Work Text:
This was exactly why Dick hated galas.
“I should have stayed in Blüdhaven,” he groaned, testing the strength of the bonds around his wrists. He couldn’t slip the bonds unless the situation veered wildly out of control. As Bruce always said, secret identities weren’t worth their lives.
Dick’s stomach clenched at the thought of B. The last he’d seen of the man was Stephanie kneeling in a pool of blood, applying pressure around the shard of glass as long as Dick’s forearm and buried deep in his gut. It wasn’t often that Dick saw Bruce so pale. Had he even been conscious when they clubbed Dick over the head and dragged him away?
Not his lucky day: the kidnappers knew how to tie a good knot for once. He did not want to dislocate his thumb to get out of them.
A burly man wearing a ski mask whirled around. Idiot #1 growled, “What was that, rich boy?”
Dick set his jaw and said nothing. He was, after all, Richard Grayson, Bruce Wayne’s eldest ward, at the moment. Not Nightwing the vigilante. He couldn’t afford to piss them off enough to rough him up. No reinforced suit, no escrima sticks, just a thousand-dollar-suit and his own supposedly-inexperienced fists to protect himself.
It didn’t seem possible that only four men in ski masks had been responsible for the night’s disaster. The tallest and burliest were the idiots of the group. A reedy man who squinted enough that Dick suspected he regularly wore glasses seemed to be the mastermind behind the whole operation.
Dick would have completely overlooked the final man had he not been the one to shoot the glass sculpture in front of Damian and Tim. Glass flew in every direction. Bruce jumped in the way just in time and. Well.
Anyway, even if the whole thing was the reedy man’s idea, Dick wanted nothing more than to sink his fists into that asshole’s face.
Half of Gotham didn’t believe that Batman could die. Dick, who’d seen the man at his worst, knew well how fragile his body could be. Bruce was just human, after all, no matter how strong.
And then when the glass hadn’t hurt Damian and Tim, Asshole had gone out of his way to pistol whip Tim. For no reason. Tim had dropped faster than Bruce.
Reedy hung up the phone with a frustrated noise. “GCPD isn’t responding.”
“What’re we gonna do with him, then?” Idiot #2 jerked his thumb at Dick.
Asshole grinned sadistically. “Should we try the video?”
Dick didn’t like the sound of that.
It had been two hours. Where were Jason, Duke, and Cass? Four against one as Richard Grayson wasn’t a fair fight. Even if they thought Dick could handle it alone, wouldn’t they want to check on him?
Reedy sighed. “I suppose we’ll have to. Hey, rich boy—” they never once called him by his name— “your daddy’s lawyers still won’t pick up, so we’ll have to get their attention another way. Shame they don’t care enough to shell out for you, huh?”
That was a bad sign. Bruce had emergency kidnapping ransoms set aside for his kids. He had never actually paid—they always rescued the kidnapped person before it came to that—but rarely did it take two hours. And rarely had Bruce been left to bleed out during those kidnappings.
Dick had never asked if Bruce had money set aside for him. Criminals usually aimed for Damian and Tim.
Asshole said, “Wayne didn’t care enough to adopt him. I told you we should have gone for the younger brat.”
He was wrong, of course. Dick knew B cared about him. He had to. Even if he’d adopted every other kid except Steph, but Steph’s mom was still alive. They had no idea what they were talking about.
Idiot #2 grimaced and held up his hand. A half-circle of teeth marks on his index finger bled sluggishly. “Not my fault! The brat wasn’t worth the effort.”
Dick frowned. Only the family got to call Damian ‘brat.’ His mouth opened. What he meant to say was ‘Don’t call him that.’ He actually said, “You should get that checked out. Dami’s rabid.” Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Idiot #2 swallowed. He inspected his finger.
Idiot #1 crossed the room in three strides and kicked Dick straight in the ribs. One definitely cracked. He grunted as white-hot pain exploded in his left side.
“Funny how rich boys always think their expensive suits are as good as bulletproof armor,” mused Asshole. “You’re trash, circus freak. Just ‘cause Wayne’s got a fetish for adopting poor kids doesn’t change that.”
Dick had never understood why people used his childhood as an insult. He could never be ashamed of Haly’s. The people there were better than anyone of Gotham’s upper crust.
Reedy said, “The kid doesn’t have rabies. Don’t be stupid.”
Idiot #2 nodded and wiped his bloody finger against his pant leg.
Idiot #1 patted him on the back. “If he does, we can just cut off your finger. You’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want to lose my finger!”
Asshole grinned. “I’ve got an idea about our video, Jenkins.”
Dick stiffened, and not just because it hurt to breathe. The extra pressure around his lungs was not a good sign. He kept his inhales short and shallow. If the broken edge of a rib punctured his lung…
Names were not good. Names meant they didn’t care about Dick learning their identities, which meant they probably didn’t plan on letting him go once they got the money. Maybe he should consider dislocating his thumb.
Seriously, where were Jason, Duke, and Cass? They should have been here ages ago… unless a greater threat presented itself.
Dick’s stomach fell to his feet.
Bruce.
Had he…
But paramedics had been called the moment they dragged Dick into their van and drove away, right? Sure, the injury was dangerous, but treatable.
Unless the glass nicked an artery. Which, from what Dick remembered about how the blood spurted out of Bruce’s stomach—dark and thick and strong enough to spray all over Steph’s face and hair—maybe it had.
He would be okay. He had to be.
He couldn’t… leave.
“Okay, set up the camera,” said Jenkins.
The idiots did so. Asshole hauled Dick up—his ribs screamed; he hunched over but that only made them hurt worse—and slammed him against the wall face-first. Dick’s head whipped back. Asshole laughed and whispered, “Trash.”
The click of a gun’s safety made Dick stiffen. He craned his head back. Reedy held a pistol trained at Dick’s back. “Now, let’s not get any hero complexes,” he warned.
If Dick’s ribs didn’t hurt so terribly, he might have laughed at the irony.
Asshole undid the rope around his wrists. Dick tensed—he considered struggling—but the sharp point of a knife pressed against his jugular.
“Take it easy, rich boy,” said Asshole. “Come on. Over here.” With the knife against Dick’s neck, he led him to the rickety chair in the middle of the warehouse room. The idiots were busy setting up a camera in front of it.
Without a shred of care, Asshole bound each of Dick’s wrists to the arms of the chair. Then he bound Dick’s ankles to each front leg. He could break the chair, probably. It seemed weak enough. If he leaned forward—
Asshole removed the knife from Dick’s throat and pressed the blade to his left pinky. “Doesn’t seem like Wayne’s going to pay out, huh? It’s been hours and no one’s responded. They don’t care about you.”
Dick froze as the blade dug in. Just a millimeter. A bead of blood welled up. The cut stung. “That’s not true.”
“Yeah?” Asshole smiled. He was so close to Dick’s face he could see the flecks of gold that ringed his pupils. “Wanna bet?”
“Stop that,” Jenkins said. “We haven’t started recording yet.”
Asshole sent him a sullen look but lifted the blade. Dick watched the single drop of blood slide down the side of his pinky. It made the tiniest puddle on the dirty warehouse floor. “Finger for a finger, huh, Marcus?”
Another name.
Dick’s anxiety wrenched just a little higher. He clenched his hands into tight fists.
Jenkins clicked a button on the side of the camera. A small red light blinked to life on its lens.
Idiot #2—Marcus—grinned and lumbered forward. He didn’t take the knife when Asshole offered it. His meaty hands—far bigger than Dick’s own—wrestled with him. “What are you doing?” Dick demanded, doing his best to channel scared Richard Grayson. Marcus’s strength won out. He wormed his hand—his unclipped nails cut Dick’s palm—into Dick’s fist and spread his fingers.
He wrenched Dick’s middle finger back.
Dick screamed as the digit broke.
Marcus punched him in the face. Dick’s head whipped to the side. He tasted blood.
From behind the camera, Jenkins said, “We’ll do the same to every one of Wayne’s boy’s fingers for every five minutes you refuse our demands. If we run out of fingers, well. I think we’ve given you more than enough time.”
Idiot #1 said, “He’s not worth the effort.”
“Wanna bet?” a familiar distorted voice said. The Red Hood’s helmet loomed out of the darkness. “Bruce Wayne sends his regards. He wants his son back.”
Dick grinned. The warehouse exploded into chaos.
Black Bat dropped from the ceiling directly onto Asshole’s head. Robin lunged out from behind the Red Hood, katana unsheathed, and scored a deep blow into Idiot #2’s thigh. Signal yelled, “Eyes!”
Dick barely had enough time to squeeze his eyes shut before the room exploded into light bright enough he could see it through his eyelids. He threw his weight backwards. The chair toppled and broke into splinters, jostling his ribs in the process.
By the time he got to his feet, three out of four criminals were taken care of. Idiot #2 groaned on the ground, clutching his thigh and whining about ‘little feral assholes.’ Idiot #1 lay on the ground unconscious and Jenkins cradled a broken arm.
Signal and the Red Hood circled around Asshole, who held his knife to Robin’s neck. Dick’s blood boiled at the sight.
“Let him go,” growled Hood. “There’s no way out.”
Asshole bared his teeth. “That’s what you think.” The muscles in his arm tensed.
“No!” Dick lunged.
Robin twisted out of Asshole’s grip and wrenched the man’s arm out of its socket. His pained yell was accompanied by the sound of his collarbone cracking, too.
Robin dropped the man and idly examined his blood-smeared katana. He used Asshole’s shirt to clean it, then sheathed the blade neatly.
“Are you okay?” Dick demanded. He grabbed Robin by the shoulders. His neck looked fine, but—
“I’m fine,” the boy said grumpily. “You are the one injured.”
Black Bat ghosted gentle fingers over Dick’s jaw, which he was sure already bloomed with an impressive bruise. He attempted a smile. “I’m okay. Really. How—” He faltered. “How’s my dad?”
“He’s in the hospital,” said Hood. “But he’s stable. So’s Timothy Drake.”
Dick relaxed. “Thank god.”
Signal said, “Sorry about the late rescue, dude. We had to stabilize the Waynes then track you down. They did a surprisingly good job covering their trail.”
If they needed two hours to stabilize Bruce and Tim, then they were probably more injured than Hood let on.
“We should get you checked out, too,” said Hood. “Signal will take you to the hospital. The rest of your family will be there when you arrive.” He moved his head the way he always did when he winked, except he’d forgotten he still wore his helmet. “Glad to see you okay, dude.”
Robin scowled. He threw his arms around Dick’s waist, squeezed ferociously, and let go just as quickly. “You fool.”
Dick just laughed.