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zombiesbecrazy · 6 years ago

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knowing his value

Summary: He didn’t have much to go on, this was his first kidnapping after all, but this all seemed a little bit lazy.

AO3

Being held hostage sucked, these guys completely lack originality, and frankly, Tim was bored.

He didn’t have much to go on, this was his first kidnapping after all, but this all seemed a little bit lazy. They didn’t have a guard in his room and the door wasn’t even locked to where they were were waiting for their ransom demands to be met. His wrists and feet were bound, but the knots were loose and simple and they were practically begging for him to escape them which was easy as pie for Robin, but Tim Drake had to sit quiet and wait for a pick up.

Or did he? He was clever and independent. Was there any good reason that Tim Drake couldn’t find his own way out of this specific kidnapping?

He was certain that this was a training exercise. To see what he could do if kidnapped in his civilian attire to see how he would be able to adapt and improvise in an undercover situation. It made a lot of sense.

Besides the chair he was sitting in, which he wasn’t even tied to, the room was empty and plain, with only the one door and the half window that was up high near the ceiling. It felt like it was a movie stage and not a real place and maybe the kidnappers had chosen it for that very reason, because they were rookies and hadn’t done this before so based everything that they knew off gangster movies and cop shows.

The first thing that he had to do was to get out of his ropes, but if he was Tim he couldn’t just undo the knots. It had to be sloppy with just a little bit of luck thrown in for it to be believable. Robin would have known to do his hands first and then just untie his feet, but Tim wouldn’t have considered that in the confusion, so instead he wiggled free of his shoes first, glad that he hadn’t bothered to tie them before he got snatched, and then worked his sock feet against each other, wincing a bit as the rope burned against his skin as it rubbed, but after a bit of effort there was enough give to slip one foot out, and then the other.

He then set to work on the ropes tying his hands. It was a more traditional material, not metal cords or cabling, but there was not as much give as there had been on his feet. so he tried to think of what he would do as a regular panicked thirteen year old who didn’t study the ins and outs of escaping from Riddler traps on a nightly basis would do. He bit the rope and started tugging at the knot, trying to loosen it from the tightest point with his teeth. He was making good headway when there was a sharp snap of pain, followed by a taste of blood in his mouth and he spat out of wire from his so-called-permanent retainer onto the floor.

That was unfortunate because he really didn’t want to have to go to the dentist at the end of all this.

He tugged a few more times until the rope went slack on one side and he was able to untie the rest of the knot. Now that he was free, he had to get out of the room. He couldn’t go out the door, because Tim Drake was sort of a scrawny kid who couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag, let alone through a room of armed men, which only left the window as an option.

It was small, but not small enough that Tim couldn’t fit through, and it was high up, but that was nothing that dragging the chair from across the room couldn’t solve, and he could reach the window as long as he stood on his tiptoes. The issue was getting the window open. The pane was double thick and had wiring between the layers so he couldn’t smash it, even if he didn’t have to worry about his captors hearing him. There a simple key padlock, easy to pick if you had the right tools, but Tim didn’t have anything in his pockets and the rest of the room was bare and he had to pause to think about what he was going to do next.

He chewed on his lip as he looked around the room, trying to decide if Tim Drake would be smart enough to detach one of the fluorescent lights to try and find out if any of the filaments were strong enough to try and pick the lock, with when he was reminded of the cut in his mouth, blood slowing, but still there.

The wire that had broken off from his retainer. It was still lying in the middle of the floor. It wasn’t perfect for lock picking but it would work in a pinch, as long as Tim had a reason to know how to do it.

Worth a shot.

Tim shaped the wire into a more useful shape than the curve of his teeth and set to work on the locks. He had to be more careful than normal, knowing that if it were to break he would be out of luck unless he had another brainwave about what to do next. Fortunately it wasn’t something he needed to worry about for long because he felt the family catch of the padlock and then with a snik it popped open.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Tim pulled himself out of the window, stomach scraping against the window ledge but otherwise fine. He was in an empty alleyway and he could see the faint echo of red and blue flashing from cars just out of sight. He hurried to the edge of the street, peeking out to see what the situation was. The building was mostly surrounded by police cars and tape, with a standard GCPD hostage procedure set up. Tim reached up and ruffled up his hair, slapped his cheeks a couple times, and stepped into the main street and made his way up to the closest police barricade, hopefully looking a little more like someone who had been kidnapped than just out for a leisurely stroll.

“Excuse me? Officer?”

The cop didn’t even look at him, just stood with his back to the barrier, watching the situation at the front of the building where it looked where most of the action was happening. “I’m sorry kid, but this is a hostage situation and you need to stay behind the line.”

“Yeah, but the thing is that I’m the hostage.” The officer whipped his head around and Tim gave him a little wave. “Hi. I’m Tim Drake.”

The officer stared at him for a few seconds, trying to sort out how that made any sort of sense and Tim sympathized with that. “Oh, uh. Hold on.” He fumbled with his radio on his shoulder, not taking his eyes on Tim, before hitting the button. “Commissioner, this is O’Royal. I have a kid here at the south perimeter who says he’s Tim Drake.” Tim could hear Gordon’s voice respond, and at the same time commotion broke out in the middle of the police set up, and then people started to move towards them.

“Tim?” Bruce’s voice was high and tight, playing the perfect part of the concerned guardian and he ran over with Commissioner Gordon right on his heels as well as a few more officers.

“Bruce!” Tim waved, and squeaked as Bruce picked him up in a big strong hug, the perfect performance of a scared parent. “I got kidnapped!” It was such a goofy thing to say, but in the moment it was the first thing that popped into his mind as he was crushed against Bruce’s broad chest.

Bruce put him down and made a big show of running his hands through Tim’s hair, down his arms and legs as if trying to reassure himself that all of his limbs were there. "I know. They called me for ransom. I’m so glad you are safe." His examination reached Tim’s wrists and he fussed over the marks that were criss crossing across the skin, light bruising already popping up, brushing them with a soft thumb.

"That explains all this." Tim chuckled and waved his arms around at the police set up in front of the building.

Gordon stepped up to do his job now that Bruce had done enough of pretending to worry in full grizzly mode, flipping out his notebook. "Why'd they let you out?"

"They didn't. They think I'm still in there." Gordon and Bruce both gave him a sharp look, probably for entirely different reasons. "I got out a window down there after I picked the lock." He jerked his thumb in the direction of the alley, and two of the officers ran off in that direction, hopefully to check out the scene to see if they could enter the building the same way that Tim had come out. He was doubtful; they were an awful lot bigger than he was.

"With what?" asked Gordon, raising an eyebrow in a questioning way.

"Part of my retainer." Right, Tim Drake was a normal kid who busted his own dentistry work and had to fess up to the person who was going to have to foot the bill to get it fixed. "Oh, Bruce. I think I have to go back to the orthodontist. I think that wire was important for something." Bruce said nothing, just put his arm around Tim’s shoulders and squeezed.

“How did you know how to pick a lock?”

“I saw it on YouTube and thought I’d try.”

That made Gordon stop writing in his book and stare at Tim. “You learned how to pick a lock on YouTube”

“Yeah. You can find anything on there. Did you know that there is a large online community of people who like to sculpt cheese? I knew about ice and stuff, but I had never really thought about how shapeable cheese is before a-”

“Timothy,” said Bruce quietly, the way he did when Tim went down rabbit holes in the cave and needed to get back on track and Tim blushed.

“Oh, sorry. Anyway, it wasn’t like I was going to get anymore kidnapped, so I thought I’d give it a go.”

Gordon went back to his notes, but huffed in what Tim hoped was approval. “You could have been hurt.”

“Really? Huh.” Tim grinned, and leaned against Bruce in a way that made him look that he was tired, exhausted now that the adrenaline had worn off and just leaning against his guardian. “I guess I never really thought about it like that.”

Gordon dismissed him to go and get checkout out by the paramedics, told him that he would be in contact later for a more comprehensive questioning if needed, but since it was still a live crime scene because the kidnappers hadn’t notice that they were without a hostage, that was all for now. The paramedics gave him a quick lookover, bandaging the cuts around his ankles before letting him go home with Bruce who paraded him back to the car with a firm grip on his shoulder.

Bruce hugged him again before they got into the car and started on their way back to the manor is silence. The buildings were getting further and farther between as they drove out of the city limits before Tim piped up. “Did I beat Jason’s time?” It was always a risk, asking about Jason and what he had done as Robin, but he was dying to know. “I know I didn’t beat Dick’s.”

“You,” Bruce swallowed deeply and tightened his fingers on the wheel, leather cracking under the pressure. “You thought that was a test?”

“Well, yeah.” Tim grinned as he inspected his wrists and ran his tongue along the back of his teeth, feeling the sharp edges of where the wire had been before. “So? How’d I do?”

Bruce pulled over to the side of the road and rested his head on the steering wheel, breathing in and out carefully before turning and pulling Tim into a tight hug, head heavy on his shoulder and body quivering with small shakes.

“Bruce?”

“That was not a test.” Bruce mumbled into his shoulder. “Not at all.” Tim thought back to the scene, the way that Bruce had run to him, checked out his injuries, had never not touched him once he had been back in his sight. The tremors that he could feel through Bruce now. That was all real?

“I was actually kidnapped?” Tim wondered, because that didn’t make a lot of sense. He was just Tim Drake. Even if it was a poorly executed kidnapping, it still seemed like a lot of needless work just for Tim. “Why would someone kidnap me? I’m not anyone important.”

“Not anyone important?” Bruce shook his head and pulled back, intently looking at Tim in the eyes, and Tim was now able to see the worry on the man’s face, not the outward public face that he showed to the world, but his true self that Tim only got to see on rare occasion and most never saw, and that man was dripping with residual fear and relief. “Tim, you are mine. You are one of the most important things in my world, and someone tried to use you to hurt me.” He shook his head and cupped Tim’s less injured wrist between his hands, hands that were possible of “And they did. Please know that I would do anything to get any of you back. I would travel across galaxies and punch a god in the face and I will negotiate with kidnappers who trap you in basements. No one gets to hurt you. No one.”

“Oh.”

Bruce stared at Tim for another moment, before turning the car back on and pulling back onto the road that headed into Bristol, silence filling the car again as they drove the rest of the way home, but Bruce’s right hand was still wrapped around Tim’s wrist and Tim wondered how long it would stay there until he had to let go.

It didn’t let go.

#whumptober2019 #no.27 #tim drake #bruce wayne #jim gordon #tim drake is robin

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