks. The air around him was thick and chalky, barely allowing him to see his own feet. Letting his head rest back on the floor, Dick quickly assessed his body. There was no doubt he had a concussion and all other limbs seemed extremely sore but functional.

"DICK! REPORT!" Stars shot through Dick's eyes at the volume of Barbara's voice in his ear piece.

"Oracle, it seems like my ears survived just fine."

"Oh, thank the heavens, I thought you were dead!"

"You're not rid of me just yet."

From what Dick could initially assess, there had been an explosion. His best bet was that one of Penguin's men had fired some kind of rocket propelled grenade as Dick and Damian had dove for cover. It was hard to tell whether it was his head or if the lights in the club had dimmed, it appeared as though the emergency lighting was the only thing lighting the room.

"Dick, Damian's comm link's not work!" came Barbara's frantic voice in his ear. Dick's head snapped to the left, the direction in which the boy had dove. He couldn't see anything in the haze besides a murky pile of rubble. Pulling himself to his feet, he staggered through the dust. Whatever had exploded, appeared to have hit a concrete column in the near distance, exploding into the curtain of powder. His progress forward was painfully slow, he banged into downed slot machines and concrete chunks. As he took in more of his surroundings, it became very quickly apparent that the column had been supporting part of the club's ceiling which had caved.

With the dust being so thick, the stage where Penguin and his men had stood was no longer visible but Dick knew he probably only had a minute before Penguin's men were on him. Shoving a destroyed slot machine out of the way, he desperately began to pull chunks of concrete aside looking for any sign of Damian.

He probably had leapt out of the way...he probably was on the other side of the club by now...he was probably shaking his head at Dick being knocked down by the blast.

Pop. Pop. Crack. Zing. Bullets hitting the concrete and metal around him formed a strange cacophonous symphony.

He leapt to the far wall to put some space between his body and the bullets and slowly moved forward. The gunmen had to be put down.

Damian's comm link had probably just been destroyed in the explosion...He was probably fine...He had to be fine.

Through the haze, Dick caught the glint of metal and without hesitation leapt onto the man's back, ripping the weapon from his hands and tossing into the far dusty club abyss. Wrapping his legs around the man's neck and using the momentum from his jump, he snapped the man's body to the ground.

Pop. Pop. Zing! The last bullet flew close by Dick's head. He took a bet on his instincts and even before the next attacker came fully into view, a Batarang had left his hand and embedded in the muzzle of the weapon. Another Batarang and the man was the ground, knocked out cold.

Dick turned back in the direction of the fallen wall, his stomach doing flip-flops when he realized he hadn't seen or heard any sign of Damian yet. Perhaps it was his thoughts of his partner that distracted him from catching another glint of metal from the direction he had turned away from. He heard the 'thud' though. He felt the slug as it impacted his rear body armor. He was almost knocked over by the four others that rapidly followed, three more in the back and one hitting his leg. It felt like someone was taking a sludge hammer to his back, knocking the air from his lungs. Dropping low, he let his last Batarang fly from his fingers. Turning, he saw it had again found it's mark, buried in the gun's muzzle.

The gunman threw the weapon to the floor and charged. Adrenaline rushed through Dick's veins, giving him the strength that his weary body now lacked. He had to find Damian.

Dick bent over as his body connected with the gunman's, putting his full weight into what resembled a football style tackle. Both men fell to the floor with Dick on top, his fist connecting hard with the other man's face.

"Dick! Did you find Damian?" came Barbara's voice over the comm.

"Oracle," Dick started as he quickly made his way back in the direction of the rubble pile. "I'm on..."

He came to a dead stop when his eyes fell on who was now standing on the rubble pile. A wave of nausea rushed over him as he took in the grinning short man in front of him, the broken boy's body at his feet, and the last armed gunman beside him.