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Wake up!
Someone was calling for him.
Robin?
“Please,” a voice, familiar and desperate, said to him. “B, please. You’re scaring me. Please wake up.”
“Robin,” Bruce whispered, and he opened his eyes.
Jason’s hands, clutching at Bruce’s arm, felt icy cold, and no wonder: he was in shirtsleeves and trousers, and trembling slightly. Bruce’s eyes weren’t focusing properly, but he saw Jason’s shirt was partially untucked, his hair was mussed, and there was a large, ugly bruise blooming on his left cheekbone.
“It’s just me,” Jason said. “Bruce. It’s just me, Jason. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Bruce said, hazily. He turned his head to the side, and realized he was in shirtsleeves and trousers himself. His jacket was gone. Neither of them had shoes or socks. Wherever they were, it was cold and damp, and Bruce was really missing the jacket and shoes. “Jay? What the hell happened?”
“I think we got kidnapped,” Jay said. “Dick said this would probably happen eventually.” He’d tucked himself up against the wall a little behind where Bruce lay. He was shivering. Bruce wanted to pick him up and hold him close, but his body was sluggish, and all he could do just then was lay there and stare at the ceiling. And flick his eyes back, to sort of look at Jason, behind him, but his head already hurt. A lot.
“Are you cold, Jay?” he managed.
“I’m fine,” Jason told him, wrapping his arms around his chest.
We’re going to have a conversation about lying, Bruce told himself. When we get home.
“We got grabbed,” Jason told him. “Right after we got out of the car.”
“What car?”
Jason looked him with worry. “Alfie dropped us off at the museum,” he said. “You don’t remember that?”
Bruce’s head was throbbing like the devil’s drum, but he finally leveraged himself off the floor and hauled himself over until he was leaning against the same wall as Jason. Jason immediately tucked himself under Bruce’s arm, and Bruce could feel him, trembling with chill, then starting to ever-so-slowly relax against the warmth of Bruce’s body.
“I asked you to go with me to the exhibit, do you remember?” Jason asked.
“Um,” Bruce said.
“The traveling exhibit,” Jason said. “This was the second-to-last weekend they’d be in town. To go see those East Asian costumes I told you about. You called your secretary and asked her to reschedule this afternoon because you knew you wouldn’t be able to clear next Saturday.”
“Where...were we going, again?”
“The museum, Bruce,” Jason said, worry leaching into his voice. “The Mongolian textile exhibit?” He craned his head up to look at Bruce. Bruce obliged him by looking back down. “How hard did they hit you, boss?”
Pretty hard, I think, Bruce almost said, before he suddenly turned to the opposite side, and vomited.
It only took half a minute before his stomach was empty, but he was still hacking and spitting bile, trying to clear the taste out of his mouth when Jason physically dragged him, pulling him away from the puddle of sick.
“You don’t want to sit in that, come on,” Jason said. “Sorry, we don’t got no water.”
“We don’t have any water,” Bruce choked, coughing a little past the acid in his throat.
“Seriously, boss?” Jason said, with a refreshing touch of exasperation. “We’re trapped in the hold of a boat with no food and no water and no weapons or gear or anything, you just barfed your brains up, and you’re mad because I got a little street?”
“We’re what?”
“We’re on a boat,” Jason repeated. “They tossed us down here, I don’t know, maybe…maybe three or four hours ago? They took both our watches. They sure did like yours.”
No wonder, Bruce thought, contemplating the retail value of the Tag Heuer Carrera. He hoped he got it back. He liked that watch. “Jay, do you remember what happened?”
“Kinda,” Jay said, quietly. “We were just inside the museum when someone grabbed me. I think there was a rag around my nose. The next thing I know, I’d blacked out.” He thunked his head back against the wall, and now that Bruce considered it, that thunk had a slightly metallic ring. “I was just coming to when they threw us down here.”
Chloroform, probably. Now that it occurred to him to look for it, Bruce could feel the lingering burn around the skin of his nose and mouth. He wished the light was better, and his head would stop pounding, and he could check Jason for the tell-tale signs.
“You said they hit me?” Bruce was carefully probing his head and ah there was the delicate spot on the side. Another one for Leslie’s CTE log, but on the bright side, it wasn’t anywhere near the occipital lobe, so he probably wasn’t going to go blind.
“Yeah,” Jason said, staring at his hands. “You came to about the same time I did. But you really put up a fight, way more than I did, and one of them clubbed you in the head with a baton.” He looked up at Bruce. “You know, this is a lot less fun than that kidnapping book you gave me.”
“What book—oh, yes.” Despite himself, Bruce had to chuckle. It made his head hurt, and he probably would have vomited again, if there’d been anything left in his stomach but bile. Which. But no, Jason said there was no water or food. Whoever had taken them apparently had no interest in their comfort. “Robert Louis Stevenson did say he wasn’t aiming for historical accuracy.”
Jason snorted.
Bruce climbed slowly to his feet and walked around the room, tracing the wall with his hand. It was smaller than he’d initially realized. There was a ladder, leading up to a hatchway. He started up it, and pressed against it. Nothing.
“I checked,” Jason said, miserably. “It looked to me like there’s some parts missing. I don’t think we can open it from the inside.”
Bruce climbed back down and eased himself into the floor next to Jason. Jason leaned back against him. “Bruce, what are we going to do?” he asked.
Bruce reached out and slid his arm around Jason’s shoulder, and tugged him close, until Jason’s head was tucked into Bruce’s neck. “Jason and Bruce got kidnapped,” he said. “That means they want money. And we have plans in place for kidnappers who want money. For now? We wait.”
“Okay,” Jason mumbled, underneath Bruce’s chin.
***
They waited. And waited. And waited. No one came down. Bruce climbed the ladder again, pounding on the hatchway and demanding food and water, but there was no answer.
“Worst. Kidnappers. Ever,” Jason snarled.
They weren’t, Bruce thought, but they certainly weren’t very good ones.
***
It was only after that when it occurred to Bruce that in all the hours since he’d woken, the most Jason had moved had been when he dragged Bruce away from his own vomit; he’d stayed curled against the wall the whole time since. “Jay,” he said. “Jay?”
Jason opened his eyes, still in his huddle. “What?” he said, blearily.
“Jason, are you hurt?”
Jason stared at him, and then he turned his head to the side. “My left leg’s a little busted,” he admitted.
Bruce cursed himself seven ways from Sunday for being so out of it he hadn’t thought to check Jason over right away. “How serious is it?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s broken,” Jason said, not meeting Bruce’s eyes. “Tried walking on it, and that’s a no-go. I think it’s the tibia. I didn’t, uh, experiment. Not too much.”
Thank god.
“I did go around the room and up the ladder,” Jason said, in a small voice. “I had to try.”
Bruce tried not to think about that, tried not to imagine Jason methodically exploring their prison with a leg that couldn’t hold him, while Bruce lay useless and dumb in a corner.
“When did you get hurt?”
“They hit you, Bruce.” Jason said, and his fist clenched. “I got mad.”
Bruce sat still, let the rage wash through him. None of this needed to come back to Jason. “What did they do?” he said, evenly.
Bruce’s effort at staying calm wasn’t enough; Jason could tell that Bruce was angry, and Bruce’s anger scared Jason. Damn Willis Todd. “Jason,” he said as gently as he could. “I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at them, for hurting you. I’m just worried about you.”
“They had us here, on the boat, and you were waking up,” Jason said, still looking at his hand. “I was barely awake, but then you woke up, and you started fighting them. They were surprised and angry. I don’t think they expected you to fight that much. And then one of them hit you in the head with a baton and they threw you down the hatchway and I got mad.”
“What did they do?” Bruce asked again, and this time he thought he was almost as calm as he meant to be. I just need to know.
“I hit them first,” Jason said distantly. “It’s mostly just bruises anyway.”
“This...wasn’t an accident,” Bruce said, gesturing at the leg he now recognized that Jason had been favoring, oh-so-carefully, for hours.
“Nope.”
“They hurt you. On purpose.” These men beat a child. They didn’t even know he was Robin—
“Boss,” Jason said. “I don’t think these jokers know what they’re doing. They hit you in the head! And then they left you here and they haven’t checked on us once. They could have killed you. They’re dumb.”
“Stop calling me that,” Bruce snapped.
“Huh?” Jason said, startled.
“Don’t call me boss, dammit, Jason,” Bruce said “You are not my employee!”
“Okay!” Jason said, hastily. “I’m sorry! I’ll stop. But, B—Bruce—look. it’s gonna be okay. Right?” He tried to smile, and Bruce’s heart ached. “We’ll be fine. It’s us. Jason and Bruce. And y’know. We’ll figure this out.”
We’ve been kidnapped. We have no weapons, no gear, no water, no food, no communications, no way out of this room. We don’t even have shoes. I’m fairly certain I have a concussion. You have a broken leg. Our abductors are too stupid or too careless not to hurt us seriously. Or worse, they don’t care if they hurt us permanently. I don’t know what to do next.
“You’re right, Jay,” Bruce said. “It’s going to be okay.”
***
Bruce had no idea how much more time passed before the hatch abruptly popped open, and a shaft of brilliant sunlight struck down into their prison. Bruce blinked violently.
A messy mop of dark hair popped down through the hatchway. “Here they are!” it announced cheerfully to someone Bruce couldn’t see up on the deck. “Found ‘em!” To Bruce, he mouthed it’s the feds.
Bruce mouthed back you need a haircut. He couldn’t see Nightwing’s eyes through his domino mask, but Dick nevertheless managed to convey with the simple movement of his neck that he was absolutely rolling them at Bruce.
A woman Bruce had never met before replaced Nightwing over the hatchway. “Mister Wayne,” she called down, “I’m Agent Torv; I’m with the FBI. Are you and your son able to climb up on your own, or do you need assistance?”
“We could use some water first,” Bruce said, honestly.
“Just a moment,” Agent Torv said. It felt like an eternity, but then she passed down a bottle of water, and then a second one. Bruce gave the first one to Jason, before he opened his own.
Bruce drained his entire bottle in less than forty seconds, and when he looked over, he saw Jason was shaking the remains of his own onto his tongue. He leaned over and clutched Jason’s shoulder. “We’ll get more in a few minutes, Jay-lad.”
Jason nodded shakily.
“Mister Wayne, are you able to climb up now? Do you need assistance?” Agent Torv repeated.
“We can climb, Agent,” Bruce called back. He crouched next to Jason. “C’mon, up we go, chum.” Thankfully, Jason made no sort of I can do it! protestation; he climbed easily onto Bruce’s back, wrapping his arms around his neck, and smushing his cheek into Bruce’s shoulder blade in a way that told Bruce that the boy had been even more unhappy than he’d been letting on.
That leg had to hurt, dangling the way it was. Bruce would have rather held it to keep it stable, but he needed both arms free to climb.
When Bruce finally hauled himself out of the hatchway, he stared, blinking even harder. He’d barely managed the light in the hold, and he wondered just how long they’d been in that boat. Sunlight wasn’t just shining down on them, but bouncing off of the water, too, and it was making his eyes water. “Hell,” he said, after a minute, “We’re in…”
“...Gotham Harbor,” Nightwing finished. “You didn’t notice you hadn’t traveled?”
“I got hit in the head,” Bruce said dryly.
Agent Torv was directing paramedics to pry Jason off Bruce’s back. There was a sudden, angry exclamation from behind him. At first, Bruce thought it was Jason, complaining about being dragged away from him, but when he turned, he realized the indignant yell had come from one of the paramedics, who shaking her hand and glaring at Jason.
“Jason,” Bruce said wearily. “What have we said about biting people?”
The wounded paramedic sucked on her fingers, and shoved a bottle of water into Jason’s hands. Jason unscrewed the top and gulped it down frantically, while Bruce politely ignored the paramedic muttering something that sounded like “chew on that,” and off to the side, Nightwing crossed his arms over his chest and snickered quietly.
“I think his left leg is broken,” Bruce told the medics. “And you should check him for bruising underneath his clothes.”
Nightwing tilted his head, as if to convey, oh should they?
“Thank you sir,” one of them said. “Do you have any injuries of your own?”
“Bruce threw up,” Jason announced, putting down his third water bottle, mid-swig.
“Did he really?” Nightwing said, amused in spite of himself.
“Yeah,” Jason said anxiously. “They hit him real hard in the head, and he was out for three or four hours, maybe. When he woke up, he was real fuzzy for a bit, and he couldn’t remember things, and then he hurled.”
All traces of humor immediately vanished from Dick’s face, and he glanced over his shoulder, presumably in the direction of their captors. Who, since Dick was here watching Bruce and Jason instead of chasing them down, were almost certainly all in custody. “Should’ve hit ‘em harder,” Dick hissed under his breath.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t hear you say that,” Agent Torv said dryly, while Bruce submitted to the ritual penlight in the eyes, as any man who’d been hit in the head with a baton must, in the course of medical treatment.
Based on the concerned noise the medic made, Bruce resigned himself to at least one overnight hospital stay; there was no way in hell they were going to let Bruce Wayne, kidnapping victim, go straight home with a serious concussion. If Jay was lucky and that break wasn’t too bad, they might send him home as soon as his leg was set and in a cast.
Bruce sort of hoped they didn’t; he’d appreciate the company, and it would probably make Jason feel better if he could keep an eye on Bruce.
“Thank you for your help, Nightwing,” Agent Torv said. “The button you found at the museum sped this whole process up immensely.”
“Happy to help,” Dick said cheerfully, saluting her with an escrima stick. “If there’s nothing else the FBI needs from me right now, I’m off. Crime never sleeps, you know.”
“Not even at two pm on a Sunday,” Agent Torv agreed, with a slight sigh. “I’m sure we’ll stay in touch.”
Two pm on a Sunday; that answered the question Bruce hadn’t gotten around to asking, which was how long they’d been down there. Alfred had dropped them off at the museum on Saturday, shortly after lunch.
And, oh Christ, Alfred.
“Yes, of course, Mister Nightwing,” Bruce said, all thanks. “Thank you. Could I—would you mind calling my other son? And my butler, Alfred, you know him, could you let them know to meet us at the hospital?”
Dick grinned, and nodded, and then jumped up onto the chain mooring the ship they were standing on to the shore. He ran down it, light-footed, until he was close enough to the dock to leap down, where he did an entirely unnecessary backflip.
“Show-off,” Jason muttered, and Bruce’s lips twitched in a tiny smile.
“We could have done that, Mister Wayne,” Agent Torv said, raising an eyebrow. “We were already in contact with Mister Grayson and Mister Pennyworth.”
Bruce shrugged. “Nightwing knows Dick and Alfred personally,” he said. “This isn’t the first time Batman or one of his sidekicks has helped foil a kidnapping attempt on me or my family.”
“Sidekicks,” Bruce heard Jason choke. “I’m telling him you said that.”
***
Bruce was dozing very peacefully, knowing there were two armed uniformed officers by the door that Jim Gordon and his daughter had both vouched for, that Dick was (literally) hanging around the window of his hospital suite, and that no one would get in or out of the room without the close supervision of hospital personnel who were fully apprised of the just-thwarted kidnapping attempt.
So when Jason came hobbling up on his crutches, Bruce only came halfway to awareness. “Jason,” Bruce said, eyes half-slitted, and half-laughed. “All right, come on, Jay-lad.” He patted the bed.
Jason leaned his crutches against the wall by the bed and Bruce helped him climb in next to him, mindful not only of Jason’s leg, but of the extensive bruising the doctors had found, most notably on his left side, torso and arm and leg. Bruce hadn’t been there for Jason’s exam, but Leslie had, and he’d bullied—well attempted to bully, it might have ultimately been more “begged”—a full report out of her. By tomorrow, Jason was barely going to be able to move.
Bruce could see it in his mind’s eye, his boy, curled under that beating.
Bruce also wished Nightwing had hit their kidnappers harder.
He was almost asleep again when Jason murmured, “You yelled at me.”
“I did?” Bruce tilted his head, and he could see Jason’s eyes were half-slitted, and looking up at him.
“You got mad because I called you ‘boss,’” Jason said. Why, oh why, was it so easy to hear the apprehension in Jason’s voice? Bruce knew the sound of it, just not always the source of it. “But I call you that all the time and you never minded before.”
He did his best to round up his memories of the past day. “You’re right. I did yell at you. I’m sorry, Jason.”
“Should I not call you that any more?”
Bruce considered that.
He might also have dozed off a little bit, but he woke up again when Jason, who had also fallen asleep, suddenly twitched, and whimpered, and jerked awake, staring wide-eyed up at Bruce, waking straight up out of a nightmare. Bruce dragged his head close, and kissed his forehead. “It’s all right, Jason.”
Happily, Bruce’s brain had been working for him while he napped. After a bit, he said to Jason, “What you said before. I think that I was upset because I got...confused. Or because we got confused.”
“I don’t get it,” Jason whispered.
“When we’re Batman and Robin, yes, I’m the boss,” Bruce said, carefully. “I have to be, to keep us both safe.”
“Nightwing calls you that too, sometimes,” Jason said, into Bruce’s collarbone.
“Yes,” Bruce said, thinking and that’s another kettle of fish completely. “Well. There’s Batman and Robin. But there’s also Jason and Bruce.” He reached over and scrunched Jason’s curls in his free hand. He tugged on them, let them them spring back, and Jason snorted fondly at the familiar gesture. “We’re dad and son.”
“Yeah,” Jason said, and burrowed a little harder into him. He tugged Bruce’s arm tighter around him, and eventually, his breathing slowed and evened out once again into the soft rhythm of sleep.
It’s something I’ve got to work out better, Bruce thought, drifting back to sleep himself, with his son safe in his arms. He thought of Dick, watching the window. I’ll make this better.