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Tim doesn't panic when he's separated from Bruce during patrol. He doesn't panic when a hand clamps over his mouth and a sweet smell makes his vision go fuzzy. He doesn't even panic when he wakes up with his hands tied behind his back, or when a goon slaps him, or when Penguin shows up and demands to know Batman’s identity.
No, Tim is perfectly calm. This may be his first month as Robin, but it's certainly not his first kidnapping. His mother is Janet Drake, the CFO of Drake Industries and the shrewdest, most successful businessperson of her time. His father is Jack Drake, CEO and owner of Drake Industries and heir to the Drake’s multi-generational fortune. Everyone and their neighbor’s dog wants leverage over them, and whether it's financially motivated or business politics, their son is the perfect bargaining chip.
So yeah. Tim’s an old pro when it comes to being kidnapped. His parents made rules for him. As long as he followed them, he was always back home before school the next day. Unfortunately, the rules for Tim Drake don't really apply to Robin.
Rule One: Go along with the kidnappers. Don't fight them. Give them what they want.
But Penguin wants Batman’s identity, and Tim isn't going to give that up. He can't. Not for anything.
Rule Two: Don't talk unless you have to.
Tim keeps his mouth shut. He receives a solid punch across the cheek for his silence.
Rule Three: Give us a clue when they’re giving proof of life.
Mom and Dad had drilled him extensively on code phrases and gestures to indicate location, health status, and number of kidnappers. A tug on the left ear meant he was in Gotham. A tug on the right meant out. “I wanna go home,” meant more than six criminals. “I don't wanna die,” meant six or less. And on and on the cues and code phrases went.
But Batman doesn't have a phone. He doesn't do proof of life, or so Dick claims. He just shows up, waltzes in, and frees his partner, sometimes beating up the kidnappers and sometimes just walking past, the thugs too terrified to shoot.
Rule Four-
“Not feeling chatty today, birdie? Hrmmm?” The Penguin squawks out a laugh. “Well, we can take care of that.” He holds out his hand, and a goon places a radio in it. “Bring him in,” he says into the mic.
Tim’s stomach drops. They got Batman too. Who's going to save them if they have Batman too?
They… They can break out of this, right? Yes, of course they can. Batman can do any-
The door groans open, and three, four, five people are struggling with their captive. Batman wriggles and fights back, throwing elbows and swinging his bound fists in tandem. Judging from the thugs’ injuries, he even bit some of them.
But the criminals outnumber him and manage to sit him in a chair across from Tim. There's the clicking of locks and chiming of chains as they secure him to the seat. It takes longer than it should, but they finally step away, and Tim gets a good look at Batman.
No, not at Batman. At Nightwing. At Dick. Tim isn't sure how or why he's here, but he is, and he's furious. He struggles against his restraints, baring blood-stained teeth at their captors. “Why is he here?” Dick demands.
“So good to see you too, Nightwing,” the Penguin croons, patting Dick on the cheek. He nearly loses a finger for his efforts. “I missed you. It's been at least a week since I let you stay in my basement, and I’ve barely seen you at all.”
“Sounds like a you problem,” Dick retorts. “I enjoyed my quiet time.”
“Without food or water or sleep, yes, yes, I’m sure it was a real treat for you. You Bats are all masochistic freaks.”
“Basically a spa day,” Dick adds.
The Penguin shakes his head and swings the handle of his umbrella across Dick’s face. Dick’s head whips to the side, bruises immediately blooming along his cheekbone. His split lip, previously clotted, tears again and dark red drips down his chin.
“Hey!” Tim shouts, breaking Drake Kidnapping Rule Two. “Leave him alone!”
“Robin, no,” Dick warns, but the Penguin has his eyes set on Tim.
“Don't interfere in things you don't understand, boy.”
“What do you want with us? All this over Batman's identity?”
The Penguin smiles. “Of course not. It’d be a nice bonus, but that's not why we're here today.”
“Step away from him, Cobblepot,” Dick growls, and his voice sounds disturbingly similar to Batman’s.
“Oh, re-lax, Nightwing. I’m not going to hurt your baby brother. Batman nearly lost his mind the last time someone killed Robin. Put half my guys in the ICU and scared the rest into retirement. No one wants him like that again.” Penguin shoots a heavy look Dick’s way. “But I don't have to hurt Robin to get what I need.”
The Penguin nods at his men, and three thugs move over to Dick. Two flank him, and one stands in front with a taser.
“To be honest, you’re both just bait. Batman has been interfering in my business recently, and I’d like to…” The Penguin hums. “... repay the favor.
“Now, here's the deal,” Penguin continues. “I’m not a fan of the slicing and dicing that witless lowlifes like Two-Face and Black Mask enjoy. It's messy. So I’ll give you until the battery of this taser dies to tell me who Batman is. Tell me, and I’ll let you both wait nice and safe until Batman shows. Don't tell me, and…” Penguin shrugs. “Well, sometimes the truth requires a little mess. And I don't need both of you alive to get Batman here.”
Dick’s eyes shoot to Tim’s. “Don't say anything,” he orders.
The Penguin laughs. “Oh, so heroic. So noble. It makes me sick.”
Then he snaps his fingers, and the goon with the taser rams it against Dick’s throat. There's an anticipatory click, and then Dick tenses up, expression contorted in pain. He grunts at first, a shocked exhalation, but as the shock continues, he begins to shout - scream - louder and louder and louder. They just keep the taser going.
“Stop!” Tim shouts. “Please, you have to stop!”
“Then give me a name, birdie!” The Penguin has to yell to be heard over Dick’s screaming.
He can't. He wants to. God, he wants to. Anything to stop that sound. But he can't.
Tim looks at his lap, shame coloring his neck and ears. He can't look at Penguin. And he definitely can't look at Dick.
The screaming continues. God, how long has it been now? A minute? Three?
Dick’s screams begin to weaken. They taper off into a wheeze. And then, nothing at all.
Tim’s head shoots up. Dick isn't breathing. He isn't-
The Penguin slams his umbrella against the ground, and the taser stops. Dick gasps and coughs and fights for breath.
“I’m sorry,” the Penguin says, pacing between the two hostages. “This really doesn't involve either of you. But when I plant thug after thug to clue Batman into the kidnapping, and he still doesn't show? Either he's not the world's greatest detective, or he really doesn't care about his friends.
Neither of those are true. Tim knows it from his eyelashes all the way down to his bone marrow. Bruce is a genius. And Bruce cares more about his Robins than anything in the world. There must be something else. Maybe the thugs haven't actually dropped any hints. Maybe Bruce thinks Dick is back in Blüdhaven and Tim… went home early for the night?
Yeah. It's a ridiculous thought.
The Penguin snaps his fingers again, and Dick is screaming like someone is ripping him apart. Tim doesn't know if that's how it feels. For all the times he's been kidnapped, no one ever tortured him. And they definitely haven't made him watch someone else get tortured. (Dick. They're torturing Dick.)
“We’re at half power, little Robin,” the Penguin cackles. “Not much time left to save him.”
Tim clenches his fists. Tries to mask the shake. Tries to find a weak point in his bindings.
Dick’s screams have warped from “sharp pain” to “exhausted agony.” A taser like that, when used continuously, usually has twelve and a half minutes of power, give or take a few seconds. Tim isn't sure how much longer Dick can take this. He's already stopped breathing once, and if they're at half power, it's only been six minutes.
As if waiting for Tim’s thoughts to mention it, Dick goes quiet again. Penguin slams the umbrella against the ground, the shocks stop, and Dick wheezes for breath. It's only happened twice, but it's already starting to feel like a morbid routine.
“Alright, enough playing around,” the Penguin hisses. He places the handle of his umbrella under Tim’s chin and forces him to look up. “You're going to watch this time, little bird. You close your eyes, and I’ll shoot him.”
Tim swallows hard against the cool, lacquered handle. He makes eye contact with Dick, who's looking less than fine, shaking and slumped over and barely able to keep his eyes open. But he does, and he has the gall to smile despite the split lip.
“Doing… Doing great… bud…”
The handle of the taser comes down on Dick’s skull with a CRACK.
“No talking!” one thug barks.
“Bet you're… real fun at parties.”
CRACK. This one actually knocks him out, and for a second, Tim thinks this is it. Dick just got his skull caved in with a taser. Dick Grayson died, and Tim just sat there and did nothing.
But the guy with the taser grabs Dick’s shoulder and shakes him around a bit, rousing him.
Tim can't help the sigh of relief. And then he wonders if this is a relief at all. Because Dick is alive, so now he can get tortured for six more minutes and then killed. “Messily,” whatever that means. And these triple cuffs and duct tape simply aren't budging, and Batman isn't showing up, and Tim has to watch.
“Again,” the Penguin commands, snapping his fingers.
Tim has never seen someone tased before. He definitely hasn't seen someone tortured before. So watching Dick, someone Tim has admired and respected for almost his whole life, stiffen and convulse and struggle for air, is more than a little jarring. Dick has long foregone any attempt at staying quiet or acting calm. And so has Tim, screaming at Penguin to cut it out, to leave him alone, to stop, stop, stop-
Dick passes out. The taser keeps going.
“STOP!” Tim shrieks. “He's had enough!”
“His name,” Penguin orders. “Tell me Batman's name, and it stops.”
“You're killing him!!” Tim can't stop the tears that have been sitting in his eyes all night. They roll down his face and drip off his jaw. He screams and whines and begs. It's only Dick’s order (“Don't say anything”) that keeps him from giving up the name. He can't let Dick die, but that's exactly what he's doing.
God, kidnapping is so much more complicated as Robin.
The taser fizzles out, its bright white dimming until only a spark remains.
There's no gasp for air like the other times. Dick remains limp in his chair, boneless and unmoving.
Tim shrieks. “You have to help him! Call an ambulance or- or-!”
“You're in no position to be making demands, little bird,” the Penguin chuckles, patting Tim’s face fondly. “I told you things will get messy after the battery runs out.”
The Penguin aims the end of his umbrella at Dick. There's a crack, like gunfire, and the umbrella kicks back, like a gun. And now Dick is bleeding, dark red pouring from his chest.
“What??” Tim cries. “He already wasn't breathing! You didn't need to-! How could you-?”
The Penguin smiles affectionately. “Oh, dear, dear boy. I know all you Bats’ tricks. Am I really supposed to believe that Batman didn't teach you how to play dead?”
It actually hadn't occurred to Tim that Dick might have been playing dead. It all looked so real. There's no way he could have-?
“Clean this up,” Penguin orders his goons, sounding thoroughly disgusted. Then he glances at Tim. “I wasn’t lying. I do hate when things get messy.”
“What do we do with him?”
The Penguin hums, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Tie him to the Batsignal.”
“What?” Tim blanches. This is getting way too much way too quickly.
“Yessir,” a thug replies, and the men get to work unchaining Dick from the chair.
“Just you and me, little one,” Penguin tells Tim. “And Batman, eventually, but it sounds like I’ll have to tell him I have you. Or maybe he’ll finally get it when he sees Nightwing.” He shakes his head as his men drag Dick out of the room. “Always was the most annoying of you Bat-people. Never shut up. Always making jokes about… people’s height. And nose. And weight. At least you know when to be quiet.”
Tim is quiet, but it’s not a good quiet. It’s not the placid quiet of a meadow or on top of a mountain or the city after a heavy snowstorm. It’s a roiling, dangerous quiet, like a tiger hiding in the bushes or the eye of a hurricane or dark clouds blotting out the sun before the rain.
“And now,” the Penguin announces, completely oblivious to the type of quiet that Tim truly is, “we wait for Batman. Shouldn’t be too long once they’ve left my gift at GCPD. Would you like some tea while we wait?”
Tim scowls. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m just being hospitable,” Penguin says in mock horror. “I already told you. We rogues don’t go after Robin anymore. It’s a pact. I’m on thin ice just having you here.” He realizes the pun - ice, Penguin, Iceberg Lounge, get it? - cackles to himself, and then starts to choke.
“Nightwing!” Tim shouts, jumping in his seat.
“I can crush your trachea with just a tiny bit more pressure,” Dick mutters into the Penguin’s ear, holding an escrima stick against his throat. “So drop the umbrella and get on your knees, Ozzy.”
The Penguin does as he’s told, blubbering in shock. “How are you still alive?”
“I ask myself that every day,” Dick sighs, clicking the cuffs around Penguin’s wrists, hesitating for a moment, and then knocking him out with an escrima stick to the head.
Tim winces. That is going to hurt tomorrow.
“You’re alive,” Tim remarks, leaning back as Nightwing slices through the duct tape with a Batarang. “How?”
“Adrenaline and spite, I think,” Dick reasons, placing a tiny key in the first of the locks around Tim’s wrists.
“Were you playing dead?”
Dick frowns and raises an eyebrow. “What? When did I do that?”
“You weren’t breathing. Wasn’t that-?”
There’s a soft click from above, barely audible to anyone but a couple of Batman’s protegés in a quiet room.
“Batman! Horrible timing!” Dick grins as he pulls the last set of cuffs off Tim.
“Sitrep,” Bruce orders, dropping from the ceiling.
“I was captured by Penguin’s thugs during a fake arms deal on the 12th at Dixon Docks. They brought Robin here at least an hour ago and used… advanced interrogation tactics in an attempt to learn your name.”
“They tased him for twelve-and-a-half minutes,” Tim adds. “And then shot him. And he wasn't breathing. On… purpose?” He raises an eyebrow.
Dick coughs, grabbing his bullet wound as it's jostled. “Ah… don’t remember that… Maybe?”
“So that's a no,” Bruce reasons, reading between the lines. “Hospital or Cave?”
“Cave should…” Dick blinks a few times, eyes struggling to focus. “... should be…” He reaches out for nothing and stumbles. Bruce catches him under the arms.
“Easy,” he murmurs gently. Dick doesn't respond back, and Bruce holds him tightly by the waist and grapples through the window. Tim follows close behind, dropping down beside the idling Batmobile.
“Hospital?” Tim asks.
Batman nods. “Hospital.”
---
“You know, you don’t… have to work on that now.”
“You like mission reports done early,” Tim reminds him, his fingers stilling on the keyboard. “Provides the most accurate information.”
“I… I know. But I think it can wait until we get word on Dick.” Even Bruce sounds uncertain, like he appreciates Tim’s commitment to the Bat Archives but also knows that he should be recovering after his kidnapping.
“Well… I don’t want to sit around and do nothing,” Tim counters.
“Then talk to me. I see a lot of question marks in that report.”
Tim slams the laptop shut. “I’m not done.”
“And I’m available to answer questions. Shoot.”
“Okay, I guess.” Tim shifts awkwardly in the waiting room chair. “Why did it take so long for you to get there? Dick was captive for a week, and the Penguin said he was leaving henchmen to tip you off.”
Bruce sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t know he was missing. He works out of Blüdhaven. He goes no-contact now and again.”
And boy, does Tim understand that. When Bruce and Dick get along, they’re like one person, working so well together that they may as well have a shared brain. But when they fight, which Tim is beginning to realize is the more common situation, they fight. Bruce takes Dick’s house key. Dick steals one of his motorcycles. Bruce locks Dick out of their database. Dick gets a little quieter, a little more intense around the other Titans, and Bruce wakes up with a horde of teenaged superheroes on his doorstep, demanding to know what he did to upset their friend. (More than once, this has resulted in Starfire becoming so angry, so full of fiery kinetic energy, that Bruce retreated to the breakfast table with a sunburn.)
Tim will give them both this: When Bruce and Dick work together, they’re unstoppable. And when they fight, things turn nuclear.
“But the thugs? They didn’t say anything about Nightwing?”
“They never got the chance to,” Bruce corrects. “You were with me. We took out Penguin’s guys as soon as we could. If they wanted to drop hints, we would have knocked them out before they could say.”
It’s true. They had been on Penguin’s case. They had been going after his goons pretty aggressively.
“So how did you find us?”
“They kidnapped you on patrol,” Bruce replies. “Not their most enlightened move.”
Tim sighs and hugs himself. He stares at the floor for a bit and then looks up at Bruce. “Is Dick gonna be okay? They…” The words catch in his throat. “They hurt him pretty bad.”
Bruce tips his head, eyes laced with concern. Tim looks down again, feeling like a child. Just a baby, whining because he watched his brother get electrocuted to death. Sorta. Almost.
It’s ridiculous. Tim has been kidnapped before! He knows what it’s like! He shouldn’t be bothered by this. It makes no sense.
“I don’t know,” Bruce admits. “They said the bullet hit his sternum. It didn’t go through, but the sternum shattered, and bone fragments…”
“Bone fragments are a problem,” Tim finishes.
“Grayson?”
Bruce stands up faster than Tim can, power walking to the nurse. Her eyes widen when she realizes who she’s talking to. “Bruce Wayne?”
Bruce smiles tiredly, the charm of Brucie Wayne just a little too much effort for him to pull off right now. “That’s me.”
The nurse giggles anyway, coughs to cover up the unprofessional reaction, and apologizes. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Wayne. Richard said you would be waiting for him. I just… I thought he was confused.”
“Easy mistake,” Bruce assures her. “How is he?”
“Stable. He was very lucky. The bullet hit at an angle and bounced off his sternum. Our trauma surgeons had to stop any bleeding from the bone fragments, but overall, it could have been much worse.”
“Can we see him?” Tim asks, and the woman nods, leading them through the unit to Dick’s room.
“He was given anesthetics for surgery and has been sleeping on and off since, so don’t panic if he’s groggy.” She returns to the nurses’ station, giving them space to reunite.
“Dick?” Tim hovers in the doorway, simultaneously relieved and sickened to see Dick in the bed, tired and pale and covered in tubes and wires, but inexplicably alive.
“Timmy,” Dick replies with a smile. “C’mon in, buddy. I don’t bite.”
“You do so,” Tim corrects, sitting cross-legged on one of the plastic chairs by the bed. “I saw those thugs. They had bites all over them.”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
“I watched you try to bite off Penguin’s finger.”
Recognition flashes across Dick’s eyes. “Oh. Right. I did do that.”
“It’s good to see you, Dick,” Bruce says, sitting beside Tim.
“Yeah, I… It’s been too long.”
Tim isn’t sure if Dick is referencing his week in the Penguin’s basement or if he’s genuinely sorry that he hasn’t seen Bruce recently. It can be so hard to tell with those two.
“Sorry for the delay,” Bruce says, voluntarily apologizing for perhaps the first time Tim has ever witnessed it. “Penguin’s ‘clues’ were a bit more subtle than he realized.”
“I never doubted you,” Dick promises. “Just got kind of boring down there.”
“Hey, listen, I’m going to grab some coffee for us.” Bruce turns to Tim. “Good to keep him company? Make sure he doesn’t get nabbed again?”
Dick grumbles in protest. Tim assures Bruce that he’s up to the task.
Alone, awkward silence lapses between the two. It’s weird, because silence has never been awkward with Dick. He’s always been so good at keeping the conversation going. And even when they get quiet, it’s comfortable. Kind of like… Well, Dick was his hero, and now they’re friends. Arguably, brothers, not because Bruce is their dad (Tim has a dad and Dick is still waiting for the adoption papers that probably aren’t coming), but because they were (or in Tim’s case, are) both Robins to Batman. And Tim has always wanted a brother, and Dick has always treated him like one. It’s a good thing they have going. It’s nice.
But this silence is going to kill him.
“Does it hurt?” Tim finally asks.
“Eh,” Dick grunts. “No worse than any other time.”
There’s another bout of awkward silence, and Dick breaks it this time.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, Tim.”
Tim balks. “You’re sorry? You’re the one who was tortured! They barely touched me!”
“It’s harder to watch,” Dick persists. “I was relieved when they said they would only hurt me.”
“You’re crazy.”
Dick seems to consider this. “Maybe. But it’s true. It’s hard to forget about stuff like that.”
The sight of Dick’s pain-warped face. The smell of burning flesh. The sound of Dick’s screams, bordering on inhuman. Tim won’t forget any of it. Not ever.
“I guess. I’m okay, though. I’ve been kidnapped before. I know what it’s like.”
“You… what? When? Why?”
“My parents are rich. I got taken for ransom a lot.” Tim shrugs like it’s no big deal. He knows it’s actually a huge deal, but Dick has been kidnapped more - been through worse - so Tim can’t act like some low-rent, comparatively peaceful abductions are earth-shattering events.
Dick frowns and shifts in bed, wincing slightly as he pulls on the gunshot wound. “I’m sorry. No kid should have to deal with that. And… I’m going to warn you now. You’ll get kidnapped again if you stay on as Robin. It’s part of the job.”
“Is it always this…?” Tim shrugs again. “I don’t know… Is it always this bad?”
“No… Not always. Sometimes the kidnappers cater, y’know? And it’s easier if you’re kidnapped alone. No one to use as leverage. No… watching.”
Tim nods. He wipes at his face. His stupid tear ducts are acting up again.
“Timmy…”
“It’s allergies,” Tim insists. “It’s nothing.”
“Tim, come over here. Please.” Dick pats the mattress, inviting Tim up. Cautiously, Tim agrees, climbing onto the bed. And then he can’t stop the waterworks, and Dick hugs him with as much force as his injuries will allow.
“I was so scared,” Tim sobs into his hospital gown. “I thought you were dead. I… You stopped breathing. You were dead. And I couldn’t- couldn’t- couldn’t do anything!”
Dick shushes him and rubs his back. “I know,” he whispers into Tim’s hair. “I know, kiddo. It’s okay. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Yes, Tim once thought it was a pipe dream that Dick Grayson would ever know who he was. He once thought having a brother like Dick was simply too good to be true. But now, Tim knows the truth:
Dick Grayson is his brother, and neither of them ever got a say in it. That’s simply who they are.
Tim wouldn’t want it any other way.