Chapter Text
Tim kept quiet. Head down, shoulders curled inward and fingers shaking just so. This wasn't his first kidnapping nor his first time locked in an abandoned factory somewhere in the seeder parts of Gotham; if Gotham itself wasn't the definition of seedy in general. And Tim knew the best way to avoid getting beat was to ensure the kidnappers felt in control and were satisfied with the fear they were exuding. So he did what he'd been taught by the Bat. Kept himself small and nodded shakily to any of their demands and inquiries. With Dick temporarily out of it he couldn't risk infuriating these buffoons no matter how much he wanted to. Especially since his friends were out of planet and until Luke noticed him missing, no one would come searching for him.
For a split second Bruce flashed through his mind and his stomach turned. Batman would be coming for Dick Grayson as soon as the other did not cross the threshold of his apartment in approximately seven hours give or take and Tim did not want to be here when the man inevitably tracked them down. He'd learned his lesson, he'd grown, he'd taken steps to being better, to doing better but he wasn't ready to reopen old wounds he'd stabled shut. Not yet. He was barely keeping it together with Dick around. If Bruce found him. If Bruce who'd come to save his son found him and saved him too, Tim did not know what he'd do.
'God,' he thought; digging his nails into his palms and allowing Burly to lift his chin so they could take those oh so helpful pictures for whatever ransom they were about to demand from Wayne Enterprises. 'I can never just move on, can I?'
"Look pretty for the camera, boy," the other kidnapper said; eyes glimmering mud-brown from behind the ski mask and Tim briefly wondered if he'd bestowed a nickname on him too? He must have, right? Surely he wasn't just Burly number 2 or masked guy? ''Oi, kid?!"
Why couldn't Tim remember. It hadn't been all that long ago since him and his oh so charming estranged brother had been thrown into the back of a van. "Brat?!"
"What?" he snapped, glaring up at the camera. "I'm trying to remember something here. Can you give me a second?"
He got slapped over the head for his trouble and then Tim had to try very very hard to stop himself from biting the hand as it came down for a second slap. 'Don't antagonize your kidnapers,' he silently berated himself. 'You're not Jason. Think of Dick. He's likely concussed. The quicker these idiots leave to ransom you, the better.' So he bit down on his lip instead and muttered a half-hearted apology.
"Now that's better," Burly said, stepping over his legs and making his way over to Dick. Tim couldn't help the instinctive need to surge forward as the kidnapper approached Dick's sleeping figure by the corner. It was only the other crook grabbing him by the hair that stopped him in his track.
Pulling at his hair painfully, the second kidnapper laughed; the nasally tone grating on Tim's ears and oh…. Nasally, that was a good nickname. He'd stick with it.
"Careful there pretty," Nasally hissed in his ear, the rotten stench of his breath reaching past the mask and making Tim's stomach flip nauseatingly. "If you don't want me to be a little tough on ya."
"Enough," Burly snapped before Tim could react with disgust and the young vigilante was mildly thankful because whatever came out of his mouth at that moment would have likely earned him a punch this time. "If we wanna get our payment these rich fools cant be too bruised up, idiot."
"Steal all the fun why doncha," Nasally huffed, but he thankfully let go of Tim's hair and retreated to the opposite corner of the dingy building to keep what Tim assumed was some fakeass watch. "The money better be worth it cuz that stupid bag had shit all."
"Yeah yeah," Burly grumbled, snapping quick pictures of Dick's unconscious body and a couple of close ups to his face; tilting his face this way and that, unaware how Tim's resolve not to jump him was quickly crumbling. "All set," he said, stuffing the phone in his pocked and sighing in satisfaction. "Let's go." And with that he left the room or what Tim was slowly starting to figure was some kind of old bakery storage room now that his eyes were getting used to the dark. He could make out kitchen tools stacked on top of shelves and what was likely a broken freezer by the corner.
Nasally grumbled for a second, eyes never moving away from them but a sharp order from Burly made him shuffle out after him and in less than a minute Tim was once again alone with his brother.
Giving it a couple of extra minutes to make sure they were truly alone, Tim finally let his shoulders drop when nothing but silence kept him company alongside his brother. "Well, I guess it's just you and me Dick," he muttered, twisting his shoulders and scooting under his hands until his wrists were in front of him and he could easily work on the zip-ties. "Gross," he complained. "These look like they've been dragged through the Gotham streets. So dirty."
He was greeted by nothing but the soft pitter-patter of the leaking ceiling and while it did not come as a surprise, Tim still didn't like how quiet Dick was. He should have woken up by now. Sure concussions sucked and Dick had suffered from them far too many times over the years so of course it never got any less dangerous but he should be up by now. It had almost been an hour. "Hey, Dick," he called out, dislocating his thump with a wince and sliding out of the ancient looking zip-ties. "We need to get out of here, so if you could like, wake up?"
Of course he knew his older brother wasn't going to respond to that either but hey, never let it be said Tim didn't like hearing himself talk just as much as the other man when feeling trapped.
Jumping back up on his feet, the young vigilante made his way over to Dick; briefly pausing to stare at the discarded bag at the corner, frowning at the little puddle of water it was laying in before reaching his brother and kneeling down. "Hey," he said, grabbing his head, twisting it this way and that; albeit gently. "Wake up." Pressing two fingers against his pulse, he felt for the steady beat; sighing in relief when he immediately found it. "Maybe you're just tired," he muttered. "Can't have had much chance at rest with all these recent Arkham breakouts huh?"
And with him going off to collage and patrolling less, working less at Wayne Enterprise, it couldn't have been easy picking up the slack either. "Sorry about that," he muttered. "Well, I guess I'm not all that sorry because I'm finally realizing how awesome sleeping in can be but still, you shouldn't have to pick up after me."
'Man,' he thought, helping Dick lean up against the wall more comfortably after rubbing away the dirt the best he could with the sleeve of his white dress shirt of course. ' It's cathartic talking to Dick when he can't talk back. Almost as cathartic as when we actually used to talk.'
And that thought instantly soured his mood. 'This is why we can't have nice things,' he scolded his mind. 'You just refuse to let me have fun don't you?'
Just then Dick muttered something under his breath, making Tim startle. "Dick?"
But his brother said no more. Just leaning into the palm Tim had resting against his cheek and sighed softly.
Something in Tim's heart shattered at that and he found himself having to swallow down an unexpected lump in his throat. "Just sleep," he said, voice soft and wet. "I don't think those idiots will be back any time soon with how amateurish they are at ransoming people." And with that he carefully rested Dick's shoulder then head against the cleanish wall and immediately retreated to the other corner. But not before snatching the bag up out of the puddle. "I'll just keep a hold of whatever is in this bag for you until you wake up." He shook the thing as emphasis; lips quirking up into a crooked smile but when Dick kept on sleeping, the smile dropped and he sighed to himself.
He just wanted to go home. He wanted to talk collage courses with Lucius and play video games with Tam and train with Luke and cook with Tanya.
He wanted to go home.
Tim sighed again, staring down at the backpack in his lap. Said bag was one Tim was very familiar with. Dick carried it everywhere with him. To and from Bludhaven. Even to the Titans Tower. Outwardly it was nothing special. Raggedy and obnoxiously blue but Dick loved it and Tim guessed he understood why. It had these little pockets expertly sewn into the most unexpected places and they were almost impossible to find and Dick liked to store his most valuable items in them. That way if he ever asked someone to get something out of his bag they weren't likely to stumble upon things he didn't want them to find. Smart. Very smart and Tim had always thought it was pretty cool.
Now that memory made him frown in thought. Hm, maybe Nasally had found nothing, but Dick had wanted to show him something in the car. Something that had been in this very bag and while Nasally had been too stupid to know the complexity that was Dick Grayson's backpack--
'No,' he shook his head. 'Dick is literally unconscious. I can't just riffle through his bag. That's crazy talk.' But then again, Dick's bag could literally hold Nightwing's gadgets that might get them out of this mess or painkillers that could seriously help Dick when he eventually woke up and his brother had wanted to show him something inside it just an hour ago, so didn't that mean Tim was obligated to know what that was? Just in case no one rescued them and Burly and Nasally came back to finish them off and Dick's last wish of revealing the bag's mystery to Tim died with them in an ancient abandoned bakery factory thingy?
'No, no, nop, no way,' he resolutely thought. 'Just wait til Dick wakes up then let him tell you if he has escape tools in there that can help you both escape.' He frowned down at the bag.
But what if Dick didn't wake up and Tim could have gotten them out of this situation a long time ago if he'd just opened the damn bag and found Nightwing's gadgets?
"Fuck it," he hissed, unlashing the bag and diving in with both hands before he could convince himself otherwise. Finding the hidden pockets served as a challenge; especially since they were hidden by a weak but effective Zatanna spell. Still, Dick had showed them to him a long time ago, so the spell didn't really work on him like it would others because he already knew and while finding the little hitches in the seems was not the simplest of tasks, Tim did eventually discover them too. The first one. Then the second, then the third and so one. He expected as much. He wasn't the world's youngest detective for nothing after all. What he hadn't expected was what he found in them. In the hidden pockets.
Because while the bag itself contained generic things like clothes and books and old candy wrappers; no wonder Nasally had been disappointed. The hidden pockets contained even more bewildering things.
Letters.
So many letters.
There could have been almost hundred of them in there. Just stacks and stacks of letters and he wasn't even done finding them all.
Why?
"I wrote to you," came a startling hoarse voice from the corner making Tim snap to attention.
Dick coughed weakly, adjusting himself into a better position and giving him the weakest must hallowed smile. "Every day. I wrote and," he shrugged; pain flashing through his eyes. "I know it doesn't…it won't mean- I just wanted you to have them. The letters I mean. I thought…maybe what I said there would be more honest than…I'm-- I don't know how to explain it."
"You…wrote me…letters?"
"Yeah."
Tim blinked once, twice, mouth falling open. "For how long?"
Dick shrugged again. "For a while."
Some of the envelops were so thick there must have been several pages in them and Dick had been writing this…for a while.
"Why?"
Smiling the must painful looking smile Tim had ever seen, Dick's eyes brightened enough to hurt. "I love talking to you Tim. Whatever form it may take."
Okay, yeah. Tim was not adequately prepared for this. He was so not emotionally prepared for this.
Not at all.
Not today. Hell, not in a million years. He was not prepared.
And God bless him because Dick seemed to catch on to this rather quickly for a guy with concussion because suddenly his face smoothed out and his smile dimmed into a polite flicker and he let out a tiny little amused laughter. "But enough of that," he said. "We can talk about that stuff another time. Just stuff those papers back in there before Curly and Blue come back."
Tim lashed onto the sense of levity offered to him like a lifeline. "You call them Curly and Blue? Why?"
Dick snorted. All too willing to play along. Tim almost hated him for how understanding he was being. "Because Curly has curly hair and Blue has really pretty blue eyes Tim, why else?"
"Only you would notice someone's pretty blue eyes as they kidnap you."
"What can I say," Dick grinned, "I appreciate beauty."
Tim snorted, hands only shaking slightly as he put letter after letter into the hidden pockets of Dick Grayson's ratty old bag. "Of course you do."
His brother had written him letters.
Tim didn't know what to do with that.
But somehow after months of putting himself back together- A bakery setting, a kidnapping and a bag full of letters addressed to him but never sent had managed to shatter him right back down into bleeding pieces.
His older brother had been writing him letters.
And Tim… Tim was scared of what these letters had to say to him.