Robin one shot part 3!

It cost me an arm but not a leg

He felt some guilt as he turned away from the fire until he heard Nightwing was on the scene and decided it would be well handled. The firefighters plus his protege? Everything would be okay. He trusted Nightwing to be on his game and he'd funnelled enough money into the city fire service over the years to prevent understaffing or faulty equipment. They were trained well enough, weren't they? They'd be fine.

Yet, there was this feeling that kept digging into him as he drove to Wayne Labs. One that told him something was off but he couldn't put his finger on what so he kept dipping into the channel for the fire every now and then for some reassurance. There were updates on civilians being helped out of the building by Nightwing and each of them had a few injuries here and there. It seemed no one had died so he assumed the worst was over. He eventually turned off the report to deal with the robbers.

There was an almighty creak above Nightwing's head as the fire ravaged the building much faster than previously expected. He felt terrible for pushing people out of the window when they were clearly terrified of leaping at such a great height but he needed to keep funnelling the civilians out before the whole place collapsed. Below they'd be captured by the firemen so he couldn't feel too bad when he heard them screech in fear. It didn't make him feel much better though.

Luckily, the building was short compared to the apartment blocks surrounding it and he could see why. This place would never get clearance for such a thing when it was made out of pure fire fuel. He dreaded to think about the possibilities of what would have happened had it been taller.

Bruce had tried in previous years to ensure lower-rent apartments were up to code but he couldn't find everywhere. Although it shouldn't be, it was hard to maintain quality control when building companies knew all the shortcuts and Bruce couldn't vet every building personally. It would only take one inspector to have an off day or want to finish earlier for something to go unnoticed.

Nightwing reached the top floor after helping someone else out of the window and he began to yell out for anyone and everyone left behind. His lungs and nose were starting to burn from the black smoke consuming the air and he was sweating buckets from the pure heat of the fire slowly cooking him alive. He felt like a lobster being boiled and he was sure he looked like it too. He'd have to get out of the pot soon. The last civilian had commented on his flushed cheeks and told him to get the fuck out of dodge but he was never one for self-preservation. Not with innocent lives on the line.

"Hello? Anyone here?" he yelled but there came no reply. The fire was deep into the foundations now, getting at everything that held the floors up, and he knew that he should get out now but what if someone was unconscious in their flat and couldn't hear his calls? He couldn't damn them to burn. The thought made him sick. What if there was an older woman trapped in her flat because her walker was on the other side of the room? What if there was a kid too terrified to move to even attempt to flee?

Coughing and spluttering, he kicked open doors to each of the apartments before running around them for a quick scan of the area and then repeating the process. The air was becoming heavy and breathing much harder as the fire greedily took the oxygen to fuel itself to burn harder but he had to keep going just in case.

There was another creak as the fire reached the roof but when he heard a crack he looked up instead of down. Had he looked down, he would've noted that the cracks were actually coming from the floors being weakened by the fires. His search for non-existent cracks on the ceiling had him caught off guard when he fell through the flooring. A scream ripped out of him as he went tumbling through and landed on the ground below. He was sprawled out for just a moment but it was a moment long enough that more flooring from above could break off and slam down on his left arm, pinning it beneath the rubble.